THE GOD WHO CANNOT SMILE
(A view of a 20th century indigenous person from the shore of this hemisphere to Castile and the Mayflower.)
The news spread quickly across the land. It was whispered in the mountains and in the vast valleys that there might be a fulfilling of the legend concerning Quetzalcoatl, that it appeared he returned from the Morning Star. It is said he promised to return with a vengeance when he was thrust from his homeland, a land which lies to the south and on the sunrise side of the world.
We were certain that the son of Morning Star had returned. We learned that he and his tribe entered the land with much anger and longed to destroy those that had put him out of his position as Cacique. The message came from the south and from the east, as the Mohawk and the Seminole knew of the legend for many seasons, and they, too, waited and wondered.
It is known that Quetzalcoatl was thrust from his domain because he was an honored Cacique and he worked the earth with his people. He gave new methods of growing corn and devised plans for growing cotton of many colors so staining cloth was no longer necessary. With his dreams he created methods of watering the earth and he helped the people grow food and fruit where there was once only a harsh landscape.
Quetzalcoatl taught the people to be good and share the bounty of earth. He said that the bounty of earth belonged to all of the people all of the time and children should be served first at the feast, then the Elders, then the people. He said that this is the manner of survival of the most precious and fragile of our life’s ingredients, the children. The children must eat first because of their youth, the Elders second because of their wisdom and their ability to teach children, and the people that are not yet wise but distant from being a child third, because labor was their love and to feed the children and Elders their honor. Together the people worked the earth and sang songs to the rising sun and to the vastness of the universe, and to all creatures dwelling upon earth and among the stars.
When the Kings and those of great power and jealousy ran Quetzalcoatl out of the land with much anger (because the people truly loved him) he vowed to return with thunder and lightning to re-claim his just position among the people. The lessons say that if he returned on one-deer* he would strike the children, if on one-jaguar,* he would strike all of the people, whomsoever; if on one-reed,* he would strike only Kings. It was during the season of one-reed when destruction came to the land.
Kings trembled.
That is how the lesson came to my people dwelling upon the western edge of our world near thundering waters of outer-ocean. Our creation is beside the crashing, hurrying mountain river and under a canopy of dancing stars where the unknowable dwells forever.
We know they came from the direction of the rising sun and Morning Star. But we also know that they are not Quetzalcoatl. We know they did not return to claim a just seat among the people and within our governing body. We know they do not have the power to love earth and to sing songs at dawn when bright stars look across forever smiling, as the new day is yet a silver-green veil in the east.
They landed in the south on the sunrise side of our world and destroyed the pueblos and the temples and assaulted the pyramids, our dream honoring the Great Powers dwelling within the universe. Their commander was invisible. Their commander gave them orders to destroy our people and to take possession of all our lives. Their commander bade them to take our homeland for a King and Queen dwelling in a distant land. Their God was angry with our people, commanding armies to slaughter us, it is said, in order to save us.
It would be many seasons before we understood their pain and learned more about their angry God. Kings trembled, and those honoring the fierce Kings.
It was not the passing of many seasons when we earned of another entry of strange beings into our homeland. Again we wondered. They entered upon the eastern shore of the great salt waters where the nations of Narragansett roamed in vast numbers under the summer sun, dancing with the beating of their great hearts in a vast circle, singing.
The strangers, too, had an angry invisible God to lead them and to command them. Their God was ferocious and had no tolerance for my people. They, too, came with dreams of destruction and they, too, appeared to have no honor for earth and the knowledge of earth within their being. God told them we had no soul, therefore, it was not only reasonable to destroy us, but by destroying us they would find great glory within His Kingdom.
Their God gave them our homeland and none of our chiefs can remember the season when their God petitioned the council asking for it so He could give it away. But God took it and gave it to strangers who walk upon the earth in anger, feast in anger, think in anger, dream in anger. We wondered and worried long about this God.
What was this two-footer who entered out homeland led by a strange God? What is this God who takes from our people and condemns us as if we had no purpose in dwelling upon earth and singing songs to all of life? What is God doing here? How long will He linger?
All of these questions were before our council gathered at the evening fire. Many council fires burned through the night. The answer refused to appear. The answer, too, was invisible.
We learned to read the speaking leaf and here is what earth children have discovered. It is said there have always been many invisible Gods governing the people dwelling in the lands beyond the salt waters. It is written that all of their Gods are jealous. In anger their God cast them to the winter wind. In anger their God forced them from their homeland. In glorified anger their Gods led them to “promised lands.”
In anger their God wrote laws upon stone for them to abide by. In anger their God pardoned them for bearing many diseases and much sickness to our shores. In anger their Gods crush other nations in order to plant his chosen people upon lands that are precious and sacred to original nations of the world. In anger their God intruded into the lives of many people and bid his flock to follow- seeking neither permission to enter nor pardon for the intrusion.
In anger their God battled with Satan and with other Gods that created war upon war, pit nation against nation, moved tribe against tribe and brother against sister. And when the conflicts were over it was impossible to identify that which was truly of a Satanic nature and that which was truly Godly. The native people of this world have not been able to discern between them. This is what the speaking leaf told us. Charlot of the Flatheads spoke to the council saying.
“We were happy when he first came. We first thought he came from the light; but he comes like the dusk of evening, not the dawn of morning. He comes like a day that has passed and night enters the future with him.”
The speaking page taught us that the wanderings of God were always met with conflict and confrontation. It said long ago His children were ejected from their homeland and God led them through the wilderness. He parted bodies of water so His people might pass through, walking upon earth, as they searched for peace and happiness – and land.
God commanded the people without uttering a sound. And that which worried our Council of Elders most was that God stood far away from the people, dwelling and watching from a distant, invisible place, heaven. Their God was not within their being, not protecting their spirit, not encompassing their purpose, but watched their movements to see if they dared to put another God first. He watched, always alert, always prepared to strike the “flock.”
Yes, they feared God!
Their God thundered unto them that He would condemn them for all seasons if they failed to obey His wishes. Their God told them that the native people were not real, but were cannibals and savages, that we were less than animals; that we dwelled in a world that we knew not how to manage, and that we had no connection between our spirits and the power that turns earth around the sun and sun around a greater wonder still. His word condemned the native people to death.
After being cast from their homeland, those thinking themselves as “pure,” gathered at Scrooby, which is a dwelling place in eastern lands. Soon they were cast from Scrooby and, after a long wandering, the God-people cast their covetous eyes to the shores of my people, the earth of our dreams, the world of our visions. Their God, as had the God of other “children,” promised them land. He did not ask our nations if he and his children could penetrate our domain. He failed to seek permission to enter. He, instead, trespassed into the world of the native nations and issued to his children a right to occupancy and ownership.
They came with their Book-of-One-Great-Law in one diseased hand and disease and guns in the other. From the floating long house called The Flower of Spring, it is said, they entered the land of the Narraganset, the Wampanoag, the Mashpee near the dancing waters called Nantuckett. There the natives fed them. There also, our spirits touched many diseases and much sickness.
In the season of falling leaves they arrived upon the sunrise side of our world. Our people became sick. Many nations perished, many children also. They said they were pure like snow, but upon close examination by our Chiefs and our Councils, we learned that they were diseased and unclean.
Their Chiefs also said they were pure. Chief spoke to the pure saying they must bind together as but a single being, and their bindings must be their love for God and for each other. In this manner they would prosper.
In this manner, their Chief said they would grow to be many upon the land. He spoke saying they would build a shining village upon the hills and their light would never, as the evening sun, fade into shadows. God commanded their Chief and the pure followed every word
They saw this land as a beautiful place created for them alone by their God, but they were not created here, nor was their God. Our Council spoke saying that this cannot be so. The Council said they were intruding and wished for them to go, but they lingered.
And they multiplied. It has been the passing of many winters as there are fingers of many hands. They grew into many people upon our land, more than the leaves of the forest. It is true they have a good life issued to them by their invisible, angry God. It is true they have built many shining villages, one upon every hill they approached.
But there is a truth spoken at the council fire in the purple softness of evening. Our Chief said:
“It is true the eastern people have grown to be many. It is true they have much land and many possessions. It is true they have made huge laws. It is true they have made shining villages upon the thousand hills. But they still do not have happiness. They shall never find happiness for all of the seasons they worship The-God-Who-Cannot-Smile.”
Sul’ma’ejote
