I know thee by name. . . .
Exodus 33:17
Fear not . . . I have called thee by thy name. . .
Isaiah 43:1
JONI
shared this photograph with the caption:
"Ran the sun up to this 'Warrior Song'
by The Red Shadow Singers
and received my new name Running Redbud
Love my shirt feeling grateful ❤️"
Listening to the old Anishinabe Thunderbird Warrior Song reminded me of a favorite essay from teaching days when one of the recurring themes on my syllabus was "you deserve to be called by your name." It took me all summer to track down a copy, but here is an excerpt, just in time for Joni's birthday:
The Names of WomenYet, despite their power and beauty, these elegant and naturally descriptive names were slowly, surely, and sadly, overwritten throughout the 20th Century by Christianized, Anglicized and Frenchified replacements: "She Knows the Bear became Marie. Sloping Cloud was christened Jeanne. Taking Care of the Day and Yellow Day Woman turned into Catherines. Identities are altogether lost."
Louise Erdrich
"Ikwe is the word for woman in the language of the Anishinabe, my mother’s people, whose descendants, mixed with and married to French trappers and farmers, are the Michifs of the Turtle Mountain reservation in North Dakota. Every Anishinabe Ikwe, every mixed-blood descendant like me, who can trace her way back a generation or two, is the daughter of a mystery. The history of the woodland Anishinabe – decimated by disease, fighting Plains Indian tribes to the west and squeezed by European settlers to the east–is much like most other Native American stories, a confusion of loss, a tale of absences, of a culture that was blown apart and changed so radically in such a short time that only the names survive.
"And yet, those names.
"The names of the first women whose existence is recorded on the rolls of the Turtle Mountain Reservation, in 1892, reveal as much as we can ever recapture of their personalities, complex natures and relationships. These names tell stories, or half stories, if only we listen closely.
"There once were women named Standing Strong, Fish Bones, Different Thunder. There once was a girl called Yellow Straps. Imagine what it was like to pick berries with Sky Coming Down, to walk through a storm with Lightning Proof. Surely, she was struck and lived, but what about the person next to her? People always avoided Steps Over Truth, when they wanted a straight answer, and I Hear, when they wanted to keep a secret. Glittering put coal on her face and watched for enemies at night. The woman named Standing Across could see things moving far across the lake. The old ladies gossiped about Playing Around, but no one dared say anything to her face. Ice was good at gambling. Shining One Side loved to sit and talk to Opposite the Sky. They both knew Sounding Feather, Exhausted Wind and Green Cloud, daughter of Seeing Iron. Center of the Sky was a widow. Rabbit, Prairie Chicken and Daylight were all little girls. She Tramp could make great distance in a day of walking. Cross Lightning had a powerful smile. When Setting Wind and Gentle Woman Standing sang together the whole tribe listened. Stop the Day got her name when at her shout the afternoon went still. Log was strong, Cloud Touching Bottom weak and consumptive. Mirage married Wind. Everyone loved Musical Cloud, but children hid from Dressed in Stone. Lying Down Grass had such a gentle voice and touch, but no one dared to cross She Black of Heart.
"We can imagine something of these women from their names. . . ."
Erdrich explains what happened in her family of origin: "The daughters of my own ancestors, Kwayzancheewin – Acts Like a Boy and Striped Earth Woman – go unrecorded, and no hint or reflection of their individual natures comes to light through the scattershot records of those times, although they must have been genetically tough in order to survive: there were epidemics of typhoid, flu, measles and other diseases that winnowed the tribe each winter. They had to have grown up sensible, hard-working, undeviating in their attention to their tasks. They had to have been lucky. . . . all the mothers going back into the shadows, when women wore names that told us who they were" (emphasis added).
SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS ON MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Saturday, September 28th
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