The Beat of a Drum
The drum is a common thing in my family. We have been making them for thousands of years, using anything we can. Usually, they're just wood and buffalo leather, but they're all special. They hold the spirit of the person who made it inside, and so the sounds are those of the maker.
And me, with my long, black hair is next in line for the responsibilities of being the tribe's music provider. Every night, the chief and the entire tribe sit around a fire, and we listen as the historian tells us stories about great people in time, those like Chief Sitting Bull, or of Chief Black Kettle of the Cheyenne.
The pictures of battles with the US Army or the Mohawks or Sioux dance across the nighttime skies with majestic grace. During these stories, the chiefs sits and smokes, sits and thinks about the next days.
What if, over the course of a few minutes, you saw the carnage of battle, the death and destruction? Then, imagine you saw a mother cradling a baby in her arms, keeping him or her warm and safe. What if you saw the enemy forcing their way into your camp, saw them take the woman and her child away, never again to be seen? And, all of this is accompanied by the drums being beat on like the heartbeats of the people you saw. What if you lived in constant fear of the possibility of attack, the possibility that, at any moment, you could be scalped by a Tomahawk? We always move around, everyday. All day we ride the horses until Chief Guarding Bear picks a suitable place close to a creek or river.
Who are my father and mother? They are not around. My father was a great warrior who inspired fear in the hearts of our enemies. He carried with him into battle, a great white bow with many arrows, a long-shafted spear, and a small wooden shield, decorated with a string of beads and the image of a hound. For he was Howling Wolf, and with his drum, he could rout 1000 men from the field of battle. Before him, horses bowed, and the sun turned it's face. He is gone now though, killed by a lone Apache scout from afar, pierced through the neck with an arrow. I see him now, sometimes, up above in the great battles that take place in the sky. Other times, I see him as I braid the string through the leather on a drum.
My mother? She was empty in the soul, did nothing but sit and criticize me in everything I did. She's gone too, crushed by the weight of a fallen horse and buried next to my father.
I don't know how Howling Wolf could ever love someone like Silent Feet, someone as critical as her. She's the one who first taught me the art of drum making though, and she learned it from her mother who learned it from her mother and so on and so forth until we reach the very first drum-makers of the Lakota Nation. And when the time comes, I will teach the art to my daughter, who will continue the tradition.
I am Ojilaka Tate, Young Wind, and I embody my father and mother, combining them into the sounds released by my drums. My father is the sound you hear when a drum is beat upon, and my mother is the force you feel on your body when the drum is hit. I bring pride to my parents, my tribe, and my nation when I say that I am a Lakota.