Obsolescence

"Experience remains the unexplored metaphysical terrain of the 21st Century and it is likely that the best scouts will be Indians—not by virtue of superior 'intellect' as commonly understood, but simply because there remains among many of us a predisposition to live in the world as opposed to living on, above, or in control of the world." (Vine Deloria, Jr. and Daniel R. Wildcat, Power and Place: Indian Education in America)

Silko writes about a time when the land is all that survives. It had happened before. It would happen again. People had an age. They would come to the end of it. Many are preparing for that time now. Many have been preparing for ages.

At the time I was afraid. I still dream about the end of this world. I still cling to this life. Her words haunted me, because I knew their truth, though, at times, I am still a child, afraid of knowing.

I spent each day outside with my Grandfather watching him work the dirt. He taught me to respect the plant people and the insects. They were my friends. I spent hours with them, beneath the sun, talking and listening. They told me things: the insects and my Grandfather.

He had a stove just inside the door and would cook what he grew there, on four burners of his own. My Grandmother's stove, with six burners and a griddle, was upstairs. By the time I arrived he'd lost his upstairs privilege.

When he died his sisters sent for me and taught me the intricacies of water. In the city water was easy to come by. I was a child and didn't think beyond the faucet. They lived with rations and each sister had their way to work within the rules and to work around them. They answered to their plants—the city could try to catch them and figure out how to fine them.

Generations of Navajo found happiness and meaning in a world of agriculture, livestock and hand made essentials. Clocks, currency and employment did not dictate their days, nor define their personalities. Land based economies and land based peoples lived and continue to live by the sun and seasons. My grandparents, like many urban Indians, applied their knowledge to their circumstance, using tried and true theories to navigate the very difficult task of raising a family in San Francisco. Tradition helped us retain our shape as humans, as particular humans, informing our daily life, on or off reservation, in or outside of the city.

Today we face the same task our ancestors faced—making choices in a novel world with indigenous knowledge and traditional ethics for guidelines; our goal is to retain our belief in and our ability to be ourselves.

The key to decimating a people for good is to instill hopelessness. Economics, formal education and consumer/media culture emphasize, unequivocally, that living seasonal lives is absurd at best. For generations we have been told that the only way we can survive is to fundamentally change who we are and to completely abandon our knowledge and language.

I learned how to be human in kitchens and cornfields.

I learned our responses in times of crisis, and the practical applications of our philosophy to our contemporary place.

Each of us face an increasingly hostile economic, educational and political terrain, often working long hours and having little time for meaningful relationships.

As a Navajo and a novelist I face the parallel beliefs that my existence, as well as my vocation, is obsolete. The skills, philosophy, oral tradition, and languages, as well as the narrative structure and style of the prose I work within, operate inside a land based oral tradition. This writing is meant to be taken in, contemplated and applied to daily life (activities and decisions). I am consciously offering this content in this form as an alternative to the immediacy and disconnection that characterizes the status quo (on and off line). The Axe is not business as usual. My goal is to create a space and an experience similar to the kitchens and cornfields I grew up in where highly complex historical, scientific, philosophical and spiritual knowledge was presented at a high level so that every member of the family/community could partake in the confidence and joy intrinsic in an indigenous upbringing. These complex stories were told on a seasonal bases and it is often not until your fortieth year of hearing and living that individuals really "begin" to understand. What is elemental is the process.