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Cobell vs. Salazar - Prelude

by Rhyana Fisher

Ma made a point of reminding us we descended from Chief Okemos.

It was just one of those things we always knew,

much like having brown hair and eyes.

She, at least, was interested in the Indian side of the family

maybe because she didn't know much of her ancestry.

Her great-grandpa claimed a Polish surname

but rumor had it he was actually running from the Russian mob.



More likely it was the settlement money tho.



Well, money helps. Some things.

Not dysfunctionalism. Not displacement.

Probably paid the house payment

plus food for three (then) kids.

But she did speak of him with pride and quiet respect -

a hundred percent white woman with two sets of immigrant grandparents.



She even drove us to one powwow while Dad worked.

An ancient lady somehow related to us

(and never mind pretty much everyone

from the same tribe is related)

told old stories and I wanted to hear more

but no one listens to kids. We left.



Never went back.

I still wonder who the lady was.

It's been 30+ years and she was old then.

Does anyone remember her?

Surely someone must remember her Turtle stories?






Then school started.

Columbus Day, Thanksgiving

they never make sense anyway at that age.

Even then we know we’re prisoners counting time

but some prisons are marginally larger than others.



Kid logic is amusing.

Squanto was Indian, I’m Indian.

We must be related too!

Not that it gets said out loud,

they keep it simple in first grade

and I was quiet even then,

spending most the bus trip staring out windows, imagining.

There were reasons to carefully hoard words even then.



The Lone Ranger and occasional Westerns

neither helped nor hindered.

Tonto didn't look like any Indian we knew

(Grandpa in a suit at church)

but Silver, Silver was gorgeous!

Westerns were mostly boring,

Cowboys and Indians didn't make sense.

Of course Indians couldn't always be stupid or bad guys,

we were Indian, right?

Although sometimes my brothers could make me doubt the stupid part…



But then they teach reading,

maps make sense,

bits and pieces stop drifting like flotsam

and uglier truths scum across the surfaces.



It was probably in 7th grade

when those truths started sinking in.

The Michigan History textbook didn't say a lot,

but it was enough.

Many greats-grandfather Okemos

who sold Michigan to the white settlers?

Well, that’s The Saginaw Treaty of 1819



Isabella Reservation?

That must be The Res.

The one grandpa left.

They talk about him getting beaten

and running away from his alcoholic dad.

It must've been an awful place.

Or maybe it was just normal?

Ma’s Dad was an alcoholic too

and he’d held a knife to Aunt’s throat in a drunken rage.

What was his excuse?



Stupid people are everywhere, I guess,

hanging out in my family tree in particular.

Maybe that’s why I liked Okemos so much.

He at least had a valid reason to beat on people

and there’s something to be said for them being bigger than him

even if he didn't pick the “winning” side.



I've always been a sucker for a fool

fighting a losing battle, all the worse

for knowing how it has to end.

Maybe it’s hereditary.







Didn’t like people then,

hasn’t changed much.

Fortunately, there were books

tho the Internet was even better.

Amazing how much history they don’t tell you.

Colonization of the “New” world makes so much more sense

upon discovering the Vikings probably decimated the population via disease

long before Columbus even thought of sailing.

Explains the abandoned Indian cities

this country is in such a rush to pave over anyway.

Not to mention the ease of takeover,

in no other continent could Britain get this thorough a toe hold,

only to be kicked out screaming by their own settlers.

Usually the settlers were too busy to rebel,

screaming for help settling the native menace.



I’d laugh at the irony, if only it didn't ache so consistently.



It’s hard to say what exactly aches tho.

Can someone born with the stump of a deformed arm

still feel phantom limb pain?

If they did, how would they locate it?

Or would they react like my sibs

and stare at me like a dodo caught in a booby nest

dare I bring up the possibility something is off?



"You think too much."

09/24/2014

Author's Note: Second: Fallout
Third: Custer's Last Stand

Posted on 09/24/2014
Copyright © 2024 Rhyana Fisher

Member Comments on this Poem
Posted by Linda Fuller on 09/25/14 at 12:00 AM

Enjoyed every line of this.

Posted by Kristina Woodhill on 09/29/14 at 05:01 PM

A lot of hard discoveries here, well expressed, important to share. Thank you.

Posted by Laura Doom on 09/30/14 at 03:22 PM

Your personalization is the winner here; restitution is an answer, though by definition, only necessary because of a previous injustice.

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