He Cried

03-05-09

HE CRIED.

Quickly look around at the condition of Mother Earth. There has been (and continues) rampant abuse and disrespect for the landscape/ the inter-dependent balance that lived healthy for all seasons is now very sick with the diseases neglect and disrespect.. Water is sick, ocean is dying, land is bare of forests and animal/bird life, air is terribly polluted and the sky holds no flocks of a million birds. In a very short time the strangers from Europe and other countries far away, taking more than necessary while destroying that which they view as excess, have defiled, dirtied and damaged little earth maybe beyond recovery.

Pukamukas is a term identifying the wonderful indigenous people who walked earth before us. Often they are called Elders. Please know that the first ingredient of an Elder is wisdom – not age or wrinkles or white hair. My life has been flavored by Elders. They are often silent, thoughtful, long to judge, and lack the macho bravado that announces a “warrior.” Today it is evident that few indigenous remember the requirements of a warrior and rely on TV to produce a character that they can emulate. Often the Hollywood presentation is gnarled to fit the price of the ticket and remains distant from reality, but it remains an image planted in too many minds.

Grampa Ramsey might not fit every quality of a Pukamuka, but to me he was wise, thoughtful, and pointed my brothers and me in a more stable direction and destiny. Neither was he my DNA Grandfather. Really, he was married to my father’s Great Aunt. Aunt Lorena remained Aunt Lorena, but when my generation started having babies, “Uncle” Ramsey magically turned to “Grampa.”

Often I saw my Grampa out in the field during a storm. He explained, “I love a beautiful storm.” Once when he was out there it felt like I was intruding “something” but he never mentioned it.

At another time he called for me. In the mountain dawn it was blowing and snowing sleet and it was freezing cold. Any gust almost burned my skin as it whipped, spinning along. He was standing out in the field watching a small flock of the geese, the ones we call Canadian Honkers. His posture was stiff and his body language said that he was deeply troubled by something, again. I really did not know to approach or stay a distance from him. Soon his posture relaxed and his body language invited me into his circle. Just know that I keep true to the words of the Elders. The indigenous conversation omits many of the “connecting” words English uses for a smooth presentation because people should know what the subject of conversation is.

After a quick greeting he said, “Look out in field. There few geese. Used to be million, everywhere, every time. Now there’s few.” Then he said, “Look at mountain. Bald headed now. Used to be big forests. All gone. Somebody cut down, haul away. No place for bird. No place for bear. No place for life.” Then he said, “Look at our people. Broke family. Husband drunk, gone. Maybe jail. Mother no stay home, bar. Childrings hungry. No respects for family any more.” I digested his thoughts while I watched the few geese, wondering how much more complete and full life and landscape was during his younger years. By the time I was born, assimilation and acculturation were allowing the cutting down of trees. Erasing an entire forest was just something that happened. Funny, I never thought about the birds or bears, deer or squirrels and little creatures. With Grampa’s concern, they were vivid in my thoughts now. Where do they go when their shelter and often their super market is erased? Simply gone one day. How do they hide from rifles, shot guns stalkers and murderers? Where do the smaller life-forms go? What holds the earth from washing away in the winter with no living vegetation with roots? Where do animals and birds get out of the hot sun in the summer? The Pukamuka knew that killing something in nature was premeditated murder and to somehow balance the deed with the necessity of the event, so the event could find pardon among the stars, prayers, songs, rituals and ceremonies were performed and were so absolutely necessary. The hunter and fisher asked the great powers holding the universe for forgiveness because they did murder but it was to feed the hungry people. They fed the people that sing throughout the day and around the camp fire, the children who scream with delight in the spring , the Elders of our experience who sing, pray and do ceremony at dawn. The hunter and fisher provided for those that have been appreciating and respecting nature and the great powers for all seasons. The universe issues a blessing through the Pukamukas which encourages the hunter to go out again, and the fisher to mend his net and prepare the spear and the smoker. And so it was. Flowers and forests breathed, animals listened to the melody of sun rising. Life’s orchestra continued in balanced rhythm for all seasons.

Then from the east bad news came with the messenger at dawn. Strange beings acting out of balance with nature were moving across earth. They came in huge canoes from the sunrise. It seemed they did not know how to conduct themselves in the land of another people. The law upon this continent has always been, “When in the land of another people, don’t turn a leaf, don’t break a branch.” This rule applied equally to all tribal people from the North Pole to the tip of Patagonia especially the hunters.

In vicious violation of the rule came the plunder-minded, diseased strange beings from the east. Their vision of things real was warped and deformed. “There is a beautiful temple. Attack it, knock it down. Burn it. There I a beautiful village. Attack it. Kill the natives, burn it. There is a gathering of medicine men. Cut their heads off. The animals and birds are running wild, kill more of them than you can eat then leave the murdered body in the sun to sour and rot.”

Grampa looked across the near empty late winter field that should be bustling with a million geese preparing to fly south. I assumed he thought about all that was wrong now with a world that was all right only moments ago. He shivered, his bottom lip quivered slightly and he said, “The white man brought many disease, but the bad one was disrespects.”
Then he looked to the present. “Babies neglected. Father [too many] drinks, in jail. Mother [too many] drunks, in bar. Fathers and mothers harm the childrings. Disrespects in every home and everywhere. Young men, women drinks, beat on each other, childrings. Animals, disrespects. Birds disrespects. Water dirtied. Land in pain, hurts. Forest, trees gone. No more salmon, river. No more herd of deer, flock of honker. Sky he sick. Ocean sick, many poison. World maybe not live long.”

He trembled again saying, “Too many family break up. Too much pain. Too much disrespects.”

There in the silence between dawn and sunrise and under the frozen clouds, Grampa’s bottom lip quivered. In a thundering quiet filled with a helpless wonder “why,” he cried.

Sul’ma’ejote

OBAMA: One change natives can believe in

12-18-08

Mr, Barak Obama,
President of the USA,
The White House,
Washington, D. C. 20008

Sir. I have been supporting your position for some time because it is 516 years past time for change in the indigenous arena. Positive change in your Administration will not happen unless the entire cabinet is fresh and I admire your political structure so far, but there are also crusty old bureaucrats that have been cultivating and inheriting their offices for so long that it now seems to be a family enterprise instead of a function of government. I will be happy when that bulwark is ejected from the government and new, strong, positive visionaries are installed. For more than half of a century the Elders and Pukamukas (Wonderful wise people who walked earth before us), prayed at dawn for a changing of the gnarled concepts of racism, hate, suspicion, Apartheid and careless indifference born to our shores and created out of assault, destruction and weaponry. This is a heinous assault upon my people that is justified, pardon and praised by a callus and visionless American society today.

I am an indigenous Professor, born into tribes in California, and I see many areas in basic elementary, through Graduate School curriculums, that must be changed. History upon this hemisphere did not start with Columbus’ importing diseases and criminals into sterling indigenous societies any more than history of the African continent began when Columbus left the Ivory Coast in the 1480’s with a hold full of shackled Africans heading to the slave markets throughout Europe, but too often this is what is fed to natives and Americans in doses too big and confusing to deny. Your curriculum committees in your education departments should look upon this area of education, see the atrophy of worthy information, and create an antidote, then inject the infected study while casting out that which has purpose only in propaganda, and I feel they will.

You are well aware that indigenous creation legends are valid native history, and should not remained branded as “myth.” According to my tribal legends, “our history” begins with Thought alone in the vast. Thought wanted to be something, so changed to voice. Voice wanted to be beautiful so changed to song. Song sang for a “million years or more,” and a little light appeared far away. Song sang and sang until the vast was filled with stars, galaxy’s, Milky Ways. Eventually song sang this earth into presence. At first it was all water, but song created a small island floating upon the water. Much magic and dreaming thrived in those days, and magical, beings appeared. Annikadel was first, then Qan (Silver Fox), then Cloud Maiden. More helpers came to sing, dance and stretch the island into the world we know today, preparing it “…for children coming.” Europe was not a place at that time and in our understanding, Europe is a part of this world, neither older nor more just than any other land. Across this hemisphere indigenous are forced to accept the European paradigm of history and all else identified as “education.” Education, then, remains a guarded institution from Europe, excluding all other forms of indigenous knowledge. A clear-thinking Education committee should address this deception very soon.

Yesterday you selected a person for Secretary of Interior. Secretaries of the interior have been, for centuries, inheriting millions of dollars per year plus the lives and resources of natives across this land, seemingly as his “step-children.” He then collects the money for native health, welfare and education, then neglects the “step-children” with a velocity resulting in penurious, heinous neglect and abuse. Because the Secretary is appointed instead of being voted into office by the natives, his position uses precisely the same strategy as any dictator of any “developing” country. His appointment dictates that his allegiance be to the Congress, and not to the indigenous. The indigenous land and rights become an easy target for the Secretary (like government representatives shooting quail in Texas), as he takes from the natives and delivers his take to the Congress. He then is protected by a comfortable Congress no matter that the “booty” delivered to Congress is pilfered from the indigenous. From a little distance this scenario looks much like a dope deal with the Congress receiving the lion’s share.

This, sir, is an area that screams for immediate change. A dictator should not be encouraged in a Democracy.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs could be re-named the Bureau of Congressional Affairs, because the will of Congress has always been driving the Indian Bureau, not the needs of indigenous. Within the Bureau of Congressional Affairs there could be an Office for American Affairs because the current intention of the Indian Bureau is to stand for American interests and against the indigenous purposes.

Should indigenous considerations ever be weighed in governmental agencies, the non-native “experts” must be made mute and their slanted logic and questionable knowledge must be extracted from any opinion involving indigenous. In their finest moment, “experts” have historically maintained an arena where the knowledge and wisdom of natives remains a feeble act coupled with questionable eloquence. The “experts” need not talk for natives. We have polished that activity in the vast universities across this land, yet we remain neglected in our honed state as if we yet sit by the side of the trail rusting while the strategically armed procession marches into the west to master it. Sir, this Apartheid must be recognized, arrested, and disposed.

Thank you Mr. President. Many children are writing letters to you today. Please read their thoughts before you read this one. I am sure their messages are pristine and filled with sterling dreams for the future of America while they hold your hand and in their other hand, their hearts. Sincerely,


Sul’ma’ejote (aka)
Darryl Babe Wilson,