My Name is Not Chief

The Death of Aunt Maxine
The summer following Benny's 6th grade year his Aunt Maxine died of alcoholism. Beverly's sister was only in her 30s and she was a tough woman but had a rough life. She was living in Chicago at the time of her death, so her body was brought to the Wisconsin Dells for her funeral. The Big Bear family invited Beverly and Benny to go with them back to Wisconsin. This was one of nearly a dozen trips from California to the Midwest that Beverly and Benny would take, but it was the aftermath of this trip that would be the most memorable. Many Indian people living in Los Angeles had known Maxine since they were children. Most were not able to go to Wisconsin for the funeral, so when Beverly returned they wanted to have a Memorial Service for Maxine at Beverly's house. On the day designated for the service, far more people came than Beverly had expected. She made sure that everyone had enough to eat and drink, and after having a good time, many people asked if they could stay the night. Mattresses were pulled off beds and placed on the floor along with couch cushions; people were sleeping in every room of the house, but everyone had a place to sleep.
Juanita was one of my mom's drinking buddies, so I was lying on a mattress next to her and her boyfriend in the living room where at least ten other people were sleeping. My mother was in her bedroom. In the middle of the night I woke up because I heard someone calling me. I was half asleep, but I could distinctly hear a voice calling "Benny ... Benny." So I sat up saying, "What! What do you want?" But the voice just kept saying my name, over and over. I figured someone was just messing with me. It had to be a trick. I stayed real quiet and concentrated on where the voice came from. I looked around the room and everyone was sound asleep. After listening for several minutes, I realized that the voice was coming from all four corners of the ceiling at the same time. I couldn't believe it. That just scared the hell out of me! I jumped up and ran into the bedroom where my mom was sleeping. By the time I got to her I was crying because I was so scared. I said, "Mom, someone keeps calling to me and they won't leave me alone." My mom knew immediately that it was Maxine. She told me to get into bed with her and not to be afraid because no one was going to hurt me.
Beverly knew the voice was Maxine's because, like most Indian people, Beverly had a previous experience that made her believe in the existence of spirits. When she was still living on the reservation, she was walking by a graveyard one evening when a spirit began to follow her. Beverly was frightened, and the next morning she called Lawrence Big Bear who told her what to do to get rid of this spirit. She had met Lawrence one night when she was out drinking. He was nearly twenty years older than Beverly, and highly respected for his knowledge of his culture, especially how to conduct rituals. Many Winnebago people called on him for advice on traditional cultural beliefs or practices. When Beverly told him about Benny's experience, Lawrence said Maxine's spirit must have come back in the car with them from Wisconsin. He offered to come to Beverly's house to conduct a ceremony calling up good spirits to take Maxine's spirit away to the place where she was supposed to go. According to Lawrence, there were different ceremonies that could be conducted to attract or get rid of spirits. If people wished to call up good spirits, they needed to burn cedar. Lawrence said that Maxine's spirit was probably in Beverly's house because it was lost, and someone would need to burn cedar to smoke the house out, making sure that the smell filled every room. Cedar smoke tells a spirit in a house that they are in the wrong place, somewhere they are not supposed to be. Cedar smoke also attracts good spirits who can take a lost spirit to the appropriate place. This was the purpose of the ceremony Lawrence Big Bear conducted at Beverly's house: to call up good spirits who would take Maxine's spirit to the right place. After Lawrence smoked the house with cedar, they never heard Maxine's voice again. This incident had a profound effect on Benny:

Ever since then I have been a firm believer that this life isn't all there is, that there's something beyond the grave. I don't know what that is, but there is something. If my children came to me today to complain that a ghost was bothering them, I would not think they were crazy. I would try to do something to help them with this problem, just like my mother did for me.