Native America: 10 of my favorite places in the US where you can experience Native American cultures responsibly
Talk to me and I’ll tell you about my husband recalling how unfamiliar he felt when he first met me and found himself the only non-Indian person among American Indians. Blending our lives (and later raising our children) helped me gather opportunities where he could begin to understand and learn about Native lifeways.
You will notice that the title of the original article says culture. It ought to read cultures, reflecting the fact that Native American people are of many tribes, Nations, cultures, languages and histories.
I greatly enjoyed researching and writing the article and I’m thankful for the invitation to take my readers into Native America to visit the thriving lifeways of a continuing land and people.
What Thanksgiving Means To This Mixed-blood American Indian
On the day known as Thanksgiving I gather with some of the people I love best and we share a Friendsgiving feast. And yet for me, it's important to honor and hold space for the fact that many Native American people do not participate in any of form of Thanksgiving. I find it ironic and sad that Native American Heritage month and Thanksgiving have been braided together in the month of November. Thanksgiving, as it has come to be observed in America, is a time of mourning for many Native people. It serves as a reminder of how a gift of generosity was rewarded by theft of land and seed corn, extermination of many Native people from disease, and near total elimination of many more from forced assimilation and as a reminder of 500 years of betrayal.
My family is mixed-race. I’m of Cherokee, Lenape, Seneca, German descent, and my immediate family was formed through marriage, adoption, kinship care, love and community. We have family members and loved one who immigrated to the United States.
My loved ones tell me when they came to the US, everything was new—the foods, the smells, the language and the people. They felt alone and out of place while learning to become fluent in English in those first early years. But most of all they were thankful for the privilege of gaining American citizenship. A sense of belonging began to take hold. They were encouraged to assimilate, but they were not forced to let go of their traditions, language and cultural heritage. From that deep place of thankfulness, a respect for the holiday known as Thanksgiving was born.
This is in contrast to my American Indian ancestry, identity, mindset and Native community belonging. Thanksgiving and the myths associated with it have done damage and harm to the cultural self-esteem of generations of Americans by perpetuating cultural misappropriation and stereotyping that leave harmful images and lasting negative impressions in Native American and non-Native minds.
My immigrant family members and intimates know all too well the effects of assimilation. It gave way for thoughtful examination of cultural differences with emphasis on renewal and survival. Never having been washed in the American tradition of the First Thanksgiving falsehoods, there is no standard set linking it to a day in 1621. No myths carried about roasted meats and Indians sharing a table with Plymouth settlers.
I’m well into grandmotherhood now, doing my best to learn what I need in order to grow right as an elder and to do my part to make better for the next seven generations. I'm not opposed to the tradition of gathering for a Thanksgiving meal with family and friends, yet it must be done respectfully. I tell stories to the children and parents in my community. They ask me many questions about Native Americans and Thanksgiving. I tell them about the Wampanoag people. About this tribe of Southern Massachusetts and how their ancestors ensured the survival of the Pilgrims in New England, and how they lived to regret it, and that now the tribe is growing strong again.
I tell them Native people have a history largely untold and that gathering to give thanks for the harvest did not originate in America with the Pilgrims, it was always our way. I read books to the kids written by Native American authors who are working to make sure that Native lives and histories are portrayed with honesty and integrity.
I tell them Native people have a history largely untold and that gathering to give thanks for the harvest did not originate in America with the Pilgrims, it was always our way. I read books to the kids written by Native American authors who are working to make sure that Native lives and histories are portrayed with honesty and integrity.
And so the histories of Native People are painful to hear, still they need to be told and retold and never forgotten by generations of Americans.
But I tell this this story today for ALL people in America, with the hope that through truthful knowledge of the past we will not allow another group of people in America to have their life ways taken from them, to have their ethnicities and cultures erased, to be exterminated and reach near total elimination, even again.
This article was first published in a slightly different form in the Huffington Post and is reprinted at Matador Network.
Copyright © 2016 Terra Trevor. All rights reserved.
Halloween: Why Native-inspired Halloween costumes devalue our Indigenous cultures
On Halloween I was sitting on the front porch watching Scrub
Jays dart from branch to branch. The evening shadows melted into liquid dusk. Then
I lit candles in the pumpkins we carved and waited for the parade of neighbor
kids Trick-or-treating. There was a rush of footsteps and
laughter. I chatted with parents, ooh and aah over the costumes. One kid was
dressed as a purple dinosaur. Another was made to look like grapes wearing a
green shirt covered with green balloons. And there was a tiny girl with two long black
braids, wearing faux-leather, dressed as Pocahontas and her dad
was wearing a headdress.
I love Halloween, but my thoughts are heavy
saddlebags. It was
unintentional, of course. This father was unaware that it is disrespectful to
dress his daughter and himself as Native American. I could shrug
it off as cultural borrowing and overlook cultural
appropriation, after
all, he means well. But I can’t. As Native American people we are a culture—not
a costume. I understand that wearing
a culture as costume is not intended to hurt most of the time. However, the
fact of the matter is that it does.
Native social justice
activists have been speaking out against Native American themed costumes for
decades, yet companies still produce them, and stores still order and sell
them. When I contacted a number of the costume supply stores in my city and
state the owners I spoke with said that their Pocahontas, Indian Brave and Big Chief costumes
are top sellers, and they would lose business if they didn’t stock and sell
them. Some people buy and wear these costumes out of naiveté and others in a blatant disregard, disrespect and
irreverence.
Our Native
American regalia is a tradition for our Native people, and the wearing of it is
a distinctly indigenous activity. It is imbued with spiritual meaning and an expression of culture and
identity. For Native dancers, not only is the act of dancing that expression, but
also the wearing of dance regalia is a visible manifestation of one's heritage.
Often
the beadwork contains personal motifs that reflect the dancer’s tribe and
frequently beadwork is created by a family member and given as a gift to the
dancer. Feathers receive utmost respect. Regalia is one of the most powerful symbols of
Native identity and is considered sacred. This is one reason why it is inappropriate to
refer to regalia as a "costume."
However we (by we, I mean American society) are stuck in a
mode where too many people tolerate imitating American Indian people. These
activities are indicative of an ignorant society that refuses to see American
Indian people as people.
Most damaging is the Halloween " Pocahottie” and “Sexy Indian Girl” costumes
which have gained popularity. I can begin by
referencing statistics about how many Native women are sexually assaulted (one
in three). The rate of sexual assault is more than twice the
national average, stressing the point that dressing up and playing Indian is
not a harmless activity.
When a costume or sexiness is based on race, ethnicity,
or culture, human people are being extracted for the sake of making the wearer
of the costume feel powerful, or exotic. There
is also cultural appropriation. It involves members of a dominant group
exploiting the culture of a less privileged group and equals belittling the
lived experience and ethnicity of those who have birthright.
Native American people are one of the most underrepresented and
misunderstood minorities in all of North America. Too often the First Americans
are depicted as existing during colonization and western expansion, as if belonging
only in the past, but not as people in todays world. No myth about Native people is
as prevalent, or self-serving as the myth of the vanishing Native, also known
as “the vanishing Indian” or “the vanishing race.” Therefore it’s no surprise so many feel that wearing Native
American-alike regalia as costume isn’t offensive—because in their mind Indians no longer exist.
In my mind the problem stems from the fact that America has a long
history of regarding its Native people as profoundly different and somehow not
human. By traditional western values Native peoples are viewed as creatures of
whimsy that have disappeared into history, making their images, cultures and
manner of dress and regalia available for the taking.
Copyright 2020 Terra Trevor. All Rights Reserved.
Author’s Note: As a writer of mixed descent, including Cherokee, Lenape, Seneca, I neither presume to speak for any sovereign nation nor identify with the dominant culture.
Goodby Columbus: It’s still important to challenge any recognition of Columbus Day
In mixed-race America all of our individual histories and cultures matter, yet since 1937, on the second Monday in October, the day Congress named Columbus Day, Christopher Columbus was allowed to ride herd.
My son bounds from his classroom. Eyes filled with brown warmth, he peeks out from under a cap of shiny dark hair, holding a milk carton cutout fashioned into the shape of a boat, with two smaller makeshift vessels trailing behind. Out of the corner of my eye I see children clutching newspaper sailor hats and Columbus’ Ships coloring pages.
With his eyebrows curved in question marks my sons tells me that there is also a song about Columbus, sung to the tune of Oh, My Darling Clementine. And then we both laugh at the absurdity. It’s both funny, and not funny.
We are a mixed-race, mixed-blood Native American family. My son has older siblings and he knows there is controversy surrounding Columbus and his Day of recognition. But at age seven it’s not his job to carry the weight. As his mother that responsibility belongs to me.
Columbus Day first became a federal holiday in the United States in 1937. After strong lobbying from the Knights of Columbus, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed Oct. 12, 1937, as the first Columbus Day. Over the years the holiday celebration has become controversial: The arrival of Columbus to the Americas — followed by the European settlers — heralded the beginning of devastating movements against indigenous people and the demise of their histories and cultures.
As a European colonizer he set the genocide in motion. The story of Columbus’ discovery and the indigenous people he misnamed as “Indians” continues to affect us with a duel identity misunderstood by mainstream America.
For more than five hundred years Native peoples have been measured and have competed against a Columbus fantasy over which they have no control.
Others argue that Columbus should not be honored for discovering North America because he only went as far as some islands in the Caribbean and never got as far as mainland America. Yet for many Americans, the Columbus myth has become real and a preferred substitute for reality.
Aside from the fact that I’m of Cherokee, Delaware, Seneca descent, I am something else too — I am a woman. Rape of indigenous women of color became rampant and was tolerated by Columbus. A reported comrade, Michele de Cuneo — who wrote of a relation between himself and a Native female gifted to him by Columbus — supports this information. There are also reported accounts of Native infants being lifted from their mothers’ breasts by Spaniards and smashed by rocks. The further I dig into history more horrific acts are revealed. One account reports that he wrote in his journal on October 14, 1492, three days after being greeted with kindness by the Lucayan people (the original inhabitants of the Bahamas): “I could conquer the whole of them with fifty men and govern them as I please.” As I try to disentangle truth from history I wonder why we celebrate the man in such heroic terms if so much about him needed to be hidden.
Efforts to eliminate or rename Columbus Day in various states and cities have met strong resistance. In my hometown of Los Angeles, City Council voted to allow city employees to take Cesar Chavez Day as a paid holiday instead of Columbus Day, a move that prompted much objection. As a compromise, the council allowed city employees to celebrate either holiday. Finally the state eliminated the Columbus Day holiday as part of a budget-cutting measure, yet city and county offices still observe it. The Unified School District does not. Then in 2017 the Los Angeles City Council voted to eliminate Columbus Day from the city calendar, siding with those who view the explorer as a symbol of genocide for native peoples in North America and elsewhere in the world. Yet the day remains a paid holiday, regardless of the name.
In 1992, the city of Berkeley was the first to declare the day Indigenous Peoples Day. More recently Seattle, Minneapolis, Albuquerque, Portland, St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Olympia, Washington followed suit. South Dakota celebrates Native American Day instead, and Hawaii and Alaska, which also have large indigenous populations, don’t recognize it at all.
Although alternatives exist, millions of Americans still prefer to celebrate Columbus Day and New York City’s Columbus Day Parade continues to thrive. To understand how deeply ingrained our U.S. collective modern fantasy of Christopher Columbus has become I turned to Google. A search for “Columbus activities for children” revealed 4,750,000 results (in 0.64 seconds) with lesson plans, songs, and teaching ideas. It is clear this compliant Columbus image, edited and embellished, is much preferred…and why not? His fantasy is colorful and brings something exotic to celebrate, like a visit to Frontierland.
First published at Matador Network
My son bounds from his classroom. Eyes filled with brown warmth, he peeks out from under a cap of shiny dark hair, holding a milk carton cutout fashioned into the shape of a boat, with two smaller makeshift vessels trailing behind. Out of the corner of my eye I see children clutching newspaper sailor hats and Columbus’ Ships coloring pages.
With his eyebrows curved in question marks my sons tells me that there is also a song about Columbus, sung to the tune of Oh, My Darling Clementine. And then we both laugh at the absurdity. It’s both funny, and not funny.
We are a mixed-race, mixed-blood Native American family. My son has older siblings and he knows there is controversy surrounding Columbus and his Day of recognition. But at age seven it’s not his job to carry the weight. As his mother that responsibility belongs to me.
Columbus Day first became a federal holiday in the United States in 1937. After strong lobbying from the Knights of Columbus, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed Oct. 12, 1937, as the first Columbus Day. Over the years the holiday celebration has become controversial: The arrival of Columbus to the Americas — followed by the European settlers — heralded the beginning of devastating movements against indigenous people and the demise of their histories and cultures.
As a European colonizer he set the genocide in motion. The story of Columbus’ discovery and the indigenous people he misnamed as “Indians” continues to affect us with a duel identity misunderstood by mainstream America.
For more than five hundred years Native peoples have been measured and have competed against a Columbus fantasy over which they have no control.
Others argue that Columbus should not be honored for discovering North America because he only went as far as some islands in the Caribbean and never got as far as mainland America. Yet for many Americans, the Columbus myth has become real and a preferred substitute for reality.
Aside from the fact that I’m of Cherokee, Delaware, Seneca descent, I am something else too — I am a woman. Rape of indigenous women of color became rampant and was tolerated by Columbus. A reported comrade, Michele de Cuneo — who wrote of a relation between himself and a Native female gifted to him by Columbus — supports this information. There are also reported accounts of Native infants being lifted from their mothers’ breasts by Spaniards and smashed by rocks. The further I dig into history more horrific acts are revealed. One account reports that he wrote in his journal on October 14, 1492, three days after being greeted with kindness by the Lucayan people (the original inhabitants of the Bahamas): “I could conquer the whole of them with fifty men and govern them as I please.” As I try to disentangle truth from history I wonder why we celebrate the man in such heroic terms if so much about him needed to be hidden.
Efforts to eliminate or rename Columbus Day in various states and cities have met strong resistance. In my hometown of Los Angeles, City Council voted to allow city employees to take Cesar Chavez Day as a paid holiday instead of Columbus Day, a move that prompted much objection. As a compromise, the council allowed city employees to celebrate either holiday. Finally the state eliminated the Columbus Day holiday as part of a budget-cutting measure, yet city and county offices still observe it. The Unified School District does not. Then in 2017 the Los Angeles City Council voted to eliminate Columbus Day from the city calendar, siding with those who view the explorer as a symbol of genocide for native peoples in North America and elsewhere in the world. Yet the day remains a paid holiday, regardless of the name.
In 1992, the city of Berkeley was the first to declare the day Indigenous Peoples Day. More recently Seattle, Minneapolis, Albuquerque, Portland, St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Olympia, Washington followed suit. South Dakota celebrates Native American Day instead, and Hawaii and Alaska, which also have large indigenous populations, don’t recognize it at all.
Although alternatives exist, millions of Americans still prefer to celebrate Columbus Day and New York City’s Columbus Day Parade continues to thrive. To understand how deeply ingrained our U.S. collective modern fantasy of Christopher Columbus has become I turned to Google. A search for “Columbus activities for children” revealed 4,750,000 results (in 0.64 seconds) with lesson plans, songs, and teaching ideas. It is clear this compliant Columbus image, edited and embellished, is much preferred…and why not? His fantasy is colorful and brings something exotic to celebrate, like a visit to Frontierland.
First published at Matador Network
Copyright © 2020 Terra Trevor. All rights reserved.
Author’s Note:
As a writer of mixed descent, including Cherokee, Lenape, Seneca, I neither presume to speak for any sovereign nation, nor identify with the dominant culture.
It's A Very Dirty Job
Recently, my dad, well into his 80s now, pulled out a photograph of his grandmother. She lived in a log cabin in Oklahoma and told stories from a rocking chair. Two flat pewter braids hung down to her waist; deep valleys formed between her cheekbones and chin. My dad grew up listening to her stories. "Do you still remember her stories?” I asked him. Dad shook his head,” Only one. We went to her house on Saturdays and when I was twelve, usually my mind was on the baseball games I missed playing in on account of those visits.”
My dad perked up. “She told me about the time four men rode onto her land and pulled a gun on her. ‘It happened fast,’ Grandma said. ‘Shootin’ began, one guy shot the heads of two of my chickens. Never saw a better shot in my life. Them fellers weren’t interested in me. They wanted me to cook them a chicken dinner,’ Grandma explained.
I chuckled and looked at the photograph again. She was short, brown and sturdy, with boot moccasins on her feet. And from what I've heard, she was an excellent shot too.
“Grandma told me she cooked a real fine meal,” Dad said. “Then she let out a hardy roar and put her nose right up to mine and said, “Bobby, it was Frank and Jesse James.”
Then my dad’s face grew serious and he said, "Grandma gave birth to eleven babies. The first died at four months, the second at age eight. It went on like that for years—grandma giving birth and grandpa making babyboards, digging holes and lowering those dead babies into the ground. It was a time of measles and smallpox epidemics.”
My mind glimpsed my great-grandma. I felt a distant memory pulling me back, and I could hear her wailing like wind coming up—crying and swaying. I thought about how her cries probably drifted into the cabins of nearby white settlers, and I wondered if they knew the high, shrill sounds pressing against the night came from an American Indian mother mourning her dead baby.
And I thought about my own son, diagnosed with a brain tumor at age seven, but growing well and strong again following radiation and chemo, and then dying at age fifteen when the cancer recurred.
As we walked back, with the lights of the cabin glowing from the dark mist of trees, I felt the boundary of time fall away, as if my great-great-grandma and I had lived side by side.
“Well, six of Grandma’s children somehow managed to survive to adulthood.” I added.
Dad nodded. “The family slept on deer hides, Grandma shelled corn, ground it into meal and picked dandelions for their greens.”
I let my heart drift all the way back to great grandma and I felt her spirit and imagination become my own.
“Do you suppose Grandma really cooked chickens for the James brothers?” I asked.
Dad stared at me with wide brown eyes brimming with question marks.
“It’s hard to say,” he answered. "Maybe what she knew was how to get a twelve-year-old boy to listen.”
My dad perked up. “She told me about the time four men rode onto her land and pulled a gun on her. ‘It happened fast,’ Grandma said. ‘Shootin’ began, one guy shot the heads of two of my chickens. Never saw a better shot in my life. Them fellers weren’t interested in me. They wanted me to cook them a chicken dinner,’ Grandma explained.
I chuckled and looked at the photograph again. She was short, brown and sturdy, with boot moccasins on her feet. And from what I've heard, she was an excellent shot too.
“Grandma told me she cooked a real fine meal,” Dad said. “Then she let out a hardy roar and put her nose right up to mine and said, “Bobby, it was Frank and Jesse James.”
Then my dad’s face grew serious and he said, "Grandma gave birth to eleven babies. The first died at four months, the second at age eight. It went on like that for years—grandma giving birth and grandpa making babyboards, digging holes and lowering those dead babies into the ground. It was a time of measles and smallpox epidemics.”
My mind glimpsed my great-grandma. I felt a distant memory pulling me back, and I could hear her wailing like wind coming up—crying and swaying. I thought about how her cries probably drifted into the cabins of nearby white settlers, and I wondered if they knew the high, shrill sounds pressing against the night came from an American Indian mother mourning her dead baby.
And I thought about my own son, diagnosed with a brain tumor at age seven, but growing well and strong again following radiation and chemo, and then dying at age fifteen when the cancer recurred.
As we walked back, with the lights of the cabin glowing from the dark mist of trees, I felt the boundary of time fall away, as if my great-great-grandma and I had lived side by side.
“Well, six of Grandma’s children somehow managed to survive to adulthood.” I added.
Dad nodded. “The family slept on deer hides, Grandma shelled corn, ground it into meal and picked dandelions for their greens.”
I let my heart drift all the way back to great grandma and I felt her spirit and imagination become my own.
“Do you suppose Grandma really cooked chickens for the James brothers?” I asked.
Dad stared at me with wide brown eyes brimming with question marks.
“It’s hard to say,” he answered. "Maybe what she knew was how to get a twelve-year-old boy to listen.”
American Indians In Children's Literature
A small boy walked over to a display of books in the library. “Wait a minute.” He whispered to his mother, “I want to look at these Indian Books.” The boy’s eyes were blue luminous water as he thumbed through the pages of one book and then another.
His mom came over to where we were standing and skimmed the row of books. “How about this one?” She asked. I tensed my shoulders and tightened my toes, she was holding a copy of The Education of Little Tree, a book I liked until I learned more about the author.
“Actually, that might not be the best choice.” I announced.
Prior to his literary career as "Forrest," Carter was politically active for years in Alabama as an opponent to the civil rights movement: he worked as a speechwriter for segregationist Governor George Wallace of Alabama; founded the North Alabama Citizens Council (NACC) and an independent Ku Klux Klan group; and started the pro-segregation monthly titled The Southerner.
“It isn’t? How do you know?” The boy and his mother eyeballed me up and down.
I opened my mouth, closed it and cleared my throat. “Because I’m a writer.” I said. “And my mother is a Children’s Librarian and we’ve read lots of books and have studied the authors and their backgrounds.
Then I offered up my favorite online resources for reviewing children’s books by or about American Indians.
Lucky for me this mother was delighted with my bold offer. She whipped out her phone and linked to the website addresses I gave her, which are the same ones I will share with you here.
I read all the time. I can’t remember ever not reading. Listen to my mother and you will hear tales about me in diapers with a book in my lap. The only goal I had for my children was for them to love reading as much as I do. And I’ve achieved that success. All three were avid readers while growing up. As adults each time they move to a new city the first thing they do is get a library card. They buy books from their local bookstores, volunteer and teach, and contribute to literary.
Reading shapes and changes us. When Native Americans are in children's and young adult literature, it can be difficult to know if the characters in the books are appropriately portrayed from a Native perspective. Equally important is to know about the author so that we can decide if we want that person to influence our children’s lives.
American Indians In Children's Literature By Debbie Reese
Offering critical perspectives of indigenous peoples in children's and young adult books, the school curriculum, popular culture, and society.
His mom came over to where we were standing and skimmed the row of books. “How about this one?” She asked. I tensed my shoulders and tightened my toes, she was holding a copy of The Education of Little Tree, a book I liked until I learned more about the author.
“Actually, that might not be the best choice.” I announced.
Prior to his literary career as "Forrest," Carter was politically active for years in Alabama as an opponent to the civil rights movement: he worked as a speechwriter for segregationist Governor George Wallace of Alabama; founded the North Alabama Citizens Council (NACC) and an independent Ku Klux Klan group; and started the pro-segregation monthly titled The Southerner.
“It isn’t? How do you know?” The boy and his mother eyeballed me up and down.
I opened my mouth, closed it and cleared my throat. “Because I’m a writer.” I said. “And my mother is a Children’s Librarian and we’ve read lots of books and have studied the authors and their backgrounds.
Then I offered up my favorite online resources for reviewing children’s books by or about American Indians.
Lucky for me this mother was delighted with my bold offer. She whipped out her phone and linked to the website addresses I gave her, which are the same ones I will share with you here.
I read all the time. I can’t remember ever not reading. Listen to my mother and you will hear tales about me in diapers with a book in my lap. The only goal I had for my children was for them to love reading as much as I do. And I’ve achieved that success. All three were avid readers while growing up. As adults each time they move to a new city the first thing they do is get a library card. They buy books from their local bookstores, volunteer and teach, and contribute to literary.
Reading shapes and changes us. When Native Americans are in children's and young adult literature, it can be difficult to know if the characters in the books are appropriately portrayed from a Native perspective. Equally important is to know about the author so that we can decide if we want that person to influence our children’s lives.
American Indians In Children's Literature By Debbie Reese
Offering critical perspectives of indigenous peoples in children's and young adult books, the school curriculum, popular culture, and society.
Copyright © Terra Trevor. All rights reserved.
Freefall Home
She nodded at me; her eyes were quick behind the thick lenses of her glasses. Grandma rolled out dough, filled it with apples, and put it in the oven to bake.
Then I went out back on the porch to watch an orange-black garden spider, her web a zigzag of silk, right above my head. The cousins gave me more reasons to notice spiders. My legs were long and thin, and they called me Spider Web. I imagined myself a spider sitting in my parlor awaiting visitors.
In the little town, Freefall, on the edge of the reservation, laughter comes in handy.
Every Sunday went spent the whole day at my grandparents house, and often we stayed until way past my bedtime. I loved being in a house filled with relatives. It meant cousins to play with, lots of cousins. The uncles talked politics, shouting out their rock bottom opinions, while the aunties gossiped and the kids played together like a pack of wild pups.
First published in Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers Native Realities
Although I didn't know what it was called when I was young, I was raised in what is now known as the mixedblood fiddle tradition. The uncles played fiddle and grandma took out her teeth, dropped them into her apron pocket, and played the harmonica. She could step dance too and do the Bluegrass Clog. Often the kitchen was alive with fiddle music, banjo and guitar playing and grandma’s feet tapping.
Grandma was actually my great-grandma. But I didn't know this when I was a kid. She was just grandma to me. I also had two other grandmas, my dad's mother and my mom's mother. I had three grandpa's too, my dad's father, my mother's father and great-grandpa.
Sometimes instead of music, we watched westerns on television. Since grandma and grandpa and dad and I, and all of the aunties and uncles and cousins were all Indians, I thought it was rather funny that the black and white movies on television showed Indians sitting on horses at the rise of a hill, with their faces painted and living in tipis. All of the Indians we knew drove trucks or cars and lived in houses, like we did.
After dinner, a sweetness of cinnamon and steaming apples brought the uncles into the kitchen. “Grandma’s making apple pie.” Somebody said. I’d never tasted apple pie, but felt positive it would be the best dessert ever.
A few minutes later more relatives arrived. Nobody ever went away without eating. The aunties, apron-bound, brought out platters of fried chicken, biscuits crusty on the outside and soft inside and broiled cracked corn, and everyone gathered around the big table. So much food was pushed onto my plate. Afternoon sun poured through the window onto the table. Tiny dust particles were floating in the sunlight.
“Child, you eat like a bird.” Grandma said. “If you don’t eat more than that you’ll never get fat.” My older, round-faced cousins always cleaned their plates. My family thought it was necessary to eat lots of food to grow up the right way. But I couldn’t eat more, so I plainly could never hope to be normal and healthy.
Finally the pies were brought out.
“There won’t be enough pie to go around.” Someone hollered.
Sometimes instead of music, we watched westerns on television. Since grandma and grandpa and dad and I, and all of the aunties and uncles and cousins were all Indians, I thought it was rather funny that the black and white movies on television showed Indians sitting on horses at the rise of a hill, with their faces painted and living in tipis. All of the Indians we knew drove trucks or cars and lived in houses, like we did.
After dinner, a sweetness of cinnamon and steaming apples brought the uncles into the kitchen. “Grandma’s making apple pie.” Somebody said. I’d never tasted apple pie, but felt positive it would be the best dessert ever.
A few minutes later more relatives arrived. Nobody ever went away without eating. The aunties, apron-bound, brought out platters of fried chicken, biscuits crusty on the outside and soft inside and broiled cracked corn, and everyone gathered around the big table. So much food was pushed onto my plate. Afternoon sun poured through the window onto the table. Tiny dust particles were floating in the sunlight.
“Child, you eat like a bird.” Grandma said. “If you don’t eat more than that you’ll never get fat.” My older, round-faced cousins always cleaned their plates. My family thought it was necessary to eat lots of food to grow up the right way. But I couldn’t eat more, so I plainly could never hope to be normal and healthy.
Finally the pies were brought out.
“There won’t be enough pie to go around.” Someone hollered.
I smelled sweet, browned piecrust. My heart pounded. I wondered since I hadn’t eaten very much, maybe I would not get a piece of pie.
A clatter of plates was passed, with a bunch of forks, sugar and cream stirred into coffee. I grabbed my napkin by two corners and shook it out onto my lap and sat on the edge of my chair, my back bony, my elbows sharp, waiting.
Before anyone else, Grandma, all smiles, lifted a large triangle sized piece of apple pie onto my plate, I took a bite, tasted its warm crusty apple goodness, and I felt lucky and special.
Before anyone else, Grandma, all smiles, lifted a large triangle sized piece of apple pie onto my plate, I took a bite, tasted its warm crusty apple goodness, and I felt lucky and special.
First published in Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers Native Realities
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