by Beth Piatote
Openmouthed and brokenhearted, they offered their bodies up
to finally bring the Ancient One home.
That is blood for bone.
You give up your sister’s child. You offer
blood for bone, blood for bone.
KREON
Grandfather, that was another time.
TAIRASIAS
Perhaps another time, not a different time.
In the time before the humans came, Coyote set many laws in motion.
He separated the Sun and Moon, so they would not be cannibals;
He flattened Rattlesnake’s head and smashed Grizzly Bear’s nose;
He pried open the wings of Butterfly, and stripped Muskrat’s tail.
He gave the Gophers eyes to see. He did many, many things
To make this world ready for humans.
The humans are coming soon.
Grandson, look around. And you will see.
KREON
Old Man, you are as maddening as those Aunties. What kind of Advisor
Cannot answer a question straight?
TAIRASIAS
(pause)
Here is your straight answer then:
What kind of human makes captive his kin?
He gestures, and the BOY leads him away.
AUNTIE #5
Wá·qoʔ titwatísa ná·qc.
After Pissing Boy killed Grizzly Bear, he went to visit his five sisters.
To the first one he said, Né·ne’, give me some bone marrow.
But she enjoyed the bones herself. He asked the same of each sister,
And each one refused him, until he came to laymíwt,30 the youngest one.
When did they ever give you anything? she asked. Here, take this one, it’s yours, break it.
So he broke the bone and took the marrow, and every so often
He would hand it back, to feed the handsome man he had hid in his braids.
When it was time for bed, Pissing Boy asked the oldest sister:
Né·ne’, can I sleep in your bed?
Hamó·ic,31 no, you wet the bed too much!
Again he asked each of his sisters, and every one said no
Except for laymíwt, the youngest one, who said:
When have they ever given you a place to sleep? Come,
I will show you where we can sleep.
And there they went to sleep. Pissing Boy brought out the handsome man
And told his sister: Here, I brought this man for you.
In the morning the other sisters saw the man and they were jealous.
They wanted him too! But Pissing Boy said:
You did not give me anything,
You must leave your brother-in-law alone.
The young man lived there with them from that time, and would go hunting.
Pissing Boy told him: When you hunt, don’t go over the ridge.
Don’t follow anything over the ridge, do not chase it there.
One day the young man shot a deer, but it ran from him, wounded.
The young man ran to the top of ridge and looked over.
For a long time he stayed there.
He saw the buck lying dead at the roots of a big pine tree.
He thought: I wonder why my brother-in-law said not to go over this ridge.
I don’t see anything amiss. I’m going to go!
He ran to the deer and began to dress it out, but very soon it grew dark.
All at once he became surrounded by big-bellied people.
Oh, so this is the reason he told me not to go over the ridge!
The people tore into the deer, and the young man escaped up a tree.
Soon the big-bellied people found him. All night long they tried to get him down,
but the young man stayed in the tree.
In the morning it became light, and the big-bellied people could no longer see.
It’s dark now, they said. Let’s sleep now, since it is our bedtime.
They slept in a circle around him.
In the meantime, Pissing Boy became worried about his brother-in-law.
He must have gone over the ridge!
Pissing Boy made himself ready, then he went to find his brother-in-law.
He came to the tree where the big-bellied people were sleeping.
Now you come down, he called to the man, And I will carry you out.
Pissing Boy ran around the circle and exploded their bellies with his foot.
He said, These people are Cannibals from long ago.
They would eat everyone, everything around. But now
I have exploded them with my foot.
Pissing Boy threw their bodies into the sky, saying: You will remain
high in the sky,
and never again will you do anything to anyone.
He scattered them like that, and said:
Now everyone will say,
“They are just stars who disappear in the day, and appear in the dark.”
After that, Pissing Boy took his brother-in-law home. He had defeated
the big-bellied people, and after that they lived in peace.
That’s all.
DRUM
(The DRUM beats.32)
KREON paces, agitated. Shortly, a MESSENGER arrives, interrupting the drumming.
MESSENGER
Wise Counselors, I bring the news that no Seer could have seen
The House of Kreon is most surely disturbed
Discontent rages from without and within. It cannot stand.
Yet neither will it fall. Instead it remains in media res
So like a diorama: life suspended and death made animate.
With the help of Haimon, the Captive is released
Her whereabouts and fate unknown. She has removed herself
Beyond the reach of human touch.
The image of ANTIKONI appears on a large screen, center stage. MESSENGER departs.
CHORUS
Oh, Antíkoni, Poor Little One,
We see you in your tomb, suspended
Between the living and the dead.
ANTIKONI
And here I shall remain, along with the dead
My life as theirs suspended, just as that of my kin
Who find no comfort in grief, whose grief can never begin
And thus will never end.
In this world in-between, my voice and visage live on
To those not-yet-human what human laws may do
to interrupt time, to stop the Earth
From turning and turning around itself, how such laws disturb
The Order of the world. For this cause I sacrifice
The warmth of flesh on mine, the company of human voice
My sister’s laugh, my lover’s touch
I retreat to this living tomb, this landless home, to
This place that is both nowhere and everywhere at once.
ANTIKONI’s image on the screen multiplies to a 3 × 3 grid of images.
Here I will not age, nor bear
Children for the next generation. I shall live
Though it cannot be called living, a human being alone.
The screen image, still a grid, is replaced by line-drawn avatars.
HAIMON and ISMENE enter. They try to touch ANTIKONI’s image. The image continues to multiply to a 4 × 4 grid, then a 5 × 5 grid. When ISMENE or HAIMON touches an avatar, the image returns to ANTIKONI ’s face.
ISMENE
Né·ne’, return to the world of the living. Listen:
You take my life with you. You have my heart.
HAIMON
Sí·kstiwa·,33 surely our Eternal Laws withstand the current Order.
I beg you to return from this No Man’s Land, your refuge in this war
For your retreat exposes us as it hides you—we are bound with you.
KREON enters the stage and the CHORUS begins to drum. KREON, ISMENE, and HAIMON turn their backs to the audience and address ANTIKONI’s screen images.
Lights dim on t
he main stage, so that the light from the screens is dominant.
As the lights dim, additional DRUMMERS take their place in a circle around the audience.
(As each one speaks, their voices overlap. They chant each phrase several times, with differing inflections, to create a cacophonous sound. As they speak, encircling DRUMMERS begin to DRUM, amplifying the sound.)
ANTIKONI
Oh, to confound Justice with Laws!
What is denied the Dead is denied the living ten times again.
We remain captives with them.
ISMENE
Elder Brother set the Earth in motion, turning it to the right
We must care for the body this way
From time immemorial, for eternal time.
HAIMON
You remain an Indian.
And an Indian is no one without his Tribe.
KREON
This is how we’ve survived,
and how we’ve undermined
The United States of Surveillance.
CHORUS
The humans are coming soon
Already they are coming this way.
ANTIKONI, ISMENE, HAIMON, KREON, and CHORUS stop at the moment ANTIKONI’s face again fills the screen. DRUMS continue. On screen, ANTIKONI lights a sage bundle and the smoke curls upward. She looks out at the audience.
The DRUM beats a hard beat.
Lights out. Screen with ANTIKONI’s face remains a second longer, then blacks out, with the final beat of the DRUM.
1“my sister” addressive kinship term for woman’s younger sister
2“my sister” addressive kinship term for woman’s older sister
3war club
4“our uncle” kinship term for mother’s brother
5ancestor, relative
6“our Ancestors”
7“Sister, truly they are our Ancestors!”
8“Sister, I worry.” Literally: “I think in my heart.”
9“my Ancestors/relations”
10“Now I’m going to tell a story.”
11“Indian People”
12“Little Sister,” addressive form for man
13man’s younger brother addressive
14man’s brother’s child/nephew addressive
15man’s sister’s child/nephew addressive
16father’s father
17mother’s father
18brother-in-law
19“our granddaughter,” maternal side
20“poor, pitiful one”
21“There he comes/arrives.”
22“Yes, I return/circle back.”
23“Tell the truth!” Literally: (speak) truth-language!
24“She carried (something) out.” The root of the verb is “out,” and the prefix is “carry,” placing emphasis on the action of going out. Here Antíkoni uses an older convention of Nez Perce speech, employing third-person form to express intensity.
25Law
26“White Man”
27“our Indian people”
28“Father” addressive
29Literally: “I am exactly on my heart”; figuratively: “I am on target.”
30In Nez Perce stories that have this feature, the littlest/youngest one (laymíwt) solves the problem.
31Term of endearment: “adorable one,” “cutie-pie”
32The rhythm for the Drum is common for hand drum: de-dum, de-dum, de-dum (as a heartbeat).
33“Darling” or “dearest”; best friend, partner; literally: “nestmate”
Acknowledgments
This book was a long time in the making, and I have many people to thank.
For their generosity and patience as teachers of Nez Perce language, I am grateful to Haruo Aoki, Phillip Cash Cash, Angel Sobotta, Milton Davis Jr., Bessie Scott, Florene Davis, Albert Redstar Andrews, Harold Crook, and the community of Nez Perce speakers. Special thanks to my late auntie, Theresa Eagle, for giving me my first words.
I have been fortunate to know many writers who are mentors and friends, and I have benefitted from their generosity as readers. For a multitude of gifts I thank Kathleen Holt, Renae Watchman, Alan Mikhail, Phil Cash Cash, Lisa Brooks, Luis Alberto Urrea, Ralph Rodriguez, Craig Santos Perez, John Higgins, Shelley Fisher Fishkin, Bryan Wolf, Richard White, Lois Deckert, Mark Trahant, Fae Ng, and Sherman Alexie. Many cherished colleagues read, shaped, and supported my work. For equal parts friendship and brilliance I am grateful to Jen Rose Smith, Meredith Palmer, Tom Biolsi, Mattie Harper, Christian Paiz, Philip Deloria, Jake Kosek, Leigh Raiford, Jennifer DeVere Brody, Khalil Johnson, Meg Noodin, Shari Huhndorf, Paige Raibmon, John Borrows, Bayley Marquez, Juliet Kunkel, Ramya Janandharan, Tala Khanmalek, Shokoofeh Rajabzadeh, David Henkin, Andy Shanken, Phenocia Bauerle, Wanda Alarcon, Funie Hsu, Erica Boas, Hertha Sweet Wong, Kathleen Donegan, Leti Volpp, Sabine Meyer, Alan Palaez Lopez, Gerard Ramm, Rachel Lim, Carmen Foghorn, Blake Hausman, Margaret Rhee, Janey Lew, Yomaira Figueroa, Andrew Garrett, Julia Nee, Linda Rugg, Kathleen McCarthy, Susan Schweik, Reid Gomez, Marianne Constable, Line Mikkelsen, Cathy Choy, Mark Rifkin, Nirvana Tanoukhi, Lisa Tatonetti, Andrew Ramer, Brenda Child, Jeani O’Brien, Esther Ramer, Brian DeLay, David Palumbo-Liu, and Dylan Robinson.
For assistance in bringing the work to light, I am grateful for the kind gestures of David Treuer, Joy Harjo, Alan Mikhail, Craig Santos Perez, David Chariandy, Ralph Rodriguez, Julia Masnik, Jill Stauffer, Robert Warrior, Kirby Brown, Ernest Stromberg, Margaret Jacobs, and Rich Wandschneider. Enormous thanks to Jack Shoemaker and everyone and Counterpoint Press and Catapult and the artist Marcus Amerman for making this a beautiful book.
In autumn 2016 I was fortunate to hold a visiting fellowship at the Bard Graduate Center in New York and during that time wrote much of Antíkoni. Many thanks to Peter N. Miller, Aaron Glass, and everyone at the BGC for providing a beautiful, stimulating, and supportive place to work. The first performance of Antíkoni was a staged reading held at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology at UC Berkeley in November 2018. This experiment in singing to the ancestors was made possible by the generous support of Shannon Jackson and Art + Design; Benjamin Porter and the staff at the Hearst Museum; Lisa Wymore and Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies; Mark Griffith and the Department of Classics; Marianne Constable and the Department of Rhetoric; Andrew Garrett and the Department of Linguistics; and the gifted crew of directors, actors, artists, and musicians who brought the play to life: Michael St. Clair, Jennif(f)er Tamayo, Kimberly Skye Richards, Christian Nagler, Keevin Hesuse, Carolyn Smith, Rose Escalano, Fantasia Painter, Skye Chayame Fierro, Ines Hernandez-Avila, Phillip Cash Cash, Benjamin Arsenault, Angel Sobotta, Anna Marie Sharpe, Joel Sedano, Thomas Tallerico, Kara Poon, Chia Yu Shih, Illan Halpern, and Sarah Biscarra Dilley.
Recently I came across a Nez Perce word, ʔatakaʔáyac, which when used as an adjective means “prosperous, affluent, well-provided,” and as a noun means “a child with many relatives.” This word surely describes the wealth for which I am most grateful. Unending thanks to my relations: Mom and Dad, my brothers, Daniel and John, and their families; my children, Twyla and Diego; my uncles, aunts, and many cousins, especially Kathy, Mary Ann, Jerry, Kevin, Woodrow, Rose, Vickey, and their families; my dearest friends, Kathleen and Alex, Kathy and Josh, Sheri and Jerome, Imtiaz, Stephanie, Sharee, Tia and Luke, Justus and Vanessa, Irwin and Joan, Ralph, Khalil, Nathan, Haruo, Phil, and Renae.
Much love and gratitude to all the beadworkers, whose work endures from the past and carries us into the future.
Notes
Written source materials for Nez Perce language and stories include Haruo Aoki, Nez Perce Dictionary (University of California Press, 1994); Haruo Aoki and Deward E. Walker Jr., Nez Perce Oral Narratives (University of California Press, 1989); Archie Phinney, Nez Perce Texts (Columbia University Press, 1934). Translations and errors are my own.
The newspaper article quoted in “The News of the Day” is from “A Fight with the Hostiles,” The New York Times, December 30, 1890, 1.
The
Dick Gregory album referenced in “Fish Wars” is The Two Sides of Dick Gregory (1963).
The Grizzly Bear story in “Falling Crows” is found in Native American Arts of the Columbia Plateau: The Doris Swayze Bounds Collection of Native American Artifacts, ed. Susan E. Harless (High Desert Museum/University of Washington Press, 1998).
For Antigone by Sophocles, I consulted the translation and commentary by Reginald Gibbons and Charles Segal (Oxford University Press, 2003).
© Kirsten Lara Getchell
BETH PIATOTE is an associate professor of Native American studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She holds a PhD from Stanford University, is the author of numerous scholarly essays and creative works, and is the recipient of multiple awards and fellowships. She is Nez Perce enrolled with Colville Confederated Tribes and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her two children.