Western Apache Valued Qualities and Le Jeunes Report Written Assignment Objective: Gain comparative perspective on some of the enigmas in Le Jeune’s report

Western Apache Valued Qualities and Le Jeunes Report Written Assignment Objective: Gain comparative perspective on some of the enigmas in Le Jeune’s report by learning about
Western Apache valued qualities of mind and indirect discourse. Step 1: Read Keith Basso’s beautiful essay, “Wisdom Sits in Places: Notes on a Western Apache Landscape,” pp.
58 bottom-83 (excerpt of longer chapter); don’t miss pp. 64-65. Please note that the first words “The foregoing
thoughts” refer back to a section of the essay (about the philosophy of place) that is not in our excerpt. Step 2: As you read, pay attention to Apache ideas about anger and the importance of highly indirect and
respectful ways of voicing criticism of another person. Also, try to understand the qualities of mind that Apache
value and some persons cultivate.
(Think about how these ideas contrast with ones you may be familiar with from your own upbringing, suggesting
that speakers should speak clearly and forthrightly in order to be fully understood, and they should get troubling
things off their chest, not pull punches, and speak their mind honestly.) Step 3: Write answers to the following questions (aim for about three-quarters single-spaced page, in total):
1. How does Dudley Patterson manage to comment instructively to Talbert Paxton about his immoderate
drinking and inappropriate sexual overtures to women, without expressing heated emotion or giving
cause for insult? How would you describe this as a general speaking technique?
2. What are the three main qualities of mind that Apache cultivate as a practice of wisdom? Write a
sentence of explanation for each. WISDOH SITS IN PLACES I S9
Wisdom Sits in Ploces
Notes on a Western Apache landmpe
Keith H. Basso
Place is the first of all beings, since everything that exists is in a place and
cannot exist without a place.
-Archytas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Categories
I
“‘.”merican I _ndians hold their lands-places-as having the highest pos­
sible meanmg, and all their statements are made with this reference
point in mind.
– Vi11e Deloria,Jr., God Is Red
June 7, 1982. T he foregoing thoughts would have mattered little to
Dudley Patterson or the two other horsemen, Sam Endfield and Charles
Cromwell, with whom he was speaking on a late spring day. Having
spent nearly ten hours sorting steers and branding calves, the three were
resting in a grove of juniper trees several miles from their homes at
Cibecue, a settlement of eleven hundred Western Apache people located
on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in east-central Arizona.7 T he
heat of the afternoon was still intense, and as the men waited for it to
subside their talk was of their trade: the habits and foibles of horses and
the dozens of things one needs to keep in mind when working excit­
able cattle in rough and rocky country. Veteran horsemen all, and inti­
mately familiar with the rugged lands they had explored together for
more than forty years, they spoke quietly of such matters, exchanging
observations about Dudley’s bay mare (strong and quick but reluctant to
trot through heavy stands of brush), Sam’s roan gelding ( gentle and co­
operative but apt to bite when hastily bridled), and the spotted maverick
bull with curled horns and faulty vision in one eye who could be safely
approached from the left side but not from the right. Western Apache
shop talk: relaxed, confident, endlessly informative, rising and falling on
the soft phonemic tones of the Athapaskan language the horsemen speak
with total fluency. As an aspiring speaker of the language and a would­
be horseman myself, I am completely absorbed.8
A few minutes later, the group beneath the trees is joined by another
man on horseback, Talbert Paxton, who is highly regarded as an accom­
plished roper and a fearless rider in pursuit of bolting cattle. Considerably
younger than Dudley Patterson and his companions, Talbert has worked
with them many times before, but for the past three weeks, painfully up­
set over the collapse of a month-long love affair, he has thrown himself
into other sorts of activities-such as drinking prodigious quantities of
beer, spreading unfounded rumors about the woman who rejected him,
and proposing sex to several other women who either laughed in his face
or promised to damage his testicles if he took one more step in their di­
rection. Normally restrained and unquestionably intelligent, Talbert had
lost control of himself. He had become a nuisance of the first order, an
unruly bother and an irritating bore, and the residents of Cibecue were
more than a little annoyed.
Nothing is said of this or anything else as Talbert dismounts, tethers
his horse to a tree, and seats himself on the ground at a respectable dis­
tance from his senior associates. Charles nods him a wordless greeting,
Sam does the same, and Dudley announces to no one in particular that
it certainly is hot. Talbert remains silent, his eyes fixed intently on the
pointed toes of his high-heeled boots. Charles disposes of a well-chewed
plug of tobacco, Sam attacks a hangnail with his pocketknife, and Dudley
observes that the grass is certainly dry. A long moment passes before
Talbert finally speaks. W hat he says deals neither with the elevated tem­
perature nor with the parched condition of the Cibecue range. In a soft
and halting voice he reports that he has been sober for three days and
would like to return to work. He adds that he is eager to get away from
the village because people there have been gossiping about him. Worse
than that, he says, they have been laughing at him behind his back.
60 I KEITH H. BAl!O
It is a candid and touching moment, and I expect from the smiles
that appear on the faces of the senior horsemen that they will respond
to Talbert’s disclosures with accommodating expressions of empathy and
approval. But what happens next-a short sequence of emphatically de­
livered assertions to which Talbert replies in kind-leaves me confused.
My bewilderment stems not from a failure to understand the linguis­
tic meanings of the utterances comprising the interchange; indeed, their
manifest semantic content is simple and straightforward. W hat is per­
plexing is that the utterances arrive as total non sequiturs, as statements
I cannot relate to anything that has previously been said or done. Ver­
bal acts without apparent purpose or interactional design, they seem
totally unconnected to the social context in which they are occurring,
and whatever messages they are intended to convey elude me entirely.
A grinning Dudley speaks first:
Hela! Gizhyaa’itine di’ nandzaa ne. (So! You’ve returned from Trail Goes
Down Between Two Hills!)
Followed by a brightly animated Charles:
Hela! ‘Il:s’?i nadaahi nilhiyeeg ne. (So! You got tired walking back and
forth!)
Followed by Sam, on the verge of laughter:
Hela! ‘Ilizh diltl’ii daho’higo bil ’66hindzii ne. (Sol You’ve smelled
enough burning piss!)
Followed by Talbert, who is smiling now himself:
Dit’ii dogosh’ijda. (For a while I couldn’t see!)
Followed once more by Dudley:
Dii’andii! Gizhyaa’itine goy?.’!go ‘anil11’ doled. ‘Isk?-t da laa naildziig. (It’s
true. Trail Goes Down Between Two Hills will make you wise. We’ll
work together tomorrow.)
T he sudden burst of talk ends as abruptly as it began, and silence
again prevails in the shady grove of juniper trees. Nothing more will be
said. Still chuckling, Sam Endfield rises from the ground, walks to his
horse, and swings smoothly into his saddle. Moments later, the rest of us
follow suit. Talbert departs on a trail leading north to the home of one
of his sisters. Sam and Charles and Dudley head northwest to a small pas­
ture where they keep their extra mounts. I ride alone toward the trading
post at Cibecue, wondering what to have for supper and trying to make
sense of the events I have just witnessed. But to no avail. W hat the place
named Trail Goes Down Between Two Hills has to do with too much
walking back and forth, burning urine, and making young men wise are
things I do not know. And why mentioning them succeeded in lifting
everyone’s spirits, including those of the beleaguered Talbert Paxton, re­
mains an unanswered question.
Arriving that evening at the outskirts of Cibecue, I was unaware that
I had been exposed to a venerable set of verbal practices whereby West-
Wl!DOH !IT! IN PLACE! I 61
ern Apaches evoke and manipulate the significance of local places to
comment on the moral shortcomings of wayward individuals.9 Neither
did I suspect that I would soon develop an abiding interest in the sys­
tem of ideas on which these practices rest. But that is how things turned
out. During the past two decades, I have spent a fair amount of time ex­
ploring the physical and cultural territory from which these ideas derive
their vitality and force, and it was Dudley Patterson, a man of generous
intellect and unremitting kindness, who showed me how to begin.1° For
it was Dudley to whom I turned shortly after the incident with Talbert
Paxton, and it was Dudley, sympathetic to my befuddlement and keen
to supplement his income with some additional dollars, who explained
what had happened and why.
June 12, 1982. Short of stature and trim of build, the 54-year-old horse­
man presents a handsome figure as he emerges from the small wooden
house where he has lived by himself since the death of his wife in 1963.
Dressed in freshly laundered Levis, a red-checked shirt, and a cream­
colored straw hat, he moves with the grace of a natural athlete, and it
strikes me as he approaches that nothing about him is extraneous. Just as
his actions are instinctually measured and neatly precise, so is the man­
ner in which he speaks, sings, and dances with friends and relatives at
religious ceremonials. But he is also given to joking and laughter, and
whenever he smiles, which is much of the time, his angular countenance
lights up with an abundance of sheer good will that seems wholly ir­
repressible. Expert cattleman, possessor of horse power, dutiful kinsman
without peer, no one in Cibecue is more thoroughly liked than Dudley
Patterson. And few are more respected. For along with everything else,
Dudley is known to be wise.
It was the merits of wisdom, Dudley informs me over a cup of boiled
coffee, that Talbert Paxton needed to be reminded of earlier in the week.
But before discussing that, Dudley inquires whether I have lately visited
Trail Goes Down Between Two Hills, the place whose name is Gizh­
yaa’itine.11 I tell him I have. Located a few miles north of Cibecue, its
Apache name describes it well-two wooded knolls of similar size and
shape with a footpath passing between them that descends to a grassy flat
on the west bank of Cibecue Creek. And did I notice the big cottonwood
tree that stands a few yards back from the stream? I did-a gigantic tree,
gnarled and ancient, with one huge limb that dips to touch the ground
before twisting upward and reaching toward the sky . And had anyone
from Cibecue told me what happened long ago at Trail Goes Down Be­
tween Two Hills? No, only that the widow of a man named Blister Boy
once planted corn nearby. Had I never heard the stories about Old Man
Owl, the one named Mu hastiin? No, never. Well then, listen.
62 I KEITH H. BASSO
Figure 2.1. Keith H. Basso stands by the great cottonwood tree at Trail
Goes Down Between Two Hills (Gizhyaa’itine). Photograph© Gayle
Potter-Basso.
Long ago, right there at that place, there were two beautiful girls. They were
sisters. They were talking together.
Then they saw Old Man Owl walking toward them. They knew what
he was like. He thought all the time about doing
with women. Then
they said, “Let’s do something to him:’
Then one of those girls went to the top of one of the hills. Her sister
went to the top of the other one. As Old Man Owl was walking between
them, the first girl called out to him. “Old Man Owl, come here! I want you
to rub me between my legs!” He stopped. He got excited! So he started to
climb the hill where the girl was sitting.
Then, after Old Man Owl got halfway to the top, the second girl called
out to him. “Old Man Owl, I want you to rub me
between my legs!”
He stopped! He got even more excited! So he
around, walked down
the hill, and began to climb the other one.
WIIDOH SITS IN PLACES I 63
after he got halfway to the top, the first girl called out to him again
in the same way. He stopped! Now he was very excited! So Old Man Owl did
the same thing again. He forgot about the second girl, walked down the hill,
and began climbing the other one.
that way four times. Old Man Owl went back and forth,
back
climbing up and down those hills.
Then those beautiful girls just laughed at him.
with amusement and delight, Dudley wastes little time
Fairly
story about Old Man Owl at Trail Goes Down Between
beginning a
Two Hills.
Those same two sisters were there again. I don’t know why, maybe they
water.
went there often to
Then Old Man
was walking toward them. They decided they would
do something to him.
Then one of the
climbed into the branches of a big cottonwood tree
that was growing there. The other girl went to the top of one of those hills.
Then the girl in the tree lifted her skirt and spread her legs slightly apart.
She remained motionless as Old Man Owl walked beneath her. Suddenly, he
looked up! He had noticed something!
Now he got very excited! “Hmm,” he thought, “that tree looks a lot like a
woman. I really like the way it looks! I’d best bring it home. I think I’ll burn
it down.” His eyesight was very poor. Old Man Owl was very nearly blind.
Then, having piled some grass at the base of the tree, Old Man Owl set
fire to it. The girl in the tree
on it and quickly put it out. Old Man
Owl looked all around. “Where’s that rain coming from?” he said. “I don’t
see any clouds.” So he started another fire at the base of the tree and the girl
pissed on it again and quickly put it out. Now he was very confused. The
other girl, the one on top of the hill, could hear all that Old Man Owl was
saying to himsel£ She was really laughing!
Then Old Man Owl did the same thing again. He started another fire and
the girl in the tree
on it and put it out. He was looking around again.
“Where’s that rain coming from? Where’s that rain coming from? I don’t see
any clouds! There are no clouds anywhere! Something must be wrong!”
Then he tried one more time and the
in the tree did the same thing
head. “Something must be very
again. Old Man Owl stood there
walked away with his head hangwrong!” he said. “I’d better go home.”
ing down.
Then those two beautiful girls joined each other and laughed and
laughed. They were really laughing at Old Man Owl.
As Dudley Patterson closes his narrative, he is laughing himself. It is
obvious that he relishes the stories of Old Man Owl. Moments later, after
pouring us another cup of coffee, he as much as says so-the stories are
very old, he has heard them many times, and they always give him plea­
sure. Besides being humorous, he says, they make him think of the ances­
tors-the wise ones, he calls them-the people who first told the stories
at a time when humans and animals communicated without d ifficulty.
These are thoughts I have heard expressed before, by Dudley and other
Apache people living at Cibecue, and I know they are strongly felt. But I
64 I KEITH H. BAISO
have yet to learn how the tales of Old Man Owl played into the episode
involving Talbert Paxton. If the point was to inform Talbert that beautiful
women can be deceiving, or perhaps should not be trusted, or sometimes
enjoy toying with the emotions of unsuspecting men, why hadn’t the
horsemen just come out and said so? Why had they beat around the bush?
Uncertain of how to ask this question in Apache, I attempt to con­
vey it in English, which Dudley understands with more than fair success.
He catches on quickly to the thrust of my query and proceeds to answer
it with gratifying thoroughness. Speaking for Charles and Sam as well as
himself, he explains that there were several reasons for dealing with Tal­
bert as they did. To have criticized Talbert explicitly-to have told him
in so many words that his recent behavior was foolish, offensive, and dis­
ruptive-would have been insulting and condescending. As judged from
Talbert’s apologetic demeanor, he had reached these conclusions him­
self, and to inform him openly of what he already knew would be to
treat him like a child. In addition, because Talbert was unrelated by ties
of kinship to either Dudley or Sam, and because he was related only dis­
tantly to Charles, none of them possessed the requisite authority to in­
struct him directly on matters pertaining to his personal life; this was the
proper responsibility of his older matrilineal kin. Moreover, the horse­
men were fond of Talbert. He was a friendly young man, quiet and con­
genial, whose undemanding company and propensity for hard work they
very much appreciated. Last, and beyond all this, Dudley and his com­
panions wanted Talbert to remember what they would urge upon him
by attaching it to something concrete, something fixed and permanent,
something he had seen and could go to see again-a place upon the land.
So the horsemen took a circuitous path-tactful, respectful, and fully
in keeping with their status as nonrelatives-with Dudley leading the
way. His opening statement to Talbert-“So! You’ve returned from Trail
Goes Down Between Two Hills”-was intended to focus the young man’s
attention on the place where Old Man Owl encountered the two Apache
sisters and to summon thoughts of what transpired there. Dudley’s com­
ment was also meant to suggest that Talbert, having acted in certain
respects like Old Man Owl himself, would be well advised to alter his
conduct. But in presupposing that Talbert was already aware of this­
in announcing that he had returned from Trail Goes Down Between Two
Hills-Dudley’s comment also affirmed his friend’s decision to refrain
from drinking and resume a normal life. T hus, in a sidelong but deftly
pointed way, Dudley was criticizing Talbert’s misguided behavior while
at the same time commending him for rejecting it as unacceptable.
T he ensuing statements by Charles and Sam-“So! You got tired
walking back and forth!” and “So! You’ve smelled enough burning piss!”
-sharpened and consolidated these themes, further likening Talbert to
WISDOM ms IH PLACES I 61
Old Man Owl by alluding to key events in the stories that recount his
misadventures with the pair of beautiful girls. But these assertions, like
Dudley’s before them, were couched in the past tense, thereby implying
that Talbert’s resolve to behave differently in the future was a good and
welcome development. T he horsemen’s strategy must have worked suc­
cessfully because Talbert responded by tacitly admitting that his actions
had indeed resembled those of Old Man Owl; simultaneously, however,
he registered his belief that the resemblance had come to an end. In
effect, his reply to the horsemen-“For a while I couldn’t see!”-con­
veyed a veiled confession of improper conduct and an implicit declara­
tion not to repeat it. But more was conveyed than this. At one level,
Talbert’s statement intimated a forcefully simple truth: he had been cold
sober for three days and now, having recovered his physical senses, could
once again see clearly. But at another level, and perhaps more forcefully
still, the truth was allegorical. Unlike the myopic Old Man Owl, who
never curbed his voracious sexual appetites and remained hopelessly at
odds with everyone around him, Talbert was intimating that he had re­
gained his social senses as well. Obliquely but sincerely, he was informing
the horsemen that his moral vision had been restored.
Which was just what Dudley Patterson wanted to hear. As Dudley
told Talbert before he left to go home, his imaginary visit to Trail Goes
Down Between Two Hills would help make him wise. And maybe it
would. With assistance from Old Man Owl and his two alluring tor­
mentors, Talbert had been firmly chastised and generously pardoned, all
in the space of a minute in which no one uttered a harsh or demean­
ing word. In a very real sense, involving at base a vividly animated sense
of place, Talbert had been taken back into an important segment of the
Cibecue community. He would return to work tomorrow, and that was
why the horsemen, including Talbert himself, were still smiling broadly
when they left the grove of juniper trees and went their separate ways.
Back at his house in Cibecue, Dudley Patterson drains his cup of coffee
and leans forward in his chair. On the ground near his feet a band of red
ants is dismantling the corpse of a large grasshopper, and within seconds
the intricate patterns of their furious activity have riveted his attention.
T his does not surprise me. I have known Dudley for nine years and on
other occasions have seen him withdraw from social encounters to keep
counsel with himsel( I also know that he is mightily interested in red
ants and holds them in high esteem. I would like to ask him a few more
questions, but unless he invites me to do so (and by now, I suspect, he
may have had enough) it would be rude to disturb him. He has made it
clear that he wants to be left alone.
We sit together for more than ten minutes, smoking cigarettes and
66 I KEITH H. BASSO
enjoying the morning ai;,and I try to picture the cottonwood tree that
towers beside the stream at Trail Goes Down Between Two Hills. I am
acutely aware that my perception of the tree has changed. Having heard
the stories of Old Man Owl, i…
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