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Local Items: Concerning the Arawacks indians. Be carful now.
Bonaire Talk: Local Items: Archives: Archives - 2008: Concerning the Arawacks indians. Be carful now.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Captain Don (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #381) on Thursday, September 18, 2008 - 3:15 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Library no. 925



Kachina





from the Wicked Mind’s Eye




The KACHINA
(kuh-chin-uh)


Copyrighted by
the ®Wicked Mind’s Eye
of Captain don/
Bonaire na
1 9 5 4
∆ ∆






Wds. 1215

My name is Kemo Sabe O'keefe and I am the senior neurosurgeon at the Southwestern Memorial Hospital here in Santa Fe. Medical school in Boston, my internship in Baltimore, I then returned home, here to New Mexico.

Half breeds don’t belong in the east. You see, my Mother is pure Pueblo, and my father is from Boston. Some mix. Dad thought Boston might be the place for me, but it proved, well, disastrous.

I was called in to attend a serious, case only two days ago. A young girl from San Francisco, just 24 was found early in the morning over on the ambulance ramp. Wrapped up like a tamale in a tribal blanket, she was in a cataleptic state.

These young people from outside come down here to New Mexico thinking that they are going to liberate us Indians , Good lord, we don’t need liberating, We just want to be left alone. I had always suspected my father had some such notion when he arrived during the thirties.

My Dad was a do gooder, but it was my mother who liberated him. Ha, Dad and his squaw, and of course their little half breed. I was the only kid and my Father being a Lone Ranger buff had named me Kemo Sabe after the Ranger, then later when I was old enough bought me a white pony, which of course we named Silver.

Dad’s been gone for a while now, but Mom is still fit as a fiddle living over there in Carlsbad. She’s happy and that’s all that really counts.

The patient that I was telling you about, Hazel Arlington has had no changes since we found her. I don’t profess to know a lot about this cataleptic thing but find it frightening.

She lay rigid as a popsicle. Legs stretched out, back and shoulders flat and her head looking forward. I swear it was as if she were lying at attention. There was a slight bend at the elbows with her forearms lifted as if she were holding a tray, but the palms were turned in.

I studied her for a time, then on a hunch startled the nurses by asking them to disconnect her and stand her up against the wall. It took a bit of doing and several male attendants, but finally we had her in a standing position. She had to be braced of course but what I saw was a young girl standing at attention. Eyes open and staring dead ahead and a diabolical smile that exposed all of her gums and teeth.

"Kachina" hissed a voice from behind me ,and I turned to see a cleaning lady gawking at Hazel. Again the word ‘Kachina’ was uttered from between wrinkled lips, and a sudden chill enveloped me.

I knew the word to come from the Hopi tribes who believe in the Kachinas, or ghosts which metamorphose into Kachinas who live amongst the tribes in spirit only in the early part of the year, then on exactly June thirtieth at midnight they return underground for the balance of the year. The carved wooden Kachina dolls of the Hopis are considered representations of the Kachinam spirits. Or something like that. The Irish in me has trouble in believing all of the Indian hocus pocus .

I asked several Hopi nurses, if any one of them could arrange a meeting for me with the tribal medicine man, and
'stat'. That night I met with the ‘Shaman’ of a Native American Church. He was exactly what one would expect of a witch doctor. I spoke only few words of Hopi, and he less in English.

I discovered that my suspicions were on target. It took some hard persuasion and a hand full of dollars get the story. Hazel had somehow found her way to the Church. Young and disturbed. They saw a young girl suffering from severe schizophrenia. She, in some of her wildest moment, thought herself a descendant of the Tribe. It was the elders of the church who insisted she be purged of these evil spirits and turned her over to their "Shaman."

In truth it was no horrid thing that he had done to Hazel, other than locker her up with himself and a few others in mud hogan all night chewing Peyote buttons. The girl, of course hallucinated trashed about so violently they had to tie her. The Hopi in her, the Shaman said, died that night and she became a Kachina. Frightened they didn’t know what to do with her so before dawn dumped her on the ambulance ramp.

It was an expensive interview but answered my question. I couldn’t sleep that night, bothered by the idea that this Shaman had been fooling around with her spirit. When the Indian in me took over, logic was out the window. We Pueblos also fooled around with Kachinam’s and we really believed in them.

The next morning I awoke with the sun and sprang out of bed as if pulled with a wire. "Today is, is,,," Morning confusion was present. Is the thirtieth! Oh my god, the thirtieth of June ! Hazel will be going underground to night.

I arrived at the hospital shortly after eleven. I would have been there earlier had it not been for other patients. Hazel was as before in a stable condition with no obvious changes. My paleface colleagues gave no respect to my Kachinam theory, a half breed still believing in spirits. I was pissed and called a pow wow with nurse RunningFawn that afternoon.

That night at eleven fifty I set a small portable shortwave radio on Hazel’s beside table and tuned it to Greenwich WWV, the time station. Opened a sterile wrap containing a long needled syringe with adrenaline and placed it on her naked chest, removed the blinders from her eyes, and looked down into her open black pupils and told the spirits within that an Irish Shaman was taking charge.

The ticking of the radio droned on like a monotonous metronome Tick tick tick. A pause. Then a long whine, and a voice saying, "the time is exactly twenty three fifty eight",,, tick, tick, tick.

I picked up the syringe and motioned nurse Running Fawn to pull Hazels left breast tightly to her side. I studied the area for a moment. Feeling between the ribs with my fingers. Then with my forefinger held the spot. And listened to the tick, tick, tick, then the silence and the long whine. "The exact time is Twenty three fifty nine" tick tick tick

I looked at Running Fawn giving her a weak smile and placed the needle vertically on Hazel’s chest exactly under my finger, and slowly drove the long needle down in between her ribs. Running Fawn was listening with her stethoscope, and as I shoved the needle deeper. She was watching me, then nodded, and I stopped. Then I saw a welling of blood surge into the syringe, and waited.

Tick, tick, tick,,, and the pause, then came the whine and I shoved the plunger down. - - - - - - - fin

 


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