SORROW IS A WOUND

Wounded Afghan boy

Sorrow is a physical wound.  I don’t just mean the slashed flesh that some people say is a mouth speaking and others think is a opening to let the truth in.  Those are poetic ideas and probably true, but I mean something more concrete and scientific, as real as shoveling manure from the insides of some animal.  Just as disgusting, attended by eager insects.

We have the idea that our skins define us, that our circulating molecules are not “thought” but just something like motor oil or radiator anti-freeze.  We think that cells are just cleverly arranged leggos, some of them able to contract or expand, and that the air in our lungs is just passing through, not part of us.  That’s wrong.  The deeper we get into the science of bodies, the more we realize how interwoven we are with the world — air in our lungs is part of us, part of our lungs, keeping them inflated, and our lungs are part of the world, holding tendrils of gas and particles that inscribe the world inside us.

With sorrow, there is loss, sometimes grievous to the point of death.  It can be turned away, denied, but only for a while.  We are as grass.  We all die.  And yet we all stay behind in the lives of others, esp. if we have loved them, if we’ve made memories with them, so that for years you can taste them, hear their voices, and sometimes even see some old dimmed memory in a renewed way so that there is insight, realization.  But the price of that is renewed sorrow.  More torture.  Opening the old wounds.  Regret.  Scab-picking.  Second-guessing.  Would you have rather not loved them?

Of course there is defying the Gods, the horror they impose on us and never feel themselves.  Curse them.  Curse their impervious hides.  They aren’t real anyway, so what else are they good for?  Doorstops?

Raymond Cobell

Raymond Cobell’s obituary was in the paper today.  Died of cancer at age 60.  I remember him in English class.  He was a solid, humorous, dependable kid, someone you could count on.  Good athlete.  At the end he was employed by the Good Medicine Program in School District #9.  It’s roughly the same category as “Show Me Your Life” or “Smash Street Boys” but no cameras for kids.  I should have gone to visit him.  

It’s amazing to read about this, remembering how Mr. Barnard, an excellent counsellor, was fired from the school just for administering a questionnaire about these problems.  The adults in the community would not allow such things to be named.  It would have made them real.  They WERE real.

Montana SOARS: Good Medicine Program

The GOOD MEDICINE PROGRAM provides school based supportive services, Tier 2, case management, and referral services to those students who are being negatively influenced by substance abuse, mental illness, domestic violence, bullying, suicide or other self- Harming behaviors, homelessness, post-traumatic stress, grief and loss, violence, sexual abuse, physical abuse, and cognitive thinking errors and other disorders or deficits, to name a few. We believe in the internal strengths and resilience of our children and their ability to overcome numerous internal and external barriers, if given the proper lifesaving interventions. We work with the whole child and help or assist them in the retuning to a sense of belonging to their ability to overcome numerous internal and external barriers, if given the proper lifesaving interventions. We help or assist our students to returning to a sense of belonging and their ability to live in balance and harmony with the world around them. We are also firm believers that people do not recover or heal in a vacuum and therefore, the family is the most important cornerstone of recovery. Recovery is a family affair, and we provide family counselling and referral services to all members of the family. 

GOOD MEDICINE will roll out the NOBLE referral system, which will connect and improve services to the community.  . . . We work closely with Indian Health Service, Drug and Alcohol service providers and mental health providers, to name a few. As well as with natural helpers and healers found within our culture. 

GOOD MEDICINE is also a participant in the community YOUTH MENTAL HEALTH FIRST AID program. This program offers a 2 day training module which provides information, in a non-threatening classroom environment, on how to identify and refer students who may be suffering from mental or emotional disorders, as well as substance abuse issues. 

Blackfeet -- Siksika -- Pikuni

This program stuff comes and goes all the time.  But each one of them leaves a little trace and after a while it builds up and sticks.  At least it destroys some of the fatalism.  Just a little.  But it also means that they lose a little identity every time and join the BaffleGab tribe.

I go by family names a lot, which is sort of a rez thing and maybe I shouldn’t.  But families do get reputations and they tend to develop a kind of family style.  So Cobell is not the birth name of Eloise Cobell, whose maiden name was Pepion — a whole different story.  Rather she married Turk Cobell, who must’ve been in the same class as Ray, or almost.  (Eloise went away to school.)  The very first Cobell, the historians say, was an Italian sailor who left a sea-going ship in order to embark in a flat-bottomed boat, a paddle-wheeler traveling up the Mississippi drainage to Blackfeet country where he stayed.

Cobell and Kipp were the names of the scouts guiding Baker when he attacked the wrong encampment.  Lifelong sorrow and regret.  Lifelong seeking through the theories and tales and immense suffering of little kids running barefoot, bloody and burned through sub-zero cold.  Jesus!  How did they survive?  We’re five generations farther along and still imposing this sort of thing on little kids — just farther away, but we see them close-up these days.  Those cameras.

Omar-Xawar-Helebce Massacre  (Kurds)

A man of sixty who has done a lot of good in his life, as I think Ray did, is one thing.  A little kid dying is another thing.  They both tear our guts out and leave us swearing.  It’s physical.  Emotional, but emotions ARE physical.  Life is stony, sharp as obsidian, unforgiving, and impossible to bargain with.  Ray died surrounded by family and friends, they say.  It’s the Blackfeet way.  It’s not mine.  I don’t want anyone else horning in on my death.  I want to slip in behind the timber and boulders where my skeleton won’t be found for decades if ever.  

I know about a little boy at “Show Me Your Life” (it's a website, not a place)  whom the docs are pretty sure will die soon.  Maybe he hasn’t lived any sixty years, but I don’t think that’s what matters.  He is a full human being, surviving just like those little kids caught in a massacre, because he has laughter and tears and hugs in spite of needing major surgery.  His two front teeth are growing in, he wants to take photos, and the AIDS virus is doing its best — not to kill him — to let life kill him.  And it will.  Those around him are bruised, their breathing is rough.  They are searching their guts for courage, which is a physical thing.  Biological.  Shovel that shit.

JUSTIN MANY FINGERS: KAINAI

Justin Many Fingers

Narcisse Blood was killed in a car accident not long ago.  He was a center post for many innovations and creations and it has taken a while for people to begin to pick up the threads and begin again.  Justin Many Fingers is a performance artist and dancer from the Blood Reserve of the Kainai, north of Montana in Alberta.  It is a place that has been sheltered from whites, which has protected the aboriginal heritage but also given the People a secure base from which to operate in the larger world.  Justin is an example of that.

Another factor is readiness to work with worldwide indigenous peoples.  Darrell Kipp, also gone now, was much empowered by this force since the Hawaiians and the New Zealand Maori had done a lot of work with language restoration and were happy to share.  I first met Narcisse at a Piegan Institute sponsored conference.  These People are “reconciliation” People who wish to preserve and energize the old ways, but not punish the present.  Inclusion and transformation are the values.

Beverly's book is key.  (This is an historic photo -- not Beverly.)

Justin appeared at the Valier library with a posse of Blackfoot folks that included Beverly Hungry Wolf whom I know from the Sixties when she was married to Adolf Hungry Wolf.  Their daughter Star had recommended that they stop on a research visit to the location of the “Baker Massacre.”  The couple raised their children 19th century style in a log cabin with a creek for a water source and a photovoltaic sheet for electricity to run Adolf’s laptop.  Their children, now adult, have moved on to good jobs in the cities.  The Hungry Wolfs divorced and Beverly is remarried, teaching at one of the tribal colleges.  Everything moves on.

Justin Many Fingers

Justin has been active in many contexts and now is about to take on management duties.  This is his self-description on “Linked-in”:

“I’m 28 years 5 months.  My address is my suitcase and a back pack.

I live for the arts, as long as I have food in my tummy, a pillow under my head, and a studio to create, I'm all good. 

“I love traveling and making new friends and family.

“I am I bit crazy because I like to live life without any limitations, I live to push beyond them.”

Troy Emery Twigg and Cherish Violet Blood were with this group.  They had worked together on a production called “Making Treaty 7,” a previous key work.  (Treaty 7 is the Canadian Blackfoot treaty.)  I’m quoting from the website, "makingtreaty7.com".

“The board and staff of Making Treaty 7 are deeply mourning the tragic loss of ELK SHADOW / PONA KO’TAKSI, also known as Michael Green, and MIDDLE BULL / TATSIKIISTAMIK, also known as Narcisse Blood.  Elk Shadow was the founder and visionary behind the Making Treaty 7 project.  We celebrate his commitment to a shared belief that “WE ARE ALL TREATY PEOPLE”.  We are committed to ensuring that his spirit will live on.  Elk Shadow, One of Long Vision, had no boundaries and could not see color.  He was an inspiration to everyone he touched.  “This is the most rewarding and electrified piece of art that I have ever created in over 30 years,” he told us, “and to have, through this process, through the Sundance, been blessed with a spiritual awakening is a gift I could never have expected.”  Middle Bull was the Cultural and Spiritual Advisor to Making Treaty 7.  He was the Grandfather to the cast and crew;  he was the walking encyclopedia of our language, our culture and our history.  Together, Middle Bull and Elk Shadow brought First Nations and non-First Nations together.  They were the heart and soul of Making Treaty 7.  Narcisse will be truly missed within our spiritual circles.”

From "Wisakedjak"

Justin played the historical character Champlain in a production called Wisakedjak, which “is not just entertainment, it is the embodiment of sacred teachings.”  “To get to the essence of this half human, half spirit being, whose escapades  have been passed on through an oral and nomadic tradition, is like being played by the trickster himself. He is a shapeshifter, the original rebel without a cause, a stranger in a strange land, the manifestation of our hubris as well as its antidote.”

In terms of comparative religion, Wisakedjak is NOT Napi or Jesus or Starboy, but he occupies the same niche as an interlocutor between realms, including those of cultures. Champlain with his 17th century big hat, long jacket, and writing plume is clueless. (For more, go to “Troutinplaid.com.”)

As clueless as the drunken Major Baker of the US Cavalry who bore down on the peace camp of HeavyRunner and massacred women, old people, and children -- the men had gone to hunt.  One can read similar stories in the newspaper every day, but the people -- who are roughly the same color as American indigenous folks -- are in Eurasia.  Carol Murray, local Blackfeet historian, was the guide.  For many years since the location of the camp she and her husband, John, have organized annual commemorations.  If the road is passable, that is, since it happened in the middle of winter.

Baker Massacre commemoration on site

There are many accounts, some written and many more told by survivors only in their families.  There was great fear of retaliation on both sides.  In fact, it was used to justify the suppression of ceremonies, the language, and newly forming organizations of every kind, including the young educated men who wanted only discussion of ideas.

Carol Murray, Amskapi Pikuni

Now the discussion can happen freely and this group is leading it.  So much is just beneath the surface if we aren’t afraid to access it.  Canada has been much better about funding and supporting the arts and they are the better for it.  Many of our best Native American actors, like Graham Greene and Tantoo Cardinal were trained by Canadian companies.  They have resisted the commercialized entitlement wars that try to “own” cultures, wasting energy on suppressing others, American style.

Justin dancing in Iitahpoyii

Iitahpoyii de Troy Emery Twigg @ Studio 303  on Vimeo.  This is Justin dancing on vid.  I hope you can find it.  Yosemite hides links, at least from me.  vimeo.com › Studio 303 › Studio 303’s VideosVimeo

WHAT HAPPENED

Now that I’m dead it’s much easier to understand what happened.  Time is changed after you die.  It’s like water and you can swim in it, so that it goes forward and backwards and has waves in it but no temperature.  It was night time, the coldest part of a January night before there was any light yet and the trees groan and pop.  I was glad to be under the buffalo robes between my mother and father.  I dreamt the horses were running so the ground shook and then it was true, but they were not our horses because there was jingling and the creaking of leather.  Then the shooting began.

My father grabbed me up in his arms, and my mother scrabbled quickly to find the Peace Paper that would tell soldiers to leave us alone.   She had made a little case for it that hung with the Pipe Bundle on a tripod. She pushed it into my father’s hand, between his hand and me where he held me against his chest.  As he stepped out of the lodge, there was a whispering sound as the bullet pierced through the paper.  Then I felt it go through me -- between ribs, through my lungs and then I couldn’t breathe.  My father made a sound I can’t describe and fell.  Then I heard my mother give a sound, the sound of her life leaving her.   Not quite a cry. It was too fast to understand.

I only lived a little while with the big dark horses rushing back and forth and the men’s voices shouting at each other.  Not our men, who were away hunting, but those white men all muffled up in heavy coats and hats pulled down but I could see that there were stripes down the sides of their legs.  Their guns exploded and their sabers flashed.  Panting of horses and men showed as pale vapor in light from fires set by the soldiers.

Our people, women and children and old people, were quiet.  They didn’t cry out or shout because that would attract the attention of the nearest soldiers.  They saved all their breath for running, dodging into shadows and through brush, pulling and carrying children.  It was all over in minutes.

Then I lay on my father’s body, which was still warm, though I was cooling myself, while the soldiers went on burning the lodges even if there were people inside, the people who had smallpox and were too weak to escape.  Lying there dead with my eyes open, it wasn’t until the sun came up that I could see the blood on the snow, just dark smears until there was enough light to show red.  At first the light was silver except for the blood and the charred things, but then it warmed to golden and the sky cleared to blue, such a blue.  By then the cavalry was gone.  Everything was silent.  Charred lodgepoles still fumed and flickered soundlessly, rigid triangles over the black remains heaped inside and out.

From far away came singing.  The People came walking in a long procession, all the People who had died so many ways but were still somehow moving through time because there was no time now, just the place, and we were all together as a tribe.  We newly dead rose.  I was happy to be walking between my mother and father.  The snow was sand under our feet and drifts were sarvisberry bushes in bloom.

________

Maybe you’ve figured out that this is an experiment to see if I could summon up a word picture of the Baker Massacre that was new.  Usually battles are a man-thing with a lot of emphasis on who dominated, who had to submit.  So I thought of the most unlikely point of view:  a girl, a girl who is already dead, like the narrating heroine of “The Lovely Bones”.  It’s known that Heavy Runner was shot while holding up his letter of protection and that the same bullet killed the daughter in his arms, so that’s where I started.

One of my premises is that death, once you cross over, is not painful but rather a kind of bemusement, transparent but not agitated -- “swimming.”  It’s a strange phenomenon that understating something horrific can be more powerful than the gory details.

The librarian at BCC said that they were still having to address the problem of students with weak writing skills.  They’re not stupid -- all of them can speak eloquently -- but somehow there’s something about writing that makes their brains go flat.  Partly it’s because they don’t read any more than is strictly necessary, but there’s something more.  I think it’s because they haven’t had the experience of falling through the words into another world, what some people call “immersive.”  It’s like an addiction.  What they read doesn’t “hook” them.  How can it when it’s not about them?  There are exceptions. 

In this story I tried the trick Jim Welch used at the end of “Fool’s Crow” which was also about the Baker Massacre.  Instead of letting it end on horror and injustice, he summons up a vision of the People traveling on with their travois and dogs into some protected place where the past can continue to unspool.  

This is not just an invention of his own.  When someone on the rez has a close brush with death, like being in a car accident that leaves them suffering in a snowbank all night before they are found, they will often report that this procession of All the People, the Nitzitahpi, passed by them and that they tried to join it.  They will say that their grandmother, the most recent family member to die, was at the end and when they tried to go with her, she turned and made them go back to Life, even using a quirt to beat them into turning back -- because the suffering want to go with their Tribe but they shouldn't unless it's time.  It’s an illustration of the essential truth that to tribal people it is the survival of the tribe that counts more than any individual, which is why speaking the language -- the main marker of the tribe -- is so crucial.  But an individual has a story, too.

Some people, immersion readers, will not want to know the things I’ve just told about how and why I wrote this little piece.  They’re the same people who never want to know how movies and sausages are made -- they cling to their illusion.  But it’s like that thing about being inside the circle and outside the circle:  inside, the illusion is strong and convincing; outside, it’s clear that it was conjured and can be summoned.  There's skill to it.  The true writer and the stronger power is to be able to call up the circle, but then also to cross its boundary and inhabit a dream.  Dreams are also real.

Where it really happened