Religious Conflicts
My mother was a very devout Catholic, and in school we had to follow it, too. My father, as I said, didn’t go to church. I didn’t really notice because by the time I was seven years old I was in the boarding school, so I wasn’t home. By the time I got into high school, then I was home on the weekends. If my mother asked my father to go to church, it was on Christmas or Easter. Otherwise, she didn’t say anything to him about church. She only reminded him.
My father’s parents probably went to church once in every five years. My grandfather didn’t accept the Catholic Church that much. He told my father to follow it when he came to the Catholic school. “You follow this religion, but remember the things that we told you. Remember the things we taught you.” It bothered my father. It bothered me some years ago, and I know my older boy went through trying to reconcile two different cultures, shall we say.
My grandmother only talked the Indian language. In the school they spoke nothing but English, and the teachers were all white people. They told us the order was, you can’t speak the Indian language. I don’t know if it is really sadness—when you are trying to put those things together, you feel sadness, since you are trying to believe the Indian is important. It’s mine, but I have to take the white man’s language. I have to take his religion, and I have to reconcile it with what my grandmother said. I realize that there are white people who are kind, but there are others who want to send us off somewhere.
I’d like to have a velvet blouse and skirt because that is what my grandma used to wear, in black or navy blue, especially when she went to church. They also used to make skirts out of material that looked like wool for everyday; they were green. I saw a lot of green dresses or skirts. But I never ever saw green velvet. But I saw black velvet and blue—navy blue. I never ever saw red. When I was wishing for a velvet dress, my mother always said it was a sin to wish for anything. She said, “If you haven’t got it, don’t wish for it. That is a sin.” I used to get so really worried about my sinning. I used to really worry about hell because I knew that was where I was going. I think, generally, everybody way back then in the Catholic Church was under a lot of rules, and you followed them. Maybe other churches were like that, too. You go to church and you sit there, and if it’s cold, ice cold, that’s too bad, you sit there. Or even if you are hungry and starving to death, and the priest keeps talking, preaching about something, you sit there.
I think it took me some time, because when I was in high school it all seemed so worrisome. Religion bothered me. For the first time, I went to a Protestant church and found they have beautiful services too. The pastor didn’t seem sinful to me. I thought he was wonderful, warm, and more understanding than the priest. But it took me several years to get myself to the point where I was rolling along. You feel it is a time of sadness. You could have a lot of fun and laugh and go to a dance, but then there were times, quiet times, when you have to think it all over again. After a while, you begin to think somebody told you something that wasn’t true.
High school was, then, the time when I think I had a religious conflict. Generally, way back then, I think anybody in the Catholic Church was under quite a lot of rules. The priest keeps talking, and I’m not listening. I’m falling asleep and my feet are freezing off. I used to really worry about hell because I knew that was where I was going.
In high school I had general science the first semester and then the second semester I had zoology, which began, really, with the beginning—amoeba, those little things that you could see in a drop of water. Then, of course, it tells about the beginning of life. You could see in that little drop of water those little “weirdees” that are going around in it, and then they divide up and you get more and more. I had come from home on the reservation, and all I had heard all of those years is that I have to be in the Catholic church and never, never set foot in any Protestant church because that is, absolutely, a sin. You are not to go into any Protestant church; those churches are pagan churches. So, when I got to high school there were the lessons; I had zoology, general science also—about flying birds of all sizes and everything, different kinds of fish, all the way to whales, and all of it was not what you would call in depth. It was just mentioned, kind of explained.
I did go to church with the woman I was boarding with, and she went to the Baptist church. I don’t know how I happened to be there on a Sunday, from eleven to twelve, but they sang a lot of songs that we sang in the Indian boarding school. I think I mentioned before, at home my mother was a very devout Catholic, and my father never ever said anything about church; he just never went. It wasn’t until I was in high school, because I think I was talking about some of my classes, that my father started to talk about his boyhood and what they taught him. Then I really wanted to hear him talk about everything he remembered, everything he did.
At the same time, I am saying the big, long rosary, and I have to remember all of it. By the time you get through something like that you pretty much know the ritual of the Mass. I used to try and stay awake. The thing that would wake me up was the ringing of the altar bells, which ring at something called the elevation of the Holy Host. I remember they used to tell us you are not supposed to stare at the Host; it is big, beautiful and shiny almost like the sun’s rays, almost like a goblet, really, I can’t quite recall because we weren’t supposed to watch, but now and then I would watch, because I was almost falling asleep.
In high school we were studying about the very beginning of life as it was explained in general science and in zoology. My botany teacher made just a casual remark one day; he was just walking from one blackboard to another and he was saying, “Religion is just a ploy to keep the people subdued, so they don’t complain about any hunger or any of the things that happen to them.” I remember I thought about that one, too. I don’t know why it hurt so much. It seemed as though it hurt in my heart, too. I could feel it in my chest and, of course, in my mind. I’m supposed to be doing algebra, geometry, physics, chemistry—the courses I had when I was a senior. I had to do a lot of homework. Suffer, suffer, suffer. And then I am worrying about religion. I’m going to the Baptist church. I like it. I like all of that singing; like I say, we sang those same hymns. I went to the Methodist church, too, to some kind of a revival. You know, I was just so frightened of that revival because it was a traveling preacher. I don’t remember which church it was, but it was very big. I was there for the evening service. I think he had the services all day. The big wonderful pipe organ was really just booming. Even if it is playing softly there are some very low notes that you can almost feel with your feet. You know, I just got so terrified because I was in the wrong place and I was going to hell again for sure.
I was in the wrong church. What about the Catholic church? I was not supposed to be in a Protestant church, that is a pagan church, but their songs or hymns are what we sang in Sunday chapel. But in the boarding school it was not altogether Catholic. It was part of the Protestant church; that is why we sang “Come All, Christian Soldiers” and “Come, Thy Almighty King.” I think the “Come, Thy Almighty King” is the Italian national hymn, or it used to be, and I thought it was so pretty.
I used to stay awake and just pace the floor—tiptoeing along—because I am really torn up about religion. I could almost see the flames of hell for me, doubting the Catholic Church. I thought how all of those years somebody was not quite telling the truth, and how do I know that this Baptist church is the one way, because the preacher said the Baptist is the true church because Jesus was a Baptist. Christ Jesus was a Baptist because he was baptized by John the Baptist, and so that is the true church.
I talked to my mother and, of course, she said, “Just say three Our Fathers and three Hail Marys. Then go in your room and get down on your knees and pray.” Well, I do that. I wear out my knees.
I went out to see my father where he was working in the garage, or what became the garage, and I got up enough nerve to tell him I’m really worried and I’
m mixed up. He doesn’t answer right away. He thinks about it and listens to me. So, then, he told me about part of his boyhood, and what his uncles taught him. He said, “Don’t worry about all of that. When you stand on this earth, you stand on grass, or the earth that is the creation of a great creator, a great mysterious creator. You are not lost. And you see all of these trees, everything that grows; you could see the birds, hear them sing. All of that is part of that great mystery, a great power. His creation is for you to see, to enjoy, and be part of. You can walk on the earth; you can live on it. You can maybe chop down one tree, but you don’t destroy it.”
I think definitely by that time there was a lot of logging all over and, really, that was an income for a lot of people: the lumber mills, the logging companies operations all over.
Anyway, I had a nice talk with my father. It was not long, but it made me feel as though I had come home. So I used to do what my mother said—get down on my knees and pray.
Religion, the churches I had gone to, and studying any kind of science—like the beginning of mankind, where you read and discover that the first people who appeared to resemble human beings were in East Africa (by that time I was going to the community college, where I took anthropology classes)—things like that didn’t bother me because of what my father said. He said about the white man’s god: he said it always was and it will always be. Well, that is the way with Dukwibəł, the Indian creator, Changer. He was always there from the beginning of time. He was always there. You don’t have to worry about any of it; it has just been going on—change and time—time is nothing to a great mystery or a great mysterious creator. He always was and he will always be. Time is nothing. A million years, a billion years of mankind changing, that is only a blink of an eye to him. So, when it says he created Adam, just like that, that is what he did because time is not in God’s life. Time is what people count from days, nights, sunrise, sunset, middle of the day; and now we have clocks. It is time for you to go! We are slaves to time. People are slaves to time. You know you can get up and look at the time and say I have ten minutes to get down to the school building in about seven minutes so I can take another drink of coffee.
When I was on the board of directors all those long years ago, one morning I went running out, said goodbye to my mother, had my jacket on and went running out and jumped into my car. I had my father’s old car and I backed out of our driveway and I was shifting and turning the wheel and I noticed my dress. I thought, I don’t remember putting on a black dress, and then I felt it again and it was satin; it wasn’t soft silk and it wasn’t rayon. I picked up the hem and it had a little narrow row of lace, and so I sat there and I was feeling it and I was saying which black dress is this. I don’t remember a black dress with black lace around the edge. I sat there and I felt it and there was little narrow lace all of the way around. Then, it dawned on me I didn’t put on my dress. I just grabbed my coat, and I put it on and I ran through the dining room and the kitchen—my mother was sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee—so, I said, “goodbye, I have to go now,” and I tore out the door and it slammed. It usually slammed open so she got up and closed it. Then I came running back in. Oh, I drove my car back in the driveway. Put on the brakes. Open the door. Get out. Shut the door. Then run around the car and run to the porch and jump through there and I ran through the kitchen and I said I forgot something. I never told my mother because she would get mad. She would say, “You have to think about everything. I keep telling you. Remember everything. Remember.” So I said I forgot something. So I went running through the kitchen back to my room and grabbed my dress.
I had some papers I had to have at the agency where I was going. So I had those papers—I laid them on the bed—and put on my dress and I roared out again. I don’t want to explain anything to my mother. She would bless me down good. I ran out and jumped into the car and then I remembered those important papers. Somebody had to sign them and I had to get them back to the agency. So I put on the brake again and turned off the motor, climbed out of the car, ran through the kitchen. My mother was still sitting there. She would always say o?haydəb.
High school was the time when I had a religious conflict. My grandmother was my dearest friend when I was small. Any time I had any kind of trouble with my mother, I ran down a couple of blocks to where my grandmother lived and I could crawl up on her lap. She held me and after a while would say, “What is it this time? What did you do?” Then I told her, and she always said, “Your mother is somebody who loves you, and you have to mind her.” After I talked with her, I went back home. If my mother knew I was running down to my grandmother to tell her my problems, maybe I would have been in trouble some more and maybe not. She died in 1921.
It seems as if there was a conflict all of the way through, only I didn’t know it. That kind of conflict is pretty hard on a young person. While I was growing up, there was my dearest grandmother and her teachings, all of which could be put alongside the white people’s beliefs. She and her sister were the ones who told me not to turn my head too fast and to always sit with my knees together. All of those older people had something to say to me. They talked to other young people, too, but I listened and I thanked them for talking to me.
At school I had to go to the Catholic church every Sunday. Being in a boarding school for ten months out of a year was frightening. I was terrified of the priest, terrified of the agent, teachers, and everybody. Now that I think about it, I don’t know how I lived through it. The only happy times I remember when I was growing up were when I was home from boarding school.
For power, the Indian had what they call sqəlalitut, or guardian spirit, you might say. I believe the Indians had something that answered their needs that could be used today: your own guardian spirit. My father used to say one of the reasons these Indians of Puget Sound or western Washington had to search for the guardian spirit during the teenage years is because it gave the young people a goal, an ideal to work for. As I was saying, I had quite a time for years trying to put those things together. During high school I went to several Protestant churches. I finally told myself that what I had was just as good—better—and it answered my needs. I believe my grandparents and the older Indians had something remarkable in their practice of fasting and meditation.
What we call a “search” in our language is alatsut: “to look or to search for the guardian spirit.” I believe in it, but when I started school I thought not, because the priest said all those things are of the devil. That is what they told my father when he went to the Catholic Mission School—those things Indians do are of the devil. I think the members of the Catholic Church felt that way about the Shakers. They are not Catholics; therefore, they are doing something of the devil. Quite a lot of Indians never accepted the Shaker religion or even set foot in the Shaker church, like my father and mother did. In years past, when my father and mother got older, both of them went back to their old Indian culture—the belief in the guardian spirit.
They didn’t, in fact, talk about their creator, who also has another name but I have forgotten what it is.1 My father in his group always called it Dukwibəł, the Creator, but long before I believe I heard a different word for Dukwibəł.
Of course, my mother’s language was totally different; it was Klallam. She used to tell me what their word was for their creator. I heard my mother talking once with someone who spoke her Klallam language. I can’t recall who that was. I was small; it was before I went to school. She said their word for their creator was Ngslemen: “Nobody knows.” Some years later, when I was in high school, I asked her: “Was it a man, a spirit?” She said, “No. Nobody told me, but they told us children never mention that word. It is a great, great spirit—qwiqwi qwa?tə is not to be mentioned in any conversation. It is only mentioned when you are in meditation and you are all alone.” She didn’t say what that was because I asked. “Is it a man, a spirit, a woman? Is it something you see or feel? Is it a spirit like fog or mist?” She said, “Nobody knows. Nobod
y ever said.”
I thought it was interesting that the Mormon Church has something similar to the Indian belief. I wonder what it is about them? I have heard something that was written in their book. I want to know. All I ever heard about the Mormons was in high school, where I heard about and saw other churches. But my father said the white people are down on the Mormon Church. They are absolutely too far out. Years ago, what my mother said about the Spirit—that nobody is allowed to talk about it—I think is in the Mormon Church. My father met with a couple of Mormon men who came and visited a couple of times. I thought, I don’t think I am supposed to talk to them because the priest said all of those churches are out. They are misguided. Some of the young people—now and then you hear them marching up and down the streets—are misguided too. They are searching for something and they don’t know what.
Now you know how I felt—like a lost, lost person—and for a while I thought I was going to burn in hell for having such thoughts as wondering, what does that kind of church teach? Then I tried to find out and I went. I went to church with Mrs. Zanga. She belonged to the Baptist Church. I thought, I am going to burn in hell. It is a pagan church. Here the pastor was a marvelous speaker. Someone there asked me if I was a Christian. I didn’t know what to say, so I said, “Yes, ma’am. I was baptized in the Catholic Church.” I don’t think she was impressed. When I was growing up, this is what I had to believe, but if you have some doubts that you are committing some sin, you wonder.
Graduation
When we graduated, I made my own dress. The class advisor talked to us and told us what we could do. We talked with one another and said what we would like to have. Some of the girls said they wanted taffeta for their dresses; it is stiffer. Others said, “No, let us have crepe.” I like crepe. After some debate, we decided to have crepe de chine.
Tulalip, From My Heart Page 27