Seeing a different heritage

"I want to share with you the beautiful side of Native Americans," the soft, even voice said over my voice mail. I had trouble making out the speaker's name. But, a week later, I was driving to meet him.
Mad Bear is a full-blooded Cherokee who is 76 years old. Little Feather, his wife of 10 years by Indian law, not marriage license, is Cherokee and Hopi; she is 51 years old. They live in a mobile home in Lowellville.
Their modest home is filled with native crafts, many of which they made. The walls are adorned with pictures of American Indians, some drawn or painted by Indians imprisoned in the nearby penitentiary, which they visit regularly.
One room of their home is devoted to the crafts they sell at powwows -- dream catchers, beaded belts and bracelets, letter openers, painted drums and more. The beaded bracelets are put together on a small loom Mad Bear designed.
The dream catchers are made in the traditional way, with thin string strung across a circle adorned with beautiful feathers. A hole in the middle of the web allows good dreams to pass through, while the web "catches bad dreams."
Their stories
Mad Bear and Little Feather often share these stories. They speak at local schools and to local Boy Scout troops, often during Native American Indian Heritage month in November. Spreading the "beautiful side" is one of their goals.
"People think we are heathens," Little Feather said. Her long black braided hair is sprinkled with gray. "But we just call God, or Allah, or Buddha, by a different name."
"He is the Great Spirit," Mad Bear explained. "Indians don't believe you die; they believe your spirit goes on. If I speak at a church, I tell the story of the Happy Hunting Ground; it is similar to where they believe they will go when they die -- like the Garden of Eden, a happy, beautiful place."
"Every night, I come in here and sit and pray," he said. He pointed at the small space next to his craft tables. "My little dog, Ruggie, sits between my legs."
Mad Bear also wears his hair long, and on the day we met, had it braided with strips of leather. His clothes are no different from the next American, but on his shelf is a picture of him and Little Feather in full Cherokee regalia. A scrapbook shows him as a young man, wearing buckskin.
Mad Bear chose his own name, which is the Cherokee way for boys. While Little Feather's name was given by a Medicine Man, Mad Bear entered a sweat lodge and prayed as a young child.
He dreamed that a tree limb fell upon him, he said. A bear approached and lifted the limb. He chose the name Bear. Later, when the hot-tempered boy's father asked him, "Why are you so mad all the time?," he changed it to Mad Bear.
His American name is Bear Meza. Little Feather's is Margaret Ann White-Eagle Cloud. In Cherokee, they are Yona (Bear) and Gyiania (Little Feather).
Marriage
"I'd like to explain to you about Native American marriages," Mad Bear said. "We prick our fingers and mix blood. In the Bible, it says a man and woman become one in marriage, but it doesn't tell how. If you think of black and white paint and mixing it together, you have a new color. When we mix our blood, we have a new life together."
"We have mixed blood. Whatever I do to her, I do to me," Mad Bear explained. "Women are equal to us."
In their talks with children, they emphasize the American Indian way of appreciating nature. Indians thank the animals that provide them with food or clothing. Trees serve many wonderful purposes. Even the lowly grub is respected because it can be used to bore the hole in a peace pipe.
"We believe the smoke of the peace pipe carries our prayers into the stars," Mad Bear said.
Before I left them, Mad Bear blessed a dream catcher for me, asking the Great Spirit to keep the bad dreams from me and let the good dreams through.
murphy@vindy.com