While it is true as R. Carlos Nakai tells people during his performances that people born here are natives of this place whether their ancestors came from here or not, it is also true that many of us are raised on stories that are created with aesthetics that have more to do with Aristotle than Native America. Being raised on stories with Old World aesthetics made it difficult to appreciate many Native American stories even when they came to me "moist on the breath" of an elder.
Although I grew up in Valley Center near the San Pasqual and Rincon Indian resvervations, my education in Native American stories was limited. Of course I had the movies (a whole other essay). I also had the Native Americans in my ancestors’ stories. If you’re a white boy, the most popular story in the oral tradition is not "Hiawatha" but "Falling Rock," which my Dad told this way as we rode in his truck up the grade that wound along the hills into Valley Center:
| "What’s that sign say, Daddy?" "It says, 'Watch for Falling Rock.'" "What's that mean?" "Chief Falling Rock leads a band of wild Indians who never signed a treaty. He lives out there in that brush and from time to time he'll jump off the hillside and beat cars with big rocks. Sometimes people panic and drive over the side of the road. Once I saw a white pick-up that he smashed into a little box." "Daddy," I asked, "how come he doesn't die when the cars run off the road?" "He's too fast." |
So for many years driving the Valley Center Grade, I looked out for Falling Rock
and watched
the canyons, boulders and trees along the road with interest. And some mornings, espcially
after rains, I'd see where Falling Rock had left some of his weapons on the road.
Native American writer Dr. Paula Gunn Allen distinguishes non-Indian literature as depending heavily on conflict, crisis and resolution. Native American stories, on the other hand, are more interested in creative empowerment, tribal understanding and unitary reality. The divisions between literatures may overgeneralize, but it does explain the perplexity many non-Indians feel when they hear an authentic story.
| While hosting a radio show on writing, I was perplexed by a story that Luiseņo elder Henry Rodriguez told. The story, "When Sandpiper Looks at You," lacked the resolution that I had come to expect in stories. When I asked him to tell another story, he talked about anything and everything but did not say anything that resembled a story having characters. It was a long radio show and I puzzled over the story for two years. Finally, I went to Henry and told him that I understood why he wouldn’t tell me another story: because I hadn’t understood the first one. |  drawing of Henry Rodriguez |
| I
wanted his permission to tell the story about not understanding the story. He didn’t
tell me yes or no. He asked what I had understood about Sandpiper. I told him and he told
me five more stories with a warning that he had been told: stories can kill because they
have power. With that in mind he said that once a story is told the listener must decide
what to do with the story. Of the five he told that day, only one could be told to
everyone, the Cahuilla story "The Blind Man and the Quail":
It came time for the people to go from the desert to the mountain, so they packed everything and began walking. But when they arrived at the place on the mountain, they noticed that The Blind Man wasn’t with them. He had gotten separated from the group and was lost somewhere back along the trail. Just as a group was about to go back and look for him, the blind man walked into their camp. "How did you find us?" The people asked. They couldn’t understand how a blind man could make his way through all that rock and cactus and not get hurt. "Well, after a while, I became aware that I was lost," the blind man said. "But then our brothers the quail came to me and offered their help. I told them I was lost, so they surrounded me and guided me to you here." "But the river that runs between here and the there, it’s very big and deep. How did you cross that?" the people wanted to know. "Oh that," the blind man said. "When we came to the river, they took me to the shallow part so I could walk across." |
This article appeared in San Diego Writers' Monthly.
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