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