The Origin of Blackfoot Medicine Bundles

                                        Blackfoot Indian Country Near Browning, Montana

 The transfer of power, which is the only source for the creation of a true bundle, takes place through the dream experience.  All power in the universe is centered in the sun (Natoji) and pervades the earth. This power communicates with individuals by making itself manifest through dreams.

An anonymous Blackfoot medicine man, speaking to Clark Wissler (Social Organization and Ritualistic Ceremonies of The Blackfoot Indians, The American Museum of Natural History, Volume VII, 1912) says:

            “The shell bead necklace of which I speak was given to me in a dream at the time of the Sundance.  An old man with white hair and very old clothes came to me and said, ‘This medicine lodge is ours, and when you wish the weather to be good you must go to the water and dive.  Now I give you this power and you must give me what I ask for.’  Since this time I have kept the beads and have exercised my power over the weather.  At the time of the Sundance I keep the rain away.”

                                           Blackfoot Tipis Set Up For The Sundance Ceremony

Cloaked as animate objects such as a person or animal, Natoji appears in the dream and confers power for some specific purpose.  This is done in the dream (and later faithfully reproduced in the material world in all its detail) with an accompanying ceremony.  The hands and feet of the recipient are usually painted, songs are sung and the directions are given for invoking the power.  The obligations or taboos attached to the medicine are fully explained.  This is regarded as a sacred covenant between the dreamer and the spirit being.  Each is expected to honor the obligations that help maintain the power of the medicine.

                                           Blackfoot Elder With Ceremonial Pipe, Circa 1890

                                     

           

A man has the right to transfer this medicine to another but in doing so he must relinquish any of the benefits derived from it. It would be useless to appeal to the medicine in his moment of need for its power has passed out of his life.  When such a transfer occurs, the original ceremony is reproduced for the new owner and he becomes custodian of the power of the medicine until death or transfer.  The most vital part of the ritual is the song and the initial transfer of power achieves its climax in the presentation of the song.  Occasionally you will find a man willing to sell his charm or medicine to an outsider but never will he sing the sacred song that accompanies it.  The object itself might be replaced without gravely offending the power concerned, but if the songs were revealed, that was the end of the medicine.

                                                      Blackfoot Man With Medicine Pipe

The dream experience in which medicine is given is one of the most desired events in the life of a Blackfoot.  Many, in apparent good faith, have sought this experience without success.  This event is sought by going out to a lonely place and fasting night and day until the vision comes.  A young man seeking the vision usually comes under the guidance of a man of medicine experience who will initiate a preliminary ceremony to encourage a dream,  but the young man must make his journey alone.  At the appointed place where he awaits his dream he prays to all things of the sky, earth, and water to take pity on him.  He cries out in a mournful dirge-like wail with words composed spontaneously.

                               Chief Mountain In Blackfoot Country, Site of Many Vision Quests

The only object that accompanies him on his journey is the filled medicine pipe which is kept in hopeful anticipation of the dream person.  The majority of people fail in this quest because of unexplained and unreasonable fears that assails them on the first night, causing them to flee from their post.  Even older and more experienced men often find this ordeal more than they can bear.  A man of medicine rarely resorts to this trial because dreams of the necessary quality come to them in normal sleep.  Most men secure their charms or various medicines from others who do have dreams or from bundles that are available for transfer.  Yet every man of significance within the tribe is expected to have one experience in which he receives a supernatural helper and acquires a song.  Of this, he will never speak directly except to one intimate friend to whom he will say, ‘When I am about to die, please paint me in the sacred way and sing this song. That way I may recover.’  This song is absolutely secret and never used except in the face of death. 

                                                Blackfoot Cermeonial Gathering, Circa 1850

If a man owning an important bundle loses a loved one, he may become distraught and vengefully cast the bundle into the fire or otherwise desecrate it because it failed to prevent the death.  Many bundles were destroyed or lost in this manner.  A previous owner, if he is near, will come and removed the bundle at once.  After awhile medicine men will approach the grieving man and suggest that he again take up the care of his bundle.  A sweat lodge is then performed, the owner freshly dressed and painted, and returned to his tipi with the bundle to resume his former functions with regard to its care. 

Ceremonies of the Medicine Bundle

A medicine bundle, even if it is nothing more than a few ancient shell beads or old Venetian glass trade beads, is always wrapped and hidden from careless viewing.  Its sole purpose is spiritual in origin.  It should never be regarded as ‘decorative’ or ‘artistic’ as this is only incidental and often detracts from realizing the full significance of beads or sewn beadwork used in a medicine bundle.

                       Old Venetian Glass Trade Beads Such as These Might Be Found in Medicine Bundles

Originally soft animal pelts were used for this purpose but today brightly-colored calicos are favored and occasionally silk, trade cloth, or red flannel.  The bundle can only be opened in a ceremonial way and each bundle has its own private ritual, some of which involve sweat lodges and days of fasting prior to the ceremony itself.  The ceremony can last for hours or days. 

                                              Traditional Blackfoot Sweat Lodge, Circa 1850

In general, all rituals of the bundle contain at least two or more of the following elements:

1. Opening the Bundle.  In Blackfoot ceremonialism every knot and cord protecting the sacred bundle is literally sung off before the contents are exposed to view. A small smoky fire called the smudge is ignited with charcoal and the bundle is brought down from its place in the tipi.  It is customarily tied up high to a pole and not kept on the ground.  It is then put into ceremonial position with each movement punctuated by certain phases in the passage of the song.  This proceeds in a gradual fashion until the bundle is completely undone.  With a small bundle the ceremony will often be limited to the smudge and the unwrapping accompanied by a song.

Blackfoot Medicine Bundle

2.       Dancing.  In most of the longer rituals dancing is incorporated, although it is not central to the   ceremonial theme.  After the bundle has been opened, the ritual will progress to dancing accompanied by songs with or without words.  A bone whistle, rattles, bells or drums may be used.  There was no exact pattern for these dances and each movement sprang from the spirit of the moment.  Dancers were encouraged to improvise their own steps.  Sometimes more than one would dance around the bundle.  In many ceremonies, the guests will dance with the bundle or the ex-owner may take it up to dance with, but this is regarded as risky business.

3.      Face Painting.  Few bundle ceremonies exist without their own definite style of painting for the face and hands.  Bundles of power or significance include many bags of paint.  The dream person always paints or exhibits a style of painting to the one receiving power and explains the symbolism of the design.  The dreamer is charged with the duty to do likewise and no medicine ceremony can be effective without this ritual painting of the face and occasionally the hands.  As the Blackfoot were very well clothed, there is no highly developed form of body-painting outside of the face and hands.

                                                     Traditional Blackfoot Shirt, Circa 1850

                                    Face Painting is a Significant Part of Blackfoot Ceremonialism

4.      Prayers.  The Blackfoot are very involved in prayer as a primary part of their lives.   Any unusual or serious venture requires prayers of permission.  He will pray for authority to speak sacred things or to narrate a religious story. The whole bundle ritual can be seen as a prayer, yet within the structure of the ceremony, formal prayers occur in the execution of the liturgy:

Okohe! Okohe! Iyo!* Painted-buffalo-tipi, Ear-rings,

The-only-medicine-pipe man, Calf Bull, help me,

help me.  Red Eagle, I call on you especially to help

me.  Help me for this now, that my family may

prosper, that my children may prosper.  Okohe!

Okohe! Naatoji! Iyo! Sun, take pity on me; take pity

on me!  Old age, old age, we are praying to your old

age, for that I have chosen.  Your children, Morningstar,

seven stars, the bunched stars, these and all stars, we

call upon for help.  I have called upon all of them.  Take

pity on me that I may lead a good life.**

*Expressions used only in prayer, meaning to listen or we beseech you.

**Social Organization and Ritualistic Ceremonies of The Blackfoot Indians. By Clark Wissler. Anthropological Papers of The American Museum of Natural History,1912

                                         Blackfoot Medicine Man, Circa 1850

The words and content of the prayers are not fixed and each ritual develops its prayers spontaneously based on the individual bundle owner’s hopes and desires.  During the prayer an officiator of the ceremony must focus intensely and keep a pure heart, his attention centered on the ritual.  This is believed to be paramount for the effective performance of the medicine ceremony.

5. The Smudge Altar.  At every bundle ceremony some vegetable substance is burned on an altar to create considerable smoke or ‘make the smudge.’  The most commonly used smudge is sweetgrass (Sevastana Odorata) or sweet pine (Abies Lasiocarpa), but wild parsnip (Leptotaenia Multifolium) is also required in certain liturgies.  The customary procedure is for an assistant to remove an ember from the fire with wooden tongs made from a forked stick and place it on the smudge altar.  The ceremonial leader then places the plant smudge on the ember and all who are about to handle the bundle or wear a medicine necklace hold their hands over the smoke.  A new smudge is often made for each stage of the ceremony.  Powerful bundles can require two daily smudges in the tipi where they are kept.  The usual place for a smudge altar is to the rear of the fire where grass and topsoil are cleared away to form the altar.  They can be rectangular,  triangular, or circular in shape as the ritual requires.  The surface of the smudge altar is often worked into symbolic designs with colored earth which suggests some indirect relationship to the sand paintings of the Navajos.

                                                          Blackfoot Medicine Pipe

An altar can be as simple as that used in a Beaver Bundle ceremony which is only a cleared circular space with a slight depression that emphasizes the round ridge of earth on its perimeter.  In the more elaborate Hair-Lock Suit ceremony the altar is created by clearing a space two feet square and covering it with white earth.  A crescent moon is then laid out in black with a yellow border.  The circular designs in the same color represent the sun and Morningstar while two narrow rectangles in red represent either sun dogs or sunbeams.  To the back of the altar is set a row of buffalo chips covered with sage grass.

6. The Sweat Lodge.  The sweat lodge is a purification ritual (similar in physical effect to the modern sauna) which usually precedes all important bundle ceremonies. When a man first acquires an important bundle or powerful medicine necklace he is required to perform the sweat lodge ceremony before the medicine is transferred to him by the previous owner. He is also expected to give the form owner a fine horse (or more) as part of the ceremonial obligation imposed on him. The usual form is twelve to fourteen willow poles t wined into an oval frame and covered with blankets and robes. The Sundance bundle, however, requires the use of 100 willows in its frame. The beads or complete bundle are never taken inside the lodge, but in some rituals they are left wrapped on the top of the lodge.

                                                  Blackfoot In Front Of Lodge, Circa 1913

A hole is dug in the center of the lodge for hot stones and the dirt from the hole must be placed on the west side of the outer wall. The shape of this hole varies between square, rectangular, heart-shaped, triangular or circular, depending on the ceremony. The opening must face the east and the fire for heating the stones is prepared outside, to the east of the lodge. The stones are carried in with two straight sticks. If a heated stone drops it must remain where it fell or else it will bring bad luck. A smudge is made at the beginning and sixteen songs are usually sung in the lodge while water is poured on the stones in seven splashes, using a buffalo horn spoon. As the vapor rises, participants use an eagle wing or buffalo tail to beat their skin. The covering of the lodge is raised four times.

The frame of the lodge may be used again and again, but new stones are required with every separate ceremonial sweat lodge. Young men made the sweat lodge when they first acquire a medicine. By the early years of the 20^th century many men had never experienced a sweat lodge.  As part of the resurgence of interest in traditional ways, the sweat lodge came back into widespread use.  Returning Native Americans servicemen and stressed urban dwellers found this purification ceremony immensely helpful in achieving balance and harmony.

               Young Blackfoot Men Preparing for a Twelve Step Recovery Sweat Lodge

To make a sweat lodge and offer the invitation to another to participate lays a ceremonial obligation on both the giver and the receiver. A sweat lodge will be offered by an esteemed elder if his guest is the owner of some important medicine. When a child is given a name or when offerings are made to the sun a ritual sweat lodge will also be performed. Usually they are incorporated into the myriad ceremonial activities of different Plains Indian tribes which mark the significant events of a person’s life such as birth, death, marriage, or the transfer of a bundle.

                                                   Blackfoot Pipe Bag, Circa 1850

7. Songs.  There are no important medicine beads or bundle that do not have their own secret song which is primary and central to their power and effectiveness. All songs come directly from visions or the dream experience. There is no concept in early Blackfoot or related Plains culture that would allow one to spontaneously or deliberately compose a sacred song. A man walking the woods may hear the bird’s song and claim it was given to him for his music or he may get a song from a ghost. Then there are songs learned from other tribes that are acquired with medicine bundles. But the most powerful song is the one that is acquired during pure cosmic vision or union with the sun force, Natoji. The following fragment of song is one of a limited number recorded around 1900 AD. It is part of a song used in the transfer of a medicine bundle:

            The above, he hears me. It is powerful

            The wind is my medicine.

            The water is my home.

            The rain is my medicine.

            The below (earth), he hears me.

            Man, he says, my tipi is powerful.

            Woman, he says, my tipi is powerful

            Rain is my medicine.

            The children (all the water animals), they hear me.

            The below (earth), it is powerful.

            Man, he says, the water is our home.

Woman, she says, the water is our home. 

                           

                                       The Snake River, Home to the Blackfoot People

Coming soon: The Beaver Bundle, Crow Love Medicine

Blackfoot Medicine Bundles

                                                           Blackfoot Indian Reservation

The Blackfoot Confederacy or Niitsitapi (original people) is the collective name of three First Nations in Canada and one Native American tribe in Montana.  Their land originally reached from the North Saskatchewan River in Canada, to the Yellowstone River in Montana and from the Rocky Mountains to the current Alberta-Saskatchewan border.  Legend tells us that the name ‘Blackfoot’ came from the practice of painting the soles of their moccasins black.   Medicine bundles are a significant part of Blackfoot culture and spirituality.  In modern times the people revived the Black Lodge Society, charged with preserving the songs and dances associated with ancient rituals. They continue to announce the arrival of spring by opening five medicine bundles at the arrival of the first thunder of the season.

                       Edward Curtis Photograph of Plains Indian Medicine Bundles

A medicine bundle is any object kept in wrappings when not in use and protected by its owner with a definite ritual containing one or more songs. To a Blackfoot the term denotes a wide range of objects from a few ancient beads to the more complex construction of a necklace of glass beads, hanging leather pouches of herbal medicine, dangling pendants of trade beads and hanging fur pelts.

                                  Blackfoot Indian Standing Near Medicine Bundle, Circa 1890

The concept of bundles extends from war charms, love medicine, medicine pipes, headdresses, suits, shields, through the large and elaborate Beaver Bundle which includes such external paraphernalia as the sacred medicine bead necklace for a man and his wife along with over fifty-five separate items.  In the bundle will be found such things as fourteen rattles, two pipes with beaded bowls, a bag for buffalo hooves and paint, two beaver skins, an otter skin, eight short sticks about six inches long that beavers have chewed, three loons, one white swan, wristlets of buckskin with blue beads, two magpie feathers, two rat skins, a large turnip, etc.

                                         Blackfoot Couple with Beaver Bundle

Medicine Bundles are power objects that have the ability to ward off evil or danger in battle, bring good health, secure your beloved, or a variety of other purposes. The dream is source of all true medicine and a bundle becomes tangible evidence of the power of that vision. If the creator of a bundle was a man of little experience, he would call on a medicine man to aid in its formulation, along with the liturgy and song.

                           Plains Indian Medicine Man Holding Incense Over Medicine Bundle

In general, most bundles include skin or bones from various animals and birds, a bit of Pacific shell, printed calico (preferable a small floral, plaid, or paisley print), red flannel, bells, brass buttons and a variety of beads from small seed beads sewn on leather to larger beads such as old Venetian glass beads that will be seen hanging on a fringe from the leather covering a sacred rock in a man’s private bundle. 

 Blackfoot Loop Necklace w. glass seed beads sewn on cotton cord, brass beads in center, each loop attached to leather strips embellished w. brass tacks, circa 1870

The Crow Indians favored small Venetian millifiori glass beads for their bundles. These beads held great importance as a medium for the prayers which the bundle would help answer.

                                                      Blackfoot Family, Circa 1890

                                                  

Of all the tribes who used and participated in the creation of medicine bundles and their rituals, none appear to have developed it to the degree that the Blackfoot did.  There are three political divisions within the Blackfoot people: the Northern Blackfoot, the Blood, and the Piegan.  Grouped together they are sometimes collectively referred to as Blackfeet Indians.  The Omaha, Arapahoe, Crow, Plains Cree, Assiniboine, Menominee, Sauk and Fox, Winnebago, Osage, Pawnee, Lakota (Sioux), Gros Ventre, Cheyenne, and the Hidatsa, all participated in the use and ceremonies of sacred medicine bundles. 

                                                     Lakota War Shirt

Very old Blackfoot bundles were found among the Sarsi, Gros Ventre and the Fort Belknap Assiniboine in the1800s which seem to support the Blackfoot claim of priority in their development due to the age and genealogy of the bundles.

                                                            Blackfoot Tipi, Circa 1890

 Among the Menominee are true bundles which have their songs inspired by supernatural visions and dreams.  These are chiefly war bundles.  The Winnebago, Sauk and Fox, and the Omaha all had similar bundles but little authentic information has come down to the outside world of their esoteric use.  The Hidatsa had a kind of bundle which was actually a medicine bag that contained small fetish-like objects such as scalps, sticks, glass beads, bones, stone and hide.  This paraphernalia would all be considered separate bundles or a whole doctor’s outfit by the Blackfoot.

                                           Montana, Once Exclusively Blackfoot Indian Land

The Cheyenne practiced rituals of the medicine bundle very similar in content to that of the Blackfoot.  Many of their taboos in the handling of bundles are strikingly similar such as moving around in the direction of the sun while handling a bundle and creating a smudge.  The Pawnee shared with the Blackfoot a tradition for opening a sacred bundle at the first thunder in the spring.

                                         Blackfoot Warrior On The Bow River

George Bird Grinnell, in his book, Pawnee Hero Stories, says:

“In the lodge or house of every Pawnee of influence, hanging on the west side, and so opposite the door, is the sacred bundle neatly wrapped in buckskin, and black with smoke and age.  What these bundles contain we do not know.  Sometimes, from the ends protrude bits of scalp, and the tips of pipe stems and slender sticks, but the whole contents of the bundle are known only to the priests and to its owner…perhaps, not always even to him.  The sacred bundles are kept on the west side of the lodge, because, being thus furthest from the door, fewer people will pass by them than if they were hung in any other part of the lodge.  Various superstitions attach to those bundles.  In the lodges where certain of them are kept it is forbidden to put a knife in the fire; in others a knife may not be thrown; in others, it is not permitted to enter the lodge with the face painted; or again, a man cannot go in if he has feathers in his head. On certain sacred occasions the bundles are opened, and their contents form part of the ceremonial of worship.”

                                                             Pawnee Medicine Bundle

                                                        Pawnee National Grasslands

Among the Blackfoot the concept of individual ownership and the transfer of ownership is prevalent while the Pawnee kept village bundles that were protective medicine for the whole community.  Among the Winnebago, bundles were in the possession of the clans and keepers of the bundles were chosen exclusively from within their respective clans.

                      Wabokieshiek, Winnebago Prophet And Medicine Man With His Family

  Clan tradition about the possession of bundles and medicine bead necklaces was strong among the Sauk and Fox and the Hidatsa.  Blackfoot medicine, however, was always individual and open for transfer among their cultural affinities.  In transfer Blackfoot bundles pass from Piegan to Blood or Northern Blackfoot or even to a Sarsi or Gros Ventre.  The Sundance of the Blackfoot is inseparably linked to the ceremony of a bundle.  This practice has it counterpart in the ritual life of the Hidatsa, Crow, Cheyenne, Arapahoe, and Kiowa.  Bundles and their accompanying rituals are not practiced in the pueblos of the southwest. Navajo shamans have something that might look like Blackfoot bundles, but is actually only a receptacle for objects used in certain ceremonies.

                                                                In A Blackfoot Camp

The innumerable number of bundle rituals among the Blackfoot and their neighboring tribes seem to spring from one parent concept that traces its lineage initially through the Blackfoot Beaver Bundle ritual.  Objects captured in war or beads acquired in some unusual or interesting way were often regarded in themselves as bundles for which rituals were subsequently dreamed of.  The concept of the bundle is so strong among Plains Indians that they historically regarded an object prized by another as some sort of bundle and expected to participate in an accompanying ritual. This is how many bundle ceremonies initially came into being.

                Montana Landscape, Part of The Country Where Blackfoot Indians Once Roamed Freely

This posting is part one of a seven part series.  Coming soon: Origin of Blackfoot Medicine Bundle, Ceremonies of The Bundle, The Beaver Bundle, The Medicine Pipe Bundle, The Bear Knife Bundle, Crow Love Medicine, Common Types of Beads Found in Blackfoot Bundles.

A Winter Solstice Story

                                                          The Woods at Winter Solstice

Occurring in the deep chill of December, Winter Solstice is alive with magic, the appearance of angels, brotherhood among men, and hope for peace on earth. It’s that moment when the axial tilt of the planet’s polar hemisphere is farthest away from the star it orbits, the shortest day and longest night of the year.  Significant to ancient man because of the uncertainty of surviving winter with its threat of starvation or freezing. The Winter Solstice is the reversal of the sun’s ebbing presence in the heavens and is associated with the birth and rebirth of the sun god, source of all life.

                                             Diagram of Planet's Movement

The Winter Solstice dawned cold and hard in Northern Arizona this year with a sharp wind driving the temperature far below normal.  I was working at Cocopah North that day and among the people who came were two Navajos, one a medicine man who had driven down from the reservation to buy shells. 

                           Creekside Plaza: Cocopah North is at the Far Right, Just Above White Car.

(We carry shells, in addition to beads, as they are needed by Native Americans for certain healing ceremonies and in the construction of jewelry. See previous blogs about shells in Indian trade.)

                                                            Traditional Navajo Elder

An hour after they left, an elderly Native American man came shuffling in, leaning on his cane.  The tiny man, dressed only in a Phoenix Suns baseball cap, jeans and a windbreaker, looked to be about ninety years old.  He tried to communicate with me but he spoke no English.  I recognized the Navajo dialect but couldn’t understand him.  He had a few English words and said, “Cold,” making the unmistakable gesture of shivering.  I ran in the back room and grabbed a quilt to wrap around his shoulders. The weight of it almost sent him reeling so I gestured that he should come sit at the beading table but he didn’t want to leave the front of the gallery and continued to fix his intense gaze on the street, as if looking for someone.  I brought him a bottle of water and a chair so he could sit there and began to call around town to see if I could find a Navajo speaker.  People who came in the store treated it as an unexpected honor to have this ancient Indian wrapped in a patchwork quilt perched in the middle of the gallery. 

                               Navajo Sandpainting are used in Healing Ceremonies

I began to stress about what I should do and called Audrey Waite, our business manager, to come down and help me out.  Meanwhile, my friend, the writer Tamworth Grice, dropped in and had the brilliant idea to go online and find the phone number for the Navajo Tribe’s health service.  She reached them and put the social worker on the phone with him.  The social worker told Tamworth that he had come down with friends to buy shells and had being waiting in the back of their pick up truck when he had to relieve himself and went into the woods behind the building.  When he returned the truck was gone and he managed to make it into our gallery. 

Navajo Matron and Pick Up Truck

So now we have Tamworth, Audrey and I trying to care for him.  In comes a doctor from LA, a specialist in geriatrics, and we tell him what’s happening.  He instructs us to bring a cushion for his chair and proceeds to give him a back massage and wraps his quilt more snuggly.  The old man makes a gesture of eating and tries to give us two dollars which we refuse.  I suggest that Audrey get him a hamburger but she, sensibly, suggests soup since he has no teeth.  Ken’s Creekside Restaurant in the plaza sends him a bowl of their excellent southwestern chili chicken soup with bread, compliments of the chef. 

                                                  The Hogan, Traditional Home of the Navajo

He won’t leave his place near the window so we clear off a small table and set up his meal on it.  The man, despite his plight, maintains a quiet dignity, an unsmiling yet serene reserve that tells us his many years have taught him to survive such inconvenient episodes.  I feel that I’ve made a major breakthrough when he gives me a fleeting smile.

                                                  Part of Navajo Ceremonal Paraphanalia

By now, several friends arrive with season’s greetings and we decide it’s definitely time for tea.  All of us, and it’s a growing number, have a little tea party and Bobby Monroe (as we now know his American name) enjoys the tea and likes dipping the bread into his soup.

Then a police officer arrives and offers to take him to a hotel but I know that would traumatize him and he might not connect to the people he came with if he leaves here.  He was adamant with the social worker that this was the place he needed to be.  I tell the officer that he’ll be fine with us.

 

                                            On the Navajo Reservation

Audrey returns to the office where there’s a frantic call from Mr. Monroe’s son-in-law, the driver of the pick up.  We learn that Mr. Monroe was sleeping in the back of the king cab which had tinted windows while they came in to buy shells.  They didn’t notice he wasn’t there until they got to Winslow, about an hour and a half’s drive from Sedona.  They were on their way back to pick him up.  We get the social worker on the phone again and she tells him his family is on the way back to get him. 

                       Petroglyph at Canyon De Chelly on the Navajo Reservation

Hours pass. I finally reach his son-in-law on his cell phone and he tells me he’ll be there in about twenty minutes.  I want to tell Mr. Monroe not to worry, that they’ll be there soon.  Then, out of nowhere, two Navajo silversmiths, Sylvana and Randy Secatero, appear.  They’d been waiting hours in Sedona for a dealer who was going to buy their jewelry and stood them up.  They were counting on the money to get back to New Mexico.  They didn’t even have gas money.  Their work is amazing and I buy it all! I trade Tamworth one of their bracelets that she adores as partial payment for editing my forthcoming e-book, Waiting for Mr. Wu.

                                         Cathedral Rock in Sedona, Arizona

Sylvana tells Mr. Monroe that his family will be here soon. He tells her that he has to go to the bathroom. He’s not stable enough on his feet to walk all the way up to the plaza’s bathroom, so Sylvana enlists Randy to take him to the nearest gas station.  Sylvana thanks me profusely for helping their ‘grandfather’ and offers not to leave town until the family arrives.   As closing time nears and his ride hasn’t materialized, I decide if they don’t show up to take him home with me and leave a note on the door where to pick him up.  Then his son-in-law comes running in, looking very distressed, to be greeted by Mr. Monroe who’s placidly drinking tea and being cared for by several women.  

                     Old Patchwork Quilt Similiar to the One Given to Mr. Monroe

Mr. Monroe clung to the patchwork quilt so I gave it to him, along with a shell that Navajos favor for a certain ceremony.  His son-in-law told us that he is a high medicine man, an honored and revered elder.  He tells us that Mr. Monroe blesses us.  Then Mr. Monroe leaves, wrapped up in his quilt, and we’re left to ponder this auspicious moment at the time of solstice.