One String Guitar

by Mona de Vessel

  I remembered building the lodge with the guys a few days earlier. I remembered the pliability of the sixteen willow saplings we’d cut from the far corner of the land on the porcupine side. We had to wait for night to fall to cut them so the marshals wouldn’t see us. When I’d heard gunshots in the distance, I’d asked myself: Is this worth dying for? I was just about to find out.

  I crouched and crawled on the far side of the lodge, the farthest point from the door. One of the guys had joked with me about being a fucking weakling and probably wanting to sit near the door on my first sweat. But now, I had no choice but to brave my fear and sit down inside the lodge.

  This sanctuary seemed much smaller than what I remembered. Maybe it was the fact that it was now covered by layers of wool blankets. Outside the air was cool and the warmth felt inviting, at first.

  Facing east, the door was still open. I could feel the spring air coming into the lodge and chilling my naked body. The fire tender came to the door and placed four rocks at the center in the very pit I’d dug myself with the guys. Four rocks, as a symbol of the four directions. This is what Felicia had told me.

  “Remember the power of the north,” she’d said to me.

  “Remember the wisdom of the west. Remember the sweetness of the south and most of all, remember the promise of the east.” She’d learned this from her grandmother, the same woman who’d given me the wolf rock. I tried to remember what the wise Ihanblapi had said to me as she had placed it in my hand.

  “When you’re ready, he will find you.”

  The fire tender came back with two more rocks and placed them in the hearth around the existing four. Two rocks like the world of the sky above and that of mother earth below, like the forces of good and evil. Whitetail Deer tossed something on the rocks. I heard the crisp rustling of burning leaves the smell of sweet grass filled the lodge. The tender came back with one last rock for the spotted eagle, for our Grandfather who had fathered every one of us sitting on the ground in the lodge.

  “Yuĥpa yo! Close it!” Whitetail Deer requested, his voice resounding in the circular warmth of the lodge. The fire tender came and pulled the heavy layers of blankets shut. Darkness swallowed me and I was plunged into another world.

  I held the wolf rock tightly in my closed fist as I felt the heat of the lodge rise around me. This isn’t bad, I thought. Why had everyone told me about the challenge of the heat in the lodge? Suddenly, I heard the scalding of the water being poured on the rocks. Steam released in the tiny space pushing against my skin, burning me alive. I wanted to scream. I’d just been plunged alive into a cauldron of boiling water. But I said nothing.

  “Crawl close to the ground. If the heat gets to be too much.” I remembered Felicia’s voice advising me. I moved down towards the ground in the fetal position. I could feel the limbs of my neighbors pressing up against me. Whitetail Deer began singing a prayer I’d never heard before. His voice rose and fell like a flag in the wind. I heard him pouring more water onto the rocks.

  “Wankatakiya hoyewaye lo

  Cannunpa kin yuha hoyewaye lo

  Mitakuye ob wani kla ca lecamum we

  Eyaya Tunkašila cewakiye lo.”

  I send a voice upward

  With the pipe, I send a voice

  I do this so I will live with my relatives

  Saying this I pray to Tunkašila

  Hau! Everyone repeated after him.

  “Ho! Tunkašila!” He was calling to the great Grandfather spirit of the universe to protect us. Outside, I heard a wolf howling in the distance. I tried to open my eyes wide to see if it made me see any more clearly, but I could not see even the tip of my nose. There were no wolves in these parts of the hills and even if there were, I’d never heard a wolf howl like that in the fullness of morning. I prayed for Billy Joe, I prayed for our brothers and sisters on the land. I prayed for Felicia and our babies.

  “Open it!” The fire tender opened the lodge door marking the end of the first round. The cool morning air poured in soothing our burning skin.

  “Mitakoyašin,” everyone changed in unison. “All of my relations,” and I remembered the voice of Felicia’s old grandma as she made the motion of a circle pushing me towards Felicia. “Hocokatoya!” she’d said to me. “The circle of unity with all Indians.”

  In the second round of the lodge, I felt more confident. I knew what to expect with the heat and I thought I could handle anything. Little did I know that the heat was the least of my challenges. I closed my eyes because trying to keep them open in the darkness only made me more aware of it. It gave me a feeling of wanting to possess something I couldn’t have. I listened to the sound of the steam as Whitetail Deer continued to pour water on the rocks. I felt a circular source of energy form at the center of my chest. I’d never felt anything like it before and I opened my eyes trying to see what I felt inside. I remembered that I was wrapped in darkness. I closed them again and tried to keep my focus within.

  “Sunkmahetu, Sunkmahetu,” Whitetail deer hummed over and over again.

  I did not know what this meant but each time he said it, I felt the circle at the center of my chest become larger, stronger. I lost track of my surroundings. I don’t remember whether Whitetail Deer continued to hum the word or whether he stopped but suddenly I had a vision. Eyes still closed, I saw myself in the black hills, crouching in the bushes. It was summer. I was following something, tracking an animal, a wolf. I caught a glimpse of it, its sleek body moving faster than the wind. Bearing no physical limitation, I kept up with the animal, running as fast as I needed. The wolf took me to a cave right at the foot of the hills. The sunny hills of before had been replaced with the dimmer, more somber mouth of a cave. Fear gave way to excitement, as I knew that whatever was going to happen there would change everything. Not just for me, but for everyone around me.

  I walked into the cave. The wolf was already inside and I could no longer see him. I smelled and sensed him now that I had other ways of seeing. I ran for a while in darkness finding my way instinctively. My feet were secretly guided by the wolf’s energy. I knew every step, every corner of the cave, even though I couldn’t see with my eyes. Suddenly I stopped. I waited in the darkness. The same darkness as the lodge’s only this cave was cool and dark. I heard the sound of footsteps behind me. I wanted to run.

  “Stay,” said the wolf without using words.

  When I turned around to face the source of the sound, I saw a woman standing there. She had the face of a woman but the body of a calf, a white buffalo calf. I had seen her before. We knew each other, and as if she could read my mind, she smiled. When I looked again, I saw that she was holding a pipe in both hands. She raised both hands above her head.

  “Cannunpa wakan. Sacred pipe,” she said, handing me the pipe. When I held it in my hands, I felt the circle in my chest grow the size of a watermelon. I wanted to scream. I opened my eyes to see that I was still in the lodge and the fire tender had just opened the curtain again.

  “Mitakoyašin,” everyone whispered. All my relations.

  In the third round, I returned to the cave again, in the same place I’d been when the previous round had ended. It was as if time had collapsed and I was taken back to the woman and the pipe. I held the pipe in my hands. I heard the White Buffalo Calf Woman make an offering to the seven directions. First she turned to zenith and I was flooded with a blue light. She then turned to the west and the light became dark like that of the lodge. In the north, I saw a red so brilliant it was the color of fresh blood. When she faced east, Calf Woman whispered, “wakantaka.”

  The entire cave lit up with the brightest golden light I’d ever seen, only to be replaced with the palest light of dawn as the woman turned to the south. Calf Woman made one last turn towards the nadir. I saw spring and the return of green life and when she shifted to the center of the cave, the most beautiful rainbow I had ever seen appeared above us all.

  Whitetail Deer opened the lodge again and this time I wanted to scream and say
that he should have kept it closed longer. I wanted to return to the cave and find out why the woman had given me the pipe. But instead, I took a sip of the water being passed around and I realized that in the three hours since the first round had begun, I had not had a drop to drink. As I later found out, it was unusual for Whitetail to give his initiates water before the end, but something in the energy of the lodge must have told him that we needed it.

  Finally, I returned to the cave in the last round. I knew that she had something to tell me and I was eager to take the message back to Felicia. When I stood in the cave again, I saw that it had opened up to the sky at the base of the woman’s head. It was as if her head was a beacon of light that led way to the sky itself.

  “You are the path for the people to walk,” she said turning into a black calf that ran around the cave. I was still holding the pipe in my hands. I listened to her as she handed me the seven rites.

  “These rites must be kept sacred and handed down from generation to generation. Do not let the fire go out, for the flame will be extinguished forever.”

  She named the rites in turn and as she spoke I knew the nature of each ritual. She spoke slowly in the cool darkness of the cave as I remembered the wisdom of my people.

  “Inikagapi,” she said, speaking of the first rite of the sweat lodge. And I knew that I had already begun walking the sacred path.

  “Hanbleceya,” she said, invoking the vision quest. This is what I was doing here, with the wolf stone still in my hand.

  As she named the third ritual, my heart tightened: “Wanagi tacanku.” Ghost keeping. This was the ritual performed for those who had died so that their spirit would return to their place of origin and for the living to be more mindful of death.

  I felt fear course through my body as she pronounced the words wanagi tacanku. Who would die? Who would need our community to perform a ghost keeping ceremony?

  As she called out the last four rituals, the White Buffalo Calf Woman danced around the cave changing form as quickly as she spoke. The sun dance Wi wanyang wacipi, allowed the men in our community to find their own spiritual strength while the making of relatives ceremony, hunkalowanpi, was used to create a bond with others that was stronger than kinship. A girl’s puberty ritual, Išnati awicalowan celebrated our girl’s entry into puberty.

  During the mention of the last ritual, I became aware of both worlds where I existed: the fire of the lodge and the coolness of the cave where I had my vision. I knew that no matter what happened during the siege, our people would survive because we carried the history within us.

  Tapa wankayeyapi, she whispered one last time before we parted. She had spoken of the most important ritual of all: the throwing of the ball. This was the time when we could toss a ball among our people as they ran to catch it. The ball contained our collective wisdom, our knowledge and freedom, the connection with our ancestors. The time had come for all of us to run for the ball, and to catch it, before it disappeared.

  Chapter 27 – Owl

  That night after the sweat lodge, I came to see Felicia at the clinic. I wanted to hold and smell her and make sure she was okay. She saw the fear and excitement in my eyes.

  “Everything will be fine,” she said taking me into her arms. I felt a twinge of shame run through my body. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. It wasn’t supposed to be a woman comforting a man, but here she was telling me what I wanted to hear.

  “I had a dream while I was knocked unconscious in the accident.” Felicia said.

  People didn’t have dreams when there were knocked unconscious, but she had and I needed to believe her.

  “I dreamt that our children were grown. They were strong and you were laughing with them in a clearing with tall spruce trees planted in a straight line. It was a beautiful summer day. I heard the birds chirping nearby and I remember the breeze, soft and gentle on my skin.”

  I liked hearing about our children, being all grown and safe. I was holding Felicia’s hands in mine when I felt a strange current moving through her. I looked up and I saw that something was wrong.

  “The strange thing is, the three of you were standing there laughing and I could see you, but I knew that you could not see me. I wanted to call out to you, but I knew that I was invisible.”

  Was this a terrible omen about what was to come?

  That night, we both slept deeply, each held by the messages spoken by our spirit guides.

  **

  On the day that followed the cease-fire, our people declared this land of our ancestors to be the Independent Oglala Nation or ION. This was the day of our independence. Whitetail Deer and the other medicine men met for the day in the tipi at the center of the camp while Grey, Jerome, Sammy, Juan, Ellen and the others drew up the declaration of independence that read:

  “Let it be known this day, March 11, 1973, that the Oglala Sioux people will revive the Treaty of 1868 and that it will be the basis for all negotiations.

  Let the declaration be made that we are a sovereign nation by the Treaty of 1868. We intend to send a delegation to the United Nations…In proclaiming the Independent Oglala Nation, the first nation to be called for support and recognition is the Iroquois Six Nation Confederacy. We request that the Confederacy send emissaries to this newly proclaimed nation immediately to receive first-hand all the facts pertaining to this act…”

  Nothing or nobody could take our pride away. We thought that nothing could touch us again. We were wrong.

  As a result of the ceasefire, we had raised the roadblocks giving access to vigilante ranchers volunteering to shoot our asses. One night, they snuck in the camp at night and lit the trading post building on fire. Luckily, one of the women in the camp was walking by at that moment, and we put the fire out without too much damage. The message was clear. War was not over.

  The ceasefire didn’t last long. Within a couple of days, the government started shooting at us again. Only two people left the camp and while the roadblocks were open, hundreds more poured in from all over the country to help us. We had Paiutes from Nevada, Pit Rivers from California, Chippewas from Michigan, and Chicanos from New Mexico, Texas, and North Carolina. People came pouring into our nation to tell us about stories of support. 10,000 people all over the country had demonstrated in support of our struggle. We had all lost so much: the Pequots, and Narragansetts, the Mohicans and Cherokees, Black Hawks, Navajos, and Apaches. We’d all been massacred. Now it was our time to cry out for our freedom.

  2,000 Chicanos marched in our support in Denver. Stories poured in from the outside like the story of Graciano “Chano” Juaraqui in Denver who was shot to death by cops in an alley and left to bleed to death because he was demonstrating for peace.

  **

  After the ceasefire, after our brief moment of rest, the war began again this time with a greater vengeance. Dicky Washington hired Indians to do his dirty work. The Feds stayed in the back and the goons were sent on the front lines so they could start shooting at us again. There is nothing worse than having your own people shooting at you. Unlike most of the guys on the land, the goon, cropped his hair short, like white soldiers. He liked to booze up first before a good shooting. I always thought of these boys’ mothers. How their mothers must be feeling knowing that their boy is out shooting Indians.

  At night the sky lit up with flares. Midnight suns we called ‘em ‘cause they lit up the whole camp with a strange eerie glow. The Feds had every toy in the book. Tracer bullets that lit up on every fifth round, sniping rifles with starlight scopes used in Nam, .50 caliber machine guns and enough M16s to start a firearms store.

  I felt for our sorry asses having to wait to shoot every 50 rounds with our .22s and .30-30 hunting rifles. We were a sorry sight for sure and this is how I began to understand the way goons became goons. Grey had told see that back in 1934, the government passed the Indian Reorganization Act without the 3/4 consent of Indian males required to pass a vote. They took away our treaty rights and left us Indians to rot in r
eservations all over the country. The res had nothing for us, and the world had nothing to offer except booze and a game of pretend telling us we had no families back on the res.

  When they hired the goon, the government always promised them big sums of money. That kind of game was still happening around us. One night, a guy crossed into the camp from the outside and came to find us at the bunker. He said he wanted to talk to the man in charge. Shit, we almost pissed our pants listening to an Indian talk just like a white man.

  “What’s it about?” I asked him feeling something wasn’t right.

  “The government paid me to rat on you guys, but I ain’t gonna do it.”

  I called the others from the different posts. Left one man out to man each bunker and we all sat around and listened to this poor bastard with his short hair and shaky hands.

  “They told me they’d give me twenty grand if I ratted out Grey Stone and Jerome Beans. At first I told ‘em I’d do it. But my buddy Larry told me this was just somethin’ they promised without ever delivering. Guess I was right, ‘cause in the end, they gave me nothing but a twenty dollar bill.”

  “Jesus man, you’re a fucking rat!” Sammy cussed him out. I just felt sorry for the son of a bitch. I couldn’t stop thinking about what would have happened if they’d given him the money they promised him. Would he have ratted us out, like he’d planned? He was a sorry sight. Sorry-sight-of-an-Indian, all droopy eyed and shaky, like a lost puppy in a storm. Nobody trusted him no more and he sure as hell couldn’t go back to them. He hung around us for a little while and then he left after a couple of days ‘cause nobody had nothing to say to him. Made me think there is a little bit of goon in all of us.