Beautifully written. My mother married into the Pawnee tribe and I, her moody and rebellious son, had the benefit of a Native American influenced youth force few years. The Pawnee, like the Osage, had been relocated- from their ancestral range in Nebraska to the red earth of present day Pawnee county south of where the Osages wound up. BTW, the latter tribe became fabulously wealthy when substantial oil was discovered in their new lands. They were very canny and managed their financial affairs quite well. The same can't be said of the Pawnee whose affairs followed a more tragic course. My mother wrote two ethnohistories on the tribe and it's trajectory: Pawnee Passage and Some Things are not Forgotten. We whites have a lot to be ashamed about. But it can't be said we didnt love the land too. Many did immensely and I was and am one to this day. I get a sickness of the spirit if I live away from the drylands and the great skies there. The emptiness, the lack of the plague of people....
Thank you for your thoughts and consideration of this topic, Michael. Our various perspectives, stories and family histories can help us all to navigate the paths ahead, and are a large part of the reason I post these essays and reflections.
Beautifully written. My mother married into the Pawnee tribe and I, her moody and rebellious son, had the benefit of a Native American influenced youth force few years. The Pawnee, like the Osage, had been relocated- from their ancestral range in Nebraska to the red earth of present day Pawnee county south of where the Osages wound up. BTW, the latter tribe became fabulously wealthy when substantial oil was discovered in their new lands. They were very canny and managed their financial affairs quite well. The same can't be said of the Pawnee whose affairs followed a more tragic course. My mother wrote two ethnohistories on the tribe and it's trajectory: Pawnee Passage and Some Things are not Forgotten. We whites have a lot to be ashamed about. But it can't be said we didnt love the land too. Many did immensely and I was and am one to this day. I get a sickness of the spirit if I live away from the drylands and the great skies there. The emptiness, the lack of the plague of people....
Thank you for your thoughts and consideration of this topic, Michael. Our various perspectives, stories and family histories can help us all to navigate the paths ahead, and are a large part of the reason I post these essays and reflections.