What Tribe Are You?

essay

Photo by Andrea Leopardi on Unsplash

This last Saturday night, I had a brief interaction with a homeless Native man.

He approached and asked if I had any spare change. He was very dark. So I didn't think he belonged to any of the Coastal Salish tribes. He was small though. So maybe Alaska Native. Maybe Pueblo.

He told me his tribe and I thought, yeah, he looks it.

I told him that I was Spokane Indian and grew up in Wellpinit, on the Spokane Indian Reservation—on the rez.

He said he'd grown up on his rez, too, and had been in Seattle for about eight years. He said he used to have drinking buddies from up in Wellpinit.

He laughed. I laughed. Everybody has a drinking buddy from Wellpinit.

He told me his name. I told him mine.

I gave him five bucks. He thanked me and went for a handshake. Among Indians, there are two kinds of handshakes. I let him lead the way and so we softly gripped each other's forearms and shook. It's a warrior handshake, yes, but it's not aggressive. It's not a test of strength. It's respectful.

He walked into the night and I walked back to my car.

And I remembered an encounter more than twenty-five years ago at a book festival in Denver.

After my reading, I was signing books and greeting fans. And I was shaking hands. And so I ended up shaking the hands of ten or twelve Indians in a row. And we shook hands in that other Indian style: with loose fingertips. A very gentle greeting. Indian men, women, and children all shake hands this way when we greet one another, especially in ceremonial settings.

But then, at that book signing, I shook hands with a white man. After so many handshakes with Indians, I forgot to code-switch when I took that white man's hand. He gave me one of those typical muscular strong grips. And I gave him my loose Indian fingers.

And he slightly sprained my pinky finger.

I'm sure some other folks might call this an act of white micro-aggression. Or even just aggression. Others might even call it a racist act.

But it wasn't that. Plenty of Indian men will give a macho handshake. And other non-white men will also go overtly masculine when they take your hand.

And I'm not blaming myself for my failure to code-switch in that moment.

I just want to point out the beauty of my encounter with that homeless Indian man. He and I are living in vastly different circumstances as urban Native men who grew up on reservations. But on a warm Saturday night in Seattle, he and I shared a moment of Indian solidarity.

We reached out to each other with tenderness.