The Spirit of My People

Henkati (spirit) of my ancestors
Kamacchaw (listen) to my Spirit’s breath
I need to know you
Like the kaio(tobacco) knows the pipe
How the soli (dream) knows the vision of the mind.

Henkati of my ancestors,
Henkati of the great Hookooeko,
I need to understand you;
Like the man understand the sweat lodge,
How the dancer understand the dance.

Henkati of my ancestors,
Henkati of the great Olomko,
I need to respect you;
Like the doctor respects his medicine,
How the community respects the earth.

Henkati of my ancestors,
Henkati of the great Hookooeko,
Henkati of the great Olomko,
Teach me to know you,
Teach me to understand you,
Teach me to respect you,
How my Spirit already loves and honors you.

Oh, great Hookooeko,
I honor you.
Great Popoyis (grandfather), Apu (father), Ancestors,
I honor your existence.
Oh, great ‘Olomko, My People,
I want to praise you.
I hope that you find this tune worthy to praise you and learn your wisdom.
Kule Unu (Bear Mother), Hopa Unu (Eagle Mother), please make me worthy of this honor.
_____________________________________________________________________

Hama (Grandmother) Com-che-tal turned to me,
“Tcatcai Koya (granddaughter) I want to tell you the story
About our ancestors, Hoi-an’ko (first people)….

“Kamacchaw!”
I hear the drums beating in the distance.
Maybe they are the drums of Oye (coyote man)
As he enters the realm of the world, he is to create,
Honoring his presence,
I feel the soft tingling inside my legs;
It is the feathers inside of me becoming joyful.
Oh, Oye the feathers you used to create “First People” Are speaking through me, to honor you.

The feathers are eager to honor you
As the time of acorn festival is approaching
The feathers who are eager to commune
With the greatness of Mother Earth and her reproduction
As they join together to dance, to the endless beating of Her drum, her endless drum of life.

Tell me Oye,
“Opun towih? (Are you well)”
Tell me the story Oye, So that I might honor you.

Oye walks up to me
And I honor his presence.
He opens his mouth and blows a sweet breath.
I close my eyes and find myself fading into a world unknown to me, His world.

My Spirit is standing in the sky, Looking down at the blue abyss below me.
As I look closely, I see a raft coming in my direction from the west.
Oye’s raft-mat sailed toward the top of Ooh-nan-pis.
He got up and threw his mat on top of it,
The long way north and south,
Narrow east and west,
And the middle of the mat rested on the rock on top of the peak.
The earth we know it appeared fully formed Right before my eyes.

“Who are you?” Oye yelled to the feather floating by, who ignored him.
“Who are you? Are you my father? My mother? My brother? My sister?”
But the feather shook his head.
“Chacho? (Grandson)”
And Wek-wek rose, a man from the water.
I watched them walk together.

Oye sat on the mountain peak for four days,
And in that time caught Ko-to-ian (frog woman) his wife.
The water started to recede.
Oye, showed me, as he planted the buckeye, elderberry, and oak trees, and all of nature.
But he and Wek-wek were sad,
There were no people.

Oye looked at me, and smiled.
He picked up a bunch of feathers, threw them up in the air.
The sweet wind he blew earlier carried them away,
They became people all over the land.

Oye turned and sang to me
He spun a web
Of great legends, stories
To honor the great Hookooeko,
He believes that the legends of our people are good medicine,
Good medicine that needs to be passed down
So that our people will continue to live,
So that our people will continue to exist,
So that the power of our medicine will
Continue to shine like the great reflection of the abalone shell.

Oye decided that it was time to honor me with this medicine.
Oye painted me a picture in the sky
Where the mountains stood out
Over a beautiful pink and orange sunset,
And where Wek-wek (the falcon-man) flew by,
As he watched the sunsets reflection over the dark blue water;
Oye put more sticks to dance inside the fire and started to tell me a story.

“Power is not something that can be bought.
It must be learned or taught.
The power that is contained through Medicine
Is determined by how well you know it, respect it, understand it, and are open to it.
Power can also be stolen.
The only problem is that you must respect this power, otherwise it can hurt you.
Come; let me tell you a story about how the power of fire was stolen.
‘After the creation of people,
I was telling my grandson, Wek-wek that we had no knowledge of fire for the people to cook with.

So, in order for the people to have it,
We must steal it.
I sent koo-loo-pis (the hummingbird) to the east, to steal it.
Koo-loo-pis set out to the place where the sun gets up with incredible speed.
He hid and watched very closely.
When the time was right, he noticed a small spark of fire,
Darted in and seized it.
He then brought it back to Wek-wek and I.
Koo-loo-pis held it tight under his chin,
Today if you look under the hummingbirds chin, you will see the mark of the fire.

“Where shall we put it?” Wek-wek asked.
I told him, ‘Oo-noo, the buckeye tree, where all the people can get it.’
They put it in the buckeye tree,
Even now when a man wants fire he goes to the oo-noo tree and gets it.”

Oye told me about ka-chah (his bow) that contained the rainbow,
He told me about Wek-wek and how he was saved from the great flood,
Then there was the meaning behind the echo, and the stealing of the sun.
All of this great medicine started to weave a basket of knowledge around me and through me, Tight enough to keep the power of this medicine from slipping through.

My head started to spin and unweave
Like the threads from an ancient old quilt.
I woke up like from a dream,
Lying on the ground, Grandmother standing over me, smiling;
She helped me up, and the embers of sage and wood started to remind my memory of what just happened.

“Opun towih, child?
How was your journey?”

“Grandmother, it was incredible…”
I started telling her the story,
But she interrupted me and told me
That what I learned was for me,
It was my medicine and power
And I should not share it until it was time.

“That is enough for today.
I have much more to teach you tomorrow.” She said as she grabbed my hand and walked with me under the sunset.

November 11, 2004