Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: ALL TALK, NO ACTION (01/10/19)
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TITLE: Chief Standing Tongue | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jack Taylor
01/13/19 -
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Government agents used to stop in monthly to chat with us about our quality of life. Water needed to be taken from a treatment plant which always seemed to be broken because no one on the reserve knew how to fix it. Heating in our houses always seemed to be insufficient for the harsh conditions of weather we had to wrestle with. School was closed half the time because the teachers weren’t ready with their lesson plans.
Anyway, we had reconciliation circles and clan talks where everyone would sit for hours talking about how hard things were for them. The tribal chief would listen and say that he would share our concerns with the government agent. Nothing ever seemed to change and so he gained his honorary title.
One day, a missionary of some kind held a kid’s club and we all went to see what he might give away. He had some magic tricks which were pretty good, he gave away a few prizes and then he started talking about a brother of Jesus named James who had something important for us.
He said that we shouldn’t just listen to the word and deceive ourselves. We should do what it says. He said that if we listened to the word and didn’t do what it says we were like someone who looked in the mirror and then goes away and forgets what he looks like. He also said that if we did what the Bible says then we would be blessed.
I listened but it really didn’t hit me until the next day when I was in the bathroom and I heard my brother talking about Chief Standing Tongue. I chirped off my own jibe but while I was laughing something about mocking my elder didn’t feel so funny. I knew that I should honor my elders and yet here I was, mocking. I put my tongue between my teeth and sounded out ‘little standing tongue.’
I’m pretty sure the elders in the tribe noticed a change in me because they invited me to sit with them as they deliberated. I realized that the decisions they had to make were a lot more complex than any of us younger warriors imagined. Even the hereditary chief and the band councils didn’t always agree on things like land management, resource development, and the kinds of services which should be available for our people.
It didn’t help when the things the government provided weren’t working to demonstrate a clear improvement in our standard of living. If things were going to change then someone needed to learn how to fix water pumps and heating units and figure out how to build some equity from the resources we had available to us
I realized this, but I sat with my tongue between my teeth, waiting. One day the chief looked at me and said, “Little Bear, you will go and learn what we need to know so things can change on the reserve.”
I knew my uncle ‘Running Buffalo’ had gone to school but something bad had happened and he was never the same when he came back. I nodded at the chief and I went to the school where I could learn the things we needed to know.
More important than fixing things, I learned to do what I said I would do. It seemed to help with all my relationships at school and in the village. When the government agent came with new services the chief took me to the meetings and asked me to explain to the man what we needed. The agent showed me how things worked and I was able to fix them when they didn’t work.
Life started getting better and as we maintained the equipment and resources given to us the government became more generous. The chief stood proudly before our band council and others honored him. Everyone seemed to embrace their own dignity and thanked the Creator for helping us.
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