Duane Niatum’s “Crow’s sun” is the tenth story of fourteen in the anthology, Great short stories by contemporary Native American writers, and moves us into the 1990s, where we will remain for the next two stories before ending up in the early 2000s.
Duane Niatum
Anthology editor Bob Blaisdell provides more information about Niatum than he does for some of the writers, but I am supplementing that with information from Wikipedia and the Poetry Foundation. Variously described as a poet, fiction writer, playwright, essayist and editor, Niatum was born in 1938 in Seattle, Washington, to a Klallam (Salish) mother and Italian-American father. After his parents divorced when he was just 4, he spent a lot of time with his maternal Klallam grandfather, from whom he learnt tribal ways and oral traditions. He is an enrolled member of the Klallam Tribe (Jamestown Band).
At 17, Niatum enlisted in the United States Navy, and served in Japan. On leaving the Navy, he did his B.A. in English, at the University of Washington, studying with poets, Theodore Roethke and Elizabeth Bishop. He then earned his M.A. at Johns Hopkins University, and a Ph.D. in American culture from the University of Michigan.
Poetry was his main love, it seems. Wikipedia states that he “established himself as one of the most influential promoters of Native American poetry”. He edited a Native American author series at Harper & Row Publishers, producing two “influential anthologies”. He has published essays on Native American literature, and his poetry has been translated into many languages.
The Poetry Foundation says that his “writing is deeply connected with the Northwest coast landscape, its mountains, forests, water and creatures” and that “the legends and traditions of his ancestors help shape and animate his poetry”. However, it is a short story, of course, that Blaisdell has chosen for his anthology.
“Crow’s sun”
I’ve now read a couple of Niatum’s poems at Poetry Foundation, but none that specifically illuminate this story. “Crow’s sun” presumably draws from his experience in the Navy as it deals with a young sailor named Thomas sentenced to 30-days in the brig. I’m not saying that the story is autobiographical. It may be – I don’t know – but my point is that his Naval experience, and its treatment of people of colour, is sure to have informed the story.
The narrative takes place over one day. It starts with Thomas, just one year into his service, waiting to be taken to the brig and ends with him behind bars. Not a lot of action, in other words, but a lot goes on. This is a story about systemic racism. Thomas, we learn, had let his mother and step-father talk him into enlisting under-age, a common story for youths of colour with limited opportunities. In his case, he’d already been kicked out of home after he’d “stopped his step-father from beating up his mother in a drunken brawl”.
Once in the Navy, things don’t go well. Thomas “cannot fathom why sailors 17 to 70 live in some dream of future glory, which is the oldest myth of the military”. We are not told what Thomas has done, but it appears, from Shore Patrolman Cook’s advice as he delivers Thomas to the brig, that Thomas has been treated harshly:
“This hole’ll be your home for thirty days, Thomas. And buddy, you’d better watch your mouth in this joint. Do your time with your trap shut, until you’re running free. Don’t act the wise-guy. I don’t like your face, Thomas, but I don’t think those hicks from the base were right. You’re a punk, but who isn’t at your age. They went too far. I believe burning a man at the stake’s too much like what like what I left in Alabama.”
This surprises Thomas, because Cook, who “is a spit and polish sailor married to the idea that blind obedience to orders is the only law”, has never really liked him. His advice, then, means something, and Thomas thanks him for it. The rest of the story tells of his admission interview with the Brig Warden – and we get the full measure of the racism he is likely to experience. The Warden aggressively violently enforces his will. He calls Thomas, insultingly and erroneously at that, a “wetback”. He ridicules Thomas’ name insisting it should be “Pancho Villa or Willy Garcia”. I don’t need to continue because you’ve surely seen or read enough scenes like this to get the gist.
What makes this story is how Thomas handles the situation, which is to call on the wisdom of his grandfather. At the first sign of the Warden’s aggression:
The muscles in Thomas’ face tighten; his eyes thicken; narrow into tiny moons peering from behind a shield of fern. He sways slightly; stiffens his whole body, not sure what to expect from the man closing in. Grandson to Cedar Crow, Thomas feels his fingers change to claws, to a wing of thrashing spirit flying wildly inside his ear. (Be calm and steady now. This man could be your enemy. Know his every move. Break him like a twig if he tries to harm you. Be the Thunderbird of our song. I am Crow, your father.)
From here on, Thomas draws on his grandfather’s wisdom to assess and manage the situation. There is violence but he sees death is not on the cards. We learn that many Klallam people had lost faith in their beliefs and practices, but not Thomas. His late grandfather, “the quiet man of family, sea and forest had counselled him well”. From here to the end, where we leave Thomas standing in his cell, we observe him watching and responding to the Warden and drawing on his spirit wisdom.
It’s a strong story about the power and value of knowing your culture.
Duane Niatum
“Crow’s sun” (orig. pub. 1991)
in Bob Blaisdell (ed.), Great short stories by contemporary Native American writers
Garden City: Dover Publications, 2014
pp. 75-83
ISBN: 9780486490953
Whispering Gums 
It’s an interesting story to read straight after Arboreality, where the Salish people were largely invisible.
I struggle with people relying on the wisdom of their fathers, but in fact I guess in oral cultures that’s all you do have to rely on.
That’s right — I knew the Salish rang a bell! Silly me, Bill. Thanks.
I think Niatum would argue that he’s not relying on the wisdom of his grandfather so much as the wisdom of his people, of their spiritual beliefs, which were passed on by his grandfather which, as you say, is how it is done in oral cultures. One of the things I loved about Debra Danks’ We come with this place is how she conveys so clearly and beautifully just how it works. It’s not like I didn’t know before but she made it concrete – if that makes sense about something abstract like spirituality/law/tradition.
I took a class on adolescent development and learned that in Western cultures, it is very uncommon for us to be able to rely on the wisdom of our fathers because we’ve created societies in which change happens rapidly, and we value that. Thus, the information that your forefathers would pass down to you is considered outdated. However, in non-Western countries, wisdom remains more unchanged, and thus the reliance on it is seen as part of a lineage, a tradition that has kept those people alive.
That makes sense but I have one comment which is that it feels like wisdom here is being confused with knowledge. For me wisdom is something more universal about how to live our lives as “good” family members and citizens.
Ah, I see wisdom as knowledge that is learned through experience and orally sharing knowledge, which is more like bits of info.
I think that that sort of knowledge – that information as you say – is part of wisdom, but for me, wisdom involves how you live in your culture which includes its values, beliefs and practices. These don’t change quickly with time.
Take Phone etiquette. An older person doesn’t need to know how to use a modern phone to pass on Phone etiquette – that you should be polite on the phone, be respectful when using the phone, not use your phone sitting across the table from someone else (unless you’ve agreed to do that), not pass on someone’s phone details without their permission, not talk on the phone loudly in public, etc. You don’t have to know to know how to use a phone to know how to behave with a phone, and that I think is an important part of wisdom.
Take traditional societies. In Australia, caring for country is an important value for our first Nations people. They pass on that value, which to me is the basis of their wisdom, to the next generation. The wisdom is that if you care for country, country will care for you. How you care for country might change over time as new tools or new knowledge becomes available but without the actual value, which includes why you should care for country, being passed on, the knowledge of how you care is worth little. How many people do things, particularly things that are hard or take effort, without believing in its worth?
Another example. I like to live my life by principles. Some of those principles are moral principles which I then apply as life changes. But there are also principles in the workplace. For librarians, there are fundamental principles about, say, cataloguing or providing access to information. When new technology appeared, the first thing I would do was look at the principles of cataloguing or providing accessing information, and then consider how the new technology could help me do that better. Principles might change (very occasionally), but overall they are part of the wisdom that has been established for generations as being what works. In a good librarianship course, they are the first things taught by our teachers (elders) before we are taught the current tools and methods. Ignore them at your peril I think.
Does this make sense. I am just horrified at the idea of young people being encouraged to believe that because the world changes the knowledge, that is wisdom, of older people is not worth listening to. Older people have huge wisdom about how to survive in a world based on the principles and values of the culture. On the other hand, I am also saddened when I hear older people not recognising the challenges confronting younger people and not realising that they need to pass on their wisdom with respect and encouragement. I hate hearing older people putting down “the young people”. Young people need to respect the wisdom of older people. And older people need to respect the challenges faced by younger people, to know that their world is changing, is different, to the one they grew up in.
Sorry if this is too much!
This makes tons of sense, and I think we are saying the same thing. I find your example about the principles of accessing information and sitting to be technologies if they help you carry out those principles an excellent example I had not considered. Technology comes at us so fast that by the time we attend a workshop discussing ethics in tech, new tech has developed.
Thanks Melanie … I’m glad it made sense … sometimes I fear wordiness gets in the way of sense!
That scene of a physiological shift is a curious and compelling way to engage readers with the idea of calling on the ancestors, the winged furred scaled and two-legged…all. At first I wondered if I’d misread when I saw Salish and then remembered your collection is North American writers.
Haha Marcie … yes it is, but it’s so interesting (though not surprising) to see similarities in ways of thinking, attitude to the land.
And yes, the way Niatum (which autocorrect kept changing to Diatom) described the physical manifestation of calling in the wisdom – like becomes Ng one with nature or ones totem etc.
Being from the Northwest, I’m a little familiar with the Salish art and the legend of the Thunderbird, so it was interesting how Young Thomas derived invincibility by morphing into the legendary creatures.
Thanks Carolyn … yes I loved how was able to encompass their strength. I remember thunderbird motifs in British Columbia … carved on huge totem poles.