Karen Kay

Good Morning!

Wireless Com in the 1700-1800’s?  Am I crazy?   Now, while it’s true that I’m under a terrific deadline right now (75 more pages or thereabouts to write in a week), but hopefully I’m not crazy yet.  The above statement is true, however, if a little bit overstated.  Long ago, American Indians had a very efficient and wireless manner in which to communicate.  Would you like to have a look at how it was done?  Hopefully by the time you read this post, you’ll be able to “talk” in the same way.

Long ago the American Indian needed a way in which to communicate at long distances.  Alerts needed to be sent, messages about where was the game, enemies seen, etc.  These all needed to be communicated in an efficient manner.   How was it done?  Let’s have a look.  The most common methods in use were with blanket signals, smoke and mirrors.  There was also an entire system in use called marking a trail so that others who knew the signals could follow your trail.  You could also tell where the game was, or where the enemy was, how many there were, where they were located, as well as where you had gone and when and many, many other thing.  In the woods this was done by marking trees.  On the prairie it was done with piling up stones into certain images.

A blanket rolled up tightly or clothing rolled up was used when people were within sight of you.  If you stand with the arms outstretched so as to form the letter “T”, that is a danger signal.  If the person so signaling runs back and forth, it is the sign that the danger is approaching and if in addition to this the blanket is thrown horizontally, it means a rescue must be done.  If game has been sighted, the scout runs back and forth — and means it’s a small herd.  If the scout runs around in a circle, thowing his blanket in the air, it means it is a large herd.  If a scout were to run to and fro with the blanket trailing behind him, it meant bad news coming.  If the blanket were held over the head, it meant something important was coming from a distance.

Anyone who’s watched old Westerns knows about smoke signals.  These carried over very long distances and the codes varied depending on the tribe.  (You wouldn’t want your enemy knowing your own special code.)  These were often used by war parties, announcing their news, giving their news — how many scalps or horses taken, etc.  A drum was another devise used within the community.  And when the white man came, the mirror became a tool for long distance communication.  One long flash is the signal for attention, and as soon as you receive an answer back, you then transmit your message.  One short flash means that game is in sight.  Two short flashese means the enemy is in sight.  Two short flashes followed by one long one is a call for rescue.  Two short flashes and one long followed by two more short flashes means the danger is over.  Four short flashes means a metting with a stranger or new from a distance.

But what about meeting another tribe.   Don’t you love this picture?  There were so many different languages in use in America, how did the tribes communicate with each other?   This is where we come into one of my favorite subjects.  In fact, in my very first book, LAKOTA SURRENDER, both heroine and hero communicate with the language of gestures.  Okay, so how was it done?  First a few rules:  Adjectives follow nouns, conjunctions and prepositions are omitted, and verbs are used in the present tense only.  Intricate communicates were carried on in this fashion, but here’s a few to get you started.

Attention or Question:  Hold right hand, palm outward, fingers and thumb separated, well out in front of boddy at height of shoulder.  Some tribes rotated the hand.  This is used to begin conversations.

I understand:  Throw right forearm out in front of body with fingers closed, except index finger, which is curved and drawn back.  This indicates that you grasp and draw something toward you, and is used occasionally while another is talking.  If you don’t understand, use the Question sign.

I:  Touch breast with index finger of right hand.

You:  Point to whomever you are talking to.

Glad:  (Sunshine in heart).  Place compressed right hand, fingers slightly curved, over region of heart; bring left hand, palm downward, in sweeping curve to left of body, at the same time turning it palm upward, as if turning up or unfolding something.  The expression of the face should correspond.

Love:  Corss both arms over bosom.

Good:  (Level with heart.)  Hold extended right hand, back up, close to region of heart; move briskly forward and to right.

Bad:  (Throw away.)  Hold one of both hands, closed, in front of body, backs upward; open with a snap at the same time moving them outward and downward.

Sad:  Place the closed fist against the heart.  Appropriate facial expression.

Surprised:  Cover mouth with palm of right hand, open eyes widely, and move head slightly backward.

Angry:  (Mind twisted.)  Place closed right fist against forehead and twist from right to left.

House: Interlock fingers of both hands, holding them at right angles.

Sleep:  Incline head to right and rest cheek on right palm.  For going into camp, or to indicate the length of a journey, make sign for Sleep and hold up as many fingers as nights were spent on the way.

Woman:  (Long hair.)  Bring both palms down sides of head, shoulders, and bosom, with sweeping gesture.

Man:  Hold right hand closed except for the index finger.  Hold index finger up about stomach level with an upward sweep.  (I’ll let you determine what this one means.)  : )

Beautiful:  Hold palms up like mirror in front of face; make sign for Good.

Liar:  (Forked tongue.)  Bring separated first and second fingers of right hand close to lips.

It is finished:  Bring closed hands in front of body, thumbs up, second joints touching; then separate.  This sign ends a speech or conversation.

 Okay, are you ready?  Make the sign for “I love you.”  Got it?  Okay.  Now make the sign for “I am sleepy.”  And how about “You are beautiful.”  Or how about “I love my man.”  or “I love my woman.”  Can you make the sign for “I’m sleepy?”  Or how about “It’s in the house.”  Alright, here’s an easy one.  Make the sign for good, and at the same time say either “Waste'” (Lakota for good) or Soka-pii (Blackfeet for good).  Or how about “You have surprised me.”

Like I said, long intricate conversations could be carried on in this manner and often the hand signals would be so fast and so appreviated, that only he or she fully trained in the use of them could follow.

Again this is a favorite subject of mine.  Now let me take a moment to remind you again that my latest book, THE LAST WARRIOR, is one the shelves.  Please, if you don’t already have a copy, go out and pick up a copy of the book today.  So come on into the forum section (just click on comments) and let me know what you think of the Native American Wireless Communication.   See you again in a couple of weeks!

NOTE: I used Charles A. Eastman’s book INDIAN SCOUT CRAFT AND LORE for this information.

Good Morning!

Hope you are all having a fabulous April.  Did anyone get caught with some good ole April Fools jokes this year?  I’m afraid that I’m away from home and so missed the usual fun of April Fools this year.  And how are y’all doing on your taxes?  This is also Tax month.  Anyone planning to go to Washington DC this April 15th to join the protest against the IRS and the Federal Reserve?  That 16th Amendment, which was radified — or so it’s said — in 1913, after heavy lobbying by Rockefeller, seems to be more and more a burden on the average American citizen (thee and me).  There are some who are determined to shine the light of day on the IRS, which I think is very brave considering that the IRS has been known to treat objectors ofttimes with a bit of a rough hand.  So if you’re going to the rally, I wish you well.

 All right, so I thought we might spend the day talking about Native America and the child.  How was the child valued in Native America, how were they disciplined?  What would it have been like to grow up in Native America?

It is said that a culture that doesn’t value the child and the parents who raise that child, is a culture that will not exist for long.  And it’s probably true.  Children are our future and without a system of raising the child, so that he retains his natural dignity and curosity, is a culture that is most likely on its way out.  In Native America, before the advent of the Amero-European culture spreading around it, the child was adored.  From the moment a woman knew she was pregnant, she would eat certain foods, take long walks, sing, think happy thoughts and do little things that would encourage good growth of the child within her.  A child was born into the family, and that included the extended family — grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, etc.  In fact, in Native America, the child often called his aunts “mother” and his uncles, “father.” 

A child was also welcomed by every member of the tribe.  The work-a-day world of Native America included the fact that every household — be that a tepee or a longhouse or other form of home — would have food (usually soup) cooking all day long.  A child, any child, was always welcome in any home.  He was always welcome to come in and eat, sit and talk, and literally be at home anywhere within the tribe.  Children were never hit or struck in Native America.  Sometimes, in the Iroquois Confederation, if a child continued to be naughty, someone might throw water on him, but most usually the form of discipline for the child was in the form of an elder who would tell the child a story, one that had a moral do to with whatever the child was doing that was naughty.

 In fact the Blackfeet had an interesting way of disciplining their children so that a child’s natural dignity was never destroyed, and yet he was brought into the tribe and its moral codes in a very natural way.  It went like this:  let’s say that a child was being naughty.  He’d picked up a stick with the intention of hitting his brother or something of that sort.  Some elder of the tribe might have seen him with the stick and the dialogue might have gone like this:

The elder:  “Aa, I see that you a good stick there.”

The child, looking around for the elder, cringes because his intention is to hit his brother.

The elder:  “Aa, what a good child you are.  I see that you have that stick there to help your father mend his arrows.  Your father is lucky to have such a good child as you.l”

Now the child knows he intended nothing of the sort, but to save face, the child nods his head in agreement, and goes off to help his father mend his arrows, forgetting all about wanting to hit his brother.

In Native America, a person who would hit a child in discipline was considered crazy and if it happened once too often, that person was often ostracized by the tribe.  Is it any wonder then, when met with those from a civilization that considered physical discipline important, that the Native American thought that person more than a little crazy?

Okay, I admit it, I keep cheating with this picture, but I really do like it!  What would it have been like to have been a little boy, growing up in Native America?  Well, according to those white men who grew up in Native America, there was nothing to compare with it.  What freedom!  The freedom to come and go whenever you wanted!  The freedom to explore anything you wanted!  Being coached and groomed by your elders, being told stories when you were acting in a way that wasn’t considered best.  Learning to track, to follow trails, to learn the movements of the animals, to be able to go out and stay outside and learn.  To watch the stars on a soft, summer night, to make friends with another boy who would remain your friend for life.  Indeed, those men who grew up in Native America usually stayed, or if they did have to leave, would often return as soon as they were able.   And those men, like George Catlin, who went amongst the natives to paint them, never really ever returned to civilization, except for occasional visits.

Sometimes, when I go to the reservations, I remember the things that I’ve read about the freedom of the Native Americans and I think that if I had a choice, what a pleasure it would have been to grow up in the old days of the Native American.  

So what do you think of child rearing?  Do you have any special tips that have made raising your children easier?  Come on in and let’s talk about our most natural instinct: that of being a parent.  Let’s share.  And don’t forget, THE LAST WARRIOR, my latest effort, has just been released to bookstores everywhere.  Please do pick up a copy.

Good Morning!

Soon, within a few weeks, my latest effort, THE LAST WARRIOR, will be hitting the stands (early March 2008).   Because this book is the last in a series that is set not only within historical times, but within the framework of Native American Mythology, I thought it might be fitting to talk about some of the legends of Native America.

The Thunder Being (or sometimes referred to as the Thunder Bird or Thunder God or Thunderer) is one of the main characters in this latest series of my books.   His anger has been stirred by acts of violence against himself and his children by a clan that is part of the Blackfoot Indians — The Lost Clan as they are called in these stories.  Interestingly, the Thunder Being plays a dominant role in most Native American tribes — perhaps because when one is living so closely to nature, the Thunderer, who can produce so much damage, would be a subject of much legend.  In this series of books, the Lost Clan has been  relegated into the “mist” by the Creator, who intervened on the people’s behalf when the Thunderer was bent on destroying every single member of the clan.  Imprisoned within that mist, each band within the clan is given a chance within every new generation to choose a boy to go out into the real world, who is charged with the task of undoing the curse, thus freeing his people from what would be an everlasting punishment (they are neither real, nor dead).  But, not only must the boy be brave and intelligent (there are puzzles to solve within every book), he must also show kindness to the enemy.

Let’s have a look at the Thunderer and some of the different lord about this being.  In Blackfeet lore, the Thunderer often steals women.  He also will often take the image of a very large bird — his wings creating the thunder and his eyes shooting out the lightning.  In Lakota lore, if one dreams about the Thunder god, he becomes a backwards person.   He must do everything backwards.  He washes in sand, become dirty in water, walks backwards, says exactly what he doesn’t mean, etc., etc.  The dream is so powerful that it is thought that if one fails to do these things, he courts certain death.  In THE LAST WARRIOR, because the last warrior has been adopted by the Lakota,  he believes this last to be true.  And so when our heroine dreams of the Thunderer, our hero is at once worried and seeks to protect her all the more.

There is also a legend of the Thunder Being in the Iroquois Nation.  In this legend, a young woman becomes the bride of the Thunderer and through him saves her village from a huge snake that burrows under her village, thus endangering the lives of everyone in her village.  There is still another legend about the Thunder which you can watch on the Movie called Dream Makers — well, I think that’s the name of the movie (if I am wrong about that name, please do correct me).   In this legend, which is also an Eastern Indian tribe, a young woman marries the Thunderer and goes to live with him in the above world, only to be returned to her own world when she becomes pregnant with his child.

What is very, very interesting to me is how many and how vast are the lores of Native America.  Though we often hear or even study the ancient lore of the Greeks, seldom do we read much our own lore — the mythology that belongs intimately with this land we call America — which by the way, to the Native Americans on the East Coast, it is what we know as America is Turtle Island.   Fascinatingly, there is a story for almost every creature on this continent, from the crow to the sparrow to the coyote (the trickster), the wolf and bear.  There are legends about the stars, the Big Dipper hosts legends about the Great Bear (Iroquois) and the Seven Brothers and their sister (Cheyenne and Blackfeet).  There are still other stories about the Morning Star and the Evening Star and marriages between the Gods and mortals.

So what I thought I’d ask, and what I thought I’d open up the discussion to, is not only what you think about myths (do you think they are stories about a past time or do you think, like many scientists of our day, that they are the works of imagination), but I’d love to know what is your favorite myth?  Do you like best the stories about the stars,  or the heavens, or the creation of human kind, or of love, or adventure?  So come on in, and let’s see if we can tell some of these wonderful stories from our not-too-distant past.

Howdy!

Good morning!  Well, today, I thought — in view of the fact that we are in the middle of an election year, that we might have a look at the beginnings of our country — way back in 1770’s — and Native America.  Right now because the book I’m writing is due to my publisher very soon and because I’m writing about the Iroquois, I am steeped into Iroquois lore and history.   And I have discovered some incredible things.  Here follows some very interesting things in my consideration — interesting only because I certainly didn’t learn about any of this in school…hmmm…

• Did you know that long ago, long before the white man set foot on this continent, there were two men who brought peace to a people and established a government of the people, by the people and for the people?  Those men were Hiawatha and Deganawide (de-ga-na-Wee-da), or the man known to the Iroquois as the Peacemaker.  Their tribes were constantly at war amongst themselves due to the tradition and obligation to kill anyone who had killed any of their own family.  Because of these blood wars, the people were constantly in strife. 

These two men — who together brought peace to an entire nation that lasted over 300 years — have all  but been forgotten in our history (this is not the Hiawatha or Longfellow’s poem).  When our forefathers first met the Iroquois, they were impressed with not only their idea of freedom, but also with their form of government.  In the Iroquois nation of long ago, the elder women would pick their leaders because the power of the government was held in their hands.  No leader was allowed to accept remuneration for his service — it was considered his duty to serve, and that was pay enough.  And no leader who served his own means, or who showed little fortitude (cowardly behavior in the face of treason) was allowed to serve.  In fact, such leaders were taken out of office at once and their shame stayed with them throughout the rest of their lives.

Debates amongst the Iroquois sachems (as their representatives were called) were long and hard, and no person was interrupted before he was finished speaking.  Nor was any action ever taken before there had been debate, and even then, a man was never forced to do the biding of another man if he disagreed.  Several moments of silence were also left open at the end of any speech, in case the speaker thought of something he might have forgotten when he was speaking.  Oratory was considered a skill that every man should acquire.  And those who spoke well were admired greatly.  It might take a while for the people to decide on an issue, true, but once decided, and united, the Iroquois proved to be a terrible foe.  Both Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin, as well as Thomas Jefferson, admired the Iroquois form of government.  In fact, Benjamin Franklin wanted our own Constitution to be modeled after the Iroquois government much more than it was.

But if the Iroquois government was so rich and so full, what happened to it?  Why are the Iroquois alloted only a small reservation in America?  This is a rather complex question and is best answered in a complex way, but I’ll be as brief as I can.  The founders of the Iroquois Confederation, whose vision was to bring peace to Turtle Island (North America) might have been more than a little upet to see how their people took the peace so hardily gotten, and used it to force their will on other Native populations.  It happened once the white man came.  The white man came with trade goods that far exceeded the Iroquois’s own.  And it got to the point where the white man’s goods could not be done without.  Once this happened, it became a contest tribe to tribe to takeover the trade.  Unfortunately, this was often encouraged by the French and English in order to weaken the Indian Nations, but on the whole I think it was done without the knowledge of what was happening to the Native American Nations.  The Iroquois, because they were united, surfaced as the Nation to be respected, even though that was often done at the destruction of some of the other Native Amerian Nations.  Be that as it may, the Iroquois became so invincible that the English and the French were caught trying to buy their friendship, in a quest to bring their own rule to North America.

The Mohawk eventually created a Covenant Chain with the English, which is why the Mohawk (some of them — not all) fought with the English against the Americans during our revolution.  However, the Native American has a long standing love of freedom and independence, and several tribes within the Iroqouis Confederation fought right alongside the Americans during our fight for independence.  Yes, they lost their lands, but they lost their lands to the corporations who coverted their lands for their own ends.  And unfortunately for us, when our forefathers wrote that “all men are created equal” they truly did mean all MEN, and in particular all white men.  Luckily for us, because of our right to speak freely, we in America eventually corrected this error to include all women and all people of any color.  And so after the revolution in the 1770’s, when the corporations came to take over the Iroquois land, there was no one at that time to speak out for Native Americans.

 So this brings me to my controversial question of the day.  Are you ready?  Recently some Americans in — forgive me I can’t recall the exact state — but I think it was Delaware, lost their homes to some big corporations.  The state government literally came in and took over their land — they were given money for the land, but not what it was worth.  That land was then turned over to the corporations.  In Texas, there is the Trans Texas Corridor being built as I write this, to unite Mexico, the US and Canada.  Millions of acres of land are planned for confiscation in order to build this highway — which will be owned and operated, by the way, by Spain.  Many of the people who live on this land, have lived on it for generations.  Perhaps I am wrong in my evaluation, but this precedent seems awfully similar to what happened to the Native People in New York State so long ago…i.e. land confiscation in the name of the corporation.

 Then we come to the recent declaration by the Lakotah.  The Lakotah Declaration of Independence.  In their own quest for freedom, the Lakotah in late December/early January of this year, declared their independence from the United States.

 So here’s the big question:  There is a long tradition of freedom in this country, tracing directly back to Native America and our own ancestors.   Are you ready?  What’s your opinion?  Do we still live a country that is free today as it was fifty years ago?  What do you think?  So come on in and let’s have a talk, maybe we could even, in the tradition of the Iroquois, debate the issue.

And don’t forget, THE LAST WARRIOR comes out March 2008!