“And here I cannot but take notice of the strange providence of God in preserving the heathen,” (22).Wampum Prayer, by Tori Amos
In our hand
an old old old thread
Trail of Blood
and Amens
Greed is the gift
for the sons
of the songs
Hear this prayer
of the wampum
This is the tie
that will bind us
The ties that bind us are greed. Greed of our ancestors that took over the homeland of the Native Americans, greed in the bloodshed that led to a near genocide of their children…
This culture is one that is entirely founded on greed. Hell, we live it, we breathe it, we use it for currency. That is what eventually led to the near destruction of Indian culture. The Puritans simply couldn’t share.
I mean, it’s something we learn in Kindergarten. Share with Jimmy, Mary. It’s nice to share. Well when do we forget that? In the corporate climb? The race for wealth? Is this some kind of European fetish?
I wonder if Mary Rowlandson ever looked back at her span of captivity and thought of how beautiful the culture was. Probably not. I mean, she’d seen these people massacre her friends and family. But still. Did she notice in between psalms and bible verses? She mentions that her Master is, “the best friend that I had of an Indian, both in cold and hunger,” (28). Did she realize that they could have just killed her? She voices the concern often enough. But she thanks God for her fortune. Not the good will of the Indians. To her they are heathen animals. The ignorance of Puritan society continues.
I feel guilty when I hear stories about what happened to the Indians. I may not have had ancestors actually there, but as a WASP, (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) I feel somehow responsible. And so the guilt descends.
How could we have done this? This inhumanity? This destruction? The worst part is, we destroyed a culture devoted to the land, and in this century, we poison and pollute the land they loved. The lands they died on. It sickens me to think of it.
My question? Why did God let this happen to the Indians? Huh? If He’s really up there, why didn’t He send down his mighty arm and beat some sense into the Puritans? Huh? The question of the ages. Why?
Not that I am not glad that American society was born, Puritan scourged or no. But sometimes I wonder. Like when I read the Rowlandson narrative. And I think, “Man, you Puritans sure paid those Indians back, huh?”
With a trail of blood and Amens.
As I write of this, however, it brings me back to an experience of mine that I will never, ever forget. It was a hot day, July 7, 2008, a month after my favorite Uncle, Jay Daniel, had just died of an anneurism in his brain. I was devastated. It was about 6 o'clock in the evening, and here is my best representation of what happened next:
He was dead before we pulled him out of the water. I thought it later; though even at that very moment some primal part of me knew. His skin was ashen, run through with blue and purple. He poured water as we hauled him out; laid his already vacated body out on the concrete. He was a big man, hard to lift, with a wide nose, a strong jaw, and curled black hair grown long. What a brutal way to die, as well as unsympathetic, strewn out beside a swimming pool, reeking of chlorine and old cologne and death. Death already, though it hadn’t been declared. Had the Native American gods already known that he would not wake, and in the knowledge stolen his sleeping soul from its vessel? I knew though. I stared with wild eyes, open eyes, checked for a pulse on the moist, cold skin. I was moved aside and the CPR began. Water gushed out of his mouth. I looked away.
There was a woman in the crowd who knew him. The woman was a teacher, and she began to wring her hands, over and over, turning the many gold rings on her fingers and asking about the boys. She taught the boys. The boys. He had boys. I did not have boys. I wanted boys. I wanted to be a teacher. I asked her where they were. She pointed and moved. Two young ones, one nine and one seven, weeping and asking why in small voices. They tearfully called their mother and told her to come. My heart gnawed at my ribs like a wounded animal. “It’s alright, Daniel.” The little one said, “It’s alright Daniel, It’s alright.”
I put a hand on their shoulders, steering them as I would steer them into a line. “Come on. Come with me. Come on. We’re taking care of your Dad, alright?”
But it still smelled like cologne and eagle feathers and death and even then I knew it was a half truth.
I set them down on the stairs on the side of the building and told them to wait. I told them the ultimate lie. That everything would be alright.
Everything was going to be alright.
Maggie was crying. Maggie, the one that had pulled his body across the water, held him in her arms before we dragged him out onto the pavement. A nurse had taken over CPR, lucky us to have her there, and Maggie stood far from the scene, holding it in, holding it back. I embraced her, cradling close her dripping form and whispered with all my desperate ferocity, “It’s not your fault. You got in as fast as you could. If he lives today, it’s because of you? Do you hear me? Do you understand?”
She nodded, choking on sobs. I don’t know if she did.
Their mother was here. She was a beautiful woman, an African Queen, more lovely in her sorrow, strong and afraid. I went to get her sons, and they ran to her, and she buried them in her arms and told them that they would get through somehow. “It’s okay baby,” she said, “It’s okay we’ll make it through, alright? We’ll be okay.”
I staggered away, leaned on the lifeguard chair. Rachel stood with me, guard number three, too shocked to help, watching with haunted eyes.
Everything will be alright.
The paramedics came and used an AED. No pulse. No breathing. I was a member of the crowd now, who were leaving quickly. The death had even reached their nostrils and there were things that they didn’t want their children to see. I looked at Daniel and wanted to hold his sweet dark curled head to my chest. Hold him and cover his eyes and tell him everything will be alright.
EVERYTHING WILL BE ALRIGHT—
They loaded him onto a stretcher. The family went too. I cleaned up the mess the paramedics left and the death was so heavy on the air I waded through it like silt.
Homicide came and took our reports and the walkie-talkie of the officer squawked with medical news from the hospital. We listened close as the officer related the tale. “It wasn’t your fault.” He told us. “He didn’t drown and you did everything right. It was an aneurism.”
I had been so strong. I hadn’t wept, because I could not afford to cry. I could not let them see me break, not yet, soft, not yet.
But that. That! So soon? A death sentence murmured aloud. I knew it. I knew it because it was familiar. Knew it because I had lost a beloved Uncle to it only a month earlier. Aneurism. Waiting death. Death on the air, eagle feathers my Uncle loved, in the blood of an unknown man. My uncle was a soldier— his house was full of eagles.
Death so soon! So unremitting! I was not ready, I wasn’t… I let loose a moan, a cry, tears of fury. I told them about my uncle. I let someone hold me— I forget who. And I asked God what sick joke he was playing. I asked him why Daniel lost his father that day. I asked him why my Uncle died young. I asked him why he bruised the tissues inside of me to only follow with another blow.
Everything was not alright.
I would not be alright.
Things would never be alright.
Daniel, I’m sorry, Daddy’s dead, Daniel, I’m sorry, I should have told you about the eagle feathers, Daniel… My uncle’s last name was Daniel, Daniel… Please forgive me but we did all we could but Daddy’s aorta burst and his ventricles gave up and now he’s dead, Daniel…
He’s dead.
I went back to work a few days later and a tan eagle flew over the pool. I thought I was hallucinating, but people pointed and stared. The eagle landed in a tree and looked at me. Then the Great Spirit took him away.
“Yet the Lord still shewed mercy to me, and upheld me; and as he wounded me with one hand, so he healed me with the other,” (16).
