Whispers of the Ancients: Native Tales for Teaching and Healing in Our Time

7. The Gifting Way

k 35 k 35 BecauSe We are Social creatureS, our natural tendency is to be helpful, share what we have, and aid those in need. My elders call this the Gifting Way: the state of abundance and personal fulfillment that comes, often seemingly without effort, from living the natural law that giving is receiving. a Native Person often gifts anonymously and customarily strives to give without expectation of anything in return. By living in a trusting environment where the feeling of relationship extends to all of life, the Native learns that when she is giving, she has already received. She knows from experience that when she gives of herself for the pure bliss of sharing, she keeps the doorway open to all the gifting that is intended for her. at times it may appear to others that she has already received and is due to give, or that she has been greedy and taken many times over what she has given, or that she has been taken advantage of and received nothing in return. all of this is of little matter to her, as her life of gifting is her continual offering of gratitude for the privilege of living the gifting Way. a Native child will come to the fullness of this realization with the help of stories such as those that follow. For those of us who have not had the opportunity to grow up in a gifting Way culture, stories can be our guides to healing through the self-centered behavioral patterns that often keep us from experiencing the fullness of relationship. Chapter Seven The Gifting Way k 36 My SiSterS aND BrotHerS, children and grandchildren, did you hear the trees crackling in the cold on your way to my Wigwam (lodge)? and the Stars, did they seem so crisp and bright that you could reach up and touch them? This, then, is one of those nights when the spirits of the ancestors will come to tell their stories. However, when the ancestors walked the earth, they did not have the language we now know. They spoke in the way of Fox and Deer, so their stories will be far more ancient than words. come nearer the Fire on this chilly night, my dear kin, and watch the shadows dance upon the Wigwam walls, because there you’ll begin to see the story of how we came to wear the hides of animals. let us listen now to the voice of our ancestors. in the beginning, life was good. The lush Savanna grass of our earth-Mother nourished an endless Sea of Four-leggeds, from families of tall long-Necks to herds of swift Horned-ones to prides of the regal Maned-cat. an abundance of sweet leaves and succulent tubers could be How We Came to Wear the Skins and Furs of Animals wanderlust Chapter Seven: The Gifting Way k 38 Whispers of the Ancients found among the grasses. For many generations we thrived—until a hot Wind blew out of the North. at first it came only now and then. We didn’t notice that with each passing season it pushed upon us a little stronger and stayed a little longer. only in time did we come to realize that the grass grew ever shorter and not nearly as thick as we remembered it. The families of Four-leggeds seemed to get smaller and smaller. From the Hilltops we’d watch them move away like leaves before the Wind. Then came a time when the Scorching Wind no longer retreated. Plump roots that once nourished us shriveled like dead Snakes baked crisp in the Desert Sun. The juicy bark of shrubs turned so brittle that it crumbled to dust when we tried to harvest it. all we could find to sustain us were tiny lizards and what little bitter Water we could squeeze from the Mud under the crusted bottoms of dried-up Water Holes. We stayed alive, yet we were hardly living. our Women no longer bore children and our elders, whom we called Silverhairs, couldn’t find the strength to stand. We passed the Suns listlessly in the scant shade of naked Bushes. in time we forgot what life was like before the Merciless Wind. We had to forget, lest the memories drive us crazy. one Sun, we awoke to a Wind coming out of the west. it felt cool and moist...