Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Morgan Snowfall


Peter and Elizabeth Snowfall were aggressive civil rights activists during the 1960’s. They realized when Elizabeth became pregnant that a town like Laurel, Mississippi was not going to change any time soon. So they packed up the few belongings they had and drove their old truck as far away from Mississippi as they could get. Peter was able to secure citizenship for himself and his wife before their child was born and they settled into a community housing community just east of Lac La Ronge, Saskatchewan. There were no more than a six hundred people in their community, most of them members of the Blackfoot Tribe of Native Peoples. They named their son “Morgan” after a charming actor who appeared on a Canadian childrens show called Sesame Street. They truly believed that this new life would spare their son the difficulties they experienced growing up in the South.

The trouble began for Morgan when he started Residential School at age 7. Many of the Native People did not think he was entitled to attend their school and wanted him sent elsewhere. They also resented the favoritism he received by some of the Catholic Priests and Nuns who considered him “less of a heathen” because of his Christian parents. Luckily the government soon shut down the Residential School and open a public school, although it was over 16 kilometres away.

During the long walks to public school the harassment changed from verbal insults to more physical abuse. They called him names which hurt the young boy as much as any racist term his parents endured in the South. They called him “mudwater”, “crow’s son” and the most offensive “white man’s dog”. After Morgan turned sixteen it became even worse. A group of five boys belonging to the Cree Tribe of Native Americans began hunting Morgan on his walks through the forest to and from school. Although he was never hurt too bad, nobody would intervene and eventually it escalated. At this point Morgan began helping an old Algonquin man named Charlie Chogan. Charlie was mostly blind but he began sharing stories of Native culture with Morgan whenever they were together. Charlie realized that only drastic action would change the direction of Morgan’s life and so the night before his 18th birthday Charlie spiked his meal with magical mushrooms. Charlie lived near the school in a small log cabin and when Morgan stepped out of the cabin that day, with the drugs pumping through his system, the forest seemed to open up for him.

The Cree boys were waiting that night and had dug a tiger pit and placed a deadly rattlesnake in it. As Morgan wandered through the woods in a drug haze, they snuck up on him and pushed him into the hole. Morgan merely sat in the tiger pit, watching the snake. Almost subconsciously he began to move back and forth and the snake imitated his movements. Charlie was worried for the boy and went looking for him, when they found Morgan in the morning, he was happier than he had ever been and Charlie knew that the boy was gifted with a natural affinity for magic. Morgan was able to learn many Earth Magic spells quite easily and by the time he graduated high school he was already considered a gifted Magi. Morgan then travelled to Africa where he eventually met the Goddess of the Earth herself, Gaia. Gaia was impressed that a human was able to learn the magic of two continents and gave him one of her oldest gifts, an African Mask that would amplify his abilities.

During the years of study and travel Morgan Snowfall met many other magicians and heroes. He discovered that magic had once existed on the Earth but another magician of African descent, Abraxas Ro, had sealed the magic off from the Earth. Now after a hundred years the magical energy had returned and Snowfall was one of the first to harness it. He studied for many years in Egypt with the world’s oldest magician and hero, The Sphinx. He also encountered The Black Flag, a younger hero from Canada and they became good friends. Gaia had hoped that with the return of magic humans could prepare themselves for the inevitable return of the Gods who existed in a realm that was also sealed off from the Earth in the year 1900. Gaia had chosen a number of humans to serve as the warriors and protectors of the planet, so that the Gods would no longer influence the destiny of mankind as they once did. Snowfall was in fact her second chosen hero and the first magician, the other was a young boy named Mowgli who lived in the jungles of India in the 19th century. He would eventually fight along Snowfall later on in life under the name The Jungle King. Whereas Snowfall could harness the weather and the plant life of Earth, the Jungle King was a physical warrior with an affinity for animals and a gift for combat. At the turn of the 21st century Gaia chose her two more warriors to defend Africa and Australia; Boss Tiger and Catman. However Gaia still has a special place in her heart for Mowgli and Snowfall.

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