Peace on a green hill
Twenty years ago we trundled off on an unexpected journey; my sister Grainne, her son Niall and his friend Sean both aged around 12 and myself, carrying my baby son who was a delectably squishy six month old. We clambered into Grainne’s battered Citroen and headed off to County Westmeath. Grainne had heard there would be some sort of a peace and reconciliation event with a Native American leader. She’s always been a big fan of Native American culture and the much quoted (and often misquoted) Chief Seattle but her real hero was Chief Sitting Bull. Sepia toned photos with quotes were tucked around her home on posters, bookmarkers and postcards on the fridge.
Off we headed towards what is now known as Uisneach. As we got closer to the area there were really no signs of what was going to be happening. Then suddenly around a few little lanes and one last corner there were a few motley cars, some long haired folk and a friendly wave from someone wearing a fringed jacket and we figured we’d arrived.
We tentatively followed a line of people trickling down a laneway and through a hedge and up onto a mounded hill. It was a mild weather day, the hedgerows laden with blossoms, rolling green fields and a charmingly strange assortment of humans. Niall and Sean thought it was hysterical and were sniggering and spouting witty asides to each other about the madness of it all, in a time-honored pubescent way, but looking back at it now it really was pretty peculiar.
A quick glance around at this gathering would take in the sight of a mild mannered parish priest, a shuffling troop of red cheeked boy scouts, a large dollop of middle-aged purple draped hippy type women, some bare-chested, hair-braided, very pale Irish ‘braves’in leather trousers, some new agers drinking beer, alternative types in cast off army surplus gear, a few farmers and their kids and other various curiosities clutching instruments or shiny handbags and looking somewhat uneasy in this damp but lovely rural field.
There was no mistaking Chief Arvol Looking Horse. Wearing a full feathered war bonnet and gleaming white embroidered shirt he looked incredibly benevolent and relaxed against the backdrop of awkward that was going on. He had two truly gorgeous Native American women in full regalia by his side and close by was a regal looking Inuit Shaman in furs and ceremonial gear.
At some point we were invited to create tobacco prayer ties. Inside little squares of coloured cloth we put a pinch of tobacco and tied them up with a silent prayer. I can’t remember what I prayed for but I distinctly heard the whispered word ‘Nintendo’ from Niall’s direction. Chief Looking Horse and his posse of extra cool, exotic and frankly fascinating spiritual folk were seated or standing in a wide arc close to a blazing fire. Each person was invited to walk into this circle and around this sacred fire in an anti-clockwise direction, place their prayers in the fire and then leave the space to join the small crowd around the perimeter. There was a distinct sense of quiet and careful purpose as each person walked into the space to leave their prayer ties burning and send their requests into the ether.
Most of us had completed this task when suddenly there was a bit of a racket. Into the fire area stumbled a tall young man. He was definitely pissed, one hand clutching a beer and instead of the prayer ties, was smoking a cigarette. A small collective gasp of horror rippled through the crowd.
‘HOW! Now! Wow! Indians, Wah wah wah wah, wah, wah!’ He mimicked the old school Cowboy schtick of the Indian pow wow. Hopping up and down, he did that flat hand over mouth hoopla in between slugging beer and taking drags of the cigarette. He pranced about making some big moves and then flicked his smoking butt into the sacred fire. At this, the pale bare chested ‘Braves’ were truly incensed and swiftly marched into the area and grappled the offensive and loudly protesting man away amid a flurry of head shakes, tut-tuts and embarrassed mutters from the completely mortified crowd.
I noticed Chief Looking Horse tilt his head and whisper something to one of his entourage and she elegantly slipped away into the crowd. A rueful and contrite line of people continued to walk carefully into the circle and send their prayers correctly up the skies. When the pray tie line was complete Chief Looking Horse stood up and said very clearly
‘ I would like to bring our brother back here today because I feel like he has something important to say to us all’
Back came his assistant and being led by her was the man. Yes, the fella who had made us all feel stricken to the core with his boorish behaviour.
‘Speak my brother’ said the Chief.
And speak he did. His drunkenness dropped away as he gained momentum.What flowed out of that man’s mouth was anger. But not anger at us. Pure unadulterated anger at the systems that had colonized indigenous tribes, forced them off their land, gave them diseases and ripped their culture asunder. Anger at how the living world is being treated. He apologised for the terrible actions that white culture has done to the world over. He talked of the polluted waterways, the stricken forests, the species without homes. He took out his heart and held it up to be seen. He wept. We stood outside the circle and blinked like soil bound creatures at the blinding light of this transformation. From a sick malicious joker to a pure gift of sorrow and vulnerability.
Chief Looking Horse leant down beside him and patted his hand. He was draped in a ceremonial shawl. Peace and reconciliation had just been words that meant nothing and now they had been shown to us all in a magically visible way. The rest of the day was a blur, at one stage the women with babies were invited to step forward to have their babies blessed and in a line we stood and Chief Looking Horse came down with a huge eagle feather and smudged each baby. Most of them cried, but not my baby boy. He giggled, then grabbed the feather. That made the Chief chuckle. I met a woman I had gone to school with and we hadn’t seen each other for years and there we were with our babies almost exactly the same age, laughing in the clouds of smudge and the hawthorn bushes and the greenery and smiling at the laughing children and looking at the gleaming eyes of all of us being there like one odd but gloriously sweet family figuring out this gorgeous, gooey, awkward, transformative world together.
For more information on the wonderful work of Chief Looking Horse please feel free to look here or here
