The History Lesson (excerpt)
Out of the belly of Christopher's ship
a mob bursts
Running in all directions
Pulling furs off animals
Shooting buffalo
Shooting each other left and right.
Father mean well waves his makeshift wand
forgives saucer-eyed Indians
Red coated knights
gallop across the prairie to get their men
and to build a new world
Pioneers and traders bring gifts
Smallpox, Seagrams and Rice Krispies
Civilization has reached the promised land.
Indian Woman (excerpt)
I am a squaw
a heathen
a savage
basically a mammal
I am a female
only in the ability
to breed
and bear papooses
to be carried
quaintly
on a board
or lost
to welfare
I have no feelings
The sinuous planes
of my brown body
carry no hint
of the need
to be caressed
desired
loved
Its only use
to be raped
beaten and bludgeoned
in some
B-grade western
I have no beauty
Artifacts (excerpt)
they collect the artifacts to study the past.
out of the bone fragment, chipped stone and delicate
cedar weave is written a history long forgotten.
in all this where is the truth?
what is the history?
maybe history should not be the question,
for history is written
not passed on in a story at the bighouse,
or in a lesson to the young.
yet while the archeologist’s artifact
and the historian’s document
remain important,
too often, the record shows the history
from the historian’s own living eye.
- Jeannette Armstrong
