Mosquito Page 11
Chief Nigger Horse, but not just Chief Nigger Horse, I travels all around Texas listening to stories about our leader. I mean, people know about Crazy Horse and Geronimo, our great leaders, but I also want to be able to tell people about, not just Chief Nigger Horse, but Lone Wolf and Stone Calf, White Shield, Big Bow, Tai-hai-ya-tai, Wild Horse, and Big Bow.
Them sounds like names.
What do you mean?
I tells him about meeting a woman named Leona Valdez, the first Native American I ever met, and how I be thinking she have one of them names like Wild Shield.
At first he looking like he know the name Leona Valdez, and then he looking like he don’t know the name Leona Valdez, and then he looking like he pretending he don’t know the name Leona Valdez. I’m thinking maybe they usedta be lovers in West Texas, or maybe she even been to that small log cabin of his in the Hidden Canyon or wherever.
You know Leona Valdez? I ask.
I know a Leonora Valdez, he say.
Maybe it Leonora and I’m thinking Leona. I says.
He wants to know when I met her and how. I explains to him I met her when I was on my way to Albuquerque once and she were on her way to the University of New Mexico. I explain that I don’t really know her. I tell him about her not wanting nobody to take her photograph.
He looking like they’s a story he wants to tell about hisself and Leonora Valdez, but instead he tell me more about Chief Nigger Horse. I gots to tell y’all that I ain’t got that story from him about hisself and Leonora Valdez, though I has heard about Peta Nocona and Quanah and Quaker Indian agents and the Comancheros, though I dreamt of them once, him and Leonora Valdez in a small cabin in Hidden Canyon. They is together on pallets of buffalo robes and they’s making love. I ain’t want to dream about them making love like that ’cause it make me seem like I’m one of them voyeurs, but that exactly what they was doing in that dream, ’cept he were calling hisself Chief Nigger Horse and she were calling herself Wild Shield. She mighta been calling herself the name of Chief Nigger Horse’s woman—I ain’t going to say squaw—but I don’t know the true name of Chief Nigger Horse’s woman. Chief Nigger Horse Woman?
Then I’m sitting there drinking my Budweiser and seem like I’m daydreaming, ’cause he start telling me about the symbolism of the different colors that he wearing, except he ain’t telling me and now the drink he drinking that I thought were Mexican beer he telling me is some kinda tea made from the bark of a tree.
The red shirt I’m wearing? he say. Red symbolizes war. It symbolizes my ongoing Spiritual Warfare with the white man.
He just say white man but he don’t put white woman in it, but I guess white man just a generic term that means white people in general, ’cept when I’m having that thought I remembers a book I seen in Delgadina’s library called Sacred Revolt and it say something about how them Native Peoples at least the Native Peoples described in that book always treated them white women and childrens differently, sometimes adopting them into they tribes. ’Cept what about the white women that is they enemies? ’Cause I remember reading this account by this white woman telling about her adoption which she called a abduction into the Native tribe and she sounded like they enemy. But he just say the word white man in my daydream, or what I think a daydream.
This white deerskin jacket I’m wearing symbolizes the potentiality for peace. But I consider peace only and always a potentiality, because I don’t believe the white man will ever have peace with anyone, I mean any Native Peoples—when he say that Native Peoples it seem like he were including me and other nonwhite peoples and ain’t just Native Americans—with peace on our own terms. Peace, maintaining our cultural integrity. Peace, maintaining our lands and the integrity of our lands. Peace, maintaining our own political autonomy. Peace, maintaining our own economic autonomy. Peace, maintaining our ownself hood. Peace, maintaining our own power.
He said a lot of peace maintaining things, but I just include them. Then he say he wear that white deerskin only for the potentiality of peace, ’cause he say he know who the white man is. That why he wear the red shirt. (I wears a red sweatshirt myself most the time, but I ain’t know it symbolic of war. Course now I wears it for war knowing it for war, ’cause it got to do with my Spiritual Mother—but that a whole ’nother story.)
Red just for war? I asks.
Well, it can be a symbol for the Native Peoples as well, he say. Our collective Spiritual renewal, or it can be the symbol of war.
I always thought that white supposed to be a symbol for the spiritual.
Then he say the white feather he wear that look like it been dipped in brilliant red also a symbol for war. The white feather ain’t dipped in brilliant red he say a symbol for peace. Then I sits there and drinks my Budweiser and looks at him. He got a broad, tan-colored face and high cheekbones and brilliant black eyes and a substantial nose that symmetrical and look kinda like a Roman nose.
What is your name? I ask.
Saturna. I’m named for my great-uncle. I only met him once, when we went east to Kentucky.
I starts to tell him that I’m from Kentucky, but he seem like he already know that.
We went to a little community near Warthumtown, Kentucky, out in the woods and met my great-uncle Saturna and his horse Chew Sue. He was an old, old man. When they had forced some of the Native Peoples off their lands west, the African-American communities in the area adopted him, or rather he adopted them, because he stayed pretty much independent in the woods around Warthumtown—I call it Warthumtown, but I heard some people also call it Wathamtown.
I starts to tell him that I know about a Saturna and his horse Chew Sue, but he seem like he already know that. ’Cept the ones I knows is ones in a book. The ones he know must be the real Saturna and his real horse Chew Sue.
An African American was supposed to have founded that town, but there were different peoples of color that also inhabited it, and some poor whites, and others whose race you couldn’t determine. But I remember we went to my great-uncle’s house in the woods. It was a small, square house with plaster walls. It was a perfectly square house with a chimney of red and white clay, a tile roof, an elaborate entry door that seemed to have ancient symbols of our people, inside a white deerskin mg, a buffalo rug, all the furniture made out of cypress. I remember that all the furniture looked symmetrical and had been designed and made by himself as was the house. His horse Chew Sue was an old, old horse that sometimes he tied to a cypress tree, other times he let roam free, other times he could even enter the house. I don’t remember anything we talked about. We sat and drank a certain bark tea. I think I was taken there because they wanted me to meet the man whose name I have. Although in that area he was thought of as an ordinary man, except for the fact of being referred to as Saturna the Indian by the people in the area, in my family he is consider the symbol of resistance. Not from any warfare, but simply by refusing. He refused to come east. He came as far east as he wanted, until he found the land that he wanted, and the African American people of Kentucky that he wanted to stay among, the ones in the area of Warthumtown. He gave me a golden eagle and this.
He pointed to a eight-sided star made of some sort of fabric but the points of the star were painted to resemble feathers and each feather was dipped in bright red. He wore it where others might wear a bowtie.
He told me about his great-uncle making him sit upon the back of Chew Sue his horse like a kind of initiation. Chew Sue traveled with him into the forest and he didn’t return until Chew Sue brought him back. In the woods he felt as if he were in a fantasy landscape, because it was so different from the deserts of the Southwest. But then while in that forest, sitting on Chew Sue, he found himself in the Chihuahua desert, then Chew Sue took him into the Chisos Mountains, then he was among the piñon trees of New Mexico, all places of the Southwest. He knew without being told that Saturna, although he had stayed in Kentucky near Warthumtown, had also traveled west with his people, that he had stayed in residence in Kentucky bu
t could also travel west with his people, and view the West where his people were any time that he wanted, even though he stayed in Kentucky. Even though Saturna was an old, old man Saturna had lifted him onto Chew Sue when Chew Sue took him into the forest; when he returned he had climbed down from Chew Sue himself. He was the same-size boy but a different one. That was when Saturna gave him the golden eagle and the disk that he wore.
There are other things it seems as if he will tell me in the daydream, but then it seems I know them without being told. That he himself can enter the sacred spaces while still in the Chihuahua Desert and travel east or west or north or south, wherever his people are, and since he claims all the tribes for his people, he travels wherever they are. He doesn’t have a tribe because he contains all the tribes and so cannot be admitted into just one. He knows Leonora Valdez because he knows all his peoples—he use the word peoples not people.
Is you a shaman? I asks, ’cause I’s read about shamans.
I don’t call myself a shaman. Some people call me one. I am a shaman for myself, a shaman without a tribe.
That’s ’cause you’s every tribe, I says.
Some people call me a knower. Some people call me a spirit talker, others a spirit listener. Then it seem like we’s sitting there and I’m daydreaming about the Chihuahua Desert and we’s watching birds and he’s telling me all about them birds of the Southwest, so I can’t see a bird in the Southwest and ain’t know its name. He be showing me a group of birds and saying they is migrating up from Central America. He ain’t tell me the name of them birds, but he tell me the names of them others: orioles, sparrows, green-tailed towhee, warbler. Then we’s near a spring in the Chisos Mountains—we’s in some kinda mountains and I’m guessing they’s the Chisos Mountains—and he shows me cactus and rock wrens. I be thinking the cactus wrens oughta be in the Chihuahua Desert but they’s in the Chisos Mountains. He shows me hawks and falcons, a red-tailed hawk and a prairie falcon, a golden eagle, some orchard orioles, some red cardinals, a yellow chat, a mountain bluebird, a red flycatcher, which is the same bright red as the shirt he’s wearing, then we travels into a canyon, which I says is Hidden Canyon, though I don’t know if it Hidden Canyon, and he shows me some canyon wrens, some nighthawks, a lark, a brown towhee bird, a kingbird, a titmice which he say a bird. We sits on one of them canyon boulders and a stream appears. It’s bank the color of the redlands of Arizona and he dips in the bank and takes that red mud and paints my face with it, and then we’s back sitting in the cantina, and I touches my face, ’cause I thinks it’s got that red mud on it, but it ain’t. And he just drinking his beer and behaving like we ain’t been to the Chihuahua Desert or the Chisos Mountains or even Hidden Canyon, and he just sitting there telling me some more stories ’bout Chief Nigger Horse.
But it like when he say that Nigger in Chief Nigger Horse, it like that word ain’t got no power. Before when he said Chief Nigger Horse, the Nigger in that Nigger Horse seem like it had so much power to make me not hear none of the other things he were saying. But now when he say that Nigger it seem like it ain’t got no power in that word, least no power over me in it. Or maybe he just be saying that Nigger so many times.
Believe me, because I’m telling you the truth, he says. All I knows is I’m sitting there drinking that beer and feeling like I’s been resanctified. I says resanctified rather than sanctified ’cause of the Perfectability Baptist Church. When you first joins they church, you is sanctified, but then there is times when you has to return to the church to get resanctified. Since they ain’t no Perfectability Baptist Church in Texas City or anywhere in the Southwest I has to travel East to get resanctified. ’Cept I’m sitting there drinking my Budweiser and feeling resanctified. Of course in true resanctification, you ain’t supposed to be drinking Budweiser, you’s supposed to be drinking some type of wine. Usually they has some type of sweet wine, like Mogen David. I knows that there is them amongst y’all that ain’t going to believe me, even if I am telling y’all the truth, but as soon as I has that thought ‘bout needing sweet wine to become truly resanctified, at least that being part of the Perfectability Baptist Church resanctification tradition, I’m sipping on that Budweiser and it’s tasting like Mogen David Concord wine, then it start tasting like Budweiser again. And Saturna just sitting there telling me ’bout Chief Nigger Horse and Chief Nigger Horse’s wife. Then he be saying something about the other Saturna, be saying that he his great-uncle, but he also think of him as his Spiritual Father. He say he still go out near Warthumtown and visit with Saturna and Chew Sue, though he ain’t know if it Saturna and Chew Sue or Saturna and Chew Sue’s spirits, ’cause he say that they was old, old when he was a little boy and were initiated by him into shamanhood. He ain’t exactly explain it like that, but that the way I understands it. At first his shoulder-length hair were on his shoulders, but now it in braids. Then I’m in Brownsville at one of the tourism centers and a Native American is walking around with a camera photographing all the white people. He don’t photograph no Mexicans or other colored peoples, he just photographs the white people. Most of the white peoples lets theyselves be photographed, ’cause it seem like to them a novelty to have a Native American photographing them. Then I’m sitting in the cantina again drinking Budweiser.
Remember the story of Chief Nigger Horse, he say.
Okay, I says, and sips some of the Mogen David-tasting Budweiser.
Remember the story of Chief Nigger Horse’s wife, he say.
Okay, I says, and sips some of the Mogen David-tasting Budweiser.
Remember the story of Saturna’s Resistance, he say.
Okay, I says, and sips some of the Mogen David-tasting Budweiser.
Remember the story of Chew Sue, he say.
Okay, I says, and sips some of the Mogen David-tasting Budweiser.
I think it kinda strange he be telling me to remember a horse’s story, but I says Okay. Then I looks up and sees a truck that have got HORSES HORSES HORSES HORSES HORSES on it. It a sort of gray and white truck, and a African American is driving it. He got on a gray sweatshirt and a red baseball cap and he kinda remind me a little of my daddy, ’cept he ain’t my daddy. He a kinda dark-complexioned man and first he kinda remind me of a picture of my daddy I seen when he were a soldier during the Second World War. A truly handsome young man in his soldier uniform and his hands with exactly the shape of my own, his long, tapered fingers, and then he look like my daddy as a elderly man. Looking like a combination of a African and a Mexican. And then he be dressed up and looking like he in the Mexican Revolution and then he be in the white apron he wear when he working in us restaurant, and then he be in the gray sweatshirt and red baseball cap and dark blue trousers and sitting behind the wheel of that truck—the truck is gray but the cab of the truck is white—that got HORSES HORSES HORSES HORSES HORSES on it. I ain’t know if Chew Sue in that truck ’cause you can’t see what horses in the truck, you has just got to believe that they is horses in that truck ’cause the truck say it got horses in it.
Then they is Africans and Mexicans and Native Americans crowding around that truck looking like they is admiring that truck. I remembers once when I first got my truck, and because of the novelty of a woman driving a truck, sometimes mens would come around to look at my truck and seem like they was admiring my truck, but that were only when I were a novelty. But they is all admiring the truck of the man that look like he my daddy and got hands in the same shape of my own. ’Cept they asks him questions about his truck that ain’t nobody asked me about my own truck.
How does your truck make you feel?
How does it feel to be driving a truck like that?
How does your truck make you feel?
How does it feel to be driving a truck like that?
I ain’t overhear what my daddy say to answer them questions, though I remember reading somewhere that some peoples likes trucks ’cause it make them feel like they’s riding high, others them trucks gives them visibility, others likes truck
s just ’cause they’s big, others ’cause they looks to have people admiring they trucks, and others has lots of other reasons for liking them big trucks. Then they’s on one of them little roads in the Chisos Mountains—I be thinking that truck too big to be on one of them little dirt roads in the Chisos Mountains, but it ain’t—and they’s all following my daddy’s—I be thinking he my daddy now although before I just be thinking he resemble my daddy, like a African-American man I seen once in a Mr. Goodwrench commercial on TV. I be knowing my daddy ain’t on television be doing no Mr. Goodwrench commercial but it be looking just like him, be looking like him when he smiling at me, be looking like him when he want to tell me something of importance, be looking like him when he just say Sojourner Nadine—truck and it’s just like in that Caribbean rap video where the people is following this big truck, ’cept the horse truck ain’t as big as the truck in the video, plus the truck in the video have got lots of Caribbean peoples standing on the truck and it a open-air truck, and this truck have got HORSES on it but you has got to use your belief to believe that there is real horses in it and maybe even that it got Chew Sue in it. But these people, as they follows my daddy and his truck, is singing just like in the video. I think the peoples is named & Xstatic, I means the name of the Caribbean rap singers and they rap song is called “Big Truck.”