WoW!! LOVED you poem. Though when I started reading, I thought I was some loser white girl with a boring life. Then your last stanza bit me - ouch! How sad and I really hope that doesn't happen. And, I am very aware of pretendians (love the word, did you create it?) as I am related to a few. Keep on writing! I truly enjoy your gift.
Wow! I read and dissected all of those articles! I learned so much, and your poem is more important now! I was completely unaware of the law about protecting Native Arts.!//
Thanks for this sour meat I must now dig into. 25 years, & can hear the timelessness inside & can only offer a prayer that it not remain so.
Listened to Dr. West's Masterclass on philosophy in last couple of days, where he mentioned O'Neill's work on pity versus compassion in The Iceman Cometh (which will now finally read) & struck with relevance to personal experiences actually in reverse for me (older ww,) that need to do further investigation & work on. Echoes, echoes, echoes.
As a further side note, Cornel's infectious joie de vivre is a pleasure to behold -- he is a healer, as you are in lancing further boils I did not realize the body could contain & hide so well . . .
I love the poem, though I have to give you a little bit of a bad time. I sense a slight resentment against the horse cultures, being from a more salmon, water culture. Just kidding, Iron Eyes wasn't native? That really sucks. Almost as much as Italians playing all the native leads in the old westerns.
This is beautiful. And funny. And sad. And beautiful. And as always with your writing, what is not spoken is at least as powerful as what is. "all of the Indians will be ghosts."
For a long time I’ve wanted to understand better the interaction between Indian and white cultures. In part, my confusion comes from the fact that I am an essentially white person born very far from the Americas, both geographically and culturally. Even though I’ve lived here most of my already long life, and even though this country, with all its flaws, is still more home to me than any other, there are things about its history I still don’t understand. Unfortunately this is also true of many white Americans born here. When I first moved to New York, I asked a boy in school why we didn’t study American history that was older than a few hundred years. He told me that there was nothing to study, because there was nothing here before a few hundred years ago. In consternation I asked him the obvious: what? what about the Indians (we didn't say "Native Americans" in those days) Luckily for me, and for this gentle idiot boy, my English was still so very broken that I couldn’t have had an actual conversation with him, but the memory of being completely stunned to the point of incredulity has stayed with me. To be fair, this well-meaning innocent also insisted that America was free from prejudice, because it had been founded (?) by people escaping persecution. (Clearly that necessarily meant that they knew better…of course.) We are, all of us, very good at wearing blinders when the truth is hard to face.
I was unaware of the existence of pretendians until recently . It seems there is no limit to how low we humans can sink. We don’t need politicians to guide us down the path of shamelessness.
I wonder if the Romans in ancient Britain pretended to be Celts? Later, I wonder if the Saxons pretended to be Romans? Later still, I wonder if the Vikings pretended to be Saxons? And did the Normans then pretend to be Vikings?
Much, much earlier, I wonder if Homo Sapiens ever pretended to be Homo Neanderthalensis.
I suspect all those things happened. One culture appropriates the other while actively paving over their still extant predecessor. It's easier to live with the sins of our fathers when we claim that we are better than them.
My mother and Grandmother moved from Oklahoma to Washington state when my mom was 5 years old. I never knew her father but she kept in contact with him. I grew up with my mother telling me she was a half breed. My grandmother being Irish, her father being mixed Indian of different tribes in Oklahoma. I joined 23andme when I was 55 years old. Not only is there no Indian, I am 100% white. Half Irish, half English. My mother did it for the attention.
For me it was the shame of repeating her lie. I went to an Indian cemetery and came across a grave with the name Jenny Pete who had lived to be 100. I studied up on all the things that occurred in her lifetime. Her tribe going from thousands to the twenties. All the things white people did in the Skagit County area. For me to have repeated my mother’s lie felt like a punch in the gut. She still won’t admit it’s a lie.
I can’t be ashamed of being white, that’s who I am. But the thought of using another race that was so brutally treated (I have no words) by whites, to get attention is incomprehensible to me.
That’s another reason I like you. You don’t sugarcoat your experiences as an Indian in this country. You remind me with every writing how important it is to accept what was/is and respect the truth, no matter how much it hurts.
Powerful
Such a great example of misreading! I do see your intentions now…I used this last week as an example of what happens when we read!
WoW!! LOVED you poem. Though when I started reading, I thought I was some loser white girl with a boring life. Then your last stanza bit me - ouch! How sad and I really hope that doesn't happen. And, I am very aware of pretendians (love the word, did you create it?) as I am related to a few. Keep on writing! I truly enjoy your gift.
Thank you, Toni. I didn't coin "pretendian." It's been in use for a few generations.
Pretty depressing bro...I do like the lines:everybody is a half-breed struggling to learn more about his or her horse culture.
There must be redemption, of course, and sins must be forgiven.
Redemption in those lines...
Those lines are meant to be anti-redemptive
Wow! I read and dissected all of those articles! I learned so much, and your poem is more important now! I was completely unaware of the law about protecting Native Arts.!//
Yeah, the Native Art laws protects more traditional artists but not writers. And I'm happy you read the articles. Thanks.
Are you interested in any follow up interviews or stories. I live 5 miles from Naropa and 10 from CU Boulder. I could do a little muckraking!?
https://www.dailycamera.com/ci_30955311/former-cu-boulder-professor-ward-churchill-returns-says
I had totally forgotten about the $1 award in his lawsuit!
Ugh.
Thanks for this sour meat I must now dig into. 25 years, & can hear the timelessness inside & can only offer a prayer that it not remain so.
Listened to Dr. West's Masterclass on philosophy in last couple of days, where he mentioned O'Neill's work on pity versus compassion in The Iceman Cometh (which will now finally read) & struck with relevance to personal experiences actually in reverse for me (older ww,) that need to do further investigation & work on. Echoes, echoes, echoes.
As a further side note, Cornel's infectious joie de vivre is a pleasure to behold -- he is a healer, as you are in lancing further boils I did not realize the body could contain & hide so well . . .
I love the poem, though I have to give you a little bit of a bad time. I sense a slight resentment against the horse cultures, being from a more salmon, water culture. Just kidding, Iron Eyes wasn't native? That really sucks. Almost as much as Italians playing all the native leads in the old westerns.
Salmon are bad-ass! There’s no animal tougher or more magical! And, yeah, pretendians almost always pick the tribes that are most often on TV.
I agree. I have never seen horses leaping over waterfalls
Hahaha
Thunder Boy Jr. picture book
https://www.amazon.com/vdp/44e2fcfa1e60478dae01f2a4c073a9f8
https://gettr.com/post/p1q6un9ec9b
You did it again--opened my heart through laughter so the last line could more easily break it. Thank you.
Thank you.
This is beautiful. And funny. And sad. And beautiful. And as always with your writing, what is not spoken is at least as powerful as what is. "all of the Indians will be ghosts."
For a long time I’ve wanted to understand better the interaction between Indian and white cultures. In part, my confusion comes from the fact that I am an essentially white person born very far from the Americas, both geographically and culturally. Even though I’ve lived here most of my already long life, and even though this country, with all its flaws, is still more home to me than any other, there are things about its history I still don’t understand. Unfortunately this is also true of many white Americans born here. When I first moved to New York, I asked a boy in school why we didn’t study American history that was older than a few hundred years. He told me that there was nothing to study, because there was nothing here before a few hundred years ago. In consternation I asked him the obvious: what? what about the Indians (we didn't say "Native Americans" in those days) Luckily for me, and for this gentle idiot boy, my English was still so very broken that I couldn’t have had an actual conversation with him, but the memory of being completely stunned to the point of incredulity has stayed with me. To be fair, this well-meaning innocent also insisted that America was free from prejudice, because it had been founded (?) by people escaping persecution. (Clearly that necessarily meant that they knew better…of course.) We are, all of us, very good at wearing blinders when the truth is hard to face.
I was unaware of the existence of pretendians until recently . It seems there is no limit to how low we humans can sink. We don’t need politicians to guide us down the path of shamelessness.
I think "shamelessness" is the perfect word for pretendians.
I laughed all the way through...except for the last line (the truth of the story).
Thanks for this...and the links.
Thank you.
I wonder if the Romans in ancient Britain pretended to be Celts? Later, I wonder if the Saxons pretended to be Romans? Later still, I wonder if the Vikings pretended to be Saxons? And did the Normans then pretend to be Vikings?
Much, much earlier, I wonder if Homo Sapiens ever pretended to be Homo Neanderthalensis.
I suspect all those things happened. One culture appropriates the other while actively paving over their still extant predecessor. It's easier to live with the sins of our fathers when we claim that we are better than them.
But then, there's always that pesky mirror.
Hi Dad. Never thought I would see you here.
I wish we were all nicer to each other.
I wish I were a better man.
Pretendians are skinning Native culture's face and wearing it like a Hannibal Lecter mask.
Yup. Very Ed Gein.
The Queen is dead. I don’t know why I’m sort of sad. More later….
I think the need to admire royal figures is a common human trait. And she's always had great PR.
Perfect. I recommend listening to you read it cause I can tell you loved writing and reading that poem. Thank you for your gift
I haven't peformed it in years so it was fun.
I could hear it in your voice ☺️
My mother and Grandmother moved from Oklahoma to Washington state when my mom was 5 years old. I never knew her father but she kept in contact with him. I grew up with my mother telling me she was a half breed. My grandmother being Irish, her father being mixed Indian of different tribes in Oklahoma. I joined 23andme when I was 55 years old. Not only is there no Indian, I am 100% white. Half Irish, half English. My mother did it for the attention.
It occurs to me that it would be interesting to write about a person who discovers they din't have the Indian ancestry they thought they did.
For me it was the shame of repeating her lie. I went to an Indian cemetery and came across a grave with the name Jenny Pete who had lived to be 100. I studied up on all the things that occurred in her lifetime. Her tribe going from thousands to the twenties. All the things white people did in the Skagit County area. For me to have repeated my mother’s lie felt like a punch in the gut. She still won’t admit it’s a lie.
We all want to present the world the best version of ourselves. But that can quickly become dysfunctional.
That I am framing to hang in my writing room, titled ‘Wise words from Sherman Alexie’.
Oh my gosh! Wiser words were never spoken!
Maybe you’re my brother from another mother 😉
I can’t be ashamed of being white, that’s who I am. But the thought of using another race that was so brutally treated (I have no words) by whites, to get attention is incomprehensible to me.
That’s another reason I like you. You don’t sugarcoat your experiences as an Indian in this country. You remind me with every writing how important it is to accept what was/is and respect the truth, no matter how much it hurts.
Thank you.
So, you're saying he has to look like Keith Richards?
Ha!