Indians And Tumbleweeds
R.H.Swift
02/05/1976
Once, when I was around ten, my teacher said something that really upset me.
We'd been studying American History and she told the class, "Someday there will
be no more Indians." When I asked her why, she said, "Because they're a dying
race. Everybody knows that."
I don't know where she got her information, but it was a stupid thing to say to
an Indian kid. I couldn't wait to get home and ask my Grandfather Soaring Eagle
about it. Actually, he was my great-great-grandfather. He was 99 years old, and
people said he couldn't hear very well. Many times, Mom would send me to bring
him in when he didn't answer her call to dinner.
I think he just didn't care much about what people said. But, he always seemed
to care about what I said. He was really good about answering my questions. He
treated me like what I had to say was the most important thing in the whole
world.
When Mom'd ask me to go bring him in, I'd usually find him in the yard, out by
the back fence. My folks owned a home in the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, a
reservation that was rapidly being surrounded by new hotels and casinos. There
was also a new freeway being built right past the back of our house. Grandfather liked to sit out there and watch the men at work. I wished I could be with him right then, instead of having to stay in class. I was quiet the rest of the day, and when school was over, I went straight home.
Grandfather was at his place near the back fence. He sat crosslegged on a small rise in the lawn. His old eyes were looking northward toward the land of the Numa, where he'd been born. His face resembled the wrinkled slopes of the Pah Rah Mountains, where he had played as a youngster and hunted as a young man. His eyes were half-closed, his head cocked to one side. He seemed to be listening to something, and he was smiling as though what he heard was pleasing to him. He didn't turn to look at me, but I could tell he knew I was there. I felt honored when he spoke my name in his warm, rumbling voice.
"How come you walk, Donald, instead of running?"
"Well, my teacher said something today that's got me all mixed up." Grandfather lowered his gaze from the mountains, cast a sidelong glance at me, and began watching a column of red ants. They were hurrying from their tunnel entrance to where he'd laid out some cookie crumbs for them. He smiled with satisfaction as they carried his gift back to their underground homes. Watching the ants, I found myself wondering if they had to go to school. Grandfather coughed.
"She said someday there won't be any more Indians, that we're a dying race. Is that true, Grandfather?"
Grandfather chuckled. It sounded like gentle thunder echoing through his old mountains. "Once, when I was about your age, my teacher said something that really bugged me." "What was it, Grandfather?"
"He said Geronimo was a heathen. He talked of the surrender of this great Apache hero, and called him a heathen. Boy! I got so angry I couldn't keep still. I argued with him--argued with my teacher! He sent me home in disgrace."
"Wow!" I said. "Did you ever go back?"
"Oh yes. My mother convinced me 'heathen' was just a word some people use for those they don't understand. She said we mustn't forget that others don't always see things the same way we do--and not to be hurt by it." He pointed toward a tumbleweed bouncing past, whipped by the afternoon wind that swept the construction site just beyond our fence.
"The Indian's roots are like those of the tumbleweed. Many don't understand that the tumbleweed chooses to detach itself, and to go traveling on the wind. But, no matter where it travels, its roots remain right where they are--at home."
Grandfather pointed at the sun, but his eyes looked into mine. "The sun shines on the tumbleweed as it travels, as well as on its roots which have remained at home. When the rain comes, the roots reawaken and, sensing their incompleteness, stretch up and reach toward the sky with a new body."
He picked up a piece of dry grass and set it adrift on the wind. "In time, when the new body has grown as much as it can, it too detaches itself, and goes traveling on the wind. It goes to new and unfamiliar places."
The piece of grass floated gently to the ground. "All tumbleweed eventually comes to rest. Its seeds go into the soil of its new home, and there it grows and prospers."
Grandfather methodically filled and lighted his old corncob pipe. He pointed to the dusty fields beyond our fence. The wind had shifted, and the tumbleweed was blowing back in the direction from which it had come. "With changing winds," he said, "many tumbleweeds return to where they came from."
Blue smoke from Grandfather's pipe rose skyward to drift away on the wind.
"Many Numa leave home--drift away--but someday they return. And they're changed, different. Better able to survive, generally. The returning tumbleweed brings home new strength--the Numa brings home new ideas."
"But what if they're bad ideas, Grandfather? What then?"
"That's up to you and your brothers and sisters. You must weigh these new ideas, and choose to accept only the good. These will make you better able to survive."
Grandfather looked at me then, a man-to-man look, that said what he was about to tell me was the truth. "We are not a dying race," he said. "Sure, we travel around a lot, but most of us come home. And we're smarter than when we left. You will recognize the good ideas, Donald--take them as your own and use them. And teach them to your children, and your grandchildren, and your great-grandchildren. Do this, and you can be sure our people will never die--not now, not ever."
A tear rolled down his cheek and became a dark blot on his faded denim shirt.
"Are you crying, Grandfather?"
He wiped his eyes on his shirtsleeve. "The wind," he said. "Must've blown a piece of tumbleweed into my eyes."
I hugged Grandfather then, and walked back to the house. I lay down on my bed and thought about what he had said. I wondered where I would travel, what I would bring home--and who would be here when I came back.