Transcripts

TOM CRANN: The Ojibwe author, poet, and playwright Jim Northrup died Monday night due to complications from cancer. He was 73. A traditional fire has been burning at his residence in Sawyer, and all are welcome to visit and pay their respects. Jim's son, Matthew Northrup, joined us to talk about his father and what it was like being raised by Jim, who was known as being a tough man.

MATTHEW NORTHRUP: Yes, he was. To me, he was the strongest man I've ever met and I've ever seen in my life, and his life experiences and what he taught me showed me that point. It was a very interesting childhood, because it's not every day people actually live in a teepee. Matter of fact, a telephone-equipped teepee on the reservation.

TOM CRANN: So you grew up living in a teepee?

MATTHEW NORTHRUP: Well, for several years, yes. When he moved back to the reservation, there was no housing available for him, so he bought a teepee out of the back of a Mother Earth magazine I believe it was, and he went out and set it up, and that's one of my earliest memories of the reservation life.

TOM CRANN: He was known for many things. His writing, poetry, playwriting. How will you remember him?

MATTHEW NORTHRUP: Dad.

TOM CRANN: Yeah.

MATTHEW NORTHRUP: Yeah, to me, I guess you could round it off as an educator, because all parents are educators when it comes to their children. It's just something that he always gave me was an education and life through our traditional ways.

TOM CRANN: We have a picture of him on our website from a recent profile wearing his Marine Corps cap with Vietnam on it, and I know that was a very strong part of his writing and his work. What did that experience in the US military and in Vietnam mean to him?

MATTHEW NORTHRUP: It meant a lot, as it's known that Indians joined the military at a high rate, percentage-wise, versus other races in the country. To be a member of a warrior class within our culture was very important to him, but he was also worried about me serving, because he told me if I ever joined the military, he'd beat me up, and I had to do it surreptitiously.

TOM CRANN: He was also a big proponent of Ojibwe language, and I wonder, did he ever talk to you about why that was so important to him?

MATTHEW NORTHRUP: Yes, he did. It was important to him because what happened to him with the boarding school experience where they beat the language out of him, because he spoke it when he went there, and they removed it from him and then sent him back to the reservation with English only. So it was a lifetime experience for him to re-learn the language and be able to pass that on to other generations.

TOM CRANN: His wake and funeral will be in the Anishinaabe tradition. Tell us what that will include and what he wanted the services to include, the memorial.

MATTHEW NORTHRUP: Anishinaabe tradition, you have a medicine man come in, and it's like a funeral like other religions. You pray over the body, you have the body in the front of the room, you have a feast where everybody comes together and the family is acknowledged and last respects are paid. It's a long process, so longer than I'd say pretty much anything I've ever experienced when it comes to a funeral.

TOM CRANN: I see from your Twitter feed that the gathering has already started and people have begun certainly eating and eating together and remembering your father. What are they saying? What kinds of things are you hearing?

MATTHEW NORTHRUP: It's amazing stuff. This is a unique thing for me, because when my father passed, family members immediately started showing up. He wanted me to let the world through his Facebook page, so I posted something immediately after his passing, which I thought was kind of ghoulish. But he informed me, no, I want this done.

And immediately his Facebook just exploded. There were thousands of messages of people that he's touched and he helped through their lives, either through his writings or his teachings of the language. That really impressed upon me how many people he has impacted in a positive way.

TOM CRANN: What do you think your father's legacy will be?

MATTHEW NORTHRUP: That ambassador on multiple levels when it comes to our culture, because so many people know so little about Indians, especially Minnesotans. I've learned that through the classes I've been taking, and it's just that he's able to bridge that gap, either through his writings or the language or the traditional way he lived his life.

TOM CRANN: Well, Matthew Northrup, thanks for taking a few minutes to remember your father Jim with us. I really appreciate it.

MATTHEW NORTHRUP: It was my pleasure, Mr. Crann.

TOM CRANN: A wake for Jim Northrup will be held tonight at 7:00 at the Sawyer Community Center in Sawyer, and his funeral tomorrow at 10:00 AM.