Strangers in the Plains

It was the cold season. Time had passed and Lame Beaver was older, about fifty-two. He and Blue leaf now had a daughter, Clay Basket. Our People at this time of the year crawled into their homes and invited others in to warm up the home with body heat. There was always a small fire going inside each tipi to keep warm at night. One night 2 braves reported have seen two men, they were not like any human they had ever seen before, their skin was lighter and they wore weir clothes. The Arapaho (Our People) got curious and a counsel was held among the chiefs to decide what to do about these light-skinned  strangers. Lame Beaver, being one of the most respected warriors, decided he would go alone to investigate. He approached at night and came very close to one. As he was reaching for his fire-stick suddenly the man woke up, grabbed the gun and pointed it directly at Lame Beaver. The other man told the man holding the gun something and he stopped pointing at Lame Beaver. The second man approached the indian and showed him beautiful bracelets made from silver and said, in sign language that he was willing to trade beaver pelts for the things her had. Lame Beaver agreed but instead of getting bracelets he got the gun. Since then the Arapaho had contact with the "pale-skins" and traded with them.

"As he stood there the smaller man began cleverly to disclose the infinite variety of things he had brought up the river. One parfleche had scintillating beads, all in a row and of different colours. A pack contained blankets, not made from bison hide but from some soft and pliant material. Finally the man unfolded a special parfleche, and inside glimmered the most beautiful substances lame Beaver had ever seen, a hard  metal like the barrel of a gun but bright clean and very white, "Silver" the man said" (Michener 156)  The use of imagery by the author in this fragment is very good. The descriptive words help create a mental image of what was happening in the story; how it happened and how it looked while it was happening. Michener is able to transmit the indian's surprise and excitement from seeing what was opened before his eyes, the treasures he had never seen before. A big factor of this emotion-transmition comes from the choice of words that don't tell the reader what something was but how splendid and new it was to Lame Beaver. 

"As Lame Beaver gained possession of the gun he looked deep into the eyes of the man who had traded it to him, and there was a long moment when each acknowledged that in the previous darkness either could have slain each other but had refrained. No word was spoken, and in this cool diffidence the implied treaty between Our People and the white man was ratified" (Michener 158).  Humans are not born distrustful, we learn to be. Can you remember when you were little and you believed everything anybody told you? Chances are that now you don't trust everybody, in fact you only trust those who are very close to you. I believe the same thing happened between indians and the "white men". First they all trusted each other but as time passed more white men came and became rude and prepotent towards indians. Probably this turned to be too much and that was how the bond and peacefulness in the plains was lost. How would you feel if you were called a savage because a stange man betrayed you and got away with it? In this case it was the first time Lame Beaver came face to face with someone that was not an indian. Since this strange man showed trust towards Lame Beaver, having had the opportunity to kill him the naive indian trusted him. As simple as that. Wouldn't the world be an easier place if we could just trust one another?

What is Lame Beaver going to do about the white men's appearance in the plains? will they erupt into war or live peacefully with the tribe of Our People? What will the Arapaho do now with a "stick that speaks fire"? Will they become dangerous and aggressive? It is all a page turn away.

Lame Beaver's Devotion

Lame Beaver, the brave who brought Our People the horses has married Blue Leaf. Now he explores the bond with other married men who also are parent to multiple children who played in the sun. Lame Beaver had a lot of time to reflect and think about everything that surrounded him. One day he came to the realization that he had not killed any men yet. This did not bother him. What troubled him was: what if when the time came, he did not have the character to kill? What if he was not able to defend his family? He started to worry and decided to offer himself during the Sun Dance and ask the sun for strength. In the Sun Dance he was stabbed through his pectoral muscles with wooden skewers connected to thongs that were passed through an opening in a tall pole. Using these the tribesmen pulled Lame Beaver upward, leaving him hanging by the skewers for 3 long hours. Lame Beaver did not even flinch at the pain when he was lowered and the skewers where taken out of his chest. As the wounds were tended, rubbed with ash first to create a permanent tattoo and later treated with ointments, he realised that if he survived that he could defend his people in battle. That same night he scouted out by himself into a Panawee hunting camp, and all by himself stole their horses and their "fire sticks" (guns) and returned to camp counting coup on one of the Panawee riders that followed him, and killed him after. Lame Beaver got Our People their first gun.

The Sun Dance

"Lame Beaver, who had not volunteered for this lesser offering, watched. Women chanted and older men urged the younger on, and for more hours the latter dragged the skulls in a kind of trance, the pain long since numbed by the self hypnosis." (Michener 137) How can people numb the pain by self hypnosis? Many claim that the mind is stronger than anything and that you have the ability to convince yourself that you are not in pain. But to accomplish that it must require extreme concentration. How bad can the pain get before you can shut it down or ignore it? Something else that really caught my attention is that people offered themselves for torture, with the possibility of death at hand. Their devotion is greater than their fear. The more I read about Indians the more impressed I get with the fact that they are willing to die for what they believe is right. 

Click here to learn Instant Pain Turn Off using your Mind

"Breathing deeply and recalling his devotion to the sun, he touched his breasts and said, "I am of Our People. Man-Above, help me." (Michener 139) Michener shows the character's feelings through his praying to "Man-Above" and shows that since the beginning of time humans have had some sort of belief that there is someone/something bigger than us that we devote ourselves to. We all believe in that bigger force that controls all and who we should ask for protection and give thanks to. This is a universal feeling and it is something that all humans at some point have needed. In older times people turned to their religion to find everything they needed; health, wealth, family and happiness and this shows we, humans, are not that different. 

Can you imagine living alongside nature, instead of destroying it to live comfortably? Having such a great devotion towards what you believe in that you are willing to risk your life, even to die?

The Indian warrior

One day a new creature appeared in the plains. This strange creature walk on 2 feet and it defended itself from predators really effectively. It turned out it was men. Finally humans had reached the plains and they had come to stay. The prehistoric man moved in groups, and relied on the land for food and shelter. As time passed their ways of living evolved and this small group (later known as the Arapaho) would be called Our People. Our People was a group that evaded conflict with other tribes and believed that a warrior should not be honoured by the kills made in a fight, but by the coups counted during their lifetime. A coup was when a warrior touched their enemy. For every enemy only 3 coups were given so when a coup happened the indian had to shout "Me first" or "me second" or "me third" and later coups where not counted. After battle coups were awarded, based on eye witnesses. One of the most famous warriors was Lame Beaver. Our People had no contact with conquerors but were having trouble because the indians who had now possessed horses and were much effective in battle and hunting. It was Lame Beaver who brought Our People their horses. He was about 16 at the time and he decided to get horses they would steal them from the terrible Comaches. He used himself as bait while 2 other braves opened the stables and caught as many horses as possible. During this run and chase Lame Beaver counted coup of the 3 Comaches (very feared). And that is how Our People got their horses.

Lame Beaver on his horse

"The three companions looked at each other; they had known if the Comache reputation for hideous death but they had not wanted to speak openly of it. Now they had to face prospect an Red Nose addressed his two comrades: "If I falter you must kill me". Cottonwood knee said, "Don't leave me wight the Comache. It was Lame beaver who said it the other way: "If you are helpless, I promise to kill you" (Michener 129). I can connect this to Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games book series, more specifically Mockingjay. (Spoliler Alert) Here Katniss, Gale and many other rebels decide to  rescue Peetah from president  Snow'w power and they had also agreed that, if they were caught by someone from the capitol they would take a pill that would instantly kill them, but if they could not get the pill then the other companions must do whatever was possible to kill them. By killing them they were making it impossible to torture and question the rebels, just like Lame Beaver and his companions wanted to avoid torture. With Lame Beaver's case they do not have the pill technology, so they would have to rely on others for their death. But what suprizes me is that, in both cases, the braves are prepared to die for other people sacrificing themselves for the greater good, and they do not seem to care about the picce they pay to help the people they love or care about. That level of devotion is admirable and only few are born with it so they are people that should be cherished.

"The arrival of the horse among Our People changed many things. To take one example, it was now more pleasant to be a woman, for when the tribe moved she no longer had to haul the travois that were too heavy for the dogs. For another, the whole system of wealth was altered, and a man did not have to wait hears to accumulate enough bison robes to pocure the things he wanted; a horse wan not only more acceptable as exchange but more easily delivered when a transaction was agreed upon." (Michener 131). It is amazing that in indian tribes women were not considered delicate helpless creatures but strong enough to carry their homes on their backs while men carried weapons to protect the moving party. In the colonies women were seen like fragile dependent whereas in indian tribes their role was a lot more important in society and men and women where somewhat more equal. To this day women are underestimated and it seems impossible that we have evolved backwards from the indian times, where a woman had her duties and roles, into our era where society claims that we are equal but still encourages men's control and superiority. 

I think that now that Our People have the horse they will grow as a society and improve in their ways of moving, trading with other indians and become more aggressive and successful in the battlefield. I wonder how did Lame Beaver prepare his mind to be killed by one of his companions if the plan failed? Would he have really killed his friends? Could he have lived with it? Were the horses really worth the possibility of loosing their lives? 

Centennial; The Origin

A small introduction:
Centennial, a book by James A Michener, invites the reader on a journey through time, from the creation of Earth, all the way to the conquest of the far west United States. The book is historical fiction, and a lot of the descriptions and ideas of the author are very debatable when compared to other sources. However, the point of the book is not to educate the reader in evolution or geology as much as it is to invite us to peer into the development of life and societies.

The book begins when the Earth appears. Michener first talks about how our planet's surface was constantly changing. Mountains were created by crashes of the tectonic plaques, and later destroyed by constant erosion from rivers and rainfall. Pieces of land would remain underwater for millions of years later to surface. This drastic changes made it a very inhabitable place. Later on Michener shows that the constant, drastic change of the Earth's crust subsides, Little by little, life forms evolved and become visible. In a few pages the author takes us from minuscule algae to more intricate life forms, such as rodents and reptiles. After some evolution we reach the story of the giants that roamed the earth before us. More specifically we see the era through the eyes of the Diplodocus and its way of life. She, along with her species dies because the earth was still changing a lot and dinosaurs apparently were not able to adapt to the changes fast enough. But the small prehistoric mammal that lived alongside the Diplodocus adapts and develops. This same mammal's survival, it is believed that lead to our appearance, millions of years of evolution later. One branch of this mammal later became the eohippus (not shown in the image), a pre-horse that emerged in America and later because of unknown reasons migrated to Asia only to return with the French, Englishmen and Spaniards. as the horse leaves from Asia comes the prehistoric buffalo bigger and slower than the current american buffalo, in such great numbers that it darkened the plains as it moved around in herds. It was a very dominant and respected animal in the plains for their thick hides and strong horns were a defence against predators never seen before.

" And so the stage is set. One billion, seven hundred million years of activity, including the building of at least two high ranges and the calling into being of vast seas, have produced a land which is ready to receive living things." (Michener 43). When I first read this I was shocked. I had absolutely no idea it took one  billion, seven hundred million years for the planet to be habitable. And now the human race is stripping the Earth and all the other life forms of clean natural resources. How can humans be so ungrateful? The damage we are causing could take even more time to fix, maybe it is irreversible and for all we know it could be leading our species to its doom.

"Her brain was too small and too undifferentiated to permit reasoning or memory; habit immigrated warned her of danger, and only the instinctive use of her tail protected her from the kind of assault she had just experienced." (Michener 56). This made me think of how amazing animal instinct is. It is like having a 6th sense that tells you what you have to do, for example no one taught the diplodocus how to defend herself, but instinct saved her life. I think it would be amazing if humans had such a strong instinct, maybe we would have learned to live more at peace with other animals or maybe we would know what plants are good for us and what can kill us. I am fascinated by the fact that many animal babies know, since birth what they have to do to survive, while humans have absolutely no idea what to do until we are old enough to lead ourselves by judgement. Could you imagine not remembering anything but be able to rely solely on instinct for survival?


I wonder how Michener allows the reader to see things through his perspective and own interpretation of the research that was put into the ideas of this book. My prediction is that after the buffalo the man will appear and the animal numbers will reduce as the human numbers increase. How  will humans deal with the plains and the animals that live there? Will they wipe them out? Will they live alongside of them?