Metwe Metwe Metwe Metwe What does that mean Metwe?, these words come to mind, they speak of family, of togetherness, of joining one people with another, taking in a person from another family, another people to be included as your own. I met them when they were a young couple they had a child. Their house was new and nice and they lived far from their homeland. They made a place on a high mountain valley, a place to call home where they could raise their children and bring them up in the way the two thought they should live. The young mother had long black hair and in order to make money she made frybread and she was good at it, putting in hamburger and beans with a little cheese. She had some with chili, just hot enough to let you know you were alive. She came from a place called Coal Mine Mesa, way out there not too far from Tuba City. Her clan was Tlizi Tlani, Many Goats, her family was large and her father made her feel like she was the special one. He prized her and thought to give her his most valuable possession. The young womans husband came from a place not too far her original home, on a mesa with ancient adobe built one on top of another. His home was at Second Mesa, where he was born into a clan with a place in the community, an old place where centuries of a way of life based on the seasons goes on still in this out of the way corner in Arizona. She was a Navajo and he was a Hopi and they didnt know that about each other when they first met. They learned about each other, their people coming from different places, spoke different languages and had different traditions, they came to know one another and decided to make a life together. I once asked them about the Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute and how they felt about it. They told me it was just something that was there and didnt affect them, that they had their own lives to live and they were far away from there. I would see them and visit with them, they both said at times it was hard to adjust to another way of life different from your own, and that in order to go on you have to overcome many things to make a life together. She left her family and he left his and they set up a life together far North in Utah, far from their homeland. As time went on, she wanted to please her man and learn the ways of his people so she went with him, driving south to the borders of Dinetah, passed her old place at Coalmine Mesa and down the windy road to the place where his family lived. Second Mesa it was called where the traditions of time, space, family and relations require following the flow of the seasons. She stepped into his world and his family looked at her, and she became Metwe. It is how they call those that come to join their family, their people and they take them in. During the ceremonies and dances in the village there was much work to be done, and she stepped into it and learned to do it all, grinding corn between stones, collecting wood and fashioning ground corn into a mush to lay it out on a hot tin and roll it to make the bread they call Piki. She butchered sheep, made stew and watched the children of the family as the dancers were readied for the plaza. Her husband was one of these and she learned how they take the time to follow certain practices to dress in an appropriate way and where she was to sit. She learned about the gathering of plants, the preparation of harvests and offerings and the ways of the katchina. Metwe Metwe they called to her, please do this for us and she would go and get something missed or forgotten. When the doings were done, she cleaned and put away the things a woman does, the pots, the pans, the cloth, and worked to help her relations with the household duties. She found that at each dance they went home and she worked learning the ways of his people and remembering her own. Coalmine Mesa a small place where there is no water, it had to be hauled in from many miles away. There were few trees, and the place is a hard place to make a life, but that is where her father came from. He told her, we Navajo exist with the land, we dont change it but continue on with it, to survive to go on and on. She listened and then one day her family moved off that land forever. It lies within Hopiland now; no longer do any Navajos live there. Her father went to Kinlani and worked there in town knowing he would never be able to sleep in the land of his birth, he and his children had to make a new life. It was hard. The folks in Washington told him they would build him a new home anywhere for the loss of his place. He thought about it and said he would let them know. As time went on, the young couple needed a home to make their life. It was her father who said, my daughter this is my gift to you, take this home that is to be built for me and let it be yours. She looked at her father and though he never said how he cared for her, she could see it in his eyes, that is how are people are, we dont show outward affection, you see it in how we do certain things, or in an action or like him in how he looked at her. In his face were the wrinkles of age, and his hands wore the mark of a hard life on that empty land which once was his home. Sometimes when you look into the eyes of an old person, especially those who have seen the sunrise of a place where they were born, you can look into them and glimpse the early morning dawns of a lifetime, of herding sheep, of hauling wood and hauling water on horseback from miles away at Moenkopi Wash to the west as he had done. There she saw the movement of yucca plant standing in the wind and in its roots the cleanliness of it for washing and medicine. That the wind blown sand covered the tracks of her fathers and mothers who had run to meet the dawn in their youths, and the sounds of young girls reaching womanhood dressed in sash belts, silver jewelry with coral and turquoise also running to meet the sun starting life as a woman. These things she saw in her fathers eyes as he gave away his birthright to her to make a new life in a far off place. Metwe Metwe (Metway is how it is said in the Hop way of speaking) She heard the sound and came back to the place, to Second Mesa and was grinding corn and could see the feet of his feet, her man who stood not too far ready to go to the plaza to dance for another season of rain, for good corn and long days. He stood there with deerskin moccasins, with ancient bells, with a loincloth and sash belt, his body covered in paint and a large red gourd rattle was by his side. Up ahead was the place they entered to put on the masks, the deities, a Katchina he would be, with long hair. His mother came to her and helped her with the corn. This was a time for renewal; it was his peoples time and their place. She picked up her ground corn and followed her new mother into the pueblo, and looking from this high spot to the west, there on the horizon was Coal Mine Mesa, once her fathers home. This was now her people, their way of life was now her own. When they returned to the high mountain valley, she stepped into her fathers house, a house given to him by the United States Government the walls were new, the sidewalk outside led through a yard of green grass. She could see the mountains to the North and the snow on them and the place was peaceful. Her husband drove into the driveway, parked the truck, picked up their sons, and went inside. What are these places we call home and how do we get them, how are they named? What is it about it that makes them that way, is it sacrifice, love or fate? The Navajo-Hopi land case is settled by the courts, but the people who lived there where did they go? Dreams and Broken Rainbows, when rainbows break do they make a sound. Life goes on but at Coalmine Mesa, the wind blows with no one to hear. You can touch the yucca plants, their spiny ends and hear the sound of a broken rainbow. It was not so long ago, that her father was layed to rest in Kinlani –Flagstaff, and a part of Coal Mine Mesa was also buried there. The hopes and dreams of a new life resting in his children. One time on a trip to Hopiland, she didnt go with him but stayed to watch the children. I am not sure what it is that makes one restless with life, where one can walk out the door and never go back in; to find comfort in the eyes of another while small children cry after you. It is what happened with Metwe and she is now alone with the kids, he has gone to another woman. I saw him by chance not too long ago, he stood not too far from me and when I saw him, he was quiet when I asked him about his children. He smiled and looked away from me and spoke of his work in California. After he left, I learned that they were no longer together, the daughter from Coal Mine Mesa had to find work in a nursing home and struggles now with work and taking care of three kids. The home, the house the gift of her father who passed away has been sold and now it is gone. Where is Coal Mine Mesa, it is east of Tuba City, not even a wide spot in the road, it is a windswept place. When you drive by there you wouldnt think to stop, there is not much there to see now, but if you were to stop and listen carefully when the storm clouds gather, and a few drops of rain fall, and the sun begins to break through the clouds, you can hear the sound of a broken rainbow. It sounds a little like a child crying...you can hear it in the wind out there...at the place...Coal Mine Mesa... rustywire
Posted on: Sat, 07 Jun 2014 15:23:48 +0000
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