To tell, to hear, to learn (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

Posted on Sun, Jun. 18, 2006

To tell, to hear, to learn
Storytellers keep heritage alive

BY CHRISTINA M. WOODS
The Wichita Eagle
http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/nation/14844843.htm

Vernon "Cy" Ahtone tells stories of pride, history and struggle, through
polar bears, alligators and monkeys.

An elder in Wichita's American Indian community and a well-known
storyteller, Ahtone clings to his Kiowa heritage by telling stories and
speaking the language of his people.

Ahtone's stories chart his life. And after he dies, they will be his
legacy.

What's in a name

Ahtone was born Jan. 11, 1949 in Carnegie, Okla. About three months
after his birth, Ahtone met his great-grandfather.

My father took me to meet his grandfather, who was on his deathbed. He
lived about a mile and a half away. Winter lingered and the weather was
bad. We walked across the creek. When we got there my father said, "Look
Grandpa, here's my son." My great-grandfather, who is blind, reached up
from his bed and touched me on the head, on the chest and on the legs.

My great-grandfather gave his approval, saying, "Someday he's going to
be grown and he will make you proud. But why did you bring him here in
this kind of weather? Besides that, I have nothing to give him.

"I have nothing to give him but my name."

Ahtone.

It means "small water." For a while the name was lost -- replaced with
"Samuel" -- in the early 1900s when his great-grandfather attended
Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania.

"The proudest thing I have is that name because that old man gave it to
me," he said.

Ahtone is the first-born son of eight siblings and the first-born
grandson of his family. His grandparents raised him from his infancy to
midteen years to teach him his heritage, according to Kiowa tradition.

When Ahtone's son, Vernon, was a preteen, he was sent to Carnegie to
live with Ahtone's father.

The tradition continued.

And Ahtone moved to Wichita in the early 1980s to raise his first
grandson, Claiborne.

More than just stories

Members of the more than 86 tribes that make up Wichita's American
Indian community recognize the power in storytelling.

"Stories tell more about personal histories than anything else will,"
said Ahtone,

Stories vary by tribe, said Betty Nixon, also a Kiowa and elder in the
community. There are about 189 Kiowas in Wichita, according to the U.S.
Census.

"We all weren't raised the same way," she said. "Our traditions are
different. Our beliefs are different."

For Rose Grant, of the Otoe tribe, stories take root and help preserve
the core of their people.

"Everything was taken from us," she said. "We don't have the buffalo,
but we still have our native ways that the Creator has given us."

A single phrase, "To tell the truth," helped Lance Lone Bear learn more
about his Apache heritage.

Honesty, Lone Bear said, is emphasized among Apaches. That's why his
grandfather began each of his stories by saying, "To tell the truth."

Now Lone Bear does the same.

Those four words --"to tell the truth" -- resurrect childhood memories
of strolling through the Arizona mountains with his grandfather,
looking for arrowheads, learning the ways of Apaches and their emphasis
on truth telling, Lone Bear said.

"Life is a lot easier," he said, "with truth."

Everyone has a story to tell, said Eugene Cameron, of the Southern Ponca
Tribe of Oklahoma City.

"You have a story from your family that represents your family, your
culture, your traditions, who you are," said Cameron, whose stories are
about animals such as bears, buffaloes and eagles. "They help share how
we relate to one another within the society whatever culture that is."

Lost culture

Hearing stories and telling stories are different, according to Ahtone.

"I love hearing their stories," he said of others' tales. "But I have no
right to tell them because they're not my stories."

His personal story is one of resolve.

Ahtone said that while growing up in Oklahoma, teachers would reprimand
students caught speaking Kiowa. Repeated verbal reprimands gave way to
three licks with a paddle.

"Now I hear people say, 'Oh, your language is important. You should
teach it,' " Ahtone said in a hushed voice. "But back then, they tried
to beat it out of me."

His voice grows louder.

"They tried to beat my Kiowa out of me," he said. "But they didn't do
it. They weren't able to."

He fears Kiowas will end up as African-Americans, many of whom have no
knowledge about their people, their tribes, their African homeland.

For Ahtone, there's hope.

He speaks sentences in his native tongue, foreign to an ear accustomed
to English but stirring to the heart.

"When I can no longer do that, I'm just a dark-skinned man walking
around here," he whispers. "And then that assimilation process has done
its job."

Ahtone refuses to let go of the heritage that took root in him through
stories.

There is authenticity in traditions -- and language.

"Things sound so much better, you can express yourself so much more
fully, stories are more exciting, jokes are funnier -- when you tell
them in their original language."

Legacy of knowledge

His 16-year-old granddaughter, Leah Pherigo, tags along to his speaking
engagements. Sometimes she wears her regalia, a dress in deep hues,
with beadwork and feathers.

She listens to her grandfather's stories so that one day she'll be able
to pass them down.

"I'll have stories to tell people, too," she said.

Stories of the white bear (polar bear), the little tree men with tails
(monkeys) and the water dragons (alligators) track the Kiowas' paths
through North, Central and South America.

It's through those stories that Ahtone plans to live forever.

When Ahtone's grandchildren tell their grandchildren his stories, "I'm
going to come back alive."

"I have no money. I have no property. I have nothing of value that I can
leave for anybody," he said. "My legacy is going to be what little
knowledge I have. I pass that on through the stories I tell."

Reach Christina M. Woods at 316- 269-6791 or cwoods at wichitaeagle.com.