My friend Abequa,
I have finally received the details of my wedding attire! Abedabun’s mother accidently gave details to my mother about the regalia her son was weaving for my ceremony. I suppose I am lucky that the son of the most talented clothing maker and I are getting married so she can give him pointers on how to weave my dress. Abequa, this dress sounds absolutely beautiful. I have been told by my mother that my grandmother wore a similar dress when she was wed. Of course I will be wearing my hair down, because the entire tribe knows that that is Abedabun’s favorite part about me. The dress goes down to my ankles, with the red band surrounding the skirt. The straw fringe rings the sleeves and the hem of my skirt. I have heard that Abedabun’s family has made me special bead necklaces made out of the brightest of colors. My gossiping mother also told me that the family used the largest, nicest buffalo hide they could find, and Abedabun cured it specially for me. I just hope my arms will stop being so sore. It seems almost cruel that three days before the wedding I had to help his mother grind cornmeal, but tradition is tradition, and it makes me feel safe. I feel as though if we follow all of our tribe’s customs, they will be sure to bless our marriage and keep us in good health until it is our time. And we have done just that! Only yesterday Abedabun and I collected the wood and cornmeal for his mother, tonight, although I am to pretend I do not know what is coming, his aunts and uncles will “attack” me with mud. I only hope his mother approves of our marriage enough to step in and protect me as tradition dictates. I see my mother has set out the basin where Abedabun and I will wash our hair together, and walk to watch the sunrise, and I can barely contain my excitement. I can still remember vividly the day I exited our teepee and saw the bundle of skins, and white moccasins that Abedabun had left me on my doorstep. Accepting that bundle was the best decision I ever made, my dear friend. Abequa, in 3 days time, I will be married to the perfect Hopi man.
Yours sincerely,
Woxie
My dearest Abedabun,
I am writing to you from the back of a jostling wagon with many other members of our tribe. This morning I was roughly awakened by my mother who told me that in order to make me a better wife, I would need to go to some sort of school, she kept calling it the Carlisle. I realize now that you might not be able to read this because the wagon is making my already questionable writing very hard to read. Other girls younger than me in our tribe are here, and they are crying, feeling homesick, feeling as though they will never see their parents or our tribe again. But I feel differently. My mother has assured me that this is more of a finishing school put in place by the whites to help us better fit in with them. I’m sure it is simply a school for Indian girls to go to learn how better to read and write, or improve our skills in cooking and collecting items to help our tribe. Perhaps it will be like a small tribe. Of course when I return, you will be my future, not reading or writing, but gathering and cooking for you. I know that it is a day before we were supposed to be wed, and no one is more disappointed that this date must be postponed than I. But my father, who saw me off before he went to go hunting with the other males, including your father I am sure, told me that it would not go against Hopi tradition to make our wedding at a later date, we will simply have to repeat the ceremonies, which is no burden on me. I love you so much Abedabun, and I promise you on my ancestors spirits that I will return from this Carlisle school the same long-haired Indian woman you fell in love with. Until then,
Yours faithfully always,
Woxie
Abedabun,
This school is nothing as I thought it would be. It is more like a prison than a school from what I’ve heard of prisons from others who are here. We sleep around 50 to a single dormitory that was made for no more than 20 people. And many of the children are sick, Abedabun! Disease spreads like wildfire in such small quarters. Outside my miniscule window, I can see a graveyard filled with little headstones of the children who have died here. Our own brothers and sisters, dead, without any proper burial! We must wake up at a certain time, eat dinner at a certain time, and we have no free time in which to practice our spirituality. They structure everything, and give us not a moment to ourselves. It feels as though they are trying to deprive us of everything that makes us Indian. Our customs, our religion, our clothes. They have forced me into an uncomfortable stiff dress like the ones we sometimes saw the white women wearing, with little cotton aprons and bows. And above all, worst of all perhaps, they have forced me to cut my hair.
I have already lost my hair, please, I don’t want to lose you too,
Woxie
My sister, Abequa,
I do not know what to do. I have returned from the Carlisle School. My mother promised me that I would become a better Indian wife by going there, but she appears to have been wrong. Abedabun will not touch me or look at me anymore. He claims he is simply feeling sick, but I know it is not so. He cannot even meet my eyes, and when he thinks I’m not looking, I see him look at me and wince as he sees my short, sheared hair. My hair seems to represent my roots. And now, with it gone, I feel as though everything that made me Indian is gone. At the school I was taught not to practice the rituals that our entire tribe partakes in, I was taught how to cook using the white man’s methods, I was told that I should go to university, and attempt to get a job after that to support my family. But when I spoke to Abedabun about doing such a thing, he became so angry, and told me that I had let down my ancestors, a phrase he knew would hurt me the most. Before, I felt like I was a tree with my roots implanted deep into the ground, anchoring me to my heritage. But now, the white man came and uprooted me and planted me in a new plot of white soil. And because of them, I have lost the love and respect of my husband. I spoke to my father, who is an expert on the traditions of the Hopi people, and he told me that because Abedabun and I had already commenced the ceremonies to join ourselves in marriage, it would be an insult to our people to take it back, and start over with new partners. But now I know that Abedabun and I will never be happy together, because as much as my mother promised me it wouldn’t, the school has changed me and changed who I am. I wish to reconnect with nature, and with my spirituality, but I do not know how. So I suppose that I will have to be married to the man I thought was perfect.
Your friend who is hopelessly lost,
Woxie
Abequa,
What a pure disaster. I am still in shock. I am shocked by what my mother did, but most of all that after everything that happened, I am still a married woman. My mother disgraced our tribe. She believed that I enjoyed my time at the Carlisle and wanted to be more like the white women who get married. However, she went against our customs of proper wedding attire, and insulted Abedabun and his family by not letting me wear the wedding dress they had created for me. The white silken monstrosity my mother created for me must have taken her weeks, and for that I feel guilty that I resent it so much. I am lead to wonder how any white woman can breathe with the uncomfortable boning in the bodice, constricting my chest so much I could barely breathe or move. It was so different from my traditional dress, which was so loose to represent my freedom. This dress was like an iron vice wrapped around my body, I felt trapped, which was to perhaps represent how I am trapped in this new “white” body, trapped in the customs and mannerisms I so dislike. The only thing I am thankful for was that because of the veil, it covered my short, offensive hair. Abedabun was so distracted by his own white man straight jacket called a suit, that he barely noticed me. He stared blankly at me during the ceremonies, as if he couldn’t really see me, but could only see the cultural destruction the Carlisle School had brought to our tribe.
Things are changing for the worse Abequa, and all I want more than anything is to take back my time at the Carlisle School and return to how things were when the white men left us in peace to practice our own customs, and be our own people. I miss who I used to be, and I despise the Carlisle School for taking that away from me.
Conserve who you really are with your life, Abequa.
Woxie
information from:
http://www.bchealth.com/services/birthcenter/nativeambabynames.shtml
http://www.weddingdetails.com/lore/native.cfm
http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewarticle.asp?id=7375
Picture:
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/erdrich/boarding/gallery.htm
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