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Bagwajinini and their relationship to the Anishinaabeg. I remember when I was a child picking blueberries with my grandmother. Her and her friends talked about all sorts of things. They would talk about ricing (harvesting wild rice). They would talk about how small or large the berries were in a particular patch this or that year. They talked about the bears, the eagles and the beaver. Once in a great while, they talked about Bagwajinini. When they did so, they only spoke the Anishinaabeg language. "tibikong ingii wabamaa bagwajinini jiigibiig"=Last night I saw the wild man by the lake shore. "Sheaaah ingii waabamaa bagwajinini pigiiweyaan"=I saw the wild man on the way home. "Gi-daa miizhaa Zhiimagak apii waabamad owe bagwajinini Ikaye piindaakawad" You should offer something sweet and some tobacco if/when you see him. (not meaning directly to him but as one would offer a prayer to a spirit.) Anyways, nobody will understand my language so I'll translate some things I've heard through time and listening to elders as well as my own experiences. When they talked about him it was a sacred and honored manner as though they were honored to have met up with him. Other times, Near Seine River reservation in Ontario Canada, I was told to never look him in the eye or I would go crazy. That if we come across him were were to bow our heads and remain quiet and stay to the path were are on so that we do not interfere with his path. I was out deer hunting once like a white man hunts. My wife laughed but it looked fun to sit and wait in silence and lure them. I did so. I bought all kinds of camo clothes and deer grunt hoses and the fox pee and the doe pee and the buck pee and pretty much the whole shabang. I sat in a clearing for close to 3 hours one morning on my reservation. I would blow through the little grunt tool. keep quiet. Finally, a small 6 point buck came from behind me into the clear cut. He ran into the cut more or less. In the middle of the cut he stopped and put his head down to graze. I shot him. He jumped fairly high and ran about ten yards into some poplar saplings. I shot him again in the chest with my little 22 magnum and he ran a little ways again. I watched him lay down and I hear him kicking and breathing. I knew he would die soon so I walked slowly over to him with my buck knife drawn ready to slit his throat and gut him. While walking toward him I'd misjudge his strength because that deer struggle to his feet and ran to the thick pines behind the tree line. That was when I heard Bagwajinini for the first time. Not his voice, but his foot steps. It was a deep thumping that moved fast. No crashing through the brush. Just the deep thumps of his feet on the forest floor. I didn't know it was him though. I thought it was the deer jumping. I ran toward the treeline after my deer to try and get another shot because I didn't want him to get away. That was when I watch Bagwajinini snap a large branch from a tree and hit the deer. He hit it once in the head killing it. I put my head down and closed my eyes. I heard him breathing and I knew that he was so real and I was so scared I honestly peed my pants. My eyes were shut and I heard him walking away. When I opened my eyes he was walking away dragging my deer by the neck. I ran straight to my grandma. I didn't go home. I went straight to grandmas house and told her what happened. She told me to put tobacco on the east side of a tree and give thanks. I was dumbfounded though. "Ogii kimoodwaa niwaawaashkeshii!" (He stole my deer!) She laughed at me and told me in a calm, collective voice; "ganabaj igo gii noodeshkade." (perhaps he was hungry.) She told me to go visit my Uncle Earl in White Earth who was the family medicine man. I was told that I would have a special relationship with Bagwajinini someday. When I tried to get more details and asked what he meant he simply told me that I had the rest of my life to find out. That was my first encounter with Bagwajinini. Since then they've appeared in my dreams and I've heard them close to me when I'm in the woods. Oh yeah. To the fanatics who want to catch and study the older brothers. Don't come to my Area. Free country or not. We will NOT tolerate our woods with a bunch of screaming white people with infrared cameras and hand held radios. We call him and all animals older brothers because we "humans" were the very last creation on this Earth. They were all here before us. We are the younger brothers.