Check out Davey's final project at:
http://daveyrockwell.blogspot.com/2009/07/educationharmony-implementing-proper.html
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Lizz Burke's Final Project
A girl sits in the field. She gazes thoughtfully at a flower in front of her. This flower is being pollinated by a honey bee. The bee flies off. The girl thinks about the relationship between the flower and the bee, the flower’s part in the field as a whole, the bee’s job in replenishing a new generation of flowers to compose the field, the bee’s role in making honey for her to eat. She thinks about the sun’s role in making all these plants grow, and how she wouldn’t be here if not for the intricate network of life that surrounds her. She realizes her existence is not necessary to the field. The field would go on without changing if she disappeared, but if the field were to vanish, the bee and its honey would not exist, and her life would be different. All these thoughts are defined in her language, which frames her reference for reality. Her capacity and understanding of language grows with each new observation. These observations help her establish her identity and place in the world.
The cyclical process of identity, language, and observation, is key to unlocking Ojibwe ways of knowing. Each is integral to building the other, much like the cyclical processes of nature. Observation is framed through language, and language helps define identity. An identity facilitates perception, which influences observation. The Ojibwe have employed these processes for thousands of years, through migrations and the gradual changing of their culture and people. It is for these and other reasons that I and my classmates sought to learn about the original inhabitants of the continent we share. What we found was both shocking and inspiring.
The changes of the past centuries have been devastating to many indigenous communities around the world; the Ojibwe are no exception. Outside influences have severely undermined their sense of identity. Their license plates read “Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians,” and “White Earth Ojibwe.” Some band members say “Ojibwe” while a local eco-botonist self identifies as a Native American. A professor at Red Lake Tribal college tells me nothing except Anishinaabe is acceptable, because that is the original identifier of his ancestors by his ancestors; a different professor tells me Anishinaabe simply means The People, which includes all the people of the earth; a third professor tells me I am Native American, as I was born on Turtle Island (North America), but, he made a clear distinction, I was not indigenous. One man says they keep the term Indian, even though it was bestowed upon them after some Italian got lost, because they're the only race specifically referred to in the United State constitution. The signs driving into the nearest town mark the forests as 'Chippewa,' but the only person we heard identify himself as 'Chippewa' was a drunken patron in a small local bar in Michigan.
When we came to study the culture, the last thing we expected was such a dissenting jumble of identities. But the problem of naming was only the beginning of their troubles. The native community is torn between a rich heritage desecrated by centuries of political and cultural abuse, and the contemporary challenges of American life. Reservation life reflects these conflicts. Drug abuse and alcoholism are rampant. Piles of trash overrun tiny houses nestled in reservation forest. Pairs of sneakers hang on telephone wires to mark gang territories. Shells of burnt houses, we're told, are just parties that got out of hand. Classrooms are half-empty because teachers have given up trying to find their pupils. Nearly every band member has a story to tell. Her daughter died 7 months ago from drug overdose. His house was broken into and his cousin shot. He died, hit by a drunk driver. Her husband was stabbed by the neighbor trying to protect the dog. These are not the serene tipi dwellers many Americans imagine to be the remnants of the original inhabitants of this continent.
Davey put it best when he said, "We saw a lot of bad things, but felt a lot of good things." Even amidst the poverty and the weight of tragedy, the Ojibwe spirit remains indomitable. The heart of the people beats strong as their sacred drums. Ceremonies and pow-wows continue to be held, tribal colleges battle courageously against corruption to provide higher education in the context of their own tradition, and there is still a nearly inexhaustible wealth of wisdom to be found among the elders. Children are raised by a network of family, often exposed to ancient traditions carried out in new ways, like the tapping of trees for sap: the “sugar bush.” Wild rice is harvested and cooked and shared. Wind turbines and other forms of sustainable energy are being constructed to offset the cost of powering community buildings. These, also, are not the natives Americans imagine.
The perception of the indigenous people by the average American is one of distance. There’s a notion that the stragglers of a dying culture will soon be gone, adapted or abandoned. Theirs was an era before our time, and our culture just happened to come out dominant. Another notion is that the Indians live in little bubbles across the continent, keeping to themselves and adapting their culture to smaller and smaller bits of land. Either way, people think of Indian communities as separate entities that have no bearing on anything outside their reservation. This separation is just an illusion. One of the principal teachings of the Ojibwe is that everything is interconnected and interdependent. This applies to everything from localized ecosystems to the global political machine. Everything affects everything else.
This central principle precipitates several distinct behavioral patterns for both traditional and contemporary Ojibwe communities. If everything is interconnected, then those connections can be observed. To the Ojibwe, observation is more comprehensive than a mental laundry list of objects in the immediate surrounding. Couch, television, laptop open, coffee table, books. Observation is an ongoing process of "receptivity to our surroundings. [This,] combined with creativity characterizes our perception." (Cajete 26) Infants traditionally spent the first two years of life strapped to a cradleboard, a method of allowing the baby to accompany the mother on her daily chores while opening him or her up to the world of colors, movement, and activity. As the child grows, feasts are held to celebrate observable developments, like a girl getting her first period, or a boy’s first kill, instead of arbitrary ages somehow linked to maturity.
While we didn't see any cradleboards or first kill ceremonies on the reservation, there is still a strongly fostered sense of observation as a part of education. While staying with my host family, their eldest son had very limited interaction with us, but we later found out he had many goods things to say about us. He didn’t say much while we were there, but he was observing closely. Kent Nerburn, a writer with a foot in both the inside and outside world of Minnesota's native community, couldn't have been more spot on. He told us: "You are being watched." And it’s not just people or visitors who are being watched. The weather, the plants, and animals, the myriad processes of life are all subject to their watchful eyes.
One result of their focus on observation is that they talk less. This is a difficult cultural barrier to many Americans because they are accustomed to a continuous stream of noise, either from conversation, a television, radio, media player, or just normal sights and sounds of busy industry. Silence to many is awkward or uncomfortable. To them it is a state of balance and tranquility.
Another important effect of observation is the necessity of participation in the surrounding environment. By acknowledging everything is connected, you are acknowledging that you are connected to everything, and should take the necessary steps to preserve and honor that connection. That connection is important in forming a personal and cultural identity.
Participation takes several forms. One of the most common rituals of participation is the offering of tobacco. Tobacco is a sacred plant used in many ceremonies and prayer. It is offered to the spirits as a sacrificial victim when smoked from a pipe. It's used during gathering to acknowledge a human need, that you are taking something from nature, and reciprocating by giving something back. It's not a bartering system, leaving more if you take more, but an acknowledgment of the order of things and a way of respecting nature.
Respect comes from understanding how the world is structured. The order of things involves four levels of life on the planet. Depending on Western religious and cultural variation, humans are either placed equal with or slightly above the animal kingdom. Other forms of life are ordered from the most to least complex, with the more complex organisms being designated more important. The Ojibwe reverse the system and organize not based on complexity but on dependence. Using this method of thinking, the Earth itself is at the top of the hierarchy. Everything depends on the planet. Next come the plants. The plants depend on the earth. Then come the animals, which depend on the plants. Last are humans, because nothing depends on us to live, but we depend on the lives of plants, animals, and the planet.
Everything in this order is considered active. The plants, rocks, thunder, even stories. Everything is alive and has spirit. In this sense, everything is open to participation in its environment. These spirits must be honored and respected. Western science calls this animism. Taking this into consideration and allowing it to change your perception alters the way in which a being observes.
Language is an important part of observation, because through language a culture is able to frame its experiences in reality. Native language is no different. Their world views are reflected in the structure of their language, which makes it a critical part of their culture. Just as their principle of animism projects that everything is active, most of Ojibwe-mowin, their language, is in the form of verbs, an active or moving part of communication. Without this method of expressing fundamental views of their surroundings, these views change with the translation of the language. Several times fluent Ojibwe speakers told us when they try to say things in English, it comes out backwards.
A sacred view of life cannot be properly conveyed if it’s being told backwards. All Ojibwe ceremonies, including the sacred drum and funerals, are still done in the Ojibwe language. At a funeral, even if the deceased never spoke a word of Ojibwe in their life, the language is still used because they believe it is the language their spirit will understand. Because these ceremonies are primary surviving elements of the culture, it is absolutely essential that the language remain intact and alive.
Unfortunately, this is one of their biggest obstacles. Dwindling fluency levels of their native tongue means many younger Ojibwe can’t say more than a few words or broken phrases in their own language. Nearly all fluent speakers are elders. Parents don’t know the language, and so cannot pass it to their children. The largest contributor to this problem is the legacy of the boarding schools. This was a topic we heard about in some form from nearly every person we met, an appropriate reflection of the widespread devastation it caused. The schools were run by Christian priests and nuns in order to assimilate the Indians and produce “apples:” citizens who were red on the outside and white on the inside. These men of the black book and black robe are a major cause of the current language crisis. Children were effectively kidnapped from their parents and severed from any participation with their culture or communication with their community. Speaking a language other than English was punishable by severe beatings. Many children died or were sexually abused in these schools. All this was done with the blessing of the United States government. There has still been no formal apology.
One of the many unanticipated consequences was a succession of generations that had no idea how to parent their own children, both in terms of physical and spiritual development, because they were not exposed to their own cultural traditions as they matured. Their sense of identity had been fractured by the attempted extermination of their language. The white notion of a nuclear family separate from a community was wholly foreign and largely incompatible to an Indian way of life. The Ojibwe raised children in conjunction with their aunties and uncles and grandparents just as integrally as the parents.
The splintered sense of home is amplified a thousand times because of 1887's Dawes Act. This act of Congress was just one in a long line of legislation that reversed and swindled land from previously held band ownership. The basic premise of the law was to give each Indian individual allotments of reservation land and to give the rest of the land to white settlers or industries that would extract its resources. Of the three reservations we visited, only Red Lake refused allotment and the land is still held in common to all band members. White Earth and Leech Lake are now “checkerboard” reservations where the tribe only owns a small percentage of the land. White Earth currently has a land recovery project intending to "facilitate recovery of the original land base of the White Earth Indian Reservation, while preserving and restoring traditional practices of sound land stewardship, language fluency, community development, and strengthening our spiritual and cultural heritage," according to their website. They still only own less than 10% of the original land base.
Considering even the original land base of the reservation is just a tiny fraction of the land the Ojibwe occupied shortly before the Europeans invaded, along with the cultural rape of the past century, and the continuing problems the Ojibwe face, it's a testament to their strength that they survive. Not only are they surviving, they are recovering in the face of what they now refer to as “historical trauma.” Historical trauma is a collective damaging of the community psyche. Many compare the tribulations of native tribes to the horrors of the Jewish Holocaust. This comparison is a poor one, that doesn't capture the vastness or continued insensitivity toward native problems.
By the mid 20th century, the United States government had attempted to extinguish their language and culture, rob them of their lands, and quash any identity associated with indigenous knowledge. But the persistence of the people kept the heart of the culture beating, and programs are underway to help re-establish healthy native communities and identities. I heard an Ojibwe say, “I want to be true to our traditional worldview but responsive to our realities.” Cultures change, and the hardships experienced by the Ojibwe will no doubt transform the way future generations function in the world. Their mode of thinking places an emphasis that all decisions should be made with the seventh generation in mind. Hopefully, those future generations will enjoy a place where their skills of observations and ways of knowing compliment the methodological estrangement of Western science to enable humans in interact peacefully and responsibly with their environment and each other.
The first step toward this bright future is an apology, and an acceptance. An apology for the wrongs done, and an acceptance of responsibility. My ancestors in all probability took advantage of natives in some form or another. The most difficult part of the trip was knowing that, and knowing that we were not there to help or judge. We were there to learn. We were there to co-exist. We were there to take the knowledge offered in friendship and use it to the benefit of all. It is not enough to know or to think, we must act. I will act. My future as an educator puts me in a unique position to re-shape the minds of the next generation. They will learn the full history of the land they live in, the beauty and sadness of the stories of its people, and all the intricacies of a flower and a bee.
Miigwitch, Bruce, for this experience.
The cyclical process of identity, language, and observation, is key to unlocking Ojibwe ways of knowing. Each is integral to building the other, much like the cyclical processes of nature. Observation is framed through language, and language helps define identity. An identity facilitates perception, which influences observation. The Ojibwe have employed these processes for thousands of years, through migrations and the gradual changing of their culture and people. It is for these and other reasons that I and my classmates sought to learn about the original inhabitants of the continent we share. What we found was both shocking and inspiring.
The changes of the past centuries have been devastating to many indigenous communities around the world; the Ojibwe are no exception. Outside influences have severely undermined their sense of identity. Their license plates read “Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians,” and “White Earth Ojibwe.” Some band members say “Ojibwe” while a local eco-botonist self identifies as a Native American. A professor at Red Lake Tribal college tells me nothing except Anishinaabe is acceptable, because that is the original identifier of his ancestors by his ancestors; a different professor tells me Anishinaabe simply means The People, which includes all the people of the earth; a third professor tells me I am Native American, as I was born on Turtle Island (North America), but, he made a clear distinction, I was not indigenous. One man says they keep the term Indian, even though it was bestowed upon them after some Italian got lost, because they're the only race specifically referred to in the United State constitution. The signs driving into the nearest town mark the forests as 'Chippewa,' but the only person we heard identify himself as 'Chippewa' was a drunken patron in a small local bar in Michigan.
When we came to study the culture, the last thing we expected was such a dissenting jumble of identities. But the problem of naming was only the beginning of their troubles. The native community is torn between a rich heritage desecrated by centuries of political and cultural abuse, and the contemporary challenges of American life. Reservation life reflects these conflicts. Drug abuse and alcoholism are rampant. Piles of trash overrun tiny houses nestled in reservation forest. Pairs of sneakers hang on telephone wires to mark gang territories. Shells of burnt houses, we're told, are just parties that got out of hand. Classrooms are half-empty because teachers have given up trying to find their pupils. Nearly every band member has a story to tell. Her daughter died 7 months ago from drug overdose. His house was broken into and his cousin shot. He died, hit by a drunk driver. Her husband was stabbed by the neighbor trying to protect the dog. These are not the serene tipi dwellers many Americans imagine to be the remnants of the original inhabitants of this continent.
Davey put it best when he said, "We saw a lot of bad things, but felt a lot of good things." Even amidst the poverty and the weight of tragedy, the Ojibwe spirit remains indomitable. The heart of the people beats strong as their sacred drums. Ceremonies and pow-wows continue to be held, tribal colleges battle courageously against corruption to provide higher education in the context of their own tradition, and there is still a nearly inexhaustible wealth of wisdom to be found among the elders. Children are raised by a network of family, often exposed to ancient traditions carried out in new ways, like the tapping of trees for sap: the “sugar bush.” Wild rice is harvested and cooked and shared. Wind turbines and other forms of sustainable energy are being constructed to offset the cost of powering community buildings. These, also, are not the natives Americans imagine.
The perception of the indigenous people by the average American is one of distance. There’s a notion that the stragglers of a dying culture will soon be gone, adapted or abandoned. Theirs was an era before our time, and our culture just happened to come out dominant. Another notion is that the Indians live in little bubbles across the continent, keeping to themselves and adapting their culture to smaller and smaller bits of land. Either way, people think of Indian communities as separate entities that have no bearing on anything outside their reservation. This separation is just an illusion. One of the principal teachings of the Ojibwe is that everything is interconnected and interdependent. This applies to everything from localized ecosystems to the global political machine. Everything affects everything else.
This central principle precipitates several distinct behavioral patterns for both traditional and contemporary Ojibwe communities. If everything is interconnected, then those connections can be observed. To the Ojibwe, observation is more comprehensive than a mental laundry list of objects in the immediate surrounding. Couch, television, laptop open, coffee table, books. Observation is an ongoing process of "receptivity to our surroundings. [This,] combined with creativity characterizes our perception." (Cajete 26) Infants traditionally spent the first two years of life strapped to a cradleboard, a method of allowing the baby to accompany the mother on her daily chores while opening him or her up to the world of colors, movement, and activity. As the child grows, feasts are held to celebrate observable developments, like a girl getting her first period, or a boy’s first kill, instead of arbitrary ages somehow linked to maturity.
While we didn't see any cradleboards or first kill ceremonies on the reservation, there is still a strongly fostered sense of observation as a part of education. While staying with my host family, their eldest son had very limited interaction with us, but we later found out he had many goods things to say about us. He didn’t say much while we were there, but he was observing closely. Kent Nerburn, a writer with a foot in both the inside and outside world of Minnesota's native community, couldn't have been more spot on. He told us: "You are being watched." And it’s not just people or visitors who are being watched. The weather, the plants, and animals, the myriad processes of life are all subject to their watchful eyes.
One result of their focus on observation is that they talk less. This is a difficult cultural barrier to many Americans because they are accustomed to a continuous stream of noise, either from conversation, a television, radio, media player, or just normal sights and sounds of busy industry. Silence to many is awkward or uncomfortable. To them it is a state of balance and tranquility.
Another important effect of observation is the necessity of participation in the surrounding environment. By acknowledging everything is connected, you are acknowledging that you are connected to everything, and should take the necessary steps to preserve and honor that connection. That connection is important in forming a personal and cultural identity.
Participation takes several forms. One of the most common rituals of participation is the offering of tobacco. Tobacco is a sacred plant used in many ceremonies and prayer. It is offered to the spirits as a sacrificial victim when smoked from a pipe. It's used during gathering to acknowledge a human need, that you are taking something from nature, and reciprocating by giving something back. It's not a bartering system, leaving more if you take more, but an acknowledgment of the order of things and a way of respecting nature.
Respect comes from understanding how the world is structured. The order of things involves four levels of life on the planet. Depending on Western religious and cultural variation, humans are either placed equal with or slightly above the animal kingdom. Other forms of life are ordered from the most to least complex, with the more complex organisms being designated more important. The Ojibwe reverse the system and organize not based on complexity but on dependence. Using this method of thinking, the Earth itself is at the top of the hierarchy. Everything depends on the planet. Next come the plants. The plants depend on the earth. Then come the animals, which depend on the plants. Last are humans, because nothing depends on us to live, but we depend on the lives of plants, animals, and the planet.
Everything in this order is considered active. The plants, rocks, thunder, even stories. Everything is alive and has spirit. In this sense, everything is open to participation in its environment. These spirits must be honored and respected. Western science calls this animism. Taking this into consideration and allowing it to change your perception alters the way in which a being observes.
Language is an important part of observation, because through language a culture is able to frame its experiences in reality. Native language is no different. Their world views are reflected in the structure of their language, which makes it a critical part of their culture. Just as their principle of animism projects that everything is active, most of Ojibwe-mowin, their language, is in the form of verbs, an active or moving part of communication. Without this method of expressing fundamental views of their surroundings, these views change with the translation of the language. Several times fluent Ojibwe speakers told us when they try to say things in English, it comes out backwards.
A sacred view of life cannot be properly conveyed if it’s being told backwards. All Ojibwe ceremonies, including the sacred drum and funerals, are still done in the Ojibwe language. At a funeral, even if the deceased never spoke a word of Ojibwe in their life, the language is still used because they believe it is the language their spirit will understand. Because these ceremonies are primary surviving elements of the culture, it is absolutely essential that the language remain intact and alive.
Unfortunately, this is one of their biggest obstacles. Dwindling fluency levels of their native tongue means many younger Ojibwe can’t say more than a few words or broken phrases in their own language. Nearly all fluent speakers are elders. Parents don’t know the language, and so cannot pass it to their children. The largest contributor to this problem is the legacy of the boarding schools. This was a topic we heard about in some form from nearly every person we met, an appropriate reflection of the widespread devastation it caused. The schools were run by Christian priests and nuns in order to assimilate the Indians and produce “apples:” citizens who were red on the outside and white on the inside. These men of the black book and black robe are a major cause of the current language crisis. Children were effectively kidnapped from their parents and severed from any participation with their culture or communication with their community. Speaking a language other than English was punishable by severe beatings. Many children died or were sexually abused in these schools. All this was done with the blessing of the United States government. There has still been no formal apology.
One of the many unanticipated consequences was a succession of generations that had no idea how to parent their own children, both in terms of physical and spiritual development, because they were not exposed to their own cultural traditions as they matured. Their sense of identity had been fractured by the attempted extermination of their language. The white notion of a nuclear family separate from a community was wholly foreign and largely incompatible to an Indian way of life. The Ojibwe raised children in conjunction with their aunties and uncles and grandparents just as integrally as the parents.
The splintered sense of home is amplified a thousand times because of 1887's Dawes Act. This act of Congress was just one in a long line of legislation that reversed and swindled land from previously held band ownership. The basic premise of the law was to give each Indian individual allotments of reservation land and to give the rest of the land to white settlers or industries that would extract its resources. Of the three reservations we visited, only Red Lake refused allotment and the land is still held in common to all band members. White Earth and Leech Lake are now “checkerboard” reservations where the tribe only owns a small percentage of the land. White Earth currently has a land recovery project intending to "facilitate recovery of the original land base of the White Earth Indian Reservation, while preserving and restoring traditional practices of sound land stewardship, language fluency, community development, and strengthening our spiritual and cultural heritage," according to their website. They still only own less than 10% of the original land base.
Considering even the original land base of the reservation is just a tiny fraction of the land the Ojibwe occupied shortly before the Europeans invaded, along with the cultural rape of the past century, and the continuing problems the Ojibwe face, it's a testament to their strength that they survive. Not only are they surviving, they are recovering in the face of what they now refer to as “historical trauma.” Historical trauma is a collective damaging of the community psyche. Many compare the tribulations of native tribes to the horrors of the Jewish Holocaust. This comparison is a poor one, that doesn't capture the vastness or continued insensitivity toward native problems.
By the mid 20th century, the United States government had attempted to extinguish their language and culture, rob them of their lands, and quash any identity associated with indigenous knowledge. But the persistence of the people kept the heart of the culture beating, and programs are underway to help re-establish healthy native communities and identities. I heard an Ojibwe say, “I want to be true to our traditional worldview but responsive to our realities.” Cultures change, and the hardships experienced by the Ojibwe will no doubt transform the way future generations function in the world. Their mode of thinking places an emphasis that all decisions should be made with the seventh generation in mind. Hopefully, those future generations will enjoy a place where their skills of observations and ways of knowing compliment the methodological estrangement of Western science to enable humans in interact peacefully and responsibly with their environment and each other.
The first step toward this bright future is an apology, and an acceptance. An apology for the wrongs done, and an acceptance of responsibility. My ancestors in all probability took advantage of natives in some form or another. The most difficult part of the trip was knowing that, and knowing that we were not there to help or judge. We were there to learn. We were there to co-exist. We were there to take the knowledge offered in friendship and use it to the benefit of all. It is not enough to know or to think, we must act. I will act. My future as an educator puts me in a unique position to re-shape the minds of the next generation. They will learn the full history of the land they live in, the beauty and sadness of the stories of its people, and all the intricacies of a flower and a bee.
Miigwitch, Bruce, for this experience.
Anne Sheldrake's Final Project
Coming Home
You would think,
That the poem entitled Coming Home
Would be the last one of the set.
You might think of words describing
The joy of sleeping in your own bed,
Or phrases speaking sadness as leave your new best friends.
But,
My coming home was, different.
I came home on Day 5 of Exploring Indigenous Ways of Knowing Among the Anishinaabeg.
No,
I didn’t leave.
I didn’t make the two-day trek back east,
leaving the big sky and wide lakes of Minnesota for the rocky highlands of Eastern Pennsylvania.
Instead,
I found something that felt more like home than the brown rancher with its neatly manicured lawn and immaculate kitchen floor that I have called “home” for as long as I can remember.
My lips twitch,
Forming an ironic smile,
And I look back and remember my nervousness as I sat in the back seat of the grimy white van as the dust cleared from our caravan’s trip down the bouncy dirt driveway.
I took in the faded red boards of Annie’s home as the van slowed.
I took in the glass baubles hanging like homeless Christmas ornaments from the garden gate.
I took in the sagging metal fence that enclosed a lonesome dog run.
It all seemed a far cry from home.
A dump –
My Dad would have said.
I was hesitant to rush up and greet the ponies quietly munching grass from where they stood, chained to the fence.
I was hesitant to pet the dogs that stared hopefully up at me as ticks peeped from behind their furry ears.
I wandered the yard,
Shyly, aimlessly.
But then,
Annie called us to dinner.
As I lifted a forkful of wild rice from my plate full of watermelon so sweet that it dripped with juice,
I realized,
- I’d come home.
It wasn’t the food.
It was the generosity.
Because as the darkness of a chill Minnesota evening wrapped the tree-lined yard in a damp chill,
A steady procession of blankets, fleeces, jackets, sweaters began to march out from among the cozy paintings of Annie’s living room.
As I wrapped the fur-lined parka around my shoulders and let the hood envelope my ears,
I felt warmth that came from more than the passing of my shivers.
Gathered in the darkness by the flickering flame of a kerosene lamp,
I found a good soul.
I found my home there with a woman who welcomed me,
a stranger,
into her home
- as if I were a lifelong friend.
I don’t know how to find my way back to that home near Deer River where Anne and Annie lived.
But I’ll know it in my heart
- Forever.
Floyd Jourdain
Quiet and unsure,
I follow Bruce.
This time, it is into a small and dilapidated building.
We pass a post office where a black-haired woman sits waiting behind the counter.
We file past offices with their steady, busy, working noises.
Then the hallway opens.
We find ourselves in a small library.
The walls are lined with more than books.
I stand in place,
Turning slowly,
As I take in the posters:
The Seventh Generation
Register for the Census!
Secessions in Minnestota.
My eyes hit upon the imposing table positioned in the center of room.
I turn towards the rows of chairs,
Then the set-off table.
As we mill around, I spot the eagle feather headdress, the delicate beaded moccasins.
I know this is not my traditional library.
I am not here to look at books today.
Today, I am in the Red Lake Tribal Council Office.
Today, I am waiting for Floyd Jourdain, tribal chairman of Red Lake Nation.
As I take in the headdress with its carefully lettered placard,
(which warns me to “Please Protect from the Light”),
I hear Floyd enter.
A hush settles as we gather round the table and listen, quietly, as he begins to speak.
“Bozhoo”
- he says.
His voice has a magical, lyrical quality which seems to enthrall the listener.
He speaks of progress, of success.
Intertribal communication
Decreasing suicide
School improvements.
He speaks with pride of tribal license plates, of fishing.
It’s progress.
But as I sit with my smooth black gel pen in hand,
Furiously scribbling his phrases of hope, his statistics,
I can’t help but wonder.
Why don’t I see the progress?
I remember the trash littered roadside,
The meth lab warnings,
The high school shooting.
But as my mind’s eye recalls Nancy Kingfisher with tears slipping down her cheeks,
- It strikes me.
This is humanity.
And while I believe in Jourdain’s optimism,
And while I know that progress in being made,
day by day,
I know that he is human.
I didn’t leave this truth behind when I drove two days West to this land called “Indian Country,”
the “Land of a Thousand Lakes.”
Here, an Indian is human.
And Jourdain,
- is a politician.
Staying with Susan
The gnarled hands grip the television remote.
The light of the television flickers against the darkness of the downpour outside.
The rain pounds the roof of this small red home,
just as it must have doing for years on this spit of land that reaches out toward the great expanse of Red Lake.
Now I am here to hear the rain as I squirm uncomfortably on the seat cushions of the sagging loveseat.
The silence of the room envelopes me like the musty scent of old cigarettes that lingers in the kitchen.
Two hours in a car,
And I end up here, in a place that seems both a world away and somehow just as familiar as my grandmother’s two story bungalow that sits back from a shaded suburban Newark street.
Here, I clear my throat awkwardly,
Desperately wanting to break the uncomfortable silence.
I don’t.
Instead,
I sit and watch the bands of rain pushing across the weather map,
Again,
and again.
I wait as Susan naps and my stomach rumbles, unused to this new diet of ramen noodles, potato chips, and pop.
“Why am I here?”
Looking back,
I see learning,
And a culture,
In that silence.
These are the people and that was their life -
a small sphere encompassing a daughters’ home three doors down,
a dilapidated gas station convenience store for groceries,
and the small grungy car with a sagging roof that serves to get there.
Life was the stained dentures bobbing in the cup on the counter,
The pictures of grandchildren lining the walls,
And the faded sheet sets covered with fir trees and encasing a sinking foam mattress.
There I wasn’t among the ones who made it.
This family wasn’t quite Anton
– at least on the outside.
Powwows, feasts,
- They don’t happen every day.
Sometimes sons go out on cold and rainy days to fish for walleye on the lake.
Sometimes you eat Chef Boyardee and green beans from a can for dinner.
I saw people.
It’s not about the trash-littered yards lining the narrow street.
It’s not about the dogs running wild, some with porcupine quills poking from a sorry red nose.
There was respect there, respect of a family.
- a culture
And maybe,
By just listening,
I earned my own kind of quiet respect.
Because,
before I left,
I found Susan pressing a shining silver bracelet and a set of turquoise earrings into my tightly clasped palm.
“Don’t refuse,” she said. “It’s my gift to you.”
Gift-Giving
When I asked what kind of gift I should give,
I wanted to know what would be appropriate.
I wanted to know what would be appreciated.
I wanted a simple answer,
- Give a blanket,
- Or give sheets,
- Give a picture frame.
I wanted to know how much money to spend.
I wanted dollars and cents.
I wanted things spelled out in black and white.
There was too much ambiguity for me - the literalist, the perfectionist.
I remember flipping through the towels at J.C. Penney,
Fretting as I tried to decide between the khaki and the sage.
As I stood among the many hues,
I wondered just what would be appreciated.
But when we reached the drum ceremony,
I learned just what Bruce meant.
In the moment,
as the drum beat echoed
and the singers gave their high wailing song,
I learned
- it’s not the gift that counts.
Because I and the round-bellied old man,
recipient of my worn copy of Tuesdays With Morrie,
we both left with renewal, generosity,
in our hearts.
Remembering Indian Time
As I raced to work today,
Running yellow lights and impatiently waiting for slow-moving, trailer-toting truck in front of me with its family of four on vacation,
I suddenly remembered
-Indian Time-.
It felt like walking unexpectedly into a door that you were sure was open.
Could it only have been one week since I watched the medicine men contentedly passing the pipe, smoking away the hours as they sat on the blanket-covered cushions of the drooping sofa as I waited with bated breath for something, anything, to happen?
And so today,
I take a deep breath and remember my place in the universe.
Life happens when it is meant to happen.
Not before.
Fishing
I met two kinds of fish in Minnesota.
The first lay limp on the bare and gritty metal floor of Darwin’s canoe with its silvery scales glinting in the sheen of the rain.
But I saw it first slipping through the lake water as its powerful tail whooshed back and forth, propelling it forward on its journey.
The next time, the fish was still, looking up at me from Nancy’s tinfoil-covered aluminum tray as I salivated in anticipation after a day of fasting.
I saw it again, this time bashing its massive head against the concrete wall of the dam in what seemed to be a desperate frustration at the insurmountable obstacle placed before it.
The other fish, I only held in my hand.
I reached out to grasp the elder’s palm as we sat,
Side-by-side,
In a white tent erected in the park for the Big Drum Ceremony.
“Bozhoo,” I said,
As I extended my firm grasp.
But as our palms slipped into place,
I found,
- a fish.
My hand seemed to swim in a moist void
As I pumped my arm,
Extending the ritual.
Soon, I fled this uncomfortable and limp sensation.
I met two kinds of fish in Minnesota.
One lay cold on dirty boat floor.
One I held in the palm of my hand.
But both fish earned my respect.
One for its taste.
The other,
For its humility.
Preconceptions
I thought that I had written a perfect poem.
The words had come. They had felt inspired.
I saw the imagery. I felt the sensations,
- clearly
in those words.
I described the dichotomy.
I described the two rings of the powwow.
The inner wood stands,
Steeped in tradition.
The outer, Americanized semicircle of merchants, wares, and frybread,
Just like any other fair.
But as I reflected,
Slouching in my computer chair at work,
Absently twirling my newly shorn hair and thinking
(When I should have been working),
It occurred to me that I might be taking creative license as I described the world that I had glimpsed.
And Tony’s words repeated in my mind as that first sunny and chill morning in the American Indian Resource Center seemed to flash behind my tightly shut eyelids.
“Don’t vilify us,”
He said.
“But don’t, don’t, romanticize us either.”
Leaning back,
I sighed.
My poem was to begin again.
The words seemed far less certain,
Far less sure.
I felt as if I had come upon an unexpected fork in the road. I wasn’t quite sure which was the right way to turn.
My pen stumbled over words,
Over labels,
That had seemed clear-cut before.
It occurred to me to wonder,
“Who was I speaking for?”
Were they:
Indians?
Ojibwe?
Aboriginal People?
Native Americans?
American Indians?
Indigenous Peoples?
My dictionary - lost.
What words describe a bridge between two worlds?
Where craftsmen display the turquoise hanging in delicate silver strands as they proudly state, “Yes, I made this myself,”
Where the dancers stomp out rhythms in a competition, dating to an entertainment form,
Where the old men wear both eagle feathers and the American flag plastered t-shirts proclaiming them “Veterans of Foreign Wars,”
Where the woman sells her swamp tea brewed strong.
And so,
As I fumble for the words to take the panorama down,
I wonder at my place to do the job at all.
I’m trying to fill in the bare and outlined boxes.
Are you:
Caucasian?
Hispanic?
American Indian?
Please check the appropriate space.
But here is life, not a college application.
And so who am I to poke, to prod, to judge?
These are a sovereign people,
And their definition is their own.
Culture Shock
A culture.
“In a way,”
Bruce says,
“He’s learning right along with Che.”
And I look at the grown man who stands
Chatting with Toma in a ray of forest sunshine
Several yards away.
“Where has culture gone?”
I wonder.
Where has a culture gone when grown men learn alongside their sons?
A culture.
Sitting down to dinner around table that sat wedged in a corner between a tall chest of drawers and the edge of a faded kitchen counter,
My head jerks up,
Eyes wide,
As Susan speaks.
“Will you say the blessing?”
She turns and asks of me.
“Me?”
I squeak,
I glance around,
As if looking out the window to my right past the rain dripping slowly down will reveal some fresh victim to take my holy place.
Taking a deep breath,
I begin.
The words pour out in a jumble.
“I was raised Catholic,” I say.
She nods.
And I intone
“Bless us O Lord,
And these thy gifts,”
I now remember the small worn Bible that rested in proud prominence on her shelf.
A culture.
“We did a sweat lodge yesterday,”
I state
-foolishly
-naively.
I expect a response like Annie’s
-“It was the worst experience of my life during – the best afterward.”
But in this cramped kitchen,
The woman shrugs with her shoulders and her fingers, covered with a heavy sprinkling of rings, sparkle in the overhead fluorescent light.
“I’ve never been,”
She says.
And though I’m just reading body language
(Which may or may not be true),
It strikes me that this Native woman that I stand before
Was raised in a Christian home and may be looking down on Native History with scorn.
A culture of contradictions.
A culture shock for me.
Surprises,
What else could life be for?
Coming Home
You would think,
That the poem entitled Coming Home
Would be the last one of the set.
You might think of words describing
The joy of sleeping in your own bed,
Or phrases speaking sadness as leave your new best friends.
But,
My coming home was, different.
I came home on Day 5 of Exploring Indigenous Ways of Knowing Among the Anishinaabeg.
No,
I didn’t leave.
I didn’t make the two-day trek back east,
leaving the big sky and wide lakes of Minnesota for the rocky highlands of Eastern Pennsylvania.
Instead,
I found something that felt more like home than the brown rancher with its neatly manicured lawn and immaculate kitchen floor that I have called “home” for as long as I can remember.
My lips twitch,
Forming an ironic smile,
And I look back and remember my nervousness as I sat in the back seat of the grimy white van as the dust cleared from our caravan’s trip down the bouncy dirt driveway.
I took in the faded red boards of Annie’s home as the van slowed.
I took in the glass baubles hanging like homeless Christmas ornaments from the garden gate.
I took in the sagging metal fence that enclosed a lonesome dog run.
It all seemed a far cry from home.
A dump –
My Dad would have said.
I was hesitant to rush up and greet the ponies quietly munching grass from where they stood, chained to the fence.
I was hesitant to pet the dogs that stared hopefully up at me as ticks peeped from behind their furry ears.
I wandered the yard,
Shyly, aimlessly.
But then,
Annie called us to dinner.
As I lifted a forkful of wild rice from my plate full of watermelon so sweet that it dripped with juice,
I realized,
- I’d come home.
It wasn’t the food.
It was the generosity.
Because as the darkness of a chill Minnesota evening wrapped the tree-lined yard in a damp chill,
A steady procession of blankets, fleeces, jackets, sweaters began to march out from among the cozy paintings of Annie’s living room.
As I wrapped the fur-lined parka around my shoulders and let the hood envelope my ears,
I felt warmth that came from more than the passing of my shivers.
Gathered in the darkness by the flickering flame of a kerosene lamp,
I found a good soul.
I found my home there with a woman who welcomed me,
a stranger,
into her home
- as if I were a lifelong friend.
I don’t know how to find my way back to that home near Deer River where Anne and Annie lived.
But I’ll know it in my heart
- Forever.
Floyd Jourdain
Quiet and unsure,
I follow Bruce.
This time, it is into a small and dilapidated building.
We pass a post office where a black-haired woman sits waiting behind the counter.
We file past offices with their steady, busy, working noises.
Then the hallway opens.
We find ourselves in a small library.
The walls are lined with more than books.
I stand in place,
Turning slowly,
As I take in the posters:
The Seventh Generation
Register for the Census!
Secessions in Minnestota.
My eyes hit upon the imposing table positioned in the center of room.
I turn towards the rows of chairs,
Then the set-off table.
As we mill around, I spot the eagle feather headdress, the delicate beaded moccasins.
I know this is not my traditional library.
I am not here to look at books today.
Today, I am in the Red Lake Tribal Council Office.
Today, I am waiting for Floyd Jourdain, tribal chairman of Red Lake Nation.
As I take in the headdress with its carefully lettered placard,
(which warns me to “Please Protect from the Light”),
I hear Floyd enter.
A hush settles as we gather round the table and listen, quietly, as he begins to speak.
“Bozhoo”
- he says.
His voice has a magical, lyrical quality which seems to enthrall the listener.
He speaks of progress, of success.
Intertribal communication
Decreasing suicide
School improvements.
He speaks with pride of tribal license plates, of fishing.
It’s progress.
But as I sit with my smooth black gel pen in hand,
Furiously scribbling his phrases of hope, his statistics,
I can’t help but wonder.
Why don’t I see the progress?
I remember the trash littered roadside,
The meth lab warnings,
The high school shooting.
But as my mind’s eye recalls Nancy Kingfisher with tears slipping down her cheeks,
- It strikes me.
This is humanity.
And while I believe in Jourdain’s optimism,
And while I know that progress in being made,
day by day,
I know that he is human.
I didn’t leave this truth behind when I drove two days West to this land called “Indian Country,”
the “Land of a Thousand Lakes.”
Here, an Indian is human.
And Jourdain,
- is a politician.
Staying with Susan
The gnarled hands grip the television remote.
The light of the television flickers against the darkness of the downpour outside.
The rain pounds the roof of this small red home,
just as it must have doing for years on this spit of land that reaches out toward the great expanse of Red Lake.
Now I am here to hear the rain as I squirm uncomfortably on the seat cushions of the sagging loveseat.
The silence of the room envelopes me like the musty scent of old cigarettes that lingers in the kitchen.
Two hours in a car,
And I end up here, in a place that seems both a world away and somehow just as familiar as my grandmother’s two story bungalow that sits back from a shaded suburban Newark street.
Here, I clear my throat awkwardly,
Desperately wanting to break the uncomfortable silence.
I don’t.
Instead,
I sit and watch the bands of rain pushing across the weather map,
Again,
and again.
I wait as Susan naps and my stomach rumbles, unused to this new diet of ramen noodles, potato chips, and pop.
“Why am I here?”
Looking back,
I see learning,
And a culture,
In that silence.
These are the people and that was their life -
a small sphere encompassing a daughters’ home three doors down,
a dilapidated gas station convenience store for groceries,
and the small grungy car with a sagging roof that serves to get there.
Life was the stained dentures bobbing in the cup on the counter,
The pictures of grandchildren lining the walls,
And the faded sheet sets covered with fir trees and encasing a sinking foam mattress.
There I wasn’t among the ones who made it.
This family wasn’t quite Anton
– at least on the outside.
Powwows, feasts,
- They don’t happen every day.
Sometimes sons go out on cold and rainy days to fish for walleye on the lake.
Sometimes you eat Chef Boyardee and green beans from a can for dinner.
I saw people.
It’s not about the trash-littered yards lining the narrow street.
It’s not about the dogs running wild, some with porcupine quills poking from a sorry red nose.
There was respect there, respect of a family.
- a culture
And maybe,
By just listening,
I earned my own kind of quiet respect.
Because,
before I left,
I found Susan pressing a shining silver bracelet and a set of turquoise earrings into my tightly clasped palm.
“Don’t refuse,” she said. “It’s my gift to you.”
Gift-Giving
When I asked what kind of gift I should give,
I wanted to know what would be appropriate.
I wanted to know what would be appreciated.
I wanted a simple answer,
- Give a blanket,
- Or give sheets,
- Give a picture frame.
I wanted to know how much money to spend.
I wanted dollars and cents.
I wanted things spelled out in black and white.
There was too much ambiguity for me - the literalist, the perfectionist.
I remember flipping through the towels at J.C. Penney,
Fretting as I tried to decide between the khaki and the sage.
As I stood among the many hues,
I wondered just what would be appreciated.
But when we reached the drum ceremony,
I learned just what Bruce meant.
In the moment,
as the drum beat echoed
and the singers gave their high wailing song,
I learned
- it’s not the gift that counts.
Because I and the round-bellied old man,
recipient of my worn copy of Tuesdays With Morrie,
we both left with renewal, generosity,
in our hearts.
Remembering Indian Time
As I raced to work today,
Running yellow lights and impatiently waiting for slow-moving, trailer-toting truck in front of me with its family of four on vacation,
I suddenly remembered
-Indian Time-.
It felt like walking unexpectedly into a door that you were sure was open.
Could it only have been one week since I watched the medicine men contentedly passing the pipe, smoking away the hours as they sat on the blanket-covered cushions of the drooping sofa as I waited with bated breath for something, anything, to happen?
And so today,
I take a deep breath and remember my place in the universe.
Life happens when it is meant to happen.
Not before.
Fishing
I met two kinds of fish in Minnesota.
The first lay limp on the bare and gritty metal floor of Darwin’s canoe with its silvery scales glinting in the sheen of the rain.
But I saw it first slipping through the lake water as its powerful tail whooshed back and forth, propelling it forward on its journey.
The next time, the fish was still, looking up at me from Nancy’s tinfoil-covered aluminum tray as I salivated in anticipation after a day of fasting.
I saw it again, this time bashing its massive head against the concrete wall of the dam in what seemed to be a desperate frustration at the insurmountable obstacle placed before it.
The other fish, I only held in my hand.
I reached out to grasp the elder’s palm as we sat,
Side-by-side,
In a white tent erected in the park for the Big Drum Ceremony.
“Bozhoo,” I said,
As I extended my firm grasp.
But as our palms slipped into place,
I found,
- a fish.
My hand seemed to swim in a moist void
As I pumped my arm,
Extending the ritual.
Soon, I fled this uncomfortable and limp sensation.
I met two kinds of fish in Minnesota.
One lay cold on dirty boat floor.
One I held in the palm of my hand.
But both fish earned my respect.
One for its taste.
The other,
For its humility.
Preconceptions
I thought that I had written a perfect poem.
The words had come. They had felt inspired.
I saw the imagery. I felt the sensations,
- clearly
in those words.
I described the dichotomy.
I described the two rings of the powwow.
The inner wood stands,
Steeped in tradition.
The outer, Americanized semicircle of merchants, wares, and frybread,
Just like any other fair.
But as I reflected,
Slouching in my computer chair at work,
Absently twirling my newly shorn hair and thinking
(When I should have been working),
It occurred to me that I might be taking creative license as I described the world that I had glimpsed.
And Tony’s words repeated in my mind as that first sunny and chill morning in the American Indian Resource Center seemed to flash behind my tightly shut eyelids.
“Don’t vilify us,”
He said.
“But don’t, don’t, romanticize us either.”
Leaning back,
I sighed.
My poem was to begin again.
The words seemed far less certain,
Far less sure.
I felt as if I had come upon an unexpected fork in the road. I wasn’t quite sure which was the right way to turn.
My pen stumbled over words,
Over labels,
That had seemed clear-cut before.
It occurred to me to wonder,
“Who was I speaking for?”
Were they:
Indians?
Ojibwe?
Aboriginal People?
Native Americans?
American Indians?
Indigenous Peoples?
My dictionary - lost.
What words describe a bridge between two worlds?
Where craftsmen display the turquoise hanging in delicate silver strands as they proudly state, “Yes, I made this myself,”
Where the dancers stomp out rhythms in a competition, dating to an entertainment form,
Where the old men wear both eagle feathers and the American flag plastered t-shirts proclaiming them “Veterans of Foreign Wars,”
Where the woman sells her swamp tea brewed strong.
And so,
As I fumble for the words to take the panorama down,
I wonder at my place to do the job at all.
I’m trying to fill in the bare and outlined boxes.
Are you:
Caucasian?
Hispanic?
American Indian?
Please check the appropriate space.
But here is life, not a college application.
And so who am I to poke, to prod, to judge?
These are a sovereign people,
And their definition is their own.
Culture Shock
A culture.
“In a way,”
Bruce says,
“He’s learning right along with Che.”
And I look at the grown man who stands
Chatting with Toma in a ray of forest sunshine
Several yards away.
“Where has culture gone?”
I wonder.
Where has a culture gone when grown men learn alongside their sons?
A culture.
Sitting down to dinner around table that sat wedged in a corner between a tall chest of drawers and the edge of a faded kitchen counter,
My head jerks up,
Eyes wide,
As Susan speaks.
“Will you say the blessing?”
She turns and asks of me.
“Me?”
I squeak,
I glance around,
As if looking out the window to my right past the rain dripping slowly down will reveal some fresh victim to take my holy place.
Taking a deep breath,
I begin.
The words pour out in a jumble.
“I was raised Catholic,” I say.
She nods.
And I intone
“Bless us O Lord,
And these thy gifts,”
I now remember the small worn Bible that rested in proud prominence on her shelf.
A culture.
“We did a sweat lodge yesterday,”
I state
-foolishly
-naively.
I expect a response like Annie’s
-“It was the worst experience of my life during – the best afterward.”
But in this cramped kitchen,
The woman shrugs with her shoulders and her fingers, covered with a heavy sprinkling of rings, sparkle in the overhead fluorescent light.
“I’ve never been,”
She says.
And though I’m just reading body language
(Which may or may not be true),
It strikes me that this Native woman that I stand before
Was raised in a Christian home and may be looking down on Native History with scorn.
A culture of contradictions.
A culture shock for me.
Surprises,
What else could life be for?
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