Blue Ravens: Historical Novel

by Gerald Vizenor

  Odysseus was born at home, one of seven children, in South Carolina. He was a direct descendant of freedmen, exceptional soldiers, traders, and storiers. Madison, his favorite uncle, served as a Buffalo Soldier in the Tenth Cavalry Regiment, and he fought in the Apache Wars. The Young freedmen, soldiers and traders, were strong, dark, ambitious, and winsome. Jefferson and Odysseus were secure on the trail and honored by natives because of their songs, stories, and their trade integrity.

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  Aloysius painted more than seven original scenes that night of blue ravens in the war, blue ravens perched on the porch with the nurses, and one blue raven with huge wings. A trace of red rouge was on the cheek of the soldier. My brother presented the watercolor paintings to the trader that night, and once more the nurses were teary.

  Biitewan, the unaware federal agent, arrived at the hospital to inquire about the cause of shouts and laughter heard from a distance. No matter the weather the agent always wore a white shirt, necktie, vest, and dark suit, and so he was dressed that night for a federal investigation of humor, chant, and native irony. No one, not even the ice woman, would have invited the agent out that night. Chance, humor, and native irony were weakened by the mere presence of the agent. Nonetheless, and with his bony thumb hooked over a watch chain, he was convinced that his political appointment as a federal inspector and reservation agent endowed him with the rights of cultural intrusion and personal inquiry. The man was not evil, or even a dopey federal monster, but his presence was a nuisance, and a deadly distraction. Foamy was an irretrievable trespasser on native reason and stories. Mostly he was the actual sources of the ironic stories, but never as a participant.

  The nurses shunned the agent on every occasion because his dreary, niggling manner was a curse in the hospital. Patients lost their spirit to live in the presence of government agents.

  The covert mission of the federal agent that night was an inquiry into the misuse of federal funds to heal a trader and others who were not natives of the White Earth Reservation. The doctor, nurses, and patients turned away when the agent intruded on the porch stories. The trader, however, teased the agent with ironic flattery, comments on his shirt, vest, and watch chain. You are a proper federal man, said the trader, to wear a white shirt, necktie, and vest only to interrogate an old wounded trader on a summer night.

  Odysseus invited the agent to participate in a song about peas, or peanuts, that had been popular in the south during the Civil War. The trader had encountered the agent on another reservation and knew that he was born and raised near Macon, Georgia, and many of his relatives were veterans of the Confederate States Army.

  Biitewan had no personal contact with natives, and he had no appreciation of the history and vicious termination of natives in Georgia. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 and the Trail of Tears were of no concern to the provincial agent. The appointment of federal agents was always political, and any sympathetic experience, comments, or knowledge of the abuses and removal of natives from homelands would likely complicate a nomination for government service on a reservation.

  Odysseus teased the agent with ironic stories about the black panthers and the cruel removal of natives in Georgia. Nothing remains in your greyback rebel birthplace, said the trader, to show the world that elusive natives and black panthers are worth more than a pocket of loam or gold dust. The trader waved and chanted that natives lost their homeland and stories to southern thievery.

  Biitewan smiled slightly, a haughty gesture, unaware of the ironic analogy of natives, blacks, and panthers, and turned to the doctor for an accounting of the medical services provided to the trader. Nothing but ice for a swollen ankle, the doctor shouted, and the Beaulieu boys cut that ice last winter on the lake, and the ice is native and free to melt on the ankle of the trader, or on anyone in need of an ice pack. The trader smiled, the doctor cursed, and the nurses snickered when the agent officiously announced that the lake was federal trust land, and the ice was under his jurisdiction.

  Odysseus raised one hand, gestured to the greyback agent, and started to chant the words of “Goober Peas.” The nurses and patients returned to the porch to participate in the tease of the federal agent.

  Sittin’ by the roadside on a summer’s day,

  Chattin’ with my messmates, passing time away,

  Lying in the shadow, underneath the trees,

  Goodness, how delicious, eating goober peas!

  Everyone on the porch, even the doctor, encouraged the agent, who had never taken part in any native ceremonies, family wakes, or reservation activities, to join the trader, nurses, and patients in the first chorus of “Goober Peas.” The Union was blue, the reservation was blue, the trader was blue, the ravens were blue, and the war continued with blue ironic stories.

  Peas! Peas! Peas! Peas!

  Eating goober peas!

  Goodness, how delicious,

  Eating goober peas!

  The porch humor was memorable that night, and the dreary greyback agent never quite realized at that moment that he had been deliberately distracted with a dippy southern song of the Civil War. The trader was our captain storier that night, a trader of deliverance on the reservation. Yet the ironic participation of the antsy agent was a draw because he soon returned to fidget with his watch chain and continued the hospital inquiry.

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  PEYOTE OPERA

  — — — — — — — 1912 — — — — — — —

  Odysseus was sentimental at times about the old traders and chantey music. His trail stories and songs about soldiers and war were picturesque, slightly romantic, original by every recount, but never mawkish. Even so the winsome trader was teased for the first time last summer about the many songs he chanted from the American Civil War.

  Foamy, the federal agent, mocked the popular war lyrics and reminded the trader that the War Between the States was ancient history. We were astonished by the taunt because no one had ever observed the agent at play. Augustus, our uncle, was convinced the agent had taken to government whiskey.

  Glory, Glory Hallelujah.

  Odysseus raised his white hat, gestured to the testy agent, and then turned to several students near the government school and sang a few lines from “Alexander’s Rag Time Band” by Irving Berlin. The students were silent, but the agent shouted the same lines right back at the trader.

  Come on and hear! Alexander’s ragtime band!

  It’s the best band in the land!

  So natural that you want to go to war.

  Foamy never seemed to grasp the tricky tease of native stories, or the creative run of irony. Honoré, our father, said the agent had no sense of natural reason or presence, and no totemic associations in the world. Foamy was separated by name and disconnected by war and culture. He abided with the wrong sides, against emancipation and natives, and against the Union in the American Civil War. His new teases and greyback taunts were no more trouble than slow water over the smooth stone at the headwaters.

  Calypso raised her ears, neighed, and ambled past the vested agent, the mission, post office, the bank, the gray wooden walkways, and straight into the livery stables at the Hotel Leecy. Bayard the packhorse waited in the shadows to be unloaded. The trader stacked the huge bundles of goods in a locked cage at the back of the stables, and then whispered to his horses. We listened every summer, year after year, but we never heard or understood what the trader told his loyal mares.

  Odysseus walked with a limp.

  John Leecy had invited the trader to display his curious merchandise in the hotel lobby that Sunday. Naturally, we were there early to assist the trader and to watch natives and others negotiate the unstated prices of exotic goods. Expensive cigars in sealed boxes, decorative feathers, cloth, jewelry, and many other curious wares were stacked on large tables in the hotel lobby.

  Odysseus traded secret reserves of peyote and absinthe by discreet names. Night Visions and Morning Star were the names for peyote. The French absinthe w
as mentioned only as la fée verte, or The Green Lady. Only the doctor and our uncle were aware that the trader carried absinthe and peyote. The Green Lady became very expensive that summer because the heady spirit had been banned as a poison by the Department of Agriculture.

  Augustus bartered for cigars, absinthe, and mercury.

  The bank manager bought snowy egret feathers. The wispy crown feathers and other exotic bird plumage were very expensive, more than the price of gold. The trader presented oriole, common tern, snow bunting, northern flicker, cedar waxwing, and, of course, snowy egret feathers. Rumors spread that the banker, a distant relative, used reservation deposits to buy feathers for a white woman. He fancied one of the government teachers, but she had never been seen in an aigrette or any other fashion feathers. The banker actually bought the feathers for his fancy grandmother.

  My mother said women were the enemy of sacred birds, and likewise men had been the enemy of the beaver centuries earlier. The decorative plume trade decimated the showy birds, and our ancestors in the fur trade brought the beaver close to extinction. Natives and most of our relatives once hunted beaver for no other reason than the fashion of expensive felt hats in Europe.

  Odysseus insisted that he only sold dead egret feathers that were gathered by the Seminoles in the Florida Everglades. Augustus doubted that the egret feathers were dead, or shed in a natural way, and then rescued by natives, and he was not convinced that natives would have better protected the snowy egrets or any other totemic birds. He reminded us that our ancestors and fur traders slaughtered sacred totems for the money.

  Augustus reported in the Tomahawk that the New York State legislature passed the Audubon Plumage Bill. The trade in bird plumage was banned in the state. The plumage laws were ignored on the reservation, and the secret trade continued.

  Augustus never revealed his use of quicksilver.

  Aloysius painted several blue raven scenes, and the ravens were encircled by traces of white plumes. The snowy egrets were portrayed as faint outlines with enormous blue crown feathers, and the eyes of the egrets were touched with a trace of red.

  Catherine Heady, the prudish literature teacher, was there to buy calico and cotton lace. She gestured with a tight smile, but never said a word to students outside of school. The trader measured a length of lace for the teacher, touched his gray hairy cheek with the cloth, and then invited her to do the same. The teacher blushed and turned away.

  Foamy bought a square yard of red velvet for a chair cushion, and the testy negotiations lasted for more than an hour. The trader met with other customers, and then returned several times to bargain over the price of velvet. Finally, the price was settled quickly when the doctor arrived to secretly barter for a sack of peyote. The agent was not aware that the trader carried the magical cactus.

  Odysseus complained to the doctor that his ankle had not healed, and he was not able to walk without some pain. He was treated at the hospital two years earlier, and we were there to hear his marvelous stories. The trader handed the doctor a small canvas sack of peyote. Luckily we heard the doctor direct the trader to meet that very night at a site near Bad Boy Lake.

  John Leecy loaned us a horse that afternoon, but we were too late to follow the trader to the secret location near the lake. Most peyote ceremonies started at sundown, so we waited and listened near the lake. We were too young to use peyote, and we had no obvious need to be healed at the time, but we were curious about visionary stories. There were several cabins in the woods, so we slowly ambled around the lake and listened for any sound of the ceremony. Finally, several hours later we heard an eagle whistle and the fast sound of drums.

  The peyote ceremony was held in a wigwam in the woods a short distance from the lake. The mongrel healers circled the horse when we dismounted in the dark, so we walked to the nearby cabin and tied the horse to a post. Misaabe, the old healer, invited us into his tiny cabin, and at the same time the mongrels pushed through the rickety door. We had been there only once last summer. The cabin was dark, lighted by a tiny kerosene lantern, and the oil was scented with cedar.

  Misaabe sat naked on a plank bench near the cook stove. He seldom wore clothes in the summer, and only covered his body in winter, and when he was on duty with the mongrel healers at the hospital. Doctor Mendor paid the old healer for the services of the mongrels at the hospital, and always brought food, sometimes even dog food, and chocolate when he gathered nearby for a peyote ceremony.

  No other public health doctor had promoted the mongrel healers on the reservation. The mongrels detected by the scent of urine, bare skin, bad breath, sweat, and by muscle tension various diseases. The mongrels were not shy about pushing their noses into the crotch of a human, and they had learned how to quickly pitch the hem of a dress and sniff the genitals of a woman. The doctor was amused by the disease detection practices of the mongrels, but the nurses tightened their dresses and sidestepped the mongrel healers.

  Liver, kidney, pancreas, thyroid, and stomach diseases were detected and treated by the doctor, but most tumors were not treatable by ordinary medicine. Surgery was dangerous and the last resort. The mongrel healers detected and now and then healed the most serious diseases.

  Misaabe trained the mongrels to sing, smile, nudge, nuzzle, and heal the patients in the hospital. Some patients resisted the healing energy of the mongrels because they could not accept the natural spirit of animals, and because they could not imagine the presence of a disease.

  Misaabe once told a federal surveyor, a man who had marked and divided reservation land into government allotments, that the ice woman caused his tumors. He encouraged the surveyor to locate by imagination the tumor in his body as a chunk of ice and then slowly day by day concentrate on the location and melt the ice away. The man could not imagine a chunk of ice in his body. He could not create or envision a scene or story to survive.

  Misaabe and his mongrels healed serious diseases of more natives than the hospital doctors. Most of the government agents could not create stories, and could not imagine a disease. The ice woman stories were sources of fear and caution. That very sense of fear in stories of the ice woman could be imagined as the power to heal a disease.

  Misaabe and the mongrels were natural healers. Sometimes he told natives to concentrate and imagine scenes of the ice woman and then melt the disease away with a song or story. Naturally, natives and others worried when the mongrels sniffed too closely. Any lingering scent could be the detection of disease. Harmony, a spaniel mongrel, had a nose much colder than the stories of the ice woman. The four other mongrels were distinct healers. Shimmer nuzzled and her body glowed when she sang. Nosy was skinny, tender, curious, and could heal anyone with her dark, watery eyes. Ghost Moth was so named because of his faint and misty coat. Mona Lisa was an artful healer by secretive smiles, a poser, and her gentle furry paws were crossed at rest. Misaabe named the young mongrel healer last summer when the Tomahawk reported that the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci had been stolen from the Musée du Louvre in Paris.

  Aloysius sat near the kerosene lamp and painted great blue ravens in magical flight, and with abstract blue mongrels on the wing. The color blue had the power to heal in native art and stories. Misaabe used the blue ravens my brother painted to encourage natives to imagine a disease healed by blue ravens, blue totems, and by blue mongrels.

  The moths bounced on the lantern, roused by the light, and left traces of wings on the globe. Gnats and other insects died on the wick. The mongrels moaned in the dark corners of the cabin. The lofty sound of an eagle whistle and the fast beat of peyote drums wavered in the distance. The peyote songs surged in the night, and we waited by the lantern for the old healer to move with the spirit of the music.

  Misaabe murmured on the bench, and then chanted and gestured with his hands. His shadow became a wave of music, a natural motion with the moths, and yet he had never used peyote. The mongrels were observant, heads raised, ears turned to the music, and they watched the shadows of the great
healer circle the cabin. Mona Lisa panted and crossed her paws.

  Aloysius painted by the lantern.

  We were secure with the moths, mongrels, and the old healer that night. The peyote music wavered and enclosed the tiny cabin. The lantern light shimmered and then fluttered with the sound of the drums. We were captivated by the music, and by the shadows of the healer. We had no need to move closer to the wigwam.

  Much later we were startled by hearty shouts and the chanted names of totems, crane, raven, beaver, bear, and other birds and animals over the sound of the peyote music. The ceremony in a wigwam that night was not traditional, and not the same as the ancient native peyote practices in the desert. There were singers, peyote songs, the sound of rattles, drums, and eagle whistles, but no formal prayers, no peyote chief, no cedar man, sagebrush, and no sense of a supreme creator.

  The peyote ceremony in the wigwam inspired natural visions, more individual than communal or churchy. The ceremony was dangerous, and the singers were brave visionaries. The singers were inspired by the liberation of personal and solitary visions. Later we learned that peyote created strange sensations of independence, a sense of visionary sovereignty, and the magical power of flight. The new burdens of time, masters, manners, cultures, and communal conditions were trivial in the peyote visions of magical flight. The creative stories were natural coveys, heartfelt, true scenes, and with an overwhelming native sense of liberty.

  The shouts and chants roused the mongrels. Mona Lisa and Nosy circled the old healer in the cabin and waited for directions. Misaabe gestured with his lips toward the peyote wigwam and the mongrels rushed outside. We followed the mongrels into the night and recognized the voice of the chanter and trader. The mongrels nosed and bumped him back to the cabin.