Thus the white men and Native Americans were able, through the spirit of goodwill and compromise, to reach the first in what would become a long series of mutually beneficial, breached agreements that enabled the two cultures to coexist peacefully for stretches of twenty and sometimes even thirty days, after which it was usually necessary to negotiate new agreements that would be even more mutual and beneficial, until eventually the Native Americans were able to perceive the vast mutual benefits of living in rock-strewn sectors of South Dakota. – Dave Barry
Coyote, who is the creator of all of us,
was sitting on his cloud
the day after he created Indians.
Now, he liked the Indians,
liked what they were doing.
This is good, he kept saying to himself.
But he was bored.
He thought and thought
about what he should make next in the world.
But he couldn’t think of anything
so he decided to clip his toenails. …
He looked around
and around his cloud
for somewhere to throw away his clippings.
But he couldn’t find anywhere
and he got mad.
He started jumping up and down
because he was so mad.
Then he accidentally dropped his toenail clippings
over the side of the cloud
and they fell to the earth.
The clippings burrowed into the ground
like seeds
and grew up to be white man.
Coyote, he looked down at his newest creation
and said, “Oh, shit.”
They’re all gone,
my tribe is gone.
Those blankets they gave us,
infected with smallpox, have killed us.
I’m the last, the very last,
and I’m sick, too.
So very sick.
Hot. My fever burning so hot.
I have to take off my clothes,
feel the cold air,
splash water across my bare skin.
And dance.
I’ll dance a Ghost Dance.
I’ll bring them back.
Can you hear the drums?
I can hear them,
and it’s my grandfather and grandmother singing.
Can you hear them?
I dance one step
and my sister rises from the ash.
I dance another
and a buffalo crashes down from the sky
onto a log cabin in Nebraska.
With every step, an Indian rises.
With every other step,
a buffalo falls.
I’m growing, too.
My blisters heal,
my muscles stretch,
expand.
My tribe dances behind me.
At first they are no bigger than children.
Then they begin to grow,
larger than me,
larger than the trees around us.
The buffalo come to join us
and their hooves shake the earth,
knock all the white people from their beds,
send their plates crashing to the floor.
We dance in circles
growing larger and larger
until we are standing on the shore,
watching all the ships returning to Europe.
All the white hands are waving good-bye
and we continue to dance,
dance until the ships fall off the horizon,
dance until we are so tall and strong
that the sun is nearly jealous.
We dance that way.
Words by Sherman Alexie from his novel, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven.
