'We Survived the Night' blends memoir, history and fable

“We Survived the Night” by Julian Brave NoiseCat is part memoir, part history and part fable with the story of the Coyote weaved in throughout the book.

NoiseCat’s father, Ed Archie NoiseCat (Secwépemc/St’at’imc), is a renowned traditional carver whose work is featured in the Smithsonian. He is also well-known in the Santa Fe art scene. Ed Archie NoiseCat started his life barely surviving. In August 1959, a night watchman at the Catholic-run Indian boarding school at St. Joseph’s Mission in British Columbia heard a cry coming from the garbage incinerator. Amid the trash, he found a newborn boy.

Julian Brave NoiseCat highlights the history in Canada and the United States of stealing Native children.

He had escaped not only imminent death, but a systemic, continentwide scheme to kill Indigenous people and their culture.

“Colonizers tried to remake Natives using their image or kill us – physically, legally, and culturally – countless times by countless means,” NoiseCat writes. “To survive, we remade ourselves and the world around us in whatever way we could – often and especially by getting into trouble like Coyote.”

“Tale of the Coyote” is the traditional trickster narrative about a forefather called Coyote who was sent to the Earth by the Creator to set things in order. While he did some good, he was sometimes up to no good. So, while he filled the rivers with salmon and populated the land with descendants, he used the salmon to marry into as many Native villages along the rivers as he could because he was a womanizer. He then abandoned his descendants because he was a deadbeat dad. It’s the account of why things are the way they are and why we are the way we are.

Julian Brave NoiseCat’s father is Native and his mother is white. His father left him when he was 6 but came back into his life 22 years later. His mother always encouraged Julian to connect to his Native roots. Through her encouragement, Julian ended up traveling Indian Country as a powwow dancer from Enoch Cree Nation outside of Edmonton, Alberta, to the Pala Band of Mission Indians in California, and many reservations in between. Due to his extensive travels, Julian was able to learn about different tribes, hear their stories, and find ways to express their cultural traditions and languages through art.

In an interview with NPR, NoiseCat states, “I think that part of what is really beautiful about being Native, about being Indigenous, is that being related really means something to us. We are very involved in each other’s lives. We take care of each other, we feed each other. We look out for one another. I think that ultimately that is not just something that’s important to Native people. I actually think that that’s the way that humanity lived for the vast majority of our history, and that part of our present crisis is that breaking of kingship, of the bonds that have maintained families and communities for thousands and thousands of years.”

Many people celebrate Thanksgiving as a cultural tradition and a time to give thanks for family.

While many Native Americans celebrate the holiday with family, some view it as a day of mourning and protest because it marks the beginning of the genocide, oppression and displacement of Indigenous peoples.

The history of our treatment of Native people is beyond dark and feels overwhelming.

As we sit around our tables on Thanksgiving celebrating, we should give thanks to Native people for bringing us art, stories, beauty, culture, wisdom, families, friendships and so much more. We should also keep in mind our dark past and make sure that the darkness never creeps back into our current times.

Happy Native American Heritage Month!

Deborah Condit is the owner of Books on the Bosque, 6261 Riverside Plaza Lane, Suite A-2 or at booksonthebosque.com.