Caleb Fox

Sarita and I live in Navajoland, and the clash of two cultures is worth a grin sometimes. Here's a report of a recent event:

Michele bustled into an exam room. Since Navajo Health is not Cedars of Lebanon, she’s not a doctor but a physician’s assistant. She’s blonde, big of hip and bosom, undeniably cute, and unstoppable as a HumVee.

An elderly Navajo lady huddled in a chair opposite, dressed traditionally in velveteen skirt, turquoise bracelets and necklace, head scarf, and jacket. (For whatever reason, even in August at a temperature of 102, there’s always the jacket.) As Michele opened her mouth to ask what the problem was, a stink bug skittered across the floor between them.

Michele raised her foot to stomp it. The old lady was quicker. She snatched the bug up and popped it into her mouth.

Michele kept her voice down to a low scream. “What are you doing?” She reached, but the old lady averted her head.

“Get that thing out of there.”

The old lady said, “Mmphphssrrhhss.”

Michele tried to pry the mouth open, but the old lady clamped her teeth tight.

Michele fingered. The old lady said, mushing her words out around the bug, “These things heal mouth sores.”

Michele babbled. The old lady froze her mouth closed and glared.

Michele left and sent a nurse in to perform the bugectomy.

Soon the old lady trundled down the hall toward the waiting room and the front door. Michele looked at the nurse but thought better of asking about the insect.

“Respect for tradition,” said the nurse.

Michele sighed.

David Seals, the author of POWWOW HIGHWAY and the new SWEET MEDICINE, is disseminating this e-mail widely:

El Capitan Medicine Wheel
New Mexico

We're up about 8 miles above the village of Arabela on el Capitan Peak
- 50 miles west of Roswell - where there's a Kiva inside a huge circle
of a Medicine Wheel. The Archaeologist from U. Arizona with us says
it's about 1,000 years old of the Anasazi period.

I stumbled on the tiny 'blow-hole' covered with brush and hidden in
trees, and felt the cold air blowing up from somewhere, in and out,
like the Earth breathing, very similar to a blowhole at Wuptaki ruins
near our home in Flagstaff.

We were able to crawl down in the open hole to the side, like a cave,
or an ancient kiva. And there It was, in the middle. "It's alive,"
local Mescalero Apache elder Tommy Veneno said. Thre was a black
cylinder about 3 feet high and oval, with strange old markings on it.
To the touch it felt like tissues to me, very hard but also soft -
like the 1947 witnesses described debris found near a UFO crash. He
called it a "Pod".

We have a Navajo film crew with us, so it's all being recorded, after
we got permission in ceremonies last night from the Spirits, and
they've measured the rough Wheel, which is huge, with the Kiva dead
center.

This is the exact spot 1947 witnesses saw Ships flying, and my father,
a AAF pilot at the time, also had a UFO
sighting.www.abductionatroswell.com

I informed the white folks in town, where the current UFO Festival is
going on, but they don't seem interested in coming out and seeing it!
Maybe because it's only Indians? They just want to have their cartoon
commerce in Roswell, and aren't really interested in what the Mystery
is all about, or at least not taking a hike up on the Sacred Mountain.

More Skins are coming in today, and we've marked it with red flags so
people can follow the rough deer trail. Bring plenty of food, but
there's a sweet Spring also here with water coming out of the ground.
There's also very interesting burn marks on the rocks of the Wheel,
like a landing or launching site.

I'm scheduled to go into town tomorrow and talk to the Festival, with
the Navajo footage, which should blow them away.


NOTE: The Festival fathers refused to allow the Navajo footage to be shown, so Seals canceled his speech.

Why do we read fantasy? Why don't we stick with realists like Steinbeck and Hemingway? Or limit ourselves to non-fiction?

Sunoya, the medicine woman of ZADAYI RED, has a spirit animal as a guide. If you had a spirit animal, what would yours be? Mine's a wolf.

I'm reading MISTS OF AVALON for the first time, I'm embarrassed to say. It's great, a complex world visid with feeling, rendered in beautiful language.