N. Scott Momaday - Earth Keeper

   Image
 
 Dedication

     To the remembered earth

 
 Epigraph

     Once in his life a man ought to concentrate his mind upon the remembered earth, I believe. He ought to give himself up to a particular landscape in his experience, to look at it from as many angles as he can, to wonder about it, to dwell upon it. He ought to imagine that he touches it with his hands at every season and listens to the sounds that are made upon it. He ought to imagine the creatures there and all the faintest motions of the wind. He ought to recollect the glare of noon and all the colors of the dawn and dusk.
     —from The Way to Rainy Mountain

 
 Contents

     Cover
     Title Page
     Dedication
     Epigraph
     Author’s Note
     Prologue
     One: The Dawn
     Two: The Dusk
     Epilogue
     About the Author
     Also by N. Scott Momaday
     Copyright
     About the Publisher
 
 Author’s Note

     The reflections contained herein stem from a deep investment in the American landscape. I was born and grew up in the American West. It is a part of the earth that I have come to know well and love deeply. I have been fortunate enough to have traveled over much of the world, and I have experienced many things, met many interesting people, beheld many wonders. I have written about them. But here I have written about what I know best, my native ground. This book is a very personal account, a kind of spiritual autobiography. When I think about my life and the lives of my ancestors I am inevitably led to the conviction that I, and they, belong to the American land. This is a declaration of belonging. And it is an offering to the earth.
 
 Prologue

     Many years ago a young woman came to the American West in a covered wagon. I do not know her name, nor do I know the place from which she came. What I do know is this: Among the possessions she brought with her was the one thing she cherished above all others, her wedding dress. It was not the dress in which she had been married, but the dress in which someday she would be married. The personal value of such a belonging is of course inestimable. In the folds of the wedding dress were the woman’s dreams.
     An unknown world opened before her, a landscape so vast and primitive that she could not comprehend it. She beheld distances that seemed endless, a range of form and color beyond her imagination. It was a world of constant change and profound mystery, incomparable beauty, and, above all, wonder.
     I must believe that the woman’s dreams were realized, that she wore her wedding dress, and that she became one with the spirit of the land. It is a story of belonging.
 
 One

 The Dawn

 
  Image     Rock Tree


 
     I am an elder, and I keep the earth. When I was
     a boy I first became aware of the beautiful world
     in which I lived. It was a world of rich colors?red
     canyons and blue mesas, green fields and yellow-
     ochre sands, silver clouds, and mountains that
     changed from black to charcoal to purple and iron. It
     was a world of great distances. The sky was so deep
     that it had no end, and the air was run through with
     sparkling light. It was a world in which I was wholly
     alive. I knew even then that it was mine and that I
     would keep it forever in my heart. It was essential
     to my being. I touch pollen to my face. I wave cedar
     smoke upon my body. I am a Kiowa man. My Kiowa
     name is Tsoai-talee, “Rock Tree Boy.” These are the
     words of Tsoai-talee.
 
     Near cornfields I saw a hawk. At first it was
     nothing but a speck, almost still in the sky. But as
     I watched, it swung diagonally down until it took
     shape against a dark ridge, and I could see the sheen
     of its hackles and the pale underside of its wings.
     Its motion seemed slow as it leveled off and sailed
     in a straight line. I caught my breath and waited to
     see what I thought would be its steep ascent away
     from the land. But instead it dived down in a blur, a
     vertical streak like a bolt of lightning, to the ground.
     It struck down in a creosote bush. After a long
     moment in which there was a burst of commotion,
     the great bird beat upward, bearing the limp body
     of a rabbit in its talons. And it was again a mote that
     receded into nothing. I had seen a wild performance,
     I thought, something of the earth that inspired
     wonder and fear. I hold tight this vision.
 
     The night the old man Dragonfly came to my
     grandfather?s house the moon was full. It rose like a
     great red planet above the black trees on the crooked
     creek. Then there came a flood of pewter light on
     the plain, and I could see the light ebb toward me
     like water, and I thought of rivers I had never seen,
     rising like ribbons of rain. And in the morning
     Dragonfly came from the house, his hair in braids
     and his face painted. He stood on a little mound of
     earth and faced east. Then he raised his arms and
     began to pray. His voice seemed to reach beyond
     itself, a long way on the land, and he prayed the sun
     up. The grasses glistened with dew, and a bird sang
     from the dawn. This happened a long time ago. I was
     not there. My father was there when he was a boy.
     He told me of it. And I was there.
 
     On the short-grass prairie where I was born, and
     where generations of my family were born before me,
     grasshoppers are innumerable in the summer. In the
     shimmering waves of August heat they make a dense
     green and yellow cloud above the red earth. It is slow
     in motion, and sometimes hesitant, like an ascending
     swarm, and it is irresistible. You walk along, and you
     are constantly struck by these bounding creatures.
     If you catch one and hold it close to your eyes, you
     see that it appears to be very old, as old as the earth
     itself, perhaps, and that its tenure is as original as
     your own.
 
     I dream of Dragonfly, and always in my dreams
     I am young and he is old. When I see his face it is
     drawn and wrinkled, the face of a holy man, and
     there are faint stains of red and yellow paint on his
     cheeks and about the mouth, made from powdered
     berries and pollen. His hands have pronounced veins,
     and the fingers are long and bent from a lifetime of
     use. He is thin, and his skin is weathered, burned
     by the sun and wind. His voice too is thin, and his
     speech is carefully measured. He speaks of things
     that are the most important to him, spiritual things.
     He keeps the earth, and he has belonging in my
     dreams.
 
     There was a tree at Rainy Mountain. It was
     Dragonfly?s tree. Beneath this tree Dragonfly spoke
     to Daw-kee, the Great Mystery. There the holy man
     was made holy. He was told that every day he must
     pray not only to witness the sun?s appearance, but
     indeed to raise the sun, to see to it that the sun
     was borne into the sky, that each day was made by
     the grace of Dragonfly?s words. This was a great
     responsibility, and Dragonfly carried it well. And at
     the holy tree he was told of the earth.
 
     We humans must revere the earth, for it is our
     well-being. Always the earth grants us what we
     need. If we treat the earth with kindness, it will
     treat us kindly. If we give our belief to the earth, it
     will believe in us. There is no better blessing than to
     be believed in. There are those who believe that the
     earth is dead. They are deceived. The earth is alive,
     and it is possessed of spirit. Consider the holy tree. It
     can be allowed to thirst. It can be cut down. Worst of
     all, it can be denied our faith in it, our belief. But if
     we speak to it, if we pray, it will thrive.
 
     When we dance the earth trembles. When our
     steps fall on the earth we feel the shudder of life
     beneath us, and the earth feels the beating of our
     hearts, and we become one with the earth. We shall
     not sever ourselves from the earth. We must chant
     our being, and we must dance in time with the
     rhythms of the earth. We must keep the earth.
 
  Image     Celebrant


 
     I am an elder, and I keep the earth. I am an elder,
     and I am a bear. When I was a child I was given a
     name, and in that name is the medicine of a bear. I
     speak to the bear in me:
     Hold hard this infirmity.

     It defines you. You are old.

     Now fix yourself in summer,

     In thickets of ripe berries,

     And venture toward the ridge

     Where you were born. Await there

     The setting sun. Be alive

     To that old conflagration

     One more time. Mortality

     Is your shadow and your shade.

     Translate yourself to spirit;

     Be present on your journey.

     Keep to the trees and waters.

     Be the singing of the soil.

 
     The story from which my name comes is also the
     story of my seven sisters, who were borne into the
     sky and became the stars of the Big Dipper. The
     story is very important, for it relates us to the stars.
     It is a bridge between the earth and the heavens.
     There is no earth without the sun and moon.
     There is no earth without the stars. When we die,
     Dragonfly says, we go to the farther camps. Death is
     not the end of life. There is life in the farther camps.
     The stars are fires in the farther camps.
     In the making of my song

     There is a crystal wind

     And the burnished dark of dusk

     There is the memory of elders dancing

     In firelight at Two Meadows

     Where the reeds whisper

     I sing and there is gladness in it

     And laughter like the play of spinning leaves

     I sing and I am gone from sorrow

     To the farther camps

 
     The waters tell of time. Always rivers run upon
     the earth and quench its thirst. Bright water carries
     our burdens across long distances. Without water
     we, and all that we know, would wither and die. We
     measure time by the flow of water as it passes us by.
     But in truth it is we who pass through time. Once
     I traveled on a great river though a canyon. The
     walls of the canyon were so old as to be timeless.
     There came a sunlit rain, and a double rainbow
     arched the river. There was mystery and meaning in
     my passage. I beheld things that others had beheld
     thousands of years ago. The earth is a place of
     wonder and beauty.
 
     Dragonfly speaks of his horse as a hunting horse.
     Such an animal is greatly prized, he says. There was
     a time when we had many horses and before that a
     time when we had none. And we came from darkness
     into light. The horse is a gift, an offering from the
     earth. We must live up to the horse; we must be
     worthy of it. Now my horse is old, and it has but one
     poor task?to carry me along. But in its blood is the
     strain of the hunting horse. Old as it is, it dreams of
     the chase, of its hooves drumming the earth, and it
     quivers with excitement in the presence of danger.
     When I see a horse grazing on the skyline it seems a
     spirit. I think of it ascending to the sun.
 
  Image     Hunting Horse


 
     That winter was cold and snowy at Walatowa, a
     good season for hunting. My friend Patricio and I
     were invigorated by the cold, crisp air as we walked
     to the river. We approached the river slowly and
     quietly, but when we drew near, the geese took off in
     tumult, with a frantic beating of their wings, trailing
     a great wake of water. It was a thrilling thing to see.
     Then at once I heard behind me the blast of Patricio?s
     shotgun, and I saw one of the geese struggle and
     fall. I waded into the river to retrieve it, and I was
     disturbed to see that it was alive and stricken, but
     it was perfectly still. Its eyes were very bright, and
     it seemed to look forever after the pale angle that
     was dissolving in the dark sky. I cannot forget that
     look or the sadness that grew up in me. I carried the
     beautiful creature, heavy and helpless in my arms,
     until it died. I have lived in the close memory of that
     day for many years.
 
     We have no-name dogs, Dragonfly says. They
     have no need of names. We know who they are,
     and they know who we are. We are in good
     understanding. There was a time, long ago, when
     dogs could talk. Think of that. But they were not
     good with words. They threw them away or used
     them to make mischief. Before we had horses we had
     dogs. I am told that when we came from the north,
     many generations ago, dogs came with us. They
     dragged our goods and looked after us. They keep
     the earth.
 
     Dragonfly closes his eyes and pretends to sleep,
     but the children who sit at his feet know better.
     They wait patiently. Then Dragonfly opens his eyes
     and says, Akeah-de, “They were camping.” He tells of
     the ancestors who, in the beginning, came one by one
     into the world through a hollow log. That was a long,
     long time ago, when dogs could talk. That is a holy
     place, the place where it happened, Dragonfly says. I
     would like to see that log. I wonder if it is still there.
     Probably it has crumbled into the ground. All things
     are taken back by the earth, for all things belong to
     it. And all things can be contained in a story.
 
     My ancestors were hunters. For a long time they
     hunted on foot. It was hard work, and it took most
     of the hunter?s time. He had to stalk his prey, and he
     had to kill it with a lance or with a bow and arrow.
     Great skill was required in the hunt, and everyone
     relied on the hunters for food. It was a question
     of survival. Then came the horse, and everything
     changed. Hunting became easier, and new skills and
     methods were necessary. Much time and effort were
     saved, and the stature of the hunters was enhanced.
     The hunters could afford to kill only what was
     needed. And always the hunters and the people gave
     thanks for their bounty, and they asked forgiveness
     from the animals that were killed. There was time to
     dance and celebrate the earth.
 
  Image     Dance Figure


 
     Dragonfly is a throwback. His view of the world
     is ancient. It was fashioned in darkness by those who
     had no language, who were struggling in the agony
     of birth, the miracle of becoming human. Those
     ancients were bereft, but there was a spirit within
     them, and they expressed their spirit by shaping
     images on the walls of caves. They were in sacred
     relation with the animals they painted. In their
     profound art was the construction of a primitive
     belief, a faith in the essence of the earth. They
     invented a spiritual life of the mind. Dragonfly is of
     that mind and spirit. He is a holy man.
 
     Dragonfly holds an eagle feather in his hand. He
     holds it in such a way that it is horizontal and flat
     on the air. This belongs to an eagle, he says. And
     the eagle belongs to the earth and sky. The feather,
     by itself, may seem a small thing, but the creature
     of which it is a part is very powerful. That power
     resides in this feather. It is a power that binds all
     things together. When I hold this feather, its power
     flows into me. If I should turn this feather over, you
     too would turn over. Now I make you a gift of this
     holy, living feather. You must respect and believe
     in its power, and now and then you must dip the
     stem of it in milk, that it may be nourished. And
     Dragonfly?s voice is the voice of prayer.
 
  Image     Trickster


 
     Do you see the man in the moon? Dragonfly asks.
     We are camping, and we can see the full moon. It is
     large, yellow, and bright, and there is indeed a figure
     in it. That is Saynday the trickster, grandson. Once
     the Kiowas were very hungry, and there was no food.
     Then a scout rode hard into the camp and shouted
     that he had seen a herd of buffalo close by. Saynday?s
     wife told Saynday that the men were going out the
     next morning. You must go with them, and you must
     bring back fresh buffalo meat. Yes, said Saynday. The
     next day all of the men brought back fresh buffalo
     meat, but not Saynday. He could find no buffalo,
     and he brought back tomatoes. His wife beat him
     with a broom, and he took refuge in the moon. He is
     afraid to come down. Think of that, grandson. How
     terrible, to be severed from the earth!
 
     Dusk descends on the late afternoon. A flaming
     sunset has given way to a darkening old silver sky,
     and the edges of the landscape soften and barely
     glow. It is the end of summer, and there is a shiver
     on the leaves and grasses in the waning light. In the
     dim distance a coyote moves like the slow shadow of
     a soaring hawk in the long plain. The earth is at rest.
 
     The force of life is very great, Dragonfly says.
     Some years ago the prayer tree at Rainy Mountain
     was struck by lightning. It burned and turned
     black, but it did not fall. There had not been time to
     speak of the tree to Man-ka-ih, the storm spirit. The
     tree seemed to be dead. But a long time afterward
     there appeared a tiny sprig of green on a charred
     limb, and then the hidden life of the tree burst out
     in a hundred leaves. It was a wondrous sight, and
     I wept to see it. I believe that the earth gave of its
     irresistible life to the tree. How can we not give
     thanks in return?
 
     You must taste the earth, Dragonfly says. It is
     good for you. The earth gives us many things that
     strengthen and heal us. Even the bare ground upon
     which we walk is good for our well-being. Observe
     the mole that is so much at home underground.
     When it is building its house, it comes again and
     again to the surface and blows a fine spray of dirt
     all around. This powdered earth can be tasted or
     inhaled to our benefit. The turtle too is a creature
     that knows of the deep earth. And when we see it
     go to high ground, we follow it, for it knows when a
     flood is coming. It is good to look into the face of a
     turtle, for there we see great age and wisdom. And
     see how it goes indefinitely on its crooked legs.
 
     And often one heard from the old people, those
     like Dragonfly, who were elders before my time.
     Once, according to the old woman Smoke, there was a
     Sun Dance on Oak Creek. There were many visitors,
     and the camps were made clean and beautiful. Fresh,
     sandy earth was brought from a distance and placed
     in the Sun Dance lodge. The dancers, praying for
     good things in the coming year, danced on the sand,
     tamping it into the older earth, enriching it. That
     year the hunting was good, and the visitors brought
     many gifts. The calendars record a time of plenty.
 
     I stand where Dragonfly stood and prayed; Daw-kee,
     give light and life to your people. Give us one more
     day, and one more, and at last one more. I lift my old
     arms in bold entreaty. There the house and arbor
     are falling into ruin. Those who have inherited the
     homestead have not cared for it. Inside the arbor,
     once a place of happy activity and joyful talk and
     laughter, I place my bare feet on the red earthen
     floor and breathe the summer-scented breezes that
     enter there, I bless this place which is sacred to me,
     and I ponder the omen of the dead white owl that I
     found in the gutted house. Even in death the snowy
     creature is a keeper of the earth.
 
     May my heart hold the earth all the days of my
     life. And when I am gone to the farther camps, may
     my name sound on the green hills, and may the cedar
     smoke that I have breathed drift on the canyon walls
     and among the branches of living trees. May birds
     of many colors encircle the soil where my steps have
     been placed, and may the deer, the lion, and the bear
     of the mountains be touched by the blessings that
     have touched me. May I chant the praises of the wild
     land, and may my spirit range on the wind forever.
 
 Two

 The Dusk

 
  Image     Buffalo Calf


 
     When the great herds of buffalo drifted like a
     vast tide of rainwater over the green plains, it was a
     wonderful thing to see. But there came a day when
     the land was strewn with the flayed and rotting
     remains of those innumerable animals, slain for sport
     or for nothing but their hides. The Kiowas grieved
     and went hungry, and it was the human spirit that
     hungered most. It was a time of profound shame, and
     the worst thing of all was that the killers knew no
     shame. They moved on, careless, having left a deep
     wound on the earth. We were ashamed, but the earth
     does not want shame. It wants love.
 
     Something of our relationship to the earth is
     determined by the particular place we stand at
     a given time. If you stand still long enough to
     observe carefully the things around you, you will
     find beauty, and you will know wonder. If you see a
     leaf carried along on the flow of a river, you might
     ponder its journey. Where did it begin, and where
     will it end? What will be the story of its passage?
     You will discover a thousand ways in which the leaf
     is connected to the water, the banks, the near and
     farther distances, the sky and the sun. Your mind,
     your spirit will be nourished and grow. You will
     become one with what you see. Consider what is to
     be seen.
 
     There was a remarkable thing beside the highway,
     a billboard without words. It was a painting, a large
     and precise replica of the landscape behind it. On
     the picture plane you saw what you would have seen
     had it not been there, not the likeness, the reality. I
     began to think about it. It was a conversation piece,
     a clever hoax, but a hoax nonetheless. It was, if you
     will, a sign of the times. How many lifeless things
     are placed each day between us and the living earth?
     A friend in Brooklyn told me that his little son had
     gone out to watch workmen breaking up a sidewalk.
     He was fascinated to see earth under the cement. He
     had never seen it before.
 
     There is no love without loss. I hear the drums
     that vibrate to the heartbeat of the earth. They
     set me dancing. I see the clouds that wreathe the
     summits. They set me dreaming. I know the wonder
     of waves that shake the headlands. They awaken
     my soul. I hear the screams of eagles on the wind.
     And I ponder, what are these things to me who loves
     and does not reckon loss? Do I not keep the earth?
     Those who came before me did not take for granted
     the world in which they lived. They blessed the air
     with smoke and pollen. They touched the ground,
     the trees, the stones with respect and reverence. I
     believe that they imagined me before I was born,
     that they prepared the way for me, that they placed
     their faith and hope in me and in the generations
     that followed and will follow them. Will I give my
     children an inheritance of the earth? Or will I give
     them less than I was given?
 
     In my dream the holy man Dragonfly speaks of the
     woman who was buried in a beautiful dress. She is
     somewhere out there in the land. She has gone to
     the farther camps, but her bones are at home in the
     dress, in the earth. Once she had a name, but it is
     forgotten. Once it was known where she is buried,
     but now no one knows. Once she was a girl who
     laughed and danced and listened to the stories of her
     ancestors. But now she is the woman who was buried
     in a beautiful dress. There is mystery and meaning in
     that. The earth has taken her in. She has being in the
     earth. This is a story of which you dream, grandson.
     The earth is a house of stories. Akeah-de.
 
     When I was a boy my father took me to a place
     where relatives once lived. Nothing was left of the
     house but traces of a foundation. The place was far
     out on the plain, so far that mountains were in sight.
     My father, when he was a boy, visited the people
     there. At night, he said, we could hear the howls of
     prairie wolves. They are gone now. I would like to
     have seen them. Your grandfather told me that they
     were handsome, with long legs and beautiful yellow
     eyes, wild and searching. I try to see the wolves in
     my mind?s eye, but I can only imagine them. I wish
     I could describe them to you. My father?s voice had
     trailed off. Will I tell my grandchildren, I wonder, of
     animals they will never see?
 
     The earth is not impervious to the presence of
     man. We humans have inflicted terrible wounds
     upon the earth. The scars are everywhere visible,
     even here where Dragonfly brought up the sun and
     where I was given my sacred name. The arbor is
     now a ruin, for it came into the hands of uncaring
     and visionless people. Inside is the evidence of life
     once having been. There my grandmother sat with
     her beadwork, and there my father set his initials
     in Gothic characters on the wall when he was a boy
     dreaming of becoming an artist. There were prayer
     meetings here in the night, and hymns sung in
     Kiowa. The voices carried on the prairie darkness to
     Rainy Mountain Creek and beyond. In my memory
     I can hear them. I touch the red earthen floor. It is
     beyond the indifference which has crumbled these
     walls. It will be here after all. After all it will be here.
 
     On one side of time there are herds of buffalo and
     antelope. Redbud trees and chokecherries splash
     color on the plain. The waters are clear, and there is
     a glitter on the early morning grass. You breathe in
     the fresh fragrances of rain and wind on which are
     borne silence and serenity. It is good to be alive in
     this world. But on the immediate side there is the
     exhaust of countless machines, toxic and unavoidable.
     The planet is warming, and the northern ice is
     melting. Fires and floods wreak irresistible havoc.
     The forests are diminished and waste piles upon us.
     Thousands of species have been destroyed. Our own
     is at imminent risk. The earth and its inhabitants are
     in crisis, and at the center it is a moral crisis. Man
     stands to repudiate his humanity.
 
     In winter on the northern prairie I came upon a
     scene of ineffable beauty. There were vast sloping
     snowfields, and everywhere there were shrubs
     crusted with ice. In the January light they shone
     with a crystalline brilliance that glittered like
     shards broken from the sun. On a blue-white hillside
     there appeared a bull elk moving diagonally down
     to a dense wood and out of sight. The elk and the
     wilderness belonged to each other, I thought, and in
     the spectrum of evolution I was estranged from both.
     The next morning I heard the whine of chainsaws in
     the distance.
 
     At the pueblo of Walatowa I came to know a world
     that was remote in time and space. I was twelve
     years old when my parents and I moved there. In my
     day the life of the town had remained by and large
     unchanged for hundreds of years. The people grew
     corn and melons and chili; they hunted deer and bear
     in the mountains, and they captured golden eagles
     for use in their ceremonies. Time was told on a solar
     calendar, according to the position of the sun on the
     horizon. There were ceremonial dances and feast
     days of marked activity and color. I fitted myself into
     the ancient rhythm of life there and came to know
     that country far and wide on the back of a horse.
     Then that world began to change with the return of
     young men from World War II. Many of them had
     been psychologically severed from the traditional
     earth. It was a time of loss.
 
  Image     War Pony


 
     On my way to school I passed by the sheep corral
     of Francisco Tosa, an old man of Walatowa who was
     preparing to herd his flock out to graze. He always
     greeted me with a shout, ?Muy bonita día!” And he
     laughed under his big straw hat. It was impossible
     to say how old he was. The skin on his face and
     hands was greatly weathered, and he walked at a
     slow pace. But there was a sharp vitality in him,
     and a generosity of spirit that seemed boundless.
     The sheep were his children, I believe, and he loved
     them unconditionally. I have come to think of him
     as a singular and worthy man, one with whom G-d
     would play hide-and-seek. Francisco lived closer to
     the earth than most men do, and I am exceedingly
     fortunate to have crossed his path. It might have
     been he who, in the purity and grace of his simple
     soul, brought rainbows to the canyon walls.
 
     Several years ago, on the bank of a river, I
     witnessed a total eclipse of the sun. That was a
     strange thing. For a profound moment there was
     night in the afternoon. Shadows rippled on the sand,
     and the world was deceived. Thousands of years ago
     someone, a cave dweller, perhaps, who was emerging
     into language and thought, observed the same
     phenomenon. What did it mean to that primitive
     mind? Was there fear, confusion, acceptance? Was the
     moment given a sign, a name? The temporal distance
     between that ancestor and me is inconceivable, and
     yet the map of human history is etched there. And
     it is concentrated in a single transitory moment of
     darkness in which the earth, the moon, and the sun
     are in perfect alignment.
 
  Image     Sentry


 
     I met a man of the mountains, a singer of prayers
     and a hunter. When he killed a wild animal, it was
     done for food, and he always asked its forgiveness and
     anointed it with pollen. Bears, especially, were his
     friends. He was known by one name only, Stone. Over
     the years he became my spiritual brother, and we
     exchanged tributes in song and prayer. He was a man
     of great goodwill and wisdom, and he was an earth
     keeper. Our songs were informed by our respective
     oral traditions and a reverence for nature. He lived
     on land that was rich in timber and game, and he
     was literally losing ground to the encroachment of
     poachers and speculators. In time he lost something
     of his spirit, and he went down a solemn way. And
     when I received notice of his death, I drew the image
     of a bear and named it Stone.
 
     A teacher once said to me, write little and write
     well. He was a poet and a man who took literature
     seriously. He wrote this: ?Unless we understand the
     history that produced us, we are determined by that
     history. We may be determined in any event, but
     the understanding gives us a chance.? What is the
     critical force of that understanding, I wonder? Are we
     to witness the eclipse of our civilization? Or are we
     to take the chance? The teacher raised Airedales for
     show and tended an orchard in his backyard. Had he
     not taken literature seriously, he told me, he would
     have been a farmer.
 
     I rode on horseback to the west, to the red
     labyrinth. There were hawks overhead turning
     narrowly down, then soaring up and far away, and
     in their own time returning. All afternoon they
     regarded me. Then, when the shadows grew long
     I entered the labyrinth, and the cliffs leaned over
     me. From the darkness within, a gust of cold wind
     came loud and bolting, and I was nearly thrown to
     the ground. It was not the wind of the plain, but
     something of the labyrinth itself, essential and deep,
     without definition or a name. I rode out into the
     cauldron of the late light and searched the sky for
     the hawks, but they were no longer there. I felt that
     I had been to the center of the earth, to the house of
     Genesis.
 
     How are we to ward off the immorality of
     ignorance and greed, the disease of indifference to
     the earth? Perhaps the answer lies in the expression
     of the spirit, in words of a sacred nature. The efficacy
     of Dragonfly?s prayer to the sun is realized in the
     miracle of dawn. We must not doubt that it is so.
     Great Mystery, give us one more day, and one more,

     and then one more. I lift my arms in bold entreaty.

     And when Stone touches pollen to the head of the
     bear he utters words that affirm the kinship of the
     hunter and the hunted, the communion of life and
     death, the beneficence of the earth.
     I make a prayer for words. Let me say my heart.

 
  Image     Bear Man


 
     I offer a blessing of water. You, like grasses in the
     afternoon, when they feather and ripple out in arcs
     of wind, turn and return, your whole being of a
     piece, singular in form and grace. You are the slow,
     supple motion of clouds drifting, of purling air over
     September meadows. Toward my village you walk.
     I regard you. You come, appearing in dappled light
     on the rolling land. When you reach the spring I will
     have drawn water for you. Look for me, and in the
     manner of an earth keeper I will be there.
 
     A friend and colleague of mine wrote of the
     Machine in the Garden and another wrote of the
     Virgin Land. These writings center on the coming
     of the Industrial Age to a pastoral America and the
     notion of Manifest Destiny, respectively. Both are
     important studies of American history, and as such
     they focus upon the past. But it is the present and
     the possibilities of a future that must concern us.
     Ours is a damaged world. We humans have done
     the damage, and we must be held to account. We
     have suffered a poverty of the imagination, a loss of
     innocence. There was a time when ?man must have
     held his breath in the presence of this continent,?
     this New World, ?commensurate to his capacity for
     wonder.? I would strive with all my strength to give
     that sense of wonder to those who will come after me.
 
     At night I listen to the dogs of the village and the
     coyotes of the wilds. They convene at the river and
     exchange their opinions on important matters of
     mutual concern. There is much banter and boasting.
     The dogs are well known to me, but the coyotes are
     mysterious. To one who listens on a cold night to
     those otherworldly voices, they seem to ascend into
     space and to chip at the tooth of the moon. Night
     describes the edge of sound until first light appears,
     and on the fringe of hearing the strange music
     ebbs into the void and is no more. And then the
     circumference of silence encloses the dawn.
 
     Those who deny the spirit of the earth, who do not
     see that the earth is alive and sacred, who poison the
     earth and inflict wounds upon it have no shame and
     are without the basic virtues of humanity. And they
     bring ridicule upon themselves.
     I am ashamed before the earth

     I am ashamed before the heavens

     I am ashamed before the dawn

     I am ashamed before the evening light

     I am ashamed before the sky

     I am ashamed before the sun

     This pronouncement from the Navajo has increasing
     relevance in our time. Daw-kee, let me not be
     ashamed before the earth.
 
     One summer day I sat outside at a table on which
     I drew in a sketchbook. By the table grew a broad-
     leafed plant. It was exactly as high as the tabletop,
     and it was only inches away from me. As I worked, a
     butterfly alighted on the nearest leaf. It amazed me,
     for it was the largest and most beautiful butterfly
     that I have ever seen, nearly the size of my two
     hands cupped together, and a deep iridescent blue,
     like the cobalt blue of a sky in which a storm is
     building. It struck me with wonder, and a kind of
     humility, and I could look at nothing else. Then it
     flew away. And I was sad to see it go. But a strange
     feeling came over me, and I said to myself, with a
     knowing that I cannot explain, that it would return.
     And so it did. I believe that the beautiful creature
     and I had entered into a kind of mystical communion,
     accepted but not understood.
 
     My plane landed at Coppermine to take on fuel.
     I was coming from Holman Island on my way to
     Yellowknife, and it was the middle of the night. The
     ground time was short, but I felt the need to stretch
     my legs, and I stepped outside. Suddenly my breath
     caught in my throat. The Northern Lights were
     squarely upon me. The shock of that magnificent
     show was greater than that of the icy wind. Great
     ribbons of dancing light unraveled on the snowy sky,
     and a great shiver of color enveloped the dome of the
     earth. It was an event of profound spiritual moment,
     such as a child knows in the splendor of a Christmas
     tree, and there was in my soul a song of celebration.
 
  Image     Gathering


 
     It is in human nature to pray. It is appropriate that
     we lay our words upon the earth. And so: Great
     Mystery, you who dwell in the endless beyond, you
     who spoke the first word and made of your breath
     the mountains and the waters, the trees and the
     grasses, the man and the woman and the child, hear
     me in my small voice. I am your thankful creature.
     My people and all the birds and animals are your
     thankful creatures. Hold us! Hold us in your hands,
     and make us worthy of your blessing. Tell us the old
     stories of your greatness, that our minds and our
     hearts may be nourished with wonder and delight.
     Let us see your likeness in the stars, and let us hear
     your voice in rolling thunder and in the wind and
     rain. Be with us forever in the sacred smoke of your
     being. These are my words, my offering to you,
     Great Mystery.
 
     A friend and kinsman, Botone, raised horses in
     Colorado. One day he came to visit me in Tucson,
     where I was then teaching at the University of
     Arizona. He told me the story of a man who in battle
     turned his horse from a charge into the enemy. The
     horse died of shame. Botone wept in the telling, and
     I realized the depth of his feeling. Before he left he
     placed in my hand a stick about the size of a crayon.
     This stands for a horse, he said. It is traditional. And
     a few days later there arrived at my home a beautiful
     Appaloosa mare, and I was reminded of the mythic
     bond between man and horse in the Plains culture,
     also known as the centaur culture. I have twice been
     made the gift of a horse. The meaning of such a gift is
     not lost on me. There are few gifts of such value.
 
     I return to the towering rock tree on a vision quest.
     For four days I fast and sleep in the small tent that I
     have brought for shelter. On the night of the fourth
     day my secret vision comes to me, and I am the
     warrior I was meant to be. The rock tree looms on
     the night sky, and the Big Dipper rides above it. The
     stars are again my seven sisters, and I am again the
     boy who turned into a bear. I am Tsoai-talee, Rock
     Tree Boy, and I will carry that name to the end of
     the world and beyond. I will keep to the trees and
     waters, and I will be the singing of the soil. In my
     truest being I am a keeper of the earth. I will tell the
     ancient stories and I will sing the holy songs. I belong
     to the land.
 
 Epilogue

     On a late afternoon there came a strange light on the prairie, a copper glow, and it preceded the rising of a red moon. For a long moment it seemed that there were embers on the land, glowing and laying a vague, shimmering smoke on the grass. Away to the east there was in the ground a woman in a beautiful doeskin dress. That is all we know about her, but she belongs to us and to the land. In the pervasive silence she sings a song of the earth. Listen.
 
 About the Author

     N. SCOTT MOMADAY is a poet, Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist, playwright, painter, storyteller, and former professor of English and American literature. Born in Lawton, Oklahoma, in 1934, Navarre Scott Momaday was raised in Indian country in Oklahoma and the Southwest. A member of the Kiowa tribe, his works celebrate Native American culture and the oral tradition. He is a graduate of the University of New Mexico (BA, 1958) and Stanford University (MA, 1960; PhD, 1963), and has held tenured appointments at the University of California, Santa Barbara; Berkeley; and Stanford University, and retired as Regents professor at the University of Arizona. He also served as adjunct professor of Native American Studies at the Institute of American Indian Arts, and as artist-in-residence at St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Momaday holds twenty-one honorary doctoral degrees from American and European colleges and universities, and is the recipient of numerous awards and honors in recognition of the work he has done to honor and preserve Native American heritage. These include a National Medal of Arts, the Anisfield-Wolf Lifetime Achievement Award, the Ken Burns American Heritage Prize, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award. He has also served as Centennial Poet Laureate of the state of Oklahoma and holds the honor of Poet Laureate of the Kiowa tribe. He lives in New Mexico.
     Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
 
 Also by N. Scott Momaday

     Poetry

     The Death of Sitting Bear: New and Selected Poems

     Again the Far Morning: New and Selected Poems

     In the Presence of the Sun: Stories and Poems, 1961–1991

     The Gourd Dancer

     Angle of Geese and Other Poems

     Other Works

     Three Plays: The Indolent Boys, Children of the Sun, and

     The Moon in Two Windows

     Four Arrows & Magpie: A Kiowa Story

     In the Bear’s House

     The Man Made of Words: Essays, Stories, Passages

     Circle of Wonder: A Native American Christmas Story

     The Ancient Child

     The Names: A Memoir

     The Way to Rainy Mountain

     House Made of Dawn

     The Journey of Tai-me

 
  Image
 
 Copyright

     EARTH KEEPER. Copyright © 2020 by N. Scott Momaday. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
     FIRST EDITION
     Cover design by Andrea Guin
     All artwork by N. Scott Momaday
     Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
     Names: Momaday, N. Scott, 1934- author.
     Title: Earth Keeper : Reflections on the American Land / N. Scott Momaday.
     Description: First edition. | [New York, NY] : HarperCollins Publishers, 2020. | Identifiers: LCCN 2020025782 (print) | LCCN 2020025783 (ebook) | ISBN 9780063009332 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780063009349 (ebook)
     Subjects: LCSH: Kiowa literature. | Poetry. | Indians of North America--Folklore.
     Classification: LCC PS3563.O47 E278 2020 (print) | LCC PS3563.O47 (ebook) | DDC 814/.54--dc23
     LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020025782
     LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020025783
     Digital Edition NOVEMBER 2020 ISBN: 978-0-06-300934-9
     Version 10142020
     Print ISBN: 978-0-06-300933-2
 
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