$3 for 3 months. Save 90%.
$3 for 3 months. Save 90%.

Jim Hettinger: Blood from the dead paint the rocks red

Jim Hettinger

It is a place to which I am strongly attracted. Especially, with a feeling of spirituality through the Lake Superior pine scented forest, I always walk near the Pointe Iroquois Lighthouse near Brimley in the Upper Peninsula.

In the land of the Ojibwe, Pointe Iroquois is the home of the red rocks. And if you do walk down to the Lake Superior shoreline, you will observe a disproportionate number of reddish rocks in the splashing clear Lake Superior water.

This is the land where the Ojibwe peoples contended with the Sioux on their western and the Iroquois on their eastern borders.

Getting a squeeze like that on a more or less continuing basis, the Ojibwe became, shall we say, a very wary, but also a very prepared people.

The story told was that over 300 years ago, the Iroquois sent a war party to attack the Ojibwe. As the warriors paddled past the endless forests along the river, they sang their war songs.

Among them was a clan mother who dreamed repeatedly of a warrior massacre, but her warnings fell on deaf ears. The anticipation of the raid and the heightened emotions of the people prevented her clear visions from being heard and understood.

Finally, the Iroquois reached and continued their trek along the shoreline of Whitefish Bay.

The heavily evergreen forests along the shoreline seemed impenetrable to the canoeing Iroquois on the water, but hundreds of alert eyes in the woods were silently watching the Iroquois as they moved by, continuing their war songs.

Finally, the Iroquois turned their canoes toward the beach and set up camp. Almost immediately, they began their war dance. Their drumming reverberated through the forests where the Ojibwe were hidden, but not intimidated.

The Ojibwe chief sent two medicine men to scout the Iroquois. With all the war songs and dancing, it was not difficult to know what was coming, the question was when.

Silently, and shielded by the sound of the Iroquois preparations, they vanished into the forest as spirits.

When the Ojibwe medicine men returned, they foretold of four days of dancing by the Iroquois and then they would rest before the attack on the fifth day. And so, the Ojibwe waited. The drumming and the war party preparations continued.

As the story goes, the Iroquois fell into a deep sleep, fueled by the exhaustion of their travels and four days of dancing. As the Iroquois slumbered, and in complete silence, Ojibwe warriors emerged from the forest.

In a pre-dawn, lightning-like raid, they slaughtered the Iroquois where they slept. Of the entire war party, two warriors were spared the slaughter.

Almost all their appendages were cut off and they were sent back to the Iroquois nation as an example of what to expect if the Iroquois were to attempt future attacks.

As for the dead Iroquois, their heads were cut off and lined up a half mile along the shoreline where their blood stained the rocks forever.

It is a story handed down through the generations and it persists today.

Maybe with all that as background, it is difficult to not feel the swirling spirits who haunt this very special piece of the Lake Superior shore.

Jim Hettinger is the interim chief executive at Battle Creek Unlimited.