They said I was a danger to myself and other people. Instead of trying to understand my tradition, they instantly thought there was something wrong with me. And so they called the Department of Social Services and got me taken away. They thought I was trying to kill myself. Staff at school saw my cuts.īut they didn’t understand them. It’s a way for us to get all of our bad emotions, all of our bad thoughts, out. We cut ourselves and we let the blood return to the earth. And one of our traditions is bloodletting for healing. When I was thirteen, my aunt died of diabetes in her sleep. Someday I want to be half the woman that she is. We could’ve gone to the adoption agency, or she could’ve aborted us, but she chose to keep us, and she toughed it out, and she raised us the best that she could. Their fathers weren’t around to help, and she still did it. No matter what happened to her, she kept going, raising five kids. She and I didn’t really see eye to eye as I was growing up, but as a young adult now, I try to be around her as much as I can, because I want to have her strength. She takes care of her children with the sheer force of will, and she lays down the law. Oh, my mother! She’s a very strong, independent, stubborn woman. We didn’t get to know him because he died two months before we were born. Or some of his friends would come over and babysit us. They’d tell me stories about my father, what he used to do when he was my age. So I was placed in some rural communities, all within a sixty-five-mile radius of here. The foster homes were located on my reservation because the tribal court is really strict with trying to keep tribal members, children, on the reservation with Native American families, close to their parents. People would come by and say to my mom, “Hey, you need someone to watch your twins?” Or, “Do you want me to take them to the park?” I’m practically related to this whole reservation, so it’s like everybody’s my cousin. We got to play with each other, but we rotated through family members and foster homes until I was thirteen. My mother’s kids were split up among family members because my mother couldn’t take care of us all. The siblings I have from my father, I’ve only met one. On my mother’s side, I have five siblings, and on my father’s, I have ten siblings, but I only have one full sister, and she is my twin, Jasilea. My grandfather talked to me like I was an adult, like I was old enough to hear these things. And we won’t have to go on living in ignorance. And we may not understand in that moment, but as we grow up, we carry that knowledge with us, and we begin to understand. He told me, “You’re never too young to learn, never too young to understand what your people have been through.”Ī lot of adults think that young people don’t understand or don’t listen. He told me to go to powwows, go to Sun Dance, take advantage of those opportunities because there are so many who never got the chance to go. He always told me he felt like he had to hide who he was. And he couldn’t tell anybody about it, he couldn’t tell his friends or his family members. He learned it from his grandfather at a very young age. When he was younger, he was a pipe maker. My grandfather, Harry Charger, was chief of the Itazipco band. I’m from Cheyenne River Indian Reservation. Now we have that right, that freedom, to experience something that our elders would’ve been beaten for. Sixty years ago, we would never have been able to dance. It gave us all joy, and it still does for me now. When I think about that, it makes me happy because we did it as a family. It was probably the last time all of my siblings, my mother’s children, were together, when we were all dancing. And then, my older brother would join us, and he’d hold both of our hands and dance with us. Mama always told me to listen to the beat, move my feet with the beat. My very first memory is of being really tiny and dancing the Rabbit Dance, named for what the dance was inspired by-the movements resemble those of rabbits.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |