How the Peace Drum Came to the People As told by Tamarack Song When I was young, our Elders told us stories about when Buffalo ran free over the Prairie. As the Old Ones spoke, I had visions of great brown hump-shouldered animals, as abundant as the Prairie Flowers, moving in endless waves upon a sea of grass. This was a time of plenty and contentment for our People—what we called the Blessing Way. Brother Buffalo gifted us with all our needs—skin and fur for shelter and clothing, sweet meat and rich fat for nourishment, and bones and teeth for tools. We never had to worry about feeding our Children or providing comfort for our Elders. Our life has changed since then. The Old Ones said it began one morning when an Elderwoman named Holds the Willow woke up agitated from a dream. She called her camp together, and here is what she said. "My Sisters and Brothers, I must tell you about this time from which I just returned. I was in this valley, beside our River, but much had changed. Buffalo was no more, and the howl of Wolf no longer pierced the night. A new people who we called the No-hearts had come to the valley. There was no longer enough food, even when our bellies were full and we had ample provisions for the coming Snows. Goods were piled high upon one another until there was no more room, and still we wanted more. We were living in peace, yet we were not content. "It was not the diseases of the No-heart People that did this to us, because we were strong in spirit and we rose again. Nor was it their great weapons, because—even though our bodies fell—our spirits lived on and we rose again. It was the No-heart's Greed that conquered us. "I watched the Greed infect us. First it killed our ability to reason, and then it killed our hearts. It blinded us to the misery we were causing—we could not hear those who were crying out in pain. We grew numb to everything except what fed our greed. It was an addiction that made us crazy when we fed it, and crazy when we didn't. It took only a few winters for the Greed to conquer us. "The Blessing Way that we had known all our days as a People had become the way of scarcity. The continual waves of abundance that once came flooding over our Hills were replaced with the stagnant murky haze of Greed. "There my dream ended. "Before I awoke, I heard a voice that said, ‘After you give this dream to your people, give them also this message; "Watch Sister Wolf, because she follows and hunts Brother Buffalo just as we do. As goes the fate of Wolf, so goes ours." "Aho" And so it came to pass. The Old Ones told us that the Greed first sent scouts, just a few missionaries and traders, who then left. They were men of good heart, yet they were infected with the narrowness of the time. Not long after they left, just as foretold in the terrible dream of Holds the Willow, the Greed rumbled over the Prairie just as Buffalo once did. No longer were the Greedmongers content with our souls and our furs, they now wanted to use our Women and take our Children. Soon not even that contented them—they wanted to take from us our way of life. The Old Ones told us stories about how we rose in defense of all we knew, of how we rose in defense of Sister Wolf. They said the War Chiefs would come to the mothers and ask for their sons. Four times they came to one called Rising Cloud Woman. Four times she gave them a son. They came a fifth time. "I am honored that you have come to me so that I might have the privilege of again serving my People," she replied. "I have given birth to four sons and they have each become brave Guardians of our People and of our Way. Four times they have been brought back, for me to prepare them to be laid high on the Scaffold of the Dead overlooking the sweet Prairie that gave them life. Now I must tell you that I have no more sons, no more of my flesh and blood, to give." The Old Ones said that soon another wave of Greed came storming over the hills down upon their camp. Lodges were set ablaze, Women were carried off and Children and Dogs were hacked to death. Many Elders were spared, perhaps because they were no threat. Neither were they of value; all that seemed to matter to the Greedmongers was what would feed their greed. In the middle of it all, Rising Cloud Woman heard a voice that called her down to the River. She ran through the mayhem and dove into the Water, hiding under the Lily pads. Taking a hollow reed to breathe through, she lay there for four days. At the end of the fourth day, all was quiet but for the wails of the mourners. Scaffolds covered the hilltop like flies upon a carcass, and the wounded lay about in silent misery. With charcoal-scored faces and clothing ripped in grief, Old Ones sat on the Bank staring blankly out over the River. There before them a woman rose up from under the Water. They were not startled; it was as though they had been waiting for someone. They recognized her, and yet she was not the same person they had known. Her hair, which had been black as Raven, was now the color of the Clouds that rolled over the Prairie. And her eyes—her deep, dark eyes—had a faraway look that spoke of something otherworldly. They helped her out of the Water and lay her on the warm sand. After a while she sat up and spoke these words. "My honored Elders. I feel like I have been gone for a long, long time. I have changed, our world has changed, and I was told that we must change with it. I am just returned from the land of the Ancestors. They asked that we remember the prophecy of Holds the Willow that we had heard retold long ago by the Elders in the Storytelling Lodge. "‘Sister Wolf is gone,' the Ancestors said. ‘You cannot stop the Greed. It will be there throughout your lifetime, and it will be there even in the time of your Children's Children to the seventh generation. If you continue to meet the Greed with Greed for the Old Way, you might well perish as a People. However, if you were to let the waves of Greed pass over you like Wind does over Grass, you could rise again like Grass after a Storm. In this way there may be Buffalo People to greet Brother Buffalo when he returns.' " "That made no sense to me," said Rising Cloud Woman, "because we had always defended ourselves. I felt a cloud of confusion drift over my face. My four sons died honorably while protecting the People; that is our way—the way of the Warrior! My confusion turned into a stormcloud of anger, which furrowed my brow. "I feared that my anger might dishonor the Grandfathers, yet all I saw in their eyes was kindness and understanding. They responded with this story. "‘Imagine if we were to build a dam to stop the flow of a River. A great wall of water would build up behind our dam and it would eventually burst in an angry rage, destroying everything before it. In order to truly stop the flow of the River we would have to destroy it. ‘Such is the way with Greed. You cannot stop it, you cannot destroy it, yet it can destroy you. And it is. When force is met with force, there are no winners.' "I listened," said Rising Cloud Woman, "and I understood, because their truth sang to my heart. "On the second day the Grandfathers began teaching me how to make a Drum. They asked me to hold the vision of that Drum, and to remember how it was made and all the words that were told during the making. They said that I was to pass them on to you as soon as I returned, and that you would know what to do with them. "We first prepared by Smudging ourselves. And then we readied the hide of a young Buffalo who came to us to give herself to the Drum. Next we cut a section from the great hollow trunk of a fallen Elder Cottonwood." "We do not make Drums from the great Cottonwoods," commented an Elderwoman. "A Drum that large would have to be played by many at once, and we have never seen that done." "Yes Grandmother," replied Rising Cloud Woman. "As different as this Drum seemed, it yet felt as though it was going to be a Drum of our People. We gathered the materials in our traditional way, by giving Offerings and expressing our gratitude to our Buffalo and Cottonwood Relations. And then we blessed Drum in ceremony by laying it upon another Drum, and by playing the Drums side-by-side. "After the Drum Blessing, the Grandfathers gave me this guidance. ‘This Drum is called Peacebringer and he wishes to dwell in the center of your camp. When the next great wave of Greed comes down over the Hills, ask your Guardians to grab drumsticks instead of weapons, run to Peacebringer, and play the old chants. The Guardians are the ones to play Peacebringer because it is the Guardians who fight. The women and children shall gather and dance around the Guardians. When the No-hearts descend upon your camp, they will meet no resistance. They will find the whole camp gathered around Peacebringer and it will make no sense to them. Seeing that the camp is no threat to their ways, they will leave you alone.' "The Ancestors then asked that, after we have made our Peacebringer, we make another and Gift it to the camp up the River. We are to show the women how to prepare the Buffalo hides for drumheads, and show the men how to fashion the great Drum bodies from their Trees. They in turn will do the same for the next camp. In this way, the Grandfathers said, Peacebringer will come to all the People and that will help the People survive to carry on the Traditional Way. "The Grandfather's final words to me were as follows. ‘Some of the children of the Greedmongers will hear the song of their hearts and come to you. Welcome them and have them join you around Peacebringer. Together you can keep the Old Ways alive; together you can Drum and Dance the Circle back to Balance. ‘In time the Greed will consume itself, the Prairie will grow lush again with Wolf pups rolling in the grass and Hawks soaring on the wind, and you will again follow Buffalo, as has been our way since the dawn of our kind.' " "Aho." Origin This legend was given to me along with the honor of being Drumkeeper for a community I once belonged to. We received our Peacebringer from Menominee Drum Chief Wallace Pyawasit. Peacebringer came first to the Dakota (Sioux), sometime in the 1800s. At that time the Great Plains Natives were not only in deep conflict with the Greedmongers, they were also at war with each other and with the Forest Natives (mainly Ojibwa) to the east. They were all being pushed into each other by encroaching civilization. From the land of the Dakota, Peacebringer and her message spread from People to People in all directions. Religious societies have evolved around Peacebringer, and today Peacebringer serves mainly as the Powwow Social Drum. Along the way began a tradition of abstaining from alcohol and other alterants before sitting around Peacebringer. The time of abstinence can vary with tribe or group; I know of traditions that range from one to four days. In this day another tradition is evolving—that women as well as men may drum Peacebringer. Men and women are warring between themselves, and neither are at peace with Earth Mother, so both need to sit together around Peacebringer and again feel The Mother's heartbeat