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Sunday I had just gotten out of work and my dad called and told me he had an extra ticket to some small concert featuring traditional Native American music. Now I'm into that kind of stuff. I had never been to a Native American "concert" but I figured it was all the more reason to check it out. It'd be a nice experience. I got ready and my dad picked me up. He lives apart, I'll explain that too in another entry.
When we got there, I saw Julie who's a coworker with my dad at the court. My fathers an investigator for the court of Waterbury but sometimes gets called to other cities too. Julie is a social worker for the same court and I've known her since I was very very little. Shes a family friend. Anyway, I saw her there and some other people. There was a few tables in front of a small old book store. Apparently it used to be a used-book bookstore, but as time went on it turned into a small theater arts place for people to play music, read poetry, etc. Small artistic hub, or what ever you wanna call it. Anyway, at the tables they had some small raffles which Julie was managing. We talked to her for a bit, then gave the ticket guy our tickets and we went in.
The building was small. When you enter its a real short hallway then to my left was another table facing the front wall of the store. There was a small area there with a couch and people talking. On the table was food for sale like cakes and drinks. To the right was the small room where the Indians would be performing. It was a bunch of foldout chairs for the audiance and at the front was a microphone with a wooden chair with green leather seat and back part in front of it. Odds are this is where the Indian will sit. To the right of the chair facing the audience was a small round table with a few lit candles and a small tray with some ashy looking sticks. We got there a bit early so a half hour after we arrived, this old Indian man took the "stage" and began.
We started with an old prayer. They had everyone stand up. The old Indian man, I think his name was David, his, I THINK, brother named, once again I THINK, Joseph, and his wife were up front. I don't know the wife's name. David stood in front of the mic and Joseph stood by the table on the other side holding an old style Indian drum and the drum stick. The drum looked like a cookie, white, which you hold with one hand, and the drum stick had a thick cloth at the end. Very traditional. Anyway we stand up to do the "silent prayer" and Joseph yells some words while beating the drum. I almost laughed cause it was so random but wasn't so funny as it progressed. On top of that I didn't want to seem disrespectful to their beliefs. During the prayer, he "smudged" the air with this small weave of ashy looking sticks which were lit on fire just enough to let off a smoke. I remembered my mom doing this for the house once. It's supposed to be for removing negative energies in the home and cleansing the atmosphere. The smell was odd but nothing too out of the ordinary to me. After the prayer, we sat down and David told a story of his spiritual journey.
He explained when he was a young man, while sort of addressing me with his hand as he spoke, he was always up to no good. Wasn't very Indian-like and didn't know anything really of his past. And something happened where he was working and took a quick rest. When he rested, he stared up at the ceiling and the ceiling began to fade and he could see right through the ceiling into the sky. In the sky was a dark gray cloud. Out of the cloud were I believe three Indians on horses. One white, one red, and one black. The men I think looked down to him, then turned around and walked away. As they did, the ceiling faded back to normal and soon he couldn't see outside anymore. He ran out the building and looked into the sky and saw the same gray cloud. After this he was freaking out, "And I wasn't smoking anything that day" he added.Some time went by and he wasn't sure what to do and was still freaking out, close to going to a psychotherapist.
I don't remember all the details seeing as it was an hour long, but a relative told him he could help him and he went through some pretty strange quests to fix this problem. He had to create some kind of stone in four days and accomplished the test. Then the relative took him to the middle of no where and put him in a pit with "sage" on the floor. I'm not sure what sage is or what it looks like but.. it was on the floor. He got in and the relative bent some sticks over to make a small hut-like roof and places a bunch of blankets and a tarp over. It was pitch black in the hut and he was told to stay there for four days. He was skeptic and wondering "why?" and "wtf" throughout the whole thing but figured he wanted to be cured so he went for it. After getting in, his relative left and he stood in there in the dark holding the stone he had created. He was ordered not to ever let go of the stone no matter what.
Soon after, weird things began to happen. A voice ordered him, "Follow my heels". He saw these two lights on the floor and he followed it and from there on he went through a real crazy (by crazy I mean it in a positive way. Whether I believe in their beliefs or not, it was still very interesting as he described everything) things happened. The stone pulled him to different places, weird colors, etc. Things I remember were him saying were him following a bright light, like the one you apparently see when dying, which became huge and turned out to be the moon. When he turned around, he saw the Earth. He began to fall towards the earth and landed in some desert like area. The sky was a sort of grayish red.
Then the scenery he saw in front of him, split in two down the middle. To the right, everything was red, to the left everything was blue. The colors minimized into two stones and floated in front of him. One red and one blue. The stones began to spin around each other faster and faster and shot into the sky and turned into a star. The star then fell straight down to him and into his mouth. He began to choke before swallowing it. And I'm not sure who told him, but someone told him that he had learned all that is needed to know in this world. His relative was outside the hut to get him and four days had passed. He then went to some place where other relatives of him were and they placed him in a tepee. In front of him sat I think four elders of his family and asked him to tell them what had happened. He explained and they asked him to leave. Not in a "good, that's what you were suppose to see" but in a "I see. Thank you." way. Which he found kinf of funny cause he thought "They could've been using me as a guinea pig to find out what happens and had no idea what would have happened".
SO. After the story, he left and we had a small intermission. When we returned, there was a third Indian man in the room with a set of wooden flutes he made. He played for about 45 minutes different songs with different stories. Some were just flutes, others were drums and he sang. I'll admit I did like a good few of them. There was this wooden flute he also made called the Drone. It's like two flutes side by side with one mouth piece.
So yea. At the end, we left and I went straight to bed seeing as I had to work the next day at 6. So 5am wake up for me and it was almost 10! It was an interesting experience. I had fun. So yea that's my entry on some Native American Concert I went to on Sunday.
 Reyu` · Tue Sep 22, 2009 @ 10:37pm · 3 Comments |
