Remnants of the First Earth

by Ray A. Young Bear

  Still protective, the woman in her stylish bathing suit grunted and groaned in a frenzy to keep up with the young pearl divers’ full-pitch run. Born with a face that appeared to have been viciously ripped in half down the middle and then sloppily sewn back together with a dull knife and rope, the woman had seen her rapturous tormentor, the mystical animal who caused her facial deformity and speech-hearing impediment. “The Well-Known Twin Brother had no regard whatsoever for making her nose and mouth properly aligned,” she recalled her aunt saying. Throughout her life the woman’s deformed face, along with a stumpy tongue and a set of partially missing ears, made children scatter like mice. They squirmed and cried at an unimaginable hideousness under her large, veiled hats. The fact was, the only people privileged to see her disassembled Picassolike visage were close relatives. “It is no coincidence she laughs like a festive circus seal,” the woman’s aunt speculated, imitating her guttural sounds. “No wonder children hide.”

  The watery belly flop landing stunned the girl who had been bucked off by the seal like a rodeo bull rider. Atop a seal’s back one moment, swallowing fish-ridden river water the next, and leading the way along the mud-hardened river path was all she remembered of the pearl-diving excursion as she shivered uncontrollably at home. To her aunt she described her frightening encounter. Beside her, in a small shovel of coals, a clump of cedar twigs crackled under an eagle wing fan. After the blue cedar smoke was directed over her body and head, she gave an engrossing account of how she rode for a short distance on the seal’s back. She thought it had purposely humped its back to lift her higher out of the water. Once she vaguely realized she was running on land, she said, the seal sounded like it was right behind her, barking! When she looked back and saw it was their chaperone and companion in the stylish bathing suit, making those scary noises, she blacked out. After being cleansed with cedar smoke, another girl picked up on their encounter and detailed how they crashed through the thickets and rushed recklessly over the Indian Dam. There, as they were midway across the dam, white fishermen agitated the situation. “Jesus! Hey, you girls, run from that damned monster behind you! Run! Jesus! Run! Run!” they had yelled out. Along with their own piercing screams and the cascading man-made waterfalls, the fishermen’s shouts of concern for their safety heightened into a chaotic din. The aunt asked what the white men called it. “Dam Monster,” she was told by the sobbing girls.

  The woman in the provocative bathing suit stood near the crackling cedar. Long before her worldly emergence she was punished. The aunt walked over to the trunk, pulled out a movable eagle wing, and attached it to her left arm. Controlled by a mechanical contraption held in the right hand, the pulleys and small wires creaked as the spotted eagle wing was stretched out, mimicking flight.

  Thus on a summer afternoon amid the insects’ song— Darken them, darken them, for heing so hold as to walk in the fiery suns light— the erroneous christening of a seal occurred.

  Rose Many Nickel was eight that year in 1938 when they met up with a seal on Half Moon Beach that went on to become known within the family as “Dam Monster.” The name came about as a result of a major misunderstanding between the white fishermen and them. Sure, she was there on Half Moon Beach with her sisters, including her brother and cousin under the care of Jane Ribbon, their mute and facially deformed chaperone. In fact, they participated in the whole affair, but there was no: monster to speak of.

  In the “Local Comical EVents” section of the Why Cheer News-Herald, one of the fishermen reported “the seal woman waddled out of the water, grew legs and arms, and began chasing after the Indian girls.” In the “Local Crimes and Jail Sentences” section, the fishermen were arrested that same night for intoxication, but the story of their seal woman sighting was received as a joke.

  As the years dragged on and as the story became more far-fetched and embarrassing, Rose disassociated herself from the whole affair. In doing so, she was denying her own initiation as a premiere medicine woman. To the closest relatives and friends, however, she said they had been diving for clams in an area where summers previous the family had done well. Except on this occasion a seal, whether real or imagined, sacred or evil, chose to pop to the rivers surface, glistening under the sun in its sleek blackness. . . .

  The Many Nickel family resided near the riverbottoms of the Iowa and Swanroot Rivers. The father, Nelson Many Nickel, was the most famous pearl diver in eastern Iowa; he also happened to be an Indian. Accordingly, his six daughters were taught to dive for clams early on. It was a way of living. The Many Nickel name on strings of pearls was highly sought after. Pearls for necklaces and clamshell buttons were traded for household materials, like nails, boards, pots, pans, and food, as well as school clothes.

  As the daughters got older, however, the father was compelled to stay home and clean the pearls. It wasn’t respectful to see the bodies of his partially clothed daughters on their pearl-diving excursions. Between the parents it was agreed that when wet blouses began to cling to their growing breasts, a female chaperone would accompany them. The mother, Esther Many Nickel, with other things to do, like cooking, sewing, and selling beadwork sometimes on old Lincoln Highway 30, called upon her mothers relative, Jane Ribbon, to guide and watch the girls.

  Jane Ribbon was a facially deformed mute and a recluse. She was quite trustworthy, though she rarely ventured out into the tribal community or anywhere else. Except for her elderly caretaker’s immediate family, no one knew how to communicate with her, much less look at her without being intimidated. It took years of practice to accomplish either task. During their summers as girls, Esther and Jane went on pearl-diving and fishing excursions. Whenever they met people on the paths, both whites and Indians would stand to the side, look away in respect and fear, and let them pass. Esther and her elderly aunt never thought of Jane as “Encumbrance.” Instead they accepted her presence as a blessing from the Well-Known Twin Brother.

  “That’s why she can swim and dive like a muskrat,” they would say with hand gestures, comparing her to the one who dove into the ocean and retrieved a pawful of mud for the Well-Known Twin Brother, the mud that shaped the Second Earth.

  “The muskrat is a hideous thing to look at,” Jane would signal angrily from the corner of the herb- and hat-cluttered room.

  “That’s all, though,” they would return, emphasizing a muskrat could not watch and cook for babies as well as she could. Nor could a muskrat sew floral designs in appliqué and get high prices from white collectors.

  In an effort to make the public at ease with her, and her with herself, they mail-ordered the latest hat styles of the season from CM. Marshall’s catalog. But Jane Ribbon preferred to stay in the dimness of Aunt Sophia’s old home.

  It wasn’t productive arguing in sign language with a muskrat-resenting mute obsessed by her own misfortune. It was frustrating to stand in the shadows in a flurry of arm and hand gestures. If Jane looked away, the meaningless arms flailed. Sometimes Esther’s elderly aunt ended up hitting herself accidentally, and she would hold her poked eye and weep.

  For the Many Nickel family, Jane Ribbon was a lifetime friend and companion. In fact, she frequently baby-sat the girls while their parents hunted for pearls. They all learned to communicate with her in sign language developed by their wise, elderly aunt Sophia, who foresaw physical abuse and starvation for Jane were she to be institutionalized. They unanimously concurred Jane wasn’t crazy. Her features merely took getting used to, but not if one knew her from infancy. Although public-shy, Jane was unusually fashion-conscious. In fact, Jane introduced hints of Western civilization to the girls through her impressive mail-order catalogs. In the dank half-lit corner of her room, Jane modeled clothes. Enthralled with her presence in shiny red high heels and frilly skirts, they were “mute-sensitized” long before schooling at Weeping Willow Elementary. Jane, of course, graciously declined any suggestion to pose in full daylight.

  Mystery-Solving Sherlock Holmes That She Was

  Rose Gra
ssleggings began having dreams that a shadow, or “soul,” was trapped between the two sets of sliding glass doors at the Heijen Medical Center in Sherifftown, Iowa. There were four large doors that opened and closed automatically at the presence of human beings who arrived and left like insects en masse. She understood the mechanics of a large hospital, conserving its air conditioning in summer and its heat in winter. The self-monitoring doors served their purpose well.

  She also knew—through newspapers read, maybe—that they were gifts from two prominent Dutch families with a legacy in the gravel and truck radiator businesses. The doors were installed in posthumous honor of beloved relatives. Kinetic tombstones with names embedded in bronze plaques interacted with people twenty-four hours a day. Constructed from silver metal and large sheets of tinted glass, these doors had a simple function; through electrical vision they opened and closed for people.

  While Rose Grassleggings saw them as architectural reminders of our short lives as human beings, our impermanence, the public saw them as a welcome convenience. Beyond that, no one thought about them much. Only two families—the benefactors themselves— knew about the philanthropy. No one read the bronze plaques; Sherifftown citizens didn’t care about that kind of “uppity” stuff. All they wanted the Dutch founders of the Heijen Medical Center— namely, Ans Visser and Fleming Joop—to do was open and close.

  How would you thank them, anyway? Rose asked herself. Yellow and red tulips in wooden shoes? Dutch Friesland tobacco and Grolsch beer?

  As the dreams progressed, Rose nearly became confused.

  How could a shadow, or “soul,” get hopelessly stuck in the air space between the two sets of sliding glass doors?

  Before long, and with the diligent help of neighbors, relatives, and prayers, she learned Ted Facepaint, a tribal member, had been pronounced dead between the two sets of glass doors of the hospital. Officially. Which was a violation of an old but stringent agreement between tribe and state: “It shall he understood by all residents of Tama County and other surrounding counties that no person other than a Black Eagle Child priest shall formally address and pronounce a fellow tribal member deceased.” It had always been taught that shortly after the moment of death, any word spoken to the deceased by anyone would liberate their shadows anywhere. Even between the doors at the Heijen Medical Center.

  As the dreams began to unfold, like a puzzle, Rose saw herself in the glass-framed edifice: She stepped into the electric eye and opened the glass doors to commune with an invisible shadow. If everything went according to plan—this would be the first among her deeds—the ghost of a green pa|rrot would escort the shadow to celestial freedom. Literally.

  Upon waking, Rose Grassleggings assessed that this task wasn’t monumental, and embarrassment to self was minimal. Ted Face-paint’s relatives would have to “go out on a hunting expedition” for an exotic bird. Its sacrifice would be next, causing a commotion. Eventually she would be manhandled by hospital security and taken into custody. The cost was small in return for a shadow’s eternal comfort. Wasn’t it? Rose asked herself. Who would enjoy being a tortured “soul,” reliving an unwanted body-leaving moment over and over, like a stuck record on an old Sears record player? And could denial of this death and others have wide-reaching universal complications?

  “Why . . . yes, yes. Certainly,” she whispered as the dream demonstrated where to hold the exotic bird, how the leather hood was tightened around its feathered neck, and the words said to implore the shadow to watch for another “arrival.” The glass doors were also crucial, for contained therein was the voice of Dr. Plees, the special coroner of Tama County. She learned he happened to be leaving the hospital when Ted Facepaint was brought through the front entrance. When the paramedics told the special coroner the victim was Indian, a necro-crime was perpetrated. Dr. Plees, a former tribal doctor with a hidden agenda, hated himself for speaking the despicable Black Eagle Child language. But sometimes it came in handy, as it did in the case of Ted Facepaint. Rose knew for certain what happened. Dr. Plees bowed over the sheet-covered body, genuflected and made an upside-down cross sign, and said in a sarcastic tone: “I pronounce you dead to the world, Mr. . . . what’s a good Indian name?” Caught up in the strangeness, the paramedics had kept still until he answered himself. “I’m telling you now, A ni kwa-ne ni wa, Man Squirrel! Officially. Ka ta na na tti to ki ka ni! May you never wake again! Now let’s go inside and get the damn thing oyer with; I won’t have to do this tomorrow.” And he didn’t.

  Everything the dreams explained thereafter was crucial. Observed from all angles—sometimes with a mirror or simply in reverse—the stories were ceremonies. Luckily, mystery-solving Sherlock Holmes that Rose was, the messages revealed themselves with the aid of pencil and paper. Hasty drawings were done on Safeway grocery bags. Arranged in chronologic order, the brown paper drawings were kept in her fully beaded purse. She pulled them out like playing cards and rehearsed exactly the way the Deformed Pearl Diver, Jane Ribbon, her mentor, had taught.

  The reenactment of these dreams was important: The large green parrot, for instance, would be asphyxiated within the glass structure. It was also known that the “shadow-releasing” rite worked stronger with an audience. The latter, she methodically adduced, wouldn’t be difficult, for visitor traffic at Heijen Medical was constant. On the downside, being arrested for disorderly conduct and cruelty to exotic birds wasn’t good. Yet she was driven by a haunting feeling of despair that went beyond the norm. She wouldn’t mind sitting in a police squad car. Handcuffed. She could even tolerate hospital security imitating squawks the limp parrot made before it was thrown to them.

  But that was only the beginning. For a moment, as the leather “suffocating” hood was unraveled from the parrot, the hospital security would shudder at the ghastly sight of a small human face before the compressed feathers ruffled back into shape. Half shadow, half bird. That’s what she was after.

  In the guise of mockery the special coroner had knowingly liberated Ted Facepaint’s shadow by reciting the words—in Indian. In death, too, according to Black Eagle Child beliefs, there was a need for some guidance even if it didn’t lead to anything. In a dimension without a physical sense, akin to a quick, premature birth, Ted’s bereft shadow leapt out upon the instruction “not to wake,” only to find itself encased in glass and part of a kinetic memorial.

  Long before Dr. Plees hated Indians, he studied their customs, language, and “heathenish practices” with avid interest. As an educated person he felt obligated to learn the inner workings of a Woodlands-based tribal society. More so with a lucrative health services contract at stake. Treating ailments of the Black Eagle Child Nation was secondary to the thrill of gaining insights into their ancient worldviews. Ideologically spawned by the greatest sin of Western civilization—that which seeks, connivingly befriends, steals, and then destroys—Dr. Plees made what he couldn’t possibly know through books his first priority. Another people’s intimate ways. Who could have foreseen the following upon his interfacing with the Black Eagle Child community?

  • When the needle of the ethnologic compass levitated upward, shattering the glass face with such force that “fecal matter hit the propeller” (as whites by colloquial habit are wont to say), the cardinal points became clouded, and then he became disoriented.

  • When the Tribal Council canceled his health services contract, with the state medical board’s blessing, the white communities of Why Cheer and Gladwood rallied behind him, urging him to burn “Indian books” and attend church.

  • When the town s white businessmen called relatives from surrounding counties, sick people made thirty-mile round-trips—some driving themselves—to express disgust with his public firing and asked him to be their doctor.

  • When his dejection allowed the seed of bigotry to be planted, there materialized a five-year membership to the exclusive Indian Acres Country Club and a second job, issuing certificates of death to the local populace.

  Initially, t
he special coroner believed his position was created out of sympathy. Later, though, he learned the county’s Social Statistics Department had diverted federal funds intended for the tribe to local banks. As a result, a five-year backlog on Indian deaths and other program matters existed. However, it also made possible a new Chevy Blazer, complete with federal/state jurisdiction over the Black Eagle Child Settlement. The Blazer rolled over the thoroughfares of tribal land—anytime, anywhere—for the wrong reasons.

  As a new member in a white anti-Indian community, Dr. Plees soon took special delight in learning that hefty interests helped sponsor the annual Twintowns rodeo and agricultural fair. Indian money was operating and public relations money for the Twintowns Chamber of Commerce. If federal agents ever planned an audit, he was told, “there was enough there” to cover anything—close to two million dollars. Twice a month the country club had live music, risqué men stuff, and free alcohol. Moreover, twice a month the wives held luncheons, flower-arranging sessions, and fashion shows—cospon-sored by the Why Cheer Preservation Club—with “real models” from Ames, Cedar Falls, and Winterset. Twice a year the members selected Why Cheer High School students—four males and two females, “preferably white and smart”—for college scholarships. Once a year the club’s exclusive Indian Acres Open drew golf amateurs from as far away as Dubuque and Council Bluffs to vie for the five three-thousand-dollar awards.

  The Black Eagle Child Nation unknowingly paid all expenses, including tips for the caddies. But there was one thing the country club patrons couldn’t take away, and it bothered the hell out of them: “The Black Eagle Child Field Days and Chautauqua.” Every August for eight decades white visitors! crowded to watch the powwow, take part in pretty-baby and gardening contests and footraces, and enjoy parade music by the All-BEC Indian brass band. Its four-day success was measured by how many miles the automobiles were backed up on old Lincoln Highway 30.