Language Lessons
twelve tiny essays about Native American life
Fancydancing
At the powwow, my white friend asked me what the songs mean. She thought the drumming and vocables sounded like secrets were being kept. I told her she was making it too complicated. Just think of it as Indian rock & roll, I said. Indian punk, even. Every drum group could be named The Rez Pistols and every powwow song is a joyous refutation of all the forces that have sought our extinction.
Extravehicular Activity
Reservations are the gravitational center of Indian identity. If you're an Indian who isn't directly connected to your tribe and reservation then you're an untethered astronaut floating somewhere in space while hoping that tribal members are sending out a rescue party.
Alternate Life
I sometimes wonder what kind of Indian that I'd be if I'd never left the reservation. Who would I be if I hadn't chased my off-rez dreams? Living on the rez, I still would've been smart and funny. Still tall, mostly handsome, and definitely mentally ill. I think there's a good chance that I would've been an alcoholic who stayed sober for months at a time but then went on self-destructive drinking binges. And, of course, I would've still read a hundred books every year. As far as romance goes, I doubt that I would've found love with another Spokane Indian. They would've thought me too weird, weepy, and distracted. Even if I'd stayed on the rez, I would've still been carrying an imaginary suitcase and theoretical bus ticket to Seattle. Going, going, gone would've been the secret song in my heart. So who would've fallen in love with me? I suspect that I would've been the charming bookworm drunk who attracted the attention of a white high school teacher who commuted to the rez from Spokane. She would've been one of the liberal teachers whose secular and subconscious mission was to save Indians. I think she would've tried to save me.
Testament
When I die, will I be buried on the reservation alongside my mother and father? Or will I be buried in Seattle in the cemetery located only ten minutes from my home? I haven't decided yet.
Immigration, Emigration
There's the photo of my fourth grade class on the reservation. You can't see it but I can. Twenty-two kids posing in three rows. Almost all of us are Indians who belong to the Spokane Tribe. Some of the Indian kids belong to other tribes. About two-thirds of us Spokane kids are brown-skinned and dark-haired while the others run a little more pale. A few of those pale kids aren't Indian at all. They're only white. But they've spent their entire lives on the rez so they've become Indian by osmosis—no, they've become Spokane Indian by osmosis. But that specific tribal identity—that sense of belonging—doesn't make them Indian in any other place and time.
The Morning News
My sister texts me from the reservation: There's a bear at the dump. At my kitchen table in Seattle, I stare at the coffee machine. If I added milk to my java then it might be as brown as a grizzly. But if I drink my coffee plain then my caffeine is a black bear. Here, in the last third of my life, I pour wilderness into a cup.
Language Lessons
If my mother had taught me how to speak our tribal language–if I had become fluent—then I doubt I would've become a poet who wrote in English. I believe that I would've taken all the old tribal vocabulary and grammar and created new words and concepts. My mother would've shaken her head, tsk-tsked me, and told me to stop making up stuff. I would've argued back and told her that cultural evolution is sacred. She would’ve said that the sacred stays sacred because it doesn’t change. Then she would've told me that I was just creating a one-man dictionary for white future archeologists. And then we would've laughed because both of us would've been correct.
Guess Which Settler is Coming to Dinner?
There are Native Americans who ferociously criticize “settlers,” which is the political activist synonym for “white colonizers."
And, yet, some of the most ferocious anti-settler Indians have one white parent. And some of the most ferocious anti-settler Indians are romantically partnered with white people.
How does that work?
“Happy Mother’s Day, Settler.”
“To my Sweet Settler Valentine.”
“Happy Birthday, My Half-Settler Daughter.”
These particular activist Indians also like to call themselves “settler-adjacent.”
...to love, honor, and be adjacent to...
The Fourteenth Step
My father once drunkenly told me that he wasn't an alcoholic because he was Indian. He swore that he was Indian because he was an alcoholic.
Betrothed
I married a Native American woman on purpose. She married me on purpose. We purposefully married another Native American because we are Native Americans. Moreover, I would've only married an enrolled member of a tribe and she would've only married an enrolled member of a tribe. Of course, we fell in love for individual reasons but our individuality is formed by our lifelong Native identities. As I like to joke, I'm a salmon Indian, she's a wild rice Indian, and our love is the side vegetable and dessert. A few years back, I realized that Diane and I are in an orthodox Native American marriage. I'm sure that few other Native Americans have ever pondered the concept of Native marital orthodoxy. But that orthodoxy is real and practiced by some of us Indians.
Vocabulary
These days, a certain population of Native Americans have taken to exclusively calling themselves "indigenous,” sometimes without mentioning any tribe they might belong to. By and large, this population is comprised of college-educated and urban political activists. They're what I'll call the Indigenous Elite. I don't think many non-Indians are aware there are class distinctions in the Native world. But there is indeed an elite group of Native Americans whose vocabulary is sometimes divorced from the everyday reality of ordinary Indians, especially rez Indians. Here's the truth: Nearly all Indians unabashedly refer to themselves as Indians. My tribe is officially known as the Spokane Tribe of Indians. But there are Indians who publicly bristle at being called Indians. Online and in-person, they'll insist on being only called indigenous. They'll sometimes even protest being called Native American. These protests are completely directed at white audiences. These protests are performative. But they also deliver a tacit message to other Indians. And that message is We know better than you do. Yep, those elite Indians, like all other elitists, are arrogant. So it turns out that "indigenous" is sometimes a synonym for "condescending as hell."
Self-Portrait
In the city, I feel lonely for the reservation. On the rez, I feel lonely for the city.
Don't have anything to add, Sherman, except to say how much I enjoy your writing and am glad to be a subscriber.
You nailed it: "indigenous" is sometimes a synonym for "condescending as hell."
But then, you always do. At least in the stories/poems by you that I've read ;-)