How Do We Forgive Our Fathers?

There's a great monologue at the end of the movie “Smoke Signals”. It asks the question, “how do we forgive our fathers?”. Then speaks of situations and reasons for forgiving. The first time I watched the movie I wondered about that monologue and put it in the perspective of the need for children of absentee or abusive fathers to come to terms with that aspect of their lives.

Then I reached a point in my life where I had to ask, and answer, the same question.

Without going into details, circumstances had forced me to really look at my own life, as my father's son, and how that had led me to the point in life where I was doing a lot of soul searching. A painful memory (not involving my father) I had long suppressed came to the surface during this time. I asked Creator why, what was the purpose of re-experiencing this? The answer surprised me, and in that surprise revealed why I needed to answer the question “How do I forgive my father?"


I grew up in a pretty normal, middle class American home. My father had a good job. We never lacked for anything, we lived in a nice home in a nice neighborhood and he made sure there would be money for college when the time came, etc. It was pretty much the American Ideal as seen on “Leave It to Beaver” or “Father Knows Best”. At least that's how I always remembered it.

He was the type who would toil for 30 years at a job that I would find dull and uninspiring, because to him, the rewards of the job and what it meant for his family made it worthwhile. I remember in High School, I asked for a new Euphonium. We could easily rent one from the school that was perfectly good but I wanted a specific horn. A top of the line Besson Satin Silver Euphonium. My father bought it for me. At the time I didn't really think in terms of the expense, just what it meant to me that he did buy it.

I was never abused, never neglected (though my father was not one for displays of affection, he felt he proved his love by being a good provider) never subjected to horrific arguments between my parents, or seeing my father come home drunk, or cheat on his wife. I was blessed to not have to deal with any of those tragedies.

An idyllic life, depending on your point of view.

So what do I need to forgive my father for doing, or not doing?

I had to forgive my father for being such a good father.

How is that possible?

Here's how: I spent most of my life trying to live up to his expectations. I wanted to become a musician: he said I couldn't earn a decent living at that. So to compromise I went into music education. “Being a teacher is a good profession” he said. I made some life mistakes which kept me from fulfilling that goal, and for 20 years after it was obvious my dad was disappointed.

I thought all that time he was disappointed in me, as his son. It was only when I started trying to answer this question about forgiveness that I realized he was really only disappointed in the choices I had made. I had spent 20 years of my life trying to win my father's approval, when I had never had his disapproval to begin with.

So, I had to learn to forgive my father for being human. He wasn't the ideal, Superman-like person I remember him as when I was a child. It was my image of him as Superdad that led me to think I had to match his life in some way to win his approval. He never expected me to be like him, beyond following is example in being responsible for my family. I have learned I was doubly blessed in this regard: so many sons have their lives chosen for them by overly controlling fathers.

So I forgave my father for being human. Was that enough? No, because the last line of the “Smoke Signals” monologue is “if we forgive our fathers, what's left?”.

What's left is forgiving ourselves. Too often, sons blame our fathers for placing expectations on us they never did. We must forgive ourselves for considering the image of our fathers to be more real than who they really were.

When sons do this, we are being unfair to our fathers in ways we don't realize until the day we look at our own sons and question what it is we really mean to them. We fault them for transgressions or failures that exist only in our own, 10 year old boy minds. Father and son are both held hostage by our own imaginings.

How do I forgive myself for this?

I'm still working that part out. I'll let you know when I have it down.

Rain

Powwow Time!

I had the pleasure of attending the 97th Annual Meskwaki Powwow on Aug. 13. It was made all the more pleasurable because I was there with my kids. Due to various factors, we only had about 4 hours to enjoy things. Not nearly enough time to really enjoy a powwow, but better than none at all (last year we were rained out on the day we went).

Powwows are interesting events. Natives understand that they are a time honored tradition in which relationships are established or strengthened and traditions maintained. They are at the very heart of our social structure, as well as (usually) holding deep spiritual signifigance.

This last part depends on the type of powwow. At competition powwows, the emphasis has come to be on the dancing, winning prizes and vendors making lots of cash. (It's important to consider that many vendors depend on a 4 to 6 month powwow season to provide the bulk of their income for the year). At a powwow such as the Proclamation Day powwow on the Meskwaki Settlement, the emphasis is on maintaing their heritage and culture and educating others about them.

Which is where the really interesting part comes in. People not familiar with powwows (read: typical non-Native tourist) think it's a show for them. It's not. They are invited to witness, and often participate in,  something that we would do anyway. (There are many powwows which are only open to members of the tribe and invited guests, and don't allow spectators).

Of course at any powwow, people are busilly snapping photos of the dancers, with all the bright colored regalia and various dance styles. In times past, I've done that. This year, I decided to take a different approach. I wanted to capture more of the emotions involved in those little moments when people aren't dancing for hundreds of spectators to see.

There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes of a powwow. The dancers are not performers, per se, because a powwow is not a "show" It's a unique cultural/social event that Native people have practiced in one form or another long before people started to pay to watch. The only reason we started charging admission to powwows was because for many years it was one of the few ways tribes could produce much needed revenue.

The dancers are average people, Native People, who want to maintain their traditional way of life as best they can. So when they aren't dancing, they are simply being human. Many powwows take place outdoors, in hot weather, and dancers who attend every session can spend 4 to 6 hours a day dancing. Depending on the style, this can be the same as running a 10K race every day. It can take a toll.

But for some reason, there are always powwow spectators who don't understand this. They think the dancers dress like that all the time. They imagine they still live in tipis, spend every night dancing around a fire and talk like Graham Greene delivering dialogue in "Dances with Wolves".

They don't.

When the powwow is over, they carefully store their regalia and go back to working their jobs, raising their kids and watching cable TV. They don't show up at the factory or office in their regalia. They may fix Hamburger Helper (goes good with fry bread!) or order pizza for dinner. While they may listen to drum groups in their off time, it could just as well be Lady Gaga, Kanye West or Travis Tritt playing on their iPods.

So here are a few shots from the powwow. They're black and white because I feel that's better at letting viewers see the people involved rather than seeing them only as performers in brightly colored regalia Not costumes, by the way. Costumes imply pretending to be something other than you are, such as a character in a play. Dancers are being themselves, participating in a social/spiritual gathering.

Regalia is carefully put together over months and years, with each component having special meaning or offering a story. Some items, such as eagle feather bustles, are passed down from one generation to the next. They are priceless heirlooms, all the more so because the federal government controls the distribution of eagle feathers, with a waiting list of about 5000 people and a wait time of 3 1/2 years.

  When you go to a powwow, whether for the first time or after many times, remember you are not watching a show or performance put on for your sake. You are a guest participating in a vital part of Native American society. A part which has been and will continue to evolve, while maintaining centuries old traditions. They are a way for us to pass down our language, culture and beliefs from one generation to the next, keeping our ways, and thus our identity as unique Nations, alive.

The Numbers Game?

A lot of people are not going to like what I have to say in this essay. Some of my Native relations aren't going to like it because it runs counter to what is, for some, a popular way of supporting their just contention that a massive, yet largely disregarded, genocide occurred in the Americans. And a lot of non-Natives won't like it because it points out why the genocide is disregarded.


Stirring trouble is expected from me. I am, after all, Mohawk, and we have a tradition of causing trouble for those who violate our sense of justice.

I'm referring to the estimates of the indigenous population of the Americas at the time of the arrival of Columbus, and during the ensuing centuries of conquest. This is a controversial topic, and the estimates vary widely from a low of 10 million made by historians at the end of the 19th Century, to as high as 100 million made by more contemporary advocates of the First Nations.

Calculating even a relative number is difficult because most of the First Nations kept nothing in the way of a written record of such things. Even those Nations which did have a form of writing, such as the Aztec, did not maintain a completely accurate census.

Why is the population at the onset of conquest so important? Because, in the colonist way of thinking, the numbers give a scale to the rightness-or wrongness-of what happened from 1492 onward. In colonist thinking, it's more acceptable to displace, rob and annihilate 10 million people than it is 100 million. Still, this is where-and why- I have an issue with Natives adapting the same mindset when declaring how many Native Americans were here when Columbus ran aground-and by inference, how many were killed by conflict or disease.

I studied archeology in high school. I'm familiar with the ways in which archeologists and anthropologists estimate population when clear written records are not extant. They do a pretty good job of it, even if cultural biases can interfere with their thinking at times. Estimates by contemporary researches into the area use a wide ranger of resources to come up with population totals ranging from a low of 18 million to a high of around 60 million. (From what I've seen, this variance depends on how accurate contemporary accounts of the Aztec and Inca empires were). The mean number tends to be around 30 million.

I think 30 million is about right. Given the way in which our ancestors lived, the historical condition of the land shows this number being the ideal level at which impact on the environment would be minimal. Not all Nations were wonderful stewards of the earth who had minimal impact on the ecosystem. The empires of Central and South America despoiled the land just as much as similar Nations in Europe did. Sound research shows that 100 million people-greater than the population of Europe at the time of Columbus-would have left a much bigger “footprint” both environmentally and in archeological evidence than is the case.

Granted, it can be argued that the majority of Native Americans lived a lifestyle that had less impact on the environment than their European contemporaries. Also, they were spread out across a geographical area five times as large as Europe. So it's not unreasonable to think that 100 million people could occupy the 16 million plus square miles of the Americas and leave little evidence behind of their presence.

However, my issue is not with the number itself, but why some Natives seem so intent on increasing the population to the maximum imaginable number. We want people to understand the scope of the crimes committed against the First Nations, of course. But do we have to get involved in a colonist-thinking Numbers Game to do so?

In Mohawk tradition, the life of a single person, taken unjustly, is a crime which effects the entire community. Great reparations would be demanded, or a war of retribution engaged in, in response to such a death. To our way of thinking, if there were only 18 million people on Turtle Island when conquest began, it's as much an injustice as if there were 100 million.

Unfortunately, colonist culture has a habit of making such assessements of the value of a human life relative to quantity. The murder of 10 people makes the news for a week or a month. Genocide against 800,000 becomes a movie. Genocide against 6 million becomes a tragic specter haunting a period of history. Therefore, genocide against 100 million must be an aspect of a Nation's history that demands immediate recognition and response, right?

Wrong on a couple of counts.

First, consider that those who commit the genocide in the name of conquest, and those who profit from it now, have a vested interest in disregarding the data. Especially if it happened far enough in the past that those who perpetrated it are long dead, and the resultant changes to the country so vast, as to make proper reparations impractical, if not impossible.

Second, overestimating the population of Natives can work against us, culturally. Consider how Europeans and Americans respond to genocides of the 20th Century. 6 million European Jews were killed during WW2. This is something that nearly every school child in the US is taught, and of which nearly every adult in the US is aware.

Now, how many of those same people are aware that Mao Ze-Dung murdered anywhere from 48 to 75 million of his own people during his reign in China? Not that many because, sadly, to a lot of people they are "just" Chinese and at the time the US didn't care if the Chinese communists were killing each other off. And now, the US is reluctant to bring it up because business with China is very profitable.

Or look at the response of Europe and the US to the genocide of 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis. The US government couldn't even admit to the genocide, using the term “acts of genocide” (what's the difference?) in vague official statements to justify not becoming involved. Europe and the US stood by and watched, using UN troops simply to ensure the evacuation of their own white citizens, without regard for what happened to the Rwandans. As a character in the movie “Hotel Rwanda” put it, the Rwandans didn't matter because not only were they black, but they were African.

So here's my thinking, as much as some may not like it. When Natives try to “high ball” the estimates of our population at the time of conquest, we are displaying the effects of colonization by playing the Numbers Game. I know we do so to try to overcome the indifference of people, hoping that if they are touched by the deaths of 6 million European Jews, they should be totally outraged by the deaths of 60 million Native Americans. But, to play Devil's Advocate, let me ask this question:

Isn't this in essence saying that it takes 10 Native Americans to add up to the importance of 1 European?

Isn't this sort of devaluation and trivialization what we have suffered from for over 500 years? Wasn't it the colonists' who declared that we were worth less than they were, so it was acceptable to take our land, enslave and murder our people, then act like it was all doing us a favor as they “tamed” the land and made it profitable?

Let's be accurate in our presentation of data regarding the First Nations. Let's realize that the number of people who will respond accordingly are few. Let's not let the colonization rob us of any more of our identities than has already happened. If we get too wrapped up in the Numbers Game, we have to play it the way those who are masters of it do. In doing that, we become too much like those who would destroy us altogether.

In Mohawk tradition, according to the Gayanashagowa, The Great Law of Peace of the Haudenosaunee, the unjust death of a single person is the same as the death of the entire community in importance. Let us maintain that noble thinking, and take our own measures to redress the deaths of so many, rather than try to win the Numbers Game with a people who compare those numbers to a profit margin anyway.

What Lies Within

What do you think when you see this photo? What emotions does it evoke? What assumptions or conclusions do you draw about the subject?

Does this photo alarm you, create a sense of fear or apprehension? Do you imagine the man in the photo could be a threat to you?

Or do you think that perhaps the subject is someone who is hiding the effects of an injury or disease, or simply is apprehensive and fearful himself? Or just plain shy?

You know, 30 years ago the average person would have imagined this was a meant to be a ghost. Or perhaps a Christian would have thought it a photo of a biblical leper.

Nowadays, the first reaction most people have is "Radical Muslim/Terrorist". (Except for one gamer acquaintance who said  "Dude, it's the guy from Assassin's Creed").

All this tells me this photograph "works". It works because it causes people to think, to go beyond simply looking at it and deciding whether it's a pretty picture or not. However, the photo alone reveals what lies within the viewer far more than what lies within my own heart.

So who is the guy in the shroud, glaring out at you?

It's a self portrait. That's me beneath the sheet.


I took this photo in response to someone suggesting that because my birth mother was Lebanese Arab, I might have a bit of the terrorist in me (never mind that she was Maronite Catholic, not an extremist Muslim). Those who know me would (and did) laugh at that notion.

The idea is I took someone else's prejudice and turned it around in a way that I hope would make her rethink things. That's what any art should be about: leading the viewer or listener to do some rethinking about things. Whether it's the world in general, a specific subject....or the audiences own way of thinking...art should be about growing and experiencing things together that we would not otherwise experience without it.

So I hope this photo leads you to an experience that you would not have had if you'd never seen it. Ideally, that experience will be about gaining a better understanding of what lies within your own heart.  If it does, I've lived up to my name for a moment.

Nia:wenkoha,
Rain

Time to Own Up

I've let this blog just sit here for over a year. My friend Nadia has inspired me to do more than let things sit. I have a lot of things I want to share with my relations-words, images, music, ideas-so I'm going to work on making this something that puts it all together. I guess, I hope, it's going to be a "multimedia blog" as I tie all the talents Creator has given me together to fulfill the responsibility those talents lay upon me.

Make no mistake, talent does impose responsibility. Creator drove that point home to me over the past few months. A lot of it I owe to Nadia, because she is the sort of Type A person who is always doing something creative, always has plans and goals. As I helped her to reach some of those goals, and saw how much we share, I realized I was squandering much of what I have been given.

Ever have the Spirit speak to you in an unexpected way? I was watching the movie "Fame" and there's the scene where piano prodigy Bruno Martelli is saying he doesn't need anyone to listen to his music. His instructor says "That's not art, that's masturbation."

Then I read an article that said that the only real value of a photograph is in what it says to those who view it.

So here I am, realizing I have been gifted with some modicum of talent in 3 disciplines, and I've spent years thinking they were mostly intended for my own enjoyment. Now the curious part is a sort of false humility is the cause of that. I never thought I was nearly as good a storyteller/writer/communicator, photographer or musician as others said. (Ok I'll admit that when I was in high school and college I knew I was a better than average musician). I've come to realize that when "humility" leads us to let Creator's gifts to us, languish, bearing no fruit, then it's not humility at all. It's the pride of thinking that we might fail. Fail because we depend on our own whiles rather than letting the gift shine forth.

Letting such gifts shine forth requires discipline, and I started eschewing that because I was foolishly proud enough to think I didn't need to fulfill the responsibility my talents require of me.

Now I'm not talking about becoming the sort of egocentric prima donna that so many talented people become, assuming they have the right to do so. That's foolishness. Gifts from Creator are just that, gifts, and so should be treated with due respect. Held as sacred. Nurtured and developed the same way parents raise a child. Then offered to the world not as a way of getting rich or promoting self, but of saying "Creator has given me this gift, and now I pass it on to you.

So my plan is to offer the 3 gifts I bear, words, images and music, as best I can. I realize the 3 are meant to be joined together, much as the Three Sisters (corns, beans and squash) were cultivated together by my Mohawk ancestors.

I hope I am up to it, and stay true to the vision Creator has given me.

Nia:wen,
Rain