Nebraskaland

NEBRASKAland May 2016

NEBRASKAland Magazine is dedicated to outstanding photography and informative writing with an engaging mix of articles and photos highlighting Nebraska’s outdoor activities, parklands, wildlife, history and people.

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MAY 2016 • NEBRASKAland 73 I 've spent a good part of my long life among my Indian friends – Omaha, Lakota and over the past 25 years the Pawnee. On occasions when the Pawnee give a traditional prayer, they include blessings for us two-leggeds, the four-leggeds who share this earth with us and often nourish us, the creatures that fly above us in the skies, those that swim in the waters and those that crawl along the ground, and – here's the part I find particularly interesting – those that live beneath us, often unseen, under our feet and beneath the earth. I suppose the inclusion of those we seldom see (and sometimes despise or fear) comes from a perceived kinship since many tribal creation stories tell of mankind's emersion from under the earth, through specific, tribally identified canyons, crevasses and caves. The Christian story too traces our origin to the earth after all. "From dust ye came, etc." As a result, just as Native peoples often hold all creatures in high regard because of their particular perspective – the eagle, for example, from so high above or the crow always headed toward something they are determined to visit but that we can't even see – many tribes hold special regard for lowly ant hills and are careful not to disturb the tiny mounds because the small creatures that built them live a secretive, often completely unknown life deep in the soil and therefore probably know things we do not. In fact, the Pawnee like to note that the mounds of anthills are for all the world like miniature earthlodges, much like the ones the Pawnee once built here along Nebraska rivers. Large and small, the subterranean dwellers are understood by the first Nebraskans to have special wisdom that we may well want to pay attention to, both the small like ants, worms, cicadas, snakes, and spiders, and larger, under-earth dwellers like moles, groundhogs, badgers, prairie dogs, beaver and muskrats. The Indian understanding was (and to a large degree still is) that all creatures know things we do not and should therefore be respected and learned from, but particularly mysterious are the goings-on under the earth where they are only rarely seen. The Nahurac, or Animal Council, is believed to hold regular sessions where the very ways and workings of all life on earth are considered and decided – what the weather will be, how crops will fare, who will be victorious and who will fall, whether game will be abundant or sparse, the entire fate of individuals and whole nations. Representatives of the animal world are all in attendance at such gatherings – bear, mountain lion, buffalo, wolf, eagle and owl, crow and snake, and, yes, the creatures from beneath the earth, too, and they all participate in making decisions that affect all life on the earth. (Some non-Indians may find it curious that animals would decide such matters but honestly, wouldn't you rather leave such things up to a wildlife conclave than to Congress?!) And those meetings of the Nahurac are understood to be called to order deep in the earth, under specific sacred hills in Nebraska like Guide Rock on the Republican River, or the Pahuka, high bluffs, one on the Cedar River immediately north of Fullerton, another and perhaps the principal one on the south side of the Platte River opposite Fremont. Entry to the subterranean meeting place is believed to be made through a deep pool in the adjacent river or through an opening hidden behind large cedar trees at the foot of the cliff. Do modern Native Americans really believe in such things as the Nahurac Animal Council and their meetings in deep caves far under the earth? Well, people have been known to believe stranger things. Me, I respect the people who tell me such things and besides, I've always had high regard for animals in general, even ants and I do what I can to avoid damaging their laboriously constructed earthlodges. Any of the many nocturnal and underground creatures that populate this place we've lived on the past 26 years have my respect because they are so skilled at remaining unseen. As for other subterranean dwellers like the groundhogs that seem determined to destroy our buildings or moles that delight in making a mess of our lawn … well, I've written here at other times what I think about them. I guess there has to be someone that troublesome and contrary in any legislative meeting including the animal council, and who knows? In the Nahurac those ne'er-do-wells may have only a 9 percent approval rating, too. ■ Roger Welsch is an author, humorist and folklorist. He has written for NEBRASKAland Magazine since 1977. Nebraska's Unseen Majority By Roger Welsch The story of the Nahurac. Animal Council, sketch by G. Th. Rotman 1922.

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