Ruby John, Native Fiddler

Photos by Minnie Wabanimkee

By Kathleen Stocking
Sun contributor

This profile is part of our series on the living legacy of Native Americans in the Leelanau region.

Ruby John, 26, is a jewel of a girl. Her name fits her. She’s also a gifted and versatile fiddler. One balmy Friday evening in mid-June she’s entertaining families at the Little Traverse Inn, fiddling in the Ruby Sky Band with some of her friends: Dane Hyde, who sings and plays guitar; Katie O’Conner, a singer and Irish dancer; and John Driscoll, a flautist and singer. The next week she’ll play for a staff dance at the Interlochen Arts Academy’s opening of summer camp. And after that, Saturday July 15, from 7 p.m.-1 a.m., Tucker’s in Northport. She’s known for playing a Métis-style of fiddle as well as Celtic, and standard country-and-mountain-style.

“Métis means half,” Ruby says.

The Métis-style, as she explains it, is a style of fiddling based on an early mix of French and Native music—and, as the years went by, some bits of Scots-Irish and English, according to musicologists—that arose out of combined culture that began in the late 1500s in northeastern Canada. “When the French fur traders came from France and had children with Native people,” Ruby explains, “they developed their own style of fiddle-playing. I don’t consider myself a traditional Métis fiddler because I didn’t grow up with it, but I love the sound and love to play it. I like all different kinds of fiddle-playing, all the different regions and the different styles, it’s like all different kinds of dialects.” She likes bluegrass music, too, which can sometimes show Native influence.

Métis fiddle-playing is related to, but not the same as, the Cajun music popularized by the band, Beau Soleil. In the case of Cajun music, the French influence occurred when the rebellious and unruly French Acadians—some of whom were Métis—were sent to French Louisiana in the mid-1700s after the British seized power from the French in Canada. The Louisiana south, sold by Napoleon so he could pay to put down a slave revolt in Haiti, wouldn’t become part of the United States until 1803. Cajun music, which sometimes partakes of elements of Creole music—a mix of black, white and Indian influences, a music popularized by the Neville Brothers, among others—is French-influenced Native-born music in the southern bayous and backwaters of the Mississippi delta.

A lot of American music, including that of Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley, both of whom believed they were part-Native, shows Indian influence. Joan Baez is part Mexican which means she was part Native American from south of the border. Buffy St. Marie is Cree from Saskatchewan. The blues song, Black Girl, as sung by Leadbelly and others, with notes in a minor key, can easily be imagined as a Native song with just vocals, and those strange catching noises in the throat, and may have been such a song in its origins.

Dane Hyde says he’s known Ruby for about 10 years and played with her for about five. “I think she’s awesome. She’s respectful of her elders. She’s respectful of the music and the work. I’ve watched her grow from a student to a huge resource for this area. She travels all over and comes back with new music for our community.”

In 2008 Ruby was invited by Anne Lederman, a fiddler from Manitoba, to attend the Elder Youth Legacy Workshop in Toronto, the only Native young person in the group from the United States. She says she studied the Métis-style for four weeks with several elders, including James Cheechoo, Lawrence “Teddy Boy” Houle, Colin Adjun, and John Arcand. Ruby is scrupulous in naming and crediting all the musicians who have mentored her. She began studying the fiddle when she was about 10 years old. “A fiddle is basically a violin with a flatter bridge,” she says, “the difference [between the two] is the music you play on them.”

I first met Ruby about 15 years ago, one winter when she and her two older brothers, Cameron and Alex, were being home-schooled at the tribal library where their mother worked as the librarian; I’d been brought in to help with literature and history. When Ruby and I met again recently to talk about her becoming a professional fiddler, neither of us could remember what I’d taught her. She remembered that one day I’d brought in what she called a French Silk pie, quiche Lorraine, something I’d forgotten. Her parents, Ed and Cindi John were there in the library, on a seasonal break from fishing. Her parents own the Treaty Fishing Company and from early spring to late fall run the Linda Sue, an excellent fishing boat named in memory of Cindi’s sister, out of the tribal marina on Grand Traverse Bay. Winter is their downtime.

Ruby was quiet and shy when I knew her as a pre-teen, but at 26 she’s outgoing, poised, seeking ways to connect and put me at ease, remembering the pie, talking about going to Kentucky to a fiddling event with her mom. Clearly the years of performing in public have honed these social skills. She has long, black hair and looks distinctly Indian, but seems to blend in naturally wherever she is, whether it’s a Celtic band at the Little Traverse Inn or an Indian event in Canada, swimming through it all as unselfconsciously as a fish, no matter how uncharted the waters.

For me, Ruby isn’t separate from her family. Yes, she’s a fiddler in her own right, and years and years of studying with different fiddlers have made her a good one, but I always remember the presence of her mother and her father. When I go online to see videos of her playing, I come upon one that takes place in what I instantly recognize as the old Kitchi Minogining (Garden of Learning) youth center and library. There she is, being videotaped, playing her fiddle, while George Trudeau, a Native language teacher and musician, stands, elegant and lively, at the piano. Ruby is obscured by the large bookcases, until her father, almost imperceptibly, comes behind her and gently ushers her from the shoals of the bookcases into the open near the piano where the camera can see her. Ruby, as all children are, if they’re lucky, was a group effort.

Native people in America, according to a study conducted by J. David Hacker and Michael R. Haines in the Department of History in Binghamton University, New York, in 2005, were reduced from a population of an estimated 7 million in the 1600s to an estimated 240,000 by the early 1900s, an 85-percent loss. War, disease, government removal policies that took indigenous people from their lands and put their children in government orphanages where they were beaten for speaking their language, punished for their spiritual beliefs, subjected to physical abuse and sometimes sexual abuse—all this horribly imbedded in the psyches of the children and carried back to the tribes and then further compounded by the resultant waves of alcoholism, poverty, violence, malnutrition, diabetes and suicides—made it almost impossible for people to survive with their souls and dignity intact. Indian writer Sherman Alexie, speaking recently on National Public Radio, said, “Children on reservations have the same degree of post-traumatic stress as combat veterans.” Life expectancy for American Indians in 1976, according to the Unites States Indian Health Service, was 48 years, while for other Americans it was 72.

Ed and Cindi John had to find a way to navigate the minefield of tribal destruction and chaos, keep their marriage and family together, and do it in a way that affirmed their cultural heritage. Having the treaty rights restored in 1980, after endless court battles, certainly helped. Treaty rights gave the people in Peshawbestown federal recognition, as well as treaty fishing rights, and ushered in a period of renewal. Bible-study groups helped, too, according to Cindi. Indian life expectancy has increased since the 1980s and is now at 73, five years below that of other Americans but much better than it was. Ed and Cindi’s success with fishing and keeping their family together is a testament to what tribal elder, Hank Bailey (see our June 3 profile of Bailey on our website, GlenArbor.com) is talking about when he refers to the current Indian Renaissance.

Initially Ruby’s mom, Cindi, took fiddle lessons with Ruby and Ruby’s two older brothers, Cameron and Alex. “When I was 14,” Ruby says, “I told my mom this was what I wanted to do.” Her brothers liked the fiddle, but not enough to pursue it full-time. Neither of her parents play music, but she says she has a great-grandfather on her mother’s side and a grandfather on her father’s side, both of whom were musicians, one a fiddle player and one a pianist. Ruby’s mom, Cindi, is part-Indian from the Grand Traverse Band and part-Irish by way of Appalachia. Ruby’s father, Ed John, is Ottawa through-and-through, with family roots in the Great Lakes area that go back uncounted millennia.

Ruby, after deciding she wanted to study the fiddle, took lessons from Traverse City music teachers Chris Williams, Jan Ostroski and others. “Lee Sloan was in his 90s when I started studying with him. I studied with Bob Saddler in Cadillac. I worked with George Trudeau. He lives in Traverse City and we still play together. We played for the Fall Festival two years ago in Wikwemikong [on Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron where Trudeau grew up],” Ruby says. “I played old-time Canadian fiddle and George played keyboard.”

Trudeau remembers the first time he heard Ruby play, about 13 years ago, “I said, ‘Ruby I can chord for you [on the piano]. And she said, ‘A lot of people say they can, but they can’t.’ Then I did. Oh my gosh, we hit it off, right from there.” Trudeau comes from a musical family. His mother, he says, was “a church organist and a fantastic honky-tonk piano player” and music came naturally to him; by his teens he was playing in bands. “Another thing about Ruby,” he says, “Any chord, she can name it, just like that.” Not all fiddle players can do that, he says.

Chris Williams remembers Ruby as a young student. “I started teaching Ruby when she was maybe nine. It’s been a joy to see her develop as a musician and as a person. She’s one of the few Native American fiddlers. If we include Canada, there’s more.” Williams first encountered the Native American style of fiddling when she met Nick Bailey (now deceased) in Manistee. “The sound, to my European-trained ears, just had a different twist to it. Then I watched Medicine Fiddle (a 1991 film by Michael Loukien about Indian-style fiddling, which is now viewable online) and saw that he was part of that tradition.” Williams talks about certain tunes, such as Red River Jig, Little Johnny with His Bandy Legs, Big Bear, Maple Sugar, and others that can be played both in a traditional European way and in an Indian way.

Ruby plays all over Michigan and across the border into Ontario: Garden River, Sagamok, Manitoulin. “Last summer was the busiest I’ve ever been. What took a toll on me was the traveling and being away from home.” Home is the rural Leelanau Peninsula. “I love coming back. The peace and quiet all around me. My family.” She helps her parents, as does her brother Cameron, with packing fish for the local farmers markets. Recently Michigan State University awarded Cindi and Ruby John a grant to teach Ruby how to smoke fish the traditional way of their culture.

At the Sara Hardy Farmers Market in Traverse City on a Saturday morning, Ed John is selling fish, greeting customers, while Cindi hands a gift to her son’s girlfriend’s toddler. “I love you,” she says to Cameron. “We’re a pack,” Cindy says, turning to me, “We work together.” Cameron works on the boat with his father and Ruby helps with the fish, too, when she’s not fiddling.

Ruby and Ed John learned how to fish from Native fisherman, the late Art Duhamel, who taught himself. Duhamel was a handsome and charismatic man who, following a hellish childhood in foster homes, orphanages, and juvenile detention centers, became a master welder and worked on the Alaska Pipeline and the Mackinac Bridge; he also spent some time in prison. Duhamel, articulate, determined, and famously imperfect in his personal life, fought for federal recognition of Indian treaty rights all through the 1970s and was ultimately successful. In honor of that fight, the tribal marina is named for him. “Art did a lot of things that were dangerous [like fishing in sub-zero temperatures in snow storms from a small, open boat],” Cindi says. “Ed and I try not to do some of those things.” They did not know how to fish when they started, but after 30 years, they’re experts.

“It was a lifestyle choice for my parents,” Ruby says. “My dad loved being out on the lake, loved fishing, and my mom loved my dad. I’ve helped with the fish my whole life. I clean fish boxes. When I was little, I helped my mom thread needles to mend the nets.” When Ruby was first born, she slept in a hand-made, white-pine, fish box, crafted for her by their non-Indian landlord, Earl Chervenka, who rented them space to mend their nets in his warehouse on Lakeview Road.

Now, with her mother’s tutelage, Ruby is looking forward to learning how to smoke fish. “The secret to good smoked fish,” Cindi says, “the secret to good fish, is to have it very fresh. We pull our nets every day. We set them at night and pull them in the morning.”

Ruby says her favorite fish is the whitefish. She has two recipes she recommends that are quick and easy. She sprinkles a little Old Bay (paprika, dry mustard, salt and pepper) spice on a fillet and wraps it in tinfoil and bakes it for 30 minutes. “Easy clean-up,” she says. Another way she likes to eat white fish is dipped in ranch dressing, rolled in Patak crumbs, and baked. These recipes work well for lake trout, too. Charlevoix, the French nobleman and Jesuit priest who came to North America in 1705, described the Great Lakes, the largest body of fresh water on earth, water so pure a traveler could drink from it anywhere, and the waters teeming with all kinds of fish, saying, “of these, the whitefish is the most esteemed for the richness and delicacy of its flavor and there is universal acquiescence that no other of the fish kind can excel it.”

We’re sitting under a tarp down by the tribal marina, bathed in humid, sugar-maple smoke from the smoker, while Ruby plays her fiddle, cross-tuned. The seagulls are swooping and calling out along the break-wall. The sounds of the seagulls rise and fall, countering the sounds of the fiddle. Clouds come close to the water. It’s overcast, intermittently raining. The rain silently accumulates in little pockets of the tarp and then, suddenly, when we’re least expecting it, cascades off with a big splash. The water out in the bay is blackish-gray-green where it’s deep and grayish-greenish where it’s shallower. “You can see the wind pushing the lake down,” Cindi John says. “It’s moving through. I hope it moves through before we go out to set our nets.” The smell of the smoked fish is familiar, comforting. For how many eons have humans been gathering at the end of the day to smoke fish?

“Traveling and going places,” Cindi John says, “that was Ruby’s college.” She opens the smoker and checks the fire below the fish. “Patricia,” Cindi says, “the woman at Interlochen (Patricia Reeser Hoejke, who recently had Ruby play there), we met her in Bayside Travelers. These people, lawyers and doctors some of them, but we just knew them as musicians. They supported Ruby.”

“When I was young and traveling to all these places,” Ruby says, “what kept me from getting into trouble was all these wonderful musicians who live here. Their support kept me from doing anything foolish.” She starts laughing, “When I was about 18 and had my first boyfriend, constantly on the phone with him, Charlie (at a bluegrass festival in Kentucky) grabbed my phone. He hung up on my boyfriend. He pulled me aside where my mother couldn’t hear and he said, ‘You tell me you want to be professional. You’re young. You’re a woman. You’ll get pregnant. It’ll be over for you. Do what you say you want to do, or don’t say it.’”

“We have all these families,” Cindi says, “Bayside Travelers, our immediate family, the tribe, Bible-study groups, music teachers, bluegrass festivals, people in Canada.”

Ruby wants to move into a more innovative kind of fiddle-playing called “open-tuning” which basically means changing the key the different strings are in, which will bring her closer to the strains of Native sounds found in some styles of fiddling. It reaches deeper into the heart and the unexpected shifts are stirring. Dane Hyde describes the sound that Ruby gets on her fiddle with her cross-turning as, “like the half-tones in the bagpipes.” The 12-tone scale, which is traditional for European music, leaves out some possibilities and, Ruby says, “Cross-tuning opens things up more.”

Ruby picks up her fiddle. “Those seagulls,” Ruby says. “I think they’re mating. They walk around with a big bunch of grass in their mouths, all crazy-eyed.” She imitates the sound. “Prupp, prupp. They talk to each other.” She tucks the bow under her chin and begins to play Red Prairie Dawn. The smoke and the music drift out over the water.