Indian Giver Read online

  and he loved them for a really long time,

  but then he must have got mad at them

  because they didn’t speak English or something

  so he whispered in the ear of Christopher Columbus

  to show the way for White people

  who came to claim the land for themselves,

  and God said unto them,

  “From this day on you shall have dominion over Indians,”

  which was kind of the same thing he told Adam

  about the animals that creeped and crawled

  and so it was

  and so it was

  and so it was

  And God saw that this was good

  so when he returned from a paid vacation in Rome

  God said, “Let Indians be slaves to the Whites”

  and so they were the first slaves to toil in the New World

  but then the Whites ran out of Indians

  so they imported Black people from far away

  and that is all that people would remember

  forever and ever, amen

  And God knew that this was good

  so he told White people to go west and multiply

  and he said unto them,

  “Let there be colonization,”

  and so there was

  and from his words sprang colonialism

  who begat expansionism

  who begat broken treaties

  who begat assimilation

  who begat disease

  who begat wars

  who begat genocide

  Then one day after he made the dodo extinct

  God decided that Indians needed exercise

  so he created The Trail of Tears

  and then he told the Whites to kill all the buffalo

  so that Indians would become vegetarians

  and so it was

  and so it was

  and so it was

  After he got over a bad cold or something

  God looked around and saw that Whites

  were like locusts and they needed more land

  to build condos and housing developments,

  gas stations and convenience stores,

  shopping malls and parking lots,

  so he said, “Let there be reservations”

  and lo they came into being

  and from his words sprang dislocation

  who begat racism

  who begat poverty

  who begat alcoholism

  who begat depression

  who begat suicide

  who begat genocide

  And God knew that this was good

  so he created the Bureau of Indian Affairs

  and land allotments and unscrupulous land embezzlers

  and boarding schools where Indian children

  were taught to forget what it means to be Indian,

  then he created HUD Housing and commodity cheese,

  rez dogs and bingo halls, casinos and

  The Church of Infinite Confusion

  And on the last day God returned from Wal-Mart

  and the Mega-Mall and the cineplex

  and he saw that Indians were no more upon the land

  and he knew that this was a good thing

  so he created the Lazy Boy and the remote control

  and TV westerns and pay-per-view

  and the Washington Redskins and the Cleveland Indians,

  and from his comfortable reclining throne

  God looked out across the land he had created

  and he saw that it was good

  and he called it America which means

  “Place where Indians once roamed”

  and so it was

  and so it was

  and so it was

  After a Sermon at the Church of Infinite Confusion

  At ten, Mary Caught-in-Between

  came home from sunday school,

  told every animal and bird and fish

  they couldn’t talk anymore,

  told her drum it couldn’t sing anymore,

  told her feet they couldn’t dance anymore,

  told her words they weren’t words anymore,

  told Raven and Coyote they weren’t gods anymore,

  said god was a starving white man

  with long hair and blue eyes and a beard

  who no one loved enough to save

  when they nailed him to a totem pole.

  The Incomplete & Unauthorized Definition of American Indian Literature

  “Indian” is not a derogatory word.

  It’s what we call ourselves. We claim it.

  Not all Indians wear long black hair

  or faded red bandanas.

  I’ve never seen a Red Man.

  Percentage of people who say they are part Cherokee: 50

  Percentage who claim to have a nameless great-grandmother who was a Cherokee princess: 100

  Percentage of actual Cherokee princesses in history: 0

  Percentage of the Cherokee Nation compared to the number of all other recognized tribes in America: 0.2

  Percentage of Americans who are enrolled Indians

  according to the U.S. Census Bureau: 0.67

  Fiction by Indians outsells poetry by Indians,

  yet poetry is the language of sorrow and heartbreak.

  All Indians speak poetry,

  yet no Indian has won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.

  This is the mathematical formula for deciphering

  meaning in Native American poetry:

  Where a represents anger and s represents sorrow,

  let P represent poetry and t represent the duration

  (time) of marginalization (expressed in centuries)

  Thus, P = t(a + s)2

  Indian writers shouldn’t drive sports cars.

  I traded my yellow Porsche for a pick-up truck

  with a quarter million miles

  and a rifle rack in the rear window.

  Not all Indians come from Horse Cultures.

  Not all Indians ride horses.

  I’ve only been on a horse once and it threw me.

  Writing by Indians should contain dogs.

  Many Indian writers have had at least

  one of their dogs run over by a pick-up truck

  with a rifle hanging in the rear window.

  History is written by the victors.

  Indians didn’t always lose the battles.

  Don’t believe everything you’ve ever read

  or watched on television.

  John Wayne’s real name was Marion, but directors figured

  Marion the Cowboy couldn’t believably defeat Indians.

  Columbus didn’t really discover America

  the way you think he did.

  The Navajo Nation is as big as Nebraska.

  Bingo is Indian Social Security.

  Federal enrollment is how the government

  counts Indians to predict when we will become extinct.

  Not all Indians are enrolled. I am enrolled.

  Enrollment doesn’t mean anything.

  There are 500 tribes in America. No individual speaks

  for all of them, barely even for a single clan or tribe.

  Some bigshot Indian writers think they speak for everyone.

  Does an illiterate white shoe salesman in Idaho speak for you?

  American universities teach American Indian literature

  but hire almost no Indian writers at all.

  White professors who have never seen a reservation

  teach American Indian literature

  even when there’s an Indian writer on faculty

  because it’s trendy.

  Some Indians go to tribal colleges

  Where they are taught by white teachers

  who want to be Indian. New-Age white women

  have sex with Indian men so they can become Indian.

  You can’t become Indian by proximity.

  America love
s the Indian-sounding names of places,

  but they don’t want Indians to live there.

  It gives them a sense of connection to a land

  upon which they have little history of their own.

  Sometimes a sweat lodge is just a sweat lodge.

  Some American sports teams are named for Indians.

  There should be an Indian baseball team called

  the Cherokee Crucified Christs, complete with

  a bleeding team mascot nailed to a wooden cross.

  Would that hurt your sensibilities?

  All Indians aren’t proud and defiant.

  When I do something right, my Indian uncle

  tells me I’ve earned an eagle feather.

  Only Indians can own eagle feathers.

  Nearly all published Indian writing is in English.

  Almost no Indian writer speaks their Indian language.

  Fewer yet can write in it.

  Sii cetsiin koht’aene kenaege’, tsin’aen.

  Indian children love to dance Indian-style

  but they don’t understand a word the elders sing.

  Indian boys love to beat Indian drums

  while Indian girls sway in moving circles.

  The hearts of Indian boys are tight-stretched drums.

  The hearts of Indian girls are beautiful sad songs.

  The government decimated bison

  so that Indians would become vegetarians.

  The government killed wild horses

  so that Indian spirits would break.

  The government sent Indian children to boarding schools

  so they would forget being Indian. Missionaries built

  The Church of Infinite Confusion so Indians would

  forget being Indian.

  I forget what I was trying to say.

  British writers don’t have to write about Shakespeare.

  French writers don’t have to write about Baudelaire.

  Blacks don’t always have to write about slavery.

  Indian writers don’t have to write about being Indian

  or about dogs killed by trucks with gun racks

  on reservations while fancy dancing,

  wearing eagle feathers, and beating drums

  while mouthing words to songs they do not know.

  Many urban Indians write about life on the reservation

  even when they’ve never lived on one because it sells better

  than writing about going to Starbucks after shopping at the Gap.

  Few Indians have Indian-sounding names.

  Non-Indians pretending to be Indians

  adopt names like “Runs-Beside-Spotted-Ponies,”

  “Walks-With-Wolves,” or “Deer Cloud.”

  A publisher once asked me to change my name

  to a hyphenated one with a preposition and a spirit animal.

  I replied, “How about Johnny Fakes-His-Name-on-a-Weasel?”

  Audiences at readings by Indians are almost always white.

  All Indian writers aren’t spiritually attuned to Nature.

  Most are fearful of getting lost in the woods.

  Some Indians write out of anger and despair.

  All Indian writers aren’t angry and depressed.

  Native America is drowning in a sea of alcohol.

  Indians commit suicide ten times more often than whites.

  Day after day, our hearts are turned into cemeteries.

  The impoverished state of our lives is not self-inflicted.

  Most Indian writers are mixed-blood

  who hate the term “Half-Breed.”

  I am the son of a half-breed father.

  I am an outcast. Even my shadow

  tries to hide its face in shame

  Deer on a Snowy Field

  When the soldiers come

  they start shooting

  everyone—women

  and the very old,

  even our children.

  I see them toss babes

  into the air for target practice.

  We run across a snowy field.

  Soldiers on horseback mow us down

  with swords and pistols or trample us.

  I grab my granddaughter,

  clutch her to my chest,

  run for a creek bed—

  screams and gunshots

  and hoof beats behind us.

  I pray that we turn into deer.

  I run as fast as my old bones

  can carry me, and I think,

  “This is crazy.

  I can’t outrun

  bullets and horses.

  I’m too old to save anyone.”

  But I run anyway,

  barefoot in the snow,

  carrying the girl, chanting

  “Deer, deer. Be a deer.”

  My granddaughter,

  who sees them gaining

  over my shoulder,

  whispers in my ear,

  “I believe in you, Grandmother.

  I believe.”

  What the Old Man Said

  My children, what they say is true.

  They killed my whole tribe,

  everyone but me.

  They tossed infants into the air

  for shooting practice.

  They set the world afire;

  even the stars burned.

  My children, when you see them coming,

  run away and don’t look back.

  Keep running.

  Keep running.

  Run.

  An American Indian Dreams the American Dream

  Silas Carries-a-Dream sat on his porch

  reading newspaper want ads looking for a job

  He imagined what it would be like

  to go to work

  to wear a suit and tie

  new shoes

  carry a brief case

  punch a clock

  sit in a cubicle

  have a portfolio

  stock options

  take power lunches

  drink martinis

  get an ulcer

  get depressed

  and jump from the twenty-seventh floor

  on a Monday morning

  When he was done

  Silas crumpled the paper into a fist

  and sent it rolling across the desert

  like a tumbleweed

  Dream Walker

  Silas Carries-a-Dream was spinning

  the hoop of his young dreams with a stick

  along a crumbled edge of highway—

  heat waves melting the uncertain road ahead.

  It was a good dream as dreams go.

  He was rolling his dreams

  rolling his dreams

  toward a dark and crumbling horizon.

  Kite Runners

  Marty and Luther Sitting Bear

  build kites from broken boughs of a piñon tree

  cover them with pieces of cloth

  cut from their grandmother’s old Sunday dress,

  make tails out of red, white, and blue bandanas

  then run as fast as they can into the desert wind—

  their hopeful dreams flying

  on and on and on

  on and on and on

  How to Make Blue Ribbon Indian Fry Bread

  “Indians could spend their whole lives

  looking for the perfect piece of fry bread.”

  —Sherman Alexie, Reservation Blues

  In a large bowl, mix the following ingredients:

  Three cups of flour made from the ashes

  of failed Indian dreams

  One cup of water made from the tears of Indian mothers

  A pinch of salt, first thrown into open wounds

  of Indian fathers

  Drop the rolled and molded dough into a pan of oil

  hot enough to incinerate every Indian future

  Remove when both sides turn brown and blistered

  The Alte
rnate History of the United States of America

  Lester Has-Some-Books builds a time machine

  in his uncle’s garage and sets it to the day

  Columbus discovers America.

  Quickly, with the masts of three ships

  lurching on the horizon, he sets up a big sign

  on the beach:

  WELCOME TO SPAIN!

  Columbus spies the sign from the bay,

  scratches his head, and orders all three ships

  to turn around and head back out to sea.

  Thing You Didn’t Know About American History #138

  for Howard Zinn

  Shortly after an adulterous winter of wife-swapping,

  and after murdering a neighboring Indian tribe

  in cold blood—

  every man, woman, and child

  while asleep in their beds—

  the Pilgrims outlawed Christmas for decades,

  making it illegal to celebrate the birth of Christ.