earned a reputation in America for fervent preservation of its
heritage, while in Indian Country the name is a chilling emblem of a
heritage killer. I walked silently among the barracks. Forgiveness
was hard to find.
We gathered at the cemetery, a small-fenced rectangle beside
the parade ground, with four rows of stones. Not all of the kids who
came to Carlisle left. There lay the dust that was born a child in
Oklahoma, in Arizona, at Akwesasne. Drums sounded in the rain-
washed air. The scent of burning sage and sweetgrass wrapped the
small crowd in prayer. Sweetgrass is a healing medicine, a smudge
that invokes kindness and compassion, coming as it does from our
first Mother. The sacred words of healing rose up around us.
Stolen children. Lost bonds. The burden of loss hangs in the air
and mingles with the scent of the sweetgrass, reminding us that
there was a time when all the peach stones threatened to turn
black side up. One could choose to assuage the grief of that loss
by anger and the forces of self-destruction. But all things come in
twos, white peach stones and black, destruction and creation. If the
people give a mighty shout for life, the peach stone game can have
a different ending. For grief can also be comforted by creation, by
rebuilding the homeland that was taken. The fragments, like ash
splints, can be rewoven into a new whole. And so we are here
along the river, kneeling in the earth with the smell of sweetgrass
on our hands.
Here on my knees in the dirt, I find my own ceremony of
reconciliation. Bend and dig, bend and dig. By now my hands are
earth colored as I settle the last of the plants, whisper words of
welcome, and tamp them down. I look over at Theresa. She is