“A LOST PEOPLE WITH NO IDENTITY”
by OPOVV, ©2015
(Apr. 18, 2015) — CAST:
Chief White Elk
Chief Squirrel Who Stand And Fight (Swaf — pronounced ‘Safe’)
First Brave: Fast Crawler
Second Brave: He Who Likes Arrows (Hela — pronounced ‘Heel’)
White Elk’s wife: Zapping Minnow
Swaf’s wife: Take Out the Garbage, You Lazy Indian (Togli — pronounced ‘Toe-glee’)
ACT I
Curtain rises to the sound of a bubbling creek with the pleasant sounds of birds chirping. Center stage is a cutaway teepee with the men sitting in a semi-circle around a little fire and the women sitting behind the men mending buffalo robes. The stage is dark except for the light from the “fire” and additional overhead lighting (subdued) enough to see the actors’ faces.
White Elk: “Beads for land? Ha! And they fell for it? Who are these people who put one over on the tourists?”
Fast Crawler: “Iroquois, Mohegans, Delaware, all of them. They think they put one over on them, but the tourists no believe they’ve been taken for a ride: they think it is they who put one over on the natives.”
White Elk: “Maybe not-so-funny.
Hela: “It is believed that they have a concept of ‘land ownership,’ that it is theirs to do with whatever they like. They believe in a power greater than themselves but they don’t live the words of their Great Spiritual Leader that they refer to as ‘The Christ.’”
Swaf: “Fast Crawler, you report that these ‘tourists’ (as you called them) think they purchased land through trade. Surely people see the earth for all the peoples?”
Fast Crawler: “In a perfect world you’d not get any arguments from anyone, unless they were selfish, or greedy.”
Hela: “But ‘one’ would be all it would take. I mean, just one person claiming that a certain piece of real estate was ‘theirs’ would start the whole concept of Communism and Socialism to come crashing down.”
Fast Crawler: “That’s right. The concept of ‘exclusivity.’ ‘We all equal but I’m a little more equal than you.’ Even us American Indians were never that naïve. These tourists believe in an Easter Bunny, by the way.”
Swaf: “Rabbit good. I like rabbit but no eat bunnies.”
Fast Crawler: “No, no. They don’t eat the bunnies. They believe rabbits, I mean little baby rabbits, bunnies, lay eggs and it is the eggs the adults hide so the children can find them and eat them.”
White Elk: (Turns and speaks to Swaf) “They speaking in our tongue? I don’t understand the things they speak of.”
Swaf: “Me neither. Our time is coming to a close. It’s time to step aside and keep quiet. If they want our counsel, they’ll ask for it.”
Curtain closes.
Zapping Minnow and Togli step out from stage left lit by individual spotlights.
Togli: “Talk, talk, talk.”
Zapping Minnow: “But we learn many new things. These ‘tourists’ have strange beliefs in how rabbits make bunnies, that’s for sure.”
Togli: “I think our way of life is over. Imagine owning the land the deer run on and the geese fly over? How can that be?”
Zapping Minnow: “I think that they think they have custodial responsibilities, but of this I am not certain. Remember Sleeping Wolf and how she always ran ahead and staked out her teepee on the best location.”
Togli: (laughing) “And she’d yell ‘Location! Location! Location!’”
Zapping Minnow: (laughing) “I remember! Too bad she got sick. She was entertaining. But these strange people who traded trinkets for land. I guess they don’t think the land is worth much, what do you think?”
Togli: “I think the old men will talk it to death, that’s what I think” (laughs).
Zapping Minnow: (Laughing) “It is so. Let us get back for the second act.”
Zapping Minnow and Togli exit front stage right.
ACT II
Curtain rises on an 1880s railroad platform somewhere in the West. The Indian men are sitting on benches facing the audience. The lighting is a soft glow. From far off we hear the diminishing sounds of a train whistle. The actors and actresses are the same but dressed in the fashions of the time, including hairdos.
White Elk: (pointing at the rails, then turns to Fast Crawler) “What you call them things?”
Fast Crawler: “The white man calls them ‘Progress.’ We call them ‘The End of Us.’ History books will call them ‘The Iron Rail,’ but no matter how you cut it, it’s not good for our side.”
Swaf: “Notice all the hustle and bustle these people do? What, they’re in a race to get somewhere before somebody else does? What’s the payoff?”
White Elk: “Gold rush days. Treaties broken. Gold was the first, then silver, oil, uranium. Followed by the land around interstate junctions and hydroelectric plants, military bases or anywhere else white men think they can make a quick buck by stealing Indian land.”
Heal: “Broken record based on broken promises.”
Choruses of “Yeh-yeh.” The women come out of the station with cups of tea and loaves of bread. They pass out the cups and bread, then sit on the platform in front of the men.
Togli: “Station Master say our tickets are good for ride in cattle car.”
Zapping Minnow: “And they’re First Class tickets, too!”
White Elk: “That is fitting, that the white man thinks so highly of his animal friends to have them ride First Class. I am honored. We all are honored.”
Hela: “That is no honor, Chief. It’s a disgrace.”
White Elk: “Let me tell you a story, my son. All men are the same in the eye of the Great Spirit. Some men flourish in the freedom of the imagination, and then some men never imagine anything but must be told what to think and what to not think.
“We live in a world of ignorance and envy. All humans wish for what we had. We followed the food to the North in the summer and to the South in the winter.
“We were living freedom as it has never been lived before until the white man came and spoiled it for everyone.
“Yes, they take away our land and way of life, but we still men and women of great strength. We have honor.
“But above all, we have the greatest gift that the Great Spirit can give to us humans, or any human, for that matter, no matter where they may live on our home that is called earth, and that is the ability to imagine without limits. To imagine that the orphan will find a loving home; that the animal that is lost and alone will find a safe and secure shelter; and that each of us, no matter who we are, will make an effort to comfort those who have lost their way.
“But let no one be a handicap nor a burden on anyone else. We are a proud people, but other people are also proud. Let us share whenever we can, but let us protect those who the Great Spirit entrusted to us to protect.
“We must be strong and bold with compassion and not hold a grudge. Our imagination is our strength, for with it there are no limits to what we can accomplish.
“Cherish and honor the past as we boldly strive to the future, for remember this: we are only as great as we think we are and only as free as we can imagine.
“And that is the story, my son, the continuing story of our people. But really, it’s the continuing story of all of mankind. Cherish the story and hold it dear: for the one who has no boundaries on his imagination, anything is possible.”
Sound of steam engine approaching. The women walk to the front of the stage while the curtain is lowered to the sound of the steam engine stopping and waiting at the station. Spotlights on the women.
Zapping Minnow: “Husband smart man but won’t take out the garbage.”
Togli: “Yes, your man very smart. I think it a waste of time to go and see white man’s Chief in Washington, don’t you?”
Zapping Minnow: “Oh, no doubt, but husband say he want to show these tourists what dignity looks like. You know he’s going to give speech in their Congress? Going to say chasing money isn’t worth breaking their word, like they did when gold was discovered in the Rocky Mountains.”
Togli: “They worship money, don’t they, these tourists? Don’t they love their country, their land, anything?”
Zapping Minnow: “Husband say all they care about is themselves; that they no care for sacrifice for their country; that without bravery they’ve become nothing but shadows without form; have no imagination without a belief of better things to come; that they’ve become a lost people with no identity.
“Husband says that they will tire of their freedoms and become lazy and they will have lost it all through a cancer of defeat by manifesting itself by all people afraid to speak the truth.
“Husband says that if he knew that they would run from the truth he would’ve used words to protect us instead of arrows and bullets.
“A Shaman came to our tent last night and said that in the future such words like ‘Birth Certificate,’ ‘Deport Illegal Aliens,’ ‘Deport Muslims,’ ‘Bring back the Draft,’ ‘Muslim Brotherhood,’ ‘Abolish the IRS and the Fed;’ these words will be very powerful but only those with imagination will say them. People who afraid to say them will be ‘Politically Correct Zombies.’
“Shaman say people in his vision of the future must speak ‘The Words were Spoken’ to have meaning. That all the people of our land must say them, and mean them, and live by them to keep nation whole; as one; secure.
Togli: “Oh, look at the time! Hurry, we have a train to catch!’
The two ladies scurry off stage right as the sound of the steam engine starts up and moves off to the left.
FINI