12,284. RUDIMENTS, pt. 867

RUDIMENTS, (pt. 867)

(a bright, shining lie - but true) pt. one

When the hounds are chasing

you, it's always good to throw

off false scents. Hounds can be

pretty stupid about their noses;

running off in weird directions

because of some signal to which

their 'sniffer' misdirects them.

If you can control that, as the

pursued, you gain time, make

them look even more stupid than

they are, and come out ahead. I

did all that, and still do. People

are way too serious, and falsehood

can be a good thing; strategy-wise

politicians do it all the time. In

the sordid history of America,

I don't think there was ever a

truth told to the Native Americans

at all. In turn, they taught me

the value of lying. It's really 

good Custer got his ass handed 

to him, and just the way he did.

-

I used to think about the Ghost

Dances of the Indians, back in

the last days of their tribal

freedoms, after years and years

of broken treaties and the standard

betrayals of the settlers and agents

and the military commission and

fort men, stretched all along, and

constantly taking from, what used

to be Native American lands. The

horse-wiping deceit and murderous

intent of the people taking over

the lands  -  the horrendous deceit

of the very principles of the nation

they'd just founded. Forget about

slaves, for right now who cares

about them  -  I'm talking here

of the original inhabitants of

what was here previous. It's one

of the rights I know I'd like to see

rectified before I die  :  Heck,

I'd like to be the one rectifying

it. This country was built upon

the broken backs and unfulfilled

dreams of the people from which

everything had been taken. Starting

with the untold slaughter of millions

of bison. An issue never addressed

and a pure, cultural devastation.

But none of today's schmucks

would know anything about that,

they'd rather thank others for their

Starbucks and fancy shoe outlets.

-

The Indians I always knew were

quiet. The others weren't  -  the NY

Spaniards, the Puerto Ricans, the

Euro-cultures, the people from

Germany and Italy and Ireland

and all that, they were noisy and 

demonstrative and brash. There

was none of that with anyone who

ever claimed Native- American

ancestry. You could look high

and low and you'd never find

noise  -   nor would you find any

of the cultural exhibitionism and

materialism by which the normal

USA person swaggered along.

The few I knew to talk with scoffed

at all that. Around them each,

there was a pervasive sadness

that echoed that silence. They 

were somehow surrounded by

the lances and shadows of their

dead and dying  -  all those

Ghost-Dance ancestors who

were supposed to rise again

and save them. But never did.

That whole Ghost Dance thing

scared the military encampments

of General George Crook and

agent 'White Hair' McLaughlin,

near to death. Indians, man, were

scary people. Countless people

tried to deal 'rationally' with it

('rational' was all the stupid whites

knew), and they failed miserably,

as did the Dawes Commission,

another wreck of political theft

and intrigue. (Remember,

this is America). 

-

My Indians, they called me 'Many

Shirts.' I layered so many pieces of

clothing, by necessity, that I guess

it was pretty noticeable  - but I was

never shamed, more happy to have

been given a name.

-

All of life is just about a dead-end

anyway, and I think that's sort of

what I recognized emanating from

these folks. There was an American

Indian Museum  around somewhere

that was about as pathetic as a

midtown scrambled egg; there 

was, over at the Museum of 

Natural History, after you first

passed a huge statue of Nature-Killer 

Theodore Roosevelt, here extolled 

for 'saving' Nature, a few dioramas

that claimed to portray Indians

about on par with the cave-man 

scenes in the dioramas down

the hallway. Such stupid pilfering,

always. I think the Indians
deserve reparations too. If that's 
the case  -  just throwing guilt
money around for all the fuck-ups 
of the past so you can continue
your on profligate ways. I say no.
The people 'giving' should first
have to suffer. No more canned 
peaches, or something really
'horrible' like that, right?  How
about no more canned music in 
elevators. Kill them with silence too.
Teach 'em. It was one turn after

the other, wherever you went, 

that was seeking somehow the 

diminishment of the Native

American culture. When you

can mis-represent other people

you can take claim to their culture, 

which is exactly what our culture 

of wreckage and devastation has done, 

liberal bullshit bias notwithstanding. 

You give reparations to the undeserving, 

what are they going to do with it? Buy

some bling and a new Infiniti? A gold 

tooth? You give reparations to the

Indians, they still can't buy back 

their stolen lands. This country's 

a screw-up from one dead-end 

to the other. Always been so.

-

Vladimir Nabokov had it pretty

right, when he wrote : "In a sense

we are all crashing to death from

the top story of our birth to the

flat stones of the churchyard

and wondering with an immortal

Alice In Wonderland at the patterns

of the passing wall. The capacity 

to wonder at trifles no matter 

the imminent peril, these asides 

of the spirit, these footnotes in 

the volume of life are the highest 

forms of consciousness, and it

is in this childishly speculative 

state of mind, so distant from 

commonsense and its logic, 

that we know the world 

to be good."

-

In 1890, the Paiute Messiah,

Wovoka, founded the religion

of the Ghost Dance. It's always

at the dying end of a culture

when the weirdest things begin

arising; happens the same way

today. BUT, Wovoka was different,

Wovoka's plight was the echo

of a dead world, dying anyway,

and way before recordings, that

he could hear and reproduce, and

play back for others  -  for his

people anyway. It spread like

wildfire, at the far end of the

demise of the Indian, and the

white guys, they knew not what 

to make of it, as I said, setting off

frenzied reactions of panic and

fear. They thought they had this

'Indian' problem licked, all the

right warriors dead, imprisoned,

or embalmed... and now, this!

Everyone left got into Wovoka

and his Ghost Dance  -  men like

Sitting Bull, Kicking Bear, Short

Bull, John Grass, and others.

Kicking Bull told of how a voice

had commanded him to take the

Iron Horse to the end of the line,

the railroad terminus at Pyramid

Lake and Walker Lake (another

short journey). He met Indians

he'd never seen before, who gave

him bread and meat, (he had five

companions with him on this

journey). Vision Quest. They

came to a camp of Fish Eaters

(Paiutes), who told them it

had been foreordained,

Christ has returned to the 

earth again. Christ must have

sent for them. They waited

at Walker Lake with hundreds 

of other Indians speaking in

dozens of different tongues. 

The Indians had come from

many reservations to see the

Messiah too. Just before 

sundown on the third day 

the Christ appeared, and the

Indians made a big fire to

throw light on him. (Kicking

Bear always thought Christ

would look like a white man,

but this was an Indian). After

a while this figure rose, and

began to speak : "I  have sent

for you and am glad to see you.

I am going to talk to you after a

while about your relatives who

are dead, and gone. My children, 

I want you to listen to all that

I am going to say to you. I will

teach you how to dance a dance,

and I want you to dance it. Get

ready for your dance, and when

the dance is over I will speak

to you." Then he commenced to

dance, everybody joining in,

the Christ singing while they

danced. They danced the Dance

of the Ghosts until late at night,

when the Messiah told them they

had danced enough. 

PART TWO OF THIS FOLLOWS,
Next Chapter 'Ghost Dance'