Indian Voices: Listening to Native Americans

Conclusion

333 Conclusion When the trips were finished, interviews transcribed, research and writing done, what stays with me most are three impressions. The first is the rationality and reasonableness of Native people in the wake of one imposed insult or assault or disaster after another. I was stunned less by their resilience, stunning enough on its own, than by what might be called accommodation. There was much resentment expressed, of course, but virtually no hatred, and none at the level that my fellow European Americans express toward any number of other people, including Native Americans. The second impression is (most) Native Americans’ very American-ness. It included an embrace of something akin to patriotism, or patriotism itself. It also included popular culture. As someone rarely drawn to it, I could not tell if the lure was commonality with a larger society, a result of techie youthie inundation (“lol!” and “my bad,” younger Natives e-mail me), or personal preference, but it was evident across the country, and it certainly felt American. The third impression threw me. Having grown up feeling, as I mentioned earlier, American to my core, I began rethinking my place. That is, instead of wondering about “them,” I thought about “us.” The rethinking started with land. What about the bits or expanses of soil we modern-day Americans rent, own, lease, trespass, farm, covet, cover, despoil, sell? Because the word “land” came up so often in the interviews, I was ever more aware that every one of us who lives in one of the fifty United States lives on what was Native land. Whether we are that precious fraction, Conclusion.qxd 12/14/10 8:27 AM Page 333 descendants of original inhabitants who still occupy their ancestral acres, or were part of a tribal nation sent to unfamiliar territory by treaty, policy, or coercion, or moved from that territory to another for whatever reason; or whether we are descendants of the other half of the twin shame of the United States of America, slavery, and are near or far from sites where our ancestors underwent unspeakable suffering; or whether our ancestors arrived hundreds of years ago of their own free will or in indentured servitude (as did my great grandmother from the Netherlands); or whether we arrived yesterday—each of us lives on what was Native land. Should we not at least recognize this? Should we not learn, if we do not know already, who precisely lived first on the spot where each of us lives now? I’ll go first: California Coast Miwok. Such inquiry may well extend beyond a home place. Should we not know who was in the places we see or visit? Should we not know how long they were here and why they are not here now? Should we not also ask ourselves, what would they think about how I am treating their land, their—I hesitate to say this, but it usually is true—usurped property? After all, nearly every inch of the United States was in one way or another wrested from Native stewardship. Rethinking my place in terms of land, however, turned out to be much easier than rethinking another until then basic status: that of human being. Those breathy “brotherhood of man” sentiments, everyone holding hands around the globe, always touched me, but did not cause me to think much beyond my fellow Homo sapiens. (Fellow Homo sapiens were concern enough.) After years of hearing Native people give prayers, however, that typically included not only human beings, but winged beings, four-legged beings, amid many other beings, as well as trees, rocks, wind, sun, and on and on, it dawned on me that being human was not more important than being anything else. Perhaps this is why humility is so much a part of Native culture. Talk about a double letdown. From being a person with a book idea, I had become a descendant of interlopers, and of the mere two-legged variety. Having rethought my place, I cannot say I cherished it. Fortunately, Native Americans, the people who changed my self-image, offered much ameliorating comfort. conclusion 334 Conclusion.qxd 12/14/10 8:27 AM Page 334 Through them, both in person and in readings, I revalued compromise. Either/or has rarely been a prevailing Native mindset, in my opinion. Instead, through treaty negotiations then and through legislation now, the impulse seemed and seems...