Braiding Sweetgrass

grieves for the one who could have told me stories of sweetgrass.
All my life I have felt that loss. What was stolen at Carlisle has been
a knot of sorrow I’ve carried like a stone buried in my heart. I am
not alone. That grief lives on in all the families of those whose
names appear on the pages of that big red book. The broken link
between land and people, between the past and the present, aches
like a badly broken bone still unknit.
The city of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, is proud of its history and
wears its age well. To celebrate its tricentennial, people looked hard
and honestly at the scope of its history. The city began as the
Carlisle Barracks, a mustering ground for soldiers of the
Revolutionary War. Back when Federal Indian Affairs was still a
branch of the War Department, the same buildings became the
Carlisle Indian School, the fire beneath the great melting pot. Today
the spartan barracks that once held rows of iron cots for Lakota,
Nez Perce, Potawatomi, and Mohawk children are genteel officer’s
quarters, with blooming dogwoods at the doorstep.
In honor of the anniversary, the descendants of all those lost
children were invited back to Carlisle for what were called
“ceremonies of remembrance and reconciliation.” Three
generations of my family traveled together to be there. With
hundreds of other children and grandchildren, we converged on
Carlisle. This was the first time most laid eyes on a place only
hinted of in family stories, or not spoken of at all.
The town was decked out in star-spangled bunting draped from
every window; a banner on the main street announced the
upcoming tricentennial parade. It was lovely, a postcard-perfect
town of narrow brick streets and buildings of rosy brick restored to
colonial charm. Wrought iron fences and brass plaques with dates
celebrate its antiquity. How surreal it seems that Carlisle has