First Man Stories from Healy Lake
Edited by Constance
Friend
It is our hope that the following pages will serve
as a bridge between cultures as well as a record of the depth
of traditional Native cultural history for generations yet to
come.
Through storytelling, indigenous societies have
long participated in the renewal of a distant paradigm and, in
some ways, revitalized their lives through a powerful spiritual
reconnection to a reality that extends backward to the pre-dawn
of time.
Yaabaa Teeshaay was a cultural
hero who lived a priori, or, as some would suggest, at the very
beginning of time.
He came to earth on a mission: to set things right among animals
and mankind. Some say that he was a god. Others equate him with
Jesus. There are people among the Mendees Cheege who
consider him a mythical character, similar to those found in
fairy tales,
as well as others who believe that he was an actual man who had
supernatural gifts and lived before recorded history. Regardless
of whether one perceives Yaabaa Teeshaay and
his exploits in a figurative or literal manner, the influence
of his adventures
continues to permeate the Mendees Cheege worldview.
CONTENTS
The
Adventures of