8:54 p.m. - 2008-11-12
my new friend, the indian
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
For any of you who didn't GET the point of the picture of me with the clown shoes....
I was on my knees behind the shoes to look even shorter and wider than I am...
NO...... I AM NOT THIS SHORT. While I admire Little People, I am not one of them.
Ok, now that I have cleared that one up.....on to other things.
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During our visit with our BIL, we were introduced to a woman he has known for over a year. She has done many different jobs throughout her life. She is self-educated and has similar interests in various religions and cultures as our BIL does. She also knows a great deal about spiritualism and about American Indian culture and beliefs. She is half Mescalero Apache. Apparently her life has been very difficult and she endured abuse in some marriages and in her childhood. She has difficulty in being with people. She does not trust many people. She carries a bag she made out of elk hide filled with special stones and other symbols that give her security. Ordinarily she never goes anywhere without having this bag with her.
She does massage therapy among other jobs and met our BIL when he went for a massage. They started talking, had some connection through their beliefs and studies and have become good friends. She was at his house when we arrived. She had been cleaning and filling in the holes in the walls caused by hanging pictures and doing other jobs. Our BIL was away at the college teaching when we were due to arrive. He asked if she would stay at his house to let us in. She did.
In fact, a few minutes after we were greeted by her, a conversation started between the two of us. I caught a quick glimpse of a beautiful turquoise bracelet and complimented her on it. That is when it began.
She told me the name of the Indian man who had made it. Suddenly, I asked her if she got any feelings from the bracelet since it was Indian. She did and that is how our friendship and connection started. She and I sat on two loveseats in the living room and talked. Within a few minutes she had moved from the far side of the second loveseat to the end near where I was sitting on the other loveseat. Within an hour, I asked if I could move to her loveseat to continue talking.
I didn't know why I needed to ask her permission to move but I just felt that I did.
She said I could and we continued our talks. Our BIL returned home to find RH (retired husband) just sitting in the dining room and she and I continued talking together. It was probably another hour before we noticed that our talk was excluding them. Then, she asked me to go with her in her car to the store. (Afterward, our BIL said that was the first time he had EVER seen her talk so much and be willing to have someone in her car with her that she had just met.)
I will be telling you some of the stories she shared with me. I don't know exactly what the connection was that we shared. I did ask her questions and was startled with some of her answers... I will also be telling you some of my questions and her responses in another blog.
The story of the turquoise bracelet is the beginning.
Her bracelet was a very large front with two large bright pieces of turquoise. The sides were several pieces of silver which fit around her wrist. I think there were about 6 links of silver.
During her childhood, she had met many other Indians. She stayed in touch with several of them, and also still has several white people from her childhood that she remembers. She was in the Air Force for about 16 years and was sent to New Mexico on an assignment. During that time, she decided to visit an old friend who had inherited a pawn shop from her own Indian parents. The pawn shop has been open for nearly 100 years and was the place where a lot of Indians went to pawn their jewelry when they needed money.
My friend stopped to visit and entered, saying she was finally ready to buy some Indian jewelry. Her friend was not surprised to see her and said she knew that my friend was coming that day. She pulled out 5 trays filled with various pieces of Indian jewelry like bracelets, earrings, necklaces, rings. Some were very old and most were Indian handmade. My friend tried on several but the first was the bracelet I described above. After she had tried on everything that attracted her, she returned to the first piece and said it was her choice. The pawn shop owner said she knew that my friend would select that piece. She told her the old Indian man who made the piece had sold it several times...each time the buyer would return to him and ask for a different piece. He finally was tired of getting it back and decided to sell it to the pawn shop. But he told the owner that he had a vision the night before he sold it for the final time that the final owner of the bracelet would be a woman. She was part Indian and was dressed in clothing he had never seen in his lifetime. He didn't understand what the clothing represented. He had made this bracelet in the early 30s. The pawn shop owner told my friend she knew the bracelet was for her when my friend walked in that day....dressed in her Air Force fatigues!
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Another story she told me was how she found some special indian warm springs in New Mexico. She had been talking to a white friend who recommended a book written by a white woman. The white family had purchased land in New Mexico about 100 years ago from the Indians. It had warm springs that were unique to the area. The white family had always allowed any Indians to go to the warm springs because it was a sacred area. All the indians had to do was let the white family know and they could go over the fence. My friend wanted to find those springs. The book described where they were by landmarks. There is not a location on the map for them. All the references to the area are by words the Indians used...
So she talked to a medicine man about it and he encouraged her to go searching. However, he told her if any coyotes crossed her path from the North to the South, she should turn around.
She set out one weekend. She was planning to camp out and had provisions including a sleeping bag and so on. She also had a pouch on her belt filled with fresh beef jerky that she had made and other foodstuffs. As she started driving and rereading the book and following the landmarks, she got into a very desolate area. She was driving along when a coyote crossed her path....and yes...it was from the North to the South. She decided to ignore the warning from the medicine man and continued. As she was going around a curve on the mountain top; her tire blew. She wasn't worried because she had changed tires many times. But this time, she couldn't get the lug nuts to budge. After trying several times, she noticed some dust in the distance and realized some type of vehicle had to be coming along. Shortly after, an old car with a little old Indian and his wife showed up. They stopped and asked her what was wrong. She explained. The old man said he could fix the problem, jumped out and quickly got the lug nuts off and changed the tire within minutes. My friend offered her pouch with the fresh beef jerky in payment. The old couple accepted her gift and left. My friend started driving again.
Before long, TWO coyotes crossed her path from the North to the South. This time, one of the coyotes actually turned its head and stared at her as if to say. "Don't you get it....this is a warning"
She continued on her way, went around a curve on the mountaintop when her rear tire blew nearly pushing her over the edge of the mountain. She got the car in reverse and gunned the motor and got it back on the road but the tire was flat. She was carrying a "fix-a-flat kit... and she fixed the tire.
She went on and then the same tire blew again! This time the tire was too badly damaged for a fix a flat kit to work. And besides, she didn't have another kit. She pushed the car off the road as much as possible and found a small area to spend the night. The next morning, she realized she would have to walk to get help. She remembered a sign about 4 miles back and started out. She did find a house and when she knocked; she was surprised to learn it belonged to a relative of that white family that had purchased the Indian land generations before.
They laughed when she told them about the tire. but after she explained how many tires had blown and her experiences; they send one of the men with her with several fix a flat kits. He used 7 kits to get the tire to hold air. They also told her that she was in the right place for the warm springs. She did find the springs and spent the rest of the morning there. She said it was the most beautiful area she had seen. The springs were warm and smelled like fresh flowers. The breezes were perfect and she enjoyed several hours there.
The next week, she returned with her white friend and she brought several fix a flat kits to return to the white family along with some pies that were from Pietown....famous for their taste. As she told me, indians always leave a gift when they have been given something. Always.....
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There are more things to tell you about but I will wait until next time.
