Native American Reverie

Native American Reverie
~ Roibeard McElroy

As I get older and mature with the years, my respect for Native Americans and their culture grows all the time, to the extent that I've often yearned to spend time with a nation and live on their domain – it would be the true adventure for me – a man who is a Bohemian rambler and searcher of rustic wildernesses in Ireland and other parts of Europe. It would be like I'm going back to my Boy Scout days, except this time, it would be an authentic Boy Scout experience, not the mere raggle taggle experience of scouts that I had, which pales into inconsequential insignificance. Irish people I've spoken to, who've had the experience of living on reservations and sharing the Native American lifestyle, have inculcated this yearning in me, as if some force of the universe were using them as a conduit or an oracle, to elucidate my awareness, and plant in me the tree of yearning.  

But before I go any further, it behooves me to say, that as a child and a youth, I never really sifted through the propaganda, the stereotypes that hurled themselves into western mainstream and media infinitesimally (although my dear father RIP I do recall as a child, expressing his solidarity with them, and how they had been treated by the white man!). That sifting through the propaganda, on an academic footing, began in earnest in the early to mid nineties when I read a few books on Native Americans and a poem by Bobby Sands called The Rhythm of Time, culminating in reading the seminal and timeless Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee. The book shook me to the foundations of my being; it was like I had been turned inside out and I had my entrails unveiled before my eyes; I felt that I was born again – that I had only just arrived into this world, and literally only just arrived on the plane of understanding and comprehension. All the characters and events, induced an awakening in me that would ultimately lead to my environmental, earth consciousness, and sensibilities springing to the fore, like a great force which had lain dormant and deep in the depths and bowels of De Profundis bursts out uncontrollably to the light of day. As a consequence of reading the book, I wrote a review of it, which resulted in a dissertation/thesis. The great briar upon which the Native Americans had bled through their history, also tore mercilessly and unceasingly into my flesh. I saw the corollary and parallels with my own Irish history like never before.

In the interim and ensuing years, I've dwelt and contemplated on this much; sometimes, I've thought: “Am I being too dreamy, too romantic, too idealistic, too cognizant of an idyllic utopian existence, that perhaps it's just a mirage?” Then, I would list off all the heroes as by rote: Chief Joseph, Crazy Horse, Geronimo, Roman Nose, Little Elk, Sitting Bull, Little Crow, Black Hawk; additionally, the awesome Tecumseh (surely one of the greatest leaders any nation could claim!), and I would compare them to my own Irish heroes and once again, I found such similitude and parallels, as if both were molded by the same ether, as if both were I would then, analyze the parallels and similarities and in deep contemplation, would wonder was there some deep underlying reason for this, like a simmering bubble persistently levitating under and above the surface. I did much research on the Web, as the whole structure and concept of the tribal nations reminded me a wee bit of the Clan system of Gaelic Ireland. I never came up with anything discernible but still wonder about this. It's just a hunch but maybe.... In an article, I wrote for the January issue of this ezine, I looked at the parallels between Lacrosse and the ancient Gaelic game of hurling, and ceremonies I've seen at Tara, conducted by a Native American called Walking Eagle. Perhaps these few examples along with the structure of the system of life are but coincidence, but cast by the same craftsman or mason, as if both had been beckoned forth from the same earth dust, from the same tentacles and roots of Mother Earth.again I find it intriguing, and it leads more and more to a frenetic whirlpool getting more and more lively as time goes on.....

This connection with the Native Americans and their culture, history and lifestyle, has grown much over the years; it's like an umbilical cord between them and me has become stronger and more multi-knotted – hence can never be severed. We are interminably bonded by a solidarity, a oneness, a shared consciousness, which is so vast, it could cover the wide billowing ocean that divides us on this planet. When I hear the chants, the hypnotic and riveting sounds and beats reverberating, the laments of elders in trance, of Shamen in their mystical driftings, I feel something in the gut – that is innately familiar, as if I had heard it in my mother's womb. But perhaps, herein the explanation is highlighted and illustrated for me, as when a truth has been unveiled for a searcher after a long search, crossing many paths, boundaries, thresholds, trails, smelling many scents, many aromas, deciphering many clues, ciphers and riddles: that the part of my character, that is attracted and compelled by mysticism, hypnotic wanderings and meanderings, as if swinging on a tree of many crossbeams, makes me clamber to the Native American people and culture, makes me clamber that tree - as if the tree of life itself, the tree of knowledge, the tree of all knowing - makes me want to imbibe the potion of their being.

A bond that can ne'er be broken

a bond of unknown essence

A bond more than mere token

Rainbows of iridescence

Our tree lore is oaken!

Mantras scarce been spoken

where man deals in subterfuge;

Fires that man's ne'er been stokin'

We are brothers taking refuge

in the hearth love beads soakin'

Mother Earth we do but devote

bounties from our warm heater

We do not count the tote

of virtue but gauge her meter -

her womb is our lovelorn coat!