The Long and Short of Background Info

 Well, it finally happened, after posting over a dozen blogs on various Native American topics, somebody finally asked me what tribe I’m from. I suppose I should have provided a little background prior to this so my words were somewhat qualified.

 I was born at Lady Wellington Hospital on the Six Nations Indian Reservation in Ohsweken, Ontario, Canada. I’m registered as a member of the Cayuga Nation and a member of Turtle Clan. If that’s all you needed to know, you’re done. If you just have to know where my “Indianness” came from, read on.

 

 My mother had run away from home and went to Buffalo, New York for work when she was 17. At age 19, she went back to the reservation, had me, and then returned to Buffalo and left me with her sister. When she met my step-father, everything was supposed to be honky-dory at that point and she went back to the rez to pick me up and I grew up in Buffalo from about the age of 4. Throughout my childhood, she would take me to the rez every summer and leave me with another sister for a month. Spent a lot of summers back home when I was a kid and got to know all my aunts and uncles and cousins. To this day, most of my family still lives on or near the rez.

 The reservation I’m from is largely Christian although there’s an increasing movement towards returning to what’s affectionately known as the Longhouse religion, or the traditional teachings. I was baptized Roman Catholic and that was probably the last time I walked into a church with a Christian frame of mind.

 I don’t like discussing religion, especially in an open forum type thing, largely because it just tends to make folks angry because everyone’s side is right and the other guy is full of it. Let’s just say that I have a problem with the use of Christianity against Indians and leave it at that. Read some history books if you want to know all about that.

 I grew up as an Urban Indian. You won’t hear that term much outside of Native American circles, but that’s how we refer to Natives that grew up in the city. It wasn’t like I was completely removed from my culture, I always had my summers on the rez and the west side of Buffalo was where the Indians from the around the area tended to reside. There was always cousins around the corner or folks from back home who lived down the block.

 

 In 5th grade, I won a city-wide poetry contest. It was kind of simple in approach, but at the same time, it painted a vivid picture in very concise terms in as few words as possible. It was about an alligator hunting and eating a wading bird. Makes me wonder what I dreamed of the night before I wrote that because I live in Florida now where that’s an every day occurrence. Prophetic? Déjà vu? Things that make you go “Hmm…”

 In 8th grade, I was encouraged to participate in a speaking contest. Not knowing how to do this or what to speak about, one of my teachers suggested I give a speech by an Indian chief and gave me a book to read, “Indian Oratory.” I didn’t win, but for 5 minutes, my classmates got a history lesson on Indians in the old west.

 

 When I turned 15 and could get my working papers, it was my mother who suggested I go down to the Native American Center and start looking for work there. Walking in the front door of that place changed my life and I would continue to return to the Native American Center over the next 25 years.

 The Native American Center was aware of a project at the local Historical Society in Buffalo where they were updating the Native American exhibit. I signed up through the city’s summer youth program and took the bus to the history museum. I would continue to do this for the next 3 years.

 The man in charge of the project was Richard (Rick) Hill, a Tuscorora who was a noted scholar, artist, historian and a professor at the University of Buffalo. Rick would go on to be a mentor and over the years, become a dear friend. Our paths would cross unexpectedly over the years. I once ran into him at Dulles Airport in Washington. He was a part of the Smithsonian’s project when the Native American museum was established. Just a couple of years ago, he tracked me down because an issue he was working on overlapped what I do working for the government and he needed me as a resource of information.

 Getting back to the museum work, the manpower needed to complete the overhaul of the Native American exhibit was sparse with Rick and one other full-time museum staffer doing the bulk of the work. I was alternately tasked with research and various man-hours intensive stuff like background painting in the exhibits and making the clothing for the mannequins. I was also the one that made the two wampum belts that are still on display there.

 It was the research end of this though that brought me into the world and what it meant to be an Indian. It’s not everyday that people are formally instructed in what it means to be a part of a race and culture they belong to. I was a voracious reader and this started me onto Native texts and stories for years to come. I have quite the bookshelf at home, as you might imagine. As luck would have it, I finally tracked down a copy of Indian Oratory just a couple of years ago. It really took me back finding that speech from 35 years ago.

 

 I would occasionally pick up Native artwork and had a few pieces around the house. My wife suggested I do something with this stuff but what I did with it, I don’t think that’s what she had in mind. I put together a presentation on the Iroquois culture and started doing presentations to youth groups, schools, boys and girl scout troops, and was even asked to speak at a couple of colleges. I’m beaming when I come home from work one day and over the dinner table, tell my wife and daughter and son that I was asked to speak at the city’s Chamber of Commerce meeting during a ceremony for Native American History month. My wife was all happy for me but my daughter has this look on her face. I asked her what was wrong and she says to me, “Dad, when you talk about Indian stuff, you’re boring.” Talk about bring you back to earth! Ack!

 

  Mostly by chance, because it certainly wasn’t where I pictured myself, I ended up working inspections at the New York-Ontario border. Spent a lot of time on the border in Buffalo and Niagara Falls. Over a period of time, I began to become increasingly aware of the problems that Natives were having on both sides of the border. (Funny how people will start talking to you when you’re sitting at a traffic booth.) Trying to find ways to help some folks out, I was lead to groups like the Indian Defense League (http://idloa.org), the American Indian Community House of New York City (www.aich.org), and the American Indian Law Alliance (www.ailanyc.org).

 You know something, I was 7 years old when my mother taught me a valuable lesson. I got the snot slapped out of me by this older kid down the street when I was 7. I came home crying and when I told my mother about it, she said something very adult to me. “I’m not going to be here to defend you every time you get in trouble. If you have trouble with this kid, you deal with it. You gotta stand up for yourself.” So I was 7 years old when I learned not to take any crap from anybody and I went back down the street just minutes after I had my nose bloodied and beat the living crap out of that kid. Prophetic? Déjà vu? My mother died when I was 15.

 There’s another thing too. When you start standing up for people who you know have been wronged, it empowers you. If you fight the good fight and do in your heart what you know is right, well, after a while you’ll take on anybody. (That would deep-six any career plans for advancement, Ha!, but I held my head up and people either respected or feared me on the job.)

 

 In my travels, I came across the North American Iroquois Veterans Association and thought to myself that I really fit in with these guys. That lead to my participating on the Executive Committee for 7 years. The last 4 of which, I was nominated to write and produce the Association’s quarterly newsletter. That newsletter went regionally across Iroquois territory in the U.S. and Canada; and nationwide to our membership across the country.

 You know how, when you’re doing something that comes so easily to you, that it seems like nothing to you because it’s so easy? That’s what writing for the Indian vets was like. I knew everything about my audience and what their interests and dislikes were. This newsletter was work, but it was a lot of fun. One day, the Association President, Mr. Jack Johnson, says to me, “You ought to write for the papers, this stuff is pretty good.”

 On my next trip home to the Six Nations reservation, I made the point of stopping into the office of the (then) only hometown newspaper, The Tekawennake. I met with the owner and her son who are in fact, the publishers of the Teka (as it was commonly known), for about an hour and got a provisional okay to submit articles.

 My first published article for which I was paid as a professional writer was a concert review of a Native American artist who played a local nightclub. The artist was Grammy winner Bill Miller, a Mohican from Wisconsin. Bill works as a professional songwriter in Nashville and has numerous recordings of his own work. Highly recommended (and yes, not all of his stuff is Native-themed). If you want a high quality recording with a Native viewpoint, start with his Red Road.

 

 I was writing for the Teka about a shooting on the Seneca reservation when I came across the National Native American Law Enforcement Association. Having been in this line of work for some time, I was drawn to this group. At the very first conference I attended that the NNALEA hosted, I was asked what I could contribute to the then fledgling organization. I told them I could write. Over the next 10 years, I had at least one article in each newsletter and as many as six in one issue. Funny, writing for Indian coppers was as easy as writing for the vets group. Ha!

 I’ve been on the Executive Committee of the NNALEA for 11 years now and am a Past President. Probably sooner than later, that subject will be a blog of it’s own. Ha!

 As you can see then, I’ve been promoting the Native culture and doing Indian advocacy work for 30 years. Some day soon, the phone will ring and I’ll get to working on something else. That’s what I do when my people call.