NAFPS Forum

Lois Beardslee says:

Dear Mr. Beyer,
Thank you for your thoughtful comments questioning Peschel’s legitimacy as a source for Chippewa (Ojibwe) cultural knowledge and her integration into local Native culture. Indeed, she avoided local Indian people as much as we avoided her. Her daughter still lives in the region, and denies any Native identification. Anishinaabe cultural insiders question even Peschel’s apparently-manufactured linguistic terms. Her greatest claim to fame in her adopted homeland, northwest Lower Michigan’s Leelanau County, is that she allegedly led to the inadvertent poisoning death (by ingestion of wild mushrooms) of one of her enthusiastic young non-Native followers while on a field trip to Lake Michigan’s Beaver Island. The island was formerly the home of several aboriginal families who were forced onto the mainland to make way for a burgeoning population of affluent non-Native “cottagers.” Peschel and her non-Native followers continue to promote cute stereotypes about the region’s indigenous population; this in turn has contributed to rampant cultural appropriation, morbid racism, and an off-reservation unemployment rate among Native Americans in excess of 99%. Peschel’s other cultural impersonation and teachings contribute to the ongoing dimunization of Native people and substitute fiction for fact. There is no place for this in science, in credible literature, or in functional cultural intercourse.

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Source: "Hallucinogens in North America" Singing to the Plants - Steve Beyer's Blog on Ayahuasca and the Amazon
Direct Link: https://singingtotheplants.com/2008/02/hallucinogens-in-north-america/
Archive Link: https://archive.ph/9DGIO

Lois Beardslee, an Ojibwe writer and artist, will give a reading and slide show of her artwork on Thursday, Nov. 6, at 4 p.m. in Payne Hall, Room 21, at Washington and Lee University. This event is open to the public. A book signing and a sale of Beardslee’s books and some of her artwork will be held after the reading in Payne Hall, Room 26.

A lifetime spent in more than one Native American culture and tradition at the same time-(her mother was Ojibwe and her father was Lacandon) has led Beardslee to write about the ways in which traditional and modern lifestyles conflict and merge for contemporary Native people. She grew up in northern Michigan and northern Ontario, dividing her time between her extended family’s farms and remote bush camps.

Beardslee writes both fiction and nonfiction and contributes scholarly writings in the field of multicultural education and literature. She is the author of “Rachel’s Children: Stories from a Contemporary Native American Woman” (Alta Mira Press, 2004); “Not Far Away: The Real-life Adventures of Ima Pipiig” (Alta Mira Press, 2007); and “The Women Warrior’s Society” (University of Arizona Press, 2008), among others. She also is a contributor to “A Broken Flute: the Native Experience in Books for Children,” winner of a 2006 American Book Award.

Beardslee has been an artist for much of her life. She has done painting, illustrating and creating rare traditional Ojibwe art forms, including porcupine quillwork, sweetgrass baskets and birch bark cut-outs and bitings. Her work is in public and private collections worldwide. She continues to divide her time between the family farm and remote bush camps.

Currently an adjunct instructor in communications at Northwestern Michigan College, Beardslee has a bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College and a master’s degree from the University of New Mexico.

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Source: W&L’s Glasgow Series Presents Lois Beardslee, Native American Writer and Artist – By Julie Cline
Direct Link: https://columns.wlu.edu/wls-glasgow-series-presents-lois-beardslee-native-american-writer-and-artist/
Archive Link: https://archive.ph/wip/ZpBku

Lois Beardslee rummages through some boxes and bags in a corner of her Maple City home. She is surrounded by her art--contemporary Native American prints, lithographs, oil paintings, baskets, bead-work, quill-work, and audio cassette tapes--all reflecting ancient Woodland legends and lore.

"Here, look at this," she exclaims, holding up two small stones that look and feel like chalk. "Red and yellow ochre. One time we were planting cherry trees and I found just enough yellow ochre to do a painting."

The fine, powdery stone, she explains, is mixed with water and sealed with acrylic to form the paint pigment which she uses for her Red Ochre People motif. This motif is characterized by two-dimensional "stick figures" similar to ancient rock drawings found throughout North America.

"Red Ochre People are a culture I have created to fill the gap between past and present," says Beardslee. "They are comprised of my family, friends, ancestors, oral tradition and the unknown artists who left petroglyphs, pictographs and texts on skin and bark."

Beardslee is good at filling the gaps--she feels a strong responsibility in her role as a cultural emissary for Native Americans. Whether she's telling stories on paper or in person, the imagery she creates is the essence of life in the Ojibwe and Lacandon tribes into which she was born. Make no mistake--the myths and the legends she distills are for our benefit. Long part of an oral tradition, the spirit world of the past has been kept alive through a well organized underground. Only recently have these cultural icons resurfaced, as a soothing balm for troubled and restless times.

Beardslee has had her own share of troubles, and the gaps here are a little bit wider. Born into a family of nine siblings, her mother died when she was 10; her father at 15. But she has no complaints.

"I grew up around here, came from a rural background," she says. "We hunted, fished, farmed. I grew up in a privileged era--I remember ducks being piled on the table, each of us having our own duck for dinner. It was a time of plenty--a lifestyle that's disappearing."

Now she's back in the art corner, sifting through more boxes. She brings out a basket with an intricate quill design. "This is by Yvonne Walker-Keshick," she says. "She's one of the Sisters of the Great Lakes. There are 22 of us between the ages of 18 and 81. We were hand-picked by tribal leaders and elders from five states and Canada." Funded by W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the one-year project is titled: "Native American Women: Transcending Boundaries for Future Generations." The project provides for a series of three four-day workshops for the 22 Native American women artists participating.

"There is a need to develop role models and mentors among Native American artists for future generations to look and learn from," says Jan Reed, project administrator and director of the Nokomis Learning Center in Okemos.

Beardslee is such a role model. She has been an artist for more than 20 years and has work in public and private collections worldwide. She has attended Northwestern Michigan College, Oberlin College, and received her master's degree in the History of Native American Art at the University of New Mexico. She is a certified teacher.

In 1992, she combined her teaching skills and her love for Native American culture by recording some of the oral traditions on tape. The end result (so far) is Leelanau Earth Stories, Earth Stories, Too and More Earth Stories. "I'm a real talker," she says with a smirk. "I decided to use it as an asset. The kids really love the Native American stories. So, I went to the recording studio--the stories are all memorized, not written down. A lot of the stories are true events that really happened."

Courtesy of her extended family--Auntie Connie and Uncle Leonard, among others--the stories were handed down over the years. Many of the stories are used to explain natural phenomenon, such as Northern Lights. Her voice is strong and sure--and filled with lively intonation: "The northern lights are the pathways or the campfires to the soul...as each of the people from the different clans pass through, they take something that is important to them and they throw it into the fire. That makes the colors...as the people from the Sturgeon Clan pass by, they take their tails and fins and throw water on the fire...the flames hiss and crackle. That's why the northern lights appear to pulse and move."

Other stories are based on everyday events, such as Betty at Pow Wow: "I saw you on TV," she (Betty) said. "You are a celebrity. You are a famous person. Her sons began to drum; she danced off on their voices. As she turned and her hair spun around, the fringe on her buckskin dress swirled out around her with the beads and the quills shimmering in the sunlight, and I thought, "Oh Betty--you are the celebrity, for surely you are famous among the spirits. They know you well. Surely you are blessed because you have your family, your friends and your culture."

Beardslee is proud of her culture, but it has not always been a blessing. In the not-too-distant past, ethnic stereotypes have loomed large.

"Once, I was going to substitute teach in a local school," she recalls. "I was mistaken for a Native American parent and escorted out."

On another occasion, she was told by a school administrator not to stray too far from her home room without proper notification. "You're being paid to be in that art room," he said. "If you want to leave, you're going to have to tell my secretary where you're going." After school, two miles down the road, Beardslee burst into tears. Now, she shrugs it off. "That happens sometimes. People jump on what's available.

"Harry Belafonte was performing at a well-known theater at the height of his career, but he was not allowed to use the main entrance--he was forced to go in through the back door. When I was younger, I received no respect due to my outside appearance. When I went back as a celebrity, I was treated with much more respect. Through the arts, I do come in through the back door. People don't burn crosses on front lawns anymore, but we carry stereotypes in our minds. This can be changed through the arts. We can use the arts to change people's perceptions."

Beardslee's audience might do well to take a lesson from the Woodland spirit Mani Boozho. He often takes human form in his attempt to teach things to man. "We learn through his mistakes," she says. "Every town would give him different manifestations; none of the characters are purely evil. I kind of wait until he talks to me before I begin painting--I try to be careful; you have to balance one character with another on the canvas."

Another of Beardslee's Native American motifs, in addition to the Red Ochre People, is that of the "shawl dancers." This motif appears in her work as wavy lines with intricate designs, attached to the face of a woman. To the untrained eye, it looks like the waves of a large sea.

"Women are traditionally keepers of the water," she explains. "There's a certain duality to my work. Often, you don't know if you're looking at sky or water. It's a visual illusion. I like to create a little confusion in the viewer's mind; force the eye to confront something that may be uncomfortable."

From the art corner, she fishes for and finds a dry fungus known as skwatoggin. She scrapes out some of the fleshy, soft fungus onto a plate and lights it with a match. It glows bright red and sends a trail of smoke into the air.

"This is used in pipe ceremonies or as a fire starter," she says, as she produces some sweet grass tobacco, mixed with commercial tobacco and cedar. "There's only one place in northern Michigan where sweet grass grows...it's been subdivided."

On the way out the door to resume the day's chores (she and her husband John own a cherry farm), Beardslee pauses to pluck an eagle feather from a glass jar. After some discussion about the proper way to obtain an eagle feather (you don't shoot them) and the proper way to harvest porcupine quills (wait until the animal has been dead three days), she offers some parting words: "I follow the eagle. He leads me to the best fishing spots. They say only a warrior can pick up an eagle feather...God knows I've earned that title."

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Source: Lois Beardslee, Daughter of the Earth (The Northern Michigan Journal) – By Jim Rink
Direct Link: https://www.leelanau.com/nmj/views/earth_daughter.html
Archive Link: https://archive.ph/bm6hv

We are literate, intelligent and sophisticated. We are conservationists, scientists and mathematicians. We always have been and always will be.

That’s the message Lois Beardslee said she hopes to convey with her fifth book, “Words Like Thunder: New and Used Anishinaabe Prayers.”

“I’m not interested in pointing fingers and saying, ‘You people didn’t recognize that about us,’” said Beardslee. “I’m interested in saying, ‘This is who we are, this is who we’ve always been and we’re not going to stop.’”

Beardslee, a Maple City resident, is Anishinaabe, but is not part of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians. Beardslee said she’s from Lake Superior Ojibwe.

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Source: ‘Words Like Thunder' shares Anishinaabe lessons, struggles (Traverse City Record Eagle) – By Alexa Zoellner
Archive Link (No Paywall): https://web.archive.org/web/20220125075853/https://www.record-eagle.com/news/arts_and_entertainment/words-like-thunder-shares-anishinaabe-lessons-struggles/article_b3ea8842-6879-11ea-a0d1-9f721e9497ee.html
Direct Link (Paywall): https://www.record-eagle.com/news/arts_and_entertainment/words-like-thunder-shares-anishinaabe-lessons-struggles/article_b3ea8842-6879-11ea-a0d1-9f721e9497ee.html

Beardslee, Ojibwa and Lacandon, became the first Native American to win the Michigan Notable Book Award for “Words Like Thunder: New and Used Anishinaabe Prayers,” released in 2020, which also received a silver medal in the 2021 Midwest Book Awards.

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Source: 'Often overlooked:' Dennos exhibit showcases art by Indigenous women, two-spirit (Traverse City Record Eagle) – By Sierra Clark
Archive Link (No Paywall): https://web.archive.org/web/20230128125143/https://www.record-eagle.com/news/local_news/often-overlooked-dennos-exhibit-showcases-art-by-indigenous-women-two-spirit/article_1b5cb7c6-9db9-11ed-b4c8-275d0dc0295c.html
Direct Link (Paywall): https://www.record-eagle.com/news/local_news/often-overlooked-dennos-exhibit-showcases-art-by-indigenous-women-two-spirit/article_1b5cb7c6-9db9-11ed-b4c8-275d0dc0295c.html

Lois Beardslee, 1974: As a student, Beardslee was the first woman to join NMC’s then-men’s cross-country team. Today an adjunct Communications faculty member, her former coach, John Pahl, is her colleague, and she’s still trying new things. A Native American writer and artist who lives in Leelanau County, Beardslee debuted a course in Native American literature this year and will teach it again in spring 2008. “There’s a need in the community. Native American literature just barely creeps into standard literature courses,” she said. Communications Chair Bronwyn Jones said the course fits NMC well. “NMC’s service area is home to the largest Native American population east of the Mississippi River; so it makes sense we offer the best Native literature class possible,” Jones said. Beardslee also teaches introductory English and keeps up with her own writing. She’s pictured at right with “A Broken Flute,” the 2006 American Book Award winning reference guide to Native literature to which she contributed. “Not Far Away,” a semi-fictional memoir, was published this year. A novel, “The Women’s Warrior Society,” is on tap for 2008.

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Source: NorWester – A Publication for Alumni & Friends of Northwestern Michigan College (Fall 2007)
Direct Link: https://www.nmc.edu/news/media/norwester/files/norwester-fall-2007.pdf
Archive Link: https://web.archive.org/web/20150924090424/https://www.nmc.edu/news/media/norwester/files/norwester-fall-2007.pdf

Here's a Mary Geniusz biography likely written by her daughter Wendy Geniusz.
https://notablefolkloristsofcolor.org/portfolio/mary-siisip-geniusz/

Photo courtesy of Wendy Makoons Geniusz, with permission from the Miniss Kitigan Drum.

Native American (Anishinaabe), Ethnobotany

Keewaydinoquay Pakawakuk Peschel (1919-1999)
The Aadizookaanag, our ancient stories and teaching spirits, are living beings. Keewaydinoquay’s storytelling clearly demonstrated the veracity of this Anishinaabe teaching. As she told stories, deep, “booming” voices of the Aadizookaanag echoed through the room as she spoke through her hand drum.

Raised in an Anishinaabe village on Cat Head Bay, on the tip of the Leelanau Peninsula, Michigan, Keewaydinoquay was approximately nine when she began training to be a medicine woman under Nodjimahkwe. She also learned from other village elders. By the time she realized the extent of the knowledge that she had learned from them, her mentors had already passed over. Sharing this knowledge was her means of thanking them. Keewaydinoquay was a long-time educator, having taught in Michigan public schools for over 40 years before earning a MEd at Wayne State University and beginning doctoral coursework in ethnobotany at the University of Michigan. She later taught at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and founded the Miniss Kitigan Drum, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving Anishinaabe culture. She said that she did not know her birth year, although census records suggest 1918 or 1919. She wanted people to understand that records of Indigenous births were not always made. She also taught that Anishinaabe people do not speak of “death.” Instead, we describe “passing over to the other side.” Keewaydinoquay passed over in 1999.

Puhpohwee (1978/1998), her most widely available publication, is an eclectic combination of materials related to fungi, including stories, teachings, medicinal and culinary recipes, and Keewaydinoquay’s drawings. In an interview, Keewaydinoquay explained that she wrote the original monograph after finding an academic article on mushrooms in a dentist’s office:

It said we Native Americans hate them, never use them, won’t walk near them, and don’t even look at them.  Scholars were quoted. I read it in disbelief. I wrote a letter disputing the article. A reply came back asking, “How do you know?” I wrote back saying that I am an Ojibway and a medicine woman.

A Harvard mycologist came to visit her, and she eventually published the first version of Puhpohwee. She later expanded it into a book edition (1998) containing more information and illustrations. When teaching, sharing one’s own lived experiences of working with knowledge, or sharing those experiences of a close relative or mentor, is crucial to Anishinaabe cultural protocols. A person without such stories is not reliable. Throughout her writings, Keewaydinoquay shares many stories of working with the knowledge she describes. As with the oral stories told in our communities, her stories are memorable and include specific instructions.

Among her works of interest to folklorists are:

Puhpohwee for the People: A Narrative Account of Some Uses of Fungi among the Ahnishinaabeg / Keewaydinoquay. [Second edition] (1998)

Wendy Makoons Geniusz

Click to view extensive bibliography

Sparks, I have no idea what you're talking about. I only looked at Mary Lynn Shomperlen. She married a man by the name of Geniusz. I didn't look at his side of the family, only hers. There is no Polish heritage that I  could see. Her mother's maiden name is Blain. I think you're confused.

Sparks-Lucille Geniusz was the mother of Mary Shomperlen's husband Robert Geniusz and also Wendy Geniusz's grandmother. I just used her obituary to verify it is the same Mary Geniusz and her maiden name since you questioned a mistaken identity.

Geniusz, Lucille (Nee Sipowicz) […] Became the loving mother of Edward Tom Geniusz, Edwardine Michelle (Allen K.) Charnow, and Robert Myles (Mary Lynn Shomperlen) Geniusz. Later the delighted and loving grandmother of Wendy Makoons (Errol) Geniusz […]
https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/jsonline/name/lucille-geniusz-obituary?id=3194775

Quote from: Diana on February 20, 2024, 04:07:58 am

Mary Lynn Shomperlen Geniusz is white. Looked at her parents especially the mother. All Dutch in the Canadian census and her grandparents are buried at The Pas, Flin Flon-Northwest Census Division, Manitoba, Canada. This this was taken from Find a grave. Again I went back several generations and all white and German, England and Dutch.

This is all so confusing by now. Dutch, German, English, what about the Polish connection? According to WINative's link Mary Lynn Shomperlen Geniusz's mother was "Geniusz, Lucille (Nee Sipowicz) … born June 6, 1910, in Sokolka (Russian occupied Poland)". But according to the biography linked to, written by Wendy Makoons Geniusz, Mary Siisip Geniusz's "mother was born at the Pas in Manitoba". Is this a blatant lie, then?

This statement from the obituary supports WINative's claim that the two Marys are one and the same person: "Later the delighted and loving grandmother of Wendy Makoons (Errol) Geniusz".