The Great Mystery, Gee-chee-mun-ee-too
My great grandmother had explained the Great Mystery to me. She called her “Gee-chee-mun-ee-too” in our mother tongue and with a laugh she would say “the big little bug”.
It goes something liken this:
“ a woman with transparent skin, a body filled with the creatures and things of the universe and cosmos sits by a shady brook of spring water. The water goes underneath the boughs of young birch trees and back up the hill and down again in a continuous circle. The Great Mystery, in one of its guises, tends to her baskets made of different things. She has, beside her, twine of ash roots, birch bark roots, hide, grasses, guts, copper string, gold string, silver string and many other things. She has sheets of birch bark and containers of colors made from spit, blood, tears, sweat, morning dew, dew from a waterfall, breath juice from a spider and so on, mixed with blood root, ochre, stinging nettle, bear brains, deer brains, fish grease and so on, all in little containers of copper and birch bark.
She makes baskets from a combination of these things and does so diligently, sometimes leisurely, sometimes in a hurried pace. She also makes designs and markings on the sides and insides of these containers. Some are woven tight and some have big or small holes in them. Some she puts aside, some she dips into the spring water. Beside her are filled, semi- filled and near empty containers. Some have been preserved in their original makings and some have gotten rotten. Some are leaking. Some are nearly empty. Some are overfilled. Some she repairs as they empty. Each container is a thing born or dying in this existence.
Soon their comes a time when the creatures and things in her body move to one part of her body and make her lopsided. At one time, the snakes and serpents gather in her head and her head gets bigger and it gets so heavy that it falls from her shoulders. Her neck closes and more creatures travel upwards to make a new face and head. Meanwhile the other head rolls down the hill and a salamander jumps out, then a turtle, then a frog, then a serpent. Finally the rest of the head hits a rock and huge serpents with legs (the alligator) and dragons jump out. There are many times that her head fills up and descends down the hill, each being a time for certain beings to dominate and set the tone of time. ”
Great grandma’s story about the how and why of the great mystery was and is full of metaphors that I still carry with me.