The Blue Kachina Dance

To Pure Water,

I have another story and to you I give it dedication today.

Thank you for allowing me to be part of your  argument, as I am learning much.

Good Medicine
 
It was for a medicine man’s birthday that I drove up to the Rosebud Indian Reservation of the Lakota in South Dakota.  An elder of mine, Uncle Steve, had asked me to help him with the drive from Ohio.  I looked at this offer as an honor, as Uncle Steve is a Sun Dancer, and he dances at the medicine man’s Alter of Iktomi.

It was early evening when we arrived on the ranch, a three legged dog, by the name of Lala greeted us.  We got out of the truck to Lala’s barking and I followed Uncle Steve into the medicine man’s trailer home that sat on the open and dry land where Sun Dancer’s come every summer to dance in the arena 

A couple women were inside the trailer when we opened the door.  Uncle Steve asked where his Grandfather was.  One woman, Gwen, led us back to a bedroom where the old medicine man sat in a chair.   Uncle Steve was greeted in a language of Lakota by the medicine man.  The Old Man then looked at me as I stood in silence.

“Are you a white man?”  he asked as he reached out his hand.

“Yeah, I’m a white man,” I replied with a laugh and a smile then continued.  “But I have a red heart like you.”

He gave me a smile better then my own, and then he began to talk to Uncle Steve again about some things that needed to be repaired on the ranch.  The old man then asked to be placed in his bed.  Uncle Steve helped him, as I looked over at pictures on the wall of past powwows, the old man with family, other American Indian medicine men, but the biggest picture on his wall, hanging over his bed, was that of Sitting Bull.

 I then sat in a metal folding chair by the old man’s bed and listened to Uncle Steve and the old man speak, sometimes it seemed they spoke to each other without saying a word, until Uncle Steve then was asked to do a chore by Gwen.  When Uncle Steve walked out of the room, the Lakota medicine man then asked me to get him a cigarette from the pack Camel that sat on the small table next to his bed.  I did what he asked, lit his cigarette in his pinched lips, and then returned to looking at the pictures on his wall.  One was of him at a naming ceremony.

“Think you can give me a name?”  I asked.

He looked at me and smiled.  He then steered out the window and motioned with his head to look out the window and said “Deer -Figing-The-Roe.”

“Deer-Figing-The-Roe?” I said to him in a questioning way. He had just suffered a stroke and so he was hard to understand.  I looked out the window and then back then back at the old man.  “Deer-Figing- The-Roe, what does it mean? I don’t understand. Is that my name?” 

“Deer -Figing-The-Roe,” He then said again motioning for me to look out the window.

“Deer -Figing –The-Roe?” I shook my head again.  I couldn’t understand fully what he was saying until a child walked into the room.

“He’s saying they’re fixing the road.”  I looked out the window at the road leading out of the ranch up to a large hill.  I just laughed for a moment at myself and then asked the old man if he needed anything.  The old man motioned for the ash tray on the table. I grabbed the ash tray and placed it on the old man’s lap telling him that it was nice meeting him, shook his hand again, and left the trailer.

I walked to Uncle Steve’s truck and grabbed my duffel bag out of the truck’s back cab.  In the duffel bag was a rock from the Serpentine Mound in Ohio that was given to me by my brother, Paul.  It was a small rock that was as white as freshly burnt ash. It was very light in weight and fit into the palm of my hand.  To the top of a hill I followed the road that the old man mentioned they were fixing.  The rock firmly tucked into my pant’s pocket.

When I arrived at the top of the hill, I looked at open plains dotted with pine trees.  I took the rock from my pocket and threw it with a prayer of healing, and began to walk back down the hill back towards the old man’s ranch.

Prairie dogs were barking at me above their burrows in the field on the side of the road, and so I removed a camera from my pocket to film the prairie dogs.  As I walked off the road to get a better shot with my camera, the Prairie dogs scampered into their burrows except for one that remained barking towards the rear of all the burrows, and he remained barking until I raised my camera.  He then scampered back into the hole he was standing by.  Without taking a picture, I placed my camera back into my pocket and began walking back to the road.

Under my shoe, my foot felt that it landed on something soft, and just as soon as I felt this softness, I heard a large rattling noise.  It startled me for a moment and I jogged forward and turned around to see what the noise was.  It was a rattle snake sitting coiled, ready to strike, whipping his tongue out at me while rattling his rattle.  It was unbelievable that I didn’t get bit, but it was a good sign that the Great Spirit heard my prayer on top of the hill. I then took a picture of the snake as he rattled away and when he when he settled back to basking in the Dakota sun, I walked back to the road watching every step.

When I returned to the old man’s ranch, Uncle Steve was speaking to a Lakota man, named Dino.  I quickly told them about the snake I stepped on.  Uncle Steve laughed as he looked at Dino, “He asked me what type of animals he was going to see out here.  I forget to tell him about the rattle snakes.”  Dino laughed along.

Dino seemed to be a gentle man.  His words were mild towards me.  He told me he would be pouring water in the sweat lodge that they had planned on the old man’s birthday the next day.  He had invited me and I told him I would be there.   I then asked him about seeing an eagle.  I wanted to see an eagle while on Rosebud.  He told me of their morning path early every morning through the sky above the hill that sat east of the hill where I had stepped in the snake.

During my conversation with Dino, another Lakota had arrived, his name was Silver, and we clicked right away.  I told him about the snake that had greeted me and my rock from the Serpentine Mound.  He mentioned that it was good medicine.  He also told me of his journey over the last few years and how he ended back on the reservation but was now looking for somewhere else to go because of squabbling caused by drinking at the place that he was residing.   

My conversation with Silver and Dino ended as the sun began to set.  That night I sat and talked Gwen and we spoke about the Natural Way, the Red Road, and the politics of reservation life.  She showed me a website, voiceofwomen@freewebs.com, that she had recently pulled from public viewing.  She showed me many documents that charged the State of South Dakota with abuses of pulling Indian children away from their relatives.  The abuses seemed to be continuing.  I went to bed that night with many things on my mind, recognizing Gwen and the people of Rosebud as caring people that wanted the best for the people of the Indian Reservations in South Dakota.

When I awoke the next morning, my sights were quickly set on spotting an eagle where Dino told me to look, but all that was seen was a flock of turkeys puffing out their feathers on a hill. Having no success on spotting an eagle, I walked into the trailer to see Uncle Steve and Gwen speaking to each other.   Uncle Steve must have seen me looking out towards the ridge for eagles, as he greeted me, “The harder you look the less likely you are going to see an eagle,” he said with a chuckle.

I laughed as I filled up my morning cup of coffee and replied, “Well it don’t hurt trying.”  I then walked over to the table and sat down.  Gwen was just taking a first sip from her morning cup of coffee.

“Thanks, for the talk last night, I learned a lot,” I said to her.

“No problem,” she replied.

Uncle Steve gave out a bit of a sigh about the the evening before, “You know I would have joined in the talk with you both but politics and religion just isn’t my bag.”  He took another sip from his coffee and made a grimace.  “Man, people on the reservation sure do brew it strong.”

“Yes, they do,” Gwen said laughing and then looked out the window towards the turkeys on the hill.  “Hey is that an eagle?”  She then looked for a moment more out the window, as I rose from my chair to see what see what she was viewing.  She then answered herself, “Nope, buzzard, the wings are hooked.”

“Like I said,” Uncle Steve chimed in, “The harder you look the harder it is to see. “ He then took another sip of his coffee and placed his cup down on the table, trying to get back to the conversation between him and Gwen. “By the way, we need a cook for the party today.”

“No problem.” I replied then continued, “That’s what I like to do anyway.”

The day then went on with everyone doing chores for people that would be arriving for the medicine man’s birthday party.   I was helping with cleaning up some cooking utensils and covering the wood with a tarp with a man named Pat, who had arrived onto the reservation the day before also.  When we picked up the plastic tarp and unfolded it, a small baby rattler snake laid unmoved and coiled up.

“Look there,” Pat said looking at the baby snake no more then a few inches long.  I grabbed the baby snake in my hand as Pat and I began walking towards the wood pile.

“What you going to do with it,” Pat asked.

“I’m going to keep him until I leave, good medicine,” I replied, as we covered the wood with the plastic tarp.  I then walked over to my small puff tent and placed the small rattler in my camera bag that lay under my sleeping bag.

That evening, the old medicine man had his birthday party.  And during the party they had the purification in the sweat lodge, I couldn’t attend as I was too busy cooking for the people arriving.  It didn’t bother me though because I felt like that’s why I was there – to cook for the old man’s celebration.  And it seemed like it worked well because everything that was cooked over the grill was enjoyed by the people that arrived.

After the party was over, I was asked if I could go sit with the old man.  Usually everyone called him Grandfather, but it was then that I heard his name as Elmer.  I took the offer and went to where the old man was lying in his bed.  He was still wearing the nice collard shirt, blue jeans, and black leather vest that he wore for his party.  I took a seat and we spoke briefly about how well the party had gone, and he asked me to light his cigarette, and as I did I handed him the ash tray.

The old man sat puffing on his cigarette, and I just sat there looking at the photo, into the eyes of Sitting Bull above his bed.    Sitting Bull was the most revered leader in the history of the Plains Indians, a fierce warrior, war chief, and medicine man.  It was his medicine that was most feared.  After the Sun Dance he predicted Custer's attack and the Indian victory.  Long after that battle while being held on a reservation he was assassinated because white government officials were afraid his influence among thousands of reservation Indians would be trouble, defiant to the end, a great Lakota Chief.

The old man smoked his cigarette and then put it out in the ash tray.  I then told the old man of my dreams.  He listened and just would nod his head or smile.  I wanted an answer from this medicine man but he didn’t say anything, as he just sat smoking quietly.  After his cigarette, he asked me to remove the ash tray and I placed it back on the small table next to his bed.  I then sat with him as he had drifted off to sleep, and he slept with his eyes open.

After telling Gwen that the old man had fallen asleep, Gwen and I took a walk into the night speaking of who we were and where we came from.  We walked up the hill where I threw out a prayer with the rock from the Serpentine Mound.  That night I saw more stars in the sky at one time then ever before in my life.  The seven bright stars of the big dipper seemed to be now clustered in stars I never saw before, and the dipper was hard to find, but when I did locate it, I counted seven stars, Gwen then told me there where really eight stars, but I just couldn’t see the eighth star.  Gwen and I then stayed up late into the night and ended our conversation as we spoke about the hoop of life and how giving is equally important as receiving.  

 The next morning I was up early again.  My eyes were fixed into the overcast sky above the hill where the eagles fly.  I thought I’d have a better chance to see an eagle if I walked up the hill.  I grabbed the baby snake that I had in my tent and brought him with me.  When I reached the top of the hill I said a prayer and released the baby snake.  I then sat and waited for about an hour, but no eagles flew over me.

After I gave up trying to spot an eagle, I walked back down the hill to the Sun Dancer’s arena in the middle of the old man’s land.  Two sweat lodges sat next to the arena and one buffalo skull each sat outside the two lodges. I walked over and placed my hand on the buffalo skull painted blue and white, I then thanked Wankan Tanka for bringing me to the medicine man’s home.  I asked Wankan Tanka for vision and with my hand still on the blue skull, I looked up into the sky and smiled.  Paddling westerly against the wind was a bald eagle, and I watched this vision until it turned into a small ball of light, and then watched it as it disappeared into the far distance of the horizon.  

With a glad heart, I walked back into the old man’s trailer and pulled up a chair again next to his bed.  He motioned to the small table next to the bed and I quickly reached for his smokes and ash tray.  He rolled his head from side-to-side no, and motioned for something again on the table again.  A round piece of wood sat there with a picture of Miracle, the white buffalo born in Janesville, Wisconsin, in the center.  I placed the picture next to him and without a word the medicine man tapped the picture and looked over at me.  I reached out my hand and the old man took it.

I said a quiet prayer looking into the eyes of an old medicine man.  And when my prayer was over, I released the old man’s hand and sat back in the chair.  The old man placed his hand on the picture of the white buffalo once again and my eyes drifted to the eyes of Sitting Bull.  His eyes were deep but glossed over like glass and for a moment I broke trough them and touched the bottom of where they once looked.  And I knew right there and then that my journey was not coming to an end but was only just beginning to begin again. Anpetu wastee yuha po.

Mitakuye oyasin.