I love stories about Native American Indians, always believing that I had at least one life in a tribe in the southwestern United States. The Nerburn Story is a fictional account based on true events that captures the reader’s attention as we learn the plight of today’s Indians struggling to come to terms with the horrors of their past.
An elderly Indian man, Dan, searches for a sister lost years earlier in one of the public schools created to educate young people, which meant brainwashing them into losing and forgetting their traditional customs. I found the story fascinating even if the ending of the story seemed contrived, and I learned a lot and was caught by the excitement of the lessons.
The Indian old man tells us to help the children and provide them with a healthier lifestyle:
The way we live today is not good for them. It removes the light from their eyes, because it does not teach them to see the spirit in all of life. It takes away their connection to everything else. It does not allow them to see the role they play in creation … They are not taught that they have an important role to play where they are, and that it is only they who can fulfill that role.
It also reminds us to listen. This seems so trite until we look at our own lives: are we listening to the world around us or are we too busy in our hectic lives to pay attention to others and our surroundings? Another idea, so simple again, is the idea of sharing. Native Americans and other indigenous peoples know that those who “have” share with those who don’t, not a complicated lesson, but one that often seems lost in our world of the very rich getting richer while the poor continue to suffer. This is not a political argument, but a humanitarian one.
This is the story of a story we love to forget, the story that reveals our dark side in dealing with American Indians. It is good to remember, not only so that we suffer the agonies that they suffered, but because we must always remember who we are and what we did in the name of progress and civilization. If you are not an American, you have stories of your own, and many involve the exploitation of weaker, poorer, or less fortunate peoples. What will be revealed when history looks back on our era, what evils will be exposed in each country? While there are obvious examples occurring in the world now, what are those stories that don’t seem important or are hidden? What are those shadow incidents that will eventually be discovered? This is not a condemnation of anyone, any group or any country, simply an understanding of the steps in our human and spiritual evolution.