Kenekuk's prayer

Kenekuk was the last chief of the Vermillion River Kickapoo, who lived in unceded territory between the Wabash and Vermillion Rivers along what is now the Indiana- Illinois border. This is also where part of my family originates. Kenekuk was a prophet with great skills in oratory and negotation. He kept his people together in the face of increased military pressure and settler expansion through spiritual power and charisma and by adopting some aspects of the settler religion within which he maintained and revitalized the spiritual and cultural traditions of the Nations of the Northwest Confederacy. 

Kenekuk was not a war chief. He used political savvy and the newcomers own beliefs to provide a place for his people to live in their lands. He also did not shirk from conflict, lending shelter and aid to the Mesquakie (Fox) led by Blackhawk who returned to their traditional territory during what is called the Backhawk War.

By late 1835 and 1836 under threat of being  massacred by the U.S. military and mobs (militia) from local towns and facing the tremendous deprivation of winter, Kenekuk agreed to leave the Vermillion River territory and to move to reservations, first in present day Missouri and then in Kansas. One of the hundreds of trails of tears that mark our collective histories.

I wrote this poem in a moment of clarity and spiritual understanding; an understanding of the conflicted and ambivalent nature of the human condition. I found connection between the powerful and deeply moving dilemma faced by Kenekuk and his people, a dilemma also faced by hundreds of Nations on Turtle Island, and my own, much smaller yet not insignificant struggle to understand my own identity, my path in this life, and to comprehend the depth and breadth of human suffering and joy. From this internal struggle, I took Kenekuk as my spirit name to honour the spirit of this brilliant prophet. 

This is Kenekuk's prayer: 

we are human
we are native


divided skies
denied justice
hear the drum 
heartbeat call


the blood runs red
sun rises high
and the thunderbird screams
nanbush turns into salty rain


try to hide behind 
our fragile selves
made of clay
find sacred earth

the sand now slipping
through our fingers
swallows us whole
eventually


like the giant serpent ride
through dark tunnels
endless chasms sprial
downward

we search the walls
for purchase
and we grasp 
only soft sweet skin
in the fading dusk 
of our one day


finding some comfort
in the brush of a hand
and the smell of your hair


on this light we drift back
this moment might show us
eternity


and smell the sweetgrass
and cedar
the sage
and the tobacco
with which we heal
give thanks
and find 
forgiveness


forgive us our tiny souls
collective pin drops 
in the vast endlessness
of manitou and god


forgive us our ancestor
as we embrace you
your wisdom


forgive us our blindness
for we could not see:


we are human
we are native


--Keith Crowe
  Pimooteewin Learner and Teacher