They call this place Red Willow, those indigenous to it, and they call themselves its people. Their lands once stretched for miles in all directions, following the shrub-like plant of the same name, following the red earth and the waters and the open sky. Those lands are truncated now, bisected and dissected and foreshortened and compressed, earth-based amputations of a culture’s body and life force, and yet it survives.
This place has other names, too, the best-known of which were never its actual names at all, but corruptions and alterations forced upon it by waves of invading populations. Taos was never the word for it, and the word itself bears no relationship to the Chinese word tao; it is, instead, a mispronunciation of a Tiwa word, and not, as is commonly reported in dominant-culture publications, one that in any way actually means “red willow.” Instead, it’s said to be a corruption of an entirely different term, one that means, simply, “the village,” no other identifying label attached. There are other words that might have served as its original root, too, one related to white anthropological designations based on the hearing/mishearing of other words; one that might, perhaps, be rooted merely in the most basic expression of Tiwa courtesy. Of all of them, the last, my own theory, sounds most likely to the ear, but a dominant culture that cannot be bothered to get the most basic names correct will certainly not trouble itself to examine, much less to change, the assertions of white men now, no matter how mistaken.
As an aside, the priests among the invading Spanish insisted that people and place must have a patron saint. The colonizers chose, for Wings’s ancestors, San Geronimo, or Saint Jerome. Aside from lending his name to the Pueblo’s annual autumn feast day (one pronounced by the people, incidentally, not as the Spanish would do, but as San with a short English “a” and Geronimo in the way of the name now widely accepted for Apache warrior Goyathlay, as Jer-AHN-ih-moe — or, for short, as San G, pronounced San Gee), Saint Jerome was also the patron saint of librarians and translators. Perhaps it was an attempt by the Spanish to appeal to divine aid in understanding the language of the people that they, and all others who followed them, would mangle so badly.
But when the people chose, they chose wisely, for they took the name of a teacher, a healer, a gift of the earth. They took the name of survival medicine.
Of course, it’s not just Taos, a name now taken by the town that lies outside, among, and between various Pueblo boundaries.
It’s the word “Pueblo” itself.
It’s a Spanish word, one with obviously Latinate roots. It’s also what is known as a cognate: a word related to others by common derivation, whether etymology or simple meaning. In Spanish, the word “pueblo,” uncapitalized, now means “town” or “village,” but it is a cognate of the exact same root as the English word “people”: the Latin populus — which, again, translates literally to people, although it can refer to a simple small gathering of humans or to a collective community like an ethnic group.
Now, “pueblo” in this place also refers to an anthropological categorization of indigenous people; to what is known colloquially in this country as one of twenty-two specific Native “tribes”; to the geographical land area of such peoples’ reservations; to their villages; to their languages, cultures, and/or spiritual beliefs; to their traditional homes and structures; and now, to an architectural style that fetches a handsome price in the outside world.
It’s not the word the people here use for either the village or the people.
But it’s the word the world uses.
Around here, the outside world also takes the people’s name, appropriates it, exploits it, uses it for commercial profit and political gain. Every so often, a new business crops up with “Red Willow” in its name, one not owned by any Native person, much less one of Red Willow itself.
Then there was the case of the politicians and the park.
A couple of years ago, a movement gained traction among some quarters to change the name of the local public park in the downtown district. Why? Because it’s named, as with so much else around here, for an Indian killer: Kit Carson. No-Native people are fond of pointing to Carson’s reportedly having taking an Indian wife in his later years as some sort of “proof” that he was not anti-Native, never mind his kill count. And, of course, colonial history being the complicated, tangled bundle of temporary alliances and forced partnerships that it necessarily was, particularly for the colonized populations, Carson forged relationships with various Pueblo leaders for a certain degree of mutual benefit in geopolitical, military, and strategic terms. It occurred, in this broader region, mostly at the expense of the Diné, but no one should be misled into thinking that Carson would not have turned his forces upon the local Pueblos in similar fashion had any benefit to him and his masters made itself known.
And so Wings and I supported the name change.
Until the town council informed the populace what its new name would be: Red Willow Park.
All done without consultation from, endorsement of, or agreement to the plan by the people themselves.
It should have been an embarrassment to the town, a matter for shame, even. Instead, alleged “liberal” “friends” of the Native population refused to back down, insisting on a “once decided, never wrong” approach. Pueblo leaders were forced to attend a council meeting and affirmatively make plain that they would not agree to the cooptation and appropriation of their people’s name and identity, however [superficially] well-intentioned the gesture might be. Once the people denied the outside politicians their imprimatur, the entire episode fizzled ignobly; the park was never officially renamed, and it still bears the name of an Indian killer.
And “Red Willow” still belongs to the people, however much those outside its bounds might try to grab at the name and identity.
But it’s more than a name, and more than a place.
All across this land mass, our peoples have always known the value the willow family of trees and shrubs. Willow bark generally, regardless of individual species, contains salicylic acid, a natural anti-inflammatory and pain reliever that to this day forms the basis for the compound now known as “aspirin.” Stripped, dried, and ground into powder; mixed with water or or substances as a poultice; chewed as a dentifrice that also helps to relieve dental pain . . . all of these and more have been traditional medicinal uses of willow for millennia.
But willow also serves many more medicinal functions than the physical or pharmacological.
In many cultures, including my own, dreamcatchers are made with red willow; its slender flexible strands are perfect for forming the hoop. The same is true of those cultures who create small, hangable versions of medicine wheels and medicine shields. The older, taller, stronger stands provide equally perfect poles for creating lodges for sweats and other purposes, as well as for building other forms of shelter. And their long, slim, leafy fronds are effective as shady roofs for arbors in the warmer months.
But entirely apart from any human-centered use, red willow is a plant of extraordinary beauty and utility. Because it grows upright, in shrub-like stands, rather than as a series of individual trees, it provides effective cover for humans and animals alike. Our own stands have grown large and lush, and every year several members of the Magpie Clan make their respective homes in them. In the winter months, the small birds take over the abandoned nests and find warmth and protection from predators there.
Irrespective of the season, the presence of red willow means shelter and survival.
The plants themselves manifest, over the course of the seasons, in a virtual rainbow, too. In the latter weeks of spring, the stalks and trunks turn bright brick red again, and when warm weather becomes constant, they leaf out in long, slender strips of light green, like slim but graceful honor fans. Throughout the summer, the green darkens and the leaves become lush and full. They are among the last to turn in autumn, eventually going gold and then pale brown, then dropping off entirely and leaving the trunks to undergo their own transformation. Beneath the cold embrace of impending winter, their red transforms itself to a plum-like shade, then to the frosty blues of blueberries and periwinkles, and they hold this rich jewel tone until the warmer winds return.
For now, autumn and winter are engaged in their yearly courtship dance: capricious, commitment-shy, a flirtation with no strings attached. The former has not yet decided to depart; the latter steadfastly refuses to commit to full arrival.It is a dance that has lasted far longer than usual this year, as nighttime lows in the teens give way daily to highs well into the fifties, a remnant Indian summer far beyond summer’s end. Our stands of red willow remain red, still studded with dried and curling leaves in pale beige tones. They are neither bare nor blue yet, although both will come, and soon. For now, the juncos and chickadees have moved in to share space with the finches and sparrows; the occasional scrub jay avails itself of the stands’ concealing charms.
But stand they will, through bitter cold and icy wind and the deepest of snows, an object lesson in steadfastness and survival. Because they are the medicine of place and people, of culture and community, of ancestry and identity: They are survival medicine.
~ Aji
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