Amerika in 5 Parts
Christine Stark
I.1863 white boys in Hutchinson Minnesota kicked an Indian man’s corpse in the streets It’s a Indian! It’s a Indian! stuffed lit firecrackers in his nostrils and mouth brain matter blood hair split pieces of skin splattered in the leaves of grass.
II. Great grandfather had a name but I don’t know it. Call him Ray. Call him Big Nose Fat Cheeked Injun. Call him Indian Giver. Call him Nigger Lips. Call him Stupid. Call him Rapist Deflowerer Violator of White Women’s Chastity. Call him Drunk. Call him Mike. Call him Jay. Call him Matt. Call him Chief. Call him Geronimo King of the Apaches! Call him Anishinaabe, of The People, lived here twelve thousand years. Twelve thousand years! Count 'em! One thousand. Two thousand. Three thousand. Four thousand. Count 'em! Five thousand. Six thousand. Seven thousand. Eight thousand. Count ‘em! Nine thousand. Ten thousand. Eleven thousand. Twelve thousand. Count ‘em! Call him Disappeared. Call him Gone. Call him Dead and Buried White Men Put Him Away in Mental Pen Where They Put The Injuns They Didn't Like. Call him Disappeared. Call him Exterminated. Call him Framed. Call him Great Grandfather, Grandma’s Father Taken To The Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians When She Was Three. Call him Grandma Never Saw Him Again. Call him Cut and Broken Link. Call him Genocided. Call him Tortured. Call him Penned. Call him Great Grandfather. Call him Ray, his white man’s name. Call him his Anishinaabe name, if you know it.
III. Grandma didn't know stood in her turquoise kitchen in a town just outside of Hutchinson 1963 chopping bright orange carrots for a stew Grandma didn't remember she was three when the men roared to the farm house stole her father what’s a Nigger Lipped Injun doin ownin a farm anyway? he pissed them white men off he pissed them white men off Injun living off the reservation living in their land damn it he pissed them white men off he pissed them white men off they said he did something maybe he didn't do anything Grandma didn't know she never found out He raped a twelve year old girl and killed a man with an axe they took him to an insane asylum shouldn't have married a dirty Indian anyway was what her momma said Grandma didn't know what to think Grandma didn't know what to think she didn't know what to think she never found out the truth Grandma never talked about her dad or her own brown skin long lean arms and legs she never talked about him his absence made holes in her life she never even knew about Grandma stood chopping carrots in her turquoise kitchen staring out the window at the dusty gravel roads waiting for her husband 100% German to come home drunk beat her Indian bitch ass Grandpa beat her Indian bitch ass Grandpa beat her Indian ass raped her slaved her owned her made her dig glass bottles out of public garbage cans to turn in for pennies to turn in for pennies the almighty dollar made from trees stolen from Anishinaabe land Grandpa beat her ass 100% German man money’s all that matters Grandma tell me I asked as she wasted from cancer the bedsores wrapping around her bones like the red tulips beaded on the black velvet backs of Anishinaabe dancers tell me about being Indian she turned her head said Germans don’t like that sort of thing and died two days later she died two days later Grandma didn't know she didn't know she died two days later she stood in her turquoise kitchen chopping bright orange carrots Grandma didn't know
IV. I am the granddaughter born on fire born carrying Great Grandfather’s pain passed to me through Grandma’s blood I was born not knowing and knowing I was born without an Indian name I was born with holes made by the absence of my Injun great grandfather who disappeared off the earth into the Hiawatha Insane Asylum for Indians into the Hiawatha Insane Asylum for Indians into the Hiawatha Insane Asylum for Indians into the Hiawatha Insane Asylum for Indians all because some white men were pissed off all because some white men were pissed off I was born my grandma’s granddaughter a light skinned Indian girl who could live as white who could live as white forget about the Indian blood in the family all that was taken but I was born on fire I was born with Anishinaabe blood I was born to a German Anishinaabe man who called me a black haired papoose my father called me a black haired papoose my father called me a black haired papoose he carried the rage of what he could never be 100% German 100% German like daddy he raped me he beat me he sold me he whipped me he raped me raw till red ran like a river down my legs yes I was born with the pain of genocide as red and brilliant as burning Sumac in the fall
I lived on fire half a breath away from the destruction of twenty million dead in four hundred years the land burnt out trees chopped down money’s all that matters the cavalry cut out Indian women’s genitals used them as tobacco pouches the white men skinned Indian men’s legs to make brown skinned breeches when I saw Indians hurt on TV I cowered under a desk my eyes rolled up until the men on top of me saw the whites but they didn't care they didn't care they tortured a small girl they tortured a small girl I lived on fire half a breath away from the annihilation begun in 1492 suck it suck it daddy and his men raped me ripped me in half sold me my searing pain the red river of blood that ran down my legs was their pleasure and profit the two Ps of Amerikka my father inherited the white man’s ways made money off death
I stumbled through the woods I ran when they chased me I ran when they chased me until I found the chasm until I found the chasm that separates white ways from Indian ways and I leapt and I leapt and I leapt and landing on the ground I looked back at my father and his men and I laughed at them I laughed at them I laughed at them white men! I got my Indian name and Grandma and Great Grandfather’s spirits were with me and they are glad so call me by my Anishinaabe name Nagamo Ziibi Ikwe call me Singing River Woman call me scarred call me healed call me Nagamo Ziibi Ikwe I sing I sing! I have a name I give voice to theirs Anishinaabe man Anishinaabe woman son and daughter of the Anishinaabeg whose deer skinned feet walked the woods and dusty paths of this land for 12,000 years count em 12,000! call me Nagamo Ziibi Ikwe I sing Grandma and Great Grandfather back to the earth I sing them into existence I know I remember I have bled their pain I have bled my pain now I sing
V. 2006 white boys delivering pizza in Detroit Lakes border town to the rez won’t deliver nothing to the Injuns crack jokes over the countertop I ain’t gonna drive nuthin to those wood niggers dirty Injuns don’t need pizzas dirty old fat lipped Injuns suckin welfare dry it’s 2006 pound the drum pound the drum pound the drum it’s 2006 the Anishinaabeg live we remember we return to our ways we return to our ways we return to our ways we will heal our own
Working Notes
"Amerika in 5 Parts" is my attempt to put into words the devastation my family has gone through and to trace that devastation back to the dislocation of the attempted genocide against American Indian people. A friend of mine said that our history is the history of not knowing. We have to stitch together the bits and pieces of information we do have from our past. Many are returning to traditional ways to heal despite the colonization (American Indian religions were banned until 1978).
Threatening and actually locking Indian people in mental institutions was apparently a widespread practice. It seems this went hand-in-hand with the boarding schools to fracture families and tribes. I read an account online about a Canadian Anishinaabe man whose great grandfather was taken away and put into the same mental institution my great grandfather was put in. I snapped the window on my computer shut and went shopping because I did not know what else to do. I was in shock. While I was shopping I thought the rage would drop me to my knees. The true insanity is that these abuses happened here, on this land, as part of the emerging American national identity, yet they are so invisible and unknown even to many of the descendants of those killed, maimed, raped.
I wrote this to make the genocide and its intergenerational effects on American Indian people just a little less invisible, less unknown. And I wrote it to say that what those men did to me as a child, the selling and buying and rape of my body, the attempted destruction of my spirit, is directly connected to what those men did to my great grandfather so many years ago.
About the Author
Christine Stark is a feminist writer, activist, and visual artist of Anishinaabe, Cherokee, and European heritage. Her work has appeared in numerous periodicals and books, including Poetry Motel, Poetry Midwest, Our Choices Our Lives, Off Our Backs and others. She is a co-editor (along with Rebecca Whisnant) of Not for Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography. She teaches writing, literature, and humanities at a community college in northern Minnesota.
