You might say a wolf, an elder, chose Thomas Peacock to tell his story.
This came as no surprise to Tom, who has cultivated conversations with elders since his early adult years and who finds the voices of fictional characters with truths to tell will sometimes gnaw at the edge of his creative thoughts.
“The way it comes to me,” Tom describes his fiction writing, “I’m not a person who goes in and does this amazing outline. I write one or two sentences, and then, I hear voices … That’s sort of the process for me. I start clicking my Mac. I become the recorder of their story. I may have sort of a general ending in mind, but the characters, they keep talking and introducing other characters.”
To date, Tom has written or co-authored nearly a dozen books, both fiction and non-fiction. His stories and his histories circle around his Anishinaabe culture and have earned the retired professor of education and University of Minnesota Duluth administrator a lengthening list of national and state book awards. From the Fond du Lac Reservation and now residing in Duluth, he and his wife, Elizabeth Albert Peacock, spend part of the year in Red Cliff, Wis. Together they own Black Bears and Blueberries Publishing, which specializes on Native children's books by Native authors and illustrators.
His latest work, done with Duluth non-profit publishing house Holy Cow! Press, is titled The Wolf’s Trail: An Ojibwe Story, Told by Wolves and follows the storytelling of Zhi shay’, Uncle, an elder wolf relaying the oral history of the Wolf People and the Anishinaabe People to a group of young wolf pups.
Each chapter presents a single story told by Zhi Shay’, often a retelling of Ojibwe traditional narratives, a remembrance of historic events or the delivery of one or more of the seven grandfather teachings of Nibwaakaawin (Wisdom); Zaagi'idiwin (Love); Minaadendamowin (Respect); Aakode’ewin (Bravery); Gwayakwaadiziwin (Honesty); Dabaadendiziwin (Humility) and Debwewin (Truth). In the stories, as Tom says, “Love – over all the other values – that’s emphasized.”
“I sort of built in underlying lessons in each of them,” the author says of his tales. “From our culture or from our history or from that oral tradition that would help me build around those teachings – in fiction writing, I try to layer it with lessons. … I tried to think of stories that I knew.”
Tom had been learning those stories since he was a young man. “I’ve been interviewing elders most of my life, since I was in my early 20s,” he says, then adds jokingly, “the cassette days.”
Tom had experimented earlier with wolves as characters in the Tao of Nookomis. “Animals’ voices and human intentions … I’d like to try that,” Tom says he decided.
The Wolf’s Trail chronicles centuries of generations through the Ojibwe story, including the significant migrations and the tragedies such as the atrocity of Big Sandy Lake in 1850 when about 400 Ojibwe people died of starvation or sickness after the federal government required them to gather there for annual payments based on treaty negotiations. They were left for weeks without adequate food or the payments and many died there or on the struggle to return home.
For his journey into the minds and stories of wolves, Tom did not just listen to the muses in his head. He also watch videos of wolves and consulted with a wildlife biologist who reviewed a draft of the book to look for inconsistencies with wolf behavior.
Tom made changes based on that good advice, he said. One example that sticks with him was having his wolves cross the steel-truss Oliver Bridge between Minnesota and Wisconsin by the Twin Ports. “He told me wolves would never, ever, ever walk across a bridge. They would swim the water.”
Asked if he, like his main character, is now a Zhi Shay’, the Uncle telling stories, Tom agrees. “Zhi Shay’ is an alter ego. I just have an old wolf in my head, an elder wolf.”
These universal stories manifest teachings of morality, how to treat others (both human and non-human) and how to live a virtuous life.
But Tom wrote them, too, with the specific hope of encouraging the younger Ojibwe generation to treasure and keep their collective story.
“Now it came to the surface,” he says. “One of my worries, of course, is that because of colonization – we’ve changed so much because of colonization – I worry what we’re becoming and that our teachings … are they going to survive the pressure from media and society to make everyone the same?
At the end of the book, two youngsters take up the mantle of keeping the stories and the culture – a vision he hopes reflects in the real world. “The two younger wolves sort of pick it up and continue,” Tom says. “I wanted that to continue.”