THE KILLING SPIRIT: Sun Dance at Coyote Paradise (98)

CHAPTER TWENTY
SUN DANCE AT COYOTE PARADISE



In recent years, the Sun Dance had become a spectacle to onlookers and charlatans, some claiming to be researchers or journalists, others claiming to share Lakota beliefs. They brought their cameras and notepads and gaped at the sacred rite as if it was a bullfight in Madrid. Later, their reports on local television, in newspapers or magazines, exploited the suffering of the dancers and betrayed a sacred promise to the ancestors.

The elders of Coyote Paradise became suspicious of outsiders and guarded about who they allowed to witness the annual event. Not everyone who applied was allowed to dance. Only the most deserving were chosen. The Sun Dance was not a test of courage (though only the courageous could endure it); it was a prayer to the overworld; it was a cry for a vision.

Jerico’s grandfather knew the elders of Coyote Paradise. As a young man, he had danced with many of them. His word was honored as one of their own. It would open the gates of Coyote Paradise and secure for Jerico a place in the sacred ceremony.

Joey Little Hawk had pierced the summer before and was sworn to do so again for the next three years. As they prepared to depart, grandfather pulled him aside and spoke to him as a son: “Move as a stream through open land, neither too fast nor too slow. Remember the wasichu watches you. You must always be prepared. There is nothing in this life that will do you more honor than to guide your brother to his destiny.”

The three of them rode to Little Hawk’s pony, a sixty-two white and blue convertible Impala with more bumps than a prizefighter on a comeback trail. He called her “Margarita” after a Latino aunt.

Margarita coughed, sputtered, rattled and shook like an old washing machine in the spin cycle, finally settling in an idle that rivaled a Harley. Popping the hood, Jerico beheld the miracle of Indian technology, mixed and matched parts, duct tape and wire.

Leaving their horses with grandfather, they hit the road, following a trail south by southeast, sticking to the blue roads where Margarita hit her stride between forty and fifty miles per hour. Like a snake in sand, they wound their way through high, dry land, the air punctuated by the scent of gasoline and burnt oil.

As Jerico watched the northern migration of the buffalo in his mind’s eye, Little Hawk broke the silence: “How does it feel to be the chosen?” he asked. He tried to smile but it soured at the corners of his mouth.

“The last time I saw you,” he added, “you were just another dumb Indian.”

“I still am,” said Jerico.

“Right,” replied Little Hawk. “The white crackers think you’re Jesus and the red crackers think you’re Crazy Horse.”

“What do you think?”

“I think we’re living in a dream.”

Jerico nodded. He did not disagree.

They watched clouds floating over an outcropping of stone, spotted a coyote scampering alongside a break, and remembered the times before the white man came. They spoke of Sitting Bull, who once was a painted chief in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, who remained free in the north even after Crazy Horse had gone to the agency, and who was killed (like Crazy Horse) by his own people.

Little Hawk felt a rush of warmth to his face. He felt ashamed and fought back the instinct to strike out in anger.

“I’m the dumb Indian,” he said.

“What’s bothering you, brother?” asked Jerico.

He pulled to the side of the road and allowed Margarita to idle. They were a hundred miles from Coyote Paradise and fifty miles from anywhere else.

“I’m afraid,” said Little Hawk. “We know what the white man does when he sees an Indian with power. If they can’t buy him out, they take him down. Look at Leonard Peltier.”

“It’s a good thing to worry,” replied Jerico. “You would not be human without doubt but you should not let it consume you.”

“How do you know the wasichu is not behind the whole thing?” Little Hawk asked.

It was a good question. Not even the wise ones of the overworld could be certain. Perhaps the killing spirit wanted help to leave this world but, if it succeeded, where would it go? Would it be transformed or would it bring suffering and pain to another world?

“I must ask you to give me your word,” said Jerico. “If you continue on this path, then you must give me a promise.”

Little Hawk felt his heart pounding and his face went flush.

“I may ask you to do something that does not rest easy with your spirit. You must do it without question and without hesitation.”

“You can ask me to do anything,” replied Little Hawk.

“No,” said Jerico. “I will ask only one thing and this you must do.”

“Alright,” said Little Hawk.

“Give me the words,” said Jerico.

“I promise.”

They drove on in an air that was thicker than before, in a silence that was deeper, until they arrived at Coyote Paradise, where they were greeted as if they were lost children of the tribe.

“Waziah told me you were coming,” said the old man with a coyote smile, his voice as wrinkled as his aged face.

Waziah is the great thunderbird of the north, a spirit of light and pure thought, and the old man was the appointed spirit guide of the Coyote Paradise Sun Dance.

All was prepared. The warriors had completed the hunt for the cottonwood tree that would serve as the Sun Dance pole, representing the center of all being. The tree was planted and the lodge was erected from twenty-eight poles surrounding it.

“Waziah came to our camp,” said the old one. “He circled four times to grab our attention.” He pointed west where a cottonwood towered above its neighbors. “He landed over there. He told me a visitor was coming, that he would travel with one known to us, and that he was blessed by the ancestors. He made us swear to take care of this special one.”

“How do you know he spoke of me?” asked Jerico.

“When you are as old as I am, when your eyes have seen what these eyes have, when your heart has beaten as many times as the drum inside this weathered cage, you will know things, too.”

He flashed his trickster eyes and smiled.

“Besides, your grandfather sent a message on the white man’s wires.”

The Sun Dancers were already assembled and already the stones of the Inipi fire were glowing. Little Hawk and Jerico were the last to join them. They endured four waves of Inipi as the old one spoke of Kablaya, the wise man who received the vision of the Sun Dance when the buffalo still roamed and the people of the earth were still free.

The Sun Dance is a blood sacrifice, a trial by fire, and a vision quest by pain and suffering but it is not, as the white man believes, a rite of passage or a test of manhood. It is a pipeline to the overworld, a sacred bond between mother earth and father sky, a bringing together of all earth beings in humility to the Great Spirit. It is the tree of life and the great wheel of the universe.

The suffering is made bearable by the mind and the mind must be focused on the reason for suffering. Jerico invited the spirits of all who had suffered at the hands of the killing spirit. He welcomed the tears of mothers, the blood of fathers, the enduring memories of exile and genocide. He would suffer for Marie, for his Cheyenne grandfather, for the white woman with an Indian soul, for Crazy Horse and Little Big Man, for Red Cloud and Sitting Bull, for all Lakota and all native peoples.

Mostly, he would suffer for Marie, whose life on this earth was cut short. He would suffer for his love and the longing that never left his soul. He would suffer for the knowledge that she would suffer for him.

They entered the Sun Dance lodge at dawn, a blue moon lingering in the morning sky, and sang the first song of the ceremony, a song without words, a chant with words beyond human translation. They sang to the spirit world and the spirits joined them.

They moved to the center of the lodge and cried for the suffering of the people, their tears soiling the earth as the earth cried with them. They cried for the cruelty and shame of the wasichu, knowing that the wasichu was one of them, a human being, a hateful, greedy all too human being. They cried for the white men who could not cry for themselves for they did not know or could not accept the depth of their sins.

The dancers moved from the Sun Dance pole to each of the four directions, chanting and dancing to the pounding drums, punctuated by the shrill sound of the eagle bone whistles they held in their lips. They sang and they cried. They danced, sweated, prayed and cried until at last it was time to make their vows of suffering.

The old one invoked the powers once more and called upon Jerico to the make the first vow of the Sun Dance. He chose the vow of Kablaya at the heart of the ceremony, a vow connecting his flesh directly to the Sun Dance pole. A single thong of buffalo hide was fastened to the middle of the pole, its split end attached with wooden spikes to his chest. He would dance until the thong broke free.

Little Hawk chose the vow of the buffalo skulls in which six skulls were fastened horns down to the skin of his back until they, too, broke free and fell to the earth.

The others took the vows of flesh, as they had done in the first Sun Dance, one vowing sixteen pieces of flesh, the next eight and so forth until the last and only vow taken by a woman was for one piece of flesh.

When the last vow was taken, Jerico saw Marie and understood that she had also taken a vow of flesh and was preparing for her sacrifice along with the dancers at Coyote Paradise.

Jerico stood before the old one, a midday sun bearing down on his exposed body, sweat pouring from his brow, glistening as it ran over him to the sacred earth. He was alone with his thoughts, alone with the Great Spirit, and alone in his suffering. He no longer heard the pounding drums or chanting voices. He no longer felt the pain of his cut flesh as the thong drew taut and his skin pulled from his chest.

He leaned back and prayed in the ancient tongue, pulling at the Sun Dance pole so hard that it bowed to him as he cried for his people, for the buffalo, the white wolf, the rivers and streams, as he cried for a vision that would set them free.

The gathering at Coyote Paradise fell silent to the beating of the drums. They watched this strange man, this Lakota pilgrim, as he came alive in his suffering. Never had they witnessed such an ordeal. Never had they seen the bindings hold so long under such fierce tension. They feared he would lift the Sun Dance pole from its post. They watched and prayed for him. They cried and suffered with him for it stretched their faith to see that a man could endure so much.

Hour after hour, he danced and chanted, his body red with blood-drenched sweat, the skin of his chest pulling to the sky, his body bending backward so far that his braided hair scraped the ground, yet still he danced. The flesh would not give. It was as if unseen spirits held the bindings intact. They would not break free.

Little Hawk and the others had long completed their ordeals. They stood now with the gathering, as their wounds were tended, witnessing the trial of Jerico. A woman with a knife broke from the circle to cut him loose but two warriors caught her and carried her away.

The old one marked a circle around him, smoking him with sage, chanting spells and sprinkling his body with sacred dust. Still his flesh held and Jerico danced, eyes to the sun, an expression of yearning on his sun-baked face.

He was no longer in his body. He was with the Zulu warriors when British soldiers stormed the village with bayonets. He was with the gypsies in Düsseldorf and the Jews in Auschwitz. He was on the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge. He was a villager at My Lai. He was with the Aztecs as the conquistadors swept through the empire. He was with the Algonquin when the black robes brought plague to their unsuspecting tribes.

He was with the Indio indentured by the soldiers of Columbus. He was packed with Africans in a slave ship bound for the new world. He was burned for a witch by the Inquisition of Rome. He was with the Anasazi when Cortez made his march of death. He walked the long walk, witnessed the Indian Island massacre, and danced with Big Foot at Wounded Knee.

He was with the Nez Perce on Joseph’s retreat north. He was with Geronimo when the Mexican army slaughtered his wife and children. He was in a tipi at Sand Creek when soldiers came to cut out his heart. He saw a thousand buffalo fall before the long guns on the Iron Horse, while ladies gasped and gentlemen laughed at the slaughter, extermination and genocide.

He was with the Mayans in Chiapas and Guatemala when paramilitary goons and thugs laid waste to whole villages. He was with the dissidents of Chile when Allende was overthrown and Pinochet had his revenge. He was with the student protestors at Kent State and Jackson State when Nixon’s tin soldiers shot them down.

He was with the warriors of AIM when their brothers were shot down and their leaders were caged like rabid wolves. He sat in the cell of Leonard Peltier and wept. He was in the Black Hills when the heads of the great white fathers were carved in sacred stone.

When Jerico returned to his body there was no pain. He remembered a white man in his youth complaining that the Indians held their share of guilt for scalping women, for territorial wars, for inhuman torture, and for slaughtering families of innocent settlers.

As a child, Jerico fell silent. He accepted the shame of his people. As a man, he would have an answer: Even if all the white man’s books and movies said was true, even if the red man was a barbarian, a savage, a merciless killer of women and children, even so his crimes did not amount to a fraction of the suffering the white man had caused.

When Jerico returned to his body, he understood. He took the horror into his soul and let go of the shame. It was then that the flesh gave way and his body fell to earth.

In that moment of falling, as if suspended in time, Jerico was transported to another place. He recalled seeing the sun enveloped by a circle of darkness and, in the center of light, he saw a face. It was not the face of vengeance and hatred. It was a face of compassion and mercy. It was a face that called to him and drew him in as a child to his mother’s arms.

Jerico fell into the arms of his love. Marie stroked his cheeks, her face lined with tears, her arm bandaged from an offering of flesh.

The old one rushed to his side, pouring water over his head and coaxing him to drink.

It was sunset and the western sky glowed blood red. Jerico had danced in the scorching heat for nine hours. No one before had ever danced so long or endured so much.

Though it seemed a curse, it was a blessing. If a man was so honored – to be tested so severely and survive – then great things were promised for the man and his people.