“Now, you are So-Eye-Tah-Lee, rock tree boy.” That’s my Indian name, and he gave it to me to commemorate having been taken to this sacred place. And I have always identified with the boy who turned into a bear. That’s why I have bear power. JHS: Yes, you indeed do! So, the bear Urset, of course needs to know things that he doesn’t know. And the bear decides he can have a dialogue with Yahweh (God). NSM: Yes, yes. The idea is that the bear is the epitome of the wilderness. And of course he and Yahweh make a wonderful team; they make a wonderful conversation with each other. And the bear wants to know about prayer. For example, what is prayer? And Yahweh explains these things to him. It’s rather funny— they have a comical kind of dialogue. They’re both very witty and they like verbal play, so that’s how the dialogues work. Yahweh tells Urset about story, the meaning of story, the importance of story. JHS: And I love the part where Urset wants to know how language began. NSM: As I recall, Yahweh says, “Oh yes, language is the thing that separates human animal from the others.” And he says, “Yeah, uh, I think this is the way it began. There were people living in caves, and they were trying to communicate with each other and they were having a hard time because they didn’t have language, but one day, a neighboring tribe came over the ridge to visit, and they brought their children. And suddenly, there was a critical mass of children who played all day long, and at the end of that day, we had language.” Language is child’s play. Children are not afraid of language. And they like to play games with it, so they learn it at the age of two or three, which is a phenomenal accomplishment when you stop to think about it. JHS: Yes, it is. And so, in terms of that, I was wondering about the children’s book that you so beautifully illustrated and talked about, “The Four Arrows & Magpie.” What do you think children will take away from it that will help them believe? NSM: I think that they would—well I hope they would take away a kind of appreciation of the power and beauty of language, and what it means to children, how children use it. And it’s a story of how the people came into the world through a hollow log and it’s a story about a dog. Who can resist a story about a dog? JHS: Well, particularly in a time when dogs could talk. NSM: (Laughing) That’s what they say. When you want to indicate something far back in time, “Oh that happened a long time ago when dogs could talk.” In this story, two children have a hero in the person of a war10
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rior that lives in the camp. And the little boy wants to become like this great warrior, and the little girl also wants to please the warrior. So they base their time, their play time, in pursuits that will help them realize their identity as brave children. And there comes along a prairie fire, and so the whole camp is threatened by this fire. And the little dog there warns them about the fire and saves them. The warrior comes and he rescues the children that are about to be engulfed in the flames and he takes them to safety. So that’s basically the idea of the story, but it emphasizes the role of the warrior, the warrior ideal of the plains people. So it comes right out of a kind of oral history and tradition. JHS: I love the name of the adult male, Charging Bear. That’s a beautiful book, and I love your illustrations. Another book with your wonderful artwork on the cover is “The Man Made of Words.” The painting is mysterious and I need your help in understanding it. NSM: I wrote a Christmas story called “The Circle of Wonder.” And this is an illustration of the circle of wonder, this valley in which the grandfather takes the grandchild, and they have a wonderful communion with nature there, and it’s a beautiful spot surrounded by snow-covered mountains. And they encounter animals there and learn how to exist in the circle of wonder, how to get along with the animals and nature and so on. JHS: Does the circle in the center represent water? NSM: No, it’s a valley of grass. In New Mexico, we have the largest caldera, I think, in the country. JHS: What’s a caldera? NSM: It’s a volcanic crater and it’s beautiful because it’s 6 miles across. And it’s covered with grass. Cattle graze in it, and they’re so tiny that when you look at them from a distance they seem to be ants down there. It’s a vast crater which is beautiful and which changes every day. It doesn’t appear the same ever. Just a wonderful place, so that’s what I had in mind as the circle of wonder. JHS: It’s lovely. One essay in this book was of particular interest to me about the morality of Indian Hating. You wrote it in 1962 while a student at Stanford. This is powerful history. NSM: Yeah, I think so too. It’s an important subject and does unfortunately specify the world we now live in. JHS: Yes, it does and in it is described the myth of Tai-me, the spiritual center of your culture. Tell us about Tai-me, Scott. NSM: Tai-me, it’s a fetish and a bundle, a sacred bundle. At the time of the sun dance, when the Kiowas still had a sun dance, Tai-me, this fetish was brought out and exposed only
one time in the year, and the people revered it. And then it was put back in the bundle and kept until the next sun dance. Well, it still exists, but no one now has the right to open it. So no living person has actually seen the fetish that’s inside it now, but the bundle is still revered. People go to it and make offerings and pray. And the sun dance, as you may know, was the chief religious expression of the tribe. And it was also a social time, a time when all the bands of the tribe came together in one place. And they had a four-day ceremony with dancers dancing for a special favor from the sun god, the deity. So Tai-me is the most powerful medicine in the tribe, still today. According to the story, the people were down, down and out, hungry and hopeless. Tai-me appeared to them as this creature covered with feathers and having the hooves of a deer and so on. And Tai-me, to the man whom Tai-me appeared, he said, “Take me with you, I will help you.” And so that’s how Tai-me came to the tribe. And indeed, the man took him to the people, and they started honoring the fetish, and sure enough, they got out of trouble. Tai-me was true to his word. JHS: But in this story you don’t really talk about the Indian hatred but about the loss of the things that were sacred to them, the white men stopped the sun dance; they killed the buffalo. It’s a terrible history which you refer to at one point as the “subtle Holocaust,” which I thought was a very powerful comparison. NSM: Yes, yes. JHS: In the ’90s you write an “after view” to put in the book because you think it’s important to see how things have changed. NSM: That’s right but there’s one thing that’s threatened to this day and that is the loss of the sacred! You have to understand what the problem is first of all - that there is such a thing as the theft of the sacred. Once you have that understanding, then you can proceed by means of education and example. The Indian stands in a very good position to exemplify the sacred. He has a long history of harmony with the earth and with the creatures, the living creatures, and he has a lot to tell other people about the spiritual reality of the earth and how it lives and how vital it is and how necessary it is to preserve and to revere. So, you know, one of our hopes lies within. JHS: Mhm, that’s wonderful. Well let’s hope that the words you bring and the ways in which we receive those words helps us all to understand the importance of restoring the sacred because it seems from what I’ve read of yours that the Kiowa, of all people, had that kind of cohesive communication with each other in a way that there wasn’t a split of any kind in terms of their religious, spiritual…