Zakes Mda - Cion

I am happy that things are back to normal between me and Obed. For a number of days after his return from Connecticut he sulked a bit and didn’t want to have anything to do with me because he blamed me for his failure to meet Mr. Kerzner — the man who developed and operated the casinos on behalf of the Native American tribes. He discovered that the man was basking in the sun somewhere in the Caribbean and rarely visited any of the casinos. If I were there, Obed reckoned, some dialogue would have happened between me and the Native Americans who own the casinos, and they would have listened to me because I am Mr. Kerzner’s countryman.

He came back without making any headway with the casino owners because they didn’t take him seriously. If Kilvert was not a reservation, how could he even dream of opening a casino there? they asked. When he told them about the Shawnee claim that was already in the courts they said he should come back to them when the Shawnee had won their case and Kilvert had been declared an Indian reservation. Only then would they consider going into business with him on his new casino venture.

Although he was not impressed by the way he was treated by the casino operators, who even denied him an audience with the chiefs of either the Mohegan or the Mashantucket Pequot tribes, he was encouraged by what he discovered there. The Mashantucket Pequots, for instance, own what they claim is the world’s largest casino. Yet only thirty-five years ago they were not a tribe at all but were down to one person — one Elizabeth George. The descendants regrouped from other parts of the country and now they are the richest tribe ever. What can stop his Kilvert people from rising like the Mashantucket Pequots?

His people deserved a chance. They have never had a fair deal.

A few days later Obed brings me a yellowing article from the Athens Magazine, Winter 1984, to show me just what he means when he says his people have never been treated well. He got the magazine from the Center.

Wanted: a few good jobs for Indians , says the headline. I read on:

The leaders of a growing minority movement centered in the tiny hamlet of Kilvert have developed a combative style. Are they terrorists or squeaky wheels? “I believe in confrontation and violence if necessary. I believe in tearing things apart if necessary. We want jobs, we don’t want more rhetoric,” said Melton Fletcher, an American Indian activist. Spoken last fall at an Athens County Minority Association press conference, Fletcher’s words express the sentiments many area minorities share — bitterness, disappointment, frustration and anger — at what they believe are long-standing discriminatory hiring practices in Athens.

The article goes on to name Fletcher as a Choctaw Indian and a co-chairman of the ACMA who has been fighting for the rights of the American Indians in southeast Ohio.

Most of Athens County’s Indian population is clustered around the tiny Rome Township hamlet of Kilvert, 20 miles from Athens. Only within recent years have the racially-mixed black, white and Indian people there begun to gain a collective historical, cultural and political self-awareness.

Since the coal mines closed in the 1930s, says the article, the employment situation has been bleak for the Native Americans in southeast Ohio. Eighty percent are unemployed.

“So what happened to Fletcher?” I ask.

“I don’t know. Maybe he gave up and packed and gone to better places,” says Obed. “Or maybe he died.”

Obed sees himself as the new Fletcher, although his methods will not be Fletcher’s. Times have changed. Instead of advocating the use of violence to empower his people he will open a casino. Do I now see why Kilvert should be declared a reservation? After all, the Kilvert Community Center used to be the southeast Ohio headquarters of the North American Indian Council. Do I also see why he is so pissed off with Ruth when she keeps on insisting on a Cherokee heritage and other Kilverters who keep on claiming a Powhatan heritage? How will they get a reservation if they don’t even know which tribe they belong to? Can’t they see the advantages of being Shawnee once and for all?

They are no longer sure what their tribe is because they hankered for and lionized whiteness to the suppression of their Indianness and Africanness during the days of oppression. Many of them could only sing genealogies of their white ancestors. Today they are keen to reclaim all three heritages since they are a source of pride and make them a unique people. But they no longer remember who they were, on the African and Native American side. It does not help that in this area three different tribes lived side-by-side — the Cherokee, the Powhatan and the Shawnee.

“You can only be one tribe to get a reservation,” says Obed sadly. “And Shawnee is the way to go.”

Orpah never spends the night. In the evening, just before sunset, she goes home. I would like her to spend the night, though I have never outrightly asked her. I have hinted at it. She does not get it. Or pretends not to get it. I don’t pursue the matter though my desire for her has returned with a vengeance, especially when I am alone at night and can imagine her sitar whining the night away. Until Mahlon comes in his strange costumes. And all desire suddenly dies.

Sometimes Orpah and I go for a walk in the woods. And she shows me where her father has found the latest ghost orchid. I do not ask her how she knows the exact spot where the ghost orchid was found as she was not there. It is better that she does not know that I know that she plants the ghost orchids herself for her father to find.

We walk to the Federal Creek and she shows me where Ruth used to swim as a little girl. She surmises that her dad used to peek at the girls swimming in the buff from the bluffs. But no one can swim in the creek now because it is polluted.

“There’s septic tanks and all that crap,” she laments.

On sunny days — and there are many of them — we go mushroom hunting in the woods. She has her favorite spot where the sponge-like morels grow. She teaches me how to pick them out. I must not confuse them with the false morels, which are poisonous, she warns me. There’ll be other kinds as well late in the summer: the chanterelles and the chicken-of-the-woods. But if I come on my own I should stick to the morels because they are easier to identify, she warns. Unless I want to die from mushroom poisoning, even before her daddy kills me. She adds this last one with a naughty twinkle in her eye.

Fresh mushrooms must wait for Obed because he is the only one who knows how to cook them properly. When he comes, if he is not spending that evening with Beth Eddy, he returns to the wild to dig from the ground wild garlic and shallots. Wild mushrooms taste like the most heavenly meat when they are sautéed with wild garlic and shallots. And Obed is the master.

As we sit eating his creation with rice he confides in me that things have not been good at home lately. There is no food in the house, except for the bottled sauces and relishes. For a long time now no money has come from the quilts. No rent from me since I left. The food from the Center is not enough and is intermittent. The family no longer gets Orpah’s share because she spends a lot of time at my RV. Obed spends a lot of time with Beth Eddy at her apartment in Athens since she moved from the sorority house. Mahlon broods even more.

“Why tell him all this?” asks Orpah. “It ain’t none of his business.”

“It ain’t none of his business ’cause you eat here all the time,” says Obed.

This embarrasses me.

“You mooch here and at Beth Eddy’s too,” she says.