Brindle's Oddysey
by
Nicholas Antinozzi
There were three members of the Grand Medicine Society, known in the Ojibwe language as the
Midewiwin, standing outside the Mide lodge. The lodge had taken days to build and it had been
abweson anokiwin, sweat work, for three old men. Still, they did not complain because each of
these men knew that the completed lodge would protect them from evil, and that an evil spirit
was definitely headed their way. The lodge was constructed of poles made from birch saplings.
Three tall poles stood in the middle of the lodge, one for each man at the ceremony. The men
lashed the frame together and then set about cutting the many pine boughs that needed to be
placed carefully around the structure. There was no sign of rain, so no roof had been needed.
Three dead dogs stood guard outside the door and the men had to step over these before entering
the lodge. The old ways needed to be followed to the letter, just as they had always been.
The afternoon was warm, but an occasional gust of wind helped keep them cool. The Mide lodge
sat in the middle of a small clearing deep inside the Fond Du Lac Indian Reservation in northern
Minnesota. Odemini Gissis, or the month of June, had been cool and wet, but with the new
....
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