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# 2020-08-27 - The Returner by John Medicine Horse Kelly
(IMG) Salmon art
> The salmon represents instinct, persistence, and determination in
> Haida culture.
The Returner is an autobiographical narrative by John Medicine Horse
Kelly, a local indigenous man. The first part of the story takes
place around Grants Pass. He went on to graduate from Oregon State
University as a language worker. Then he lived and worked on Haida
Gwaii (the Queen Charlotte Islands) in British Columbia.
Having grown up in Grants Pass, i appreciate the parts of the story
that refer to the local history and landmarks. The author learned
and studied the Takelma language, and wrote about the Takelma culture
in more depth than i had read before.
The author also writes about unpacking the consequences of racism.
He discusses becoming aware that he hated white culture and the
cognitive dissonance between loving some white people and hating
white culture. Reading this, i saw a distinction between white
culture and colonialism. The former consists of a group of people
and the latter consists of a group of behaviors and beliefs.
Below are excerpts from the book with comments in square brackets.
-----
I enrolled in Rogue Community College at Grants Pass, Oregon. I soon
learned that to succeed in the college world, I had to learn a few
things more.
Fortunately, my most important lesson came almost right away in my
first college quarter. I was not willing to risk standing out in a
crowd, so I asked no questions and took no chances, a trait that I
later learned was very Indian. I was hanging around the back of
David Fuller's science class getting my usual low grades when
Professor Fuller confronted me.
"Why didn't you pass that test?" he asked.
"Didn't know the answers," I replied.
"Why didn't you ask me for help before the test?"
"'Cause, you're too busy; got lots of other students to look after."
"Not true," he said. "Why do you think they hired me?"
"To teach?"
"Yeah, that's right. To teach. So you know what that means? I and
every other teacher have no right to turn you down if you ask
questions. So ask."
I put him to the test, coming in after class nearly every day just to
ask questions. Dr. Fuller was good for his word. My next test was
an A-plus.
I liked that very well.
-----
You'd think that a perfect 4.0 would be enough to raise my
self-esteem. But it didn't. Something still felt very wrong inside.
-----
In the fall of 1982 I transferred from Rogue Community College to
what is now Southern Oregon State University in Ashland.
Professor Casebeer has a special talent for bringing like-minded
people together, so he introduced me to Thomas Doty, who as "Coyote
Old Man," makes a living telling local First Nations stories to youth
and adults.
From both Tom and the professor I gained a deep respect for First
Nations oral traditions; something of which I had never before been
aware.
[Once i listened to Coyote Old Man tell stories at a BSA Scout camp.]
-----
The Table Rocks are the heart of Takelma Indian Myth-Time, a place
that this nearly extinct tribe considers as most sacred ground. The
Takelma call the Lower Table Rock Didankh, meaning "Rock Above."
The Table Rocks are the embodiment of their cultural hero, Dal Dal,
meaning "Dragonfly."
Dal Dal was a dragonfly, so the top of Lower Table Rock high above
the valley is even shaped like a dragonfly...
[The top of Lower Table Rock is shaped a miles-long dragonfly bent
into a half circle.
See:
(TXT) Upper and Lower Table Rock @Wikipedia
]
-----
Between Chuck and Sapir I learned that language was the soul of the
Takelma; that even the syntax contained concepts, realities and a
worldview that could be experienced in no other way.
Even the metre recorded the Takelma worldview. The poetry both in
metre and content focused on multiples of fives, the sacred number to
the Takelma.
-----
Their language was unique: a linguistic isolate that was a tonal
language reminiscent of Asian cultures. Takelman culture also was
unique. Unlike other First Nations, the Takelma had two branches of
medicine people: the S'omomloholxas and the Goyo.
The S'omomloholxas were the more powerful of the two. The Goyo would
either heal or harm depending on the spirits and upon who was paying
them, but the S'omomloholxas used their powers only for good.
-----
[Chuck] said that his grandmother had taught him that two ways
existed to obtain power through the spirit walks. One way was to go
into the woods and seek the powers. Whatever power would come was
received without question.
The other way, the way of his grandmother's medicine group was
different, Chuck said. She trained initiates to be selective on the
spirit walk; to test the spirits, receiving only the ones who were
beneficial and who loved truth.
"Those powers are the strongest," Chuck said, "because they originate
with the source of everything that exists."
-----
I understood at that moment why Sapir said the more powerful group
were called the S'omomloholxas. The word means "their power comes
from 'S'om," from the high mountains.
[In latin letters, i see a resemblance to OM.]
-----
Wallace's entire liturgy is only one word long only ONE word:
RESPECT. In the Lakota tongue that translates roughly as:
"Mitak-oyas-in," meaning, "All my Relations."
-----
Learned to love the woods and mountains in those days. No pain
there; just the opposite. Coming up to places like this [Grants Pass
Peak] is sort of like being pulled from the fire. Besides, there's
Something up here. Something. Watching. A Consciousness, maybe,
peering out like a million blue sparks; like eyes reading souls from
the ends of every pine needle. From every needle, from every blade
of grass, from every star, something Is--looking for worthy thoughts.
But It feels so calm.
-----
The Lakota are warriors and from them I learned a new lesson: that
Indians do not have to be losers. With truth as a weapon, First
Nations people can successfully defend their right to exist.
-----
"Jesus chose to suffer for others; we do the same," Robert said. "I
think Jesus would have made a good Indian."
-----
"... You know, the way things are going," he said with a sweep of his
hand, "the nations of all living beings are going to die soon. I
know it, and every one of them knows it, too."
"Then why, Grandpa Pete, do they keep on having babies if they know
they're all going to die soon? Why not spare the babies and the
pain? Why don't they just quit?"
"Because, Takaju (grandson); just because. They keep on going
because it is their nature."
That one statement changed my life. ... Sometimes the criticism, the
gossip and even the slander from a few among my own people are
severe, but I don't quit. I remember Grandpa Pete's words and I
understand.
I am not working so hard because I have any inkling that First
Nations languages will be saved. I keep working because I believe in
what I am doing; I keep working because I have finally found my
nature.
I am at peace because I know that whether or not I succeed is in
larger hands than my own.
Grandpa Pete's words set me free.
[He discovered his dharma.]
-----
I became a teacher because the profession, unlike journalism,
required absolute involvement in the growth and welfare of human
beings.
-----
I had a particular dislike for racism and prejudice. My classes
reflected this priority. My basic rule was that the classroom was to
be a safe haven for all. All actions, words and ideas were to
reflect mutual respect and consideration.
-----
Later, in my years on Haida Gwaii I observed the self-destructive
effects of our anger against the "white man." It is not that our
anger is without cause. On the contrary, colonialism, genocide and
racism have wronged us in so many ways.
The truth is that our anger is the legacy of racism and is eating us
alive. Planted deep within our own consciousness, anger turned
inward blinds us to the way we treat each other; it destroys our
unity. Turned outward, anger causes us to stereotype "white people."
This cuts us off from enlightened individuals who truly are our
friends. It also cuts us off from less-enlightened individuals who
through our example could come to understand the truth.
-----
The years ahead would teach me that lesson: that to build, not
destroy, I would have to reject my own anger. However much anger
seemed to be justified, I would have to find a better way.
-----
Worse than that, I was an Indian educated at a university. To the
ultra-conservatives among the Haida, that fact alone categorised me
as a "non-Haida" regardless of my Haida blood.
What I experienced was akin to racism: a form of ostracism based upon
personal characteristics beyond my control.
On the positive side my alienation has compelled me to examine my own
tendencies toward racism.
The ultraconservatives compelled me to examine a discontinuity in my
own spiritual being. For just cause I hated the racism that had made
me its victim, but unknowingly I too had internalised the coloniser.
I had become a racist. I loved some white people, but I hated white
culture.
Culture is the sum of human activity, ideals and experience; past,
present and projected. I could not "love" some white people and
concurrently "hate" their entire culture. "White" culture had
produced those who are worthy of love as surely as those same people
had produced the nobler aspects of their culture.
-----
Nathan long ago advised me that it is better with patient integrity
to act privately than with lack of timing and forethought to react
publicly.
-----
# Eagles And Ravens
> Wisdom without knowledge
> is far better than
> knowledge without wisdom,
>
> but, wisdom with knowledge
> is Power.
>
> Still, the wisest Eagle
> needs to watch out
> for Power lines.
[
Eagles and ravens are the two Haida clans. See:
(HTM) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haida_people#Social_structure
]
-----
"Even their canoes are shaped like ours. The old timers used to talk
about Haidas going to New Zealand, but no one put them on tape.
Maori have totem poles; they rub noses when they greet; just like we
used to do."
(HTM) http://users.on.net/~mkfenn/page3.htm
-----
Autobiographies began appearing as early as 1762 when a Mohegan,
Samuel Occom, who had learned to read and write, wrote an account of
his life based upon his conversion to Christianity.
Pitt University English Professor David Brumble (1988) in his book
American Indian Autobiography documented more than 600 First Nations
autobiographers. Although a significant number of the
autobiographies were written in collaboration with non-First Nations
writers, it is remarkable that so many were written in so short a
period.
-----
According to one authority, Henry Dobyns (1983), the size of the
pre-contact population of the Americas was approximately 145,000,000
for the northern hemisphere, at least 18,000,000 of whom lived north
of Mexico. By the last decade of the nineteenth century, only five
percent of the original population was left alive: 19 out of 20 First
Nations people had been killed (Larson, 1997a)
David Stannard (1982) defines the period as "The American Holocaust."
The holocaust wiped out nearly 95 percent of the indigenous
population, far exceeding in scope even the Jewish holocaust.
Stannard (1982) wrote, "The destruction of the Indians of the
Americas was, far and away, the most massive act of genocide in the
history of the world."
-----
Winnemucca was a pioneer, a forerunner of modern First Nations
autobiographers, despite the criticism that she had been assimilated
and that her writings were not "Indian" enough. In truth, Winnemucca
practised reverse assimilation. She "assimilated" non-First Nations
literary forms into her First Nations world, not the other way around.
The ability to adapt intelligently to changing environments without
sacrificing cultural integrity is a powerful tradition in all
successful human cultures.
Using the coloniser's English to uphold Native identity was a crucial
challenge for Winnemucca, especially because her first language and
worldview was Paiute.
McClure (1999) writes that this multicultural fluency is instrumental
in the struggle against colonialism's stereotyping and racism:
> The very existence of autobiographies by Native Americans is a
> movement away from static, invented notions of Indianness. In
> using this literary genre, the authors are adopting and
> appropriating the conventions of the dominant culture in order to
> strengthen their own. ... [T]he appropriation of English and its
> literary forms is ironic and subversive, and it ultimately leads to
> a liberation from one-dimensional, stereotyped inventions of ethnic
> identity.
If Earth as a planet is to move beyond the overwhelming impact of
racism and the American Holocaust all who were involved should openly
participate, not just the Aboriginal peoples. On a national scale,
the responsible governments include not only those in the Americas,
but the European governments that colonised the Americas.
To revitalise First Nations languages and cultures, all people must
work with one mind.
But cultures do not exist. People exist. Culture is ourselves
expressing ourselves to ourselves--past, present and future. Culture
is our way of life: our relationships with one another and with the
Universe.
It is powerful; it is sacred; it is vast. Touching the Whole is an
inexpressible experience. Touching the Whole is not understanding;
it is Being. This way of existing is beyond words.
author: Kelly, John Medicine Horse
(HTM) detail: https://carleton.ca/sjc/profile/kelly-john/
(HTM) source: https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/mg74qq366?locale=en
tags: biography,ebook,native-american,non-fiction
title: The Returner
# Tags
(DIR) biography
(DIR) ebook
(DIR) native-american
(DIR) non-fiction