Met with the Chief on Friday evening.
What I do is something of a lost art, and even the actual Native American descendants have forgotten it.
I've been asked to teach several of their members how to tan hides the way it was done 500 years ago; the way I do it. For expedience sake, I do use metal tools, but I have bone tools ready to go also.
I was asked many wrong questions about how I do things. "do you frame them to scrape?" "No, I do it the way it was predominantly done right here where we are standing. I wet-scrape over a 'beam'." "How do you get it so soft?" "It's simply a result of the process of brains and smoke, but I prefer to hand-stretch over my lap". "Isn't buckskin supposed to be white?" "Well, right here where we are standing, it's too hot in summer to bother with more than a loincloth, and in winter we can all agree that darker colors are warmer from absorbing sunlight, so I have no real desire to produce anything less than functional."
Please don't get me wrong.. I'm not trying to talk down about these people, but I would think that any group of people that hold so tightly to their roots would have better preserved their ancient way of life.
Art knappers can produce very beautiful points, as thin as a vinyl LP and as sharp as a razor, BUT they are NOTHING like what I find in the fields around HERE that were made 1000 years ago. The found pieces are fat, and sturdy and very often reusable, or at least re-workable into smaller, sharper tools. Nowadays, knappers produce points and heads for no reason other than to sell. I really have to stress to these people that this monetary trade system is something "new" and that the time frame I am focused on did not use "currency" but rather traded arrowheads, meat, salt, skins, rocks, beads, shells, maize, seeds... need I go on?
Disease and a belief system shattered by the arrival of white man caused the collapse of these great civilizations.. not corrupt government officials, not economic collapse, not inflation...
I can teach these people how to do the things they want to learn to do. That's not a problem. The problem is going to come when I try to educate them on things they no longer hold in their belief system. I did ask (tho I probably shouldn't have) if they were converted. These people are now modernized Christians (not that it's a bad thing) who have diverged from their belief in "The Creator", Immissee, and no longer hold [much] regard for any of the ancient "Spirits" like those of the waters, the reptiles, the beasts of the air and fields and forests. They hunt and trap and fish, sure, but now they are "trophy hunters" who value the horns more than the meat, which truly angers me.
let me say that my grandmother's mother was full-blooded Cherokee named Viney Viola Glass who married an Irishman carpenter. Three generations removed, I'm about as much Native American as this keyboard that says "Made in China" and have never claimed to be anything more than that. I'm as white as snow where the sun-don't-shine. Yet I hold their ancient belief system close to my heart. I try not to offend any of the "spirits" as I do believe in "karma" or whatever you want to call it. I had an opportunity just yesterday to take a doe and her fawn, but would not because of what I believe in. Would it cause me to have a bad hunting year if I took them? probably not, but it would cause that ache in my heart that I do not want. (a little off topic but I'm getting there...)
This all came about by beekeeping. A few weeks ago I was helping another local apiarist treat for mites when one of his friends came over to watch and learn. Great! We all want healthy bees! This gentleman took me to his 50 acre farm where his hives were, and proposed an idea to me: To build an authentic Native American village, have it habitable, and several times a year hold celebrations there. They want lodges and teepees (that were not used by the people who lived here 500 years ago..). He put me in contact with Chief Lodge, who later told me that the man was the mayor of my town! (haha! can you believe I didn't know who my mayor is??)
So how do I tell these people exactly what I think? It's easy enough for me to meet up with the mayor (I have his number) and explain these things to him (who is as white as myself) and get him to understand the extent of what he's wanting to do, but how on earth am I going to tell these Cherokee people that they either have bad information, or have failed to preserve a way of life that dominated this continent for millennia?
Just a little news and some random thoughts from your friendly neighborhood cave-man.
Bookmarks