Native American Songs and Poems (5 page)

John Smelcer [CHEROKEE/ AHTNA]
for Peter Kalifornsky

Outside my cabin window
I hear Raven's muffled caw rise from the river.

 

A lamp burns low upon my table,
the air is still in the silence of the room.

 

I think often of that night in your trailer at Nikiski,
of the old stories you shared with me—

 

Dena‘ina Suk'dua
“That which is written on the people's tongues.”

 

As a child you were beaten with a stick
for speaking your native tongue. My father,

 

born at Indian River,
does not know his mother's language.

 

Tonight, Kenaitze Indians gather
at a Russian Orthodox Church

 

to mourn in altered syllables among white-washed
crosses and tarnished silver ikons.

 

As I lean toward darkness,
it is your voice that lifts

 

Raven's wings above the riverbank,
his ancient syllables rising like an ochre tide.

Roberta Hill Whiteman [ONEIDA]
for the Oneida speakers and teachers

The sunlight in your heart hovers
in your smile when you share
your knowledge. Women and men
of intelligence and grace,
you created the spirit of this place.
How you have aided
my soul, that fluttering thing
that tries to launch across the haze,
that wants to flit
beyond the first green leaves
of life.

 

The moonlight in your heart
fills this city as it sleeps
and dreams. That moonlight knits our wounds
through the many ways you think
of others climbing
the hills behind you.
Cold Mountain said don't lose
the moment's happiness. The same
wind that woke him wakes us now.

 

The starlight in your heart twinkles
in Duck creek, glistens like dew
on early grass. It
helps the buds break as now
into a shock of green.
When we talk sometimes I see
one intense immense earth
wider than our words and more profound,
brilliant as a breath,
wearing your radiance.

Roberta Hill Whiteman
for Bentley Spang

Pot thrown on a wheel
fingers squished inside
the crowded darkness
push clay's body out
and keep it smooth

 

Fingers can't separate
without the whole wedge
slipping off center
growing sloppy in its shape
ending in the bin

 

Fingers outside move by
pulling up and out
throwing off the slag
the space of sky around them
The potter holds the pressure equal
in both hands as clay becomes
more than the cold promise it
was seconds ago
I thought of fingers

 

pushing inside a mound
and taking shape
when you claimed Indian artists
create “tradition
from the inside”
So that's what we're doing

 

pressed close in this dark
reeling, believing the center
holds because we answer only to the potter
whose other brown hand
applies equal pressure
from beyond.

NOTE: The following list of references includes only those poems which appeared in previous publications.

 

 

“Song for Bringing a Child into the World” and “Song for the Dying” from Densmore, Frances. “Seminole Music.”
Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin
, no. 161 (1956).

“He-Hea Katzina Song,” “Hymn of the Horse” and “Deer Song” from Curtis, Natalie.
The Indians
'
Book
. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1968.

“Song from the Mountain Chant” from Matthews, Washington. “Songs of the Navajo.”
Land of Sunshine,
vol. 5. [n.p.], 1896.

“Song of the Earth” from Klah, Hasteen (as recorded by Mary C. Wheelright).
Navajo Creation Myth: The Story of Emergence.
Santa Fe: Museum of Navajo Ceremonial Art, 1942.

“Yaqui Song” from Densmore, Frances. “Yuman and Yaqui Music.”
Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin,
no. 110 (1932).

“Quail Song” and “Bear Song” from Russell, Frank. “The Pima Indians.”
Eleventh Annual Report of the Bureau of American Anthology, 1889—90.
Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1903.

“Havasupai Medicine Song” from Hinton, Leanne, and Lucille J. Wata-homigie.
Spirit Mountain: An Anthology of Yuman Story and Song.
Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1984.

“Arapaho Ghost Dance Songs” and “Paiute Ghost Dance Song” from James Mooney. “The Ghost Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890.”
Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1892-93.
Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1896.

“Luiseño Songs of the Seasons” from Goddard du Bois, Constance. “The Religion of the Luiseño Indians of Southern California.”
University of California Publications in American Archeology and Ethnology,
vol. 8, no. 3 (1908—10).

“Six Dream Songs” from Demetracopoulou, D. “Wintu Songs.”
Anthropos,
vol. XXX (1935).

“Two Newe Songs” from Crum, Steven J.
Po'i Pentum Tammen Kimmapeh / The Road on Which We Came.
Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1994.

“Song” [Nootka] from Densmore, Frances. “Nootka and Quileute Music.”
Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin
, no. 124 (1939).

“Cradle Song” from Swanton, John R. (ed. Franz Boas).
Haida Songs, Publications of the American Ethnology Society,
vol. III, (1912).

“In the Valley” and “She Will Gather Roses” from Garfield, Viola E.,
et al.,
eds.
The Tsimshian: Their Arts and Music
(Publications of the American Ethnological Society, XVIII). New York: The American Ethnology Society, 1950.

“Utitia'q's Song” from Boas, Franz.
Journal of American Folklore
, vol. 7 (1894).

“Dance Song” from Roberts, Helen H., and Diamond Jenness. “Songs of the Copper Eskimos.”
Report of the Canadian Arctic Expedition,
vol. XIV (1913-18).

“Old Song of the Musk Ox People” from Rasmussen, Knud (trans. W. E. Calvert). “Intellectual Culture of the Copper Eskimos.”
Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition, 1921-24,
vol. VII, no. 1 (1929).

“Delight in Nature” and “Ptarmigan” from Rasmussen, Knud.
Snyhettens Sange.
Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1961.

“Two Heart Clan” from Big Eagle, Duane.
ONTHEBUS,
vol. I, no. 3, Fall (1989).

“Inside Osage” from Big Eagle, Duane.
Inside Osage.
September (1994).

“Eagle Poem” from Harjo, Joy.
In Mad Love and War.
Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1990.

“Naming the Animals” and “The Origins of Corn” from Hogan, Linda.
The Book of Medicines
. Minneapolis: Coffee House, 1993.

“Sky Woman” from Kenny, Maurice (ed. Joseph Bruchac).
Returning the Gift
. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1993.

“This Is No Movie of Noble Savages,” from Louis, Adrian C.
Among the Dog Eaters.
Albuquerque: West End Press, 1992.

“Evening Near the Hoko River” from Niatum, Duane.
Green Mountain Review
, vol. VI, no. 1, Winter/Spring (1993).

“Stones Speak of the Earthless Sky” from Niatum, Duane.
Amicus Journal,
vol. 14, no. 3, Fall (1992).

“What the Eagle Fan Says” from Revard, Carter.
An Eagle Nation
. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1993.