My latest school project: a painting & a story

It is not easy for me to tell this story, but I will tell you anyway. 

I went to white schools, to the mission schools.  I went because they made me.  I went to one on my own reservation.  It was four miles from my mother and father’s house.  All around me was the land of my people, but I could not touch it.  I could not speak my language.  I could not sing my songs.  I could not say my prayers.  Most importantly, I could not go home.  If I tried to sneak away I would be punished.  My parents would be punished.  My brothers and sisters would be punished.  These punishments were so awful I cannot tell you about them.  They are too sad and will make us cry. 

This was my second boarding school and I was older than the first time.  I knew how things worked.  I wore my starched dress with the starched apron and I was good and I read my Bible.  The Bible and I were friends as long as the priests were not involved.  The stories were good.  I liked the miracles.  I understood miracle stories.  My favorite was about the Red Sea.  I imagined an ocean, vast and terrible, an ocean, red like blood, only not bloody.  I imagined Moses with his magic stick and Miriam with her tambourine.  Only I thought they got it wrong and she really had a hand drum.  I imagined this brother and sister leading the way.  Moses praying the old prayers and singing the old songs, asking Creator to have pity on his people, asking Creator to show them a way to be free.  Free of the pain, free of the suffering, free from things so awful I cannot tell you about them.  They are too sad and will make us cry.  I imagined Miriam whispering to the sea with her drum.  Asking the spirits to let them pass.  Moses and Miriam whispering and praying on behalf of their people who were all lined up behind them.  Freedom, the salt air on their lips.  I had never seen a Jew, but I imagined they looked like Indians.  All together, a family. 

God answered the prayers and the drumming and the singing and that crimson sea split open with tremendous force and let the people through.  Then they were safe and they were free and they were happy.  They showed Creator their joy with more prayers, more singing, some dancing and more drumming.  There were men’s songs and there were women’s songs.  In my mind, their freedom came at night.  There were no clouds.  There was no moon.  It was dark and the Milky Way, the road to the ancestors, was clear and it was bright. 

When I began to imagine the sky, the spirits put another picture in my mind.  They showed me my mother’s ghost dance dress.  The one she had wrapped in paper and hidden away.  I saw it hanging among the stars, invisible to the free people below.  Only I could see it.  Sitting on my mission school bed, reading the Bible in the dim light, the spirits of my ancestors showed me the truth:  We are not so different these priests and I.  We both have our miracles.  And yet, no matter how many times they read their own story, they do not remember what it felt like to suffer.  They do not remember the longing to be free from those who take and take and take and never give back.  But, I remember, sitting in my starched dress.  And my mother remembers, her longing wrapped in paper and hidden away.