On Native Identity: Finding the Broken Pieces in the Desert

We go through phases in terms of the stories that really captivate us, that connect to our humanity, connect us to each other, and to our deepest selves. Growing up as a kid in the Nineties, I remember a slough of disaster movies. Comets, asteroids, volcanoes, and other things threatened to end all life as we know it. We counted on people smarter than us, the scientists, engineers, and astronauts, to save us (unless you're Michael Bay, who will tell you that it's easier to train oil rig workers to fly into space than it is to teach actual trained astronauts how to use a drill). Later, in the early Aughts, it was fantasy that took over. The post-9/11 era taught us to depend on clear lines of morality, of good versus evil, and epic quests and heroic virtue that will rid the world of the darkness. That decade ended and ushered us into an era still in its heyday: that of the Superhero. Although Marvel and DC have different textures and color palettes, they both tell the same stories of ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances to triumph on behalf of the many. But we're in the midst of another vein of storytelling, one that dispenses of the traditional antagonist in favor of the raw, elemental, and fully natural realm to bring out our character. This is the Survivor story, told of men alone to face stormy oceans, boys alone to face oceans and unexpected companions, and (more recently), scary forays into the furthest uncharted horizons. These stories are wonderful because, in the words of author Andy Weir, "humanity is actually pretty awesome and we have an inherent urge to help people out. That’s something I think is really worth celebrating about who we are."

These stories show us, young and old, male and female, super-intelligent and meekly humble, that we are all on a journey. What ratchets the tension and keeps us lining up to see these movies and read these books are the unresolved questions: Will she live? Will the plan work? Did he do the math right?

I am on my own kind of journey, yes. But what makes mine different is that I know the end of the story already. We find it in John's words in Revelation:

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying,“Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

I belong to a movement that treasures this piece of scripture for many reasons. One of the many reasons it resonates with me is because I am a multi-ethnic person, shapes with intersecting lines of nationality, ethnic origin, racial categorization, and cultural diversity. This is a blessing because I can connect with and appreciate many stories from my brothers and sisters of many tribes and nations. This is a difficult reality because I am left to determine for myself what my identity is based on all these different lines and categories. At one point in history I could cross state lines and change races. According to certain Federal agencies, I am eligible for certain educational opportunities, but remain barred from others.  The reality of systemic persecution is a reality familiar to too many people in my country, and to many people in other nations. Because of my fair skin and Euro-American ancestry I inherit privilege that insulates me from a great deal of this everyday suffering. But my eyes are slowly adjusting not only to the current reality outside my influence, but to the internal realities that are shaped by generations, centuries, and thousands of miles. I am left to wonder, who will I search for when this moment arrives? Where is my tribe? This is a journey I will travel for the rest of my life until the Last Day. But some paths surprise me.

The current road I travel came upon me this summer as I visited my family in Tucson, Arizona. We gathered to celebrate the eightieth birthday of my grandmother, the family's matriarch and closest of grandparents when all the others were not around. These types of gatherings will become more rare and treasured as we go on, not only because we grandchildren span the range between teenagers and young adulthood. As much as I enjoy the urban California lifestyle, there is something that comes alive in me whenever I visit this part of the country. Southeast Arizona and New Mexico feel, more than any other place, like home. We often visit Tucson because my uncle works at the University of Arizona and travels internationally as an advocate for the rights of Indigenous peoples. I felt the urge for intellectual stimulation, so I perused one of the bookshelves and found two volumes that drew my attention. One was a well known critical commentary on Native spirituality, another, a collection of stories, myths, and legends from various tribes across North America. You see, I've always known that our family had Native ancestry of some sort, perhaps as high as 40 percent on my mother's side. But I became engaged in a way that told me that this was no mere exercise for knowledge. Something began happening in the deeper parts of me.

The stories showed me a worldview and depth that resonated with me and yet utterly defied any categories that I brought. Although I think I'm a fairly levelheaded and self-aware pluralist, I was increasingly shown how much of my thinking is shaped by a Western, Enlightened perspective utterly different from the lenses that shaped the stories of my ancestors. I focused particularly on those of my tribes: the Pueblo peoples and the Apache, from the American Southwest. I heard stories that engaged the depth of human experience with a firm understanding of interdependence, ecology, and honor for the multifaceted parts of our character. The coyote brought intelligence, cunning, and humor. The Kokopelli brought fertility and mischief. The owl, guardian of the dead, inspires terror yet reminds us to be reverent to those that pass from this world to the next. I had to guard myself to not apply my own preconceived parallels when I read stories about creation, catastrophic floods, and other [supposedly] biblical motifs. I had to recognize this tension, but hold these stories in a way that was not judgmental or analytical. The small self tries to categorize, rationalize, and analyze. The integrated self accepts these seeming contradictions and paradoxes as a part of the beautiful whole. Woven into many of my peoples' stories are a deep sense of the spiritual, awe of the Creator, and an outlook that renders our term "supernatural" meaningless.

My people.

As I dive deeper into this story, I recognize in many ways I must own this as a part of my past, for they are my people. It is not easy. I am no stranger to pain and loss when it comes to questions about my ancestors. On my father's side are the Polish, immigrating in the 1930s when war loomed from two sides. Those that didn't leave faced extermination as a part of the genocide that swept that part of the world during the last century. My mother's family faced the violence inflicted by both the Mexican government and the revolutionaries under Pancho Villa a few decades before that. But even before that, some of their ancestors faced an even more brutal and heartbreaking destruction.

The Chiricahua are a large grouping of bands (tribes don't really reflect the lifestyle of these people so often displaced by climate, warfare, and food) in the larger grouping of Apache peoples. You won't find a modern reservation with that name, and my questions revealed more of the tragic story. They are most famous for giving birth to the famous chieftain Cochise, who held of encroaching Mexican and later American soldiers intent on his lands. He died in hiding, but free and unconquered. Another young man named Goyaałé faced more Mexican and American soldiers who killed his family and later took him prisoner, where he died in humiliation after being forced to perform at carnivals and fairs. Today most know him as Geronimo, his face emblazoned on T-shirts and neoliberal activist propaganda. More of these tragic standoffs forced these people, my people, into hiding, never to be heard from again, or cruelly rounded up and marched into concentration camps where they were later forcibly relocated to reservations with other subjugated tribes. A few hundred can be found at the Fort Sill reservation in Oklahoma, and others at the Mescalero reservation in New Mexico.

Dragoon Mountains, Arizona. Location of Cochise's stronghold.

It was in the aftermath of these bloody tragedies that many of my ancestors forsook their Native identity to escape persecution and blend in with the local Mexicans. This is how they found their way into the family I know now. I cannot blame them for their decisions. I am faced with the reality that the cultures they fought were alien to them, claiming a vision, lifestyle, and religion that viewed theirs as inferior and even evil. Here enters the tragedy of the way that the Christian faith was used to suppress and assimilate my ancestors. 

I am aware of the terrible ways Empire has corrupted the faith of the Apostles and used it for it colonial purposes. But fundamental to this story is the way that these peoples interacted over their differing perspectives and interpretations of reality itself. Vine Deloria, Jr. points out in his seminal work God Is Red: A Native View of Religion some of the ways that this happened, and still happens, today. The view that this world is corrupt and must be forsaken to a transcendent reality means repenting of the pagan ways of the past, so said the missionaries. Their preaching accompanied a flood of settlers and soon most of the land was rid of all but their memory. Deloria meditates on this when he quotes Chief Seattle's famous speech: 

At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled and still love this beautiful land. The White Man will never be alone. Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only a change of worlds.

We still sing worship songs with (crappy) theology that teaches us that death is a lie. We see a sharp distinction between the supernatural and the natural. Spirits are either good (depending on your tradition), or utterly evil. Biblical stories, to those of us with Western inclinations, are largely shaped and contextualized according to a myriad of sources, and should be carefully exegeted. Our creation stories are shaped by processes and our understanding of God. Yet my ancestors have very real geographic locations in mind when they speak of the Creator bringing us forth from the earth. How can I possibly process all of this? Of course I don't believe in a literal six-day creation story, but how can I reconcile this with other stories that change the definition of "truth" and "real"?

I face increasing tension, yet I recognize it as healthy and touching a part of me that has remained dormant for far too long. It is a good thing. I feel the comfort of these stories, and pray that they may be integrated into my practice as a follower of Jesus. My own Christian tradition places honor on the dead and recognizes their continued influence in our world. Though one of my people will probably never be canonized and sainted for veneration, I am left to wonder if I can ever ask them to pray for me. I am committed to Jesus and his message of the Kingdom, the great Reign to which I owe my ultimate allegiance. Though the conflicts and divisions between peoples are eradicated, our cultures are not. This is what John reminds us of in that passage in Revelation.

I am left with many questions. When I rise on the Last Day, where will my tribe be? Will I recognize my people? Will they claim me as one of them? What about before that day? Will I ever experience the ways my ancestors reached out to Creator? Will I ever have the honor of playing the drum or passing the pipe in worship? Will I experience visions or be visited by the sacred spirits of my ancestors? Such is too much to bear. I hope in the Resurrection message that all things will be made new.

Take heart, dear companion and reader. This journey is not over. Though I mourn and grapple with this deep and difficult journey, I am reading and praying with some wise elders. Look for a reflection on their leadership soon. Until then, I leave you asking that Creator will guide you and your people as we journey to that Day that we meet again.