Flowers For Socrates

by NONA BLYTH CLOUD

Indigenous – aboriginal, earliest, FIRST, native, original

Continuing this week with poems for National Native American Heritage Month, which happens in the U.S. every November, but with less fanfare than it deserves.

Of course, some Native Americans don’t want to be called Native Americans – and ‘Indian’ also gives offense to many. There are big cultural differences between peoples that evolved from early nomadic hunter-gatherers and those descended from cliff dwellers; between crop growers and animal herders; or desert-dwellers in the southwest and people living on the tundra above the Arctic Circle.

The U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), currently recognizes 573 tribes. Before Europeans showed up, it’s estimated that there were 1000 languages indigenous to North America. Today, there are about 250 left, but many of those are in danger of being lost. In too many cases, there is only a single ‘language keeper’ still fluent in their ancestral tongue. The Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages launched the Enduring Voices Project, offering assistance in keeping as many languages alive as possible.

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Here are four contemporary poets of the first peoples, beginning with Elise Paschen, who is an Osage Nation poet. Her poem tells a story of injustice from the past.

Wi’-gi-e

Anna Kyle Brown. Osage. 1896-1921. Fairfax, Oklahoma.

Because she died where the ravine falls into water.
Because they dragged her down to the creek.
In death, she wore her blue broadcloth skirt.
Though frost blanketed the grass she cooled her feet in the spring.
Because I turned the log with my foot.
Her slippers floated downstream into the dam.
Because, after the thaw, the hunters discovered her body.

Because she lived without our mother.
Because she had inherited head rights for oil beneath the land.
She was carrying his offspring.
The sheriff disguised her death as whiskey poisoning.
Because, when he carved her body up, he saw the bullet hole in her skull.
Because, when she was murdered, the leg clutchers bloomed.
But then froze under the weight of frost.
During Xtha-cka Zhi-ga Tze-the, the Killer of the Flowers Moon.
I will wade across the river of the blackfish, the otter, the beaver.
I will climb the bank where the willow never dies.

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