Trafford Publishing: Eagle Song

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Eagle Song

by Lindley Stiles

317 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-0166; ISBN 1-55395-803-9; US$22.80, C$30.80, EUR19.80, £13.80

Caught between two worlds, a young boy must choose between the old and new to find his own song.

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about the book about the author sample excerpts or Table of Contents catalogue info

About the Book

A tribe of Mountain People who are believed to have been driven south from the Pacific Northwest by the ice flows are adopeted by the Navajo Nation in New Mexico. A boy rescues and nurses to health a bald eagle, considered to be the guardian of his type of Indians, for which he earns the name, Eagle Claw. he distinguishes himself by protecting his eagle patient against the attempt of Cheatum, an unpopular Indian trader, to steal the bird for his feathers to make a valuable head dress. Healing Henry, the Medicine Man of thse people tells the boy he has been selected by the Spirits to be his successor and urges him to go to school to learn all he can of scientific medicine to go with the accumulated medical wisdom of his race.
In the mission school, he learns that their goal is to assimilate all Indians to make them Christians and imitation white people. His goal of becoming a medicine man is ridiculed but he wins their support by becoming a star basket ball player. He learns to compare Indian mythology and what his race considers Christian mythology and the power of his Indian Spirits with that of the Christian God. His brilliance causes the Headmaster to offer to help Harry (his non-Indian name) to get scholarships to study to become a medical doctor - provided he will join the church.
At the school, Eagle Claw meets Dollie, also of the Mountain People, a cheer leader for the basket ball team. She teaches him the difference between Indian and white people's love to kiss. Believing in equality between men and women, as Mountain People do, she tells him she will be his partner, but not his possession, that she will share equally in family decisions, and will walk beside him rather than behind him as most women of the world do.
Bruce Brownwood, home from his first year at the University of New Mexico, volunteers to manage one of his father's Indian Trading Posts until a replacement can be found. In a year he learns the Navajo language, becomes interested in their culture and decides to devote his life to helping bring modern scientific medicine to help them. He establishes several run-ins with Cheetum who wants no competion in his Indian trading business. There Bruce meets Eagle Claw while helping to save the life of a Nacaho who has been given up for dead with acute Mastoiditis. Together they join efforts to combine scientific wisdom of medicine men. Bruce helps Eagle Claw to learn about the life of medical doctors so that he will know better whether he wants to understand the long journey to become the first Indian MD.
When Bruce's wife, Laura is near death and her white doctors have given up on her, Eagle Claw holds a Sing to ask the Indian Spirits to save her. The response to Eagle Claw's, now the Indian Medicine Man, pleasin the form of a ligtening and thunder storm. While Eagle Claw makes his pleas, Laura shows marked improvement. "Makes a believer out of one," Bruce tells her as they both give credit to the power of the Spirits along with that of their Christian God.
Ultimately, Eagle Claw faces the choice, to study to be an MD or to serve as the Medical Man for his tribe.
The book highlights contrasts and similarities between white and Indian cultures, traditions and religious beliefs and treatments. It exposes the ways Christian white people as well as so-called pagan Indians have lived in ignorance for centuries. It will bring both tears and laughter to readers.

About the Author

Dr. Lindley J. Stiles was born on a cattle ranch near where Tatum, NM now stands. There and on his father's ranches near Grants, Peublo Bonito and on the West Gallegos he grew up learning how to be a cowboy. When the Great Depression of the 1930's forced his father to trade his Hereford cattle for farm land, the cattle rancher-to-be managed to work his way through college and gradute school into a teaching career which led to his becoming a world class educator. Now listed in over 30 Who's Who Type biographical reference books he is famous the world over as a poet, author, lecturer annd the leading teacher educator of the 20th century.
Too many to list, his acedmic honors have included three honorary doctor's degrees, election to the Hall of Fame of the American Biographical Institute and the International Biographical Centre, in Cambridge, England, designating as one of the greatest minds of the 21st century by the ABI and a Living Legend by the IBC. His creation of the social wisdom, "The Best Should Teach" and his re-definition of teaching as the peeminent profession because it nourishes all others, is the basis for his classification as one of Founders of the 21st century by the IBC.
The author and editor of over 60 books and 400 professional articles, in his retirement years he has written about his early experiences with cowboys and Indians in which he considers his professional career was anchored. His skill as a writer, and keen insight into the lives of people, as well as his ability to make vivid episodes he depicts has caused critics to describe his Western Books as "jewels that shouldn't be missed."
More about Dr. Stiles can be found on the following websites:
International Biographical Centre The Best Should Teach
Illustrator Lori Musil is a native of Tuscan, Arizona, who currently resides in Cerrilos, NM. Her work in its fine detail attests to her love of horses and other animals. As a book illustrator and artist her creativity encompasses a wide range of artistic media that has been shown and sold throughout the world. This is the third of the author's books that she has illustrated.

Sample Excerpts or Table of Contents

Eagle Song

Contents
Acknowledgements
Author's Note
1. Trapped Bird
2. Child Doctor
3. Training of a Trader
4. To Haali
5. Uncle Sam in Captivity
6. Medicine Man's Apprentice
7. This is the Place
8. Navajo Stone Shapers
9. White Man's School
10. Lost Between Cultures
11. Eagle Claw Meets Bruce
12.Trader Takes a Wife
13. Dollie
14. Indian Welcome
15. Sport
16. Practicing Medicine Without A License
17. Courtship
18. Emergency Surgery
19. Eagle Claw At To Haali
20. Ancient Keepsakes
21. Faith In Myths
22. Eagle Claw At Shiprock
23. Call To The Spirits For Laura
24. The Choice
Glossary: Navajo Healing Herbs
Bibliography

Eagle Song

Author's Note
They called themselves, as did most other Indian Tribes, simply, ":THE PEOPLE." Some referred to them as "MOUNTAIN PEOPLE," because of where they lived. Others who had seen their homes spoke of them as "EAGLE PEOPLE." They were all these.
Dr. James Sanderson, noted anthropologist, theorized that they arrived in the mountain country of Southwestern United States from the Northwest, from Canada or perhaps Alaska. He speculated that during the ice age, these distinctly different looking people might have been cut off from their far-north homes by a glacial flow and forced southward to make a new life. This novel is about these mythical Eagle-Mountain People, their struggle to maintain their unique historical and cultural identities, within the traditional Navajo value system, and against the pressures of the evangelical white world.
Tall, slender and muscular builds, as well as sharp facial features distinguished them from the more stockily built and flat nosed types of the true Navajo tribe with whom they found a home. Over the centuries, their strict adherence to the taboo not to marry within their own kinship spawned a mixing of the bloodlines and cultural traditions that blurred their own tribal histories.
Yet, though officially considered Navajos, they thought of themselves as a sub-tribe with their own toms and traditions. As such, they struggled to maintain their unique Mountain People identity. For example, they participated in the ceremonial Sings by which the Navajos passed on the stories of their origins, religious beliefs, historical events, cultural attainments and medical healing knowledge. But they modified them to fit their own cultural memories and habits, and they held certain ceremonies of their own. Having descended from hunters, unlike Navajos, they had no taboos against bringing home animals they had killed or captured. Nor were their relationships between men and women the same. Mountain People were more progressive in matters of healing, spiritual beliefs, variety of work skills and aesthetic creations.
Another marked difference was their type of housing. Instead of the Navajo hogan, built with upright poles and rounded roofs, they built with shaped logs laid horizontally up to a height of about nine feet, with wooden floors and high sloping roofs covered with flattened boards to protect against the mountain snows. The Big House, where the parents and small children lived had a wooden front door, which faced the east, as did the Navajo hogans, but it also had a small rear door on the west end where evil spirits could be driven out by the sings inside. Over the front door was a wooden triangle made from poles with intricately carved designs to which was attached a large sculptured wooden Bald Eagle, the guardian bird of the tribe, which in itself suggests that they had migrated from the Pacific Northwest. The older children's houses and guesthouses, and even the sweat lodge, were of the same design, each with its smaller triangle and eagle over their eastern entrances.
The men of these mountain people were wood carvers, who readily adapted to work with silver in their present environment. The women, tall and slender like their men, were accorded special status. They were called "women" rather than squaws, a term both they and the Navajos considered a white man's insult. They shared more equally with their husbands' decisions about family and community life. And they had their own horses. Excellent weavers of blankets, they excelled, too, in making decorative clothing, pottery and leather goods. The use of fish designs suggested that their ancestors might have lived near the ocean. Whatever their original language may have been, it had been replaced by the unwritten Navajo of the area, although occasionally their dialect harked back to more ancient times. Unlike the Navajos into whose culture they had been adopted, they were descended from people who used bows and arrows and spears to hunt game, and perhaps fish.
Like their Navajo neighbors, their means of livelihood was raising sheep, goats, and cattle, as well as selling artistic creations in wood, stone, leather and silver. Horses were important as work and riding animals. They played a key role in helping to move the large timbers taken to build their houses and, in modern times, to drag or haul them to sawmills. This novel is also about the Indian Traders, licensed by the U. S. Government to serve the Nava- jos on, and near, the Reservation, and their efforts to merge modern scientific medical knowledge with the centuries-old healing wisdom of the medicine men to improve the health of all Mountain and Navajo people.
The time is during the early 1920's, extending through the years of the Great Depression of the 30's. Many of the events, such as the staging of Ceremonial Sings, the operation of Navajo Trading Posts, Indian Hospitals and Mission Schools, the creation of public day schools, the improvised amateur surgery, and the use of healing herbs have an actual historical base. They were either known to the author personally, or reported to him by relatives and friends who were either Navajo Indian Traders, teachers in the Mission and Day Schools or journalists and scholars of the period.
Dr. Lindley J. Stiles

-----
About midnight, they heard the sound of a coyote calling. It was the signal from a neighbor that a car had stopped over the hill and someone was approaching. The time seemed to drag. Finally, the guard dog growled quietly, restrained by Eagle Claw's hand on his collar. Then a dark shape appeared, not 20 feet from the cage. The figure and a second one were crouched low, crawling in a kind of duck walk toward the bird*s cage. Eagle Claw, put an arrow in his bow, raised quietly to an erect position behind the corner of the cage, pulled the string back as far as he could, aimed at the first figure and released the arrow.
"Ouch" the figure uttered in a loud whisper.
"Shusss," the other cautioned. "Something stung me on the arm. I think I have been shot, or snake bit. Hey, I'm bleeding!" Then, he said aloud, "It is an arrow. It is still stuck in my arm."
When Eagle Claw released his grip on the guard dog's collar to fire the arrow, it went into action immediately, beginning to bark loudly and jumping out to sink its teeth into one of the intruders. Carlton yelled out to Beecham. "Pull this arrow out of my arm and let's get out of here."
Beecham ignored his plea while trying to fight off the dog. When he got free, he grabbed Carlton who had managed to yank the arrow free with his good hand, and they started to run for their car.

-----
Henry raised his hand and pointed to the ch'ilayi (smoke hole) in the center of the roof of the room, cleared his throat and called out in his professional voice:
"Spirits of our ancestors, guardians of our health, keepers of the secrets of healing, join with us now as we plant the seeds of survival for our people. Let our thoughts be pure, our plans for the future, true."
The raised hand on which the man and the boy's eyes were fixed slowly swung downward and came to point directly at Eagle Claw. Then, Healing Henry spoke in a voice the boy had never heard from him before. It was like a low loud whisper, almost musical, commanding of attention:
"I come to make you part of me. Just as before your time, an older Medicine Man united me in his magic knowledge of healing, I now ask your permission to let me open your mind and heart to all I know so that in your time you may become the healer of our people. I am getting old. I feel my healing powers slipping away. You are young and growing stronger. Thus, the Spirits of the secrets of health have selected you to be my successor. If you accept this honor, the highest our Mountain people have to give, you will become my apprentice, my student, my helper, as you learn what you must know to heal our people."
They sat in silence for a time. Henry drew from his pocket a single licorice stick this time, twisted it in half, gave one part to Eagle Claw and kept one for himself.
"We will eat and think as one," he intoned. Put ill at ease, the boy chewed on his half of the piece of candy, while he sensed the meaning of the invitation to him to become an understudy in the magic medicine of The People.
"What makes you think I am the one?" he asked, "Why did you choose me when I am so young, so unproven?"
The old Medicine Man chewed on his licorice stick, swallowed, then said: "Ah, my boy, but I did not make the choice. The Spirits of all Medicine Healers who have gone before me made it. I am only the conduit of their choice, a role I am proud to serve. And, I genuinely approve of the Healing Spirit's selection."

-----
"Well, now, well now." The head master seemed to say everything twice. "Your teachers, and George here, tell me that you are a very smart lad who might just be able to achieve that goal. Those of us in the Mission Schools are looking for bright young men who might study medicine. I want to encourage you to become one of them. I want you to know that if you work hard here, I can get you a scholarship to the Menaul High School in Albuquerque. Do well there and the University of New Mexico would give you a scholarship for college, and then we will work to find you one for a Medical School. Just think, just think, you could be the first Navajo to become a licensed M. D. That stands for medical doctor. It would be great for this school if you did."
George nudged Harry to say something.
"Thank you," he said. "That is something to think about. I'll try to do well in my studies, but right now I guess I am more interesting in making the basketball team next year," he added.
"Good, good." I hope you do. I want our team to win the Mission League Championship. You help us do that and I will help you to become a doctor," the Headmaster said as he got out of his chair and extended his hand to Harry as if to seal the agreement. As he held on to Harry's hand, he looked him squarely in the eye and said, "One more thing, yes, one more thing, Harry. It would help a lot if you would join our church. People with money don't like to give scholarships to Pagan Indians, you know."
Harry tried to withdraw his hand but found it griped firmly.
"Think about it, think about it," Patterson said as he patted Harry on the shoulder with his left hand. *Being a good church member can open many doors for a young man of your ability. Yes sir, yes sir, many doors, many doors! Become a Christian and God will give you many blessings, yes, many blessings. Ah yes, ah yes, like sending you to medical school. He leered at Harry, and then looked at George. "Eh, George? Eh, George?"
George just nodded his head and started pushing Harry toward the door.
As they left the Headmaster's office, Harry looked at George and started to ask...
"Yeah, yeah, of course I did; of course I did." George answered before the question was asked, falling into the Headmaster's double speak. "That is the way the system works. I needed a job and they needed a convert."
"Will I have to join their church to play on the basketball team?" Harry asked.
"Naw," George assured him, "You are too good a player, and the Headmaster wants too much to win. Coach can play all the Pagans and sinners he wants as long as he has a winning team."

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