Enemy Alien, says that Coyote and those RCMPs.
Silly Coyote, I says, that’s not an Enemy Alien. That’s Billy Frank.
Are you sure, says Coyote. He certainly looks like an Enemy Alien.
I’m Billy Frank, says Billy Frank.
So that Coyote and the RCMPs grab another Enemy Alien.
No, I says, that’s not an Enemy Alien, either. That’s my friend Napioa.
Nonsense, says Coyote, I know an Enemy Alien when I see one, and Coyote and the RCMPs grab everyone they see. Those politicians stand behind that important-looking car singing O Canada and waving flags.
Enemy Alien.
No, I says, that’s Leroy Jumping Bull’s cousin Cecil. Enemy Alien.
No, I says, that’s Martha Redcrow. She’s married to Cecil Jumping Bull’s nephew, Wilfred.
I wouldn’t stand too close to this story if I were you. Coyote and the RCMPs might grab you. Yes, I’d sit in the corner where those ones can’t see you.
Enemy Alien.
No, I says, that’s Maurice Moses. He’s Leroy Jumping Bull’s grandson. Leroy’s daughter Celeste had twins.
Enemy Alien.
No, I says, that’s Arnold Standing Horse. He takes those tourists into those mountains go hunting.
That silly Coyote even grabs me.
Hey, I says, let me go.
Oops, says Coyote, oops.
You got to stop grabbing everybody, I says.
But Coyote and the RCMPs don’t do that. And pretty soon that Coyote has that pretty good truck filled with Enemy Aliens, and that one has that pretty good truck filled with Indians.
I have more Enemy Aliens than when I started, says Coyote. I must be better than I thought.
You got to keep the Indians and the Enemy Aliens straight, I tell Coyote. Otherwise you’re going to mess up this story.
And just then the RCMPs grab that Coyote.
Enemy Alien.
No, no, says Coyote. I’m Coyote.
Enemy Alien, shout those RCMPs. O Canada, sing those politicians. And everybody drives off in that important-looking car and Coyote’s pretty good truck says “Okada General Store” on the door.
And I don’t see that Coyote again.
So that Coyote comes by my place. My good place by the river.
Yes, this is still the same story. Yes, that Coyote has been gone a while, but now that one is coming back. Sure, I know where Coyote and the Indians and the Enemy Aliens go. No, they don’t go to Florida to play that golf, wrestle that alligator. No, they don’t go on that cruise to those islands, everybody sits in the sun and drinks out of big nuts. No, they don’t give those Enemy Aliens back their Enemy Alien property either.
Hello, says that Coyote. Maybe you have some tea. Maybe you have some food. Maybe you have a newspaper for me to read.
Sure, I says. Sit down. Where’s that pretty good truck says “Okada General Store” on the door?
The Whitemen took my pretty good truck, says Coyote. And they took all my Enemy Alien Property. And they took all my Enemy Aliens.
Holy, I says, those Whitemen like to take everything.
Yes, says Coyote, that’s true. And that one drinks my tea. And that one eats my food. And that one reads my newspaper.
Hooray, says that Coyote. I have found another job.
Boy, I says, it is dangerous to read newspapers.
This job is better than the other one, says Coyote.
You going to round up more Enemy Aliens? I says.
No, says Coyote. I’m going to that New Mexico. I’m going to that Los Alamos place in New Mexico, help those Whitemen want to make the world safe for freedom.
OK, I says, that sounds pretty good. That New Mexico is mostly that desert and those mountains. Nothing much in that Los Alamos place that Coyote can mess up.
Yes, now Coyote is gone. Yes, now those toes are safe. Yes, that’s the end of the story. Well, you should have asked Coyote while he was here. Maybe if you hurry, you can catch him before he gets to that New Mexico.
No, I’m going to stay here. That Coyote will come back. That one always comes back. Somebody’s got to be here to make sure he doesn’t do something foolish.
I can tell you that.
TOMSON HIGHWAY
Hearts and Flowers
CONTRIBUTOR’S NOTE
I CHOSE TO WRITE on the subject of Canadas Native people winning the right to vote in federal elections for two reasons. The first is that we, the group of writers whose work you see in these pages, were asked to write a story or an essay for this project based on, or woven around, an important, that is to say, a pivotal, event in the history of Canada’s Native people. This, of course, would mean—I started thinking right away—going back in history perhaps even as far as the storied arrival of Christopher Columbus in North America in 1492. My problem, however, is that I—to date anyway—have never been particularly good at writing what one might call “period pieces.” I’ve only really been truly comfortable writing about the “here and now”—that is to say, what is happening today. Or at least, what has happened during my lifetime, meaning what I myself remember happening, even if only vaguely.
Well, nothing that important has happened to the Native people of Canada this year or last, or even this last decade, at least nothing truly earth-shattering or universally transformational, at least nothing that I know of. As I was thinking all of this, moreover, the notion that I really should be writing about, and around, an event that took place while I was alive, just kept coming back to me. That is to say, this “event” had to be an event that I myself, if only vaguely, would remember, and what’s more, it had to be an event that was indeed “universally transformational.” It had to be an event that changed all our lives, clean across the country, in a manner that was significant, powerful, and permanent, and “all” meaning, of course, the Native people of Canada. And that event, I came to decide, was the day—the 31st of March, 1960—when we, as a “nation,” as a people, as human beings, got the right to vote.
I was eight years old in 1960, the year Prime Minister John Diefenbaker finally was successful in pushing through the legislation whereby we, as a people, got the right to vote in federal elections—the law whereby we, as a people, were able to decide our own fates, as it were, or, at the very least, help decide the fate and the direction our own country was and would be taking in the world at large. It dawned on me, moreover, that a people are not truly considered full-status human beings until their intelligence is recognized as being that of human beings, in which case they can then participate in the way their own country is run, the way their lives are decided for them. I think what also helped in this whole thinking process for me, personally, what pushed me along, was that I had just seen, in France, a play entitled Controversy at Valladolid, written only recently and considered a classic of modern French drama. In it a group of Roman Catholic clerics and intellectuals, fifty years after “the fact of Columbus,” are arguing, in the context of a major international forum, whether the “Indians of the Americas” are or are not human (for you see, in those days, the Pope considered that we had no souls, that we were equivalent, in effect, to wild, savage animals, like jungle cats or mink).
At any rate, all this thinking eventually crystallized into this little story that I’ve had stashed away inside my head for a very long time, a story that, like too many of my stories, tends to be a little on the autobiographical side, shall we say. But its a story, nonetheless, that I’ve always wanted to record because it is, in point of fact, about a little Cree Indian boy who changes the world with-and this at the risk of sounding just a touch self-important—the power of art. That is to say, it is about the “universally transformational” power of a simple, and perhaps forbidden, piece of music called “Hearts and Flowers,” and the boy who dares play it … on that fateful night when his people, finally, are recognized as human.
And that was the second, and final, reason why I chose to write about this subject and in this manner.
Hearts and Flowers
Daniel Daylight sits inside Mr. Tippers travelling car. It is cold—not cold, though, like outside; of this fact Daniel Daylight is quite certain. He looks out through the window on his right and, as always, sees white forest rushing by; maybe rabbits will bound past on that snowbank in the trees, he sits thinking. He has seen them, after all, on past Thursdays just like this one. It is dark, too. Not pitch-black, though, for that half moon hangs unhidden, making snow—on the road, on the roadside, rocks, ground, trees (mostly spruce though some birch and some poplar)—glow, as with dust made of silver, Daniel Daylight sits there thinking. Daniel Daylight, at age eight, is on his way to his piano lesson in Prince William, Manitoba.
Twenty miles lie between the Watson Lake Indian Residential School, where resides Daniel Daylight, and Prince William, where he takes his weekly lesson. The Watson Lake Indian Residential School, after all, has no one to teach him how to play the piano, while Prince William has elderly and kind Mrs. Hay. So his teacher in Grade Three at the Watson Lake Indian Residential School, Mr. Tipper, drives him every Thursday, 6:00 p.m. on the nose, to his piano teachers house, Mrs. Hays, in Prince William.
Orange brick and cement from the top to the bottom, held in by a steel mesh fence, then by forest (mostly spruce though some birch and some poplar), the Watson Lake Indian Residential School stands like a fort on the south shore of a lake called Watson Lake, 550 miles north of Winnipeg, Mr. Tipper’s place of birth. Prince William, quite by contrast, is a town that stands on the south bank of a river called the Moostoos River, just across from which sprawls a village called Waskeechoos (though “settlement” is a noun more accurate, Mr. Tipper has explained on previous Thursdays, for no “village” can be seen, only houses peeking out of the forest here and there). Waskeechoos, on the north bank of the muddy Moostoos River, is an Indian reserve, Mr. Tipper has informed Daniel Daylight, not unlike the one from which hails Daniel Daylight: Minstik Lake, Manitoba, 350 miles north of Waskeechoos, Prince William, and the Watson Lake Indian Residential School. It takes half an hour for Daniel Daylight to make the journey every week, in Mr. Tipper’s travelling car, from the Watson Lake Indian Residential School south through the heart of Waskeechoos and across the Moostoos River to Prince William, so he has time on his hands for reflection (so, at least, Mr. Tipper calls such thinking).
Daniel Daylight likes these trips. For one thing, he gets to practise what he knows of the language they call English with elderly and kind Mrs. Hay, with the waiters at the Nip House or at Wong’s (where he sometimes goes for snacks with Mr. Tipper once he’s finished with his lesson), and with friends of Mr. Tipper whom he meets at the Nip House or at Wong’s. He enjoys speaking English just as he enjoys speaking Cree with the students at the residential school (though, of course, mother tongues need no practice, not like English with its vs that make one’s teeth come right out and bite one’s lower lip). Daniel Daylight, for another thing, likes to ride in “travelling cars” (as he calls them for the v in “travel”). Standing at the northern tip of a lake called Minstik Lake, the Minstik Lake Indian Reserve, after all, has no cars and no trucks, just dogsleds in the winter, canoes in the summer. A third reason why Daniel Daylight likes these trips is that he enjoys being dazzled by the lights of a city like Prince William (for to him, the railway depot is a city of one million, not a town of five thousand) with its streets, its cafés, hotels, stores, and huge churches with tall steeples, whereas Minstik Lake, with its six hundred people, has no streets, no cafés, no hotels, just dirt paths, one small store, and one church. Daniel Daylight, for a fourth thing, likes these trips because Mr. Tipper’s travelling car has a radio that plays songs that he can learn in his head. When it stops playing music, furthermore, it plays spoken English words, which, of course, he can practise understanding. Tonight, for example, people living in the east of the country (Mr. Tipper has explained) are discussing voting patterns of the nation (Mr. Tipper has explained), even though Daniel Daylight knows the word “vote” for one reason: it begins with the sound that forces one to sink one’s teeth deep into one’s lower lip and then growl. Sound, that is to say, thrills Daniel Daylight. Which is why, best of all, Daniel Daylight likes these trips: because he gets to play the piano. He gets to play, for elderly and kind Mrs. Hay, “Sonatina” by Clementi, which he now knows well enough to play page I from the top to the bottom without stopping. He gets to play, for the third time this winter, “Pirates of the Pacific,” with the bass that sounds like a drumbeat. He gets to play, this week, for the first time, with Jenny Dean, the duet—for four hands—called “Hearts and Flowers.”
“Jenny Dean is a white girl,” he has overheard someone say at the Nip House, just a few days before Christmas, in fact, when he was there having fries and Coca-Cola with Mr. Tipper. “Daniel Daylight is an Indian. A Cree Indian. Indian boys do not play the piano with white girls,” he has overheard one white girl whisper loudly to another over Coca-Cola in a bottle, “not here in our Prince William, not anywhere on earth or in heaven.” Daniel Daylight let it pass. He, after all, was eight years old, not thirty-one like Mr. Tipper; what could he have done to the girl who had made such a statement? Bop her on the head with her bottle? Shove a french fry up her nose? Scratch her face? Besides, neither Jenny Deans parents, Mrs. Hay, nor Mr. Tipper seemed to mind the notion of Jenny Dean making music with a boy whose father was a Cree caribou hunter and a celebrated dogsled racer.
“There it is,” says Mr. Tipper. And so it is, for the travelling car has just rounded the bend in the road from which the lights of Prince William and the Indian reserve on this side of the river from the town can be seen for the first time. This first view of both town and reserve, to Daniel Daylight, always looks like a spaceship landed on Planet Earth, not unlike the spaceship in the comic book that his older brother, John-Peter Daylight, gave him as a Christmas present twenty-one days ago and that Daniel Daylight keeps hidden under his pillow in the dormitory at the residential school. Daniel Daylight likes, in fact, to imagine all those lights in the distance as exactly that: a spaceship come to take him to a place where exist not Indian people, not white people, just good people and good music. In fact, he can hear in his mind already “Sonatina” by Clementi, key of G, allegro moderato. He can hear “Pirates of the Pacific” with that drumbeat in the bass that goes boom. He can hear “Hearts and Flowers.” He has practiced all three pieces to the point of exhaustion, after all, in the one room at the residential school that has a piano, what the nuns and the priests call the “library” but, in fact, is a storage room for pencils and erasers, papers, rulers, chalk, and some old spelling books. Feeling on the tips of his fingers all the keys of Mrs. Hay’s brown piano, Daniel Daylight sees the sign on the roadside that announces, “Waskeechoos Welcomes You.” Mr. Tipper’s travelling car speeds past the sign, thus bringing Daniel Daylight onto land that belongs “to the Indians,” Mr. Tipper, for some reason, likes proclaiming, as on a radio. “Speed Limit 30 MPH,” Daniel Daylight reads on the sign that then follows. The road now mud, dried, cracked, and frozen, pot-holed and iced, the travelling car first slows down to a crawl, then bumps, rattles, slides.
“Indian people are not human,” says Mr. Tipper, dodging first this small patch of ice then that small patch of ice, “at least not according to the government. They cannot vote.” Daniel Daylight sits unsurprised—Mr. Tipper’s use of English, white as a sheet and from Winnipeg as he may be, is not always perfect, Daniel Daylight has simply come to accept. The young Cree piano player, in any case, does not feel confident enough, in either his grasp of English or his age, to say much in rebuttal. His father, after all, speaks maybe ten words of English, his mother just two or three; of his eight living siblings, older all than him, only John-Peter Daylight, who is three grades ahead of Daniel Daylight at the Watson Lake Indian Residential School (and perhaps Florence, who once studied there, too, but quit at just Grade Four), speaks English. No one on the Minstik Lake Indian Reserve where Daniel Daylight was born
, for that matter, speaks the language, not even Chief Samba Cheese Weetigo or his wife, Salad. Like people right here in Waskeechoos (as Mr. Tipper has informed Daniel Daylight in the past), they speak Cree and Cree only. So how, indeed, can they be human, Daniel Daylight asks himself, if they don’t even know what the word means or looks like on a page?
At the bridge that spans like a giant spider’s web the muddy, winding Moostoos River, a bottleneck is fast taking shape. Built mainly for trains, the bridge makes room for car and truck traffic only by means of a one-way lane off to one side. The traffic light glowing red like a charcoal on this side of the crossing, four cars sit at its base humming and putt-putt-putting; the travellers from Watson, as happened last Thursday, will just have to sit there for four or five minutes, much too long for Daniel Daylight, who can’t wait to play the piano with Jenny Dean. Preparing, in a sense, for conversing with elderly and kind Mrs. Hay when he gets to her house (for Mrs. Hay’s Cree, of course, is like Mr. Tipper’s—it does not exist), Daniel Daylight makes a decision: he will practise his English. On Mr. Tipper.
“Human, what it mean, Mr. Tip—” But Mr. Tipper does not let him finish.
“If a man, or a woman, aged twenty-one or older cannot vote,” says Mr. Tipper—who, from the side, resembles Elmer Fudd, Bugs Bunny’s worst enemy in the comics, thinks Daniel Daylight—“then how on earth can he be human, hmmm, Daniel Daylight?”
“‘Vote’?” Daniel Daylight feels himself bite his thick lower lip with both sets of teeth, so unlike Cree which has no such sound or letter, he sits there regretting.
“‘Vote’ is when a person helps choose the leaders that will make the laws for his country,” replies Mr. Tipper. He snorts once and then continues. “Every four years, in Winnipeg where I come from, for instance, the person who has the right to vote will go to a church or a school or some such building that has a hall, step inside a little … room—the voting booth, this room is called—take a small piece of paper on which are written the names of the four, five, or six people from that region or that neighbourhood who want to go to Ottawa to speak for the people of that region or that neighbourhood.” Daniel Daylight is having trouble keeping up with the torrent of words pouring out of Mr. Tipper’s mouth. Still, he manages to catch what he thinks Mr. Tipper, in the past, has referred to as “the drift.” “The person then votes—that is to say, chooses—by checking off the name of the person on that list who he thinks will best speak for him and his needs, and the person on that list whose name ends up being checked off by the greatest number of people in that region or that neighbourhood is voted, in this way, into power, and that person goes to Ottawa to help our prime minister run our country, is what the word ‘vote’ means, Daniel Daylight,” says Mr. Tipper. “You ‘vote’ for your leader. You decide how you want your life to be in your country. That’s what makes you a human. Otherwise, you’re not.”
Our Story: Aboriginal Voices on Canada's Past Page 16
