Land of Sacred Burials- A Red Indian Lament

Land of Sacred Burials- A Red Indian Lament

“ I have risen like a Phoenix from this land and this soil now yearns for my dust. There is a spot reserved for me here even as I trample it today. I run around and plunder, walk majestically on it, and insert my tent logs on it, but this place knows I will return to it like a baby to the loving arms of its mother. I should thus know and protect the urn that will eventually hold my ashes. To it, I return, glad and in gratitude, that in separation, it nourished me. While living, I am the land, and so too this truth shall hold when I cease.

This walk between Heaven and Earth is guided by the star light of my ancestors; for I do not exploit this land or conserve it. I am same as it be and as it be to others. In soil and land, in fellow beings, in trees and Jaguars and plants and insects that I roam with and inherit collectively, I see myself and my ancestors. So, when I step on it, I feel guilty; when I kill, I apologize; when I am pushed off the land, I resist.

My manners and clothes, my etiquettes and companions, food and customs – they are not polished or refined, but I walk this Earth now – a free man – to the Sun, the Wind, and the Earth, the Water. This is the Earth that gives mute Salmons the voice that raises in my throat; this is the parched land that I shall roam with my buffaloes and squirrels and horses and loved ones and all forms made available to me.

The place of my kneeling down is decided by fate, though my life is not a wait or a return journey to it. It is transformation, a cosmic change for me – from one joy to other, from one form to next. If I grow wings, or if I can slide on marshy swamps, or hunt with the predator eye of the night moon, in all these manifestations, I will remain the same.

Eventually, the land shall remain – this soil I hold, this land is me and not mine; I hold no right or sway on it except the gratitude of rest; When the final song is sung, when the fingers will curl brittle and soft with age, when the birds of the nest shall await the gloomy night, and when it will be my turn to depart, I will rejoice that I shall be returned to my ancestors on this Earth, who lovingly await my joyful, joyful return.”