Men

Men


Years ago when I was in my fervent twenties I stood
with Leslie Silko, the Laguna Pueblo novelist,
outside her Tucson home while she tenderly watered a garden
she had fortressed against predators.

That morning I asked her why her protagonists,
or main characters were mostly male.
Tayo in her novel Ceremony was male,
as were many of the characters in her short stories.
Leslie responded thoughtfully.
She has never been one short on words,
yet her response stays with me all of these is years:
“because males are more vulnerable”.

That our men are more vulnerable made sense to me,
especially our native men. It’s difficult enough to be human,
and hard being Indian within a world in which you are viewed
either as history, entertainment, or victims.
Our males are as sensitive as the women,
and carry gifts forward that have difficulty finding a place
in a world that does not honor them.
It’s not an impossible test, but it wears away at the spirit.

“Our men” is often a major topic of discussion among women.
We must bear up with them, support them, and stand firm when
they fail and want to take us down with them, yet continue
to help raise them up. Without our brothers, fathers, uncles,
grandfathers we are people without a rudder.

Men are under immense pressure in this system to disrespect
their mothers, sisters, aunts, and to disregard the gifts
of women and female power. We need both male and female power
to create anything in this realm. We need both the Sun
and the Moon. We are earth and water, just as we are fire
and breath. We are each evidence of male and female power,
all the way back to the very beginning.

I remember when growing up in Oklahoma that the worst thing
one boy could call another was a “girl” or a “woman”.
And why is that? To disrespect women
you disrespect your mother,
your own source of life.


Joy Harjo June 2007