Growing Up Native American (27 page)

After Jack's death his wife Katherine fessed up. Yes, she said, Jack and Jesse were Indian. Everyone knew the Bowmans were Indian. She put it into writing and signed her name. It is the closest thing to a tribal registration that I will ever have. But it is enough, for I want to claim no land, no allotments, only part of myself.

There are many people who could claim and learn from their Indian ancestry, but because of the fear their parents and grandparents knew, because of past and present prejudice against Indian people, that part of their heritage is clouded or denied. Had I been raised on other soil or by other people, my Indian ancestry might have been less important, less shaping. But I was not raised in Czechoslovakia or England. I was raised in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains near a town whose spring waters were regarded as sacred and healing by the Iro-quois and Abenaki alike. This is my dreaming place. Only my death will separate it from my flesh.

I've avoided calling myself “Indian” most of my life, even when I have felt that identification most strongly, even when people have called me an “Indian.” Unlike my grandfather, I have never seen that name as an insult, but there is another term I like to use. I heard it first in Lakota and it refers to a person
of mixed blood, a
metis
. In English it becomes “Translator's Son.” It is not an insult, like
half-breed
. It means that you are able to understand the language of both sides, to help them understand each other.

In my late teens I began to meet other Indian people and learn from them. It seemed a natural thing to do and I found that there was often something familiar about them. In part it was a physical thing—just as when I opened Frederick John Pratson's book
Land of Four Directions
and saw that the Passamaquoddy man on Chapter 2 was an absolute double of photographs of Jesse Bowman. It was not just looks, though. It was a walk and a way of talking, a way of seeing and an easy relationship to land and the natural world and animals.
Wasn't no man
, Jack Bowman said,
ever better with animals than Jess. Why he could make a horse do most anything
. I saw, too, the way children were treated with great tolerance and gentleness and realized that that, too, was true of my grandfather. He'd learned that from his father, he said.

The process of such learning and sharing deserves more space than I can give it now. It involves many hours of sitting around kitchen tables and hearing stories others were too busy to listen to, and even more hours of helping out when help was needed. It comes from travels to places such as the Abenaki community of Swanton, Vermont, and the still-beating heart of the Iroquois League, Onondaga, and from realizing—as Simon Ortiz puts it so simply and so well—that “Indians are everywhere.” If you are ready to listen, you'll meet someone who is ready to talk.

This short sketch of my early years, which I shall end here, represents only the beginning of a long apprenticeship I've been serving (
forever
, it seems). I seem to have an unending capacity for making mistakes just as my teachers seem to have an unerring ability to turn my mistakes into lessons. But the patience,
the listening that has made it possible for me to learn more than I ever dreamed as a boy, is also the lesson I've begun to learn.

The most widely anthologized of my poems describes one lesson I was taught in the way most good lessons come to you—when you least expect them. Let it represent that part of my life which has come from continual contact with Native American people over more than two decades. Because of that contact my own sons have grown up taking such things as sweat lodges and powwows and pride in Indian ancestry for granted. The small amount that I have learned I've tried, when it is right to do so, to share with others.

N
ative American women have always been at the forefront of indigenous struggles against colonialism and genocide. Lee Maracle's
Bobbi Lee: Indian Rebel
exemplifies the ongoing tradition of Native American women's resistance and invalidates the stereotype of the submissive Indian woman. It is a rough, sometimes humorous, and often brutal tale of one Metis woman's lifelong battle against oppression
.

This section of Maracle's autobiography brings to life a childhood fraught with poverty, abuse, and racism—a childhood where good times are few and far between. Against this backdrop, a young Bobbi Lee begins to question the poverty and injustice that is her life and learns to fight back in whatever ways she can
.

Lee Maracle (Metis) is a poet, writer, scholar, and activist for her people. She is the author of
I Am Woman
and numerous poems, articles, and essays
.

 

I WAS BORN IN VANCOUVER ON JULY
2
ND
1950
AND RAISED ON THE
North Shore mud flats about two miles east of Second Narrows Bridge. My first memory is of something that happened when I was about two years old. My brother Roger and I were playing down on the flats, catching wee little crabs and putting them in a quart-sized jar—which seemed huge to us because we were so small. Suddenly, I knocked over the jar and all the crabs went scurrying away. Roger yelled “Babe!”—they all called me “Babe” then—“Go and get them!” Well, I ran behind a log
where they had headed and got stuck in some deep mud. Roger was scared. He thought I was in real trouble and bolted up the trail from the beach to get mom and dad. Dad came down, picked me up out of the mud and patted me; he was so strong it seemed he was spanking me and I wondered why.

My mother, born in a large Métis community in Lac Labiche, Alberta, is the child of a Frenchman and an Indian woman. She grew up on a farm and at nineteen travelled to Edmonton, where she found work as a domestic for a rich Jewish family. Father was born on a small farm in Goodsoil, Saskatchewan, and grew up during the drought and depression of the '30s. People had a hard time then just staying alive, especially those who depended solely on their crops. In addition to the bad times, my grandfather was old and had arthritis, so it was very difficult for him to tend the farm.

As a young boy, my dad trapped animals to support the family. At fifteen he was out on his own, hopping boxcars, travelling around trying to find work. At twenty he joined the army and was sent to train in Edmonton, where he met my mother. Then he was transferred to Jericho, Vancouver. He wrote my mom many letters and finally he asked her to come to the coast and marry him. He was 22 and she was a year younger. They hadn't really known each other very well, mainly through letters, and it wasn't long before they started fighting and getting on badly.

Three years after they were married they had a son, Nelson, but he died at eleven months. A second son, Ed, was born when mom was 27 and he's still alive. In two-and-a-half years there was Roger, and I came along eleven months later. My two sisters, Joan and Joyce were twins; they were born on 12 June 1952. Gordon was born in May 1954, and George in November 1959.

The house we lived in had originally been an RCMP boatshed; my dad nailed hardboard sections (rooms) into the top part where we lived and worked on building and repairing boats in the shed below it. There was no electricity—no heating, hot water or other luxuries like television. We didn't get electricity till 1953, but even then the place was always cold and damp.

Until I was three I spent most of my time with my dad's father. Then later, when dad was around more, he would paddle us out in his rowboat to shoot ducks, which we learned to do quite young. I remember the first time clearly. I was standing in the skiff aiming intently at some ducks, but when I pulled the trigger it was too much for me—the jolt knocked me back right into the water. Dad grabbed at his gun and when I popped out of the water he was angry at me for almost getting it wet.

Later, dad started fishing off the docks in Steveston, which was about twenty miles from home. I helped the other kids gut the fish he caught. Sometimes mom left the babies at home with granddad and came along with my two older brothers to help.

When I was three years old I still didn't talk. My parents were worried about it and took me to see a doctor—several, in fact. I found out later they were psychiatrists. My folks were always arguing about me. I was often left with a woman named Eileen Dunster—whom I called “Aunt Eileen”—because dad kept beating me up and mom didn't like it.

Though I didn't talk, I remember watching things and thinking a lot. I don't know why, but I was a very serious kid. Once mom came in and said “It's raining cats 'n' dogs outside!” I ran to the window to see, but was disappointed to find only the usual rain drops coming down. I wondered for a long time why she had lied like that.

My silence lasted another year. Then one day mom caught me talking to Roger, with whom I was very close, and after that the jig was up. I started talking a little with my parents, but not very much; I didn't like big people. I thought they were interesting, but not people I wanted to talk to.

My parents fought a lot—nearly all the time. When they had parties—which was almost every week—dad got drunk and made us kids drink beer too. He would then make us dance and do other stupid things—which I really hated. I remember the first time I thought I hated my dad. My sister and I had this game: we would both run into the house and the first to touch the toilet seat got to use the bathroom first. Once my sister pushed me away from the toilet seat when I clearly had her beat. In retaliation I pulled her off the toilet and she peed on the floor.
She was crying and told dad. He ran in and slapped me hard in the face. I didn't cry; I just stared coldly at him. He then turned and left the house. I was four years old.

Around that time things got really bad in the family. The old man was always beating up on Ed, my oldest brother. He'd throw him against the wall and sometimes end up hurting him pretty badly. Dad started being gone a lot of the time, but when he came home we would all run away. Ed started staying away for days. Once, when he was 13 and I was 9, he was gone for almost a week. Mom got real worried and kicked dad out of the house, knowing Ed wouldn't return as long as he was there. We kids knew where Ed was but didn't say anything. Dad and Ed came back together the next morning and I was surprised to see that dad wasn't angry; in fact, he seemed to be proud of the spunk Ed had shown in running away.

Our family was very poor at this time. Dad built boats and was apprenticing for carpenter papers. But when I was five, he just upped and left us, going north to fish. After that, he rarely came home and never sent mom any money. So things got even worse than before. With their marriage practically broken off, mom had to earn a living for all of us. Granddad helped mom with the crab shack business she ran with my dad. Ed and granddad caught the crabs at night and watched us kids while mom pounded them during the day. She would then go around selling them, and that's how we managed to get a little money.

It wasn't long, however, before my younger brother Gordon was born. Mom couldn't work for a time after that, and by the time she could, granddad was too old to trap. So mom did both jobs, working night and day, trapping and pounding. But after a while this got to be too much for her and she had to stop. We kids were getting older and started helping out. Ed got a paper route and made about eight dollars a month when he was only eight. When Roger reached that age they started caddying at Capilano Golf Course. Both boys went caddying on Saturdays and Sundays and usually brought in ten or twelve dollars a week. When I turned seven I started taking in washing and ironing for Whites in the neighbourhood.

Sometimes we went to the nearby Indian Reserve and played with the kids there…but not often because we usually had so
much work to do at home. Every summer mom planted a garden. We all worked in it and some of the vegetables lasted us into the fall.

There was always a lot of talk in the neighbourhood about my mom—how she used to run around and all that. Only Ed and my youngest brother are dad's kids. When dad was gone, people were always trying to break into the house. I remember one night when a guy broke in; mom had a wood chopping axe and was standing by the window telling him to get out or she would chop his head off. He finally left, but I dreamed that night that mom had killed him. I woke up in a sweat.

The community we lived in was really very strange…weird things were always happening. An uncle of ours lived about a mile away. Time and again he came over and stole our skiff and sold it to a man named Sebastian. Whenever it happened, mom walked over to Sebastian's place about two miles away and got it back. But they always argued fiercely. Once mom went over with an axe: she was bent on really fixing him for buying the skiff again, which he knew was ours. Actually, the skiff was over at his place a lot.

When Sebastian saw her steaming down the trail with an axe he panicked and called the police. When mom got there he backed off yellin' that the police were coming. She just took the skiff and went home. She locked up the house and we all hid in closets. Sure enough, the police came and banged loudly on the door. We didn't answer. They then broke into the house and looked around, but didn't find us. I remember being really scared that mom would be taken away to jail.

Most of the people we knew lived on the Indian Reserve. The people outside the Reserve in our neighbourhood were mainly squatters, living on houseboats or shacks on the mud flats. There were a few large families like ours, but most were smaller. Some of the men worked as longshoremen and others collected welfare—about half and half. Then there was one man who worked as an electrician and another who repaired radios. Both families had two kids, but for a very long time they didn't let them play with us. I guess it was because of mom's reputation.

Six families, most on welfare, lived in boathouses built up on stilts. The dredger's house was on stilts too, but it was really
nice. He was from South Africa and his wife was mulatto. She talked a lot about the racism back home—about how they'd had to leave because her husband, a white, had married a coloured woman. They moved into the neighbourhood when I was four and I played a lot with their son, Brian. I didn't know what Blacks were then; I just knew they were different, much friendlier to us.

Another family lived between our house and the Reserve. The father worked until they discovered he had a tumour in his head. Once it was removed he couldn't balance himself well, so the family was forced to go on welfare.

Then there were the Reids, who owned the local store. They were really mean to all the neighbourhood kids. Sometimes when we walked into the store Mrs Reid would throw us into a big barrel filled with lizards. Her life was miserable—always mean and fighting with her husband. They were always drinking and getting into car accidents. Once they even drove through our woodpile and smashed into the house.

There was also a Canadian Indian-Mexican family nearby. Gracie Flores, the daughter, spent some time looking after us kids when mom went away for a few days. Then there was Jimmy Waddel. His family lived above the store and his father worked at McKenzie Barge and Derrick, a boat-building outfit. Jimmy and the older Korris boy down the street always picked on my brother and the younger kids from the Reserve. Whenever we played they tried to bully us around. So one day we decided we'd had enough. It was quite funny. Ten of us little kids were making faces at Jimmy from around the corner of a house, calling him “dirty old man,” “whitey,” “white boy,” and things like that. We had this huge chain from a logging boom with us and when he chased after us we all hid behind a tree. He could see us, of course, but when he ran up we wrestled him to the ground. Then we took a big padlock from dad's boatshed and chained and locked him to the tree. The chain was real heavy, so he couldn't get away. We just left him there crying.

That night Mrs Waddel came over to tell my mother that Jimmy was lost. She was weeping. Jimmy was only eleven. I didn't think much more about it until the police came. Suddenly
I wondered if anyone had unlocked him. I was only five and didn't have the key. All of us kids kept quiet. Ed didn't know. He was older and we knew he would tell on us. Next morning they finally found Jimmy. He was still crying and told them the whole story—except who had done it. After that he never bothered us little kids again.

When I turned seven I had my first birthday party. I got a skipping rope and remember really enjoying it. We didn't skip with it much, though. We would have fun tying it around Roger, me and my little sister, Joan, who was very small for her age, five, about the size of a three-year old. Bound together, we would run down the hill as fast as we could. Joan couldn't keep up and usually ended up being dragged along. Once she got caught in the bushes and got scratched. She was usually screaming about something, so we didn't pay any attention; just kept yelling back, “Come on Joan! Keep running!” Finally we realized how hard it was becoming to pull. Looking back we saw we'd been pulling little Joan through the thick brambles. She was covered with cuts and bruises and crying loudly. We promised her all sorts of favours and she promised not to tell mom. At home she said she'd fallen into the bushes, but mom didn't believe her. It was the first time I got a spanking from my mom.

The next came when I lost a new pair of shoes that the Campbell family had given me. We were playing in the old sawdust pits, jumping into them from a high crumbling wall. Joan put my shoes down and they disappeared into this little hole. We dug for them, but the walls of the hole kept caving in. Then we got a shovel and held Joan upside down by the feet while she dug deeper and deeper. But we couldn't find them and almost dropped Joan on her head. Finally we gave in and told mom. She spanked us good, mainly because she didn't want us down at the sawdust mill. She got so angry, she sprained a finger. It swelled up so bad she couldn't spank Joan, but Roger and I spanked her good because we figured she was the cause of our problem and deserved a good one.