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I
am an enrolled member of the Onondaga Nation which resides near the
geographical heart of New York State, outside of the city of Syracuse.
While tribally, this identity is mine because of the Haudenosaunee's
matrilineal tradition, I am much more experientially allied with another
tribe of the Haudenosaunee, having been born and raised on the Tuscarora
Indian reservation, now in more P.C. times called the Tuscarora Nation,
just outside of Niagara Falls, in western New York. The story goes,
according to my mother, and hers before her, and back to the beginning
of our time in this place, that the Tuscaroras, on their migration from
the Carolinas, were accompanied to their present location by two Onondaga
women who joined the Tuscaroras after their membership acceptance into
the Haudenosaunee; thus, at the formation of this piece of land's identity
as the Tuscarora Nation, in the 1700s, my direct ancestor was present--one
of two Onondaga women who perpetuated their lines among the Tuscaroras.
The first six years of my formal education
were at the Tuscarora Indian School, where we learned the Tuscarora
language, as well as standard elementary school fare. As frequently
happens, upon entering junior and high school, I grew less studious
in this area and indulged other interests instead of continuing in evening
language classes for adults. Occasionally now I attend those night sessions,
attempting to fit my adult frame into the confines of an elementary
school desk, but every time, I leave the building at the heart of our
reservation, overwhelmed by the knowledge I've lost over the twenty
years.
At home, I'm known for two things. The
first thing resulted from my habit of wearing a towel pinned around
my neck through my early childhood; even now, still known as Batman
to most people on the reservation as I move beyond the age of thirty,
I look at my extensive collection of Batman memorabilia as many years
old and know they were right in giving me that name.
The other area for which I am known is
less dubious. I was the kid who could draw. Some friends and I even
went door to door summers when we were kids, trying to hawk my drawings
to the folks who lived down the road. Some asked me if I had any Indian
drawings, but I never did. I could offer images from the Planet of the
Apes, The Towering Inferno, Spiderman and, of course, Batman, but I
had a critical shortage of Indian drawings. I kept thinking of those
Curtis photos, and some of the Franklin Mint warrior and shaman prints
people had up on their living room walls, and those works seemed so
far removed from our lives, that Batman seemed closer to reality--and
I'm talking about the campy, ludicrous television version of the caped
crusader. Our lives were bright and colorful, full of laughter, and
the villains were pretty clearly defined, too. The cliffhangers occurred
at the end of the month, when we were never really sure we were clever
enough to survive until the next check.
I continued to draw, and advanced to painting,
when I got a job in high school and could afford paints and brushes.
I found after a while that the stories I was trying to tell in my paintings
were becoming too busy and complicated, so I tried writing them--sometimes
as well as, sometimes instead of, painting them.
As I left the reservation to begin college, trying to escape the disapproving
look whenever someone realized I was Indian, I discovered, in the negation
of my everyday life at home, what an incredibly unique upbringing I'd
had. We weren't the stoic and frozen statuary Curtis captured, but our
experiences weren't like anyone's I'd met who was from the outside,
either. It was rather strange, because the "outside'' was only
a three minute destination by car, but vast millions of miles away by
thought. Even while there, I chose a profession that was considered
"valuable" in our community; my Associate Degree from Niagara
County Community College is in an Applied Science: Electroencephalography
- the clinical study of brain waves. Writing and painting were not going
to put food on my table, according to my family, so I went in the direction
they wanted first, taking creative writing and literature classes anywhere
I could fit in an elective.
Once I had that degree, in case I needed
it to survive, I began writing more seriously and decided to continue
my education in a field involving the less clinical side of brain waves,
in which I actually had interest. I concentrated primarily on American
Literature in attaining my B.A. and M.A. in English from the State University
College at Buffalo and can recall reading only one American Indian author
for a class in my entire career as a student. On my own, I was reading
the works of Louise Erdrich, Ted Williams, Leslie Marmon Silko, and
others, as a way to keep connected with home. Through reading these
novels, while I lived in the outside world, I was able to discover that
the inside was as rich and satisfying--more so, in fact.
While I continue to live and work off
the reservation, about ten minutes away, by car, my connections remain
strong. Presently, I am an Associate Professor of English at Canisius
College, in Buffalo, where I have introduced a course in contemporary
Native American Literature, hoping to raise awareness and be a positive
role model in whatever ways I can. I have moved there, after eight years
of work at Niagara County Community College, where I was an Assistant
Professor of English. I am involved, at least weekly, with my family,
(immediate members, 39, extended, closing in on 200) who all still live
on the reservation; with that many members, there are plenty of birthdays
scattered throughout the year.
My rediscovery in college of the wondrous
life I shared with my family and friends, over time, began to appear
in my work. At one point, I had believed I was writing a Stephen King-ish
horror story, only to discover I was taking my real inspirations from
reservation ghost stories. Eventually, I came back around to writing
and painting about what I know--reservation life. My first attempt to
really capture the wonders of the reservation life I know, as itself,
unadorned, without the trappings of modern horror pop culture, or any
of that other nonsense, "The Ballad of Plastic Fred," also
resulted in my first publication--a sign, I guess, of where I should
have been in the first place.
Reprinted
by permission of Eric Gansworth
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