We Did Not Come Over Here on the Mayflower

By Lois Beardslee
Sun contributor
We did not come over here on the Mayflower. We did not come up the Cumberland Gap. We did not follow Daniel Boone or De Soto or a black-robed priest. We came from the tops of tall trees that softly bent down and laid their boughs upon the earth so that she would not be lonesome. We came from the clouds, life-giving mist and sky. We came from the soil itself, from crevices that opened up and gifted us to the open air. We came from the rich mud at the bottom of the waters to mingle with the other life forms and make them complete.
We followed Cranes here. We followed Turtles here. We followed Ravens and Frogs and Catfish and Sturgeon and Deer, Caribou, Moose, Otters, Bears… We followed the stars here. We followed the Northern Lights here. We followed rivers and streams and shorelines and horizons here. We followed the wind and the very air we breathe here. We did not follow you here.

So you stop telling those stories about us not traditionally being here. And about us being only a historic presence here. Like we were too dumb to fill up this place with life and culture, until after you nearly killed us off and then let the survivors linger, huddled together for warmth and solace, in the tiny, cut-off hamlets that you call our historic presence here. Yeah, you, lady from the Park Service. I’m talking to you.
You’ve got to stop telling the Indians the stories that you white folks at the Park Service keep telling yourselves. For instance, that one about the Ojibwe migration myth. You see, it takes a whole lifetime to learn that story about the migration myth, and even then, one only grasps a piece of it. Because it takes many, many lifetimes to learn that story about the migration myth. And the only way one can even begin to understand that story about the migration myth is to be in a room full of people who have spent lifetimes learning that migration myth and to be in a community full of people who have spent lifetimes learning that migration myth and to be in a culture full of people who have spent lifetimes learning that migration myth. Then one can understand it, a little bit.
But simply pulling out tiny snippets of that migration myth is ignorant and dangerous behavior. You pulled out the little pieces that sounded good and that met your needs. You took the parts that suggested that we were not always here and did not always use and need this place. First of all, you suggested that we all only got here a few hundred years before you did. And you left out the part of the migration myth that says that most of us were already here before those Indians whose latest migration myth you borrowed got here. Like they came to a giant empty space. Like there was this archaeological record just chucky-chock-full of cave men without caves and hunters without decent homes and storage facilities and accumulated knowledge about survival in this place…and then, poof, some Indians arrived who really aren’t from here anyway and have no greater claim to this place than recent migrants like you have to this place. Convenient. Very convenient.
You left out all of the parts of the migration myth that included merging and scattering and forming new groups and identities as the environment demanded of us. You left out all of the parts of the migration myth that included following the Cranes, the Turtles, Ravens and Frogs and Catfish and Sturgeon and Deer, Caribou, Moose, Otters, Bears… You left out the parts about how we followed the stars here. We followed the Northern Lights here. We followed rivers and streams and shorelines and horizons here. We followed the wind and the very air we breathe here. We did not follow you here.
We came from the tops of tall trees that softly bent down and laid their boughs upon the earth so that she would not be lonesome. We came from the clouds, life-giving mist and sky. We came from the soil itself, from crevices that opened up and gifted us to the open air. We came from the rich mud at the bottom of the waters to mingle with the other life forms and make them complete.
You need to stop telling those stories you tell about how we got public education from you white folks through treaties. We already had public education. We had it in our teaching lodges. We had specially educated and certified specialists, teachers. Teachers were such an important part of our society that we deemed them one of the five categories of people that communities and cultures need to survive. We had a special curriculum for those teachers; and the body of that knowledge took up an entire fifth of our totem system. We had special buildings, special teaching tools, even books with written lessons and important historical events. But you continue to rename these things as spiritual, as paraphernalia to a lesser religion, rather than what they were, schools and books and tools, fine arts curricula, literary curricula, math and science and medicine. You rename these things as archaeological sites and as mythology and as artifacts. How absolutely ignorant and boorish of you!
To continue to force your versions of our history upon us is oafish and uncivilized. It forces us to unteach what you teach. It challenges your concept of public education (which still fails to meet the needs of minorities), and it elevates ours. It challenges your terminology, and it elevates ours. It challenges your version of one tiny slice of our migration story, and it elevates ours.
We did not come over here on the Mayflower. We did not come up the Cumberland Gap. We did not follow Daniel Boone or De Soto or a black-robed priest. We came from the tops of tall trees that softly bent down and laid their boughs upon the earth so that she would not be lonesome. We came from the clouds, life-giving mist and sky. We came from the soil itself, from crevices that opened up and gifted us to the open air. We came from the rich mud at the bottom of the waters to mingle with the other life forms and make them complete.
We followed Cranes here. We followed Turtles here. We followed Ravens and Frogs and Catfish and Sturgeon and Deer, Caribou, Moose, Otters, Bears… We followed the stars here. We followed the Northern Lights here. We followed rivers and streams and shorelines and horizons here. We followed the wind and the very air we breathe here. We did not follow you here. We are the very essence of here.