From One Raven's Eye

Page 7

Ahneen, tansi and hi, how are ya? Maybe we should be asking how high are you instead. If you weren't high enough a short time ago the North Saskatchewan might have moved your home address a couple of hundred muddy miles east of here.

Of course since most of prairie Indians figure untapped water to be a natural hazard anyway you're probably pretty good at avoiding it already. Us more bush oriented types who figure rivers are supposed to be blue, not gray or green, leave the flatland version of the stuff pretty much alone also.

However, speaking of being swept away, watching water flow, picking berries, driving highways can do that to you too. One of the cheapest most relaxing forms of personal entertainment is when we just let our picturesque minds carry us...away... wherever, whenever...wherever.

Living in the city can turn a life pretty weird. Where do people born and raised there, go in their minds to see beauty and know peace. We have memories of shadow,

hills and morning wrapped in trees. You close your eyes and go there to give your spirit peace. Where do city people turn when they reach out for such as these?

Our rights as Indians are about as popular amongst the non-Native population as

in womens' liberation or feminism as it's called these days. In the states they made a silver dollar with Susan B. Anthony, an early American feminist minted on it. People down there refused to use it so the coin is no longer made. When our aquiline brown faces appeared on quarters those got spent along with the rest. If they refuse to respect the basic rights of persons who raise their kids or sleep with them at nights, we are even

more distant from their hearts. What do you suppose our chances of having our rights recognized are?

My uncle David told me this story about a friend of his who had a job guiding tourists. One day a forest fire broke out not far from there. Now a person can make better money fighting fire than they can at guiding. So this guy decided to ask for some time off so he could make some quick cash. The grumpy camp owner of course asked

him why. "Because my country is on fire," he answered, getting both a laugh and a couple of days off from his boss.

66 per cent of the inmates in the Prairie region of the Correctional Services of Canada are Native in some manner. The steely grip of the law touches many of us sooner or later. Howard Adams, a Native historian once said, "a hundred years ago they sent the North West Mounted Police, who later became the R.C.M.P., out west to save us from the American whiskey traders. I wonder who they're going to send to save us from the RCMP?" Actually it is not simply a problem of who applies the law or even the law as such but it's hard to think that when the Queen's own cowboy is dragging you off to jail

by the wrists.

Speaking of dressing funny, what's happening to Hallow'een? Last time the kid and I went out, there were very few short ghosts and pint sized goblins out prowlin' around after goodies. In many American cities where kids have swallowed poisoned candy and bitten into razorblades stuck inside apples, the whole thing has been cancelled. Turns out there are more real creeps and monsters in those housed than there are pretend ones out in the street. When that society criticizes ours they don't have to look very hard to find problems with their own.

To explain my dancing abilities I tell my wife that these Aboriginal feet just aren't used to those non-North American rhythms yet. She then gives me a long and convincing list of Indian who can dance like crazy. Using that argument she got me up for this slow country turn. "Besides that look how dark and crowded it is, nobody will even see you," she said.

Well we went ahead and pried our way into the middle of the packed dance floor. Just when I figured I had at last found a compatible dance form, my friend Ernie snuck up behind me out of the waltzing shadows. "So, Wagamese, I see you can't dance to ths either, eh," he said.

Whenever an Indian Affairs official would drive up to the band office someone would always be sure to ask, "Hey there Jim, how is our car running these days?" We thought that pretty funny but Jim never did.

Did you know the world could end in thirty three minutes from now? Eight minutes if they fire those nuclear weapons form submarines. Boom. No more Edmonton. After that radiation and other lethal bomb pollution would get most of us, maybe all of us, no matter how far a person hid in the bush.

Scary right? Which makes me wonder why we aren't involved in the anti-nuclear to find a way to put a stop to that craziness. Maybe it's because we've been involved in our own version of that protest for over five hundred years. The peace activist in front of the White House in Washington pleading," Ronny, please don't blow us all to bits," isn't saying anything much different than we've been all this time.

There are other ways of looking at things. Your way damages the life of the land and the people. Think of the kids at least.

Rumours fly around Indian country like seagulls. They're all over the place, squawking and generally making nuisances of themselves. It is only when you pay too close attention to them, to the ones directed at you, the ones that fly by directly overhead that you can end up suffering their messiest consequences.

Oh, okay where are we in terms of our day. Time to get our minds thinking productively again. Too much starting way off at nothing in particular can leave you further and further behind. You could end up completely left behind. Maybe end up

in a nice safe room wearing a nice, safe jacket with your arms crossed in front and tied

in behind. It would probably be pretty hard to read next weeks paper like that. It would probably even be harder writing for one in that condition too. Anyway let us both try and not get so tied up we can't get together again next week.