DISRESPECTS

“DISRESPECTS”

I went early one day to visit “Grampa” Ramsey and Aunt Lorena. They were both of the older generation. Ramsey had an original name. Following the instructions of culture, he was named after the landscape where he was born. In the “real way” this is how it is supposed to be. Like a fawn, he was born on a hillside near a series of springs and the water ran down into the little valley. His name described the springs and the action of the water: Juaji ah jujuji (Where the water comes up and the grass growing in the water is always dancing).

It was fall and it was crisp in the morning darkness. I wanted to get to their home before they had breakfast because Aunt Lorena made the best biscuits and eggs over-easy in the whole wide world. Ramsey was not my Grandfather. He was married to my father’s great aunt and we called him Uncle until we had children and his title simply changed to “Grampa.” Aunt Lorena was always Aunt Lorena. She was a beautiful lady with a sterling life-spirit.

I arrived at dawn. Ramsey was out walking in his yard. Ramsey and I stood on the edge of a wheat field talking and waiting for Auntie to call us for breakfast. She knew I was coming for breakfast because that is my habit. If I didn’t sleep overnight then in a week I’d be there for breakfast. Auntie knew that I might kill for her fresh biscuits and her wild plum jam. Her jam was magic. She said it was the song she sang while making it. That was one amazing song full of love.

Ramsey was prepared for me in his “thinkings.” Before breakfast it seemed like he was very much into the landscape and migrations, but he was preparing to give me a philosophy lesson, itspo’e’otisi. We watched a flock of geese landing in the huge field and he talked of how huge the flocks were when he was a kid, compared to now there are few in the flocks and few flocks. Deer do not migrate in huge herds but are now only remnants, almost only a memory. A series of dams on the river have denied salmon the natural migration instinct of spawning, and that political decision damaged the salmon spirit and the homeland by denying food to the natives and to the other life living in the land from Eagles and bears to ants. One summer Ramsey showed me where (long before my birth) there was a large camp down by the river during the “runs.” Salmon were taken from the river and dried and smoked here in preparation for winter. Acorns and salmon got us through many long, bitterly cold winters. Winter is described in our oral literature as: Apnui (when the ice cracks). During the winter the keepers of wisdom tell of how Annikael moved the sun south. Sun stops going south, and that is the time Annikadel gives the sun to Spring Maiden. Spring Maiden brings the sun and fresh life north again. She also brings flowers and fruit for the children.

Ramsey talked with a heavy voice about all of these things very necessary to life, that have been fading away since he was a young person, a fading that began with the invasion by Europeans.

Besides the perfume of coffee, something thick with aroma came from Auntie’s kitchen and wrapped around us out in the early chill. We listened for her signal and waited quietly. Her signal was a tapping with a butter knife on the kitchen window. In the early, nippy quiet we were thinking and waiting quietly. Then, “tap,” “tap,” “tap.”

When we opened the door to her kitchen a tsunami of warmth laced with the aroma of ham and eggs, fresh biscuits, coffee and bear claws that she bought at the store “For a special occasion,” came in a blast of warmth. Rheumatism was creeping into Auntie’s life and sometimes her hands and shoulders hurt her terribly, yet she continued to pick fruit, to create pies for after dinner, and to make preserves for winter. She then cooked wonderful foods for our bodies that simply dripped with aromas wrapped in the flavors of love. Such was that breakfast. A warm bear claw and a fresh cup of coffee made the early day seem warmer and brighter.

After breakfast Ramsey and I went back out into the morning to talk with the sunrise and to think. Sun was just kissing the mountaintops in the west. At this time of morning there was usually a lot of quiet, no bird songs or coyote calls to half-moon. That thick, deep quiet was across the land like a mist.

Ramsey said, “Babe, the white man brought many disease but the bad one was disrespects.”

Wow! His hay’dutsi’la (thinkings) spurred my hay’dutsi (thought) into action. My thoughts came alive and alert, almost like they were touched with a red-hot branding iron. What powerful, precise and complete words! Ramsey continued showing me how the forests had been cut down and the animals and birds fled or perished, how the river is sick and dirty, how the vast migrations are small now, merely a token, how salmon camp was no more, how animals are killed like they have no feeling or purpose, how cars and Americans with superior “dominion over” have rights to run over little animals, how the world is changing, diseased and often decaying, how American and indigenous families are sick and crumbling.

He looked long across the landscape and I thought he was looking for another flock of geese to migrate in, but instead he saw the landscape of the native family left in the wake of civilization and progress. He said, “Look at the Indians. Mens in jail, womans in bar, kids is car out front, hungry. No respects. Look at bad habit of Americans brought with them. No respects. Look at the laws that deny us rights. No respects. Look at white people. They think it is right to take everything from us, but if we take something from him, even bread, it is okay with law if he shoots us and our family. No respects. Look at the jail, always full of disrespects. Why do they take all of our land and leave us nothing? No respects. How can this land belong to strangers and not us? Who made these crooked laws? It is “disrespects!”

Soon the old council called for me. They sent me back to college to “Learn how to use words like bullets, because that is how Americans use words against us.” I entered the hallowed halls of advanced education, paying particular attention to the United States Constitution and the laws founding America. But that is a story for another day, not today. For now, let’s remember the terrible, arrogant attitude of “disrespects” that encourages harm to multiply