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.
"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?
No comments:
Post a Comment