What about the wisdom of the elders? Isn’t that something we are supposed to have in order to guide us in tough times? I think of the Native Americans (of course I can only think of them through the movies I have seen, the books I have read, and the few reservations or ghettos I have passed through in the Midwest), of the wisdom of the leader, the oldest man sitting by the fire, or in the tent puffing a pipe with his fellow old men who interpret the law with memories of precedent, grand historical knowledge, the experience of the group literally is stored in their heads. They are given the greatest respect from the tribe, as the fountain of experience and knowledge. Our elders are put into what we can affably call ‘homes.’ Look at the current housing problem: 30% of the populace at risk of losing their houses are over the age of 50, in a mortgage that they can’t afford.* (NY Times 10/18) It is not just that these people were greedy, it is also that they were pressured into finding the ‘American Dream’ a larger house followed by an even larger one, that their family had split and splintered so that the kids and grandkids were all also searching for their own individual said “dream.” And that they were often disrespected by the mortgage agents as to the exact details of the fluctuations in the lending agreement. All of these issues fly in the face of the functioning family unit of the Native American, but are core the non-native’s “American Dream.” Maybe the wisdom got drained out somewhere, or maybe the wisdom is in the telling, and if there is no one to tell it to, no one to listen, it just sort of fizzes and pop’s out of our grandparents’ mouths in the middle of the night.
