Jauquin

My grandmother was a wise woman. She never said very much. I remember her presense most of all. That and the fact that at eighty years of age she had almost no gray in her hair, she had the most beautiful reddish brown "tan" of anyone I had ever seen, and the most beautiful cheekbones.

 

My mothers people were all German and Scotch-Irish so I was pale, fair, and redhaired. I never tanned. I burnt. or...I cooked bright red looking like a lobster. Thank heaven's as I have aged my hair darkened and now at almost 50 I have very little gray in my dark hair, but I still can't dare venture into the sun.

 

My grandmother cooked for everyone everyday as if she were having a feast. She had given birth to nine children that I am aware of, two which passed before they were a year old. I asked her about them, the dead ones I called them, just one time being curious.

 

She just said "They could not stay dear. They just could not stay."

 

Later my aunts and uncles would tell me the children died "probably of pneumonia and back then, no one really knew much to do with sick babies."

 

So my grandmother cooked for grandpa and six children and worked cropping tobacco or picking cotton before and after meals in the fields with grandpa. They were what you'd call share croppers now. They never had indoor plumbing until the last few years of their lives when all the grown kids "insisted" and built one onto the back porch.

 

Grandma saw no need for one, but I was scared of the hogs and the outhouse was in the pen beyond the fence and not far from the chicken coup. I was always in sheer terror the hogs would eat me, or the chickens attack and peck me to death.

 

And if that didn't happen I was terrified I would fall into that huge black hole in the outhouse or the snkaes I was sure were down there would get me. I was ready for the indoor "john."

With share cropping grandpa would have the house free to live in and would till the land and harvest whatever, he and all the young un's that were old enough to toddle and do anything. Wash day for all of us was this huge wash tub stuck out in the back yard and once I was old enough to be shy, I dreaded anyone that might drive by on the dirt road out front and "see" me.

 

Grandma would fix the meals and then not until after everyone ate would she quietly eata little, and that mostly as she cleaned the kitchen and put the bisquits in the pantry covered for later.

 

She named my daddy Jauquin. It is not spelled the way the Juaquin Valley was and I often wondered if it was just because she couldn't spell but when I asked her about the name she gently set me straight.

 

My grandmother told me that she had named him that because it meant "one who walks upright, bold like a bear". Now I have no way of knowing if grandmother was right. I cannot find the word spelled that way to look it up and she is long gone, as are both my parents and all of my family now.

 

I have often wondered what was in that name and what clan she would have been. Her maiden name was "White". I imagine that was rather common for the white man to just rename the Natives with whatever "christian" name they saw fit.

 

I look at my grandmother's pictures from time to time. There are only a small handful. She hated camera's for some reason and for that same unknown reason I don't like them either.

 

"There is something about them I don't care for." That's what she would say if I pestered her for an answer. That was the way it was with grandma, she never talked a lot unless you stayed on her heels.

 

I don't think I ever heard her raise her voice, but there were a thousand words in some of her looks. I think the day that I remember most is when mom and I rode up to the house to tell her my father, her son,  had died.

 

She took one look at mom and I and this sound came from deep within her soul and heart like nothing that I had ever heard. My dad was her firstborn. I don't remember her weeping, I just remember that sound that came from somewhere beyond words and beyond human sound. I didn't understand then like I do now what it is like to see your child die.

 

She was never the same after that and my uncle found her in bed one morning, way past when she would have been up doing things around the house. She had gone to sleep, and I guess she "just couldn't stay here anymore."

 

I miss her. I miss all the things that I never asked her. I miss all the things she never got to teach me and I never got to learn. I even miss her silence, because it was filled with her presense.

 

 

All the colors of Native America are not just red and white

African-Native Americans : We are still here : A Photo Exhibit : Exhibit Page

Jamie Sams

 

Jamie Sams is a Native American shaman of Cherokee and Seneca decent, who explains that medicine has to do with anything that makes us feel whole. Indians view medicine as a person’s gifts, including their inner strengths, talents, and abilities. "When we look at the idea of medicine," Sams says, "we have to embrace the total person: the body, the heart, the mind, and the spirit. When any of these part are out of balance, then there is a need for healing."

The processes used in healing depend on the type of illness. First a person must be diagnosed to see whether their sickness is physical, spiritual, emotional, or mental. Then it is treated accordingly. When the body is sick, herbs, flowers, and other plant matter can be used to promote recovery. Mechanical help is also used, such as setting bones when broken. Spiritual illnesses are handled by medicine people who may work with a person’s dreams, or with what they experience on other dimensions that need to be healed. Some tribes also take into account the influence of past lives. Emotional healing for family upsets, a broken heart, or other problems, and psychological healing for mental illnesses are handled differently still. "Sometimes we need to heal our impatience," Sams says. "And sometimes we need to heal our frustrations. Many times we need to heal the internal criticism that our brain is constantly carrying on, which makes us feel less than. But always, we need to take a look at that which does not work in our lives, and makes our behavior out of balance towards ourselves and others." Here, Sams explains important principles of healing for specific circumstances:

Native American Healing

George Amiotte

 

George Amiotte, an Ogalala Lakota from Pine Ridge, became a healing professional after a near death experience as a marine in Viet Nam. Upon his return home Amiotte searched for ways to restore his own wounded spirit and for a direction in life, when he was guided by Lakota elders to pursue a career in medicine.

 

This was a tall order to fill as Amiotte had only just gotten his GED in the Marine Corps, but he was able to enter and successfully complete a graduate program as a physician’s assistant. At the same time Amiotte studied medicine with Lakota elders. He, therefore, has a unique background that combines modern and traditional healing modalities.

Amiotte specializes in helping veterans overcome post traumatic stress disorder, a term used to describe combat fatigue. Most of his patients are Native Americans although he sees non-Native people as well. As a guardian of the sun dance, part of Amiotte’s work involves the use of the sun dance ceremony in healing. As a result, Amiotte has been able to achieve success where standard Veteran’s Administration programs have failed.

 

When an interested doctor from UCLA visited one ceremony, and was confused by what he saw, Amiotte explained to him that healing is more than a physical manifestation. Healing takes place on the physical, mental and spiritual levels, and a medical practitioner needs to consider all three aspects for optimum success. This is something western medicine fails to do.

 

Amiotte was then invited to see patients with gastrointestinal disorders who weren’t responding to contemporary western medicine. In a year’s time, his four patients responded beautifully to therapy, and the UCLA Medical Society woke up to the advantages of healing from a Native American perspective. Amiotte is now a member of a team of doctors that study and incorporate alternative healing methods into their western medical practices.

 

In a recent interview, Amiotte shared with me his philosophy of working with patients. His approach is to look at an individual on three levels. First, he checks to see that there are no physical problems, such as an organic disease; second, he interviews the patient to assess their state of mind; and, third, Amiotte looks at a person’s spirituality. Analyzing these factors helps him to put together an effective healing protocol.

 

"I don’t have one way ofworking," Amiotte says. "If a Native American wants to be treated by ceremony, I will set one up. That requires setting the stage for the individual to come to an alter, a physical area that is represented by earth, wind, fire, and water. Sometimes we use drum music. We acknowledge the universal laws, natural laws, our ancestors, the earth that we stand on. And we call in the healing aspect of this psychologically, physically, and spiritually.

 

Although trained as a healer, Amiotte acknowledges that healing depends upon God’s will and a patient’s receptivity: "I am a healer. But the reality of healing is in God’s hands. I’m a conduit, a hollow bone, if you will. For a patient to be healed, he or she must be receptive to a higher power. A person needs a relationship to God or a belief in a greater force."

Native American Healing