Many thousands of years ago a man was walking along when he spotted a wonderful field of blueberries. He said to himself
“These are fine blueberries!, I should pick as much as I can before bear and fox eat them all”.
It was the time of year when the blueberries were plump and ripe. The man knew that soon the frost would come and the berries would be ruined. The problem was that he would not be able to carry back the berries he planned to pick as he was already loaded down with the supply of meat he had killed that day.
“I know what I will do”
He exclaimed. He started to pick as many berries as he could. He used a birch bark scoop and in no time at all he had a very large pile of blue berries. he knew that if fox or bear came by they would eat his berries so he wrapped them in a large moose hide and hung the stash of berries in a tree. He planned to return the next day and pick up his berries.
As plans go it was fool proof but what was not considered was what would happen if some misfortune came upon the man and he could not return in time to pick up the berries. As luck would have it the man twisted his ankle on his way home and was therefore unable to return as planned. He spent two weeks in his lodge waiting for the ankle to heal. He hobbled around mournfully with great concern whether or not his ankle would heal properly. It was all for nothing because in a few days he was as good as new. He then traveled to where his stash of blue berries were. He knew that they would be spoiled but he was hoping that fox and bear did not eat all the berries in the field and would save some for him.
As he approached the field of berries he stopped to listen. He could hear loud grunts and heavy breathing coming from the direction of the field.
As he approached he was astounded as to what he saw…
His cache of berries had been dropped to the ground by clever fox and he could see that fox and bear proceeded to gorge on the spoiling berries. He assumed that they ate the whole cache because there was no berries left in his hide. But what bear and fox were doing was what really amazed him. In all his years he had never seen a site so funny.
Bear was up on his two legs and was trying to avoid fox who was darting about his feet trying to nip at his heels. Bear tried to swat fox but fox was quick and bear missed and went crashing to the ground. Fox was skirting around bear trying to get him up but bear just stayed right there. It was obvious that bear could not get up or move at all. Fox then nestled up against bear and went immediately to sleep. If the man didn’t know any better he would think he saw that the animals had happy smiles on their faces. He cautiously stepped forward to investigate being careful not to wake the animals. He inspected the cache of berries and found them to be all devoured with the remnants of a clear liquid at the bottom of the the hide wrap.
“The animals have discovered a strong medicine” exclaimed the man.
He took out his drum and started singing his medicine song so he could find out what he strange medicine was.
After four days of fasting and singing, the Spirit of the Medicine finally appeared to him.
The man asked what the strange clear liquid was and the spirit told him that it was
a very strong medicine that was not to be touched.
The spirit said that for thousands of years the spirit of the medicine would be at rest until one day all the people of the land will awaken the spirit and bring the medicine into their lives. When that day would come the spirit said he would return to inform the ancestors of the man what to do.
The man was grateful for the wisdom of the spirit and left gifts and said he would do everything he could to ensure that all knew about what the spirit told him. Many generations came to pass and the story of what happened that day was forgotten as well of the promise of the medicine spirit to return. To this day people do not heed the warning of the medicine spirit who was there that day when fox and bear mistakenly discovered alcohol.
So it has been told.