A Good Day to Die
I have tried in my way
to be free.
Leonard Cohen
Calgary, Canada, October 12, 1992
Sunrise on the plains begins
as a red line on the horizon. A line
between light and dark under a paling
canopy of stars. In dawnlight the plains
are featureless, eternal. All time
is present in the dawn. I am standing
on the plains at the dawn of a new day,
looking around me. I could be anywhere in
time, free in time. You can come with me
if you want to. If you will.
We can be free in time.
I want to tell this story again, make it sacred
if I can. The story of the coming here,
the being here. People pass along but the stories remain, waiting to be told and remembered. The stories remain. They rise like the Sweet Grass Hills, south of here,
rise and grow in the light. I want to tell
this story again. As I have learned it,
remembered it. Here we are on the plains
in the dawn with the stories all around us.
Most came light and passed along.
They left nothing but that which must be
imagined, remembered. The wind is cold
coming off the ice fields a mile thick and
centuries old. Here on these plains
the ice sheets meet and form a corridor
through which the great herds flow.
Flow like time and the people follow the herds, through time. Camel, mammoth, sabre toothed cat, giant bison, all met here and in turn were met by the people, through all time.
They met and flowed along through time.
The ice fields shift and shift again
and remove the markes of their passing.
Here we are free in time on the plains.
Free to listen to the stories, they echo
in the dawn. Free to remember what has been.
Free to imagine what might have been and never
was. The red line on the horizon boils within
itself as if it would hold to this moment forever.
Hold to the place between light and dark so the stories can always be heard. Listen. The sound of millions of hooves as the great herds wheel through the seasons, through all time. This is a story both sacred and profane. Listen to the stories of those who follow, endlessly, through all time. Remember what was. Remember what never was but might have been.
Listen.
No one discovered these plains.
This is not the new world. The coming here
was from everywhere and through all time
on this ancient earth. The stories of the coming
here are ancient, endless, and made new,
made sacred, in each telling. The stories are
like the red line on the horizon made new
each day on this ancient earth. The stories
of the coming here, the being here, echo all
around us, if we listen. Some passed quick and
left no trace. Some came slow and stayed.
They did not leave much. Only the ways of being
here. The stories. They did not take much.
These are the Real People. Others came hard
and left their mark. Everything else, they took,
all around us. Storeis made new, made sacred
in the telling. Even the profane is made new,
made sacred, in the telling.
Listen.
Some came light but left their stories,
cut into stone so no one would forget
their passing. Others came light but stayed
forever. Some say they came from the east,
some say from the north. They say they came
light, from the earth Nato'se made, from the clay
Napi shaped. They came light and stayed forever,
living in the ways the long ago ones taught,
through all time. We know the name they call
themselves. They are called Nitsitapi, the Real
People. They are standing at the centre of
their world, forever. Their name echoes
across the plains. Nitsitapi.
The Real People.
Look now. The sun is rising and will begin
another journey across the sky. From where
it comes began another coming here, being here.
These came hard. They came hard and stayed.
They left their mark and leave it still.
Everything else, they took. They are a story,
told and retold. Made sacred they think
in each telling. I want to tell this story now.
Make it sacred it I can. I want to make
this profane story sacred. Look now.
The sun is rising. From where it comes began
a story. We do not know the names of these first light skinned invaders. Nameless Carthaginian
sailors, Irish monks, Basque fishermen,
Norse pirates coming here through time
unrecorded. Then, suddenly, the names and dates
are burnt on memory forever. Columbus,
Christopher from Genoa.
Look to the east at the sun now rising.
This is the god of this place, these plains
and from whom all blessings come.
Thunder is venerated here and buffalo
is most sacred of all. And the people have
godliness to them. The people stand at
the centre of the world and look around them.
Here there is no need to subdue the earth and
have dominion. Here we live in the circle of
seasons and wheel like mandala through time,
free in time. Some came hard to this place,
scratched the earth with sticks and lived
like badgers in the earth. They brought
their stories with them and so did not listen
to the stories that still echo here.
They came hard to this place,
in the name of God.
One day Old Man determined that he would make a woman and child; so he formed them both the woman and the child, her son, of clay. After he had moulded the clay in human shape, he said to the clay, "You must be people,"
and then he covered it up and left it and went
away. The next morning he went to the place and
took the covering off and saw that the clay shapes had changed a little. The second morning there was still more change and the third still more. The fourth morning he went to the place, took the covering off, looked at the images and told them to rise and walk and they did so. They walked down to the river with their Maker and then he told them that his name was Napi, Old Man. As they were standing by the river, the woamn said to him, "How is it? Will we always live, will there be no end to it?" He said, "I have never thought of that. We will have to decide it. I will take this buffalo chip and throw it in the river. If it floats, when people die, in four days they will become alive again. They will die for only four days. But if it sinks, there will be an end to them."
We can be free in time. We can stand
at the centre of the world and look around us
in the light of this new day. We can be here
light. It is good to be alive at the dawn
of this day. It is also a good day to die.
We will become a story, remembered,
in the dawn. We can be free in time.
If we want to.
If we will.
Born 1451, died 1506, penniless and unknown.
Landed in Guanahani, territory of Lucanyans,
October 12, 1492. Greeted, as so many of those
takers would be, in friendship. This is a story,
told and retold. They came here, in the name
of God. 'And God blessed them and said unto
them be fruitful and multiply and replenish
the earth and have dominion over the fish and
over every living thing that moveth upon
the earth.' This was a story told among
a small desert tribe, far from here, long ago.
It was a story, sacred then, of how to live
in this desert and they handed this story down
to their children and it was good.
But the next children and the next carried
this story to other places where it did not belong. Some came hard here, a sword in one hand, a bible in the other, in the name
of their god.
They came in waves like the waves that rolled
across the great inland sea this once was.
They came from the east, the colour of dawnlight and so were named for Old Man, the dawnlight man and like Old Man they had great power. They came and they came. They came hard, left their mark and leave it still. They came in the name of a god that was not of this place. It is said amongst the Real People that Old Man has gone from here awhile. Napi is gone but he said he would return. He said he would come here and find it greatly changed. We can be free in time. Free to imagine what might have been and never was. Listen. They came from the east, from the light and so came to light. They were dawnlight people and so listened to the stories of the dawnlight man who made them.
He threw the chip into the river, and it floated.
The woman turned and picked up a stone
and said, "No, I will throw this stone in the river. If it floats we will always live. If it sinks people must die, that they may always be sorry
for each other and be remembered." The woman threw the stone into the water, and it sank. "There," said Old Man, "you have chosen. There will be an end to them."
It was not many nights after the woman's
child died and she cried a great deal for it.
She said to Old Man, "Let us change this.
The law that you first made, let that be a law."
He said, "not so. What is made law must be law. We will undo nothing that we have done. The child is dead but it cannot be changed.
People will have to die."
That is how we came to be people.
It is he who made us.
In a brilliant evocation of the great turning points of the history of the western plains,
author Murdoch Burnett explores the effects of the introduction of European culture to Southern Alberta and Montana. The reader is taken on a journey through the plains
- a journey into the heart of the land.