There'z no NDNs on the beach....... Preface; as a land locked Okie, I had never seen a beach until I was 23 years old. Fell in love with it, and have returned to the ocean and the beach as often as I can for years now. There is a peace there that I find in few other places. Some folks get it, some don't, it's hard to explain, but it is almost a religious experience for me to touch the ocean, smell the sea air, feel the sun on my skin, and listen to the sounds of the waves and the sea creatures. In all these years of being an annual sun worshipping, jimmy buffet-esque beach bum, I have never seen an NDN on the beach, not one......at least not someone who was identifiable as being NDN. I have seen our southern counterparts, the Maya, and others in Mexico and Central America, and the Indigenous People of the Islands, like the Hawaiians, who are culturally and geographically tied to the ocean along the shores, but here on the North American Continent, from Carolina to California, from East Florida to the southern tip of Texas, from the icy water of Maine to the balmy currents off of Mississippi, I have not seen one NDN person on the beach. And I wonder why? Economics? am I simply visiting places where it is economically prohibitive for some to visit? That can't be true, because most of the places I have been certainly couldn't be construed as five star resorts or tourist areas. It's pow wow season, even so, you would think that someone would be on the beach, fishing, or swimming or just hangin out......not everyone hits the pow wow circuit. Cultural.......no way....so many People were tied to the coastal lands for their subsistence and their way of life.... I can't figure it out. I walked the beach looking for one single person who could be readily identified as NDN. Saw one young lady, who I smiled at as I walked by, she returned the smile, and in looking at her face, I searched for anything to give her ancestry away.....Choctaw? Seminole maybe?.....no, she was Hispanic..... Nearby, squeezed in amongst the t=shirt shops and shrimp cafes was an ancient mound of the Old Ones, itself now a tourist trap. we were one of the lone visitors here. It was an anomaly, probably the only mound I have ever heard of being situated on the coastline. Designated as a national landmark, we toured the premises; the obligatory pamphlets and brochures outlining the history of the place, the tell-tale faux NDN souveneirs, like the abominable fake feather head-dress for the children, were present. The lady behind the counter asked if I had a question? Yes, I answered, in looking at the items under her glass encased counter, had she ever seen a particular design?....which i drew for her.....she went to her books and came back with a page, "like this?' she asked..Yes, I said......she took me to a back room of forgotten crafts, and found in the bottom of a box, a necklace with the design on it, made by a Creek whose art they used to try to sell, but it never sold. It was exquisitely crafted, and a true piece of art, I bought it, and obtained the name of the craftsman, who I will write to and thank him for his work..... Who are your People?, I asked the sales lady hoping at least whe was NDN....'what do you mean?' she replied. Another guy came up and said, 'he wants to know your heritage.." "I'm not NDN, I am Spanish'..she said, indignantly. The other salesperson looked me over, he admitted to a passing interest in NDN culture, but was not NDN himself... I told them of the significance of the piece, the meaning of the design, and the similiarity to this design to those found in the upper reaches of the Mississippi mound builder sites..... he feigned interest, "oh', he said,' are you Mississippian'?...I walked out. Back on the beach, I thought of those People, those mound builders, and of the now unrecogizable landscape they once thrived on. The shells and other gifts from the sea were once worn as adornments by my People. They would trade with the coastal tribes and many such articles such as shells and conches were used by the more inland Peoples as well as the feathers of coastal birds. Though the ocean was not their home, they were certainly well acquainted with the distant shores and the People who inhabited them. I become lost in thought and the cadence of the waves suddenly begins to find a rhythm in my brain, the sequences of seven, the steady crash of the waves becomes harmonious with the sound of the drum, with the larger waves sounding like Honor Beats.....and I begin to find a place in my soul, I recognize 'something'....the synchronicity of the drum with the sound of the waves, with the very heartbeat of the Earth, and I can only barely find this 'place' before it is gone with the sound of a blaring boat horn and an overhead airplane dragging a banner behind it that says, ALL YOU CAN EAT SHRIMP, TONITE!!! Disappointed, I enter the water, enjoying the taste of the brine, the feel of salt on my skin, the licking of the waves against my chest, when I see two dark figures soaring beneath the surface. They are a pair of rays, the tell tale shape of their contours gliding beneath the surface. I parallell their course hoping to follow them as they easily move through the surf. After about thirty feet, they turn and head straight for me....... and I realize that I am in THEIR world, not my own, and that I have trespassed, or broken a rule of coexistence with them..... I lose sight of them in the surf as I prepare for the sting of their warning which doesn't come....and then they are gone....... There are no NDNs in the surf with me.... The beach is filled with tourists....and they should be happy. The shrill loud voices disturb me....their is no laughter in them......no true laughter. There is some polite tee-hee's by the strangers to each other, the kids aren't even laughing.....they are cranky, whining, wanting........ a man has Rush Limbaugh cranked up on his AM radio, frowning and nodding his head.... A teenager bobs his head to an angry rap tune about killing, and cars, and Niggahs,....... A young couple argues over who should have brought the sunscreen..... why arent' they enjoying themselves? There is none of the easy laughter and smiles one sees at gatherings, no easy quiet smiles, no women telling story and laughing to themselves, none of the harmony, lots of instruments, but they have no music in their souls, no synchronicity, no peace..... a Black family finds their place on the sand, their voices loud and staccato, there is a faint laughter in their voices, but it is forced, and not easy....... the white women look over, and then share hushed conversation underneath their hands and their sun=visors....... I look to see if there is a circle of women nearby giggling and visiting in soft melodious voices, perhaps braiding a younger one's hair, or discussing a family issue, but I don't see them, there are no NDNs on the beach.... The path home led me through the ancestral homes of the Apalachee, the Creek, the Houma, the Choctaw, the Chickasaw, the Caddo, the Wichita, the Osage, and the names of the lakes and streams and mountains scream of their prior habitation of these places, Apalachicola, Tchimitofah, Tholptocco, Tallulah, Mississippi, the names scream of their existence, but I see no NDNs. And back on the beach, there is a staff, with a single crane feather waving in the wind...with an ancient design drawn in the sand, up near the dunes, ........the beach boy is putting out the chairs for the mornings sunbathers, the workers are picking up the trash, debris, leftovers, from the previous day's revelry, the refuse of so many vacationers who don't hear the heart beat of the ocean, who can't understand the synchronicity of the waves with their own heartbeat, who will wonder at what that design in the sand means...... and they will pause momentarily in their day and then move on, a toddler wears a faux NDN headress and sunglasses, and cries for his mother when the waves crash on his feet...... The towel boy is smoothing the sand over the design drawn there, picks up the staff with the crane feather and deposits it in the nearby trash can, along with the beer bottles, broken beach chairs, and discarded beach towels that smell too much like the seawater for the ones who brought them to keep them.....so much disregard, so much disrespect, so much hatred....... The rays swim on, in their world, thankful that there are few in the water at this hour to disrupt their feeding... the waves crash in, the seventh one always larger than the others, there are no NDNs on the beach.....none that are visible anyways. |
"There'z no NDNs on the beach......." © Michael Walkingstick
as posted in alt.native on Sun, Jun 29 2003 4:24 pm 15:24:33 -0700
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