"What You Mean 'We', Paleface....?"

Jim in his ribbon shirt and dance staff

Jim

Let me put a popular - well, "wide-spread" - legend to rest.

Maybe it will help you to understand me as well.

In undergrad school, like many liberal arts students, the University of Tulsa music students were given to hosting parties. I don't know if it was the rule at other schools but we'd have faculty drop by every once in a while.

The most unwelcome was the percussion director, Cliff White. He showed up to one Yuletide party with a bottle of some kind of red wine, which, given the wassail (yes, real wassail) slowing disappearing from the kettle on the stove, didn't see any action.

So at the end of his part in the evening Professor White gathered up his bottle, saying "well if no one is going to drink this I guess I'll take it back". After his departure, bathed in aghast silence, someone, no-one in particular, spoke up ....

"God, what an Indian giver".

It was a measure of my social presence in the room that no irony of any kind was noted.

But I did note the term "Indian Giver".

Lemme 'splain ...

I come from a tribal culture and the rules governing social relationships in "normal" social action are vastly different from it. To this day they are often lost on me, to the eternal exasperation of some of my close (and blessedly understanding) friends.

Imagine a village, a cluster of huts around a central lodge house. It is a forced proximity that brings a level of communality that's currently unimaginable  - there is almost no privacy in either the public or family spheres.

If a family fell upon hard times the natural human urge to help had to be tempered by the need to preserve the respect and honor that everyone had to give each other. If a feeling of mutual goodwill and trust wasn't nurtured by every act then a fraying, bitter collection of individuals would replace the smooth social fabric that allowed everyone to prosper.

So help had to be given in a discreet but effective manner.

Before dawn you'd leave a fish or a sack of meal hanging from the front of the receiver's lodge post, then you'd conceal yourself to watch.

If the gift was accepted it would be taken inside. Since gifts were usually given anonymously you couldn't know whom to thank - so you treated the whole village with respect and gratitude.

If not it was just ignored, like it just didn't exist. There was nothing that dead fish could do to break into their consciousness.

Sound familiar?

But if the gift remained up all day it would be a blatant signpost of trouble and embarrassment from the receivers to everyone else in the village.

So at the first possible moment, the watching donor would run over and take the gift back, rather than call attention to the misfortune of another.

What Caucasian observers thought to be penurious, mean-sprited reclamation was actually a gesture of respect for those less fortunate, an expression of a willingness to share, to "lift up" others (in the spiritual, almost prayer-like sense some evangelicals use it today) in a way that did not demean them - and, most importantly, gave them a measure of control and integrity.

So today I try to reach out to those of my friends who may need something - a word, a touch, a gesture, anything of the almost limitless things we need to cope when overwhelmed.

Or not just overwhelmed. Sometimes acknowledging someone's joy is equally important - maybe more so.

So supported they can choose to accept or go on - and if they choose to go on then it's my job to hold back and give them the respect they deserve.

Pulling back is an expression of respect and honor, in a way, of love - emotional discipline, at the very least.

Since you never know who left that fish you are obliged to treat everyone as your benefactor - and they may see you in the same way.

It's asking a lot, I know, but sometimes you can get a lot out of a dead fish.

Portland