Saturday, February 11, 2006
End of the World
I remember thinking when I first read Chief Joseph's account of his tragic encounter with our culture of mechanized aggression, that it was truly the end of the world as he and his people had known it. Since then, I have had the pleasure of getting to know someone whose grandparents met Chief Joseph while growing up on the same reservation where he lived in exile.
By my calculations, my new friend's grandparents were probably the same age as Joseph's children, and hence would have possibly looked up to him as a wise and heroic leader from their then recent past. Maybe it was still too traumatic to speak of, Joseph having lost women and children of his family in desperate battles with the US Army.
Whatever the case of the actual relationship between this historic figure and my elder friend's grandparents, I find it intriguing that through living descendants we can still access vivid impressions and oral memory of a time and people who were once free beyond our imagination.
As we, too, now experience the beginning of the end of the world as we have known it, perhaps there are lessons for us in this personal record of the first inhabitants of this land. Maybe--like the progeny of these proud people--we also can learn to adapt and endure and preserve what's worth living and dying for.
By my calculations, my new friend's grandparents were probably the same age as Joseph's children, and hence would have possibly looked up to him as a wise and heroic leader from their then recent past. Maybe it was still too traumatic to speak of, Joseph having lost women and children of his family in desperate battles with the US Army.
Whatever the case of the actual relationship between this historic figure and my elder friend's grandparents, I find it intriguing that through living descendants we can still access vivid impressions and oral memory of a time and people who were once free beyond our imagination.
As we, too, now experience the beginning of the end of the world as we have known it, perhaps there are lessons for us in this personal record of the first inhabitants of this land. Maybe--like the progeny of these proud people--we also can learn to adapt and endure and preserve what's worth living and dying for.
