In February, I drove down to Muscatine, IA one Friday night with a sky threatening snow. I was going to see my friend Dean Wellman sing and play guitar at the Missippi Brew. Afterward we went over to the Elms Supper Club for a drink or two. It was 1 am when We decided to call it a night. I needed to give Dean a ride back to his car which was still in town. It was then we noticed it had started snowing. And Man was it coming down. In town it wasn't so bad but on the outskirts there was enough snow on the road, we couldn't see the road. I dropped Dean off and he was to head back North to Dubuque. I was going on down South to the farm.
I took the bridge across the Mississippi, going very slow in the snow. On the other side, the snow was even deeper and I didn't make it a mile before someone was saying over and over, "It's just not the right way to go. Go Back, Go Back." So I turned around an went back across the bridge, through Muscatine and down US 61, past the Elms...now dark and toward Burlington. I made it maybe 3 miles out of town before the snow started falling like harder and was soon like blankets covering the highway. The only way to tell I was on the road was when I dropped a wheel off the side. Kinda scary actually. I'd seen a diner a mile or so back so I found a place to turn around and went back. I pulled into an unused corner of the parking lot and dug into the trunk for a wool blanket and pillow. Put my driver seat back and fell off to sleep. When It got too cold, I'd turn the car on, run the heat. Turn it back off and go back to sleep.
Around 6 am, the cook for the diner came in, honked his horn at me and woke me up. The snow plow was just going past and the road was clear enough to drive on. So back on the road and heading South towards Burlington again. A mile or so down, the road ran through some swampy woods and I caught the movement of large brown wings out of the corner of my eye. I turned around and went back to find a huge barred owl sitting in a tree.
He sat there in his tree just looking at me and munching on the mouse he'd just captured. Then he spoke. "Honor the coming together."
"But be careful!"
Then he flew away. I hate when they tell you things you have no context for. I was puzzling over that as I drove on down the road. Got to Burlington and finally crossed the river. Went to Beardstown and got my hair cut. On the way back to the farm, I took the backroad to Ripley. Up in a tree by the road was a huge Bald Eagle.
I stopped for a chat. He was busy finding food because the fish in the river were no dying in the great numbers they usually do in the Winter. All the eagles had moved inland and were searching for rodents and small farm animals that could easily be carried off. But in between looking around for food, he said something about seeing the big picture and looking behind the masks at intentions, instead of on the surface. Always good advice but what the heck did it apply to? Eagle flew off without explaining.
I was to find out later that day. My cousin Blue Fox called to remind me there was a meeting we were supposed to go to in Quincy later that day. I had to go down to see a flintknapper i know in Hannibal, MO. He was making a couple flint knives for me. I got back to Quincy about 20 minutes after the meeting had started.
The history on this meeting is when Blue Fox and I held our All-Nations Gathering last Fall, the mother of one of the Drum members really loved the land and told a friend of hers named Cecil Redfeather. Redfeather is at least part Mandan and lives as a recluse with his white hippie wife in a cabin in the woods near Quincy. Redfeather leads rag tag bunch of militant Indians, hippies and spiritual wannabees. They have decided they want to perform a ritual/ceremony called the Okipa that has not been performed by the Mandan in it's entirety for at least 100 years. They have been looking for a piece of land for several years. When they heard about Brushy Creek Ranch, they really wanted to see it. Redfesther came out to look things over. When he met Blue Fox, he was wearing a coyote tooth necklace I'd given him. Instantly Redfeather told him he'd be the Coyote in the Okipa. So from this point on, Redfeather's group has determined they are going to do the Okipa in June of 2011 at Brushy Creek ranch. The Okipa is a 5 days long ceremony where once you are there, you can't leave. Near the end, a short distance away, a Pow Wow is supposed to start and when the people performing the ritual come back down the hill to the Pow Wow, there is supposed to be a big feast.
So anyway, the meeting was interesting. 30 or so people in big circle in this woman's living room. They went around the circle introducing themselves. I told them about my encounters with Owl and Eagle. I could tell some of the traditional Indians were skeptical but no one was going to call me out on it. I didn't say anything about the "Be Careful" part that Owl said. Or the seeing behind the masks Eagle talked about. Then the real fireworks started. One of the Indians took exception with Archeologists. Unfortunately, the white guy to my right was an archeologist for the State of Missouri. They got into back and forth and the talking feather was soon forgotten. The Indian was actually the one who started the ruckus with some mild name calling. But they were both passionate about arguing their sides. And on it went like that.
They all came out to Brushy Creek on the Equinox to check the place out and make plans. I wasn't there as I had to be at Spring Council in NC. Blue Fox stayed in IL and hosted the group. He spent the weekend pulling their cars out of the mud and rescuing them from the creek. Half the group recoiled when Red Feather started talking about camping out for five days. We are definitely not dealing with a bunch of reservation raised Indians here.
I've been thinking about the whole thing in light of what Owl and Eagle had to say. What I've concluded is there is probably a reason why the Mandan people have not performed the Okipa for so long. The Okipa was a variation of the Sun Dance and I think knowing what it actually entails would probably scare away the folks who were not already turned off by the thought of 5 days of isolationist camping. I've noticed the details about the actual ritual have been scant in all the discussions. Something about all this just doesn't feel right.
Blue Fox is concerned about liability and rightly so as some aspects of the Sun Dance might violate current laws on hazing. And there is a difference between a traditional tribal people performing renewal rituals that have been done for hundreds or thousands of years and a mixed bunch of Natives and Non-natives getting together on some private land to perform a ritual so secret the participants don't even know the details yet. Certain rituals had a time and a place and meant something in the context of that time and place that they may not mean now.
Lastly, I highly doubt that if the Mandan people had lacked enough participants for one of their traditional rituals, they would have invited whites and people from other Nations to be part of ceremony. But that's certainly what is happening here. I could see if this was something any of them had ever participated in growing up. But none of these people were yet alive the last time this was performed. You can't go back to a place or time you've never been.
I talked to Blue Fox last weekend and I think he's seeing behind the masks as well and really looking for a reason to tell Redfeather to find another place. He's no longer comfortable with the situation.
Besides, we have our own Nation to organize and a second Fall Gathering to plan for. We really have our hands full already. But telling them is a path Blue Fox needs to walk on his own. I'll just be there to back him up.
Peace,
StoneBear
