The Whisky Blot
Journal of Literature, Poetry, and Haiku
What I wouldn't give for a good Navajo murder mystery,
but Tony has shuffled off to the spirit world. Sure, his daughter has continued writing the stories, but, no offense, it's not the same. Kind of like the Old Testament versus the New - Yahweh versus Jesus - Abraham's Almighty evolved to The Holy Trinity. The series became a family business which is great and means his apples didn't fall far from the tree. Most of our orchards stand on slopes, and gravity has its effect on roll. How can you know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been? It's just that I'm sitting here trying to grade adolescent BS turned in for a college lit course, and it's taking three fingers of bourbon. So I end up staring at the bookcase where there's a box set of Tony's mysteries, "Skinwalkers" and "Thief of Time" among them, but the point has to do with the source of things, the spirit of the creator, the guy who invented Lt. Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee of the Tribal Police who solved the crimes and navigated the nuances of the Diné and made their spirituality real for me. Tony took pains to understand their legends, perceiving a commonality with Christian mysticism that suggests shared truths and wisdoms about creation and being. His daughter made it a trio giving Bernie Manuelito a bigger role on the team. It's not as if there aren't plenty of shape shifters from D.C. dreaming up real crimes like walls to keep brown skins out, as if such a thing would have kept the Athabascans, who became The People, from migrating south from what everyone calls Canada long before white men drew lines on maps. The Pueblo called them apachu, enemy strangers; Spaniards called them Apaches de Nabahu which became Navajo. No Tribal Police then, just the Diné worrying about rain and rituals - Yeibichai - Talking God - creation stories about First Man and First Woman, Coyote, the Giants, the Five Worlds, venerating the sacred Four Mountains that marked East, South, West and North of Dinetah in the Four Corners region, although those are just lines drawn by the belagaana, too. Most important was hozho - or what Christians might consider grace - the proper harmony with nature and each other, the ability to forgive and forget. Sickness stems from imbalance with creation. Shaman on the Rez - more white man lines - know the legends' lessons, even as their teens turn to basketball - someone else's legend - bootleggers and meth to distract from the hunger and poverty of living in cold trailers, backs turned to tradition's words. Legends are words, and words are identity - who we are inside the skin. Not knowing these things means losing your way which is why it's so worrisome that these community college lit students don't know about The Prodigal Son. Eric Chiles is the author of the chapbook "Caught in Between," and his poetry has appeared in such publications as The American Journal of Poetry, Big Windows Review, Canary, Chiron Review, Main Street Rag, Rattle, Tar River Poetry, and Third Wednesday. In 2014 he completed a 10-year section hike of the Appalachian Trail. Comments are closed.
|
Follow Us On Social MediaArchives
September 2023
Categories
All
Help support our literary journal...help us to support our writers.
|