A long time ago there was a traveling circus that used the old-time covered wagons. Well, I guess they had an accident with a train one day, and there were animals lying all over the place. They finally got all the wounded animals and put them into the undamaged wagons and left.

Meanwhile there were two little Indian boys walking by the accident site. One of them hollered, “Look! Come over here!” The other boy went over there and saw a monkey that the circus didn’t want to take with them because it was dead, lying there in the ditch.

Well, these two little Indian boys had never seen a monkey before, especially one that had lost its tail. All that was left of the tail was a little bloody wound on its rear end. These two Indian boys took off and ran all the way back to the camp. They wanted to talk to the chief.

The chief asked them, “What’s wrong?” They said, “There’s a dead man lying over there by the railroad tracks; he’s a strange man that we’ve never seen before — he has hair all over his body!” So the chief told them to show the scouts where the body was so they could bring it back to show him.

The scouts brought the body back and threw him on the ground in front of the chief. The chief then looked at the monkey and turned him upside-down and over and around, and said, “He is a man all right. He has an ugly, hairy face, long arms, and long hairy hands with big long fingers. Coal-black hair all over his body, with big, long, hairy toes.” Then the chief turned him around and saw the wound where the tail was broken off in the accident with the train.

“OK,” said the chief, “I know what kind of a man this is and where he comes from. This is what they call a BIA worker from the next town. You see this? (pointing to where the tail used to be). He sat down too long at the BIA office—see where his rear end is all calloused and bloody?  That’s what killed him! Take him back to the BIA building; they can bury their own dead!”

Jessie Cree introduces himself in his Native Ojibwa language, “Ah neen ay zhy yiy yin keen dush Jessie Cree ee shin nee kos soh.” Cree is from Dunseith, ND, in the Turtle Mountains. He has earned an Associate of Applied Science Degree in Auto Technology and a certificate in Ojibwa linguistics and is now pursuing an elementary education degree at Turtle Mountain Community College. He and his wife, Debbie (Standing Chief Cree), have two children, Erin (Cree) Grant and Brianne Cree. They practice their traditional culture, including ceremonies such as the Sundance, Bargain Dances, Medicine Lodge, and Shaking Tent.

The Indian people use humor to teach lessons to young and old alike. This story has been told by Jessie’s father, Louis Cree, and a variant has been told by his Uncle Francis Cree of Dunseith, ND. He believes that the children should be taught their own culture, which is why he intends to publish a book of traditional Indian stories of the Turtle Mountains.