Rodney Frey, with Tom Yellowtail and Cliff SiJohn

Clark College, Portland, Oregon, 1 November 2007.

There are many who are responsible for this little talk. Let me acknowledge, with sincere

gratitude, among the many, Rob and Rose Moran (Turtle Mountain Chippewa/Warm Springs),

Josiah and D’Lisa Pinkham (Nez Perce), Leroy Seth (Nez Perce), Valerie Jackson (Crow),

Rayburn and Janet Beck (Shoshone), my wife, Kris, and son, Matt, and, as if standing beside me,

Cliff and Lori SiJohn (Coeur d’Alene/Cayuse) and Tom and Susie Yellowtail (Crow).

Over the last three decades I have attempted to facilitate for others the telling of their

stories, stories of their ways of knowing, and of their landscapes. These have been landscapes

rich with stories, with names, with ways of knowing, often in conflict, sometimes in confluence

with altogether different ways of knowing. All these tellings were done as part of collaborative

tribal projects, projects deemed relevant by the tribes and reviewed by them for appropriateness

and authenticity. Prominent among the stories of others I have facilitated have been those of

Tom Yellowtail, a Crow elder, and Cliff SiJohn, a Coeur d’Alene elder. See bibliography.

I come to you in all humility, as I now turn to a landscape more immediate, my own.

Telling my own story is certainly a new role for me, entered into with some degree of reluctance.

Should I re-tell my own story? Is it appropriate? Could it be of any value to others? In relistening

to my elders, the answers were provided. It is a re-telling, in fact, only made possible

by the story “gifts” Tom, Cliff and others have so generously facilitated for me. And embedded

in my story is, indeed, a confluence with what may seem incompatible, of two mutually

exclusive ways of knowing, rendered complementary.

A short time after being diagnosed with cancer in December of 2005 I was having lunch

with Cliff SiJohn, sharing the situation with him. His words helped initiate the critical path in

my journey over my landscape. Cliff emphasized the importance of appreciating the distinct,

though interrelated, processes of both the “exterior healing” and the “inner healing.” “Listen

with your heart,” he said. While putting my full faith in my oncologist, my surgeon, my family

physician, my nurses – the external healing and head knowledge, I would need to attend to my

inner healing and heart knowledge, as well. But in what ways? Where, within, should I look?

Not too long before being diagnosed, Valerie Jackson, a granddaughter of Tom

Yellowtail, had contacted me, asking to “hear my grandpa’s voice again” as he told his favorite

story. Tom had passed on “to the other side camp” in November of 1993. But Tom’s Burnt

Face story would again be “re-told.” I had made an

audio recording of Tom telling the story of Burnt Face

during the summer before his passing. Valerie felt this

particular healing story would be of immense help for

her own son who was in a treatment program for his

methamphetamine addiction. I made a compact disk

copy of Tom’s entire telling of the Burnt Face story,

As I re-visited and listened carefully to a story I first heard over thirty years ago, Burnt

Face revealed itself in ways seemingly all together new, fresh and poignant, and in ways that

spoke directly to something I was about to begin. And I remembered sitting with Tom in 1993

as he completed his telling of Burnt Face. He turned to me and said, “If all these great stories

were told, great stories will come.” Those powerful words have resonated with me ever sense.

With Burnt Face, I would attempt not only to make sense of my situation, but make my own

story, actively engage and plot its unfolding along Cliff’s internal path of healing.

Retold here will thus be Tom’s Burnt Face, along with other great stories, as I have lived

them through my own healing journey. Joining our stories will be those of Cliff. And let us see

what great stories may come.

As with so many elders, in the storytelling of Tom and Cliff, lessons are to be discovered

by the listener, with effort, embedded within the story. They are seldom made explicit by the

teller. The lessons gained may, in fact, differ from listener to listener. In accord with a

storytelling session, this talk will unfold as story, the voices of three tellers interwoven within its

distinct pedagogy.

As we considered the best way to convey the meaning within our voices, both Tom and

Cliff elected to format their segments reflective of the oral nuance of their telling. To reflect a

sense of the dynamic rhythm in their words, we have italicized voiced inflections and stresses,

and added a series of dot ellipses to approximate the duration of pauses, from brief (two dot) to

longer (three dot and four dot). Paragraph demarcations reflect the critical segments selected for

this presentation. My text formatting lacks these oral nuance considerations. The edited

segments of Tom’s Burnt Face are based upon a 1993 audio recorded transcription and a

conversation we had at that time on the use of the oral nuance format. His words appear in

together in 1997 and from a 2006 recorded conversation I had with Cliff specifically intended for

this essay. To begin to appreciate and access something of the power of storytelling, the reader

is encouraged to become a listener. Have someone else read aloud to you the words to come. A

great story is to be experienced as it is told. We begin with Tom Yellowtail.

We never know when we might get pushed into a bonfire. In December of 2005, I was

diagnosed with third-stage Hodgkin Lymphoma. I was a fit 55, or so I thought, happily married

with a wonderful family, professionally successful, and about to begin a most unanticipated

journey that threatened it all. I blamed no one. In fact, felt no anger. But it could not be

ignored. The cancer had to be acknowledged, and dealt with. Based upon my particular staging,

a protocol of six cycles of 12 chemotherapy treatments, lasting some six months and involving a

“recipe” of ABVD drugs, was prescribed. I put my faith in my doctors, with the “chemo” and all

the biomedical treatments they offered. In turn, I looked after my body as best I could, trying to

eat well and continue my morning runs, until I couldn’t, then “power walks” through the nearby

arboretum. When I could, I fly-fished the local reservoirs and rivers, “for therapy,” I told my

wife. But the question lurked – is there something else I should do?

Whether by choice or being somehow marked by the big “C,” I certainly felt out of the

norm, differentiated from my students, colleagues and family, as my hair thinned and fatigue

overcame me. On campus I was greeted by concern, by those willing to engage me, or by

silence, by those, perhaps, not sure how to engage. As my once thick eyebrows vanished, so too

it seemed did my recognition, traveling incognito! Though I cut back on many of my faculty

responsibilities, I deliberately chose not to “stay away from camp,” continuing my full teaching

load and work with my graduate students. Nevertheless, in so many ways, it is indeed a solitary

journey.

And what would be my “taking to the mountains”? It was 1974. I had just completed

my masters degree in anthropology, and was offered an opportunity to conduct my first

ethnographic research, sponsored by the Crow Tribe of Montana. I was to assemble an

introductory paper that presented “traditional” Crow perspectives on the causes and treatments

of illness. It would be used to help Indian Health Service physicians better communicate with

and deliver health care to their Crow patients. Among the elders, it was suggested I interview

Tom Yellowtail.

I remember our first meeting. The sun was gazing down into the Lodge, and Tom

Yellowtail was dressed in his Sundance regalia, offering prayers with the hundred or so other

Sundancers. He was the “medicine man running the Dance.” I was absolutely unfamiliar with

the form of intense prayer I was now observing. Held during the height of the summer,

Sundancers give of themselves for the welfare of family members, dancing and fasting from

food and water for the three and sometimes four days of the Dance. And, on occasion, a dancer

might “take a hard fall,” as he or she received a vision and “medicine.” See Frey 1987. After

the Dance, Tom invited me to his home for a visit and to learn more about his Sundance ways, a

learning that would continue for years to come.

The next summer I was again at the Yellowtail Sundance, along with my wife and sixmonth

old son, Matt. We came early so I could assist the dancers with the hard work of setting

up the Sundance Lodge – of going to the mountains and bringing back the twelve, lodgepolepine

“poles,” used as the “overhead rafters,” of cutting and bringing back the cottonwood

“Center Tree,” and of constructing the lodge itself. My wife and I didn’t see much of our son

that first afternoon, as Matt was placed in a beautifully-beaded cradle board and carried around

to the various tipi and wall-tent camps, by his many new, adoring “grandmothers.” I also

remember standing at the Lodge door as the dancers, with their Eagle-bone whistles blowing to

the beat of the drum, charged the Center Tree and danced back from it. And for some of these

dancers I was beginning to appreciate their personal stories and sacrifices. Just then, tears filled

my eyes, my knees buckled, as I sat down, crying uncontrollably.

During the winter of 1976, Matt suddenly became very ill. I was a desperate parent,

reaching out to the only way that seemed to offer any hope for my ailing son. As we drove to the

hospital, I pledged to give of myself in prayer, going without food and water, for a three day

“fast” for my son’s recovery. At his welcoming and under

his guidance, Tom Yellowtail helped me with that fast, and

much more. Over the next months and years I would receive

a number of very special ‘gifts,” including the health of my

son, as well as an introduction to Tom’s favorite story –

Burnt Face, along with an appreciation of something all

together unexpected that happens in the act of telling the

thing or as the Chipmunk is saying something . . . . they swirl around you and you feel that Indian medicine

As I give voice to Burnt Face, with my heart and through my actions, Burnt Face comes

alive and swirls around me. And together we take to the mountains. As I had done for my son

some thirty years ago, I’d now do for myself.

Soon family and friends were making jerky and extra moccasins. When Rob Moran, my

“elder bro,” a Turtle Mountain Chippewa, first heard the news, he immediately drove over, some

350 miles from his Warm Springs, Oregon home, to offer prayers, salmon from the Deschutes

River, and much needed laughter. In my backyard, the Sweat rocks were heated and we entered

the Little Lodge. Rob tied strips of Blue and White cloth to the overhead saplings supporting the

Lodge’s coverings, renewing its connection with the Sundance Lodge and to the two Flags of the

Center Tree. With his medicine things laid out before us and the burning of cedar, Rob asked the

Creator to watch over his “younger bro,” and all those in need of help. Each week there after,

Rob called and sent e-mails, offering a joke or a story, an update on the family, and his concerns.

A short time later Josiah Pinkham, a close Nez Perce friend, had me down to his home,

just south of Lapwai, for a “Healing Sweat” and meal of traditional foods. Joined by two elders

and his brother, it was a powerful Sweat of prayers, sharing, and heart talk. As Josiah said, “we

wanted you to know that we would be there with you for your entire journey.” One of the elders,

Leroy Seth, in fact, shared even more, “a little bonus,” he said with a smile. As he sat next to me

in the darkened Lodge, the steam thick in the air, Leroy began to swoon and became listless.

Once outside and clear-headed, he told us that while in the Lodge he “heard a song, coming from

near the fire pit, sung by the Little People or, maybe, Children!” He went on to relate how he

had felt and shouldered some of my challenges, a “gift to you.” After the meal, Josiah presented

me with a beautiful Pendleton blanket, while his wife, D’Lisa, gave me a candle in a dragonfly

my Buffalo Skull, wrapped in a black blanket, a blanket Leroy had given me a couple of years

prior as part of his give away. I presented it to Josiah. In the days leading up to the Sweat, it

had come to me that the Skull should now belong to Josiah. I had received it many years before

so critical in the preparation for any journey, Cliff offers the following thoughts on its

significance and use, and of the potential of being “reborn.”

about . . “oh . . I want this . . oh . . I want that . . bring this to me . . bring me money . . bring me women” . . .

people . . . .

It is to help you . . open up . . your spirit . . so it can gain the power . . of the Animal world . . . and

those things in your heart that have been hurting . . all those poisons in your body that come out . . that

Sweat Lodges . . . the Sweat Lodge was given to us by the Creator to help us find the way to heal

will do . . when you come out you are reborn again . . clean like a baby . . . and we have to do that many

On campus, two friends and colleagues, one Yaqui and “adopted” Shoshone-Bannock,

and the other Nez Perce, brought gifts. Ed Galindo smudged my office and me with cedar and

prayer, leaving me with a supply of cedar and advice – eat lots of meat and drink four liters of

water daily. I left him with a small Eagle feather I had been gifted many years ago. Sarah

Penney, along with her dad and some of the Native students, gave me a basket of “healing,”

including “traditional gifts” – a fishing hook and sweetgrass, and mountain tea and cous root her

family had collected. As Cliff explains, such things, like cedar, are gifts to the people, given a

long time ago.

tipi where they were all sick and took them to this tree . . they prayed around this Tree . . the First People . .

we began using the cedar . . because it was given to them . . by the . . First People . . .

So . . we use the cedar for purification as well as medicine . . and mixing it with other things . . for

them . . pound them . . and put them in a bag . . or cut the boughs . . put them in our house . . put them in .

Tree . . .

Oh how we want to act always according to our desired outcomes. But we are reminded

that we may “return to our people, but if not, if something happens, . . . ” It is indeed a journey,

a journey of steps – many mine, those of others as well – the destination of which far from

certain. While I didn’t want to lose sight of my dream of what could be, I also felt I needed to

attend to, with my best effort each day, my part of the journey. I trusted my oncologist to do her

part. With proper treatment, I was told the prognosis for Hodgkins can be good. Sitting under

an IV drip for three hours, receiving a recipe of chemo drugs and knowing of their varied side

effects, can be a very trusting experience. Family and friends had generously done their parts.

And their prayers continued. But for my part of the journey, would each step be my best?

Every day I say my prayers. Each evening before going to bed, I would sing the Song of

the Tree, the fourth song sung each morning during the sunrise ceremony of the Sundance, the

song also sung in preparation of the Center Tree of the Sundance Lodge. And with that song,

prayers would go out to those in my family and to others, all those in need, asking help and

giving thanks. In my backyard, the Sweat rocks would be periodically heated, cedar and water

placed upon them and prayers spoken in the Little Lodge, the Younger Brother of the Big Lodge,

the Sundance Lodge. Each full moon my medicine bundle would be opened, its contents

renewed, and prayers offered.

It was a journey of quite awhile, and all my patience and perseverance would be needed.

During that fast in 1976 for my son’s health, not only had I an opportunity to fulfill a vow and

help my son, but an important lesson, a berry gift, was also received and now remembered. I had

been offering my prayers with tobacco, using the Eagle-feather fan, going without food and

water, as Tom Yellowtail had instructed. It happened during the evening of the third night,

before I was to come down off the hill the next day. A tremendous uneasiness, verging on panic,

overcame me. I lit a cigarette, held it out toward the east, and prayed. As the smoke ascended

so, too, would my prayer. Another cigarette and then a third were lit from the fire of the

previous. I prayed hard, still so unsettled. Then he appeared. Just to the south, not more than a

few feet away, one of the Little People stood silent, watching. And with his appearance, a calm

came over me and I felt protected. And I realized the cause of my anxiety. That evening I had

acted in anticipation of desired results, confident that I alone had achieved something of

importance. But, in fact, I had achieved nothing by myself, on a journey not yet completed. As

in all our journeys, others do their parts. Tom had been saying his prayers, and his “Medicine

Fathers,” “Spirit Helpers,” were watching over and making all this possible. Ultimately, it is not

a solitary journey. After I came down from my fast, Tom and I sweated, giving prayers of

thanks. And Tom asked if I would like to continue my prayers for my son, joining him later that

summer in the Sundance.

Along with the days of fatigue and nights of sleepless worry, there were also days of

feeling “so normal.” It was as if the weeks of chemo and their side effects were a distant

watching over by so many that helped provide the patience and perseverance I would need for

the long haul.

I, too, attended to a Medicine Wheel. The Crow word for sincerity is often rendered,

it.” Sincerity was the most important gift that could be given by someone in return for the health

of another or, as with Burnt Face, the ultimate gift given if the Little People or other Spirit

Helpers were to “adopt” you. One’s sincerity, found

along that path of one’s inner journey, necessitates a

listening with all your heart, of getting in touch with

what is most essential. It’s a listening to the qualities

others have identified within you, or, perhaps, have

charged you with becoming. Through his offering of a

rock Medicine Wheel, Burnt Face sought to identify and

Particular urgency was how I would understand my cancer, laying a foundation for my

Medicine Wheel. So many spoke of it as an “enemy” to be confronted and defeated, a “battle” to

be won. But for me this conceptualization just didn’t feel right. To do so, at some core level, it

felt as if I would be rendered akin to that which I confronted and adrift from what I cherished

most. I would become, “enemy.” And, after all, Burnt Face battled no great adversary. I

certainly understood my cancer as an enormous, potentially deadly obstacle. But it was to be

approached as something to be jumped over, around, and through, something to be left behind. I

would seek to fill my healing path with the gifts of huckleberries that have come to embody

much of what is most essential to who I am. Two of these gifts came during my early

Sundancing years, and became pivotal rocks in my Medicine Wheel.

In 1977, Susie Yellowtail, Tom’s wife, said that if I were to continue to “go in and use

the whistle,” to Sundance, I would need an “Indian name.” During a medicine bundle opening,

held in their home, Grandpa Tom and Grandma Susie bestowed an Indian name on their newly

huge responsibility, was conferred. It is a name I would strive to bring forth in all that I do.

While shouldering an enormous challenge and withdrawing from some of my faculty duties, I

did not now want to compromise such a defining part of myself. So I continued with my full

teaching load and work with my graduate students on their thesis research and end-of-semester

defenses. I was up-front about my situation, periodically updating my students on my journey,

though not wanting to engender on their parts any sort of sympathy. If my journey could be used

by any of my students as an example of how a person can navigate a serious illness or any dire

situation, then others would be helped. Reiterating the words Cliff had shared with them the

previous fall semester, I told the students that each of them must work hard as they go to the

mountains with their cedar baskets to gather with care the huckleberries, those special “gifts”

received from a mentor, a friend, a grandparent, a teacher while in college. Identify and cherish

each of those “berries,” as they will be relied upon as unexpected challenges are encountered

along their own journeys. “It may be next year or thirty years from now that you may need to

call upon your gifts, your cherished huckleberries, to get you through a tough time.”

In 1978, I had received a second defining gift during my fourth Sundance, completing the

cycle I had pledged for the health of my son, Matt. As I charged the Center Tree and danced

back, Eagle-plumes in hand and blowing my Eagle-bone whistle in cadence to the beat of the

drum, I kept my gaze on the mounted Buffalo Head, hung from the Tree, facing me. Many of

the over one hundred men and women dancers were also up and dancing. Looking in from the

Lodge’s door stood family and friends offering their encouragement. I wore with pride the

beautiful belt Lucy Real Bird had beaded for me. As I danced I remember being overwhelmed

by a feeling of comfort, I felt safe, and let go, danced all the harder. After some time and

recognizing what was happening, the other dancers sat down and the singers beat with increased

intensity. Every charge took more of my rapidly diminishing strength.

I am not sure how much time had passed, but I do remember seeing the Dance continue

without me, as my body lay there on the ground. And then I was in a deep, dark canyon, with

sharp rock ridges on each side, looking up into the sky. Then in a thick pine forest, still

searching up into the sky, with the jagged tree line on each side of me. Now I was in an open

cottonwood grove, looking up, with a more subtle, flowing tree line. Then I was no longer

looking up, but was up, in the clouds, rounded and white, but still striving to see something.

with his horns on either side of my head, viewing the clouds all around me. I was Buffalo. Then

I was back again in the Lodge.

Following the Sundance, Grandpa Tom and John Trehero, a Fort Washakie Shoshone

medicine man, over a hundred years of age, wanted to hear my story. It was from John that

Grandpa had received his medicines. At his direction, John insisted that I never consume the

meat of the buffalo, of my Medicine Father. He also had me give a “give away” for the sponsor

of the Dance, Johnny Boy Cummins, to acknowledge and thank him for helping make my gift

possible. I presented the sponsor with four things of value I had with me, including the pipe I

had recently made with its carved Catlenite stone bowl.

to white guys. I would have been honored simply to have been able to give of myself in the

three days of fasting and prayer for my son. But I was humbled to receive such a special gift,

and knew of the great responsibility with which I had been entrusted. Grandpa instructed me in

how to assemble and care for my medicine bundle. On the full moon, I should renew it with the

burning of sweet grass or cedar, and offer prayers for those in need. Over the next years, at those

Cliff asked if I would join him in his family's Jump Dance. His family welcomed all in

the community, setting an early March date for the Dance. The Jump Dance is the Coeur

d’Alene’s most important annual ceremony, held over two nights, from dusk to dawn, during the

height of the winter. See Frey 2001/2005. Kris, my wife, and Jennifer Gatzke, one of my

graduate students, also accompanied me, having done so in the past. We planned to attend only

the first night.

Kris and I greeted Cliff and his wife Lori that evening with three small gifts – a

Pendleton blanket in the style I had used while Sundancing, a smaller blanket for Lori’s new

grandchild, and a porcupine quilled medicine wheel medallion with an Eagle Plume attached,

that had been given to me many years ago by a Lakota artist. Soon the air was filled with “heart

then join in, “jumping,” dancing with him in support of his family’s needs and hopes.

Well into the evening Lori had me join Cliff on the dance floor, as the two of us then

walked counter-clockwise before the other participants, over one hundred men, women and

children. Knowing Cliff’s eye-sight was very poor, especially under the dimmed light, was I to

then we stopped and Cliff spoke. Instead of his family, Cliff talked to everyone about me, my

relationship with the Crow and the Sundance, what I have meant to him and the Coeur d'Alenes,

and asked all to pray for my health. Then he had me give my own "heart talk." Alone, I circled

the floor and spoke. I don't remember much of what I said, much too nervous I guess.

When I completed my circle, standing again beside Cliff, he announced and bestowed an

Red-tail Hawk, as Cliff said, “a patient and observant bird,” who then “acts quickly and

deliberately.” And he spoke of me as a “patient observer” who then “acts deliberately,” as he

“thinks and writes about,” and “helps our people.” As we returned to our seats, Cliff took off his

red bandana from around his neck and had me place it around mine, and called me, “brother.”

On such prayerful occasions the red bandana is worn with pride by all the members of the SiJohn

Medicine Wheel.

Having received this special name, I felt I needed to attend the second night and have my

give away. But as we were going to our car after the Dance, Cliff and Lori approached and

insisted that I spend the next evening at home, resting, and said that they had already taken care

of the give away for me. When we spoke next, Cliff said the give away had gone well, and the

Sundance blanket had been given to a young Coeur d’Alene girl, now also blessed. In

considering the importance of an Indian name and of the rebirth that can come from receiving

such a name, Cliff says:

I never received . . a name . . for a very long time . . . and . . I went to . . Vietnam and when I came

. and I told him about that incident . . during my tour of duty . . where we were surrounded by the enemy . .

named . . they all carry their names . . . so to . . place a significance on the names is one of the most

when you get and cross the river . . cross the creek to the other side . . to the other big camps . . to those

you and they will call you by your name . . .

there’s a reason for that . . maybe when you cross over . . someone will greet you . . and things will work

out in the next world . . .

going to be called Michael . . Gabriel . . Mary” . . . and he took all those names and just threw them down . .

were the First People . . and hence we would honor those First People that the Creator placed here and

carry their names . . Buffalo Head . . Eagle Head . . Little Hawk . . Poor Wolf . . . it’s as close of a name to

the Creator . . as anything else . . . .

. and that’s how that person got his name . . sometimes in Dreams . . . sometimes in Sweat House . . .

People’s names?” . . .

You have two names . . very powerful . . with the people that gave them to you . . gave them in

say . . “come this way . . I have a lodge for you . . all set up for you right here my son . . you sit here and tell

me stories about . . what you’ve been doing” . . .

So you have your name . . that will echo in the mountains . . for a long time . . Little Red Hawk . . . .

. . . .

. . into your spirit . . into your heart . . . . the power of the Creator will come through to you through that

. . that is inside of me . . because of the names that were given to me . . by the people who understood the

power of that name” . . . .

On the Monday following the Jump Dance, we had another look into the physical

territory of my illness. I had taken a base-line Pet/CT scan in December. Because of some

intense night sweats and hot flashes I was having, the oncologist wanted this early scan to make

sure the chemo recipe was not missing some of the cancer. On Wednesday, my doctor shared

the results with Kris and me. There was no indication of any abnormality. A little over two

months into the six months of treatment, and there was no sign of my third-stage Hodgkins, from

my left-side abdomen up through my chest and into my neck. Incredible news. I am still

amazed! I immediately called and shared the news with my Mom, son, sister, and uncle, then

“bros,” Cliff and Rob, then Josiah and Leroy.

This by no means suggested that the journey was over. The oncologist was very pleased

to be sure, but the cancer, I was told, could still exist at a “microscopic level,” not detectable by

the scan. So the chemo continued into June, completing the 12 treatments. And with the chemo

new challenges arose.

Knowing you have cancer can certainly be challenge enough, but many of the side effects

of the chemotherapy, especially as they continued to manifest themselves along the way, added

to the challenge. After each treatment, my white blood count was lowered, increasing my

susceptibility to infections; there were days of fatigue and high blood pressure with

accompanying edginess, disassociation and sleepless nights; my testosterone levels were

lowered, the cause of those intense night sweats and hot flashes; a blood clot developed in my

jugular vein that would remain for months to come; my fingers and thumbs became hypersensitive

to the touch, while my toes grew numb; and there was the hair loss and weight gain. In

the larger scheme of things, the side effects were nothing too overwhelming. Fatigue was the

biggest issue, a constant reminder to pace myself. It was a healing journey, full of all sorts of

obstacles and nuisances, that needed to be left behind. While my doctors addressed the more

serious side effects, I kept saying my prayers and laying out the rocks of my Medicine Wheel. A

third Pet/CT scan was taken on July 3, 2006, a month after my last chemo. The results re-stated

those of March – no abnormality. I was watched over and they came out, those scars taken

away.

When you have traveled a life-altering journey, how essential it is to be able to re-tell

Burnt Face, the Crow adhere to the importance of re-telling, to one’s elders, family and friends,

those experiences that have been personally transformative and life-changing.

1. In re-telling your story, as Burnt Face has done for me, may others be helped, inspired

in some way to better face their own challenges, and, if wounded, to begin the healing.

kinship with family and friends, with adopted “bros”

and Medicine Fathers, and come to discover the

3. Having laid them out as rocks of your

you discover a little more of what is most essential

within, what is most cherished, that of your heart,

4. In re-telling my story, may we consider traveling the many differing paths that can

reach the same destination, both the external path of head knowledge, as well as internal path of

heart knowledge. While some might consider them mutually exclusive, is the path of

chemotherapy and an Indian Name, indeed, irreconcilable? Let us consider these divergent

paths.

“Head knowledge” is the world of analysis, of social scientists, of natural scientists, of

rationalism and empiricism, of positivism, of the scientific method. What are some of its

premises?

Duality: This is the world of objectivity, an objectified world, as if we are standing

behind a great glass pane, autonomous, independent and distinct from that which we observe on

the other side, which is just as autonomous and distinct, operating by its own laws, laws those

following in the footsteps of Isaac Newton seek to know. This is the world of Rene Descartes,

of the “I” – thought and the “it” – material distinction, of “mind” and “matter,” neither reducible

to the other, of Cartesian Dualism.

Reductionism: What is most real and true are the “objects” on the other side of the glass

pane, the discrete phenomena, accessible through the five senses, the world of material objects,

all of which are reducing to discrete, quantifiable, statistical units of measurement. As Galileo

first stated, “The language of nature is mathematics”

Head knowledge has facilitated the powerful ability to manipulate the physical world, of

creating technologies and the techniques of surgery, of creating chemicals and chemotherapies,

of the healing of the external path.

“Heart knowledge” is the world of the Little People and Burnt Face, and of the Creator

and the elders. What are some of its premises?

and refers to the strength that comes from the interdependency with one’s kinsmen. As a single

piece of driftwood does not easily survive the powerful currents, eddies and boulders of a fast

moving river, it finds strength and survives by lodging with many others along the shore of the

same river. This metaphoric understanding is shared widely by other indigenous peoples,

expressive of a world view within which each person is ultimately in kinship with a vast host of

others, a spatial and temporal “family” certainly made up of other humans, but also of Ancestral

Peoples, Animal Peoples, and Spirit Peoples. You are fundamentally a participant, existing as a

part of the world, and not an observer, existing apart from the world. There is no dualism found

here.

subtleties have far reaching implications. Understood among other indigenous peoples as well,

through and from all things, be it a person, an animal, a plant, even a rock. And it is from this

realm that the perennial significances and great archetypical meanings of the world, as well as

the transformative force that bestows life onto that world, are all precipitated. There is certainly

no quantitative, materialistic reductionism found here.

Heart knowledge is the internal path that can just as effectively facilitate a healing.

So we are faced with head knowledge and heart knowledge, . . . the assumptions of each

representing seemingly two mutually exclusive ways of knowing, and, one might argue, they are

much too divergent to attempt to reconcile?

Certainly Cliff and Tom didn’t think so. I am reminded of

a little story Tom shared with me so many years ago. He

envisioned the world as a “Great Wagon Wheel” – like the

structure of the Sundance Lodge, the pattern of its dancers, and the

Medicine Wheel itself, he would point out. The spokes represent

the separate paths to the center, the distinct religions and peoples of

the world, each with their own ways, languages and traditions.

importance. The wheel would fail to turn if some spokes were

longer than the others, or eliminated all together; all are needed if

the wheel is to turn. Yet all the spokes are linked to the same hub,

the same source, the Creator, though each spoke might conceive of

it and address it distinctly. During their lives, Tom was both the

Sundance Chief for his people, as well as a devout Baptist, while

Susie danced alongside her husband and practiced biomedicine as a registered nurse.

Head and heart ways of knowing, the external and internal paths of healing,

chemotherapy and an Indian Name, all are complementary with one another. Perhaps Tom is

offering us all a little lesson, as we attempt to reconcile the seemingly incompatible, the

mutually exclusive, the irreconcilable, as we engage our communities, our families, our lives

with so many others, . . . indeed, as we reconcile our healing paths.

5. In the very act of re-telling, Burnt Face is lifted off the pages of this book, no longer

story, but immediate and vital, continuing to doctor the people. That which is spoken aloud,

from the heart and in accord with the ancestors, be it a story or a name, is rekindled and brought

forth, and swirls around you.

And having opened up your heart, in your re-telling, may you “experience the healing”

that comes from the inner journey, that indivisible convergence of the spirit descending upon

you – “those scars taken away,” and the spirit coming through you – “reborn.” For indeed, the

So what’s in a name spoken, a story told, a prayer recited? What’s this spirit descending

upon you and spirit coming through you, this experience the healing?

speaking the names, of the re-telling the stories, you are in kinship with the source, with the

world. It is from here that one expresses heart-felt words of sincerity, and it is from here that

the world is created, renewed, and perpetuated.

expression, “stories make the world.” As Cliff relates, in the act of telling the stories, “[it is] the

In the act of giving voice to and replicating Coyote’s story of the world, or of Burnt

Face’s story, or of an Indian name, a family’s song, a prayer, and of doing so from the heart,

perennial landscape, connected to and participating with Burnt Face, the Animal Peoples, the

lives.

6. In re-telling one’s own, what gifts may await? Ultimately, it is up to each person to

cherish the particular special gifts bestowed upon him or her, and then apply them, as rocks of

journey that comes from the heart. If Burnt Face speaks to you, cherish this gift as yours.

Surely great stories will come!

And Cliff concludes:

me visual pictures in my mind as he described them . . of what it was like . . . .

and their grandmothers gave it up and their grandfathers . . their mothers and fathers ashamed of being

without that fire we’ll be extinguished . . forever . . and we’ll only become a memory . . in the pages of

somebody’s writing . . . .

of each other’s fires . . because the cracking goes on and on and on and on and on . . and it holds us

of our hearts . . you and me as Indian people . . . . I still my voice on this and hope someday . . someone

these matters today . . . .

you, to all in the Indian community who have so generously facilitated for me my “re-telling

one’s own” – Tom and Susie Yellowtail, and John Trehero, in memory, and Cliff and Lori

SiJohn, Rob and Rose Moran, Josiah Blackeagle Pinkham and D’Lisa Penney Pinkham, Phillip

Barnaby, Leroy Seth, Silas Whitman, Phillip Cash-Cash, Ed Galindo, Janet and Rayburn Beck,

Valerie Jackson, Diane Reynolds, Mike Penney, Sarah Penney, the Native students at the

university, and so many others. My heart-felt acknowledgment and thanks to all my immediate

family, friends, colleagues, and students in the non-Indian community, and especially for their

tireless support and prayers – my wife, Mother, sister, uncle, and son, who was given the Indian

part of him. And particular thanks goes to Suzanne Crawford, the “chief of this camp,” for

allowing me to re-tell my story for you.

During the second night of Cliff and Lori SiJohn’s January 2007 Jump Dance, I had my

“give away.” With Cliff guiding my way, I spoke to the over hundred other participants of how

wonderful it is now to be able to sing and dance with them, of my healing journey, and of my

tremendous gratitude to them for all their prayers. The blankets and other gifts were then

distributed.

University of Oklahoma Press.

University of Oklahoma Press.

Vol. 12. Editor, Deward Walker. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.

Washington Press.

Nimíipuu. Nez Perce Tribe, University of Idaho, and the National Aeronautics and Space

Administration. http://L3.ed.uidaho.edu/

the Schitsu'umsh. Coeur d'Alene Tribe, University of Idaho, and the National

Aeronautics and Space Administration. http://L3.ed.uidaho.edu/

collaboration with the Warm Springs, Wasco and Northern Paiute. Confederated Tribes

of Warm Springs, University of Idaho, and the National Aeronautics and Space

Administration. http://L3.ed.uidaho.edu/

Editor, Thomas Biolsi. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.