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Patricia Bellanger

She moved through life using her humanity in the way that a great poet wields words. With imagination, challenge, welcome, adventure, modesty, history, determination, fun, optimism, curiosity, kindness, guts…. 
 
At home on the Anishinabe nation at Onigum, welcomed in Geneva’s United Nations precincts.
 
Parching lesson. Hand-harvested manoomin (wild rice) tossed on a giant steel pan over a wood fire, hooked to a shaking gizmo powered by a long belt running off the rear wheel of a jacked-up pickup.
 
An announcement with excitement in her eyes and voice. “We’re going to get the Nobel Prize for Rigoberta Menchu!” Two years later - it was true.
 
Family tree trading. We each trace our families back to the St. Lawrence River - four hundred years.
 
Seer. The day Mount St. Helens exploded followed her dreaming with all the Seven Sisters.
 
Soldier. At Wounded Knee, back-packed medical supplies past U.S. Army lines for the traditionals, for A.I.M., for the families, for the traitors, the spies and the martyrs.
 
Polar adventurer. She was “family” to Anne Bancroft who trekked both Poles. Pat flew in to support the Gwich’in efforts to protect the caribou herd of the north, tenting at Arctic Village with Treaty Council members to oppose oil industry exploitation.
 
Farmer advocate. At the Penn Center in Gullah country, plotted land recovery efforts with African American farmers as leader of the Rural Coalition. She did not begrudge working to enforce the “40 acres and a mule” promises, even if the 40 acres had been stolen from her indigenous cousins.
 
Educator. With Joe Nathan she helped found St. Paul’s Open School and then Red School House and Heart of the Earth Survival Schools.
 
Champion of self-determination and interdependence. She had the vision to merge indigenous sovereignty with international sisterhood.
 
Science and Spirit. Schooled in science at the University of Minnesota, she had been introduced to Midewiwin practices by her Episcopal grandfather and held it all in her mind and heart.
 
Advocate and leader. Teaching lawyers and serving communities with Legal Rights Center, Anishinabe Legal Services and Legal Aid Society.
 
Merchant: Bagging manoomin from burlap sacks in the back of her brother’s Northland Visions.
 
I won’t say her faults, of which she would certainly confess; we can find far, far more in the lives we lead.
 
Mii gwech.

 Patricia Bellanger

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  1. shirley cainDecember 22, 2020 at 10:35 AM

    Jay, I love this! This describes Pat B., to a "T." She had a lot of talents and genuine people skills. I first met her in 1985 during my internship at Anishinabe Legal Services.

    ReplyDelete

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