THE CONCEPT OF HARMONY IN THE OJIBWAYS OF
By Lino Leitao
*Appeared in
--online pakistanchristianpost.com
-Seva Bharati Journal of English Studies (
vol. 3, Feb. 2007, pages 100-117
-Pegasus (
Canadian
history starts normally “with the French
, who came first as fishermen and later as explorers in the sixteenth century
and stayed to settle,”1 though the Ojibway
people have been in North America for centuries before them. The Ojibways are
scattered now across
The Ojibway
people believe that every thing on earth
is connected. In one of their
mythologies, their elders had a good life when they lived in harmony with the
plants, animals and all living beings. Bad days followed when they began to
fight due to jealousy, hatred, fear and anger. They believe that all humans are
one and they are separated only by tongues. In their prayer Ojibway
people ask: Sacred One/Teach love, compassion, and
honor/That we may heal the earth/And heal each other2”.
This is a view that Stephen Gill explores in his poetry as well as in prose.
In his poem “When”, he demonstrates his strong faith in harmony that was
responsible for carving universe, human and even animal kingdom. “When /
harmony disintegrates/ the gates of hell open wide/ for lava to flow.3
In another poem, he says that “Harmony/the author of prosperities/ composes a
sonata/ for the piano of delight.”4
The Oibways
call the earth mother because she gives birth to all living beings. For them, “The sun is the sister of the
world, the moon is the brother. The sky, water, fire and stone are also closely
related to the earth. The figure on the moon is believed to be that of a small
boy carrying two water pails”5. Their myths fobids
them to kill certain animals to maintain
ecology. “To kill frogs means rain, and it is forbidden to kill frogs and
turtles for fear of angering the frog spirit. Indians used frogs and turtles
with sorcery to bring upon earth much needed rains…Killing a snake was not
allowed”6
The earth is mother also for Stephen Gill. In his poem “Image of Flowers”, he says that
“humans still need/ the caring arms of the earth.”7 In “Garden of
Eden,” he says mother earth gave refuge to Adam and Eve.8 In “Unity
in Diversity”, he calls the earth “the mother of all beings.”9
and in
“If There Be A Third World War,”
he warns “Mother shall be
lonesome/gases hover on her”10 .
Stephen Gill, like the Ojibways
people, sees a close connection between the earth and its
inhabitants. In his lecture delivered at Royal College of Agriculture on September 24 in 1996 and published
elsewhere, titled the Development Of Internationalism In Universities, he notes
that "Greed, aggression and destruction are the symptoms of pulling the
parts before the whole which is greater
than the parts. The world has to think in terms of the whole, not the
parts."11 The cure for the
wholesomeness of the entire planet, including environment, can heal the earth and heal each other.
He repeatedly says that objects
on this earth are related to each
other and man has no right to spoil nature. He believes that the pristine spirit, called
also life force, is present in all creations and every creation has a purpose.
Without humans, nature and animal
kingdom can survive but not the other
way around.
The following lines from a poem of
Stephen Gill embody the philosophy of the Ojibway
people:
No one can buy
Nor sell
The fragrance of the flowers
Which is a friend of the universe
and the interdependence
of all animals, nations and nature
who form a family with humans
and who breathe the same air
under the same canopy.12
The bond that Stephen Gill and the Ojibway people talk about is the result of the unsullied
pristine spirit that is untouched by any
kind of bigotry. This bond grows weaker
when this spirit is sullied with greed, violence and fanaticism. In its purest
form this spirit is found in infants and in its diabolic form in the
perpetrators of violence. Several sages,
including Vivekananda and Mahatma Gandhi
from
This thought is as old as the hills and is vibrant also in the culture of
What
Stephen Gill visions in poetry, the
first people of
In the beginning, the earth had a
family. The moon was the
grandmother and the sun was grandfather
and the creator was called Great Mystery or Creator. Water was the blood of the
Mother Earth, and all four directions, East, West, North and South, contributed
vitality to the life of the Earth. They all possessed spiritual and physical powers. The birds
carried the seeds of life everywhere. They all lived together in harmony. Great
Mystery or Creator collected the four parts of Mother Earth to blow its breath to produce a man, who also lived in
harmony with everything around. The Ojibways believed
that no one was better than the other.13
According
to Collins English dictionary “harmony is the pleasant combination of different
notes of music played at the same time, and according to Gage Canadian
Dictionary it is “getting along well together.” In social sphere, harmony means
to live and let live to enjoy the pleasant notes in life. It is to create an
environment in which humans and non-humans can live together to enjoy equal
rights to breathe and prosper. This concept is based on the fact that each
animate and non-animate object has values and as long as they co-exist they
produce a crop of richness. Humans have no right to impede the growth of
richness unless it is for their vital needs.
These
are the muscles of harmony that uses the pen of Stephen Gill, a multiple award-winning Canadian poet, who
was born in
In
the preface to his collection Shrine,
Stephen Gill gives the first glimpse of the awakening of his spirit of
harmony in his early teens when
he was living in Karol Bagh,
The
citizens began to live in fear. In
his preface to Songs Before Shrine, he elaborates this fear:
During
those riots, we did not know if there would be another dawn and when there was,
it brought tales of more brutalities. I
saw old people running for help and being pelted with bricks and then burnt alive
while the patrolling police ignored the
clusters of misguided zealots who were
in the street in spite of curfews. I
perceived death dancing in the eyes of minorities, heard the cries of infants and read about the butchery of the innocent as if
that was happening in front of my eyes.
Curfew
used to be lifted for a couple of hours
for citizens to buy the necessities of life. Items like sugar, rice, wheat
flour and several other eatables had disappeared from the stores. If there were any, their prices had shot up because those who could
afford started hoarding them. Minorities suffered this way and also because of other fears.
Both the Hindus and Muslims were engaged in this ugliness for religious
reasons. Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated because he tried to end this drama of
degradation to humanity.16
One shudders with revulsion reading
the graphic details of the bloodbath, which Gill depicts in Author's Preface as
Stephen
Gill says, "I began to flutter my
wings to escape the prison of suffocation in search of an
He
could not heal the pains of his early life in
Poet in Stephen Gill, being extremely sensitive,
couldn't find solace in drinking. In his
poetry we see the anguish of his soul and intellect. He contemplates on the sacredness of the
spirit that abides in all humans. The potentates of different religions and
political tyrants sully the magnificence of that spirit for their own selfish
ends, without any pangs of remorse in their hearts. It is then a sensitive
soul, who envisions a world of
harmony bleeds.
Gandhi was one of those sensitive
souls. As a child, Stephen Gill,
with an adult friend, attended some of those prayer meetings of Gandhi that he used to
hold at his ashram every evening. That ashram was not very far from the place
where Stephen Gill passed his boyhood. The same sensitive soul worked in
A man may have never entered a church
or a mosque,nor performed any ceremony; but if he
realizes God within himself, and is thereby lifted above the vanities of the
world, that man is a holy man, a saint,call him what
you will 19
In his speech in
In the
He
was Moses
who
led the weak
through
parted
of
a debasing journey of hardships.
He
steered alone
the
shaky Noah's
in
the roughest weathers.
His
story is not an incident
of
losing a finger;
it
is the saga of offering a hand
in
a calm that encourages the heroism of endurance
to
build the pyramids of justice.21
Martin Luther King, Jr, a civil right activist, voices that, "our
loyalties must become ecumenical rather sectional. Every nation must develop an
overriding loyalty to mankind as whole in order to preserve the best in their
initial societies”22 The
prejudices that come to be planted into
the depths of man's psyche go on acting as blinders, obfuscating the
magnificence of that unsullied spirit
which is above all the vanities of man. Because of those walls of
prejudices, we haven't yet built ecumenical humanity; we are still a divided
humanity, blocking our way to the Truth of our Being.
Seeing the oneness of mankind torn
apart by sectarian violence, poet in Stephen Gill cries out in despair :
Humankind
is torn asunder.
It
has carved disorderly islands:
each
an empty tomb of notions.
These
self-surrounding
cells of egoism
display
the nudity of modern savagery.
The
sky-hitting towers of their beliefs
defy
the teaching of sages.23
That
is the central message of the poet. He makes this message clearer in the last
stanzas of his poem “I Am Still A Man”:
“My religion/ was not my choice;/yet I love all creeds./ I did not
choose/ my tongue either;/yet I respect all
breeds.”24 The message that humans are one comes out in this and in several others poems. In most of his poems the egalitarian vision pours out, but it
comes out lucidly in this poem. He
concludes in this poem that all cultures and religions scintillate the facets of the same pristine
spirit that abides in the sanctum of
men. The poet puts it in this way, "Every culture/ a beauty of the
same garden/ I am also/ your God child."25
The
prejudices that came to be planted into man's psyche, act as blinkers. When
passions are inflamed, human cannot see
the radiance of that unsullied spirit that abides in everyone. Wise persons in all cultures have perceived this spirit and are still perceiving, considering it the
bond that cements oneness. It is the
pristine spirit that makes everyone a human. Because of the walls of the
prejudices, humans have created a
divided humanity. Religious fanatics
and unscrupulous politicians, ignoring the pristine spirit that humans inherit,
exploit the external passions of man
to quench their own unquenchable thirst for more domination.
They have no moral scruples. The
peace they preach has no foundation in
love, because the true peace is
love. They manufacture a cobweb of lies, imprisoning man's heart in
the clutches of fear. The poet cynically expresses the politicians' offer of
peace in the following lines:
Our
politicians want peace
but
it cannot be achieved
as
long as the citizens are locked
in
the prison of their fears;
their
daily bread,
doled
out by murderers,
and
love worshipped
with
bullets.26
Nations go to war in the name of peace. The TV images
of the massacres in Sabra, Shantila,
Stephen Gill's poetry was
inspired when he witnessed the sectarian violence in his teens in the
country of his birth. These meaningless brutalities wounded his soul. In his
poem, “Familiar Scenes”, he
mentions the recurrence of violence
everywhere. The ultimate vision that he
pours out is an egalitarian vision,
which has the foundation in the unity of creation. Poet deliberates in "A Familiar Scene" that man pays
no heed to the voice of the
spirit within. He repeats cruelty
without any guilt. He philosophizes that the atrocities that have taken place
in
This
happens
when
ethnic feuds
or
religions
are
taken to the streets
and
homes.
It
is repetition of the lust
for
a few acres of land
or
to eliminate minorities
of
different belief.27
The powerful forces of the demagoguery deluge
the voice that comes from the conscience
of moral abiding citizens. The most powerful dominate all the outlets of the
media, rendering righteous voices infective, or lure them into the foul
cesspool of their thinking. The poet in
"Adders of Today," lays
bare the demagoguery of the corrupt, “Words are/ fire/
storm/ sword/ and wound. / Light
/ flower/ boon/ and guide Crooks/ turn them into/
dreadful/ disdainful/Rotten/ and distasteful/ to breed/ destruction greed / and
confusion---the adders of today.28
When
democracy is not dominated by the will of the people, adders and demagogues
abound in that bogus democracy. They control and dominate the will of the
people. Poet in "To War- Mongers"
poses this question: “Is this/ a just demand/ democracy's wish/ to
debase and kill / mothers and infants/ and wives innocent .. abolish life of every type?”29
In
the name of pseudo democracy and peace,
bombs rain, killing the innocent and
creating devastation not only on land, but also on the mind of people. In "the bunker of
panic," the poet "lies a hostage," when he watches on the TV,
“the bombs dropping, leaving/ trails as some planets do;/ the tanks striding/
like giants in the Arabian Nights;/ and the spray of the bullets” that remind him of “the urchins at play”.30 Are these war-mongers urchins? The poet gives
answer in his long philosophic poem "Man is Ever a Child." He concludes in that poem that “It is man's
fate/ to chase pleasures/ as do toddlers”. 31
The
poet believes that democratic
setups would avoid the recurrences of
these atrocities. In “Seeds of Democracy” he envisions the true form of democracy:
The
seed of democracy
sprouts
in the open air
of
that soil
which
is freely watered
by
freedom of expression
and
where tongue of serpent
does
not throw poison of fear
to
fertilize the land
for
the thorns of repression
to
grow.32
The
poet points out the true essence of
democracy in "My Beliefs". In this poem he envisions the ideals of democracy that the great souls of
all times have:
I
do not believe/ in suppressing the truth/ nor using arms/ to settle disputes.
I
do not believe/ in the right of might/nor in shedding blood/ to promote a
creed.
I
rather believe/ famine is man-made/ and sunshine a child of peace.
I
believe/ justice is for all/ and God cares for every one.33
Conscientious citizens always
struggle to bring in a dawn of true
democracy. In
Once
in a while the pristine spirit for harmony that builds true democracy tears the blankets
of lies in which the evildoers wrap her, emerging as a
sun in a new dawn of hope. In
Snuff
out the blazes
ignited
by greed,
cast
off the hostile arms
beyond
human bounds.
Let
not our infants
inherit
savagery from us;
it
turns hearts into solid rocks.36
The
human spirit that is reawakening in man aspires to give up the addiction
to war and live for peace; and then,
bequeath the peaceful and joyous world to the coming generations. The poet implores God in
"These Children" :
Let
these angels advance
to
the port of the vision of peace.
They
are
in
your image.
God,
Keep
these innocent souls
Under
the softness of your feathers.37
Although Stephen Gill’s poems appear to be direct and simple, they "are capsuled
feelings and meanings, gross stripped experience speaking for itself in an era
of similar experiences, but unique in the personality and expression of their
author."38 Dr. R.K.
Singh and Matili Sarkar point
out that Stephen
Gill, "convey his message
by instilling a sense of mortal fear and
by extending a sense of desperation into the sympathetic minds of his readers
with the help of strong words and phrases of arresting alliteration and
assonance. The expressions "murky marshes", "ruthless locusts", "fetters ... cranking', "vomit
violence", "ghosts of
sorrow", "gloom of
violence", "dust of
despicable horror",
"self-surrounding cells of egoism',
"spiteful robots", suffocative islands" etc. reveal a picture of devitalised society
in the darkness of which the poet is jaded and lost."39 In the
fresh tapestry of Stephen Gill's
poetry "tender images are carefully
carved." His poetry “speaks of
love, a universal phenomenon,”40 says Gotta
Write Network. “He is a “torch-bearer for humanity at its artistic
best,"41 says Love Song.
No
matter what Stephen Gill says and how he says, there is a notable strain of consistency about his ideology of
peace, his passion and commitment, as well as poetic beauty and grace that illuminates
incomparably in the galaxy of the muse.
Poet Gill throws some light on his uniqueness during his interview with
Professor Dr. Sarang when he says “My poetry is the psalm of my soul. A poet is
also a priest who through the mantra of poetry reaches the god within."42 Patricia Prime, a prominent critic of Indian
English Literature strongly believes that from the point of "Gill's gift of language, the immediacy
of his wit and word-play combined with
a command of imagery which not only captures his
readers in a freeze-frame, but
hustles them through
time and space
to another dimension,
places him in
the forefront of contemporary
Indian poets writing in English."43 Maryanne Raphael says that Stephen Gill's "magic pen creates a
unique metaphor raising his poetry above the common crowd,” adding that Stephen
Gill “has great faith in love.”44
As Stephen Gill believes, the obsession of the religious fanatics and unscrupulous
politicians is to exploit the external passions of man for more power and
domination, or for the glory of their religion or nation, sullying the very
essence of the pristine spirit that abides in humans. Probing the hearts of the politicians, he
sees peace and love that they preach is
nothing but tissues of lies. "A true revolution of values will lay hands
on the world order and say to war: "This way of settling differences is
not just." This business of burning human beings with napalan,
of filling our nation's home with orphans and windows, of injecting poisonous
drugs of hate into the veins of people normally humane, of sending men home
from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically
deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that
continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on
progress of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."45
In
“A Familiar Scene”, the poet deliberates:
It is familiar scene
from
at the time of freedom;
or a place in middle-east,
………..
It is repetition of the lust
or to eliminate minorities
of different beliefs46
It often happens that the powerful forces of the demagoguery deluge
the voice that comes from the inner conscience from moral abiding citizens. The
most powerful dominate all the outlets of the media, rendering righteous voices
ineffective, or lure them into the foul cesspool of their thinking. The poet
in, "Adders of Today" lays bare the demagoguery of the corrupt:
"Words are/fire/storm/sword/and wound/Light/flower/boon/ and guide Crooks/
turn them into/dreadful/disdainful/rotten/ and distasteful/to
breed/destruction/ greed/and confusion/-the adders of today 47
The poet's prismatic spirit aspires
that human beings should give up the addiction to war and live for peace; and
then, bequeath the peaceful and joyous world to the future. For that the poet implores to God in his poem,
"These Children":
Far from evil
And greed
Let them grow
As soldiers of peace.
In your image
they are,
God
Bless these angels48
Since the spirit is present in all
human beings, and since we are children of one God, the poetic soul of Gill
sees the futility of wars. His soul yearns to inspire mankind to relinquish
warmongering, and work to bring in the joy of peace. But the ideal of peace is
nay impossible without spiritual growth. As one of his critics, Dr. Frank
Tierney notes, "But there is in Tennyson's poem and Mr. Gill's volume a
hierarchy of values. The first and most important is, as John Henry Newman
insisted, "growth with in"
This growth requires spiritual priority. This principle leads man to personal,
national and international harmony through and understanding that comes from love."49
Gill's poetry conveys, as noted by
Dr. Frank Tierney, that man should 'grow with in' to stop massacres. Rochelle
L. Holt, Ph.D., a prominent poet and critic from the
Thus, the poet tells us through his
work that we are beyond brotherhood and sisterhood as we achieve the forgotten
meaning of neighbourhood, not isolated and separate
but one large melting pot where we all appreciate our uniqueness while
affirming our similarities…. This is not simple thinking, certainly not simple
writing. Perhaps when we all cease to identify ourselves as any one more than
humans, we will have reached that plateau known as peace.50
Stephens Gill's poetry is the
language of harmony,
the heritage of the Ojibway people who live
also around the
In one of the hymns of the Ojibways,
titled “Grandfather Story, this harmony has been broken.
It asks Grandfather, look at our brokenness. We know that in all
creators only the human family has strayed from the
The Ojibway
nation throws entire responsibility on humans for tearing apart harmony. They laments that humans “are the only/Who
are divided.”
Stephen Gill
talks about this division in his
own way:
It is not the beast
of the divided atoms;
it is the blinding dust
of divided humanity
that eats the bones of peace”52
He laments that “Beyond those
solitary church towers/ I see the sun of harmony sinking/ in the cave of
despair…” In the same poem, he despairs
A biting chill of sadness
whispers in the twilight that
life will not be the same
because the night of terror
chews peace
In the jaws of endless depth
of cultural insanities53
It is due to “cultural insanities”
that the poet wishes for “soft drops of harmony” that “shall
produce a lullaby/ from the notes of now.”54 He condemns “dusty pride in the march/ of
technology and science” that robs man of its happiness. Due to his frustrations, he says, “I wish to
seek refuge/ in my own cosy womb/ from pollution and panic”55.
The message in the poetry of Stephen
Gill is harmony. This
is the message in the mythologies
of the Ojibway people. This is
also the message of the Government of Canada that promotes
multiculturalism actively. In other words, the official policy of the
Government of Canada is to create
harmony through multiculturalism. Harmony leads to live and let live.
The adorable aspect of Stephen Gill’s poetry is the calm beauty in the
streams of his meaningful images. Due to
his message that abounds in the
REFERENCES
1 Dickason, Olive Patricia.
Introduction to
2Harvey, Andrew. The Essential
Mystics, Castle Books,
3Gill, Stephen. Songs For Harmony, Vesta Publications Ltd.,
4Gill, Stephen. Songs Before Shrine, Marquess College of London Press, 2006, p.49
5 Dewdny, Selwyn ed. Legends
of My People, McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1965, ISBN: 0-07-077714-4, p.15
6________________________Legends of My People, McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1965, ISBN:
0-07-077714-4, p.16
7Gill, Stephen. Shrine, The
8____________________” Garden of Eden,” Shrine, The World University Press,
9___________________,
The
10__________. Songs For Harmony,
“If There Be Third World War,” Vesta Publications Ltd.,
11___________, “Development of
Internationalism in Universities,” Cyber
Literature (
12.____________, Shrine, The World University Press,
13Online story about creation of the
universe
14Gill,
Stephen. “The Meechlake Fish,” Songs For Harmony, Vesta
Publications Ltd.,
15,Gill, Stephen. “Song of a New Canadian”, The Dove of Peace, MAF
pages 27-28
16Gill, Stephen. Shrine, The World University Press,
17____________Songs Before Shrine,
”My Poetry and Me,” Marquess
College of London Press, 2006, p.15
18_____________.Shrine, The
19Dyer, Dr. Wayne W. Inspiration,
Hay
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21Gill, Stephen. Shrine, The World University Press,
22
23Gill, Stephen., “Divided Humanity,” Shrine, The World University Press,
24Gill, Stephen. “I Am Still A Man,” Songs For Harmony, Vesta Publications Ltd.,
25________________. “I Am Still A Man,” Songs For
Harmony, Vesta Publications Ltd.,
26Gill, Stephen. “Talking of
Peace”, Shrine, The
27_________.”A
Fimiliar Scene,” Shrine,The World University Press,
28Gill,
Stephen. “Adders of Today,” Divergent Shades, Writers
29,Gill,
Stephen. “To Mar-Mongers,” The Dove of Peace, MAF
30Gill, Stephen. “Hostage,” Shrine, The
31_____________.
“Man is Ever a Child,” The Dove of Peace, MAF
32____________.
, “Seeds of Democracy”, Shrine, The World University Press,
33____________.
, “My Beliefs,” Shrine, The
34Wolpert,
35htt://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aung_San_Suu_Kyi
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Bridges,” The
Dove of Peace, MAF
37Gill,
Stephen. “These Children,” Songs For Harmony, Vesta
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38Pollard,
Prof.Dr. Richard,
says in introduction to Reflections & Wounds,, Vesta Publications Ltd., 1978
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Literary Review, July-Sept. & Oct.-Dec. 2004, vol.5, pages 164-183
43Prime, Patricia, “Shrine: Poems of
Social Concerns,” Canopy (
44Raphel, Maryanne, “Gill’s Poetry
Enriches Our Life,” Bridge-in-Making (
45King, Martin Luther, Jr. The
Autobiography of Martin Luther King.
p 340
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Scene,” Shrine, The
47Gill,
Stephen. “Adders of Today,” Divergent Shades, Writers
48Gill,
Stephen. “These Children,” Songs For Harmony, Vesta
Publications Ltd.,
49Tierney, Prof. Dr. Frank.
“Reflections of an Indian Poet,” The Canadian
50Holt,
Rochelle L. Ph.D. “A Call for Peace,” The Pilot,
51Harvey, Andrew. The Essential
Mystics, Castle Books,
52Gill, Stephen. “Divided Humanity,” Shrine, The
53
Gill, Stephen. “Evening of Harmony,” Songs For Harmony, Vesta
Publications Ltd.,
54_____________.
“Nirvana,” Songs For Harmony,
Vesta Publications Ltd.,
55________.“In My Own Womb,” The
Dove of Peace, MAF
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