Joel Montour

Grandfather, Tree, Musical Instrument

Longago, many yearsbefore thearrival of the whiteman, there was
aman who spent his whole life as the laughing stock of the village. He
was the only man in the village who could not sing or dance. Going to
festivalsand socials was especially rough on him. Peoplebothered him
somuch, he wasforced toleave. He went to livealone. Hedidn’tknow
where he was going. He walked for days. One day, in the distance, he
could see a giant tree. As he got closer, he stopped to gaze at this
beautiful tree, it was also as if it were a dream. It grew strong and tall,
everything about it was perfect. It was sobeautiful he decided that this
was the place for him to make his home. Each day he would climb high
into the treeand gazeat the village he used to callhome. One day while
he was on the strongest and highest branch looking out at the village,
the branch suddenly broke and he fell to the ground. He suffered two
major injuries. One was a broken leg, the other a deep cut running the
length of his leg.

He spent the next few weekslying down in terrible pain. Hebroke
two branches off and made splint to stabilize hisleg. He kept putting
fresh leaves on the wound to help soothe the pain. To keep his mind
off of his wounds, he started carving into the big part of the broken
branch, he didn’t know what he was carving yet. As he got more into
the woods, he thought this could become the best water drum ever
made. As his drum got closer to being finished, he noticed that his leg
was getting better. By the time the drum was ready for the water tobe
put in, his leg was ready to walk on. When he got up to walk to the
nearby stream, he felt a certain something special about his leg. It
actually felt better than ever before. He got to the stream and filled the
drum, he completed the drum by cutting off a piece of his clothing to
make the cover. He went back to his camp, took one more branch and
carved the nicest drumstick ever. He figured if he couldn’t sing or
dance, he might as well own the fanciest drum and stick around. On
the stick he carved the beautiful tree from which it came. Just to break
itin, he practised singing songs, and dancing. To his surprise he could
sing and dance justas well as the people back home, in fact even better.
So now he had nothing to be ashamed of. He also wanted to show
someone his new drum, stick, songs,and dance. Hepicked up his stuff,
gave thanks to the tree and headed for home.

When he got home, there were all kinds of strange faces that he
didn’t recognize. Finally he met someone he knew and asked why all
the strange faces? The village was having a big social that would last
for days. People were laughing and making jokes saying, “What are

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