Water is Life
Growing up, I always heard from the elders in my village on Christian Island that water has memory. Water will always remember where it flowed originally. And even when diverted, it will always find its original path. It will also clean itself when contaminated by external sources. These were teachings that had been passed on throughout the millennia.
I grew up drinking well water. Water that would spring from the ground, fed and filtered through natural artesian flows beneath the surface. If water has memory, then so do I. My body remembers what that water tastes like. My body retained that information for future reference.
In my lifetime, those wells that I was able to draw and drink the water from on Christian Island became contaminated with various toxins and other impurities. It is the direct result of contamination from urban development all around us throughout Simcoe County. Christian Island has no industry.
When I was the Chief in the 1990’s I was able to convince the Canadian government to study our groundwater. It was my suspicion that our people were being sickened by the water we were d rinking from our wells. We were right. And those studies eventually led to the construction of a water plant and chlorinated water. Which doesn’t taste nearly as good as the flow from an artesian well. So, I was without the taste of that water for at least two decades of my life after I left the Island and I became an urban dweller. But my mind would often recall the taste of that pure, sweet, well water from my past.
In the language of my Anishinaabeg (Ah-nish-ih-naw-behg) ancestors, our word for water is Nibi (Nih-bih). This little word says so much all by itself. The word breaks down as, Ni: meaning me, or I. Bi: is the stem of Bimaadziwin (Bih- mawd-zih-win) and means life. My life is Water is life. And that fact is contained in that one little word: Nibi.
We are made up mostly of water. As human beings we develop in our mother’s womb. Safe, warm, protected and loved. It is there in the womb that we receive our original instructions before we enter into this world. We are told that we are here to act as custodians/stewards of the earth and the water.
The language that I and my people speak, Anishinaabemowin (Ah-nish-ih-naw-behm-oh-win), on Christian Island is an amalgamation of dialects: Ojibwe, Pottawatomi, Odawa.
From the Pottawatomi we get another word for water: Nbish (Nnn-beesh). In Anishinaabemowin, any word ending in sh is derogatory in nature. The Pottawatomi at Christian Island were fleeing the American Cavalry in the late 1800’s when they fled into Canada and settled at Christian Island. With them came stories of persecution, forced removal and genocide, through the Indian Removal Policy in the United States.
The Pottawatomi that fled into Canada risked death by gunfire from the cavalry and the poisoning of their well water had they stayed. As a result of seeing their well water poisoned, they came to mistrust water wells and as a result their word for water, Nibi, became Nbiish (Nnn-beesh). A derogatory term. Nbiish was the word used for water that could not be verified as being uncontaminated. It is still in use today to identify tap water or bottled water.
Last summer I spent some time with Dr. William Shotyk of Elmvale walking on his property in the lowlands of Simcoe County, which boasts the cleanest water in the world. Dr. Shotyk is the scientist who, upon testing the water from the artesian flow at Elmvale, concluded that the water from the flow was the cleanest in the world. His hard work has led to people from all over the region being able to partake in the naturally filtered flow of clean water running nonstop from spouts at Elmvale.
The first time I ever drank water from the flow at Elmvale my body recognized it as the water that I had grown up drinking! Everything about it: the smell, the taste, the texture of it in my mouth replenished my genetic memory and my very soul.
Sad to think that this water flow is also in danger, just like the water at Christian Island where I grew up and the water wells of the Pottawatomi before that. With increased aggregate mining, subdivisions, and road construction in the area, it appears to have a limited future. Have we come to another marker in our existence? Is this artesian flow at Elmvale also becoming Nbiish?
I hope that politicians who claim to protect the people would look to protect future generations as well, by passing laws to protect artesian flows and aquifers in our region. Otherwise, we will only have the memory of what pure pristine water sources tasted like.
Nibi. Water is life.