Western Places, American Myths: How We Think About The West

7 | Native America The Indigenous West

No group of Westerners has been the subject of as many myths, rumors , clichés, and stereotypes (and occasionally outright lies) as its indigenous peoples. Indians of the West have been celebrated as the Noble Savage, revered as the mystical medicine man, mourned as the disappearing Red Man, upheld as the harmonious environmentalist, admired as the proud and able warrior, and vilified as the conniving and treacherous barbarian, to name of few of the broad-brush themes that have proliferated in dime store novels, Hollywood Westerns, and New Age babble. The truth is, of course, much more interesting: Indians are, at the end of the day, people. And this means that the stories and lives of the aboriginal peoples of the American West are at once more universally human and more singularly unique than any myth about them. The American West is a vast expanse that has been, and continues to be, home to a heterogeneity of aboriginal people. These many peoples have entertained a number of different perceptions of space and place and have manifested Western spaces with equal variety, be it of their own volition or through interactions with others. What follows is a survey of those many perceptions and manifestations through time: a sampling of the variance in Native American approaches and an exploration of the common themes of the human experience. As John Trudell, Santee Dakota poet/activist, wrote: In the real world We are human being In the Shadow world We are being human—1 184 7 | Native America The Indigenous West akim d. reinhardt Time Immemorial Like all people around the world, Native Americans have traditional stories that seek to explain the origins of their existence and how they came to be where they are. And, as with all people around the world, these stories are in conflict with explanations offered by modern sciences. However, Native American creation stories are not generally accorded the same degree of respect that is shown to other traditional creation stories by mainstream society. They are frequently dismissed by Euro-Americans with labels like “myths” or “legends,” whereas Judeo-Christian-Islamic stories are given the respectable title of “religion.” This is unfortunate because Native American religions are equal to Western religions in the richness of their traditions and sagacity.2 For those who believe in them, just as with other religions, they offer a firm basis for understanding the nature and origins of one’s place in the universe. For those who deem them fictional, they nonetheless offer metaphorical insights and literary qualities like those found in any other religion. The details of Native American creation stories are voluminous. However, they all assert variations on the basic theme of Native American genesis: the notion that Native American people were created in the Western Hemisphere and have been here for the whole of their existence. They are of this place. The Kiowas of the southern Great Plains, for example, believe that they came into the world one by one through an opening in a hollow log. A woman who was with child got stuck in the opening, and after that no more of their people could come through.3 According to the tradition of the Modocs of southwestern Oregon, all Indian people were created by Kumush, Old Man of the Ancients. Kumush went with his daughter down to the underworld of the spirits. During the night, the spirits danced and sang, but during the day they became dry bones. Kumush selected the bones of various tribes, collected them in a large basket, and brought them back up to the upper world. He then scattered the bones to various places, creating different tribes: the Klamath, Shastas, and so forth. Finally, he threw the bones of the Modocs themselves, whose name means “Southerners,” ordering them to keep his place after he had gone.4 Osage people, who resided on the eastern edge of the central Plains before Euro-Americans removed them to Oklahoma, believe that their original ancestors lived in the sky. The Sun was their father, the Moon their mother. Mother Moon told them to go down to Earth, which was covered with water. The first elk induced the winds to blow off enough water to reveal the world. His fur then sprouted the first plants, trees, and crops.5 native america | 185 But just as modern science rejects biblical creation stories, so, too, does it challenge...