About a hundred Indigenous are walking from San Francisco to Washington, DC. They left San Francisco on February 11th and they are due to arrive in Washington, DC, on July 11th. There was very little advance publicity about their appearance in Asheville, NC, where I live, but I heard they were camped down by the French Broad River for three days. This is the story of the day I spent with these people.
I didn’t get a chance to go to their campsite until the third day, when they were scheduled to leave. I felt a little ambivalent about visiting because I heard they needed food, and I didn’t know what to bring. I woke up at five o’clock that morning, knowing I wanted to find them. I went to Sam’s Club (business members can go in at 7) so I could buy in bulk, and I got some food. I didn’t know if they would want white bread or whole grain bread; if they wanted fresh or canned food. I got a few big cans of boned turkey breast, and a double-loaf of whole grain bread, and another one of white bread and a big jar of mayonnaisse. Then I got some Spam; it’s good protein, and my Hawaiian friends really go for Spam.
So I was a little embarrassed, going up there with this food; I didn’t know if it would be the right thing. I’m a little shy about approaching Native Americans, because back in the sixties, when my husband and I were hippies, we went to Hopiland, and the children laughed at us. I didn’t realize until later that it was because my husband wore a headband, and a feather in his headband, and moccasins. The Indians call that a “wannabe Indian.” We didn’t know what we were doing. So the kids laughed, and most of the adults just ignored us.
But the Traditionalists were very kind to us. Fortunately, I met a woman who taught school at Hopiland, and she told me whom to ask for. We were fresh out of New York City, and I longed to be with women who gave birth at home and nursed their babies and people who loved the earth, and lived in community with the kids and the old people. I was one of the first women I knew to have natural childbirth and to nurse my baby.
We stayed there for a month. The time we spent with the Elders was unforgettable. They shared their way of life with us, and they were so honoring of the Earth and of Spirit; it opened us up to a whole new kind of spirituality. From the Hopi, and later from the Taos Pueblo Indians and the Hawaiians, I learned to pray out loud and speak to the Earth and to the Great Spirit, and to plants and trees, like speaking to a friend. I began to feel like I truly was a child of God. It was such a privilege to be with the wise Elders.
That experience changed my life. I owe a lot to those people, so I wanted to help out any way I could. But back in the sixties, when we tried to take whole-wheat flour and powdered milk to the Hopi, they were more interested in meat and white bread and soda pop.
When I arrived at the river where they had been camping, almost everybody was gone. I was relieved to see a couple vans with native people over on the grass, so I pulled up kind of fast, and rolled down my window, as I joked about almost running down one of the guys, an older guy. When I got out of the car, he was laughing as he extended his hand and introduced himself as Dennis Banks. I recognized his name, and I found out later that he is the 75-year-old leader or visionary for this walk. You can read his impressive bio at http://members.aol.com/Nowacumig/biograph.html . In 1968 he co-founded the American Indian Movement (AIM) to protect the traditional ways and rights of Indian people. This walk marks the 30th anniversary of a similar walk that he organized in 1978, to bring pubic attention to 11 bills introduced to the U.S. Congress that would have nullified Native American treaties with the government. All 11 bills failed. You can read about this march at http://www.longestwalk.org .
Dennis introduced me to a few other people, and they looked at the bread and I asked what kind they preferred, and they told me that mostly they like fresh fruits and vegetables, preferably organic, and that many of them are vegetarians. What a change! When I brought out the chicken, they said they did need the protein, and when I brought out the Spam, they were delighted.
Dennis told me that there were two groups; one was walking on the northern route, and this one was on the southern route. “Then we’re going to meet up, just before Washington, and walk together to the Capital. We have between 60 and 100 people walking in each group. We started with 50, and I’d rather keep it to 50.”
I asked, “Why? Isn’t it better to have hundreds of people, thousands of people?”
“No,” he said, “it’s real hard to feed that many people, and fit their gear into the truck, and transport them from place to place, and find showers and bathrooms for everybody.”
They were getting ready to leave, so I asked where the March was, and if it would be okay to join them for a while. They said I was welcome to do that, and they told me that the group started walking at five o’clock in the morning. It was already ten o’clock, and it took me more than a half hour to track them down.
I was surprised at how insignificant they looked, about sixty people walking single-file along the gutter, beating on a drum. It was a pretty rag-tag production. There was a young woman marching about 15 yards out in front, waving a small flag, followed about 10 yards later by an older, Indigenous man with long gray hair, also walking alone, followed about 10 yards later by a Japanese woman carrying a banner for The Longest March, and then two people carrying big colorful flags that seemed related to Indian rights. Everyone was walking single-file, an odd mix of what looked like Native American, Japanese, a few blacks, and some Caucasians.
I took some pictures, and I thought it would be good to walk with them for a mile or two, keeping in mind that I would have to walk back to my car, alone in the hot sun. So I passed them and then looked for a place to park my car. I found a parking lot in front of a bar with pool tables. I went inside to ask permission to leave my car, and the young woman behind the bar asked, “Why would you want to leave your car here?” They were kind of in the middle of nowhere, and there were just two people in the bar. I think the guy was probably the owner.
I told them about the March and they were incredulous. “They’re really walking all the way from San Francisco to Washington? What do they do when they come to the mountains? What do they do when they come to a highway where they don’t allow pedestrians?”
I told them I’d find out and tell them when I got back. I stepped outside and took a couple pictures as the marchers were approaching. The midday sun was pounding down at about 85 degrees as I stepped into the line. I was glad I’d been doing five-mile power walks in the mornings, because these people were walking fast. Not much talking. So I just kept quiet and walked. The drum beat really helped keep the pace.
When you’re walking that fast, it uses up all your energy to walk. But every time we passed someone standing along the road who waved at us, there was one woman who would run up and give them a little postcard-size flyer. Then she’ll have to run double-time in order to catch up with us.
When she jumped in line behind me, I asked for a copy of the flyer. It said things like, “All Life is Sacred” and “Protect Mother Earth,” and “Clean up Mother Earth,” and “We are walking to protect our environment & sacred sites. We are walking for cultural survival, youth empowerment, and Native American rights.” And “The Longest Walk is an Indigenous Peoples walk and is open to people of all nations and cultures.
Everyone is invited to join in and participate in the walk at any point on either route, for any distance.” Then it tells how you can support the walk by going to the website at www.longestwalk.org . By the way, if you’re reading this before July 11, 2008, I hope you will support the walk. These people desperately need money for the simplest things.
After walking for about three miles, I noticed that approximately once every mile there was a support person with a van, handing out water or doing whatever was needed. I figured I could grab a ride with one of them, and get to talk about the walk.
I was lucky to get a ride with Jen, who had been with the group since San Francisco. She was driving someone else’s old pick-up truck. When I tried to open the door on the passenger side, it was stuck and I had to crawl in from the driver’s side. Jen was desperately looking for the bus, so they could organize the lunch break. I asked if she could call them on a cell phone, and she said that the guy who was driving the bus had run out of minutes on his cell phone.
Just then the big white bus passed us, going in the opposite direction, so we made a U-turn and caught up with them as they were turning into a driveway, just in front of the marchers, in front of a self-storage unit, next to a convenience store. Jen and some others unloaded lots of food from the back of the bus, and set up a crude kitchen. I helped a little with cutting the melons and the (whole grain) bread, but they were short on knives and cutting boards and I seemed to be more in the way, so I wandered around and spoke to people as they were cooling off in the shade. I was starting to think that maybe I would write something that might be useful.
That’s when a photographer from a local paper asked them to pose for a photo in front of the bus, so I also had a chance to take a photo. I stayed with them until they started loading supplies back into the bus, and then Jen gave me a ride to my car so I could follow them to Hickory, about an hour to the East, where they would be camping for the night. I stayed with them until 10 pm before I finally headed back to Asheville. During that time I had conversations with about 20 people. I don’t remember most of their names. I just wanted to absorb the essence of the experience. So what follows is a compilation of my experiences and the stories that these good people shared with me, as I remember them.
As we were pulling out of the parking lot, Jen told me, “There are about six trucks that are always with us. It changes as people come and go. Right now, we’ve got the bus, and we’ve got a Winnebago that’s been traveling with us for awhile. We’ve got the truck that carries the gear, we’ve got another truck that carries the food. We used to have a kitchen trailer that was all set up; that made it easier. But that truck broke down and we didn’t have enough money to fix it.”
Just then one of the women came up to us and popped her head in through the window and said, “Pray for us! We’re going to be driving the Winnebago down the hill, and the brakes are going out.” I felt angry that these good people weren’t being given more financial support for the incredible sacrifice that they are making.
Jen told me, “When we were walking through Louisiana, there was a heat wave all over the country. It was in the 90’s and into the 100’s. People would just collapse. But we just kept marching. Then we realized that we were suffering from dehydration; not getting enough water. It takes a lot of water for all these people. We really appreciate donations of water. And then, while we were going through the mountains, it snowed. It was cold! By the time we got to where we were sleeping, we were just shivering, it was so cold. Some people never saw snow before.
“When we were going through Kentucky, we didn’t have enough food. We just about ran out of money. Then a farmer came to us and said, 'I’ve gotta give you some money.' We’ve been so blessed! We always got what we need."
An older Navajo man said, “So why are we doing this? Everybody has a different reason—yet they’re all the same. We’re doing this to help our Mother. We’re doing this because we love the Earth. Did you hear that explosion just now, far away in the mountains? You might not have even noticed, but I notice it. I feel it in my body. It hurts me. People just go in there, and they do these things to the Mother, and they don’t stop and think; they’re just livin’ from their heads. They don’t allow their hearts to have any feelings about what they’re doing.
“Maybe it’s something that they really have to do. But if they just took some time before they did it, to put down some tobacco, make a prayer—talk to the Mother, tell her what they have to do, explain it to her, apologize—just explain it to her. That would help a lot.”
Another guy said, “You know, it’s kind of a man-woman thing. A lot of men treat women that way. If you talk nice to your woman, explain things to her, ask her permission for certain things, treat her with respect and with love, you’ll have a better relationship. That’s how we have to be with the Mother. Can’t just live from the head—gotta live from the heart.”
Another fellow says, “They put all those dams in the rivers. You know, it’s like the veins in your arm. You can’t go around putting little dams in your veins and think nothing bad is gonna happen. All those dams they put in for power—that hurts the Mother. Can’t just put in these dams without having consequences.”
Another Navajo fellow was talking about why he joined the march. “People think that the Navajo and the Hopi have always been enemies. But that’s not the case. They lived peaceably for a long time. The land between them was joint-use land.
“Then Peabody Coal Company came, and they wanted to mine the coal on the sacred mountain. They wanted to use some of that joint-use land, but they didn’t want to pay royalties to the Hopi and the Navajo, so they stirred up trouble.
“So then the government decided that this land belonged to the Hopi. My Grandmother had some land that was on the joint use land that was now Hopi land. The law, which was put in place by the Hopi Tribal Council, which was put in place by the US government—that law says she can’t build anything new on her land. She can’t add anything. Whose idea was that? In order to make repairs on an existing structure, she has to get permission from the Hopi Tribal Council.”
Another woman tells me, “There’s cattle on the land that was ours before. And the graves of our ancestors are there. They won’t let us go in. Over time, the bones of our ancestors are being exposed. We asked permission to go in where those graves are, to take care of them.
“So after years and years, we finally get permission to go in for one day, and we can’t take in any big tools, like shovels. So there we are with our hands, trying to cover up those bones."
There’s a whole contingent of Buddhists, including a number of people from Japan, and a Cuban fellow. Dennis Banks’s autobiography Sacred Soul was published in Japan in 1988 and won their 1988 Non-fiction Book of the Year Award, so Dennis is quite popular in Japan. Unfortunately, the book was never published in English. The Buddhists join different groups that are marching for peace, because they consider it a spiritual practice to walk for peace.
It’s 5:30 in the evening now, and the birds are chirping in the campground, on a college campus, while dinner is being prepared.
I was talking to one of the girls who had her ankle bound up, and I asked her how that happened. She said they always get permission before they come into a state, but sometimes they have to walk along the highway, and then they have to stay in the gutter. When they were coming down the mountain, the place they had to walk was uneven, so one foot was up high and one foot was down low.
She’d only been marching for a few days before that, so it was quite a strain on her ankle. She thinks she might have broken a tiny piece of bone in there. But she’s still marchin’. She told me, “At 3 in the morning someone goes around waking people up. At this campsite I’ll have to get out of my sleeping bag, walk a block down the road to the bathroom, stand in line, get washed up, walk back, pack up my sleeping bag and my tent, put on the clothes I washed last night (even if they’re still damp), get something to eat, and toss my gear into the supply truck before five o’clock, because if I don’t get it in there before five, I’m gonna have to carry it while I walk. That doesn’t really give me enough time to exercise before we go, so if I have a sprain or a strain, that’s just too bad.
“It’s good that we start at 5, because then we get to be out there walking as the sun comes up, and that’s a good way to start the day. This young Buddhist woman from California, who has been with us since the beginning—she’s about 22— keeps the drum going and it really helps when you’re power-walking, to have someone keeping pace with the drum. I talked to her and her shoulder gets really tired, carrying the drum.
But she’s happy. When she started the march, in San Francisco, she just had a drumstick—she didn’t have a drum. A lot of people on this walk don’t have much money. We were walking by this one lady’s house and she came running up with a drum, and she said, ‘I found this on the road in front of the house. I knew you guys were coming, and I thought: This must be for them. I’m gonna save it until they come.’ So now she has a drum to go with her drumstick! And one of the Native American fellows here is an artist. In the afternoons, he’s been working on painting that drum, real pretty, with feathers going in the four directions, and real nice block printing at the top that says, The Longest Walk."
The group walked 17 miles today. Usually they cover between 16 and 20 miles. After walking for about a week they will stop for 2 or 3 days to rest and play. Dennis Banks might give a talk, and people will come to visit. When they were in Asheville, they went kayaking on the river. But most days they walk. After 6-1/2 miles, they stop for breakfast. Then they walk for 6-1/2 more miles and stop for a short rest. Then they go as far as they have to walk that day, and by that time they're real hungry, so the bus will show up, and they’ll stop for an hour and set up and feed everybody right on the spot.
This is not a highly funded adventure. It’s a real shoestring affair. The big bus on the Northern Route broke down, and they didn’t have enough money to fix or replace it. But somehow they kept on going.
Every day people contribute money. Some come during the day and walk for awhile and give money. Some come to the campsite and hang out in the afternoon and the evening and give money. But it’s not much; $20 here, $40 there, some contributions of food or water. There’s a circle before dinner, and this one Japanese woman keeps track of the money, and she’ll tell the group what they gave, and sometimes people will applaud.
Another woman told me, “The sun comes up while we’re walking, and we keep a really fast pace, and it’s not easy. Especially when you’ve got a sprain, when your ligaments are stretched, or when you’ve got blisters . . . . but you just keep walkin’ through it, and eventually it takes care of itself. You just do what you have to do. When you make a commitment, you honor that commitment, and you do whatever it takes.
“This is the longest walk. There’ve been forced walks before, where Indians had to leave their homes and relocate. That’s when somebody else was forcing us. This time we’re making the choice; we’re honoring the Mother. And as we walk, our walk is a prayer.
I spoke with Kit, who is one of the runners. He has reddish hair, and he's Caucasian, from Kentucky. He looks like he's in really great shape, especially since I was told that he's 50. “The group comes in for lunch and that’s when the runners take off. We run in relays; most of the people who are walking at this point are also runners. So there are the real experienced runners, and we might run twenty miles, and if there’s an unknown, like we’re not sure how far it is to the camp, I ’ll take that part. I'm glad to do it. I like to be out there alone; I go into kind of an altered space sometimes. It’s a prayer. I always wanted to run across the whole country. I ran through Canada before.
“So every mile is covered by at least one of us. You might have one girl run for 6 miles, and then another girl meets her at the relay point and runs for 5, and then a boy runs for 10, and then one of the experienced runners goes for 20, and another experienced runner finishes it off. So one of the runners will cover every single mile."
One of the older guys has an artificial leg, and he’s decided to fast. It's about 23 days before completion. He plans to fast for 3 days, and eat for one day, and fast for 3 days, and eat for one day.
Everybody has to walk at least 6 miles every day, if they want to stay with the group. Except maybe the elders might take a little bit of an exception once in awhile.
I spoke with Margaret. She’s 60, and she walks right out in front! She carries a staff, and that staff has medicine bundles on it, that many women have given her. A woman might take a piece of red cloth, for example, and put tobacco in it, and make a prayer while she's wrapping that tobacco into the cloth, and then she ties it up, and ties it onto Margaret's staff.
One woman might have put intention for the healing of all the women who suffer from abuse, and another woman might put it for her family, where there’s so much alcohol, to recover from that; and another woman might put it for her children who are turning to drugs, that they might be healed.
So Margaret carries the staff for all the women, of every color. She told me that when she gets tired, she just reminds herself that she’s carrying the staff for all the women. When they went up the mountain, and it was steep, real steep, and it was snowing, and she was soo cold, and she was getting soo tired, and she just thought, “I don’t know if I can make it any longer. I don’t know if I can make it any longer. I don’t know if I can do this any more.”
Then she started singing, and her singing made her stronger. “Pretty soon, everyone in the whole line was singing, and we were all singing together, and the singing made us strong, and we walked right up that mountain.”
Later she was talking to the young people, and they told her, “Margaret, when you started singing, it gave me strength, and I was able to go up that mountain.”
Why do they do this? 20 miles is a long distance to walk in a day. Some people just spontaneously decide to join. They might be part Cherokee, or some other tribe. They might have always wanted to do something to honor the Mother, to honor their tribe, to honor the next seven generations (a lot of people talk about that), just for their voice to be heard; to be taken seriously.
One young fellow, he told me—he lives in Asheville and he works in construction at Cherokee—he’s part Cherokee himself. Just a few days ago his girlfriend brought him a flyer about the march, and he got excited about it, and the next day he joined the marc. Then he went back and he told his boss and his girlfriend and his roommate, “I want to join that March. There’s nothing in the world that’s more important to me than joining that March. I’ve gotta do it, even if I’m gonna lose my house, my job, my girlfriend.”
His girlfriend just told him, “Go! Do what you have to do. I’ll cover the rent.” His boss said, “Go! Do what you’ve gotta do. Your job will be waiting for you when you get back.”
He says, “I’m walkin’ for all of them. They’re my support.”
So many people feel like they’re walking for whole tribes of people, whole groups of people, that they’re supported by so many people.
I asked one woman, “If you get to Washington, DC, and someone puts a microphone in your hand, and you can say anything you wanted to the people of America, what would you say?”
She said, “I would ask people to become custodians of the earth. To take care of her; to treat her with love and respect. That’s why we were put here.”
See also http://www.longestwalk.org
Copyright Joy Gardner 2008
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