Published as a narrative poem in The Eloquent Umbrella, 2000.

 

 

ARTHUR CHIPS
CARRIER OF SONGS

by Dorothy Blackcrow Mack
 

 

"Name’s Arthur Chips.
Singer,
out ‘a Horn Chips line.

Horn Chips,
y’ know,
doctoring man for Crazy Horse?
Tashunke Witko.

Now it’s me witko –
witkoko, crazy-crazy,
out ‘n a blizzard bad as ‘49.

Pilamaye, thanks
for stoppin’ your pickup for an old wino
in the ditch.

Ey, you’re her
as jus’ married my cousin Richard,
ennit?

Hear you don’t have nothin’ to do with firewater,
not like your ol’ man,
hear you even throwed ’im in jail --
twice.

Hear you don’t have nothin’ to do with drunks,
don’t allow ‘em near the sundance grounds
out in the country.

Hear you drive ‘em away with a broom –
not a rifle,
a broom!

I was gonna stop by jus’ to see that broom,
steal your ol’ man off to Norris bar with me,
he always got dough.

But now you took pity of me,
haulin’ me home from them Saturday night
cowboy drunks an’ savin’ my frostbit hands,
I’ll be out to take sweat with ‘im
instead.

"I remember, y’ know.
I remember all them old songs,
sing the old language,
way my grandpa taught.

I’m drunk,
but I still sing them holy songs,
way I done when I was Lowanpo,
Ceremony Singer.

No night meetings no more,
way back in the hills, secret –
not legal,
accordin’ to the Boss-Indian-Around-Agent –
but people was dyin’,
so my grandpa doctored ’em anyways,
an’ I sang for ‘im.

Ceremony house roof all cave in
long ago.
All gone.

Gone now,
like my grandpa.
All gone
but them songs.

So I sing ‘em in ditches,
sing to the long grass under the snow,
sing outside Kadoka on them cold winter nights,
on this road back to the res,
prayin’ for an Indian car,
maybe with a heater for a thawin’ out ride.

So I drink lotsa wine,
lotsa sterno,
lotsa lysol,
drown my ghosts,
rot out my throat,
still, I sing.

Tun-ka-shi-la, un-shi-ma-la-pe-lo,
Creator, take pity on us.

"Prob’ly thinkin’,
better not sing them holy songs
drunk. 

Don’t want your pickup cab stunk up
with no wino voices.

But they fill my head,
buzz ‘round like ghosts,
till I go crazy swattin’ ‘em,
wanaghi in my head.

So I hafta sing them songs,
all through the Badlands full of ghosts,
or I lose them songs,
like I lose the reins to my horse,
my Crazy Horse.

And if I don’t sing ’em,
I hafta talk to you,
an’ I got nothin’ to say.

You a high-taught White lady,
an’ I don’t speak English so good,
never went to no school,
my grandpa hide me away
from them Black Robes an’ books,
no good for a Singer,
rot out my mind.

Anyways, marryin’ my cousin
make you hankashi, too close a relation,
so I put them songs between you an’ me
on the pickup seat,
old-fashion way, respectful
of how you pick me up out ‘a the cold.

I keep a-singin’ to keep myself warm,
a-singin’ to keep the driver awake,
a-singin’ to keep this high-center pickup
from sliding off into Redstone Basin
where them seven missionaries got killed.

"Ko-la, le-che-e-le-chu...
Ey, you know it!

Your ol’ man brag you up,
say you got a good voice,
learn them songs from watchin’
his sweat lodge door,
but he laugh,
say you sing like a man,
use man Lakota words,
don’t speak Lakota so good,
ha-ha!

So I gonna give you a woman song,
a Crazy Horse woman song
your ol’ man don’t know.

Unchi -- my grandma dead,
Ina -- my mama dead,
ain’t got nobody left to carry it.

We gonna sing it good,
so when we get out ‘a the Badlands
an’ you drop me off,
you carry it home
an’ surprise ’im
singin’."

 

Dedicated to the memory of Arthur Chips. 

[There are no Crazy Horse women songs, but for miles, mine was the only running pickup.]