Well, here we are with another holiday upon us…….but for Neshnabék, this is also a time of renewal for self and one’s people through fasting and the many other ceremonies observed by various folk. Some are Sun Dancing, others’ will vision quest, others’ at various sacred dances, Mide ceremonies, along with a host of other things Neshnabék do to co exist with the four leggeds, the creeping crawling things, the winged ones, the fire, the rock, the water, and the green. Many are asking for continued Health/Help in their daily walk on this Red Road we all walk. We want to remember all who are currently seeking this vital renewal during this most sacred moment of the summer season. So we take a few moments out to express these thoughts with you all.
Have a wonderful Holiday this July whatever mode of spiritual expression you observe. We shall be back on with regular writings and thoughts periodically, but go now to re join some of our brothers and sisters in their renewal efforts.
We’ve been busy doing our summer ceremonies, fasting and taking care of our yearly spiritual obligations. That is the reason we have not been posting as regular as we had been. I promise to share some insights with you very shortly on some spiritual news we brought back from the fasting grounds. Language goes on as usual though with my wife doing some good review lessons for those of you who are hanging in there with your language studies. Seee you very shortly then………nin se Neaseno.
I trust all had a wonderful time with relatives and friends over the last holiday. We need to enjoy each others’ company while we can and remember that we go the way of all flesh, sooner or later. That brings me to some timely words which I had been thinking on lately, that of spending time with relatives and friends, as well as loving those folk, and telling them that you love them. We never know when we shall see any of our friends or relatives for the last time, or when they shall see us for the last time, which should behoove us to act with love toward all people at all times. A kind word can truly go a long way.
I have thought much about relatives that I used to visit during these summer months and how we visited on so many matters under the sun. The many times I have enjoyed some of them makes me feel nostalgic now thinking about all those times. The summer months were always a time of traveling to various places to visit and ceremony with different folks we were related to and also friends we knew. There were elders and spiritual people we visited on a regular basis, but there were also those elders who were quite old and the only time we visited them was when it was nice and warm, keeping their old bones in mind, so they could get out and enjoy life too. We often traveled from Wisconsin to Kansas and even to Oklahoma and several times to Mexico to visit relatives during my youth. In my mind, those were the good old days…….visiting with the old folks to hear what they had to teach and say to all of us.
Any time we can learn what those old people had to share was a good time.
Memorial Day is upon us folks……memories of our fallen heroes who left our people to go and fight for us, often with little or no appreciation or recognition from their white neighbors. There were many native people who risked their lives to fight in the wars of this country, to protect the freedoms they were denied in many cases, and the rights that most enjoyed, with the exception of some of us, the native people of this country.
I speak of our native people who served in the various armed forces of the United States. Many of them died serving this country, others were severely wounded, often with lifelong debilitating circumstances. Many medals and citations were awarded native veterans for their acts of heroism, sometimes long after the fact, due to some oversight on the part of commanding officers and field officers. It has taken this country years to award some of those same native veterans for their part in defending others’ freedoms, and in some cases, foreign governments honoring our fallen dead and those wounded in action long before the United States got around to it.
It is time to think of some of those people who gave their lives for us. It is time to honor them and thank them by offering our tobacco and sponsoring sweats, ghost feasts, and generally remembering them for what they have given, their lives and substance. I have many relatives who fell in combat during World War II and the Korean War, the Viet Nam Conflict, and other Conflicts. I have sons and other relatives involved in the Conflicts of this country even now. It has kept us in constant prayer asking for their safe return to us and the many other other native people also serving in our armed forces.
As a veteran and survivor myself, I am thankful I am among the living today and salute all my fallen comrades, relatives, and friends. It is good to be among relatives, family and friends this week end. My prayers go out for my sons and nephews, and cousins who are currently serving today. I pray they shall all return home safe and sound, to see their families and relatives, along with friends once again. Pray likewise, all of you, even if you don’t have anyone serving during this time. Perhaps you know of others who have sons and daughters serving, or friends, or others’ relatives. Pray for all of them and remember the veterans for their service to all of us……
I am extremely grateful for all that I have been given by the Spirit and spirits, in terms of health and help in my life here on this earth. I can walk, where some folks can’t, I can work, again where some folks can’t or won’t, I can think clearly and enjoy life, where some folks can’t, or perhaps won’t, and when I get up in the morning, I always thank the Powers that I am able to get up and move about. Some folks can’t do that.
I had a younger brother who couldn’t walk a day in his life. He died at the ripe old age of 43. He had encaphalitis from birth and always required the rest of us to care for him, but when we children grew up and moved away, my parents couldn’t keep up with his daily care, so we encouraged them to place him in a nursing home close by them, so they could visit him regularly. He died in that nursing home when he was 43 years old. I went to visit with him often and always remembered to take him some special gift that he liked.
He didn’t have a formal education but he could speak some English and could also speak Potawatomi, which I enjoyed speaking with him. He heard Potawatomi all his life and treasured those times when we could visit in Potawatomi, the language of his birth. He wasn’t a particularly interesting guy, nor was he glib of tongue, but he was my brother and he could speak our language and that was good for both of us.
On one trip in particular, I had purchased some drawing supplies for him, as he liked to doodle while laying in his bed all day. The nursing staff all grew to know him and like him, and they didn’t have the time to move him into a wheel chair often enough, but they did what they could for him. I recall feeling such a deep sadness for him and felt sorry that he never knew what it felt like to feel the wind in his hair, or upon his face, nor what it felt like to run or play outside with other kids while growing up. He didn’t know what it was like to go walking in the woods or to go fishing, nor what it was like to go for a swim, but he was special to me.
While I was feeling such sorrow for him, I heard these words spoken to me so clearly. “Why do you feel so sorry for him? Why don’t you feel sorry for all those who will never know the joy he shall know when I come after him? He has never committed some of the acts against creation that you have, he never could. He has never cheated anyone, but some of your kind have. He has always known who I was and has always talked with me, but sometimes you get too busy to do that. He does’t know what mistakes are, but you do”. “Don’t feel sorry for him. Feel sorry for yourself, for when I take him soon, he will come directly to the sacred fire where we sit, but you shall have to continue experiencing the hardness of this life and wait until you are called. His time is almost up here on this earth and soon, he will be very happy with us”.
I never forgot that and went and told my parents immediately upon leaving that visit. Richard passed from this world shortly after that visit. That was also the last time we visited and I treasured that time with him for many days to come, and still do, from time to time. Once in awhile a special person like him passes through our lives. He enriched my life in so many ways. I cannot comment on how many ways he influenced me and enriched my life. He taught me humility just by being near him and he taught me patience, again by just being near him.
Some times we do get extremely lucky and are twice blessed. I have been. I have a daughter whom some of you have met named Gabriella. I dreamt on her name and was told to give her that name when she was born. It means “woman of God”, or “woman of Yah” in Hebrew. I also was told to give her the Neshnabe name of Wawyastokwe, which means “Whirlwind woman”. She is somewhat like my brother Richard was but she can walk and talk, run and play, fish and swim, read and write some; all the things Richard couldn’t do. I felt when she was born and the doctors told me what she was going to be like, that I had been given Richard in my daughter’s body, all over again. Kanh Ti Vu, MD, a Viet Namese man who was the doctor who delivered her told me this information after examining her and then asked me how I felt.
I told him that I was elated and told him about my brother Richard who had passed from this world by then. He rejoiced with me as he said that his people of Viet Nam felt the same way about relatives who sometimes come back among us like that. I was so glad that someone else shared my thoughts and feelings and he was happy for me that I felt no sorrow about how she was born, with “slow brain syndrome”. She sometimes is subject to seizures also, but to us she is a very special child. Yes, indeed, I am blessed to have Gabriella in my life, Richard all over again…….someone whom I can enjoy life with and talk with……..Richard, you must be smiling upon me from somewhere and I thank you for being my brother, for the short time you were. I also thank you for allowing Gabriella to come to me for now…….I shall enjoy her and take good care of her for you and Mamogosnan.
So that is how it is with me today….folks. Just sitting here and reflecting on all the wonderful blessings of life.
Ya know, I like to think in my language a lot……just sit somewhere and quietly think in the language I grew up with. I used to hear so many of my relatives speak this language in an everyday context, and most of the folks living on the Bluff didn’t speak much else among themselves……oh, many of them knew how to speak the English, or the white talk, as we called it, but when we were just among ourselves, everyone just spoke neshnabem. One of the reasons I am slow to respond sometimes to someone’s questions is because of that fact, I think things through in the langauge I grew up with, the language I was surrounded with.
I got the chance to play baseball with many of the older fellows and all they ever spoke on the field was Neshnabemwen. I heard my language when I played sports, when i was doing just common everyday types of chores, visiting at the table over a meal, visiting with my elders about my day and what might have happened to me that day, playing with other kids during the day, the only time we used any English was among the white kids, or if I was in school. They encouraged me to speak in English at school, but most of the people we did business with spoke Potawatomi too. So I was surrounded by Potawatomi, immersed in it, even among the occasional white business person I might have to deal with to go shopping in the small town I grew up in.
I just got to thinking today how totally blessed I was back then, being surrounded totally by the language, from so many sources. I was insulated and shielded by the elders in so many ways. I try to provide that for my kids today but often they do not undersatnd what it is I am trying to do for them. They think I am trying to control them or monoplolize their time or their schedules, never realizing I am trying to give them a taste of how I grew up and how I was protected from negative influences…….and what were some of those negative influences?
I didn’t listen to just any kind of music. It was our music, our songs, our sacred sounds, that is why I still know and can sing the old time sacred songs today for our ceremonies. I didn’t read and listen to “smut” on the radio or read it in the newspapers. We didn’t have TV then so I never saw what our children of today see, and I never was influenced by all the ads for toys and everything else the kids of today are bombarded with.
I knew what “respect” for my elders was! I didn’t talk back to my elders, grandma, grandpa, or either of my parents. I never spoke badly toward any of my elders, even one of my uncles who was relatively close to me in age by just a few years. It is hard for me to remember when I got spanked, if ever………I mean, I think I did, but I really can’t remember. I was a kid! I know I must have gotten disciplined for something, but I can’t ever remember if I ever got a really bad whipping, ever……..we used to say, “whupping”.
Life among our people was like a haven. I never fully realized it until I got away from the community I grew up in. I used to experience really bad bouts of “home sickness” when I was in the service. I loved my parents and my elders! I loved the kids I grew up with and played with……..I even loved and missed the white people that used to wait on me when I went shopping for my elders or if I had to translate something too difficult for someone to say.
I want to tell you this one fact…..I was good in English! I was a good student and I was a good athlete. I graduated from high school before my 17th birthday…….I learned to speak English very quickly and also excelled in other studies. I have always been of the opinion that one cannot learn something, no matter what it might be, if one doesn’t apply themselves.
You or anyone else who reads this blog can learn to speak Potawatomi, if you really want to. It just takes discipline and the will to succeed. Do it! Learn to speak your language!
I was born in a place my people called pgwakik, The Bluff, Powers Bluff, near present day Arpin, Wisconsin. A farming community made up mostly of German immigrants working smaller farms near Wisconsin Rapids, WI, which was the county seat of Wood County in central Wisconsin. My birthing was one performed by a midwife with an attending doctor near by in the event of any problems, but the birth was a normal one. I am proud of the way I was born, no chemical hospital birth, and the many other things they do to babies in hospitals these days. Then too, there were spiritual people attending my birth which were to figure throughout the course of my life, as a child, as a youth, and then as a young man. I was raised in the old fashioned ways of my people, having to fast immediately from the time I could barely walk, and my elders saw to it I was introduced into the proper ceremonies, being named within the first moon of my life. Everything I experienced as a child was governed by those elders who also raised me while my parents worked, thus I was introduced to all the old ceremonies from the time I was a mere baby. I heard the language as a baby also, but also learned the older language of our people, which not many people speak any longer. My fondest memories are of those times when our elders spoke to us of our history, the memories they had as young children, the things they were told by their own parents and grandparents. I heard of the Removal Period, first hand, so to speak, or at least what my grandparents remembered as they were told. I also had the opportunity to participate in the old ceremonies and listened with awe the old people speak about our ceremonial history, heard the old words some of my ancestors must have spoken and actually witnessed the opening of ancient medicine bundles, and listened with great interest, the old songs sung by many of the old people living back then. Yes it was an exciting time to be sure, but the things that mattered most to me was my elders loving me and taking care of me, teaching me the things I needed to know about our old Potawatomi ways; Mshkoteniyek is what we were called back then…it was a blessed time to be alive back then and to speak only the old language. When I started school, I could not speak English, and it was awesome to me as a young boy, to see those white people and to communicate with them in the halting English I did know, which wasn’t much then. I learned much from my white class mates and the white teachers. I quickly learned to speak the English language from several teachers who took a personal interest in my education, and learned to play the various sports the rest of the young boys played back then. I was strong and could outrun any of the other boys and even many of the older boys were hard put to compete with me. I was lean and hard from all the hard work we were so accustomed to doing. It was a wonderful time to be alive and I don’t think I would trade that time for anything in this world. People living today have no idea what the old ceremonies and the old language was like. Many of our people alive today are spoiled from living like white people too long and can not perform any of the old fasts and early ceremonial life I had to go through. Grandma and Grandpa used to make me fast from sunup to sundown often and they told me to work hard always, hauling water, splitting wood, sawing trees, and gathering in the garden, as well as picking the many wild fruits and nuts. We arose early in the morning and went to bed when the sun went down. It was a good life and I have many a wonderful memory of it.
I shall share more as my memory serves me…..
Nin se Neaseno. Wenet shna emikwendemyan anet egi zhewebziyak ibe egi penojewiyan…
Baseball fans around the world have probably heard of two of America’s major league teams, the Cleveland Indians and the Atlanta Braves. Both names refer to American Indians, although the teams themselves have no connection with tribal culture. But few fans have heard the names Charles Bender or Louis Sockalexis, legendary baseball players who really were American Indians. A new exhibit at a museum in New York State hopes to change that. It celebrates the role of America’s first people in America’s pastime. David Sommerstein reports.The Iroquois Confederacy, a group of six American Indian tribes, once reigned across much of the northeastern United States and eastern Canada. Today, the Iroquois Museum in upstate New York commemorates that legacy. The museum’s cedar shingles resemble the elm bark of a traditional Iroquois longhouse, or meeting place.With major league baseball’s hall of fame a short drive away in Cooperstown, it’s the ideal meeting place to tell the largely invisible history of American Indian ball players. Inside, you’re greeted by more than a dozen black-and-white photos of players with American Indian ancestry. Many are household names.
Exhibit visitor Rosemary Joyce looks them over in amazement. “Bucky Dent and Johnny Bench and Early Wynn… I didn’t know there were this many American Indians in baseball. In fact, I was surprised at the names. Names I always heard growing up when I was a teenager.”
There are less famous names too. Louis Sockalexis, a Penobscott Indian from Maine, became the first American Indian to play in the major leagues, with the Cleveland Spiders in 1897. Sockalexis was a victim of alcoholism and the racist taunts of fellow players. His career lasted just three seasons.
There’s Charles Bender, an Ojibwa from Minnesota, one of two American Indian Hall of Famers. His huge hand-carved bat is one of the collection’s treasures.
At least 47 men of native descent have played in the big leagues. A full ten of them were simply called “Chief.”
Erynn Ansel-McCabe, the museum’s director, says their stories haven’t been told yet. “I want everyone to know about these stories in order to [sort of] add to the richness of the baseball game itself.”
At the exhibit’s official opening, organ music helped create that ballpark feel. So did the food – hot dogs and beer.
Mike Tarbell, a Mohawk with a graying ponytail and a beaming smile, spins a baseball in his right hand. “Thirty-four years ago, I put this ball down,” he muses. ” I just remembered the things I could do with this. How I could make it dance through the air.” Tarbell was a star pitcher for a semi-pro team in Syracuse. But his career was cut short by injuries suffered during his tour of duty in Vietnam. Today is actually the first time he’s picked up a baseball in 34 years. “The smile came back. Even if I had a bad day pitching, it was still a good day because I was playing the game.”
Tarbell comes from a family of ballplayers, whose history may be the most fascinating part of the exhibit. Three of Tarbell’s uncles played baseball for the Carlyle, Pennsylvania, Indian boarding school. Beginning in the late 1800s, American Indian teenagers were forcibly taken from their families to be civilized, as it was said, at schools far from the reservation. For boys, baseball was a tool of assimilation.
Valerie Tarbell, Mike’s cousin, stares at a photo of her grandfather Joe. “He died before I was born,” she says. “I never knew him, but I heard so much about him, and to see this just brings him more alive to me.”
She turns to a team photo of the Carlyle Indians. Eleven boys stare stoically at the camera. “They don’t look too happy,” she points out. “They’re not smiling and it was my cousin Mike who said, ‘Well, of course they’re not smiling, they were at the Indian school.’ They were brought there. They didn’t necessarily want to be there, but there’s also intensity about them, that the game was so important. I never realized how important it was.”
The Indian schoolboys took refuge in baseball to survive. Like many of them, Joe Tarbell eventually escaped and returned to his reservation. He brought baseball with him.
By the time Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier in 1947, dozens of native men had already been playing in the major leagues. Exhibit curator Stephanie Schultiss says they experienced a mix of racism and acceptance.
She points to Hall-of-Famer Charles Bender’s huge bat and says he’s a perfect example of that. “I have one quote from Bender where he’s obviously faced hecklers on the field, and he says, ‘You ignorant, ill-bred foreigners, go back to your own land.’ But then in one very long quote, he says how good baseball was for him and how everyone treated him well while he was playing baseball, so you’d have some good times and some bad times.”
For decades, Native American stereotypes pervaded major league baseball. Team names like the Cleveland Indians and the Atlanta Braves still carry that legacy. But the names on everyone’s lips today tell a new story… two rookie phenoms at the heart of baseball’s biggest rivalry: Jacoby Ellsbury and Joba Chamberlain.
Jacoby Ellsbury is Navajo. He plays centerfield for the Boston Red Sox. Joba Chamberlain is half-Winnebago. He plays for the New York Yankees, just south of here.
Chamberlain exploded onto the major league scene last fall with a 160-kilometer-an-hour fastball. And he has talked proudly about his native heritage on the reservation in Nebraska. “We have family there, so we always went back for pow-wows and we always went back for everything, so it was always a part of my l
