The image of two disfigured squaws. Their life is a horrible wound. Punishment for infidelity;cutting off the tips of their noses.
Punishment of two squaws for infidelity: disfigurment; cutting off the tips of their noses.
~~~~~~By SAGE~SWEETWATER~~~~~~
...The image of two disfigured squaws. Their life is a horrible wound.
...Goodwill is essential to the squaws' survival; to provide meals, moccasins, and blankets for the squaws.
...Generosity is expected of everyone ... except being generous to unfaithful squaws ... a hunter bringing meat to old people .. a woman making clothing for an orphan ... but no speech around the council fire for unfaithful squaws.
...If a squaw is unfaithful, she breaks her flow of power and diminishes her chances of a prosperous future. These two squaws are strong women, braver than most.
...One can look at it as mutual surrender if they want to, or more befitting, one can look at it at the price of infidelity and see the bloody knife in the cutting man's hand told them where to move.
...Human tenderness softens this scene. The squaws are welcome here at the sense of someone else's sense of beauty. Now they have baskets filled with wild onions, greens, and berries.
...Wisdom, character, and experience should show on a face, but not infidelity. I perceive what goodness I see. Civilization has not taught me anything better. I tell a doctor who enlisted to help the Indians and had awareness of a savage civilization.
...The moose has the keenest nose in the forest. You and I do not have to answer for another man's crimes, but we can do right by them. Human tenderness softens this scene. I have two canoes filled with trade. You are welcome to all of it.
..."Find me a pig then," the doctor said. Fixing the squaws' noses is a serious surgical operation. Pigskin resembles human skin more closely than any other animal.
...In late March, I set out to find someone who had a pig to trade. Nearing the settlement of the governor, I looked upon the governor's cook taking a skillet of "odious" bacon down the riverbank, the governor regarding bacon as "vile and unfit for human consumption," instructing the cook to replace the pork with mutton. "Filthy pigs!" he yelled. "Take them. I have no need for filthy pigs! No good for nothing filthy pigs!"
...I think the mollycoddled governor might not think pigs are good for nothing if he needed some skin grafted. I think to hell with the best food in the world! I believe all enter the world soft and pliable and have to be hardened to achieve maturity. The governor in my eyes is still raw dough. Let the spoiled bastard sleep on the cold, hard ground. That'll harden his sheep meat. Seeing the governor resting in his hammock next to his sheepskins, this is one of the times I don't step forward with a welcoming word.
...After sugaring season, noses anew and healed, free from physical blemish, the two squaws no longer pine to rejoin society. They live happily together, avoiding at all costs sexual entanglement with men, in a welcoming white settlement at Red Wing, taking their proud places as cooks, hide dressers, buckskin skirt makers, and midwives...
This story brings up many interesting perspectives...I like how you go back and forth not really crediting, nor discrediting...giving possible reasons for whatevers and suches amid life...so very you!
I don't know why?...but for some odd reason, I saw this nun back in my grade school classroom, catching me chewing gum. She made me put it on the tip of my nose as punishment for all to see, Kimmy broke the rules!
Could this be, we might have been sitting next to each other? HA!
Love and Peace~
Kimmy~
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