Growing Up Native American

by Bill Adler

  With mom, it was partly a matter of pride; she didn’t want her folks to come out and see her living like that…on government handouts. She would sometimes cry and talk to me, saying she couldn’t understand how it was we could work so hard and yet be so poor…and grumbling under her breath that she would never accept their dirty welfare money. So we all worked very hard at the crab shack and various other jobs. Mom was nearly forty and was having a very difficult time carrying George. Once she had been crying and sick for about two days. I cried too. We were very close then. She asked over and over, “Why are we so poor when we work so hard?” She was just talking out loud, but I felt she was asking me and I didn’t have an answer. I just wondered alone with her how it was that no matter how hard we worked—my brothers caddying or doing other odd jobs, me ironing, etc.—we never seemed to have anything to eat but the fruit and vegetables we canned. We almost never bought anything. I never wore a regular pair of shoes till I was ten—only runners—and we never had any heat in the house. I also began wondering why most people—white people—didn’t like Indians and treated us badly, like we weren’t as good as they were. And soon I began to wonder if, or how, we could change the situation we found ourselves in. We seemed to be caught in the same rut all the time…always runnin’ around in the same miserable rut. But I was still far too young and inexperienced to understand the social and class nature of our oppression.

  A couple of years later, when I was eleven, mom bought another house. She was one of the few people in the neighbourhood who owned their own place. We got $15,000 for the old house and lot—and I was really happy to leave the mud flats. I always seemed to be sick in that house, with no protection against the cold, wet winters and the wind which constantly whipped in off the ocean. Things got a lot better when we moved into the new place. It had a furnace and central heating. Some of our friends from the Reserve helped us move, but we girls did most of the work as the boys were out fishing.

  Then my mother began to change…for the worse, I thought. She quit drinking, stopped running around with men and became very moralistic. But what was bad was that she stopped being the easy-going person we all loved and enjoyed being around. Actually, we thought she was going a bit crazy. She sat and stared a lot, talking to herself and acting in other strange ways. A certain tension filled the house and it scared all of us.

  Because mom wanted me to, I started studying the Bible…but I didn’t like it. It was full of unbelievable fantasies. As a kid, I thought a lot, but never daydreamed or fantasized. My dreams were mostly of conversations I’d had; I’d remember things that happened and try to figure them out. I was always trying to understand things—why there was air, how we breathed, and so forth. There was something in me that made me conscious of all the little things that happened.

  Three months after I entered school I became aware that I was an Indian and that white people didn’t like me because of the colour of my skin. I talked about it with kids on the Reserve but they would just say “We don’t like whites either.” Even the older people didn’t like whites. Many worked in the white communities, around white people, but they had no white friends. Like most of the kids, when some white called me a name or abused me, I fought back. But otherwise I just ignored them like everyone else, fighting their contempt with silence. Of course, my situation wasn’t simple because my old man was white. But when he got drunk and angry with mom he called her a “dirty old squaw.”

  By the time I was nine I didn’t want anything to do with whites. There were many in my school, but I had no friends and asked no questions in class. When a teacher called on me I just refused to answer. As time went on I became very nervous and uncomfortable at school; I just wanted to be completely away from white people in my daily life. A talent I had in art added to my misfortune. I once made a clay bear and glazed it black, but it came out gray. I tried again, but still it came out gray. My teacher was nice to me and sympathetic. He took my bear around to the other classes and talked about how well it was done. The kids took notice and some told me they really liked it. Of course, I remained passive. I didn’t want their compliments, or even to be noticed. I wanted only to be left alone, ignored. Their attention just embarrassed me, and my hatred of that bear grew monstrous in comparison to its size. Because of it I was drawn into the Whiteman’s spotlight—a place I wanted to avoid. But I silently accepted the situation—their tolerance, their racism.

  After we moved, I went to a new school in Lynn Valley. I remembered that standing up and being introduced to my new class was—after the bear incident—the second most humiliating incident in my life to that point. The teacher then appointed a girl to show me around the school. I really needed it too; I’d become completely introverted, keeping all to myself and rarely talking. My problem was complicated because it was around this time that mom started talking to herself, flying off the handle at nothing, and forgetting things all the time. I thought a lot about it and decided that I didn’t ever want to become like her. In fact, I’d reached a point of not wanting anything more to do with either mom or dad. We’d been very close before, mom and me, but now we seemed very far apart.

  There was another new girl in my school, named Gertrude. I’d known her in grade two. When I was little I always wanted hair like hers, long and very blonde. Sometimes she teased me saying, “Don’t you wish you had long pretty hair like mine?” It made me very sad and angry. Then one day I was playing with her hair; she’d let me do it because it flattered her. We were in school. Then, as I braided the long blonde strands, I added some of dad’s boat glue, which I kept in my desk. I worked it carefully into the braids and by recess they had become hard as a rock. When Gertrude jumped up to flaunt her pony-tail, it swung around and hit her like a stick right in the face. She screamed, then started crying. I was taken to the principal, who gave me a hard strapping. They told mom, but she didn’t get angry; in fact she thought it was funny and laughed. “Maybe that’ll teach her not to bug you anymore,” she said. By grade six, Gertrude had become a really vain and mean person, but she never bothered me again.

  After a time in the new school I started to change a bit. I became a little more relaxed around white people. One of my teachers was a pretty nice guy. I remember reading about various religions and talking to him about why people believed in these strange ideas. He had been to the Soviet Union in 1956 and was a liberal—not at all anti-Russian. I decided that I would like to go visit Russia too. When mom was in the Communist Party she’d subscribed to a magazine called “Soviet Union,” published in Moscow. Sometimes all of us kids would sit around and talk about what we saw and thought. I remember liking the photographs very much—especially the ones of Eskimo dwellings. The idea that they were all alike fascinated me.

  This Mr. Cleamens was also my music teacher. He asked why I never sang with the rest of the kids in the chorus. When I didn’t reply, he said that if I didn’t start singing he would have me stand up in front of the entire class and practice so I would overcome my shyness. But I remained silent in the chorus. Finally, he told me to stand and sing before the class. I don’t remember if I uttered a few notes or not; just that I started crying and didn’t go to school for the next three weeks. I’ve never been able to sing…can’t even carry a tune. After I returned he allowed me to remain silent. Strangely enough, our choir won several prizes that year.

  In grade six my marks improved for the first time. I was a straight “A” student that year and the next. I also became good friends with a Jewish classmate named Maria von Strassen. Once I even went to synagogue with her. But I decided I didn’t want to become Jewish—or any other religion for that matter.

  Maria, however, was a very nice girl, and very quiet. Everyone used to pick on her because of her being Jewish, quiet and a good student…I guess. Anyway, I often walked to school with her even though the other girls didn’t want anyone to play with or talk to her. Once a gang of them came down on me as I walked to school. They started calling me names and be
ating up on me. I became furious and ferocious, screaming that if they didn’t stop I’d kill them all, one by one. “I’ll get every last one of you! No matter how long it takes me! I’ll kill you all!” I yelled. But that just made them madder. They sat on me and punched my arm and stomach very hard. I was sick for a couple of days after and wore sweaters so mom and the others wouldn’t find out what happened.

  A few days later we were playing softball at school. The biggest girl, the one who started the fight with me, was pitching. When I came to bat I really whacked the ball and it hit her right smack in the stomach. She fell down, unconscious, while all her friends came rushing in to beat me up again, yelling that I’d done it on purpose. “You’re bloody right,” I yelled back, “and if you come closer I’ll smash you with this bat!” As they moved in, I swung the bat around and nearly hit one of the girls in the head. Someone ran in to get the principal while one of the girls who hadn’t been involved in the matter said, “No one is going to hurt you Bobbi. Why don’t you give me the bat and let’s forget it?” “Get away,” I said, “or I’ll knock your head off too!”

  The tension was building, but nothing else happened. The girls just drifted away, knowing I was very serious. Then the principal came out and talked to us. From then on, whenever there were parties, the girls made sure to tell me I wasn’t invited…and when our class went on biology field trips, or to the zoo and so on, nobody would walk with me. The other girls started easing off her and she even made some new friends. This really made me cynical. It was the first time in my life I’d been open to friendship with white girls, and now their contempt and ostracism forced me to conclude that all whites were the same: creepy, cruel racists that I wanted nothing more to do with.

  As far as school was concerned, I didn’t even want to go anymore. I would often drink mustard with water, getting a bit sick in order to stay home. Mostly, I just left the house and, instead of going to school, took long walks down the canyon or out in Stanley Park. Even in winter I went up to the swamp and hiked—sometimes with my brother, sometimes alone. At times we hiked into the water shed and guards would come and chase us off. Then we sometimes saw bears and ran away. Around our new house the bears were really strange; sometimes they came right into the yards looking for food. Once there was a knock on our door and mom hollered, “Come in! Come in!” but no one entered. Then more knocks and more “Come in’s.” Finally though we rarely ever opened our door personally for visitors, mom went and pulled it open with a swish of frustration. Standing there on his hind legs was a huge bear. I wanted to laugh and scream at the same time. Mom was so frightened she just stood there for an instant, her mouth open; then she slammed the door and ran around locking all the doors and windows…as if the bear was bound and determined to come in. Instead, he just ran away…probably as scared as we were.

  Later, we had other troubles with bears. My younger brother, George, was three and often went to play in a nearby fruit orchard. One day I walked down through the trees looking for him. Suddenly, I found him playing peacefully with two small bear cubs. I’d heard how fierce mother bears became in defense of their cubs and ran home as fast as I could to tell mom. She told me to get him immediately. Luckily, there was no sign of the mother bear yet and I grabbed George and pulled him all the way back to the house. When more people moved in, the bears slowly left the area. But that was much later.

  Squirrels were more fun. We kept them around the house by feeding them…almost like pets. We also had a racoon, but he was pretty wild.

  Sometimes dad came to visit us and often paid the house bills. There’d be a lot of tension in the atmosphere, but no serious trouble that I can remember. My negative feelings toward him eased off, but there was still little emotion in our relationship. In the wintertime he stayed at the house and slept downstairs. Mom slept upstairs with us kids. They didn’t live together; just shared the same house. We would put up with him, more or less, till he left again for who knew how long.

  THE TALKING THAT TREES DOES

  Geary Hobson

  Taken from a novel in progress entitled Daughters of Lot, this story of kinship and memory reads like an annotated genealogy of people and place, and illuminates a relationship between land, people, and identity that is at the center of the lives of many Native American people. In the midst of displacement and land loss, a young man learns that no matter where life and circumstances may lead, he carries his identity in his mind, in his heart, in his very flesh and bone.

  Geary Hobson is a Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Qùapaw poet, writer, and essayist. He was born in 1941 in Chicot County, Arkansas. He edited The Remembered Earth: An Anthology of Contemporary Native American Literature and was a contributor as well. He has recently published a book of poetry entitled Deer Hunting and Other Poems. He teaches in the English Department at University of Oklahoma at Norman.

  BEFORE I COMMENCE, I JUST WANT TO SAY THIS: I TAKE A LONG time telling you all about these kin—these aunts and uncles and grandparents and great-grandparents and cousins and all—and the land hereabouts and its shapes and looks back then and all its changes and all its going-ons…

  All that land you see across the bayou yonder and some of it on this side, counting where we’re sitting right now, used to belong to our folks. All along Emory Bayou, clear down to where it cuts and runs into Muddy Bayou, and then on north a ways nearly to Black Bayou, and then on due west some almost to Coldstream, nearly all the land that Eustace Tanner claims title to now and rents on shares to people like the Hewitts and Renfros and Wades—that whole portion, which is a shade-bit more than a section, used to be held in the name of our people. Back then, at the time I’m going to tell you about, Uncle Andrew Thompson held title to it but it wudn’t just his. What I mean is, he didn’t own it all to hisself. The way we all looked at it, it was more Aunt Minnie’s and Aunt Velma’s and even to say that ain’t entirely correct neither. What I mean to say is, it belonged to us all, not to one, or even two, but to all. All of us that was kinfolks and lived on it and spent our time on it and knowed it as ours. In them days there was a whole slew of little cabins and clapboard houses belonging to Thompson and Squirrel kin scattered throughout the section and it was mostly woods then. It was ours and it was like an island surrounded by a whole sea of newcomers who moved in and built their houses and started their farms and set up stores and cotton gins and churches and such-like all around us. The way we looked at it, that was alright, long as we was left by ourselves. And for a long time that was the way it was.

  I was born out west around Simms Bayou, over where some of your mother’s folks are still living. Matter of fact, a whole lot of that land out there used to be ours too. Some kinfolks out there still own some of that land, but what they got left ain’t much. It’s all just a turnip patch now, upside what it used to be. Same as it is over here. I don’t remember my mama any. She died of the typhoid fever when I was two and I never knowed my daddy neither, except that he was a white man. Don’t ask me how I know that or why it’s even important, if it is, even. I might get around to telling that but I doubt it, since I think it’s a separate story all to itself. I was took and raised by Mama’s folks, my Grandma and Grandpa Sanford, until they up and died too. First it was Grandma that died and then a few months after that, Grandpa passed on too. They lived right by Grandma’s folks, the Lamleys, on a dirt road that run alongside Simms Bayou pert-near all the way to Bayou Bartholomew. When Grandpa passed away or went, as he used to say, “back into the earth,” I was took and raised by my Uncle Achan. He was one of Grandma’s brothers.

  There was four of them in Uncle Achan’s house on Simms Bayou, not counting me, and they was all old folks and Uncle Achan’s bachelor or widowed brothers and sister. There was Uncle Achan, who was sixty-something and head of the place, and his younger brothers, Joe and Zeno, and there was their older sister, my Aunt Gustine, who was in her seventies. They all talked French to each other, but I never picked up none of it. They come from around Arkansas Post
and sometimes they would talk about all the property their mama and daddy had had over there long before Arkansas became a state. Quapaw they was mostly, even if you wouldn’t of thought it of them because of that French they talked and the way it looked to me like they tried to act when other folks not kin to them or me come around to visit. I’ll give you some for instances. Aunt Gustine used to set a real pretty tea set out for evening visitors, and this to folks who wouldn’t of been able to tell the difference between store-bought tea and stumpwater. She never done this to put on airs, I don’t ’spect, but just to try and keep up some kind of sign of what their folks’ ways had been like at the Post when they was all little kids growing up there. And there was Uncle Zeno and his realfine five-dollar gold watch that he was proud as all git out of. Five dollars for a gold watch was some big doings in them days. He used to carry it around in a little homemade watchpocket that Aunt Gustine had fixed up for him on his britches, even when he hunted and fished or chopped corn or cotton. They was a stand-offish bunch that generally kept to theirselves, in a whole lot of ways like my Aunt Minnie and Aunt Velma that I’m going to tell you about directly.