Friday, January 8, 2010

Where Did the Name "Navajo Spaceships' the title of my book come from?

As some of you may know or not know I wrote a book which is basically of all the short stories I wrote on the internet on sites like Native Web, At.Native; Navajos.Com; Indianz.com and many others over a period of ten years and these were put out in a book called Navajo Spaceships.

Some people think Navajo Spaceships means it deals with aliens, new wave ideas, or science fiction. It does not, it is about travel into the imagination and in particular into my imagination as a Navajo or a native point of view of the world as I see it.

This is also because I am the product of a parochial school, boarding school and public schools situated on or near the Navajo Reservation. I am the result of a government education on the Navajo Reservation.

I often thought of things but wondered how would it be. I have done a lot fo thinking and observed many things as well as being able to work on indian records and indian allotment records for a number of years at the federal regional record centers and National Archives where indian records are stored.

I developed an interest in the lives and stories those records told and some of the experiences of others as well as myself. Some of these stories became short stories that went into the book Navajo Spaceships.

During one of my off times I was looking at the records of Carlisle Indian School, one of the first boarding schools set up for indians in the last century. I often see many pictures in the files of indian students, lots of them but there are rarely ever named, except for their teachers or visiting dignitary.

I looked at them because I am sure there are pictures of me standing with others in particular one occasion I can remember was when Robert F. Kennedy came to the Flagstaff Bordertown Dormitory and all the big shots in the local area came to get their picture of themselves taken with Senator Kennedy and "those Indian kids" one of whom was Me.

Anyway I found a reference to Nellie Robertson, a Sioux girl taken off the plains and sent to Carllisle Indian School, who later became a teacher there until the school closed in 1908.

The thing about her was that once she learned to speak and write English she wrote about life from her native perspective, and on of these stories has survived and if follows. It is about how she envisioned life on the moon from a Sioux girl's perspective and her native upbringing. It amazed me and gave me the thought of writing from my own view of the world of the Navajo reservation, boarding school, growing up and life as it is out in the sticks if you will.

So from that perspective the name Navajo Spaceships came to me for my book, as it is a flight into the imagination of a Navajo from the rez, so I thought I would put here the story Nellie Robertson, a fellow indian boarding school brat wrote for you to see....rustywire

"This little nugget was pointed out to me in the June 27, 1890 INDIAN HELPER by Russell Eagle Bear of Sinte Gleske College. Of all the news he found in those papers, this is the item that caught his eye and he took a photocopy with him. Thank you, Russell, for finding this one.

A COMPOSITION BY ONE OF OUR IMAGINATIVE SIOUX GIRLS

Of the many strange lands and queer places I have visited in my life, the strangest and the one I have experienced more pleasure was my trip to the moon, in 1900. I got on board an air ship which was bound for the moon, one fine morning in June. Quite a number of people were starting for the same place.

For many days we sailed through the air. The scenery all the way was delightful both day and night, but the motion of the ship in air having the same effect as the motion of the ship on water, we did not enjoy the sights very much on the way.

After many days of travelling, we landed in a large city called Ujipa, which means in our language, Greentown. The lunarians resemble the people of the earth in every way but the color of their eyes and hair. The color of their eyes is a bright green and their hair a very bright yellow. Both men and women dress alike, in a loose gown,but you can distinguish them by their way of wearing their hair. The men have long hair and wear it in two or three plaits in the back. The women have short hair and wear little caps to match their eyes. They are a very kind and polite people.

Up in the moon they have no school-houses nor books of any kind from which to read or study. They are a blissful people. They know nothing outside of what is going on in their own world. Money is of no use to them there. Food of every kind grows all the year round. A sort of fruit something like our cheese grows on trees very abundantly, and they call it bread. Corn, potatoes, cabbage and numerous vegetables grow wild. Watermelons, pumpkins and squashes grow on trees, apples, oranges, peaches and grapes may be found in abundance. The people do not work very hard for their food. Their clothes are made from the leaves of a very large plant. These leaves measure about 20 square feet. They make very strong and durable clothes.

The houses are built only of wood and beautiful. The people are ruled over by their king, Nonboose Kiang, which we know as "The Man in the Moon." He is a good, kind man and is liked by all his people.

The amusements and habits of the lunarians are very much like ours. They were so kind to us that when the time came for us to go leave we werevery sorry. I hope sometime in the future to take another trip and see more things of interest.

-Nellie Robertson."

So now you know why Navajo Spaceships is called by this name, it is a book of short stories and in a way inspired by a young native girl who wrote this way before I came along. It is quite a story...idinit. rustywire

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