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

No End to Life

NO END TO LIFE

In an effort to magnify and clarify hay’dutsi’la for those individuals of the world society who have knowledge only of rote education, who think that indigenous people are created without the ability to think, that they are inferior and backwards and only an obstacle to the eyes of invading forces and therefore, because of the design of politics, must be erased from the path of progress by military force and all means of destruction for the good of all mankind, I write again about the wisdom given me during my life time.

Many times I wondered about the indigenous wisdom and knowledge that was erased from this earth by the crude and cruel tactics of fire and destruction festering in the thoughts of invading forces from Europe as they fell upon the original inhabitants of this continent.

This idea of hay’dutsi’la is a process and is also central to tribal Elder, Craven Gibson. He said he had a real name but never mentioned it, but he did live for a thousand snows, it seemed. Living alone some of his life he took the time to think (hayy), to process the thoughts (dutsi) and to obtain results (la). I was very lucky that he shared his thoughts with me. He called me the-man-who-writes-on-paper, so it is invalid for anyone to claim that I am giving away our secrets. The complainant’s lack of both secrets and general tribal knowledge is usually the condition that initiates this type of immature comment.

Before the ending of my high school days I worried about this thing, “life.” What is it? Where did it come from? Where does it go after the body holding life is destroyed by bombs, bullets, old age or fire?

As I looked around it was clear that natives around the world were omitted from the glories of Democracy and the “American Dream,” or the dreams of any other form of politics. We were left out of God’s account of the world, and since heaven and hell are not a part of our indigenous spirit, where does life go when death visits us? At that point I thought about everybody because judging by the Evangelist thing, heaven or hell, seemed to be a fairytale that evolved into an excuse that was liberally applied supporting the “right” to invade any native, any where, any time.

After Craven told how easily this earth can be turned into a moon by burning up, I worried about life with a new urgency, a vengeance.

I was fresh out of high school and in the Marines. I was stationed in the Far East, Okinawa. At some point during this period while I was worrying About life, I thought that if I knew when the beginning was then I could figure the ending and maybe then I could understand where the life force of the spirit goes upon death. For almost two years I searched for the wise people in that land (Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Cambodia and Laos. The Americans and Vietnamese made me jittery so I did not ask many questions there. Hostilities were fermenting and the natives knew an American invasion was imminent. Whenever I could, I asked when the beginning was. No one seemed to know. I was shipped “stateside” and finished my time and was discharged. Not long after that I was in Europe. It seemed that wisdom should be somewhere, in the forest, in the valley, on the mountaintop. No answer. I returned to my homeland and thought it may be worth while to ask Craven about the beginning. I went to visit him and asked about the beginning. He required me to return in two days when full moon was just rising. I did.

In my old pickup I rattled into Craven’s yard and he helloed me in for coffee. Moon was just climbing over the mountain range. After a cup of coffee we went out to his yard. Moon was just above the mountains now and we did not talk but studied the moon and its light splashing across the valley while listening to coyotes. Mosquitoes drove us back into the house. Craven piddled around and made small talk. I thought, “He forgot.” He kept doing little things, then stopped and rubbed the top of his ear and cocked his head a little like he was listening to something, then said:

“I THINK THERE WAS NO BEGINNING BECAUSE THERE IS NO ENDING AND IF THERE IS NO ENDING THERE CANNOT BE A BEGINNING.”

No end to life? That made me feel good, especially after the earth burning into another moon legend, but it also raised more questions that forty years later I am still formulating. Craven is no longer with us. He returned to the stars. Now where do I go for answers?

The Elders said that our wa’tu (spiritual umbilical cord) is connected in the universe where we began our journey long ago. I will return to that place. But does everyone have a wa’tu? Who do I ask?

Looking over my life I wondered why I didn’t go to Craven first. It would have saved years of worry and searching for an evasive thing that must be produced with hay’dutsi’la, and hay’dutsi’la was in my homeland waiting for me to ask a question.

A wise man may say that everyone uses hay’dutsi’la. Say to that wise man that moon is also an important ingredient in the hay’dutsi’la process, the moon and the rest of the universe, including coyotes and mosquitoes.

The old philosophers of my life said, “Think with your mind and when you don’t think with your mind, think with your heart. The mind is directly connected to the universe and it is all of the experiences of your ancestors collected through the generations and given to you long before your birth upon this earth.” I know now that there were great philosophers in my generations but my inability to know is there because I failed to learn many things before my birth, not the ancestors’ fault for not passing what they know to me. So yet, I wonder and worry about many things.