Powerless Honor: Memoirs of a Tribal Nation
Powerless Honor: Memoirs of a Tribal Nation
By Yulu Ewis
Wake up, honor is dead!
O-ye (Coyote man) scoffs at our brand-new civil liberties.
Throwing the Indian Civil Rights Act in our face,
Written in a language that we don’t understand.
Wearing a flicker band, O-ye dances,
to honor the death of our people;
to honor the desecration of our sovereignty;
to honor the selfishness of another nation.
Howchia (Eagle Woman) calls us to listen
To the story of an invisible people.
“Tread lightly”, she says with fear.
“Submit, and we’ll be saved.
Stop dreaming and become invisible.
Stop being who we are, and we will be left alone.”
O-ye looks down at his reflection in the water.
He recoils at the person staring back at him.
“Who are we?” he asks.
“Who are these people?
I do not know them! They are quiet in their distress.
Letting themselves be pushed to the brink.
Their existence limited to the reservation,
Their honor living on through tomahawks, scalping and war woops.
Their dances honor assimilation, genocide and economic dependency.”
“What happened?” O-ye asks his reflection.
What happened to our voices?
Where are the voices of Com-che-tal and Maria Copa now?
What happened to passing down the old ways?”
He watches a memory flow by in a ripple and sheds a tear.
Where did the fight within us go?
What do we do now?
How do we break free from the chains?
A strong wind stirs and catches his attention.
O-ye hears the distant voices of the people rising in the Wind,
She tells him to listen.
She tells him to rise up and to continue dancing.
O-ye laughs at the trick his reflection played on him.
“The fight has been in us all along,” he cried.
And, that was something he could continue to dance to with honor.
