A Good Path

This was a collaborative effort between Marlin and I several years ago: he provided video and sound, I did the editing and some scripting.

This is a test to see if it's possible to stream it effectively.



Watch Mikana Movie.divx in Activism & Non-Profit | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

The Final Words

There is only one Creator, and he cares and watches out for us all.
When He appears, some will see an angel.
Others will see a white bison.

Thank you for reading.

Chris

What Now?

And that leaves us with a question. The big one. What now?

For me, my work is fairly well cut out for me. I need to sort thousands of photographs and 163 hours of footage, trying to make some sense out of the image overkill. The question still lingers as to how that will integrate with my normal work schedule. The possibility of closing Novamation Studios semi-permanently to focus on this one project seems... well, a possibility.

Emotionally, things are less clear. On arriving home, I found myself almost immediately adrift. Besides the instant disappearance of the brutal but exciting pace of the last six weeks -- which is a notable factor, itself -- I'm left with a head full of thoughts that have nowhere to go. I immersed myself into a world of tortured children and shattered adults; now I'm back in Nebish. What do I... what do I do with these things I know? How do I make my peace with a world that's changed, with a country that will never seem the same again? And that other world I experienced for all that time -- it hasn't gone anywhere. The truth is that it's still all around every one of us; a living world that's still in deep pain.

And I'll have to learn to live with that fact. The first step: I acknowledge that this world of mass graves on American soil is true. I acknowledge that horrible things were done in the name of my country and my religion. I acknowledge that the victims are still here today. I acknowledge that everyone who has ever looked away bears responsibility, including myself. I am guilty. And I am sorry.

I will do my part to aid the healing. The time to overcome has arrived, and I'm thankful I was given an opportunity to contribute in such a direct way.

And, surrounded by 163 tapes, perhaps my work has really only just started.




***

For you, Gentle Reader, I can't answer the question. Everyone decides "What Now?" for themselves a thousand times for a thousand different issues. If you'd like to know more, resources are out there, as are other perspectives than mine. Or, if you'd like to forget about all of this, you'll lead a life that's a little more comfortable -- I can't deny anyone that choice.

For me, for better or for worse, this story is now a part of who I am.

If you want to keep learning, here's a few stepping stones for you.


WHITE BISON
Main Page
News Updates
Daily Meditation

LONNY'S VIDEOS
These are a little difficult to watch, as they haven't been edited in any way, but they can give you an idea of what went on.
Main Page
Chemawa, Part 1
DC, Part 1

MOUNT PLEASANT
These people were unbelievably well-organized. Their web site has (edited!) videos of the event in Michigan, written summaries, statements from local leaders and more. They even have images from DC. I love Mt. Pleasant. I've heard there's a great slideshow available on the site, as well, but I haven't found it yet.
Web Page

NEWSPAPERS
Sequoia
College Media
Indian Country
Lac Du Flambeau
Oklahoma

FACEBOOK
Mt. Pleasant, Again
Healing Project (not sure what this is, but Lonny recommended it)
White Bison (the pictures seem to be down today)

BOOKS
Many books are available on Amazon. I can't specifically recommend any myself, as I haven't read any of them yet.

THE MOVIE
I am, essentially, done with this blog now. In a few months, when clips from the eventual movie start coming together, I may post short clips here. I will certainly post them on my "normal" webpage, and I imagine they will appear at White Bison, as well.

There and Back Again

Finding ourselves parked in several cars deep (I guess it was the valet section. Oops.), Patrick and I spent a day checking out Washington. The plan had been to head north and visit my friends in New York, but those plans were foiled by the need to return the rental van and my sudden driving urge to be back home.

The van probably deserves its own paragraph. Penske found one last way to screw with us. These are, mind you, the same people who gave away the car I had reserved initially, triggering all this vehicular wackiness in the first place. At the 11th hour, they changed their mind about the return of the van, refusing to accept any other options. The plan had been to drop it off in Fargo, catch a ride somehow to Minneapolis, and use car (parked there) to make it home. Penske decided it would be better if we returned it to Oregon, instead. I cannot be clear enough: they went back on their original word -- Fargo had originally been fine.

I hear good things about U-Haul.

Anyways, we found someone in Minneapolis willing to drive it back -- for an appropriate fee and airfare home. My job became getting it to him as soon as possible, in hopes that it would return to Oregon by the 1st.

But, being parked in, we spent a day looking at the city. A brief trip to the Holocaust museum quickly became more than I felt I could handle. The worst problem was the research I'd been hearing about; people are now looking into the lessons of the boarding schools (started in 1879) that the Nazis may have implimented during the 1940s. Evidence seems to indicate that some ideas, particularly about dehumanization, may have been directly borrowed. Whenever something truly meaningful happens, for good or ill, the ripples stretch out for incredible distances.

***

Once we finally got out of the city, Patrick was good enough to do almost all the driving. I wrote, thought, and slept... and played Zelda. We travelled in an almost straight line, with few stops. I needed to be home.

Maryland is very pretty. Wisconsin has reasonably affordable lazer tag. That's pretty much all I remember about the ride home. We dropped off the van with little fanfare in Minneapolis; I noted with smug satisfaction that everything in that huge, ungainly van fit into my '96 Camry. Together, Patrick and I made it to within 40 miles of home, at which point the transmition exploded.

I finished playing Zelda (Oracle of Seasons) in a ditch less than an hour from home. We'll call that something like an accomplishment.

Washington, The Photos

The Saganaw Chippewa have been huge supporters.

Joe looks on as the drum plays.

We had at least three drums at various times.

Joe, our master of ceremonies.

Horace opens with a prayer.



The space reserved for us.

Marlin addresses the crowd.

Even in our end-of-Journey celebration, we steered clear of "light-hearted." There's just too much hurt out there.

Patrick helped run the cameras, often getting a sky-view.

One of the drummers reflects.

Dr. Duran.

Ozzie and Horace, again, along with Horace's wife.

The second drum group.

The third drum group.

Hunter talks about cultural impact.

I can't remember her name right this instant...

This is actually the first time he's ever been asked to speak at the Smithsonian.

Look at those balconies start to fill!

Everyone's prayers are needed, and the room filled when the time was right.

A mother and child dance around the cedar-ring.

The singers from Mt. Pleasant return.

It takes everyone.

Horace ends with a sacred song. Also pictured: Ozzie and Hunter.

Sometimes, interesting shots come from being forced to hang back from the action.

One of the ending songs, with innumerable hand-drums.

People begin to disperse.

Kateri and Ozzie, in that order (left-to-right).

6/24 NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN [Washington, DC]

And, suddenly, here it was: the end of the line. The last drop. The bitter end. The end credits. The bottom of the barrel. The final bow. The last of the Mohicans.

Too far?

The day was divided into three basic sections. I'm going to deal with each part briefly: as I said before, in many ways the Journey has already ended. Honestly, the day felt much less like a final verse -- rather, a coda. Also, as I am now home (hooray), I find myself increasingly anxious to move on; this is the most difficult that writing has been.

Part One: Setup
The setup was, simply put, incredible. It was nice to be admitted into the Smithsonian atrium hours before it opened, and to be recognized by the guards as an important person (wheee!), but the real thrill was watching the other key members begin to fill the space. For the first hour, every person who entered was a familiar face from some previous stop. There's Joe and Hunter from Michigan; and there's Lonnie from Chemawa; there's Jolene and her daughter, who we last saw in Idaho; the drummers from White Earth; singers from Mt. Pleasant; Horace and Ozzie, who saw us off on this Journey; Kitty and her crew from New Mexico -- and her crew from the East Coast, too; the little girl who sang with the drum group in Carlisle; and so many more: faces from around the nation who all gathered here today with a shared cause and a belief in healing.

If I could walk away with only one emotion, it'd be whatever it was I was feeling at that moment. Some pride, yes, but more a sense of openly-bemused wonder as I discovered that my life was a TV show and I'd just wandered into the cast reunion episode -- or maybe a "best of" clip show.


Part Two: The Ceremony

Besides the familiar faces, there were any number of normal museum visitors who came and went throughout the day, making the crowd more fluid than any we'd seen before. That was to be expected, I suppose.

Dr. Duran said something interesting from a linguistic point-of-view. In his theory, this level of white-on-red violence could only have been perpetrated by people of European-decent. The reason, he argued, is that Europeans have noun-based language and thinking patterns. This becomes crucial in dehumanizing the victims. If you're going to cut the fingers off a child, you must be able to see the child as an object, and the fingers as separate objects to remove. Otherwise, you simply couldn't go through with it.

Most Indian languages, by contrast, are fundamentally verb-based. There is no word for "child," and the very concept is difficult to grasp; instead, you have a person who is "childing" - a process, a motion through time. The way we speak has a deep impact on the way we're able to think; most people who speak Native languages as a first tongue go naturally to "living" when faced with a child. The objectification of the "person"-noun never occurs. Violence on a European scale simply couldn't occur -- human nature would rebel against the orders without a way of distancing one's self.

It's an interesting thought.

The best part of the ceremony was at the very end, when people were invited to say their prayers for forgiveness in front of the Hoop. It was a magical moment -- the seats had been sparsely-filled only seconds ago; in the time it took me to reposition my camera, every seat was suddenly filled. I have no idea where these people came from. Additionally, the atrium was filling with people standing around the edges, looking in, and every balcony and staircase to the top of the building was packed with faces. I stress again that I don't know where these people came from; it was as close to science-fiction materialization as I expect to ever see.


This is an extremely-rough cut, making it difficult to see the people on the balconies; they're too dark. They're there. And there's a lot of them.

Part Three: Wrap-Up

Wrap-up was strangely quiet. We had planned for some processing time, but Don was unable to get away from people asking questions and wanting a moment of his time. Eventually, Marlin ushered him out a back door to give him some time to himself. Maria was in charge of making sure that some of the guests made it to their hotels safely, and she left shortly afterward. Wayne and I cleaned up a little, then went to get gas for his car. We got horribly lost on the way.

And this is the way the Journey ends: not with a bang but a whimper.

We never got that debriefing time, and we scattered our separate ways to head back to our different states. I guess this is the way of things; Don is apparently already knee-deep in planning for a series of community-grief ceremonies, and Marlin and Wayne are likely to be assisting him in various ways. There's an awful lot of work left to be done in the world, and I think it's time for me to be back home, knowing I helped a little bit with one small piece.

--
edit: Unfortunately, due mostly to Iran, the White House was pretty well booked up with responsibilities. In the end, no one arrived to accept our petition. Its time will come, however.

America Town

In some ways, the Journey is over. Well, that is, our part of the Journey is over. The neat thing about this is the feeling that it will keep going on in various places in different ways long after we've gone back to real life. But our piece might have finished in Carlisle.

But we said we'd end in Washington, and that's our plan. The last event is scheduled for the atrium of the Smithsonian, where we hope to present the petition to a White House representative. We'll see how that goes: I turned on the news that night for the first time in over a week. Apparently, our arrival coincided with the worst train crash in Washington history, a sharp outbreak of violence in Iran, and threats from North Korea. My chance to fist-bump Obama seems to have dimmed a little.

Since the Smithsonian is not known for being a boarding school, I think this last event will be more of a celebration and wrap-up. We'll see.


We arrived a day early to make sure all arrangements were finalized. Suddenly having a day without driving or filming was shockingly jarring. I spent the whole day in a daze, feeling like I was leaving something important undone. I chose not to look around the city much; this was due to a combination of being worn out, being already overstimulated, and not having transportation. The van might have made its last lousy turn: trying to park it in an underground garage, I got it wedged between the floor and the ceiling. I'd say the sign they've got that says, "Maximum Height" is off by about an inch and a half. Until they fix the sign, I think I'll just leave a van there to remind people.

edit: Wayne got the van unstuck, doing yet further damage to it. He often mentions that it might have been cheaper to just buy me a vehicle. Sadly, he might be right. We won't be taking the van to the Smithsonian tomorrow morning, as neither of us dares to try to park it again.


Patrick (little brother) also arrived in Washington at about the same time. He's volunteered to help out with the final event, and to drive half of the way home. This is wonderful news, as I'm about done driving, and it'll be nice to share this event with someone I'll see again.

Speaking of which, I feel like we're rapidly heading towards a remake of "The Breakfast Club." You know the sense where the weeny one says something like, "We're still gonna be friends after this, right?" and the answer is no? Once this is done, Marlin's going to go back to being the secretly lonely jock, Wayne's going to be the science fair nerd, Maria will be the girl, I'm going to be Emilo Estevez, and Don will be Don Corleone.

Kateri, Don's daughter, also arrived. She's been the voice on the other end of the HQ telephone and organized all our hotel rooms, credit card procurement, coordinator coordination, and the like. She seems really organized and almost immediately started telling Wayne what to do. As he's been the taskmaster so far, I had a little twinge of unfair and perverse delight at seeing him get orders. I say unfair, because he's been really good about getting us where we need to be and making sure we're doing the right things. I imagine his job is akin to herding cats, some days, and he's done well.

In the interests of saving money and not sleeping on the curb, Patrick and I shared the crummy little bed in the hotel. That's not something we need to do, ever again; and if we must, I'd use a mattress with at least one spring. And I'd put it in a room with air conditioning.

The Hotel Harrington, Washington: Now With Bars of Soap in the Sink!

I'm afraid that's the best product placement I can manage right now. It's going to be a big day tomorrow.

6/21 CARLISLE INDIAN SCHOOL [Pennsylvania]

The morning opened with the usual compliment of hassles. We were given a nice ballroom-type room to use, just off of (what I think was) the barracks. The sound system was supposedly disconnected for repairs, necessitating the unpacking of our own equipment. The ceiling-mounted projector still worked, but the only connection it offered was a small port hidden near the baseboard in back of the room. This meant that to use the projector would put the computer out of the range of Don's wireless slideshow-clicker, and too far back to access the speakers. So we started setting up and calibrating our own equipment for that, too.

I say that the sound system was supposedly disconnected because there woman in charge of the building was pretty put out that we were there at all, and wasn't too subtle about it. Marlin overheard her making what he described as "racist comments" and she was incredibly annoyed when I asked for help finding the projector connection. When we'd looked at the space last night, it was being used to host a wedding reception that clearly had some form of sound system. If hooking up the microphones merely involved flipping a switch, I wouldn't be surprised if she neglected to mention it.

She'll be mentioned again, so let's give her a name. How about... Mrs. Pants?


The ballroom, now set up with tables and fancy glasses, began filling up nicely. Raven started the day off, using her unique position as a non-military resident of the complex: "I'm just a spouse, so no one can stop me. I'm not going to lie!" (Teddy, her husband, is some kind of officer and might have limits placed on what he can say.) Raven emphasized the amount of pre-planning Pratt did before starting the school. He knew that it would be important to objectify and dehumanize the children, and knew the psychological importance of uniforms, cutting hair, and renaming. The very first building that was constructed was the prison for runaways. Once that building was constructed, he began his legal kidnapping -- every other new building was built by the children. In short, they were slave laborers used to build their own nightmare.

A note on the cutting of hair, which remains a major grievance to this day. It can be hard to imagine the importance of this act; personally, my white perspective led me to simply disregard it for the first week or so. "Hey, free haircut," I said. Actually, the cutting of hair was a three-pronged attack. First, it made the children look alike and thus made it easier for the teachers to accept inhumane orders: you weren't hurting a specific child, just one of those innumerable Indians. The second prong was aimed at specific tribes: it was a cultural mandate that hair only be cut during times of extreme grieving. I have heard that some people follow this to this day, shaving their heads if a family member dies and under no other circumstances so much as trimming bangs. The forced haircuts acted both as a well-recognized violation and as a way of insisting that their previous lives were "dead." Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. The final prong was targeted at some woodland tribes, who used hair braiding as a spiritual lesson and meditation, not unlike the Christian rosary. As it was explained to me, strands of hair are somehow identified as representing either the body, mind, or soul. Only when all three are weaved together is strength obtained. This familiar lesson and meditative activity might have been a source of support to children, even while their actual bodies, minds, and souls were under assault; but Pratt was canny and had learned a lot about Native beliefs while fighting in the Indian Wars.


Raven also pointed out a nearby building that was the school's punishment house; it, too, had been constructed by unwilling children. (Ashburn House? My notes are unclear). She advised against checking it out if you believe in any form of lingering energy, karma, or space-memory. "Can you imagine," she asked, what must be left behind in "an entire building used for nothing but punishment?" I think I must have grown jaded by the stories I've been hearing; it took Raven's question to make me step back and realize how odd it is to have an entire punishment building. This was no side corner, or chair turned to face the wall in a classroom. Pratt knew he'd need a multi-story structure just to handle the endless waves of beatings.

They were children.

How could an adult do these things to a child? How can the teachers go home, have dinner with their families, kiss their kids goodnight, then get up in the morning to do it all over again the next day? What made that okay?

Pratt also realized the importance of keeping the children from trusting each other; from the first day, all punishments were chosen by other students, and no one was punished harder than a student who had chosen an insufficient punishment for a peer.

Raven ended by talking about her own past in the boarding school. She's not particulalry old -- certainly no more than 50 and likely less -- and still talked about being taken unwillingly from her family and held until she was considered tamed; she was not released from her boarding school until she was 19. She spent most of her life hating her mother for sending her to school; only recently did she find out the true story. Even within her lifetime, the government was still abducting Indians, just more subtly. Her mother was served papers saying that her children would be taken to "Indian schools" unless she appeared in court to say that their education was already provided for. The papers were served the same day as the court hearing. The court she was required to appear in was 1,000 miles away, and she owned no form of transportation other than shoes. The next day, she lost legal custody of her children -- that part of the process, at least, was done timely. The situation was never explained to the little girl being pushed into a strange car by strange men, and Raven hated her mother for decades almost as much as she hated the school.

Her goal in life is to make sure that this kind of treatment never happens to any of her children or their babies. That part that's most stunning about that statement is the reinforcement of the idea that this is happening right now. Today. The corrupt boarding schools of old are no longer in operation, but the world is full of people in June of 2009 who remember them personally and worry that they could return.

The rest of the morning went as per usual; and lunch was particularly enjoyable because our table quickly filled up with people wanting a moment of Don's time. The woman who had taken the prized seat right next to him seemed content just to listen, however. Finally, someone asked

if she had any questions or comments; she guiltily admitted that she'd accidentally walked in a few minutes ago and saw that there was a free lunch and everyone seemed to be eating. Her acquisition of the most sought-after chair in the room was due to a fluke: it was the first seat she saw when she walked in the room. I thought it was pretty funny, and Don seemed to appreciate finally sitting next to someone who would just let him eat his lunch.

Kitty also joined us at lunch. I somehow haven't mentioned her before, but she's showed up periodically throughout the journey. As I understand it, she's making a documentary about health disparities in minority communities. Every once in a while, she shows up and films an event. Today I got my first real sense of how driven she is; she long-ago realized I was the lowest-ranked member of the Journey totem pole. Despite the fact that we sat next to each other, she tuned out everything I said in the hopes of getting a good sound byte from someone important. I left a little miffed.

After lunch, someone talked about the "classes" that Pratt first instituted to justify calling his empire a "school." There were two classes, one for each gender. Girls learned to be servants, boys learned to load and clean cannons. That was it.

One woman apologized that her brother refused to attend. He is an elder of some standing, but he long-ago refused to ever forgive the school. When he was a young boy, the school decided to expand their gym facilities, which meant building over a burial ground. Some children were forced to do the construction; others, including himself, were made to dig up the bodies and relocate them by hand. Decades of nightmares have solidified his resolve to curse Carlisle until his dying day; he would not come today.

If you remember, Gentle Reader, we had an elder named Ozzie travelling with us for the first day or two of the Journey, way back when. He returned today to see us through to the end. It was about this time that I really started realizing how great he really is: a good speaker, a kind heart, and a good sense of humor, all back up the tremendous strength he has gained from overcoming personal obstacles and alcohol. As he tells it, the best result of his service in the Korean War is that he could use his uniform to get admitted to bars and other public locations. Without that, Indians were immediately shown the door. No, their money wasn't good enough. Only as a veteran could he take part in public life.

He also told a great joke about "a friend of his" staggering away from a bar late at night. His shoes were untied, and he had one foot on the sidewalk and one in the gutter, slowly hobbling forward. Suddenly a policeman appeared and said, "I'm sorry, sir, you'll have to come with me. You're clearly drunk." In response, the man burst into tears and ran forward to hug the policeman. "Thank you, thank you! I thought I was a cripple!"

If you somehow get the chance in your life to hear Ozzie tell it, I recommend it.

It happened to be fathers' day, and Ozzie ended his piece with a plea to fathers. He acknowledged how difficult it can be to show love or affection, particularly for men whose emotional growth had been purposely stunted -- either by schools or by parents damaged by schools. It's been one of his greatest battles in his own life, and he stressed how critical it is for every father to learn how to be affectionate. I can hardly imagine this goodhearted man being anything but kind, but I guess that just means that he won his fight and came out stronger for it.
One person got up and tearfully said that their grandmother didn't have any fingers; it had never once been discussed and they had only realized today that it wasn't a birth defect -- it was a punishment earned at school. Perhaps you remember the story of the woman from Minnesota; apparently that punishment had a precedent at Carlisle.

Sometimes, there's nothing more painful than connecting the dots that you never wanted to.

We also learned today that Carlisle set another precedent: the "crying tree." Apparently, students at many schools would secretly find a hidden tree that would be designated as the crying tree. It was a place to hide and vent your feelings, and it was a sacred trust. No matter the punishments or the rewards for snitching, no one ever betrayed someone sneaking away to the tree. It was a place without teasing or judgment, where kids of all ages went to weep until their last tear was spent.

One young woman stood up during the open mic and shared an unusual story. She wasn't Native, but felt that she could understand. At 15, her behavior was so far out of control that her mother signed her up for a behavior-modification center. It was supposed to be psychologically soothing, but as soon as the doors closed on the van, she was handcuffed and taken to a grim facility where the sound of screams echoed at night and rumors of sexual abuse were widespread. After two weeks, she was handcuffed again and sent to another facility in Costa Rica where physical punishment increased exponentially. She was denied permission to call home and her letters were torn up. She said she didn't know much about the boarding schools, but she knew was it was to be distrustful, to be imprisoned, to be scared, to be hurt.

It's possible that her story might have holes; after all, she WAS sent in for severe behavior modification. But even so, the fact that a parallel can be drawn so easily between the treatment of ordinary Indian children at school and the treatment of disturbed youth sent to brainwashing centers is striking, irregardless of the details of her story. After all, we've really been talking about prison camps all along, and treatment that would be innapropriate for criminals, much less little kids.

And the damage is clear. An elder woman showed her vulnerability by sadly reflecting: "We grew up not loving ourselves, because there was no one...[inaudible]." The tears drowned out the end of her thought. Another woman remembers how her mother sat down one day and taught her brother which graves to spit on. Many of the graves contained people who had died generations before, like President Andrew Jackson. This story, besides being a clear example of anger passing from parent to child, shows how long that poisonous hate can last -- she hated people who died before she was born, a hatred she must have gotten from her own parents.

The day ended with a walk to the cemetery: over 175 dead children whose bodies they never sent home. Historical markers peppered the road and paths the whole way; all dealing with the military heroes who had lived or trained here. The only mention of the Indian School I saw was a single plaque commemorating the athletic achievements of student Jim Thorpe, who won double golds in the Olympics. One wall of a building was devoted to the names and pictures of people associated with Carlisle. All were men, and Jim Thorpe was the only non-white person.

The local drum group escorted us over, carrying the big drum by straps and always playing. This is the only female drum group I have seen on our Journey; in fact, it is the only time I have ever seen an Indian woman play anything other than a hand drum. When I asked about this, someone wistfully told me that it was not the original way: gender roles are important in traditional society. However, since the local elders have all moved on without passing on the old teachings, tradition is changing. Everywhere, Indian culture is making a resurgence, but it's also more in flux than it's ever been -- some of the old ways have simply been lost, and there are voids which are being filled in with new ideas; thus, the women's drum that played the old songs for us. I leave it up to the individual reader to decide how this time of charge should be approached: some are wistful, some are hopeful, many fall somewhere in between.

Kitty's right-hand man, Aaron, did his best to interrupt the final ceremony in his quest for the perfect shot. Even though I was as annoyed as anyone else, I was also a little jealous. He seemed to be getting some good shots. I've gotten the hang of getting shots while staying the heck out of the way, but it'd be nice to get a close-up like his once in a while. But not to behave like him.

In the cemetery, Maria reported finding 8 graves in a row marked "Unknown."

There's not much I can say about the final ceremony in the Carlisle graveyard. It was the most moving graveyard service we've done, and the pains unearthed are some of the oldest and deepest-rooted ones in the Native American psyche. I'm hoping my video can do more justice than my words, but I doubt it: it was a beautiful moment and the tears shed under the central tree might do more good than anything else we've said or done.
　
As we were packing up, Mrs. Pants appeared again. She left her work behind to took us aside and humbly thank us for coming. Today, we did good.

Pleasantville

As we approached our final stop, everything changed.

Captain Richard Pratt was a hero of the Indian wars. Left in charge of a large group of POWs, he seized upon a plan no one had considered before. The military had shown him that the best way to create a good solider was to break young men down with physical exertion, stress, and being yelled at while crawling through mud. What if those same methods were applied to Indians? Could they be reduced to bare humanity, then built back up as whites?

And so he began experimenting on POWs -- a sentence which probably is just as messed up as it sounds. When he felt he'd perfected his methods of reprogramming, he had a vision of the next logical step: if this procedure were applied to every single Indian, their race would finally be essentially exterminated.

But, as the wars had shown him, Indians were fierce and determined. Demoralizing and destroying the POWs had been difficult -- too difficult to try to repeat on a large scale.
The solution was to leave the warriors be: the ideal target was children under 10. Maybe, if action was swift and encompassing enough, the entire Indian bloodline could be converted into a nation of domestic servants and laborers within just a few generations. America would have an entire ethnic subculture of neo-slaves.

In 1879, Pratt received funding from the Department of War and governmental permission to begin seizing children and testing his methods; he founded Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania.


Our entire Journey has been a quest from the farthest reaches of the country, coming ever closer to the place where it all began. Ground Zero of a cultural genocide. Carlisle.


For the first several weeks, we expected Carlisle to be a large and powerful gathering. The buildings are still present, but they have been remade as a war college.

(Side note: Carlisle was set to become the premier war college in the United States; but, at the last minute, a crucial funding bill was rewritten and given to West Point. West Point has held that honor ever since.)

Then, for the last week, we started to expect Carlisle to be a disastrous stop. The paperwork for our presence started to be denied, the administrators became cold and dismissive, and we couldn't get clear answers over the phone anymore. Most critically, we felt it was important to end the Journey with a healing ceremony in the graveyard: the final resting place of almost 200 children and babies, including Lucy Prettyeagle, the first child ever killed in boarding school. The administration reluctantly gave us a concession: we could say a prayer in the graveyard, but only 8 people could attend.

This actually became partially my problem, as I looked for ways to get cameras into the graveyard and webcast the prayer live, something I've never tried to do before. We felt that visiting the children's graves was too important to do in secret.


And, standing on Carlisle's doorstep, we picked up some divine intervention in the form of a couple that dropped out of the sky. Raven had heard about White Bison indirectly, and only accidentally learned of our plan to visit Carlisle by curious web-surfing a few days before. She quickly convinced her husband, Teddy, that they needed to help. In almost no time at all, they used their influence to slice through the red tape and arrange nearly everything.

Through them, we received military passes to get past the gates. And, although the graveyard remained closed to non-military personnel, Raven carefully explained that every single attendee -- however many there may be -- would be a personal guest staying at her home on-base. As invited guests staying more than one day under her care, they would have more-or-less free access to large portions of the grounds, including the cemetary.


This is, as best as I can tell, divine intervention; and, thus, a good sign that we're doing the right thing. There are Native beliefs I don't understand, and a few things I don't agree with, but there's no real question that Don is doing holy work.

And so, with no time left remaining, the path to Carlisle was suddenly cleared for us.


The night we arrived, Raven and Teddy invited us to a backyard barbeque held at their friends' house. We drove past military structures of brick and stone; then we took a sharp turn and suddenly found ourselves in a street taken directly from the 1950s. Little rows of similar houses stared blankly at each other across the street, trees lined the little green rectangle set aside in the center, and a little metal slide waited for kids to climb its carefully-polished ladder. The Good Humor man wasn't there that instant, but surely he was just around the corner with a non-threatening smile and frozen treats that could be yours for a shiny dime.

The BBQ was great. I had two hamburgers, then watched the kids play Deadspace for a while. If I weren't happily full of beef, I might wonder about the perception of violence that comes from growing up surrounded by military leaders hard at work, then playing extraordinarily graphic games for entertainment. But I'm full, so I'll just say that I wish I had Deadspace. I miss video games.

As we were leaving, Marlin clapped me on the back and complimented me on how much fortitude I've gained during this Journey; once, I was catching cat naps at every gas station and interacting with the world through a veil of blurry fatigue. Now, I'm at least kind of alert some of the time. I thanked him, drew up a list of the projects I hoped to get done before morning, then fell asleep fully clothed at the hotel. Oh, well.

6/19 THOMAS INDIAN SCHOOL [Gowanda, New York]

I've only been in New York once before; I had an extended layover at the airport. I thought, perhaps, I could go check out the sights and pick up some souvenirs while I was there; instead, I ended up falling asleep on a bench in the airport. I imagine sleeping on a bench sums up at least some of the New York experience.


More recently: The drive through the New York state was notably different than the flight through New York City. The highway system appears to be composed of nothing but windy back roads through forested, hilly areas. Overall, it looks a little like Michigan or Wisconsin, but more faded around the edges. It's pastoral without brilliant colors.


On reaching Gowanda, we drove straight to the clinic where the coordinators worked. Their goal in promoting this event is promotion of community mental health, and they were glad to see us. We discussed the upcoming event a little, but the conversation got sidetracked by stories of how unpleasant the clinic is and how often staff members die.

As a piece of background information, the clinic had been built over a burial ground. If Hollywood has taught me anything, it's that there are four buildings you should never put on Indian burial grounds: homes, hospitals, pet shops, and hotels. I think a clinic is close enough to 'hospital' to put it in the danger zone.

What followed was, I think, an exorcism.

Actually, whatever it was that we did (it involved feathers and a bell and smoke) differed from an exorcism in at least one important way. In an exorcism, it's a direct conflict between a human and a supernatural agent. They fight, and one is destroyed. (disclaimer: my understanding of the procedure comes mostly from The Exorcist III: Legion)

The feel here was friendlier; inviting any lost spirits to come home. No one wants to hang around a clinic, anyways: here's an open door for you.

This was one of the stranger adventures. Personally, I'd be surprised if a bell made the clinic suddenly better; but if everyone shows up for work tomorrow believing things are improved, that's bound to make it a more pleasant place to be. In that way, I'm sure we helped.

That said, my mantra for this Journey still holds true: "There are more things in Heaven and Earth..." What the heck do I know, anyways?


The next day saw me get a late start out of bed. The bizarre little hotel we stayed in neglected to provide any clocks, and my cell phone ran out of juice during the night. I say "bizarre" not just because of the oddly-shaped rooms and obvious widespread mildew, but because the owners clearly were hedging their bets about how best to make a buck. This was possibly the world's only combination hotel/lounge/restaurant/karate academy. I dare you to find me one other than in Gowanda, New York.


In the parking lot, I met an early arrival who spent the day trying to get an autographed picture of Don to go with his autographed book. I tried to help a time or two, but you have to admit that it would be pretty creepy if any of us traveled around the country with a stack of pre-printed photographs of our boss. After a certain number of weeks, human relationships just don't work that way.


The person slated to wire the microphones didn't show up, so I bowed out of the outside march-to-the-site so I could tinker with sound. The plan was to walk from the public library to a wing of the clinic constructed on the grounds of the old boarding school. My focus on equipment was not, I guess, appropriate: Marlin drove up looking for me and communicated via frantic hand gestures that I should leave whatever I was doing and go take pictures.

This is not the type of situation in which I work best, and in my hurry to get into Marlin's car I left behind my "shoe," a small but important piece of plastic that holds a video camera onto a tripod. I realized it was missing once I was at the library, and I tried to run there and back before the procession started.

If you've ever spent any real amount of time with me, you know what happened next. I got horribly lost. Luckily, the moment I left the library door, Wayne inferred both what was happening and what was going to happen; it took only a few minutes before his car caught up with my headlong plunge in the wrong direction. He drove me the rest of the way. Thanks.

The whole adventure turned out to be for naught, however, as the batteries on the camcorder gasped their last soon after I turned it on. The constant draining and recharging that they've been put through the last few weeks have all but destroyed all four of the lithium-ion packs I purchased. The wear and tear on equipment is really starting to add up; this will be a much more expensive trip than I planned. There's a lot that I'm just going to have to replace when I get home. In the meantime, I can't count on using my cameras without direct access to AC plug-ins. At least I got some stills.





After the opening speakers finished, it became clear that my microphonery had been inadequate -- thanks to problems in the building's wiring I couldn't have anticipated and hadn't previously had time to test. Although the speaker was, technically, amplified, her words were still inaudible in most of the room and raising the volume on the mic caused it to move directly into wild distortion. To fix the problem, I executed what may have been my very best set-up operation. NASCAR had nothing on me. I had our own speaker system brought in, set up, wired, and running in half the time it took at any other location.

Oh, man. I re-read that sentence and realized how proud I am about setting up speaker cables quickly. Geez. No wonder I'm single.

Anyways, foolishly proud of myself, I left the newly-mic'd podium behind to see if any local businesses had donated snacks (this sometimes happens). Like most places, they had bottles of water available for people; unlike anywhere else, however, they also had little packets of powder for people. With a few seconds of shaking, you could have your very own personal bottle of fruit punch, lemonade, or berry juice. What a great, great idea!


The morning went fine after that.

If I had to condense the afternoon into a single theme, I'd have to go with: "Thomas Indian School was okay for me, because it was an escape from my alcoholic parents who couldn't afford to feed their kids." The dark irony here, as I'm sure I've written about elsewhere, is that those parents wouldn't have been abusive alcoholics if they hadn't learned that behavior themselves at Thomas Indian school. When the disease is hailed as its own cure... no wonder the community is sick.


Even while people were grateful that they'd been fed as children, there was still a lot of resentment. The school had been a big supporter of the 'outing' system, in which children 'learn by doing.' This sounds like such a great idea, but it devolved into nothing more than child labor. One man vividly related his years of getting up at 5 AM every day to bale hay. For those not familiar with farm life, baling hay is not a terribly time-sensitive job. So, he worked for a white family for a few years for no pay and little food; but at least he learned a valuable on-the-job skill -- provided he hoped to go into a career of baling hay and nothing else.

A woman spent every summer being 'outed,' and she had no qualms today about calling herself a slave. She ended up at the same farm with a rotating group of other Indian girls, working the fields for long hours every day. The farm family had a daughter of their own, the same age: "their natural daughter [. . .] never set foot in the fields."

Another man remembered the school's policy on brushing teeth. If, at bedtime, your teeth weren't perfectly white, the punishment is that you'd be held while a teacher brushed your teeth until blood was clearly visible. He ended his story with a sardonic: "But I learned how to brush my teeth!" which got a few laughs.

Quote: "Everywhere you went... it was marching."

One young lady's grandmother was permanently blinded in one eye with an iron poker. Once, I would have thought the teacher disciplining her had made a terrible mistake. Now, I immediately entertain the idea that it was completely intentional. My thinking about the world has changed, and that gives me pause. But then again, how many innocent forms of discipline can you think of that involve an iron poker and a little girl's face?

Yet more men talked about going straight from school into the military. "I thought the military was the easiest thing there was!" No amount of control was seen as unusual; no order was questioned. Violence was second-nature.


And even with all the grievances, almost everyone at this stop said that going to school was still better than being left at home.


Their parents had no idea how to raise children, and struggled with their own scarred psyches through self-medication. And then their kids went off to school and grew up with scarred psyches and no idea how to raise children, but a vague appreciation that the school had saved them.

Many people talked about the shame they felt about having no idea how to be a parent to their children, and many confessed to a lifetime of "cold" relationships. The ability to form a meaningful connection with another person had been squelched after being continually thwarted during their formative years. One man put it nicely when he said: "No school teaches intimacy, or love. Parents teach that. And they took us away from our parents!"
And that brings up a fundamental problem with the whole concept of the boarding school, even the "good" upper-class English style. There's a reason why every successful culture in history has had some form of family unit. Some things can never be learned from a textbook, and many lessons can never be beaten into someone. Families are necessary; when removed from the equation, there's a kind of education that is forever lacking.

In the words of one man, "here at the school, you were SEPARATED." His older sister went to the same school. Thanks to the careful oversight of his teachers, he didn't know who she was until he was in his teens.

One older woman revealed the emotional scars she's carried her entire life from never being told about puberty: she had no one to turn to. In a world where every action might potentially lead to harsh, violent discipline, she hid her body's changes in desperate fear and confusion. To this day, it pains her to remember those years.

The last few speakers all touched on the theme of damaged self-image. One man said that his thoughts as a child followed the pattern: "I'm not an Indian. I don't want to be an Indian. Everyone looks down on you..." Another man said: "Growing up, I thought we were second-class citizens;" a belief that he could find endless justification for in the way that he and his family were treated. One elder, at 72 years old, had an audible crack in his voice while talking about his lifelong inability to fit in. School left him "neither white, nor Indian," and he hasn't yet found his full identity, an absence which still hurts.

Luckily, the day ended on a high note, with a man defiantly shouting: "I'm proud to be an Indian, whether I'm wanted or not!" Applause and cheers followed.


Fun Fact: while it was open, Thomas Indian School was almost universally called "Saalem." Now that it's closed, people are willing to admit that the nickname was made up by the children who attended it -- it's a shortened form of "Asylum," modified just enough in pronunciation so as to not be clearly recognizable. Although the word has two meanings, it was always intended to be a reference to a prison, not a sanctuary. That the school actually acted as a dark combination of those definitions is just one of life's ironies.