Storyteller by Leslie Marmon Silko
The priest approached the grave slowly, wondering how they had managed to dig into the frozen ground; and then he remembered that this was New Mexico, and saw the pile of cold loose sand beside the hole. The people stood close to each other with little clouds of steam puffing from their faces. The priest looked at them and saw a pile of jackets, gloves, and scarves in the yellow, dry tumbleweeds that grew in the graveyard. He looked at the red blanket, not sure that Teofilo was so small, wondering if it wasn’t some perverse Indian trick—something they did in March to ensure a good harvest—wondering if maybe old Teofilo was actually at sheep camp corraling the sheep for the night. But there he was, facing into a cold dry wind and squinting at the last sunlight, ready to bury a red wool blanket while the faces of his parishioners were in shadow with the last warmth of the sun on their backs.
His fingers were stiff, and it took him a long time to twist the lid off the holy water. Drops of water fell on the red blanket and soaked into dark icy spots. He sprinkled the grave and the water disappeared almost before it touched the dim, cold sand; it reminded him of something—he tried to remember what it was, because he thought if he could remember he might understand this. He sprinkled more water; he shook the container until it was empty, and the water fell through the light from sundown like August rain that fell while the sun was still shining, almost evaporating before it touched the wilted squash flowers.
The wind pulled at the priest’s brown Franciscan robe and swirled away the corn meal and pollen that had been sprinkled on the blanket. They lowered the bundle into the ground, and they didn’t bother to untie the stiff pieces of new rope that were tied around the ends of the blanket. The sun was gone, and over on the highway the eastbound lane was full of headlights. The priest walked away slowly. Leon watched him climb the hill, and when he had disappeared within the tall, thick walls, Leon turned to look up at the high blue mountains in the deep snow that reflected a faint red light from the west. He felt good because it was finished, and he was happy about the sprinkling of the holy water; now the old man could send them big thunderclouds for sure.
Grandpa Hank
Many of the Navajo people would come back to the same houses year after year for Laguna Feast until finally they were good friends with the Laguna families and they would bring nice gifts when they came. Grandpa Hank had a friend like that, an old man from Alamo. Every year they were so glad to see each other, and the Navajo man would bring Grandpa something in the gunny sack he carried—sometimes little apricots the old man grew or a mutton shoulder. Grandpa would walk around the store and gather up things for his friend—coffee and sugar and a new pair of Levi’s—things like that. I remember the last time the old Navajo man came looking for my grandpa. He came into the store and looked for Grandpa where Grandpa always stood, behind his desk in the corner. When he didn’t see him, the old man asked for him and then we told him, “Henry passed away last winter.” The old Navajo man cried, and then he left. He never came back anymore after that.
Deer Dance / For Your Return
for Denny
If this
will hasten your return
then I will hold myself above you all night
blowing softly
down-feathered clouds
that drift above the spruce
and hide your eyes
as you are born back
to the mountain.
Years ago
through the yellow oak leaves
antlers polished like stones
in the canyon stream-crossing
Morning turned in the sky
when I saw you
and I wanted the gift
you carry on moon-color shoulders
so big
the size of you
holds the long winter.
You have come home with me before
a long way down the mountain
The people welcome you.
I took
the best red blanket for you
the turquoise the silver rings
were very old
something familiar for you
blue corn meal saved special.
While others are sleeping
I tie feathers on antlers
whisper close to you
we have missed you
I have longed for you.
Losses are certain
in the pattern of this dance
Over the terrain a hunter travels
blind curves in the trail
seize the breath
until it leaps away
loose again
to run the hills.
Go quickly.
How beautiful
this last time
I touch you
to believe
and hasten the return
of lava-slope hills and
your next-year heart
Mine still beats
in the tall grass
where you stopped.
Go quickly.
Year by year
after the first snowfall
I will walk these hills and
pray you will come again
I will go with a heart full for you
to wait your return.
The neck pulse slacks,
then smoothes.
It has been a long time
Sundown forms change
Faces are unfamiliar
As the last warmth goes
from under my hand
Hooves scatter rocks
down the hillside
and I turn to you
The run
for the length of the mountain
is only beginning.
In the fall, the Laguna hunters go to the hills and mountains around Laguna Pueblo to bring back the deer. The people think of the deer as coming to give themselves to the hunters so that the people will have meat through the winter. Late in the winter the Deer Dance is performed to honor and pay thanks to the deer spirits who’ve come home with the hunters that year. Only when this has been properly done will the spirits be able to return to the mountain and be reborn into more deer who will, remembering the reverence and appreciation of the people, once more come home with the hunters.
Grandpa graduated from Sherman Institute, an Indian School located in Riverside, California. While he was at Sherman he became fascinated with engineering and design and wanted to become an automobile designer. But in 1912 Indian schools were strictly vocational schools and the teachers at Sherman told Grandpa that Indians didn’t become automobile designers. So when Grandpa Hank came home from Sherman he had been trained to be a store clerk.
He went to work in Abie Abraham’s store at Laguna and eventually saved up enough to open a little store of his own after he and Grandma Lillie were married. He never cared much for storekeeping; he just did what had to be done. When I got older I was aware of how quiet he was sometimes and sensed there was some sadness he never identified.
He subscribed to Motor Trend and Popular Mechanics and followed the new car designs and results of road tests each year. In 1957 when Ford brought out the Thunderbird in a hardtop convertible, Grandpa Hank bought one and that was his car until he died.
Grandpa Hank and his 1933 Auburn
A Hunting Story
for my grandpa, H. C. Marmon
You have
my grandfather’s feet
light brown
smooth with the years
he’s been gone.
Your hands are familiar
like the moonlight
on December snow
only sometimes,
I don’t recognize
the sandstone cliff
behind you.
All night
your eyes
something burns dark
in old juniper trees.
the she-owl
echoes
along the cliff.
The stars
pull the sky down with them.
&n
bsp; I smooth your belly
with my hand
round and round
We whisper
precise wet sand
spreading wide
down the Pacific Coast.
I knelt above you
that morning
I counted the rattles
the last whistles
in your throat.
I put my mouth on yours.
It might have been possible then
except you clenched your teeth
I could not push through
with my breath or my fingers.
I saw how you would go
spilling out
between ivory ribs
seeping under the tall gate
where earth sucked you in
like rainwater.
I couldn’t stop you—
fragile dust
sparks of sunlight
dispersing
into
horses of many colors
stony gray
blue steeldust
pink mesa stone
the yellow buckskin
leaping out of the east—
You scattered in all directions
of the winds.
Your wife and sons
burned your jacket
sold your car
They stood
holding their own fingers.
There was a song
you never sang to me
the same way
you’d never been to Zuni
not in all those years
of Arkansas, Santa Fe and Colorado.
There was a dance
sweetheart
you never came
to take me home
But when I hold fingers
they will be yours.
If I could see you clearly
only once
If I could come upon you
parked in your truck
sleeping in juniper trees
by Otter lake
Then we could gather
fluttering darkfeathered dreams
before they startle
before they fly far away.
The big star is Polaris
and we hunt for you.
Around smoky campfires
of First Night
where Navajo women
feed you mutton
and tell you
you are from the mountains
above Fluted Rock.
All night
I track sudden sounds
that crack
through moonlight thickets.
Up ahead
there is a small clearing
When you step out
into sight
I will be waiting.
Grandpa Hank had grown up mostly at Paguate
with his Grandma and Grandpa Anaya
although his parents
lived at Laguna.
He used to drive an old wagon between Laguna and Paguate
and he used to pretend it was a fancy buggy
one of those light fast buggies.
Later on my great-grandpa bought a buggy
and it was Grandpa Hank’s job
to drive tourists around the Laguna-Acoma area.
Grandpa Hank said
mostly the tourists came to see Acoma
the “Sky City” which was already famous then.
In 1908 when the Smithsonian Institution
excavated the top of Katsi’ma, Enchanted Mesa
Grandpa drove some of the archeologists
out there in his buggy.
The archeologists used a small brass cannon
to shoot a line over the top of Enchanted Mesa
so they could rig a crude elevator.
I asked Grandpa
what the archeologists found up there—
I had always been curious about what might be
on top of Enchanted Mesa.
“Did they find the bones of that old blind lady
and that baby,” I asked him
“You know, the ones they tell about in that old story?”
There is an old story about a blind woman
being stranded on top of enchanted mesa with a tiny baby
the time the sandstone trail to the top collapsed.
“I didn’t see any bones,”
Grandpa Hank said,
but those Smithsonian people were putting everything
into wooden boxes as fast as they could.
They took everything with them
in those wooden boxes
back to Washington D.C.”
Then Grandpa said
“You know
probably all those boxes of things
they took from Enchanted Mesa
are still just sitting somewhere
in the basement of some museum.”
Where Mountain Lion Lay Down with Deer
I climb the black rock mountain
stepping from day to day.
silently.
I smell the wind for my ancestors
pale blue leaves
crushed wild mountain smell.
Returning
up the gray stone cliff
where I descended
a thousand years ago
Returning to faded black stone
where mountain lion lay down with deer.
It is better to stay up here
watching wind’s reflection
in tall yellow flowers.
The old ones who remember me are gone
the old songs are all forgotten
and the story of my birth.
How I danced in snow-frost moonlight
distant stars to the end of the Earth,
How I swam away
in freezing mountain water
narrow mossy canyon tumbling down
out of the mountain
out of deep canyon stone
down
the memory
spilling out
into the world.
Deer Song
Storm winds carry snow
to the mountain stream
clotted white in silence,
pale blue streak under ice
to the sea.
The ice shatters into glassy
bone splinters that tear deep into
soft parts of the hoof.
Swimming away from the wolves
before dawn
choking back salt water
the steaming red froth tide.
It is necessary.
Reflections that blind
from a thousand feet of
gray schist
snow-covered in dying winter sunlight.
The pain is numbed by the freezing,
the depths of the night sky,
the distance beyond pale stars.
Do not think that I do not love you
if I scream
while I die.
Antler and thin black hoof
smashed against dark rock—
the struggle is the ritual
shining teeth tangled in
sinew and flesh.
You see,
I will go with you,
Because you call softly
because you are my brother
and my sister
Because the mountain is
our mother.
I will go with you
because you love me
while I die.
At Laguna Feast time, Navajos used to jam the hillsides with their wagons and horses. As a child I watched them arrive. They braided red and blue and yellow yarn tassles into the horses’ manes and tails, and they decorated their wagons. They came because years ago the Lagunas invited them to come and eat all they wanted at any house. After four or five days they’d go, loaded with gifts from Laguna—corn, melons, squash. Gradually, the wagons were fewer and fewer, replaced by old beat-up cars and trucks. My father made all of us k
ids come outside and watch the last wagon come. It came two years by itself and then no more.
Preparations
Dead sheep
beside the highway.
Belly burst open
guts and life unwinding on the sand.
The body is carefully attended.
Look at the long black wings
the shining eyes
Solemn and fat the crows gather
to make preparations.
Pull wool from skin
Pick meat from bone
tendon from muscle.
Only a few more days
they say to each other
A few more days and this will be finished.
Bones, bones
Let wind polish the bones.
It is done.
Story from Bear Country
You will know
when you walk
in bear country
By the silence
flowing swiftly between the juniper trees
by the sundown colors of sandrock
all around you.
You may smell damp earth
scratched away
from yucca roots
You may hear snorts and growls
slow and massive sounds
from caves
in the cliffs high above you.
It is difficult to explain
how they call you
All but a few who went to them
left behind families
grandparents
and sons
a good life.
The problem is
you will never want to return
Their beauty will overcome your memory
like winter sun
melting ice shadows from snow
And you will remain with them
locked forever inside yourself
your eyes will see you
dark shaggy and thick.
We can send bear priests
loping after you
their medicine bags
bouncing against their chests
Naked legs painted black
bear claw necklaces
rattling against
their capes of blue spruce.
His fingers were stiff, and it took him a long time to twist the lid off the holy water. Drops of water fell on the red blanket and soaked into dark icy spots. He sprinkled the grave and the water disappeared almost before it touched the dim, cold sand; it reminded him of something—he tried to remember what it was, because he thought if he could remember he might understand this. He sprinkled more water; he shook the container until it was empty, and the water fell through the light from sundown like August rain that fell while the sun was still shining, almost evaporating before it touched the wilted squash flowers.
The wind pulled at the priest’s brown Franciscan robe and swirled away the corn meal and pollen that had been sprinkled on the blanket. They lowered the bundle into the ground, and they didn’t bother to untie the stiff pieces of new rope that were tied around the ends of the blanket. The sun was gone, and over on the highway the eastbound lane was full of headlights. The priest walked away slowly. Leon watched him climb the hill, and when he had disappeared within the tall, thick walls, Leon turned to look up at the high blue mountains in the deep snow that reflected a faint red light from the west. He felt good because it was finished, and he was happy about the sprinkling of the holy water; now the old man could send them big thunderclouds for sure.
Grandpa Hank
Many of the Navajo people would come back to the same houses year after year for Laguna Feast until finally they were good friends with the Laguna families and they would bring nice gifts when they came. Grandpa Hank had a friend like that, an old man from Alamo. Every year they were so glad to see each other, and the Navajo man would bring Grandpa something in the gunny sack he carried—sometimes little apricots the old man grew or a mutton shoulder. Grandpa would walk around the store and gather up things for his friend—coffee and sugar and a new pair of Levi’s—things like that. I remember the last time the old Navajo man came looking for my grandpa. He came into the store and looked for Grandpa where Grandpa always stood, behind his desk in the corner. When he didn’t see him, the old man asked for him and then we told him, “Henry passed away last winter.” The old Navajo man cried, and then he left. He never came back anymore after that.
Deer Dance / For Your Return
for Denny
If this
will hasten your return
then I will hold myself above you all night
blowing softly
down-feathered clouds
that drift above the spruce
and hide your eyes
as you are born back
to the mountain.
Years ago
through the yellow oak leaves
antlers polished like stones
in the canyon stream-crossing
Morning turned in the sky
when I saw you
and I wanted the gift
you carry on moon-color shoulders
so big
the size of you
holds the long winter.
You have come home with me before
a long way down the mountain
The people welcome you.
I took
the best red blanket for you
the turquoise the silver rings
were very old
something familiar for you
blue corn meal saved special.
While others are sleeping
I tie feathers on antlers
whisper close to you
we have missed you
I have longed for you.
Losses are certain
in the pattern of this dance
Over the terrain a hunter travels
blind curves in the trail
seize the breath
until it leaps away
loose again
to run the hills.
Go quickly.
How beautiful
this last time
I touch you
to believe
and hasten the return
of lava-slope hills and
your next-year heart
Mine still beats
in the tall grass
where you stopped.
Go quickly.
Year by year
after the first snowfall
I will walk these hills and
pray you will come again
I will go with a heart full for you
to wait your return.
The neck pulse slacks,
then smoothes.
It has been a long time
Sundown forms change
Faces are unfamiliar
As the last warmth goes
from under my hand
Hooves scatter rocks
down the hillside
and I turn to you
The run
for the length of the mountain
is only beginning.
In the fall, the Laguna hunters go to the hills and mountains around Laguna Pueblo to bring back the deer. The people think of the deer as coming to give themselves to the hunters so that the people will have meat through the winter. Late in the winter the Deer Dance is performed to honor and pay thanks to the deer spirits who’ve come home with the hunters that year. Only when this has been properly done will the spirits be able to return to the mountain and be reborn into more deer who will, remembering the reverence and appreciation of the people, once more come home with the hunters.
Grandpa graduated from Sherman Institute, an Indian School located in Riverside, California. While he was at Sherman he became fascinated with engineering and design and wanted to become an automobile designer. But in 1912 Indian schools were strictly vocational schools and the teachers at Sherman told Grandpa that Indians didn’t become automobile designers. So when Grandpa Hank came home from Sherman he had been trained to be a store clerk.
He went to work in Abie Abraham’s store at Laguna and eventually saved up enough to open a little store of his own after he and Grandma Lillie were married. He never cared much for storekeeping; he just did what had to be done. When I got older I was aware of how quiet he was sometimes and sensed there was some sadness he never identified.
He subscribed to Motor Trend and Popular Mechanics and followed the new car designs and results of road tests each year. In 1957 when Ford brought out the Thunderbird in a hardtop convertible, Grandpa Hank bought one and that was his car until he died.
Grandpa Hank and his 1933 Auburn
A Hunting Story
for my grandpa, H. C. Marmon
You have
my grandfather’s feet
light brown
smooth with the years
he’s been gone.
Your hands are familiar
like the moonlight
on December snow
only sometimes,
I don’t recognize
the sandstone cliff
behind you.
All night
your eyes
something burns dark
in old juniper trees.
the she-owl
echoes
along the cliff.
The stars
pull the sky down with them.
&n
with my hand
round and round
We whisper
precise wet sand
spreading wide
down the Pacific Coast.
I knelt above you
that morning
I counted the rattles
the last whistles
in your throat.
I put my mouth on yours.
It might have been possible then
except you clenched your teeth
I could not push through
with my breath or my fingers.
I saw how you would go
spilling out
between ivory ribs
seeping under the tall gate
where earth sucked you in
like rainwater.
I couldn’t stop you—
fragile dust
sparks of sunlight
dispersing
into
horses of many colors
stony gray
blue steeldust
pink mesa stone
the yellow buckskin
leaping out of the east—
You scattered in all directions
of the winds.
Your wife and sons
burned your jacket
sold your car
They stood
holding their own fingers.
There was a song
you never sang to me
the same way
you’d never been to Zuni
not in all those years
of Arkansas, Santa Fe and Colorado.
There was a dance
sweetheart
you never came
to take me home
But when I hold fingers
they will be yours.
If I could see you clearly
only once
If I could come upon you
parked in your truck
sleeping in juniper trees
by Otter lake
Then we could gather
fluttering darkfeathered dreams
before they startle
before they fly far away.
The big star is Polaris
and we hunt for you.
Around smoky campfires
of First Night
where Navajo women
feed you mutton
and tell you
you are from the mountains
above Fluted Rock.
All night
I track sudden sounds
that crack
through moonlight thickets.
Up ahead
there is a small clearing
When you step out
into sight
I will be waiting.
Grandpa Hank had grown up mostly at Paguate
with his Grandma and Grandpa Anaya
although his parents
lived at Laguna.
He used to drive an old wagon between Laguna and Paguate
and he used to pretend it was a fancy buggy
one of those light fast buggies.
Later on my great-grandpa bought a buggy
and it was Grandpa Hank’s job
to drive tourists around the Laguna-Acoma area.
Grandpa Hank said
mostly the tourists came to see Acoma
the “Sky City” which was already famous then.
In 1908 when the Smithsonian Institution
excavated the top of Katsi’ma, Enchanted Mesa
Grandpa drove some of the archeologists
out there in his buggy.
The archeologists used a small brass cannon
to shoot a line over the top of Enchanted Mesa
so they could rig a crude elevator.
I asked Grandpa
what the archeologists found up there—
I had always been curious about what might be
on top of Enchanted Mesa.
“Did they find the bones of that old blind lady
and that baby,” I asked him
“You know, the ones they tell about in that old story?”
There is an old story about a blind woman
being stranded on top of enchanted mesa with a tiny baby
the time the sandstone trail to the top collapsed.
“I didn’t see any bones,”
Grandpa Hank said,
but those Smithsonian people were putting everything
into wooden boxes as fast as they could.
They took everything with them
in those wooden boxes
back to Washington D.C.”
Then Grandpa said
“You know
probably all those boxes of things
they took from Enchanted Mesa
are still just sitting somewhere
in the basement of some museum.”
Where Mountain Lion Lay Down with Deer
I climb the black rock mountain
stepping from day to day.
silently.
I smell the wind for my ancestors
pale blue leaves
crushed wild mountain smell.
Returning
up the gray stone cliff
where I descended
a thousand years ago
Returning to faded black stone
where mountain lion lay down with deer.
It is better to stay up here
watching wind’s reflection
in tall yellow flowers.
The old ones who remember me are gone
the old songs are all forgotten
and the story of my birth.
How I danced in snow-frost moonlight
distant stars to the end of the Earth,
How I swam away
in freezing mountain water
narrow mossy canyon tumbling down
out of the mountain
out of deep canyon stone
down
the memory
spilling out
into the world.
Deer Song
Storm winds carry snow
to the mountain stream
clotted white in silence,
pale blue streak under ice
to the sea.
The ice shatters into glassy
bone splinters that tear deep into
soft parts of the hoof.
Swimming away from the wolves
before dawn
choking back salt water
the steaming red froth tide.
It is necessary.
Reflections that blind
from a thousand feet of
gray schist
snow-covered in dying winter sunlight.
The pain is numbed by the freezing,
the depths of the night sky,
the distance beyond pale stars.
Do not think that I do not love you
if I scream
while I die.
Antler and thin black hoof
smashed against dark rock—
the struggle is the ritual
shining teeth tangled in
sinew and flesh.
You see,
I will go with you,
Because you call softly
because you are my brother
and my sister
Because the mountain is
our mother.
I will go with you
because you love me
while I die.
At Laguna Feast time, Navajos used to jam the hillsides with their wagons and horses. As a child I watched them arrive. They braided red and blue and yellow yarn tassles into the horses’ manes and tails, and they decorated their wagons. They came because years ago the Lagunas invited them to come and eat all they wanted at any house. After four or five days they’d go, loaded with gifts from Laguna—corn, melons, squash. Gradually, the wagons were fewer and fewer, replaced by old beat-up cars and trucks. My father made all of us k
Preparations
Dead sheep
beside the highway.
Belly burst open
guts and life unwinding on the sand.
The body is carefully attended.
Look at the long black wings
the shining eyes
Solemn and fat the crows gather
to make preparations.
Pull wool from skin
Pick meat from bone
tendon from muscle.
Only a few more days
they say to each other
A few more days and this will be finished.
Bones, bones
Let wind polish the bones.
It is done.
Story from Bear Country
You will know
when you walk
in bear country
By the silence
flowing swiftly between the juniper trees
by the sundown colors of sandrock
all around you.
You may smell damp earth
scratched away
from yucca roots
You may hear snorts and growls
slow and massive sounds
from caves
in the cliffs high above you.
It is difficult to explain
how they call you
All but a few who went to them
left behind families
grandparents
and sons
a good life.
The problem is
you will never want to return
Their beauty will overcome your memory
like winter sun
melting ice shadows from snow
And you will remain with them
locked forever inside yourself
your eyes will see you
dark shaggy and thick.
We can send bear priests
loping after you
their medicine bags
bouncing against their chests
Naked legs painted black
bear claw necklaces
rattling against
their capes of blue spruce.