Past time to give thanks for Native Americans

It's the start of Thanksgiving week, also the last week of Native American Heritage Month. We spent the afternoon watching PBS's American Masters biography of N. Scott Momaday, Words from a Bear. We found it exceptionally well done. I believe I read The Way to Rainy Mountain several years ago, before I started listing the books I've read. After watching Words from a Bear, I'm looking forward to reading some of his poems and essays.

Native American art gallery, Franklin Avenue, Minneapolis

Photo by J. Harrington

According to the Open Education Data Base, these are the Twenty Native American Authors we need to read:

• Sherman Alexie
• Leslie Marmon Silko
• Janet Campbell Hale
• Paula Gunn Allen
• Vine Deloria, Jr.
• N. Scott Momaday
• Duane Niatum
• Gerald Vizenor
• Louise Erdrich
• James Welch
• Barney Bush
• Joy Harjo
• Simon J. Ortiz
• nila northSun
• Charles Eastman
• John Joseph Mathews
• Diane Glancy
• Winona LaDuke
• Wendy Rose
• David Treuer

Native American sculpture, Franklin Avenue, Minneapolis

Photo by J. Harrington

I've read less than half of those authors but believe there are others not on the list that should be. One example is Robin Wall Kimmerer who has written Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants and Gathering Moss. It's good that we have the wisdom of many of these Native American writers to help us improve, understand and restore our relationship to the land. If we succeed in that, and we must if we are to thrive as a species, we will have much more for which to give thanks some fourth Thursday of November in some future year. We're not there yet but we should give thanks that we still have a little time to make major progress. Remember, it's unlikely the Pilgrims would have survived had they not been aided by Native Americans. We seem to have some full circle.

The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee

By N. Scott Momaday

I am a feather on the bright sky

I am the blue horse that runs in the plain

I am the fish that rolls, shining, in the water

I am the shadow that follows a child

I am the evening light, the lustre of meadows

I am an eagle playing with the wind

I am a cluster of bright beads

I am the farthest star

I am the cold of dawn

I am the roaring of the rain

I am the glitter on the crust of the snow

I am the long track of the moon in a lake

I am a flame of four colors

I am a deer standing away in the dusk

I am a field of sumac and the pomme blanche

I am an angle of geese in the winter sky

I am the hunger of a young wolf

I am the whole dream of these things

You see, I am alive, I am alive

I stand in good relation to the earth

I stand in good relation to the gods

I stand in good relation to all that is beautiful

I stand in good relation to the daughter of Tsen-tainte

You see, I am alive, I am alive

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