This past week there was a place in Albuquerque where
the grand daughters of from the Skohomish from
Washington, the Coquille of Oregaon, the Northern
Cheyenne of Montana, the Gros Ventre from Michigan,
and the Chippewa as well as a couple of others from
Rocky Boy and Ramah Navajo got together and talked.

They spoke about where they were from, their home and
their people. It seems when natives meet they say who
they are, where they are from, their native roots and
where they are now. They did this and in listening to
them it was as if there was a sense of kinship with
one another that brought them to this place by the Rio
Grande. They spoke about their fathers, their mothers
and their people; but more than that about how to keep
and preserve the old faded pictures, writings,
diaries, and day to day business of their own people
and tribes. I listened as they spoke about how it is
hard to keep these things together in a way where
others would find them in the future, their own great
grandchildren and how they had gone through what their
grandfathers had done. Some spoke about some of these
people, names I did not know but their deeds were
remembered and it was for this purpose they wanted to
know how to keep these things.

I have not been to their places but yet in a way I
could see it, as after some time, I could see the
coastlines, rivers and lands of the Northwest, the
bays of Lake Michigan, the Northern Plains extending
into
Canada, and those heart aches and story of termination
of the Coquille. After a time these things were plain
to me, but yet I was there to learn a little about
them and how they were trying to do these things.

In the way of talking about our places and lands they
spoke about life and how they had travelled here.

Two brothers had grown up together in the days when
the Plains were no longer free, and someone had drawn
a line across them, a part in Canada and the other in
Montana. They grew up together but when they reached a
certain age, they left each other and set out on their
own. Their lives went their own way, one in Rocky
Boy and the other with the Northern Cheyenne. They are
long gone now, but their children remain. It was over
a cup of coffee shared that these two woman having
travelled from miles away found that these two
brothers were their great grandfathers and they were
surprised it was so. As we travelled a little ways to
look in the places where records were stored they
found another of their people, a Weasel Boy and then a
little while later another relation not too far.
Our business done, a tall young man, elegant in his
simplicity was going in. Rocky Boy was somehow written
on him, they could see it and so they went to him and
so they found each other. I watched as they stood
their and spoke about their fathers and grandfathers,
they held onto one another and the laughter of their
voices carried under the New Mexico sun. I wonder if
someday that my great grandchildren might meet at some
place, maybe on distant shore in Washington, or on the
Northern plains, or in Michigan or just west of here
in my own homeland.  We spent a little time together
and now they have travelled home and when they get
there they will say, remember our grandfather, the one
from way back there, and those there will say, I think
so...