“
Ah, nyoh
, the five things that all men and women desire. I will tell you soon, but you must be patient for I have not yet come to that part of the story.”
“Hmm,” she murmured again. “’Tis a shame, for I am quite inquisitive.”
“I have hoped that you would be,” he said. “Now to the young servant, the handsome man said, ‘Take this bundle and study it well and ensure that these things are transported across the water. If you do this, much wealth will be yours.’
“Suddenly the young servant awoke, and when he did, he discovered that he held a bundle in his hands. Had it been only a dream? he wondered. It is hard to say this was so, for the items were real.
“At first, the boy was frightened because it appeared that whatever this was held magic. But soon his desire to see what was inside overcame his fear and he opened the bundle. Here is what he found inside: There were playing cards, a bottle of rum, a few of the white man’s gold coins, a fiddle and a leg bone that was so old that it barely held together without breaking in two.”
“That’s odd,” she commented. “Such strange things.”
“
Nyoh
, it is so. When the boy saw what was inside, he felt much as you, for these were unusual items to give to a person, and he couldn’t conceive of bringing them to a people across a great body of salt water. Yet, the boy remembered his promise to the stranger, as well as the vision of the riches he would acquire if he did exactly as he was told to do. And so the servant boy sought out another man and told his story to this man, who was an adventurer. From that moment on, this man and all the other people who followed him carried these five things with them when they came to Turtle Island.”
“And what were those things again? ” she asked.
“They were playing cards, a bottle of rum, a few of the white man’s gold coins, a fiddle and a leg bone that was so old that it barely held together.”
“But I don’t see—”
“Be patient, for I have not finished the story yet. Now, these gifts soon spread throughout this new land, Turtle Island, for these items were, indeed, things that all people took pleasure in. Now do you remember what I told you about dreams and about the Creator? ”
“Yes.”
“Good, because this handsome stranger was a man we of the Iroquois Nation call
Hanisse’ono
, the evil twin of the Creator of this world.
Hanisse’ono
laughed at the mischief he had caused and said to himself, ‘The cards will cause the people to gamble away all their property, and will make them fight amongst themselves; the bottle of rum, when drunk, will make the people indulge in the evils of their bad mind until they will fight and kill each other and become fools who will sign away their country; the coins will bring about dishonesty amongst the people and will make them lustful of others’ property and they will forget the teachings of the Peacemaker and Hiawatha; the fiddle will cause the men to dance with women of easy virtue and cause gossip and the tattling of tongues, tearing down the reputations of good people; all of these things will bring about the ruin of the people and they will lose all sense of who they are, thus the gift of the bone that withers away.’ ”
“But your Nation has not withered away,” Sarah objected. “I may not remember much of my past, but I do know that the Iroquois Nation still exists. It is strong, united, invincible.”
“So it is. Now. But if my people do not hearken to these warnings from our great sachem, we might become a people who were only once mighty. Think of what has happened in a mere few years: My people have become reliant on English trade goods, the blanket, the iron pots and pans, the gun. Where before we were the creators of all things that we needed, we now make almost none of those goods that keep our society together.”
“But isn’t that the way of all great civilizations? ” Sarah asked. “For instance, I have no desire to weave the cloth that I use to make my dresses, but someone else does, so I buy it from him, but he might not be able to make the style of dress that I create and so he then buys a dress from me.”
“True,” White Thunder said. “But you are English. You will still find cloth even if your governor argues with the French. It will still be there because there are those among you who know how to weave the cloth and sell it to you. But imagine if no one among your nation knew how to weave this cloth, nor even desired to do so, and that only the French knew this skill. Imagine now that if your governor argued with the French, so that the French became upset and stopped trading with you, what would you do? Go naked? ”
“We would probably take war into their country.”
“You might if you were united and strong. But now let’s observe that others come into your camp and try to divide you. Some want you to fight the French and take their cloth from them, but others want you to trade only with the Dutch, who also have a cloth, though perhaps of lower quality. You cannot muster a force of arms, because you are not united in your cause, but have become scattered, like seeds, to the winds. Indeed, you have sold the soul of your nation for want of being able to make the things you now need amongst yourselves.”
“But,” Sarah interrupted, rising up onto her forearms and casting him a speculative glance, “you carry a gun, and your shirt is made of cloth. Even this blanket that has become my bed is European made. How can you be honestly critical of something, when you engage in buying those things from the people you criticize? ”
“A man must purchase from whatever source he can garner the things he needs to clothe himself, and since the Seneca no longer make these things, we are left with no choice but to buy what we can where we can. In the past, we used the skins of animals to make and sew our clothing; even this skill is disappearing. Consider also that in the not-too-distant past, these things were free to the man who could trap and kill the animal.
“Now we must buy the cloth from the English if we are to clothe ourselves,” he continued. “And with what exchange do we purchase it?”
“With gold or with silver?”
“It could be,” he said, “or the skins of animals that we little value, but that the English seem to esteem beyond even gold. And when the animals are gone, what will we use then? Gold? Silver? And where shall we obtain those metals? ”
“From the English? ”
“Perhaps. But recall that these things were once free to us before the English invaded our country.”
“But isn’t your society better for all these things? ”
“Better? How do you mean better? ”
“I little know, since I have never been among your people. But I think that perhaps your women might not have to work so hard. That would be an advantage. Maybe these pots and pans and cloth make their lives a little easier so that they have more time to spend with their family? ”
“Ah, but do they spend more time with their families, or do they spend the time they save by arguing over the iron pot that their neighbor has? ”
As he spoke, his touch quickened over her and Sarah winced under the accidental pressure. Seeing her reaction, however, he gentled his massage, and she again relaxed, putting herself willingly into his care.
“Our lives were not so bad in the past,” he went on to say. “While we did not have the guns or steel of the English or French, we had one valuable the Englishman has want of.”
“Oh? What is that? ”
“Harmony in our villages and between each other, and an independent spirit. What need did a mother have to spend more time with her children, when her children were beside her in the fields?”
“But,” said Sarah, “if a person had more conveniences and life wasn’t so hard—she had more leisure—then she could spend that time thinking, considering ways to make life even better, couldn’t she? After all, as human beings, aren’t we always striving to better conditions for ourselves and our children? ”
“True. What you say is so; and in a perfect world, it would be this way. But what if these comforts were used, not to better a person or his family, but rather to chain them to another? And what if those chains were forged, not to fashion a tie of goodwill toward one another, but rather to hold one back? ”
“Then that is not progress.”
“No, it is not, and so it is not for the Indian, I think. We have these new things, but what has been the result of having them? ”
“I don’t know.”
“War. We have constant war in a land that was set into motion to be a nation of peace. Since the English and French have been among us, we have war among ourselves over mere triflings. Then we are persuaded to go to war for the English against the French or for the French against the English. Since the English and French and Dutch have come to our shores, bringing with them their many and varied things, we have been involved in more war than is within the living minds of our elders.”
Sarah lay still in silence, not knowing what to say, for she recognized some truth to his words. Indeed, White Thunder had made a rather convincing point.
When it appeared that he had little more to say on the matter, she asked, “Then you’re saying that these things that the European brings are evil? ”
“Perhaps these ‘conveniences’ are not themselves evil, but they bring an evil with them that is unparalleled to the Indian mind. If we could make these things ourselves, if we weren’t dependent on the English or French, we would have a chance, I think, to remain united and be a force to be reckoned with. Without this, it is only a matter of time before we are run over by the English or the French for want of their things.”
“But, sir, if you were to have your way, you would remain living in poverty.”
“Poverty? We had no poverty before the Englishman came to our shores. There are three things a human being requires in order live: food and water, shelter and clothing. All were free to us before the coming of the English and French. All that we required was made from the earth by our own hands. If a man was ambitious enough, he might hunt better than another and make a name for himself. A woman, too. Poverty was unknown because all that the earth produced was free to take, to harvest, to make, to produce. Only since the coming of the English and French have we had to pay for the requirements that a human being needs to simply live. Is that the action of a friend? ”
“No,” she was quick to say, “but by the same argument, in order for all to be free, all people then would have to engage in the same occupation, all would need to be farmers or hunters or workers. And there are careers beyond these to which a human being also aspires; those things that if a man is without or if they are withheld, he will deteriorate.”
“Such as? ”
“The arts,” she said. “Music, literature, painting, creativity.”
He nodded.
“If one had to till the soil and work the fields, when would he have the time to write a great work of music, or paint the great pictures or build the awe-inspiring architecture? ”
“And within your society, there is room for this?”
“There is,” she said. “It took a bit of leisure time to think of and invent the gun, to make the iron pots, to put together the little trinkets that make life tolerable.”
“And these people who do this, how do they pay for their necessities? ”
“From the profits they make by selling their works.”
“And do they live easily and free?”
“I …” Sarah stopped. No, they rarely did. Unless they were taken under the wing of some monarch, they usually experienced poverty and hardship.
He was continuing to speak, however, and he said, “If the English had come here and let us remain free to make our own goods and harvest our own food and build our houses, and brought us things that would make our lives easier within our own idea of how life should be lived, that is the action of a friend. We, too, could have expanded our society to include music and much, much more. But to bring with him a means to exact a payment to him for items needed to do nothing more than live, is to enslave a man, for who then can be free but he who holds the most wealth?”
Sarah didn’t know what to say to this piece of logic, and so she simply asked, “Was your grandmother happy, then? ”
“It was so. If she were alive and you were to ask my grandmother if she lived a hard life, filled with poverty, she would have laughed at you, for her life was happy. Yes, she worked the fields, she made the meals, she clothed the children, but she did so with the help of her mothers, her sisters, her aunts and grandmothers. A day spent sewing was a day spent socializing. A day when she worked the fields was a day she played games with her children, chased off crows, climbed high posts, looked for far-away enemies.”
“It does sound almost … ideal.”
“I think it was. Now with these new inventions of the English, we need each other less, and so our socializing is less. We even go to war and act on our own, instead of staying together as a united whole.”
Sarah paused while she contemplated what he said. At last she responded, saying, “Although I understand what you say and can appreciate it, you must realize that one cannot live forever in the past. New inventions are a part of life, if only for the reason that the young will always try to find new ways to do old things. There must be a happy medium.”