Dairy #5

Mother working to supply fur trade companies with pemmicans

Dear Diary,

I had woken up early to help my mother supply the fur trade companies with pemmican. My mother would later teach me how to weave. There was a long day ahead of me. As I was getting ready, I wore my favourite cotton dress. It was decorated with beadwork and a brightly woven sash on the waist. My grandmother had weaved it for me. While I was putting on my brand new moccasin and headband, I heard my mother yell out my name. 

I went directly to her, but was tremendously shock to see my father. I was about to approach him, but a word from my father’s mouth slipped. “Treaty”. This caused me to restrain from going any further. It had been a while now, that I’ve thought about it. All of a sudden I had a worried expression on my face and I could feel all sorts of shivers in my body. Worrying is a habit of mine that is hard to stop. The more I taught of this, the more complex it got. 

When my parents finally noticed I was standing around the corner, my father came in to hug me. After that, my mother wanted me to help her with the pemmican. As I was helping her, I was deep into my thoughts. What was treaty anyway? Why was it such a huge deal? At last, I had gotten the courage to ask my mother. But she ignored my question and told me to go take a break. I got up and went to my grandmother’s teepee. 

She was pleased to see me and told me to take a seat next to her. She then began to tell one of her famous stories. I would usually be excited, but today I wasn’t. I guess she become aware of it, because her next sentence was “Are you okay Ekala?” I immediately had asked her what a treaty was. She didn’t give me an answer either. 

Ekala (Nanjiba Kabir)