Nine February 1968 #2
“We need to hold on to the threads that connect us to our past. Without knowing our past, we won’t know who we are. That scares me. It should scare you. We can still be bold in this world but keep our own traditions.”
Kiju was trying to keep her voice level, but desperation was creeping in.
“Didn’t you say before that we should be able to choose?” Anita asked.
“Yes, but when you understand all the facts, all the information. Then choose. They are telling people lies, and people are believing them.”
Anita shrugged as if the conversation was nothing more than gossip between friends.
“If folks would sit with me, learn with me. I can help them,” Kiju said.
“I dunno,” Anita said. “Seems kinda old-fashioned to me.”
“But . . .” Kiju tried to say more, but she was dispirited, and nothing came out.
Anita left the room as silently as she had entered. Mrs. Jeremy stood to make the tea.
“No, thank you. I think we will move on,” Kiju said.
Mrs. Jeremy poured herself a cup and left the other two cups on the counter, empty, as she followed us out.
“If you could maybe talk to your family, let them know that I would be happy to talk about all this, I would be grateful,” Kiju said.
“I’ll see what I can do, but no promises. These young folks these days have minds of their own.”
We bundled up against the cold and stepped out into winter.
I turned toward home, thinking Kiju might have abandoned her mission, but she turned in the other direction.
We spent the entire morning talking to the families who lived near us, trying to help them understand the importance of our ways of birthing new generations.
But their responses echoed those of Anita, and Kiju wandered home disheartened.
That night, I tried everything I could to comfort her, to reassure her that she was wanted, needed.
For hours it was only my voice interrupting the silence.
She was so quiet as she knit a new pair of mittens for me, my hands apparently too large now for the ones she’d made the previous year.
I made hot chocolate, and it went cold beside her.
I buttered toast and sprinkled sugar on it, a special treat, and the toast went soggy and uneaten.
It was a little after ten when she spoke.
“Maybe they are right and I’m just an old woman holding on too hard to the past.” With that, she stood up, put down the knitting needles and went to bed, without another word.
As the days grew longer, her quiet remained, her words reserved for necessity only. Until one dark afternoon in early March.
Each day after school, I rushed home, checking the mailbox at the end of the driveway and then the little table by the door, waiting on a letter from John, but I was disappointed each time the mailbox was empty and the little table was bare.
I had begged Kiju for a telephone but had yet to win that particular battle.
Letter writing was all we had, and he seemed to have given up on it, and I was determined that I wouldn’t write until he did.
I could be stubborn when I wanted to be.
That winter, Kiju and I suffered together but separately, content in our misery.
It was a particularly nasty day, with heavy snow and strong winds, when I looked up from my homework to see Kiju staring out the window.
Her silence concerned me. She didn’t respond when I asked what we were having for supper and if I could help.
She simply stared. I wondered if yet another of our women had confessed to using the hospital and not the tender care of my grandmother.
I wished they would just stop telling her, but she knew, deep down.
Fewer women were coming to us. It was impossible not to notice, but it had happened so fast. Change can creep up on you or it can pounce.
This was a leap we were not prepared for.
“Kiju?”
She jumped, startled.
“Something is wrong. You are too quiet.” I said it lightly, but my effort to lift her mood fell flat.
Kiju reached over and took a piece of paper off the counter and handed it to me. It was a notice from the town about a council meeting to take place next Tuesday. Under the items to be discussed was “public safety and childbirth.”
“What does that mean?” I handed it back to her.
“Some of the people in town don’t like what we do, and they want us to stop. Not that anyone comes to us anymore. I don’t see why it’s so important now. They are winning the battle for our children. I suppose they want everyone to know they are winning. That once again they have beaten us down.”
“It’s none of their business what we do, and the women will come back, Kiju. They’re just confused. They’ll come back.” I hoped she couldn’t hear the doubt in my voice.
“I’m not so sure.” Kiju stared into her teacup.
“We can go. We can explain to them.”
“I wish I had your faith in people.”
“We’ll go, Kiju. They have to listen to you. They all listen to you when they want your herbs and medicines. They’ll listen now.”
The night before the town meeting, I couldn’t sleep.
When my mother died under the birthing tree, a small group of local people put up a fuss, insisting that we be forced into the sanitized hospitals, a world full of sharp light and loud noises, of antiseptic smells and unfamiliar faces, and the prick of needles to lessen the pain, while white women, dressed in white hats and white dresses, snatched our babies from us the moment they came into the world, and exchanged the nutrients of a mother’s milk for manufactured formula.
This was not what we wanted, but the more this small group talked, the more the fear they sought to instill took root.
The previous year a few of these people had even wandered the camp in the evenings, men dressed in suits and women with lipstick on their teeth.
Some carried Bibles, some sandwiches, as if we would let our own go hungry.
If not a Bible then pamphlets, concern, real or not, in their voices.
Our people seemed to be patient if not attentive.
They listened about the wonders of modern medicine, the value of a “proper education” and not filling children’s heads with Indian nonsense and superstition.
The visitors spoke of the risks of the medicines Kiju made in our kitchen, of the dangers of a mistaken mushroom in a tonic, of the potential of death in the misuse of a berry or leaf.
The pamphlets were taken, and maybe even read, but when night fell, they often met the fire.
Regardless, something was taking root; Kiju and I could feel it.
Kiju had continued quietly protesting the changes, speaking to any woman who would listen, but the more she pleaded for the children, the more she seemed to drive the families away.
We ate dinner early so we could walk into town without being late. Toasted fried egg sandwiches with apples cut into slices. Sweet and salty.
“Well, let’s go, I guess,” she said as she threw the reminder notice of that night’s meeting into the fire. We watched the edges curl and burn as the words disappeared into the flames.
As we walked toward town, I considered that going to the meeting might be a fool’s errand.
They had already made up their minds, and they weren’t going to listen to us.
Kiju said that Indians were never listened to in matters considered important to the rest of society, and that was even more true for Indian women.
Susan’s women’s rights movement had yet to make its way to our part of the world, and even if it did, it wouldn’t represent us.
The tree still stood, waiting, but no one visited, no one entered the world under her strong branches, her rustling leaves.
No one held on to the roots for strength.
I hadn’t seen the ground glow red in so long, I was forgetting what it looked like, even when I closed my eyes and concentrated.
The town hall was half-full, mostly women, given the topic.
The only men were the mayor, the three members of town council, the priest from the Catholic church, Father Michael, and the reverend from the Baptist church, as well as a man with a balding head and a full moustache, his suit pressed and clean.
He looked confident in himself, if completely out of place.
“Good evening, Mrs. Paul.” Father Michael took my grandmother’s hand without asking and held on to it while bending slightly to come face to face with her.
“You need to know that we mean no disrespect to you. The women of this town hold you in very high esteem. But we need to move ahead with the rest of the world and take advantage of new methods to ensure the safety of the flock. You understand.” His voice dripped with condescension. Even at my young age I understood that.
Kiju took a deep breath and removed her hand from between his. “I understand,” she said as she walked past him, leaving his hands hanging mid-air.
“Father Michael.” I nodded as I followed her to the plastic seats in the second row, facing the town council.
“Why do they treat me like I’m an idiot? I’ll wager none of these men have ever witnessed the beauty of birth. And these women”—she cast her hand around in a semicircle—“don’t even get me started.” Then she placed her hands on her lap and avoided the glances and idle whispers.
I went to the back of the room to collect some snacks.
No one approached Kiju or tried to engage me in conversation, despite the fact that almost everyone in the room had known us for years.
We all shopped in the same stores, and some had come to Kiju for herbs to calm a cough or stop a crying baby.
But on this night, instead of being upset at their avoidance, I was glad for it.
We dipped stale cookies in weak tea as we waited for the meeting to start.
The mayor faced the crowd and cleared his throat, waiting for the room to quiet.