International Table of Peace

The River People – Chapter 7

The Lieutenant’s Diary

September 30, 1851

I am assigned to find the best navigation route from the Gulf of California up through the Delta of the Lower Colorado River. The purpose is to support settlements all along the Colorado with supplies. The Army plans to freight supplies by steamboat if a navigable route can be found. Navigating through the delta region will require expert knowledge. The river branches and splits and turns back on itself. My commander tells of vessels mired in shallows or lost in the tangle of waterways. If a safe passage can be found, fortunes are to be made. The freighting boats will also bring supplies to Ft. Yuma and Ft. Mojave. With the anticipated rush of gold seekers through Yuma to California, reinforcements and artillery will be required.

My plan is to find a reliable member of the local tribes who knows routes up and back on the delta. I will need a reliable guide, whom I can trust to make an accurate map.

P.S. It is unbearably hot here. I do not know how any people could have lived and thrived in this god-forsaken country.

October 3, 1851

All the officers have recommended the same man: Chief Joe. Private Hansford related that Joe had once taken him to fish and demonstrated how to pull trout out of the water using a spear:

“Damned if he didn’t pull ‘em out like forking beans from a can.”

I asked if Chief Joe was really the chief of his tribe. The answer bothered me. “Everyone just calls him Chief because he seems to know everyone and everything that’s going on.”

One thing I know about the U.S. Army is that we don’t know a damn thing about protocol. I asked the men to get word to Chief Joe about our mission to find a navigable route.

October 10, 1851

The man they call Chief Joe came by my office today. I must say he is not to be forgotten. For one thing, his formidable size and seeming ageless face made quite an impression on me. He removed his sweat-stained hat in a show of respect, which I appreciated. I invited him to look at our maps. He showed great curiosity about the diagrams. After some time, he indicated where our map needed adjustment. When he pointed out the error I saw it immediately.

I showed Joe the map of the delta that our cartographers had been able to construct. He studied it for several minutes. When I asked him if he could assist me in making an accurate map, he did not answer right away. I wondered what he might be thinking. White men had literally invaded his people’s lands and disrupted an old way of life. But that was progress. I hoped he would agree to help.

Chief Joe said he knew a lot about the delta waters, where they were the deepest, which estuary to launch from, and so on. But he never agreed to help. He simply excused himself and left. Rather than press the matter, I’ve decided to wait. There is something very fine in his manner that invokes my respect. I just have a feeling that he may help me.

Today, General Hopkins and I led a small party out to survey the available sources of wood that would be needed for the steamboat business if it should ever materialize. The forests along the river are thick with mesquite trees that will make excellent fuel for the engines. The only thing holding back the whole enterprise is a navigable route up the delta.

On the way back to camp, I noticed several native women carrying woven baskets. They wore calico dresses with numerous strings of multi-colored, beaded necklaces. I gestured to inquire what they were harvesting, pointing to the basket. A younger woman lifted the basket top and handed me a mesquite pod bursting at its seams. Another woman motioned how they would grind the pod. It is a special kind of flour they make. I said goodbye. They smiled, and continued on their way.

I must say I am very curious about these people. Hopefully, Joe will agree to help me with mapping. Perhaps he can also tell me more about his people.

The Catholic priest had given him his name, Joseph, though his family and people still used his tribal name, Navigator. In the nearby town, explorers, armies, trappers, and seekers of fortune called him Chief Joe. He explained to me that any Indian was called Chief “in the white way,” he nodded as if I should understand that.

“All along the river, strange people came and settled,” Joe recalled, recounting the oral history of first contact with Europeans.

When Camp Yuma was established to find a navigable route from the Sea of Cortez, I had been assigned that task. After a space of time, during which I believe Joe was thinking about whether he should assist me, he agreed to assist me. It was later, on this expedition that I learned much more about the River people.

Joe described his people as peace-loving and independent. They’d managed to continue their way of life—even as whites arrived for temporary gain but then stayed along the wild river and thick dark forests that lined it. The River People held counsel, watched and worried, Joe explained. The first explorers and their priests had not convinced the River People to believe in their god, but they kept trying. Many in his village attended meetings in the Whites worship place, believing there were similarities between the white religion and their own. But none intended to give up their way of knowing or their origin stories.

“These things are the very roots of any people,” Joe asserted. He never attended the White church.

Many generations had passed since Joe’s ancestor plumbed the maze of routes through the meandering delta where it flowed into the Sea of Cortez. The river’s spring floods came in spring and receded by early summer. The River People planted and raised their crops in the flooded plains, he explained as we pontooned up river with long poles. These rhythmic ways of the land and its people provided the stability Joe sought to maintain against the disturbing patterns of behavior he observed in the whites. He described wave upon wave of emigrants, over ten generations from far distant lands, and how their way of being defied all he understood about living in harmony with the earth and her creatures.

“You see, the river and its thick forests held life in abundance. Beavers were so numerous that we found it hard to navigate along its shores. White trappers, however, took many beavers only for the pelts, leaving behind bloody carcasses, taking more than they needed. When my ancestors learned that the pelts were being sold to whites who lived on the other side of the great waters, they began to understand that the coming ‘white flood’ would never stop.

“It was a time of great dread,” Joe recounted. “Trade no longer worked.”

I thought about this story afterward. It was clear that the expansion of commerce along the river would be an enigma to the River People. Yet, it became essential to obtain goods as the settlements became more permanent. He said that many of his people wanted blankets, beads and other things they had never really needed before. Money creates want, he observed. Whites were obsessed with it.

I did not comment but had to agree with him on that point. It was apparent to me that all these changes disturbed him. His tribe’s elders discussed these matters often as Joe was growing up. Eventually, they realized they lived in a different place. The whites transformed their land. Several treaties had been negotiated already, each time requiring the River People to give up more land in hopes it would staunch the bleeding. “But,” Joe said in his matter of fact tone, “they all knew the taking would never stop.” As their current-day Navigator, he could see ahead to troubled waters.

And so, Chief Joe decided to help me find that route, if only to assure himself that our activities would not harm the river or the tribe’s traditional harvesting grounds. Perhaps good relations would help preserve his people’s traditional way of life.

I told him I hoped that, too, and would do all I could to make that a reality as far as the Army was concerned. But, I think we both understood forces were greater than either of us could influence. Still, we made a good trade between us. That was something.

~~~

Chief Joe’s Memories

That same night, Joseph the Navigator had a dream. The conversation with Lt. Boatright had dislodged old memories from their bed to dance again for one star-spangled night. He recalled how he felt when he was growing up.

I am learning the bird songs of my people. My grandfather gave them to my father and he to me. Among my brothers, I was chosen. They carry the memories of long ago, of the stories and the ways. The songs connect our generations through time.

The women collect gourds. My mother dries them and my father shows me how to scrape the flesh and seeds from inside, how to find a good handle among the willows, and how to place small stones or dried seeds inside to get a good sharp sound when the rattle is held and moved in circles to accompany the songs. The handle is Father Sky and the orb of the gourd is Mother Earth. Together they are the living universe.

Joseph awakened with a song on his lips. To learn the songs, to remember and to sing them well had taken from his youth into manhood. So, it was for me, he thought, as he sat up in bed. And now I am teaching one of my sons to carry the tradition forward.

But now Joseph saw that his sons would need more than the River People’s traditions to navigate this new world of the Europeans that engulfed them like a sea, threatening to drown their ways. He thought, I spoke with my family and wise men and women among our people about my idea to get an education for my sons and any of the youth whose families recognize the need to prepare their youth for a White Man’s World.

Joseph realized it was controversial; many members of the community believed he had “gone to the other side.” But Joseph thought long and hard about this. The Lieutenant is trustworthy and listens well. Learning to read and to make numbers will help our youth in interacting with whites. We cannot be fooled as we have been in the past.

Joseph envisioned that his tribe might someday write their history to achieve understanding among the whites. We’ll need to make our own maps, maps of our lands, to hold fast during the white’s stampede across this region.

It may come to pass that my people will disappear from this land. But I will not be the one to give up, to let that happen. We are the River People, strong, loving, and successful in our own ways. We know this land better than any white ever will, though they do not seem to care to know. They are a strange people to me. Some, like the Lieutenant, are human beings, but most seem like hungry dogs looking for their next stolen meal.

The sun had risen while Chief Joe was thinking about all these things. Pulling on his shirt and donning his hat, he walked outside, where he turned toward the golden orb rising above the horizon and gave thanks for another day.

November 1 – 10, 1851

Chief Joe and I met at dawn to travel down the delta area and hopefully meet Uncle Sam in the estuary he’d indicated would be best for launching upriver. We gave ourselves five days to get there and traveled in canoes. The cartographer was set up to make compass readings and sketch a route on a temporary map. Private Barnes, an expert canoer, paddled his craft. Chief Joe and I navigated in front. Two supply canoes followed behind. I felt excited to be away from the fort and to be on the water. My brothers and I often hunted with our father in a similar manner in Virginia on the Chesapeake. This delta proved as beautiful and full of wildlife as that treasured bay. As we paddled closer to where the waters spread out, I noticed large beaver dams, a wide variety of ducks, and overwintering geese and cranes that must have just arrived. White herons lifted from shallows as we approached and alighted soundlessly in tall trees lining the water’s edge.

Joe demonstrated how he measures the depth of the river, by watching currents, observing what swam below the canoes, and using cane poles he’d marked at varying lengths. He said that was the way his people had navigated for over 300 years—the living memory passed generation to generation to the current tribal members. The information was encoded in their songs and stories. I gained even more respect for Chief Joe on that day. Here was a man who knew this river like his own hands.

We camped that night in a secluded lagoon whose waters were a deep emerald green. In the woods, we found tracks of deer, bobcat and what Joe said was cougar. My troops built an especially bright fire from mesquite and kept it well-lit until dawn. We dined on roast duck that dripped and sputtered in the fire. Joe served it with a pan of bread, sweet and fine. If I had not been charged with an Army directive to find a route, I would have preferred to fish and hunt with Chief Joe and listen to his stories under the stars. We did do a good deal of that our first night.

The next few days were very slow going to allow the cartographer to draw as best he could the natural mileposts and compass markings that would be clear to a boat captain. We learned that there could be trouble if a boat passed through the lower delta region in a spring equinox tide, which caused tidal surges that could upend a craft. That would never be something we would have guessed or known. Chief Joe’s experience was astronomical.

The third night we dined on abalone, so sweet and soft it melted in our mouths. We baked clams in the fire. My men and I had not dined on a better meal anywhere.

Yesterday we made better progress (day 4), and we paddled into the estuary at dusk, a day early. It was as Joe said it would be—a broad bowl with enough depth for the keel and paddle wheels of a steamboat. Chief Joe had never seen a steamboat, but he knew the depth of the estuary was more than his longest pole, which we estimated to be about eight feet. Joe also described how he sometimes observed groups of large air-breathing fish, which he drew for the cartographer and me. When he sketched the broad fluted tail, we knew he had seen dolphins.

Tonight, we are camping on a sandy knoll on the estuary, grilling fish and drinking the last of our provision of whiskey. Chief Joe did not join us in that, nor did he say why. I cannot emphasize enough how utterly reliable he has been, amiable and genuinely interested in helping us find the best route possible. We could never have found this route without him and may have gone on for years trying unsuccessfully to navigate this maze of tributaries.

It was during the night that I had a prophetic dream. I saw Chief Joe piloting Uncle Sam up the river. When I awoke, I remembered and felt the stupidity one feels when the obvious has been revealed to them. The River People would be the perfect pilots and it could be a source of income for them. I will speak with General Hopkins about this matter after we return to Camp Yuma.

1852 Chief Joe

I’ll never forget that day when I first saw the billowing black smoke rising over the treetops beyond the horizon. I thought it must be a fire. As its bow came into view, the drone of the engines came with it and then the sight of the wheels churning through the waters. A bell rang out, followed by a horn blast. Birds on the water and in the trees flew in crazed patterns and left the area altogether. I was transfixed at the sight before me. This was the way of the whites: shocking, magnetic and confusing. Part of me was thrilled, even intrigued, but in my heart, I felt foreboding. Perhaps I had been misguided in assisting the Lieutenant.

December 10, 1851

Chief Joe was invited aboard the Uncle Sam, and I introduced him to the captain. Joe asked how the wheels moved, so the captain took him into the engine room. I watched Joe’s face as he discovered the fires that made steam and examined the way the pipes connected with the wheels how the structure brought hundreds of paddles into the water as they turned forward.

Chief Joe looked up at me and placed his finger on his temple indicating ingeniuity. Then he gestured to the captain with an index finger that he understood how one boat had the power of a hundred men! It was obvious to both the captain and me that Chief Joe was thrilled by it, even sucked in by its magic, as was I.

But then I watched as a dark cloud passed over that same beaming face just a minute later. Joe was staring at the mesquite logs piled high in the engine room. He understood that the fuel for the boats would be the forest that harbored his people.

January 1, 1852

We are refining the maps as I write this note. Our trip back up the river went without a hitch; the water route Chief Joe helped us map is perfect. This is a huge advance for the U.S. Army and the republic. I am sure that I will receive an accommodation for this work. The next phase of the project is to construct landings along the way and to chart waters farther up the river.

There has been a mysterious development with Chief Joe, whom we now need more than ever. He appeared to be overwhelmed on the Uncle Sam and remained completely quiet and withdrawn on the return trip to Ft. Yuma. We honored this. I thought it might be the shock of encountering technology, even new kinds of materials never seen in his lifetime. I tried to imagine what that would be like. To this very day his people have lived well, without any modern amenities, with natural materials and appropriate technology. Then we came along with the major forces of science and technology, pulling us ever forward in progressive development. No one in the U.S. would be content to just remain the same, to not try to invent something better, solve a problem, or accomplish goals never dreamed possible. I felt as though something profound had been done to Chief Joe. Yet, I knew that whether the River People of his tribe became riverboat captains or not, the march of progress would go forward.

As out trip upriver ends, I hope that he will choose to be a part of it because he is such an intelligent man, and I have genuinely learned to like him as a friend.

February 5, 1852

Late in the day, Chief Joe showed up unannounced. He said he’d been thinking about being a steamboat captain, and that he would meet with elders soon to discuss others among their men who might be interested in joining him. I felt hope at the same time I wondered what process Joe had gone through to arrive at his decision. He sat before me in his simple dress—long cotton pants, a muslin shirt, and sandals on his dark thick feet. Joe wore his long hair pulled back; it reached to his hips. He probably had never cut it. Other men in the tribe wore their hair long, but I had noticed a few who frequented the posts who had gone to our barber. Something about his manner this morning, and my own hunch that he’d stepped over an emotional divide—that his visit was ceremonial in its feel—caused me to give him a field hat, adorned with gold braids along the brim and the Army’s insignia on the front. He received it gratefully and put it on. I stepped from behind my desk and asked if it was okay to adjust it. He nodded yes. I set it a little more squarely and dipped toward his face to maximize shade. He grunted his approval. I stepped back and saluted him with a smile. He did not salute me back but simply turned and walked out the door.

February 7, 1852

Today Joe came to meet with the Captain of the Uncle Sam to learn more about the steamboat, how it ran, what he would need to tell his elders about the training, and the job that would be offered to the young men of his people. He had adorned his field hat with three white heron feathers held in place with a bright red bandana. I said it looked good, though my superiors probably would be aghast. I thought it was the least I could do to allow him to wend his way along the cultural divide.

I did not attend the training. I did, however, accompany Joe to the boat and introduce him to the captain before leaving him on board.

Today I must solve another problem: the lawless hordes of gold seekers have caused more disruption in the settlement. There was a shooting in a bar last night and the General wants me to help mediate a hearing. One thing for sure: I will allow no one to travel across the river to California who has caused such clamor. That should stop much of the crime among these gold-crazed Americans.

The murderer will surely be hanged. That alone should sober them up.

The River People – Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Environmental Education

The next day David called me at the motel. He had set up an opportunity for me to meet with six elders. They were all women who met on a weekly basis to recover and record their nation’s language. It was part of a project with university linguists to preserve and teach the original language to youth and interested adults. Without a written language, their memories and songs held this precious heritage. Their language, David explained, was the only surviving language from the original Yuman language groups, and thus was of immense value to them, as well as historians and linguists of American Indian culture.

“This is a great honor for you. I did not expect them to agree to meet with you, but for some reason they concurred. Perhaps they may somehow see it as part of the language project. I am not sure. However, they meet today at noon for a meal and then an afternoon work session. Can you meet me at 1 p.m. today? Plan for about a 30-minute meeting.”

I agreed.

~~~

The elders were six in number. I guessed most of them to be in their fifties or sixties, which was elderly for the tribe. Disease took members early. But nothing about these women looked tenuous: they were lively, tall, women of substance with unknowable expressions on their faces. It was awe-inspiring. None of them looked directly at me except for a glance here and there. What they might be thinking or feeling I could not tell.

I introduced myself and the idea for the project but followed with the statement that it might be something very different if the people wanted it to be. That produced soft chuckles. I wasn’t sure why. David had left me alone with the elders so I was on my own in this matter.

No one spoke. We sat in silence for a few moments, which made me uncomfortable. Then, I asked them about their language project. One elder spoke for the others.

“We are remembering the old language to teach it to the youth so it will not die out with us. But we do not all remember the same.” That produced laughter and eased the tension in the room.

There was some private communication among them, and then they shared how part of what they had to do was to try to retrieve from memory the names their grandparents or parents might have used for an object or an action. They were in disagreement about how to make an old-style of tribal pottery. Without the works to describe the process it had been forgotten. So they had spent a whole day with water, clay, mesquite, fire, and their conundrum.

“Are there words for the environment?” I asked.

After a long silence and many glances back and forth among the women, one cleared her throat and said, “We have no word for the environment. We ARE the environment.”

Silence and then laughter. They read my facial expression as I processed the statement.

No separation. There in a simple statement was the cultural divide between the River People and modern American culture.

“I see,” I said. Thinking as quickly as I could, I asked them about words for plants and animals on their reservation and suggested that might be a project for youth. There was no reaction at all. Silence reigned again. Even I was now staring at the floor.

The spokesperson came to my aide. “We’ll think more about this.”

That was my indication the meeting had ended. I stood and thanked them and left, not knowing if any good had come of the interaction. I felt completely unprepared for this kind of communication. I did not realize at the time that much of what I did and said was disrespectful of their ways. But because they expected it, they did not interrupt me. I hoped that what transpired was an important step in building good relations. This also was my first indication of a different pace among the River People as compared with my university’s frenzied project development.

When I returned to David’s office, he seemed to know exactly what happened and simply explained, “Things move slowly here but not because the River People are slow. It is how things move among us. If you stay long enough, you’ll observe that people gather without any meeting notice. They just show up.”

He invited me to join him later to tour the reservation and the surrounding area. I returned to the motel to record some notes and make a few phone calls. Later I changed into slacks. David warned me the areas we would visit were thick with needle bearing trees and shrubs.

~~~

We drove first to the Laguna Dam, north of Yuma. Built in 1909, it was the first dam on the Lower Colorado River to help stem the floodwaters that threatened new towns and settlements each spring. Later dams would divert river water into canals that fed the farmlands surrounding the city. Standing on its bulwark, David pointed to the agricultural fields spanning to the horizon, and indicated by landmarks where the three reservations of the River People were located. One of them was on the edge of Yuma where the nation had just completed building a casino and hotel. It was the newest deed of land from the U.S. government allowing them to engage in commercial activity to support their community.

“How many people are in the tribe today?” I asked.

“There are about 2,000 in the U.S. but many more thousands below the border.” David stated this matter-of-factly. Right after the Gadsden Purchase ceded 30,000 square miles of additional land to the U.S. from Mexico, the River People had been separated by an international border. Life went on as usual during the first 100 years after the purchase, because no enforcement had taken place. But, in the 1930s, when border regulations were enforced, families were separated due to lack of official identification to cross over.

“The river used to flow all the way to the Sea of Cortez, or the Gulf of California, as most people know it,” David reflected. “When the Hoover Dam and later the Imperial Dam were filled, the delta region below the border—the traditional lands of the River People—dried up.”

We both stood in silence, looking out across the ragged landscape, its rubble of cement and iron left from the dam’s construction, and the accumulated trash scattered around the area.

Downriver I noticed a lone fisherman pull a large flopping fish from the narrow river. “So, people still fish from the river?” I asked, pointing to the figure below us.

“Oh, yes. We stock the river with tilapia and trout for the tourists. That’s Albert Pope, one of our tribal members. He is a regular here. He is one of our traditional members, holding to old ways…as much as he can, that is.” David’s voice trailed off as we lingered there in silence, watching the fisherman cast his line again.

Clearly, there was a sad reality I felt in the air itself. David broke the spell, turning toward the car.

After my short tour, David and I went to lunch to try to figure out the next steps I could take before returning to Phoenix. We went to one of his favorite Mexican cafés and ordered a generous platter of local dishes. He was great company, easily navigating the cultural landscapes in the region: his people’s traditional members who resisted the outside forces that induced change in their cultural practices; the young people returning to the reservation from college with new ideas and dreams of modernizing the River People; the military culture that dominated much of Yuma life within the marine and army bases, and the vets he treated in his tribal community. He was fluent in many languages and dialects of the region. It made me curious about how he had accomplished such adaptability without losing a sense of himself. But I did not ask him about that because we barely knew each other and I thought it intrusive. I was impressed by him.

Before I left Yuma, I noticed a thrift shop and used bookstore in Winterhaven—a little hamlet opposite the reservation on the other side of the American Canal. Being a treasure hunter for old books, I enjoyed an hour crawling through the shop’s stacks of dusty books, antique photos, and an odd assortment of knickknacks.

After observing me for some time, the shopkeeper asked, “Are you looking for anything in particular?”

“I wondered if you might have any histories or even diaries about this region,” I replied, grateful for some guidance.

The shopkeeper was about 5’6”, round as a barrel, and sported a huge white mustache and beard. The hair around his red lips was yellowed with age. He looked like a western version of Santa Claus.

“Follow me,” he said.

In a back room where rickety tables struggled to hold stacks of dusty books, he plucked one off the top and handed it to me. His fingers were thick, and brown hair grew in misguided tufts on each digit. “I think you’ll find this one matches your requirements.”

It was a diary by an Army Lieutenant at Fort Yuma, dated 1851. It had been published by a small press in Yuma in 1950, titled, “Navigating the Delta.”

“Steamboats used to travel up and down the river back when it ran free,” the shopkeeper said. He turned away to leave me to explore.

I ended up buying that diary, tucked it in my briefcase, and left town for home.

The River People – Chapter 3

A novel by Susan L. Feathers, Copyrighted 2021

Chapter 3

Not a Drop of Water

Bill Sherwood was a lanky man who impressed me by his warmth. His rounded shoulders spoke of the heavy load he had carried in defending wild places from development, and perhaps his own personal struggles, whatever they may have been. His light brown hair fell in straight locks across his forehead, shading his eyes. He seemed like a kind grandfather figure to me.

Bill took a lot of time to help me understand potential issues that might be part of an environmental education program. I appreciated his earnest effort but was dazed by the time our two-hour meeting came to an end. I tried to review what I thought I’d heard as he listened keenly.

“Okay. Basically, there is no Colorado River water that flows past the River People’s reservations. They are high and dry. Most of their land is leased out to farmers who buy allotments of Colorado River water to divert it via canals to the farmlands for their crops. Correct?”

“Yup, that’s about it.”

“And, the natural communities of mesquites, willows, and cottonwoods are gone except for scattered communities where the water table is high enough to support growth. The River People have planted tamarisk trees that are fast growing in those places, right?”

“Yes, there is a great need for these trees because the tribe’s traditional ceremonies for their departed—cremation and other related ceremonies– require a constant source of firewood,” Bill affirmed. “But that is only a small part of why the old forests were necessary. Those forests, they are called bosques or woodlands, harbored abundant wildlife that fed the tribe, drew water up from the water table, and provided medicinal substances that kept the River People healthy. The worst part is that the River People helped harvest that wood to fuel the steamboats used by the U.S. Army and ambitious businessmen to ferry supplies and people across or up the river to support settlers moving westward. The River People were hired as steamboat pilots because they knew the river better than anyone. They were paid in beads, later in coin. Their way of life began to transform like the forested land along the river.”

I reviewed my notes. An uncanny silence filled the space of Sherwood’s office as I took in the information. We both felt the weight of knowledge about our own culture’s impact on the River People we now came to serve.

“Bill, it is not at all clear to me how a little environmental education project will have any impact on these matters. In fact, it now feels trivial. What’s your sense of it?”

He stood up and moved to the window behind his desk. Bill was lanky and skinny as a rail except for an old-age paunch around his waist. He possessed a sculpted, long-jowl face, the kind illustrators love to sketch.

“You know, it might actually be just the thing needed.” He turned toward me to finish the thought. “Kids need to know what was lost and be a part of bringing it back, at least to some modern form of the natural habitat. Restoration can be healing for those who participate.

~~~

Leaving Bill to his work, I walked over to the Cultural Center. Inside, a small but exquisite gift shop exhibited the beadwork of Cocopah artists—multicolored yolks in geometric patterns. A young woman in a cobalt blue blouse and white skirt was wearing one of the yolks in patterns of white, yellow and red beads. Against the darker cloth, it was striking. Her long black hair hung in waves, held back on one side by a matching beaded clasp.

She greeted me warmly. “Welcome. Are you looking for something special?” she asked. In contrast to her impeccable appearance, including heavy eye make-up and ruby red lipstick, I suddenly felt very plain.

“Well, no. But…yes!” I suddenly remembered the upcoming university graduation party I’d been invited to. “I have a silver top and black skirt that one of these necklaces would truly enhance. What would you recommend?”

“These are yolks, a traditional form of adornment that our women invented when we began to trade with foreigners. I think they may also have been inspired by the yolks from pioneer women’s dresses. How about this one?” She held up a yolk comprised of iridescent red beads with geometric patterns of black and white beads. She came out from around the counter to help me put it on in front of a mirror. It was the most beautiful beadwork I’d ever seen.

“Yes, this will be dramatic against the silvery top. Thank you,” I said. “How much does it cost?”

From behind the case again, she checked the tag, and said, “This one is by one of our best artists, an elder. She is asking $500 for it.” She looked up to see my face probably go a little pale. She smiled and explained that hundreds of hours go into the making of the yoke.

“Then, I will wear it with pride. Yes, please wrap it for me; I am traveling and do not want to damage it.” I figured it was one of those moments, like the meeting with David, when two nations converge. Investing in an elder, in the traditional arts of the River People seemed the right thing to do. Besides, I had squirreled away money for a vacation and this seemed like a good use for it.

The young woman’s name was Sabrina Johnston. Her comportment communicated humility blended with self-confidence. The River People were not a weak nation. They had withstood an onslaught of injustices. Yet here they were. It was good to see and made me feel even more confused about the assignment I’d been given. Just who needs the help? I wondered to myself.

On a bookstand in the small gift store, I found a history that Sabrina affirmed was the one everyone trusted as correctly describing their lineage, language, traditions, and art. It was a book written by a nonnative woman affiliated with the state university, which encouraged me in my thinking that relationships could be built from trust and a good intent.

But that thought turned to ashes at the Tribal Council meeting some days later.

~~~

“I’ll just start by saying, Miss Greenway, that I don’t trust you.” The Chairperson sat behind a microphone on the curved oak desk in the Tribal Council chambers.

I stood in the center of a horseshoe circle of council members, many of whom burst into laughter upon hearing the Chairman’s statement. My knees literally shook as I realized just how unprepared I was to address the leaders of this Nation. I couldn’t wait to get back to Phoenix to let my boss know what I thought about him and his irrational idea.

Clearing my throat, I said, “I understand that…but frankly, I don’t trust you, either.” Where did that come from? I had no idea. It just leapt up into my throat and I let it fly! It would be over in a blink. But then the room erupted in laughter and even the stern face of the Chairman broke into a grin.

Most of the council members were large, heavy-framed men and women, with countenances that did not inspire casual conversation. Their laughter did not alleviate the tension for me. It only confused my thinking more.

“Well, now that that’s settled, maybe you can tell us why you are here.” The Chairman was extending me another chance.

Had I passed a test?

I followed with a lame description of the project I no longer believed in after my long meeting with Bill Sherwood. The Council, to their credit, listened without interruption or any indication of how they felt about what I said.

“Well, I am sure our elders will tell you what they think,” the Chairman said flatly. “I wish you good luck.”

Then he addressed David Tejano, who was present in the public seating area. “Mr. Tejano, I trust you will direct Miss Greenway where to begin.”

And that was that. I left somewhat dumbfounded yet grateful I’d made it through. Nevertheless, I realized as I walked to my car that no commitment or comments as to its potential relevance were made about an environmental education project.

David said goodbye with the assurance he would be in touch, and I left with my history book about the River People to return to my motel room. I flopped into bed, weary from tension, and began to read an incredible story about America’s Nile culture.