Who is my father... It was some time ago, way out there somewhere on the Navajo rez and he was about 14 I guess, him and his brother stood there before their mother. It was near Canyon De Chelly, way up high on the cliffs where they lived. He stood there with bushy hair tied in the traditional style of his people and looked at her standing there. She was tall and elegant in a rough way, her hands knowing hardship and hard work having raised these two boys of hers on her own. Giving them birth and nursing them along the west side of the Chuska Mountains, near Tsaile, Roof Butte and in a way the red sash belt she wore spoke of these things as it is red with a little white and green tied to a tree limb and she held onto this when they were born, and each color meaning taken from the forest, sunlight and her hardship, a sign of Navajo womanhood. The boy stood there and looked at her as her hooded eyes thought about how to answer him, he repeated himself again, it was the third time and she looked to the eastern horizon and thought about her journey to this spot, of how she had raised them on her own without help from their father, of carrying them and gathering wood, seeds and juniper, of planting corn in the canyon bottom and carrying water by the goatskin bagful to water each plant, and then to harvest them and then lay them out to dry, and getting on her knees to grind the corn and store it for winter. It was a hard life, but the only one she knew and she had raised them alone. He asked her again, who is my father? This boy was tall and lean, with bright eyes full of wonderings and strong willed. He had asked her a few times before but she always found a way to avoid the question. but today he asked her again for the fourth time. She told him, your father lives far away to the East a long ways from here beyond the horizon. You can catcha glimpse of him in the early light of morning, and he is far off, many days journey away from here. She thought how do I tell him his father is a harsh man, who did not want to know his children, that he already had left her long ago when she was young, and left her near where the water falls gently from the rocks and had gone away to find another woman and had never returned. She had taught them the ways of how they should do things, the proper way of getting up early, of running to meet the light of day, to walk in the high places and to hunt and plant and make good choices, and a little about the world around them in the use of flint, white clay, the use of sand, wind and snow in its proper time and place. The way of the animals, the flying creatures and the way of the monsters that roamed the earth during their time in the canyon, that these represented the bad things that were out in the world and were made from greed, pride and other things that they would learn about later. A loom stood nearby and she had sat there and spun rugs and blankets and looked over her sons, twins, one rougher than the other and opposites in many ways because one was gentle in all things, as different as night and day and yet they were the same in many things. She told him that their father was to the East and he was the Sun who travelled across the sky, and lived in a hogan far away. She thought to say that he was too busy living his own life and did not want to know his children and they would be disappointed to know him, because when they would meet him he would not recognize them as his sons, but treat them with distrust and try to hurt them by giving them tests to see if they were truly his sons. Such tests that would kill an ordinary man and this she knew was how he would treat them. Her heart ached for them, but then there comes a time when all children wonder about such things and those without their father around especially want to know about someone they havent seen. She tried to discourage them but now they wanted to know and so she told them and they said to her, we want to go and see him. With this she took them and told them if this is what you want to do then you will have to find out for yourself how to know him and learn how travel there and be strong enough to see if he wants you or not. In this you must know that it will be a hard and difficult journey and so she told them things every child should know about life and told them to prepare for the journey and sent to them to fuzzy mountain to learn about taking a sweat, and talking to the animals and creatures to learn from them and went first to Rock Point to where First Man and First Woman stand even now and showed them how they flow together, and stand by each other and if all things go in the proper way that they will go on together forever in harmony and so began their preparation for their lifes journey. So it happened long ago with the Twin Heroes and their mother Changing Woman and how they began their journey to find their father and prepared for his trials and tests that would kill ordinary men... I guess in a way this story relates to a young Navajo boy, he is about 15 who came with his mother to see this father, leaving Navajo land to travel far north into the rocky mountains to a place where another tribe lives to see who his father is. He wants to meet with him, to talk to him and ask questions. He was never there to raise him and left his mother and him long ago. How is it like this, that there are many Indian mothers who raise their children alone, it is a hard life in a way to do such a thing, when you have no choice. His mother is in a way like Changing Woman in that she is Navajo and has had to raise a child in the way he should walk alone and now the boy wants to know his father. The man this boy seeks who fathered him does not want anything to do with his son and has another family. So it will be a learning process the boy must go through, and will find he was nothing more than a thought and forgotten long ago. The boy will have to learn to deal with it and go on. His mother has brought him many miles and she knows that he will suffer a heartache that will test her son and yet she has brought him because he asked her...who is my father...so it goes with life... rustywire
Posted on: Wed, 09 Apr 2014 18:12:16 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015