Service introduced Friday, and the woman led them through a cluttered ground floor to a door that opened to an elevator. She took them down two levels.
“Looks bigger once you’re inside,” Friday said.
“I live in an apartment on top, and it all seems small to me after so long.”
The elevator opened into a small anteroom which opened into a room with couches and chairs and five orange cats. “My mouse patrol,” the woman explained. “They think they own the place.”
The animals stared at them, ears and whiskers back, low growls hanging in their throats. Service was glad he wasn’t a mouse.
Demetra Teller asked them to make themselves comfortable while she brewed tea. “You sounded concerned on the phone,” she told Service.
“Do you know Dr. Lupo of Michigan Tech?”
“As well as anyone can know him. Grant’s not one to run with the herd, intellectually or physically. He tends to work alone, but his reputation is certainly growing in certain academic circles. His work is frequently referenced. Do you know Grant?”
“We’ve met.” Is she unaware of what’s been on TV?
“I’ve always been astonished by how worldly such an erudite man can be. And devilishly charming,” she added. “If you know him, why are you here? He’s seen everything we have. Some of it will be in his book. I doubt there’s anything I can add.”
“Ever heard the term windigo?” The word stuck in his craw.
Teller folded her hands. “Yes. It’s impossible to know anything of northern Amerinds and be ignorant of their myths and beliefs. The windigo myth is predominant in most of the far northern tribes. Something like it also exists elsewhere, but essentially this is a story of the cold and winter and starvation and failure. There are references to windigos in Jesuit Relations and among various accounts from the earliest European explorers in the north.”
“What do you make of it?”
“I don’t. I’m the collection’s curator, not a scholar.”
“One doesn’t need to be a scholar to have opinions,” Friday said.
“Lupo is the expert, not I. He is deeply interested in Amerind spirituality and how certain religious beliefs can influence the mental heath of individuals and the groups to which they belong.”
“He studies such things?” Service asked.
“His book is highly anticipated. It’s said that Dr. Lupo has accumulated impressive data in his research, but all of it remains in his notebooks, which are not public.”
“Have people approached him to see his notebooks?” Friday asked.
“I believe they have, but it’s mostly an empty gesture.”
“Why?”
“He doesn’t actually live anywhere.”
“He has a house in Hancock,” Service said.
“Strictly a pass-through and landing pad. Professor Lupo lives out of a suitcase, which is not a lifestyle I would choose. People like him are not like the rest of us.”
Conversation not going where I want. “Did you say his work is frequently mentioned in the scientific literature?”
“Footnoted in an astonishing array of fields, a true polymath, and you will run across numerous references to personal conversations and personal correspondence.”
“But he has no home.”
“I know. It’s almost sad, yes?”
“What can you tell us about windigos?” Service asked.
“Nothing. That would be overstepping my professional and academic authority. But I can pull materials for you, if you wish.”
“If you don’t mind,” Friday said, glancing at Service with a look that asked What in the hell are we doing here?
Teller started to leave them, but turned back. “I’m thinking it might be more . . . informative, to see for yourself.”
“See what?” Service asked.
“The Black Letter Collection,” Teller said.
“Which is what?”
“One of the Church’s greatest secrets—a collection with everything reported from the New World, all of it stored now right here, and because of the volatility in some materials, generally unavailable to just anyone.”
The woman took plastic packages out of a desk drawer and gave a set to him. “Linen gloves for handling manuscripts. Ordinarily I set it up so that no touching takes place, but given your urgency, we’ll make exceptions this time. Are you familiar with Jesuit Relations?”
He was. “There’s a copy of the set at the library in town,” Service said. He had used the books in a case just last year. “Letters to the boss, from his priests out in the bush among the tribes.”
“Exactly, but later all those original letters were collected in a central repository, which is in Cincinnati. Our benefactor, Mr. Adolph Grun, managed to find manuscripts the Church had never seen before. Some of these he passed to Cincinnati. Others he kept, and those are the core of the collection here. You have seen the various periodical reports by priests, but there are many, many other documents and special reports most people haven’t heard of, much less seen. Bottom line: We have here information that exists nowhere else in the world.”
“Baraga wasn’t a Jesuit,” Service said. “I think.”
“You are quite right, but he was a star in terms of reports and orderly record-keeping. He was an erudite man of immense intellect and natural curiosity,” Teller said. “Born an aristocrat in Slovenia, he took a law degree from the University of Vienna, was ordained in the Recollet order after that, and dispatched west, arriving here in 1830. Baraga studied the Ottawa tongue under a full-blooded priest named William Makateginessi. The newcomer already spoke French, German, Italian, Latin, and Illyrian. He learned English while he learned Ottawa. Later he became fluent in Ojibwe and authored an English-Ojibwe dictionary, the first time the language had ever been rendered to paper.
“He was a determined, hardworking man who traveled on foot, by boat, horseback, and snowshoes through the wilderness year-round, and during his travels he witnessed and reported many, many unsual observations and events,” Teller explained. “After some years in the bush, Baraga was named Bishop of Amyzonia and Upper Michigan, serving in the Soo and Marquette. By then he had affected a lot of lives, leaving most the better for it. He kept detailed reports for ten years and suddenly stopped. Scholars have anguished over this sudden change, hypothesizing that some traumatic event caused him to lay aside his pen.”
“And you’ve figured it out.”
“I have an idea but can make no public declarations, and the Church has no official view on the question. The fact is that cannibalism, in whatever form, still carries a massive social taboo in most cultures. People don’t want to think about it, don’t want to know about it. Consider the continuing debate over Neanderthal remains in France and other parts of Europe. There’s clear evidence of the butchering of human remains, from bones recovered from dated firepits.”
She continued: “Naturally, modern people don’t want to rationally discuss aberrant behaviors we can’t bear to embrace, even in historical or evolutionary contexts. So here we sit, trying to evaluate ancient aboriginal practices in light of current values and mores: oranges and orangutans, more or less. Two plus two equals five-point-six, or something. We dare not think the unthinkable, which means we turn culturally blinded eyes to knowledge that potentially could help us to better understand who we are and how we got this way.
“I’ve heard many scholars argue vehemently against the evidence and point to cultural bias at the time. Jesuit fathers, for example, reporting on Huron and Iroquois torture and cannibalism, which, while true, may miss the whole point. Cultural context and history tells us that torture was commonplace throughout Europe at the same time, and in fact driven there by Church doctrine, which insisted that only the Church and God could determine right from wrong. Therefore, Church-supervised torture was considered a legitimate to
ol of State and Church, yet condemned in the hands of Native Americans. The Church subjected suspects to ‘trials by ordeal.’ If an accused survived, he was adjudged truthful in the eyes of God. If he died, he was guilty,” she said.
“There followed a massive shift in philosophy exploding out of the Reformation. Suddenly legal experts and churchmen decided man could determine truth through reason, and without God’s assistance, but torture remained the primary method of assisting the quest for truth. Only now, man interpreted the results. The Jesuits wrote quite a lot about torture, but they wrote very little about cannibalism, which is odd, considering how close the two practices were in some of these cultures.” Teller stopped talking and looked at them.
“Still with me?” she asked.
“Mostly,” Service said. Friday nodded.
“The fact that not much was written about cannibalism doesn’t mean it didn’t exist, do you agree?”
“Can’t disagree,” he said. “Baraga?’
“Yes, he had a lawyer’s dispassionate eye for detail, but the Church, for all its presumed power and worldliness, was and is as vulnerable to cultural bias as any other human being or institution. The Vatican began to tighten access to certain materials it judged unacceptable to human exposure.”
“Eyes and ears only,” Friday said, “the term the American government uses to compartmentalize and control access to its secrets.”
Teller began again. “Fairly early on, Rome decided to allow the creation of certain collections to be known under the masking rubric of ‘Black’, that is, extremely sensitive information. These collections are dispersed around the world, not centralized in Rome. The Church didn’t tell its people to keep such materials, but also didn’t say not to keep them—just made sure security was put in place when such materials came to light, which they have from time to time.”
“Cannibalism,” Service said, reading where she was heading.
“The beliefs and religious practices of barbarians and pagans. Secret organizations, inside the Church and without. Sanitation practices. Theories of disease causation. Magic. Sex. You name it,” Teller said. “The Church has innumerable collections buried deep in the dark.”
“But not Grun’s.”
“Not his. He had seen this behavior in Europe and decided to protect what he had taken the trouble to assemble. But herein is the great conundrum in the situation: None of this exists—not here, not in Cincinnati, not in Rome. And although it doesn’t officially exist, we have here some letters that were never sent up the line, and we don’t know why. Where Grun found them and their provenance remain a mystery, but they have been informally authenticated by various sources and methods. What you see today doesn’t exist. Agreed?”
“Agreed. But why let us see them at all?” Friday asked.
“I think you folks need some help in clarifying what you’re dealing with. I live up here, too. What you read here, you can use for your own purposes, but not as evidence or in any official public capacity. Subpoenas will get you only denials.”
“Fair enough,” Friday said.
Teller took them into a stark white room and brought them metal boxes that contained yellowing documents in neat piles. “We have about fifteen thousand items here, all originals and rarely used, so most work is with facsimiles. I’m giving you folks originals so you can see for yourself that this isn’t some sort of hoax. What you will read is what Bishop Baraga believed he had experienced.”
Service set a letter between them and they began to read:
To The Most Reverend Lord,
Bishop Edward Fenwick
Bishop of Cincinnati
Most Reverend Lord:
I find myself surrounded by the darkness and pall of paganism, most hideous and repugnant. I have come these seven days past to a place southeast of Ontonagon, finding here a scrofulous lot of savages invested in an encampment in a canyon along a river the color of blood. We have walked four days from Ontonagon, which sits astride the short of the Upper Lake. My guide in this arduous journey is Jashagashkadekoman, which in English would translate to Crooked Knife. He is of the Otchipwe of Fond du Lac, north and far to the west of our present position in the wilderness. He is a noted hunter among his people and held in the highest regard, a good and attentive Christian, with a wife and five babes, as reliable as any man can be.
The savages here at the River of Blood are unlike any so far encountered in my travels. The men, upon our arrival, were intoxicated and belligerent. They carry stout knives with which they slash and gash their fellow savages, and on occasion plunge the blades into their own flesh in the throes of inebriation. I have witnessed these same savages drink their own blood and that of their fellows. Upon our arrival, these frightening creatures had painted their faces black, a condition which put my companion into great and immediate consternation. He urged us to move on quickly, calling this place one of great and deep evil, advising we quickly repair to more favorable conditions in location and company. But I confess, I was tired, possessed of a small fever, in need of rest, and had no intention of moving because of my guide’s troubled mood.
It is, My Lord, my impression and experience that savages often present a brutal first sight, but with time the imagined ferocity gives way to a gentler and truer nature, the truth of God being that we are all equal beneath our flesh. But this phenomenon was not to be at Blood River, whose inhabitants continued their regrettable behaviors. What we confronted, I would learn, were warriors of the Bear Clan, a warlike faction of the Great Otchipwe People, whom we have come to respect and love. The people of this clan are uncompromising, and their women and young maidens are such wanton and foul creatures as to preclude detailed descriptions. Like their men, they painted their faces black and dyed their naked breasts vermillion, and fornicated in plain view with any savage in whom the urge commanded. It is further my observation that the women of this clan, rather than accept copulation as a husband’s right in God’s plan for man’s procreation, seek out partners for the act in which they claim to derive great pleasure.
The winter is early this year, first snow arriving on 27 September, and it now being November, the ground is covered with a blanket of snow five or six feet in depth. It was my hope and prayer, Lord, that by wintering here among these creatures I might bring God’s light to them, but instead, I now find my own faith shaken, and apply to you as my Holy Confessor to hear my confession:
O My God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee. Over the days of our encampment there were regular bloody altercations, some of which took the lives of savages, or left them maimed and crippled. The clan was in vaporous frenzy when we arrived, and I expected it would slowly taper. I was wrong. It grew stronger, more violent and unpredictable, and I learned from my guide that the savages were in a frenzy over a windigo, which has taken residence among them, and whose identity is not yet known. The savages have at times begged my indulgence in forgiving their vile excesses, and they explained that they are powerless to behave in a more civilized manner until the monster that craves only human flesh is identified and killed.
It occurs to me that this may be a form of possession by Satan, and that the route to salvation might be a holy exorcism. Unfortunately, not knowing the beast’s identity, and despite prayer, I was unable to judge if it had previously been a good and true Christian. On our fifth day, my guide and I were visited by a delegation, which begged me to bring the power of Christ to their aid, and to find and dispatch the monster lest it consume the entire clan. If I would do this, they agreed to give their hearts and souls to Lord Jesus.
I am hardly prudish, your Lordship. I remember well from the days of my youth in the gymnasium the debaucheries of the soldiers of Bonaparte; as they prepared to advance to battle they invariably entered into drunken and wanton behaviors. It occurred to me that what I was seeing at the River of Blood encampment was of a like ilk, but now I know I was badly mis
taken, and that missionary priests being sent forth by the Leopoldinen Stiftung should be informed that one’s learning under the tutelage of the Church cannot be used to extrapolate or interpolate situations in cultures of which civilized men cannot imagine. A missionary must accept what is, what presents to him, and act accordingly.
Last night the savages led us sur les raquettes over a crusty snow to a rocky promontory the savages call wijiganikan, the place of skulls. The river has such velocity below that normal voices a hundred feet above cannot be made out. Having hiked for several hours, we reached a grotto where we confronted a creature that defies my powers of language to fairly describe. I will say that it seems only distantly possible a human being, with sunken red eyes, and emitting a continuous flow of pink froth during its rantings and jumping around, the sounds being oddly childlike in tone, but with no discernible language. It caused me to wonder if the creature had suffered some sort of critical head trauma or mental infirmity; had we been in Europe, this thing surely would have been collected and safely established in an asylum. Torches showed the beast’s grotto to be scattered with human remains.
I suggested that we apprehend the beast and restrain it with ropes, but this was rejected by the savages, who assured me that only death could remove the threat to their continued life, and that none of them dared kill it because they believed this could risk the creature’s infirmity passing into their souls. My guide and I managed to rope the animal and subdue it long enough for me to drive a knife into its heart and deliver Extreme Unction in the hope that God would take pity on its pitiful soul.
Much thankful, our savages informed us today that, now clear of the windigo, they are preparing to move north to a location they call L’Anse, the head of the bay. They have invited me to visit them, which I intend to honor in order to instruct them in the ways of Christian living.
My Lord, I commit this confession to your judgment. I have committed murder in the coldest of blood and in violation of God’s law. This letter will be carried east to the Soo and be taken by packet to Detroit, and from there overland to be delivered to your hands. It is my fervent hope God will forgive me. Fiat voluntas dei—Let the will of God be done. I am well physically, my Lord, but I fear the rending of my soul by this great sin I have committed. I have no doubt that like all men I will be asked to atone for this abominable act on the Day of Judgment. In this knowledge I wish to spend the remainder of my life among these savages, to rescue their unconsecrated souls, with God’s help. In our Lord’s name I remain faithfully, Frederick Baraga, missionary priest.
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