Message from an Iroquois Guide

The Iroquois guide sat quietly in the pine bark room, filled to the rafters with artifacts, out of place ones like the bison head and longhorn skull and recent ones like a dug out canoe discovered at  lake bottom.  Hand designed historical posters lined the walls along with letters, stories, headdresses, pelts, and beaded wampum. 

Basket-topped sticks resembled a stand of cat tails, the precursors of today's lacrosse sticks.

But the most interesting artifact wasn't an artifact. 

The guide. 

He was scanning his phone when we entered the room and after a while asked if we had any questions.  Quiet, observant, and wearing a worn denim shirt, he looked like anyone else, except for his shorn head and waist length braid which grew from a small patch at the base of his neck.

In the next room I was reading the Creation Story when I heard him talking. 

I wondered about the museum. Disorganized and cluttered, it seemed a haphazard collection in need of a curator.  A letter on the wall addressed the First Nation people about the decline of their culture and way of life. Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin headed a poster across the room, acknowledging the Iroquois Confederacy's influence on our fledging democracy, their freedom of speech and belief in elections, principles of a league of Native Americans dating back to the 15th century.

The Iroquois Confederacy was a name given by the French; they call themselves the Haudenosaunee or the "people of the long house" and the English called them the League of Five Nations. The nations from west to east are Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk and they lived in the region of present day New York State. The union of the five nations dates 200 years before our democracy with the sixth nation, the Tuscarora, joining in the 1700s. 




The museum guide belongs to the Mohawk nation and his name means Mountain Snow.  His grandmother gave him this name, a right held by the oldest woman in the clan. Unlike western tribes, the name is not earned but given at birth. Men marry and move into the woman's tribe.

"Snow" explained that the Haudenosaunee women elect their chiefs and have the right to impeach them after three warnings.

They settled disputes by playing a game which could cover a mile and last days and evolved into the modern sport of lacrosse. Young men have energy Snow said, and they could burn it off this way without war and death.  Fleet-footed messengers ran relays across the five nations form Buffalo to Albany, 240 miles in three days.  Runners created foot trails, paving the paths for centuries, paths which became today's roads and highways.  (Running systems, American Indian link)

Mohawk or Iroquois Trail, Link to history of trail

Snow pointed to a map on the wall of the Iroquois/Mohawk foot trails, well worn paths which became the routes for the colonists, settlers, and traders.  He also pointed out the wampum belts constructed from white and purple beads which were carved from quahog and whelk shells.  An important record of significant events and history, the belts tell a story. 

Iroquois Five Nations wampum belt

The flag of the Iroquois represents the Hiawatha wampum belt. The belt is comprised of thirty eight rows, having a heart as a great tree in the center, on either side there are two squares, all are connected with the heart by white rows of wampum. The belt is the emblem of unity among the Five Nations.  Iroquois Nationals Lacrosse site, Read more here.

The English language, Snow explained, is linear but Iroquois is different.  Symbolic and at times concentric in its depiction, the language consists of pictographs.  He pointed to a belt tacked along the top of the wall which encircled the room and said it would take three days to tell that story. 

The vast collection of artifacts and stories belonged to Snow's grandfather, Ray Fadden or Tehanetorens who established the museum.  On some visits, a guide or docent will tell a legend or story from the wampum belts. "The Story of the Monster Bear, the Giant Dipper" is shared here along with the pictographs, explaining the familiar constellation.  (Link to Iroquois legend of the Great Bear)

I purchased two of his books, Legends of the Iroquois and the Roots of the Iroquois.  (Link to books on Goodreads)

In the closing chapter of the first book, Nadine Jennings wrote:

Some exhibits originated in the early days of the museum; some are new.  Once seated on narrow wooden benches, surrounded by more exhibits than one could possibly absorb in a single afternoon, visitors are treated to "messages" delivered by a member of the Fadden family.  These messages stress the contributions made by Native Americans to American culture and life style, such as foods, medicines, and the American form of government.  (Legends of the Iroquois, p. 108)

This was my reaction to the sheer volume of stuff in this four room long building.  How much better would it be if it were presented differently?  Is it complete, fair, and accurate? Museums present skewed information and this is perhaps no different.

But the "message" resembled the messenger: quiet, thoughtful, full of history. The presentation was not linear or organized like U.S. museums.  But it makes me rethink my understanding of "American" history.

 

Six Nations Indian Museum, link to site

 

Einstein On Classic Literature

Somebody who reads only newspapers and at best books of contemporary authors looks to me like an extremely near-sighted person who scorns eyeglasses. He is completely dependent on the prejudices and fashions of his times, since he never gets to see or hear anything else. And what a person thinks on his own without being stimulated by the thoughts and experiences of other people is even in the best case rather paltry and monotonous.

There are only a few enlightened people with a lucid mind and style and with good taste within a century. What has been preserved of their work belongs among the most precious possessions of mankind. We owe it to a few writers of antiquity that the people in the Middle Ages could slowly extricate themselves from the superstitions and ignorance that had darkened life for more than half a millennium.

Nothing is more needed to overcome the modernist's snobbishness.  

*Written for the Jungkaufmann February 29, 1952 and included in Ideas and Opinions

Last summer I read C.S. Lewis and in his writing, he recommended alternating contemporary reading with the classics and it seems he is in good company.  Einstein believed there were "only a few enlightened people" in a century and their work is worth reading. 

Regarding the Middle Ages, perhaps Einstein refers to the Greek thinkers of antiquity who helped bring an end to 500 years of ignorance.  Stoics like Epictetus come to mind  (link to letter Epictetus, Life is a Festival).

My 1954 copy of Einstein's Ideas and Opinions has notes on the inside and back covers, something you won't find with a shiny new edition and a treasure I found at the local book-swap. This collection is the most important of his general writing.

Link to the book, Einstein's Ideas and Opinions

Media content today is disturbing on many levels and it's essential to think about what is important to you and choose your own content.  Sensationalism drives media ratings and the depravity of a lot of popular programming is motivation enough to unplug.  (Read more here Cherokee Folktale)

Read the writing of thinkers like Einstein or Epictetus and writers like Cervantes or Austen. (Read Austen, Train Your Brain).

Choose to hang out with the greats. 

See No Evil - Poet Billy Collins

The Trouble with Poetry was wedged between Annie Proulx's Close Range and the Peterson Field Guide, making up a lifetime of books, purchased, not borrowed or lent, but loved enough, standing one by one like a row of sentries flanking the mantel, guarding two wooden boxes now filled with the ashes of its owners. The ashes belong to my children's grandparents.

But whose book was it, his or hers? 

I pulled the slim volume from its post, ran my hand across its cover, wondered who held it last and what it meant to them.  Distinguished by its modern jacket and lack of dust, the poetry collection was published in 2005 by Billy Collins.



Book inscription:  "My idea of paradise is a perfect automobile going thirty miles an hour on a smooth road to a twelfth-century cathedral." -- Henry James  (Link to book)

Busy friends say they don't have time to read books, so I suggest short stories. Better, try poetry.  Try Collins.  There's time at the breakfast table or waiting in the car or before bed.  It will reach you, surprise you, touch you. 

It will change you.

Here's a favorite from this collection.

See No Evil

No one expected all three of them
to sit there on their tree stumps forever,
their senses covered with their sinuous paws
so as to shut out the vile, nefarious world.

As it happened,
it was the one on the left
who was the first to desert his post,
uncupping his ears,
then loping off into the orbit of rumors and lies,
but also into the realm of symphonies,
the sound of water tumbling over rocks
and wind stirring the leafy domes of trees.

Then the monkey on the right lowered his hands
from his wide mouth and slipped away
in search of someone to talk to,
some news he could spread,
maybe something to curse or shout about.

And that left the monkey in the middle
alone with his silent vigil,
shielding his eyes from depravity's spectacle,
blind to the man whipping his horse,
the woman shaking her baby in the air,
but also unable to see
the russet sun on a rough shelf of rock
and apples in the grass at the base of a tree.

Sometimes, he wonders about the other two,
listens for the faint sounds of their breathing
up there on the mantel
alongside the clock and the candlesticks.

And some nights in the quiet house
he wishes he could break the silence with a question,

but he knows the one on his right
would not be able to hear,
and the one to his left,
according to their sacred oath--
the one they all took with one paw raised--
is forbidden forever to speak, even in reply.

--Billy Collins

"Through simple language, Collins shows that good poetry doesn't have to traffic in obscurity or incomprehensibility - qualities that are perhaps the real trouble with the most 'serious' poetry." (Book jacket)

I agree. 

Collins tells us that evil exists but so does good.

If we shut our eyes and ears to one, do we not shut them to the other?  To see the "russet sun," we suffer the sight of a "man whipping his horse." The blind monkey remains and the other two desert him, leaving him with a false belief, not only in his blindness to the world, but the knowledge that the others were true to their oath.

I set aside Collins's book and the rest I collected in boxes.  A few of the more decorative less interesting titles I arranged on either side of the mantel. The bare shelves were more than I wished to bear.

There is poetry in the connection: the three monkeys, this book on the shelf next to the mantel, both boxes of ashes. But there is something even more singular.

My son took from his grandma's desk three small bronze monkeys, sitting on a circular case, housing a magnifying glass. They differed from the wise monkeys in this way: one held binoculars to his eyes, another had a bull horn against his mouth, and the last cupped his hands wide behind his ears.



One other favorite:

Flock

It has been calculated that each copy of the Gutenberg Bible...required the skins of 300 sheep.
-from an article on printing

I can see them squeezed into the holding pen
behind the stone building
where the printing press is housed,

all of them squirming around
to find a little room
and looking so much alike

it would be nearly impossible
to count them,
and there is no telling

which one will carry the news
that the Lord is a shepherd,
one of the few things they already know.

- Billy Collins

English teacher Chris Hart said: "I think reading poetry is one of the most important things anyone can do, and that reading slowly, and with deliberation, is a balm for the soul."  He asks if Collins intends the reader to pity the sheep.  Read his analysis here:  Analysis of Flock

 

* Collins was the United States Poet Laureate and is Distinguished Professor at Lehman College (Link Poets.org Bio). He is one of the most popular, best selling, and well-regarded poets today.  He was asked by the Librarian of Congress to write a poem to remember the victims of 9/11 which he read at a special joint session in September 2002.  It is titled "The Names" and is heartbreaking.  YouTube link:  Billy Collins reads The Names

** As Poet Laureate, Collins instituted the program Poetry 180 for high schools. Collins chose 180 poems for the program and the accompanying book, Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry—one for each day of the school year. (Wiki)  Link to  Poetry 180, A Poem a Day for American High Schools