There is little doubt that the most painful wound suffered by Native Americans is the wound of conquest. Whether the invader was Columbus or Cortez, the wound is the same. Indians lost their land, their culture, identity and self-esteem. Outnumbered, out-gunned and susceptible to European diseases, Native Americans were progressively overrun. Years of frustration have created many social problems on and off reservations, and perhaps the most dreadful aspects to this situation is that this hopelessness is perpetuated from one generation to the next.
This wound of hopelessness and frustration is so prevalent among Native Americans that it has become a frequent theme in their literature. But writers such as Leslie Marmon Silko, James Welch and Sherman Alexie, along with musician Robert Mirabal, not only attend this old wound, but offer hope by including healers, medicine men and women, in their stories and songs. These characters, some drawn from tradition, others invented anew, provide an avenue to a life of fulfillment. But the fictional healers are not alone in tending the old wound. The storytellers themselves have become healers, as their stories and songs work like medicine.
To be an effective healer, an individual must be able to convince his or her patient that he or she has special power and is in touch with the gods from which healing comes. Without establishing this essential link to the heavenly, metaphysical world, the patient may not trust the healer and not open him or herself to the benefits of spiritual healing. Native American healers of lore wore masks, told stories, chanted songs and administered potions to establish critical links to the other world, and although this may seem like superstition to some, these practices continue today by contemporary medicine men and women. And while some contemporary healers make use of just the traditional methods and ceremoniesthe old song and danceother, more progressive healers have modified their chants to keep up with the rapidly changing times.
In her much acclaimed novel Ceremony, Leslie Marmon Silko, a mixed blood Laguna Pueblo Indian, says in regard to stories, They are all we have, you see, all we have to fight off illness and death. Tayo, part Indian and Mexican, is the beleaguered protagonist in Silkos 1977 novel, a survivor of the Japanese Bataam Death March of WWII. He feels responsible for the death of his cousin Rocky, whom Tayo had promised to bring home safe and alive. He also feels responsible for the death of Uncle Josiah, who died while trying to find his runaway Mexican cattle. And, finally, the killing of the Japanese, who so physically resemble his people, haunts Tayo. Upon his return home, he finds it difficult to adjust to normal life on the Pueblo. Modern medicinewhite medicinecannot cure Tayo of his shell-shock grief, so he agrees to participate in a traditional healing ceremony. When this traditional method fails, Tayo visits Betonie, a less orthodox medicine man. But Tayo is skeptical of the old mans abilities. Betonies filthy hogan, his curious accouterments and his unorthodox views do not conform to the traditional healer image in Tayos mind.
In his own defense, Betonie argues, The people nowadays have an idea about the ceremonies. They think the ceremonies must be performed exactly as they have always been done&They think that if a singer tampers with any part of the ritual, great harm can be done, great power unleashed&[but] You see, in many ways, the ceremonies have always been changing.
They took everything, didnt they? Tayo responds sullenly, referring to the land and the Indian way of life that was usurped by the European invaders.
We always come back to that, dont we? Betonie counters somewhat critically. Indians wake up every morning of their lives to see the land which was stolen, still there, within reach, its theft being flaunted. Betonie objects to Tayos self pity. In his mind, the loss of identity and self-esteem are essentially self-inflicted. To Betonie, an attitude adjustment can lead to a healthier state of mind. They only fool themselves when they think it is theirs, Betonie says about the mainstream cultures obsession with ownership of property. It is the people who belong to the mountain, he rightly contends.
Betonie, the healer, plays a significant role in Silkos novel. He lives in squalor and practices a form of healing that fits neither his nor the dominant cultures traditions. His is an odd combination of the two. According to Suzanne M. Austgen, Betonie&demonstrates rituals potential for flexibility. Betonies new ceremonies not only reflect changes in the Pueblo culture, but are a means for endorsing these changes. Cures can be found in well-crafted stories that speak to the ongoing struggle. Austgen concludes, Silko argues for the necessity of cultural change in another way: the transfer of traditional oral myths into written form. Or, in the words of Catharine Rainwater, Silko attempts to resolve in textual space what cannot be resolved in geographical space.
In this regard, Silko, like Betonie, is a new kind of healer, whose herbs and potions are words and stories. According to Allan Chavkin, Silko realized that her story&could be a new kind of ceremony. But Silko is not alone in using contemporary literature as a means to treat the ills of Native people. Writers James Welch and Sherman Alexie do too. Even musician Robert Mirabal can be considered a contemporary healer, whose words and stories are put to music and performed in dance. Although each of these healers succeeds in bringing health to their audiences, each does so in a slightly different way.
James Welchs 1986 novel Fools Crow is the story of a small group of Blackfeet Indians who escape the Marias River massacre of 1870. White Mans Dog is the protagonist of this traditional story. He is a young man of unproven potentials. He is ambitious but uncertain how to increase his stature among the Lone Eaters, his Blackfeet band. After raiding the enemy Crow Indians, stealing their horses, and later killing their chief, Bull Shield, the elders of the Lone Eaters honor White Mans Dog by christening him with the new name Fools Crow. Fools Crow becomes the apprentice to Mik-api, the Lone Eaters medicine man, first listening to his stories and then assisting when the old healer performs his traditional ceremonies on the sick. In slow stages, Fools Crow gathers his own healing powers and becomes an important healer in the Lone Eater band.
Welchs novel is set during a period of great transition and unrest in the American Indians way of life. At the beginning of the novel, 19th Century Indian culture is mostly intact. Only a few trappings from the white culture have been incorporated into Indian life. As the novel proceeds, the white culture continues its relentless expansion into Indian land. Domestic cattle soon outnumber the buffalo. White trappers kill beaver and other animals for their skins or simply for sport. Slowly but surely the Indian culture is being torn apart. By showing this progression and at the same time creating empathy in the readers heart, Welch helps mend the wound by showing its development closer in time to its inception.
In an interview with Cindy Heidermann, Welch, part Blackfeet and Gros Ventre, says, &I hope my books will help educate people who dont understand how or why Indian people often feel lost in America. He goes on to say that as a storyteller he tries to show the differences in cultures as well as the clashes that result when Indians struggle to maintain tribal identities against the backdrop of a mainstream white culture. Welch does not, however, think of himself as a traditional storyteller with special healing power. Perhaps he is just being modest. Robert F. Gish, on the other hand, writing in the American Indian Quarterly, says that Fools Crow is an affirmation of the power of the word-the word as medicine.
Sherman Alexie, a Coeur dAlene Indian, is a poet, novelist, short story writer, screenwriter and standup comedian. His first collection of stories, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, 1993, show urbans (Indians who live off the reservation) and skins (Indians who live on the reservation) struggling with the traditions of their native ancestry against mainstream American culture. Alexie uses alcoholism, unemployment and racial discrimination to underscore the obstacles Indian people face in their struggle for healthy lives. Alexie does not step lightly over the despair that many impoverished Indians experience, because to do so would be to avoid the opportunity to teach others what life is really like on and off reservations. Showing the truth about Indian life is one of Alexies prime objectives.
In an interview in The Atlantic online, Alexie says that most Native American writers did not grow up and do not live on reservations, yet they write about reservation life as if having done so. Alexie objects to this. He feels that it is more appropriate for someone like himself, a reservation boy, to describe reservation life. By showing Indians who are trapped in their reservation cages, or who live in the isolation encountered outside the rez, Alexie administers the bitter pill to his suffering cousins. To ignore the disease is to allow the wound to fester. Think of Alexies stories as a cleansing of the wound.
The lack of identity among tribal members is addressed in Alexies writings. Literature, Alexie says in answer to The Atlantic online interviewer, is all about the search for identity, regardless of ethnicity&I suppose the big difference in Indian literature is that Indians are indigenous to this country& Alexie finds irony in the fact that indigenous people have to search for identity in their native land. Yet, it is this irony, and the pain that comes with it, that drives Alexie to produce his art and through his art, his healing. But as uncensored as he is in showing Native American life, Alexie balances the negatives with a spoonful of medicinal humor.
If, as someone said, laughter is the best medicine, then surely Alexie can be considered a healer. To Vine Deloira, Jr., Laughter encompasses the limits of the soul. In humor life is redefined and accepted. Writing about Indian humor in his 1969 book Custer Died for Your Sins, Deloria describes how humor, in the form of teasing, was used long ago to control social situations and avoid embarrassing one of the tribal communitys members. The more desperate the problem, Deloria states, the more humor is directed to describe it. In this regard, Sherman Alexie is carrying on an old tradition in a more contemporary way.
In the story Every Little Hurricane, Alexie writes, Victor imagined that he held an empty box beneath his fathers eyes and collected the tears, held that box until it was full. Victor would wrap it in Sunday comics and give it to his mother. Victor is the protagonist in many of Alexies stories. He, like so many others, is a frustrated, unemployed alcoholic. Alexie is telling us, in the above quote, that he will use humor (the Sunday comics) as a medicine to stop the pain that has been going on for 500 years. Alexies objective is to help Indian people overcome their despair by showing them how to find humor in otherwise dire situations, because without the ability to laugh at the situation, hopeless as it might seem, there can be only anger, and from anger comes surrender in the form of apathy and alcoholism.
Like Welch, Alexie is being modest when he says, &people assume I have all these magical Indian powers, like Im some sort of healer or shaman... Its not true. Im just better with metaphors than 99 percent of the populations, and that doesnt make me magical& But, if people are inspired by his words and from these words can find identity, greater self-esteem and hope to live another day, then he has performed true healing. Healing is a slow process, and the final outcome of Alexies humor may not be understood for years.
N. Scott Momaday, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his 1968 novel House Made of Dawn, says that &the body of songs, prayers, spells, charms, omens, riddles, and stories in Native American oral tradition&is&so large as to discourage investigation. The point Monaday is making is that literature comes in a variety of forms, including songs and dances.
Robert Mirabal is a Tiwa Indian from the Taos Pueblo. Twice winner of Songwriter of the Year at the Native American Music Awards, Mirabal has produced six CDs and two documentary films, both aired on PBS. Mirabal and his troupe, the Rare Tribal Mob, create a unique performance by mixing traditional and modern music, song and dance. And underlying all of this is Mirabals storytelling.
Like the healers thus far mentioned, Mirabal too addresses the wound inflicted when the white and red worlds collided. Like Welch, he pays homage to native traditions. Many of his songs are nostalgic for a life long past. But Mirabal does not confine himself to just this traditional past. Nor does he wallow in nostalgia. Mirabal gives himself the liberty to evolve. Like Betonie in Silkos novel, Mirabal modifies the old ceremonies as needed for the current age. Music From A Painted Cave, the first of two PBS videos, incorporates both modern and traditional elements. Dancers wear traditional outfits as well as contemporary attire. The instruments include traditional flutes and drums as well as modern stringed and percussion instruments. Unlike Alexie, who accentuates the polarities of different cultures and pokes fun at them, Mirabal remains serious and folds these polarities together. I grew up in two or three different worlds, Mirabal says, and I learned from childhood to fuse those worlds.
But, Mirabals leanings are rooted in native tradition, and this is where his role as healer is most effective. In an article by Trace A. DeMeyer, Mirabal is quoted as saying, This is our voice. These are our stories. Never give in, never give up&Keep on reading the truth, writing the truth, singing the truth. May our songs always be heard.
If we define healing as an improvement in physical or spiritual health, then I feel confident in christening Leslie Marmon Silko, James Welch, Sherman Alexie and Robert Mirabaljust to name a few native artistsas contemporary healers. None is easily dichotomized. Each is variable in the methods employed. But the thread that ties them together is their words that connect this present to the past. According to Austgen, The key to survival, as Silko demonstrates in Ceremony, is found in allowing & ceremonies to change to meet the present-day realities of reservation life. It is in this fusion of old and new that the Pueblos can find the healing they so badly need after suffering more than four hundred years of white conquest.
Works Cited:
Alexie, Sherman. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. New York: First Harper Perennial. 1993.
"American Literature." The Atlantic online.
Austgen, Suzanne M. "Leslie Marmon Silkos Ceremony and the Effects of White Contact on
Pueblo Myth and Ritual
Chavkin, Allan. Leslie Marmon Silkos Ceremony: A Casebook. Oxford University Press. New York, 2002. 6.
Gish, Robert F. "Word Medicine: Storytelling and Magic Realism in James Welchs Fools
Crow." American Indian Quarterly, 14, fall 1990; 349-350.
Heiderman, Cindy. "The Heartsong of Charging Elk Author Interview." .
"James Welch: American Novelist, American Indian."
Momaday, N. Scott. "The Native Voice in American Literature."
Rainwater, Catherine. "The Semiotics of Swelling in Leslie Marmon Silkos Ceremony. Leslie
Marmon Silkos Ceremony: A Casebook. Ed. Allan Chavkin. Oxford University Press. New York, 2002.
"Robert Mirabal." Official Web Site.
Music From A Painted Cave. Robert Mirabal with the Rare Tribal Mob. Silver Wave Records, Inc., 2001.
Silko, Leslie Marmon. Ceremony. New York: Penguin Books. 1977.
Welch, James. Fools Crow. New York: Penguin Books. 1896.
