My Tribal Elder on Columbus

My Tribal Elder on Columbus

I was just I second grade. I thought that I was pretty smart and I was prepared to prove it. This was in the days when the indigenous people gathered in a good way to talk and discuss, usually wondering about this thing “civilization” and this thing “progress.” Too many of the old ones, both appeared to have a purpose of damaging earth and life, akin to the caterpillar tractor that today unconsciously damages life while shoving the landscape around.

The many American “rights,” were usually discussed as much as the American “wrongs.” Many of those gathered there that day were born a hundred years before me, and had experienced everything, but my arrogance instructed me to teach them something about what I had been gathering of history at my American school. I was a “pup-dumb” little tyke, so began my lecture with the sterling feats of Columbus.

The brave man sailed into the unknown and found us here and he is a great man for his efforts. Kings and Queens liked him a lot and they gave him money to keep adventuring and finding people and land. We all should think of him as having a good, brave heart.
My second grade knowledge base kept me from noticing how thick the atmosphere had become. Looking back I now see that I should have never opened my mouth in council until I was fifty-years old! The council was very patient with me, but an Elder Lady looked at me several times. Finally she spoke.

“This great Columbus, he found us and our homeland?”
“Yes.”
“We had to be lost if he found us.”
“Yes.”
“Did this great man find the sun, too? Because our homeland was never lost, any more than the sun was lost.”

That was the first ray of dawn sunlight splashing across my abyss of stupidity concerning history, and it laid the foundation driving me to look through American intentions and see a frantic people, constantly dissatisfied with life, and much like Old Coyote in our lessons and legends who had to change everything, “for the best,” he said.

Today earth is damaged beyond repair yet machines are gouging the mountains and angry machines are drilling thousands of holes deep into earth – even under the threatened oceans. Seasons are sick and confused, water decays, bombs and bullets lurk in the dawn. Forests are only shadows of their original design, societies ache with pain and fear, life trembles and flees the terror all around. There, dressed in a tailored suit, death smiles.

Now in my advanced age my spirit looks across the landscape and I understand why the Elders were united against this civilized beast, progress. Too, my spirit witnesses as our precious life-forces are rendered valueless by politics. Then my trembling heart trembles the more, seeking refuge in the placid dreams of children.