Friday, May 20, 2011

WISDOM OF EXPERIENCE, a Lakota man remembers his father

Today it was warm and I went for a walk. I walked past the place where my

father used to live. I thought back to another warm day when I walked this
way to visit my father. I was a much younger man, but he was a very wise and
old man by then. It was not long after that day before he joined with the
Great Spirit. But that morning, I believed he would live forever. He was
sitting at his front door, using an old fashion stick drill to make holes in
small seashells he collected when we went on a trip to the beach. I asked
him what he was doing. He said he was making necklaces in the old style as
gifts for his granddaughters and great-granddaughters from the shells he
collected.

I looked at him with surprise. The drill he used was a homemade drill made
from a stick, and cross bar of wood, some string and a nail. It was just as
the ones his father and his grandfather used to make holes in shells so many
years ago. It was the same exact type of tool our people had used to drill
holes in shells and rocks for generations before the white men came to this
land. (In the past they used flint or another sharp rock rather than a nail
at the end.)

I watched as his old and bony hands spun the string tightly around the
shaft, then push the cross bar over and over again. Each time he pushed the
crossbar, the string unwound and the drill spun. Then he let the crossbar
go, and used his old fingers to spin the stick, rewinding the crossbar up
again and then pushing the crossbar down. His old hands did this with such
ease that the nail spun on the shell back and forth, making a hole in the
center. Still, it was slow and hard work, especially for his old, tired
hands.

I pulled up a chair next to him and sat down. I looked at the many shells
that were waiting have a hole drilled in them sitting in a basket by his
side. Then I looked at the handful that was sitting in another basket with
small holes neatly drilled in each. Knowing my father's habits, I knew he
had been working on his drilling since the early morning. After a short time
I asked him why he wasn't using a better, more modern drill to make the
holes. I suggested he use my modern drill, or even use the old hand crank
drill he had in his toolbox. They would both be faster than the old hand
made one he was using. My father did not look up from his work. He kept
moving the crossbar on his hand made drill as he worked. "This works as well
as I need it to," he said.

"But," I argued with him, "there are many more ways that would be much
quicker."

My father stopped his work and looked at me. "What benefit would quickness
be?" he asked me.

I didn't understand. I answered him, "You would be done sooner."

My father looked deep in my eyes and said, "This is exactly why I use this
old drill. Our people have been making this type of drill for hundreds of
years. It always works in its own time. I could use a new type of drill and
have all these shells drilled and strung by noon. But then what would I do?"

"I am making a gift for my granddaughters and their daughters. I am happy in
making these gifts. Making the gifts is as much joy to me as giving the
gifts. If I were to rush and make them with the tools you suggest, then I
would be denying myself the joy that the effort gives me. If I rush, I will
not have the time to become one with the things I make."

Though I wanted to, I did not understand him. I thought he was foolish, and
maybe even a bit senile for taking all day, maybe longer, and putting in
such an effort to drill the holes in the shells with an old stick drill. I
believed my nieces and grandnieces wouldn't know the difference anyway.

Not long after that day, my father's spirit joined with the Great Spirit,
but not before he had finished the necklaces and gave them to his
grandchildren and their daughters.

When it came to be time to clean his home, I found, in his personal effects,
a small package with my name on it. I opened it up and found a hand made
sheathe of leather. The stitching was less than machine perfect, made by my
father's brittle old hands. On it was beaded a bird of Thunder and a
medicine symbol. Inside the sheathe was a blade of shinning, hand sharpened
and polished metal. The handle was made from a deer horn. My name was carved
on the base of the handle. Its rough cut and shaped beauty was amazing to
behold.

When I held the knife, I could feel the spirit and energy of my father in
every inch of the knife and sheathe. His being and his spirit were in this
gift. Inside the sheathe, along with the knife, was a note. My father wrote,
in his shaky hand, words that translate to: "My son. Now I am dead. An old
piece of metal and a deer horn, like shells on the beach and a piece of
string, tie this old man's heart to those he loves."

I could feel the wisdom of my father surround me. I could feel my own
ignorance and shame well up in me. I knew then why my father used the old
stick drill to work the shells. I also understood then, that the fastest way
to do something is not always the best. Even if the end result looks the
same, or better, it is the soul of the hands that make something that makes
that item of value.

This day, when I walked past the place where my father lived, I am an old
man. I stopped and looked at the place where my father sat with the old
drill and the shells, and I reached to my side to the sheathe and knife my
father made which I wear on my belt every day of my life, and I remembered
him and his wisdom.



From the Archives of Blue Panther

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