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Mwalim *7)/Morgan James Peters
- University of Nebraska Press
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485 Mwalim *7)/Morgan James Peters (Mashpee Wampanoag) In his writing, storytelling performances, and music, Mwalim blends his black and Wampanoag heritages. His cd The Liberation Sessions: Soul of the City, a concept album based on the playlists of fictional radio station wbar (Black Ass Radio), won ten nominations at the 2010 Native American Music Awards. His book A Mixed Medicine Bag features “original Black Wampanoag folklore,” like the colonial allegory included below. Now living in Mashpee, Mwalim is an associate professor of English and African/African American Studies at the University of Massachusetts–Dartmouth, a playwright-in-residence at Boston’s New African Company, and an historian for the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Massachusetts. From A Mixed Medicine Bag turtle and the oak tree Have you ever sat under an oak tree? I mean one of those huge old oak trees where the broken branches have about 80 rings. Well, if you ever see one, sit at the bottom of it with your back against that part of the trunk leading directly to the main root; close your eyes and breathe deeply. Then just sit and listen . . . Long before the woods, lakes, and swamps became golf courses, shopping malls, and condominiums, but long after turtles got their shells, a turtle sat under a tall oak tree on the edge of a swamp. Every day around sunrise, this turtle would walk out of the swamp, make his way up the hill, sit under this tree in silence, and look off into the distance. As animals who didn’t know the turtle would pass by, they would often think he was in a trance. The truth of the matter was that in spite of the little pair of pincer glasses that sat on his face, this turtle couldn’t see a thing—at least, not with his eyes. Yes, he was a blind turtle that the other animals simply called “Blind Turtle” (animals weren’t much for being clever about names back then). Although Blind Turtle couldn’t see the physical world, he was a turtle of great vision and insight. Once a week, when the turtle sat under the tree, 486 wampanoag he would speak. He’d tell stories and share his visions with anyone who might have been around (and there was always some animal hanging around). Animals, being curious by nature, often did go and visit the turtle in his silence and when he spoke. On the days that he spoke, animals would ask him why he sat in silence for so long. He would simply smile and say that he was listening to what the world was saying. Of course, the animals didn’t always see Blind Turtle as wise. At first, most of them thought Blind Turtle to be crazy or a fool and would walk away shaking their heads, figuring that he had gotten old and was losing his sense of reality. As time went by and more and more of Blind Turtle’s visions came to pass, many of the animals realized that his visions were legitimate. Those animals would sit and listen, trying to hear what he heard, but all they heard were the birds singing, the wind blowing, the water in the stream running, the various calls and songs of the other animals, or their footsteps as they passed by on the road near the tree. There was a meetinghouse a little further down the road where many of the animals gathered to listen to the preacher. By this time, snakes had formed the Snake Circle (which was really more of a coil) and were still trying to hatch their plots to control the lakes, woods, and swamps. The Snake Circle began organizing a council of overseers in an effort to keep order—teaching the proper and civilized ways of snakes. The snake assigned to oversee this area was a slimy little water moccasin named Phineas. When he slithered into the community and laid claim to the meetinghouse, he wasted no time in starting with his preaching about the natural inferiority of turtles, lizards, and frogs. He taught that only those who served and obeyed snakes might make it to the hereafter and while animals might not be able to become snakes, they could aspire to be snake-like. All things valuable and beautiful on earth rightfully belonged to the snakes, he would say. After all of this, many of the animals stopped going to the meetinghouse, preferring to sit under...