Certain individuals gain a remarkable reputation and an equally
remarkable respect for wisdom, or hunting skill, or power of woodcraft,
or travel. These men are the so-called "old men" often mentioned in
Indian manifestoes, though age has nothing to do with the deference
accorded them. Tawabinisay is not more than thirty-five years old;
Peter, our Hudson Bay Indian, is hardly more than a boy. Yet both are
obeyed implicitly by whomever they happen to be with; both lead the way
by river or trail; and both, where question arises, are sought in
advice by men old enough to be their fathers. Perhaps this is as good a
democracy as another.
The life so briefly hinted at in the foregoing lines inevitably
develops and fosters an expertness of woodcraft almost beyond belief.
The Ojibway knows his environment. The forest is to him so familiar in
each and every one of its numerous and subtle aspects that the
slightest departure from the normal strikes his attention at once. A
patch of brown shadow where green shadow should fall, a shimmering of
leaves where should be merely a gentle waving, a cross-light where the
usual forest growth should adumbrate, a flash of wings at a time of day
when feathered creatures ordinarily rest quiet--these, and hundreds of
others which you and I should never even guess at, force themselves as
glaringly on an Indian's notice as a brass band in a city street. A
white man _looks_ for game; an Indian sees it because it differs
from the forest.
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