My boot-maker is Native American, he is also my very close friend. From time to time he feels a need to tell me, “ It is better to less thunder in the mouth and more lightening in the hand. “ I chuckle and am reminded each time this happens just how fortunate I am to have this truthful and trusted friend. I am blessed. There’s an old Cheyenne tale, the Bear, the Coyote, and the Skunk. One evening a bear was following a path in the dense woods. Likewise there was a coyote following the same trail path approaching from the other direction. Then they met head on. The bear said to the coyote, Move aside! This is my path, he told him. No, this is my path, you move aside, “ the coyote responded. An argument of words commenced and as they argued, a skunk came skipping joyfully along the path. “ Scram! “ , they both screamed at him. Then something odd happened, the skunk turned his back to them, lifted his tail baring his bare ass and started backing towards them. In a few moments the bear and the coyote were nowhere to be found. In some situations there is simply no place or room for words. Each tribe has its own stories. Most of them deal with the same subjects, differing only in immaterial particulars. Instead of squirrels in the timber, the Black-feet are sure they were prairie-dogs that OLD-man roasted that time when he made the mountain lion long and lean. The Chippewas and Crees insist that they were squirrels that were cooked and eaten, but one tribe is essentially a forest-people and the other lives on the plains - hence the difference. Some tribes will not wear the feathers of the owl, nor will they have anything to do with that bird, while others use his feathers freely. The forest Indian wears the soft-soled moccasin, while his brother of the plains covers the bottoms of his footwear with rawhide, because of the cactus and prickly-pear, most likely. The door of the lodge of the forest Indian reaches to the ground, but the plains Indian makes his lodge skin to reach all about the circle at the bottom, because of the wind. The habits of the birds and animals, the voices of the winds and waters, the flickering of the shadows, and the mystic radiance of the moonlight - all appealed to him. Gradually, he formulated within himself fanciful reasons for the myriad manifestations of the Mighty Mother and her many children; and a poet by instinct, he framed odd stories with which to convey his explanations to others. And these stories were handed down from father to son, with little variation, through countless generations, until the white man slaughtered the buffalo, took to himself the open country, and left the red man little better than a beggar. But the tribal storyteller has passed, and only here and there is to be found a patriarch who loves the legends of other days. When it comes to our environment, dont just talk, do something.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Nov 2014 17:19:51 +0000
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