DAVE'S PAUGAN
Pronounced "pooh gone"

By Scott E. Power

I had never believed in Indian legends until I met Dave, a Catholic priest and missionary from a remote trading post in the wilds of northern Manitoba, Canada, a land where Cree Indian legends prevail.

Dave and I met while I was on a canoe trip into the north. He needed transportation from Neultin Lake back to his post two hundred miles north.

Although I was a safe canoeist, I wondered about my new partner, Dave. But within minutes of our shoving off, he proved to be an accomplished paddler. During conversation he explained that he had lived in the north for five years. He was supposed to leave after one year, but he loved it so much that he insisted on staying. He said that the Indians had taught him a lot, but he still had a lot to learn.

He explained that the Indians had taught him that every human being has a guardian angel called a paugan. The paugan is a protector or spiritual guardian. A paugan will only interfere with reality in extreme life-threatening danger. Typically, a paugan is a likeness of an animal. Each person's paugan is different. One person's paugan might be a cougar, for some an eagle or a wolf, but it is always an animal of significance, of great importance. But there is only one way for a person to discover what type of animal his paugan might be. He must fast and dream for a fortnight, for two full weeks of dedicated misery and deprivation. Only then will the Great Spirit show a person through dreams what his paugan is.

Dave said at first he didn't believe in it. But one day, while he was canoeing with Indian friends north into the barrens to hunt caribou, they found themselves in a wide turbulent river. The water was freezing cold. Even though it was late August, the air temperature was below freezing. Dave and his partner managed to get ashore once then realized how dangerous the stretch of river had become, but the other canoe was blown into the main channel and was being swept into the dangerous standing waves. An upset at this point could mean death for the two Indians, but there was a swirl under the canoe and to Dave's disbelief an immense moose rose up out of the water and the canoe was lifted upon its back. The moose plunged towards shore and then suddenly sank beneath the waves, but the canoe had been freed from the main current and the Indians, were able to desperately paddle their way to the shore.

Dave was dazzled with disbelief about what had happened. An Indian called Julyja, a good friend of the minister, explained that the moose was his own paugan and it had saved him once before as a boy. The canoe had been saved by Julyja's paugan.

Well, that was all Dave needed to see. He immediately believed in the reality of the paugan and he wanted to discover his own. He asked Julyja for instruction. Julyja told him to fast for a fortnight, swim naked with the fish, and dream each day. Whatever animal he dreamed about would be his paugan.

The following summer, Dave did all of this faithfully. At the end of his ordeal it was revealed to him that his paugan was a wolverine, one of the most independent and fierce animals of the north country. He had never been saved by his paugan, and it had been years since he had witnessed it in dream, but he knew that it existed and that it would watch over him.

I simply could not believe in any of this. Dave told me that my disbelief was wrong. The Cree Indian legend of the paugan was indeed true and if I didn't show respect my safety was questionable.

Several years later, I was making a solo canoe trip on a remote stretch of river in the forest country of northern Saskatchewan. It has been a pleasant trip and I was in no hurry as I was enjoying that beautiful countryside and its occasional sand beaches. The weather had been the best that I had ever had on a northern trip. Perhaps all of this lulled me into a feeling of over-confidence, because a fateful decision caused me to take a chance with a rapids that proved to be a mistake. A rock ripped my canoe open from stem to stern, causing the entire craft to disintegrate in the swirling rapids. My gear had been secured into the boat; perhaps the turbulence of the water tugging on my Duluth packs aided in destroying the canoe. By the time I had swum clear of the rapids, there was nothing to be seen of my canoe or any of my equipment. My initial relief of being alive soon turned to fear. I was hundreds of miles from any help with no food, tent, or extra clothing!

In some ways the first few days were the most difficult. I still had my mosquito netting and some insect repellent, so at least I wasn't eaten alive by the mosquitoes. There was plenty of fresh water to drink. But food-I had none at all. I became more and more miserable during the first several days. I didn't know a person could become so miserable, so hungry. I built myself a shelter and planned to stay in one place, hoping another party might come down the river that summer, or that an Indian trapper or fisherman would come through.

It was just as well that I stayed, for soon the lack of food made me weak. Travel would have been impossible. My repellent ran out and the mosquitoes started adding to my misery by biting through my clothing. My only relief came when I went swimming naked with the fish in the cold stream. Fish that I could never hope to catch.

As the days passed I became strangely tranquil. And while each day become a blur in my memory, there can be no doubt that I was accidentally fulfilling the quest for a paugan. After almost two weeks, a fortnight as Julyja had told Dave, I lapsed into a trance. While in the trance I started at the clouds above me and I slowly realized that the clouds were forming into a shape. I was lifted out of my daze by the realization that I was going to see my paugan, that it was going to reveal itself to me, that I might be able to appeal to it for safety and deliverance from a certain death in this wilderness.

But the clouds were forming a shape that I was unfamiliar with. It was, naturally, a white blob. The white image seemed to boil and slowly evolved into a strange image that I struggled to recognize. Then it suddenly dawned on me what I was seeing, what my paugan really was. It was not a giant creature after all. Oh, the cloud was large, but my paugan was not. I was staring at a cloud image of a grub.

An insect that lived in rotten trees, that formed a main food source for the mighty bears of the forest, who were so fond of ripping apart dead trees to devour those tasty morsels.

Yes, my salvation lay all around me in the forest. I came out of my trance and grabbed a large rock and easily found a rotten log. I pounded the log apart and revealed a swarm of the maggot-like grubs, scurrying for cover from the daylight. I scooped up entire handfuls of the white bugs and shoved them in my mouth. The bugs squirmed as I crunched them. The taste was surprisingly wonderful. There was, of course, the crunchy sensation as they were squashed between my molars and there was the delightful juice that squirted into my cheeks with every bite. I was delighted at the first taste of food that I had experienced in two weeks.

My life had been saved by my paugan. I could live for weeks, travel for miles, all because I had been saved by my paugan-the white maggot-like grubs hidden all around me in the rotten logs.

STORY OUTLINE

I. The story narrator tells of meeting Dave, a missionary, who joined him for a canoe trip back to his post in northern Canada.

II. Dave relates the Cree Indian legend of the paugan, a protective spirit in the form of an animal that everyone has, but the identity of which will only be revealed in a trance that occurs after fasting for two weeks.

III. Dave sees two Indians rescued from a turbulent river by a moose that suddenly rises from river, saving their canoe, before disappearing again beneath the waves.

IV. Dave is told by an Indian to fast for two weeks, swim naked with the fish, and dream each day if he wished to learn of his paugan.

V. The narrator does not believe in this legend, but several years later, while on a solo trip in northern Saskatchewan, his boat and all of his possessions are lost in a rapids.

VI. As he starves he can obtain relief from the mosquitoes only by swimming naked with the fish in the cold water, accidentally fulfilling two of the requirements of the Great Spirit to have the identify of his paugan revealed.

VII. After two weeks he lapses into a trance, thus fulfilling the last requirement.

VIII. The paugan is usually a powerful beast, able to protect the owner from dangers of the wilderness. But the narrator's paugan is not a powerful animal, but a grub.

IX. The lowly grub, a nutritious source of food for many forest creatures, was the only thing that could have saved him from starvation. The narrator had found his paugan and it saved him!