Tears Of The Dog 

By Allen Kinchen

It was the year of the  Buzzard , for we knew the  buzzards meant another Choctaw was dead.  And every  week we saw buzzards. Our lives were changing very  fast . The change was not welcome nor wanted . The
 change was not brought on by changing our  traditions,  nor by weather , nor by marriage, nor by lack of
 food , nor by sickness ,not even by the birth of  children ,, but by the killing of our  people..---------------- The white men had been raging wars for many years now ... Nothing protected us , not even the spirits intervened to help us.. I had lost my  father to an unknown killer .. He went hunting in the  morning and simply never came back .. We found him by  watching the buzzards circling overhead ... I knew it  was him because it was his favorite spot for killing  deer .------------------- I cried all the way back  while we carried his body .. I looked at him and  examined his body . He was my father , Hawk Eyes , and  he was a great man ... His body was very very strong ,  he was  very smart and a very handsome man ,, and he had  taught me so much about life .. And now he was dead
 ... It appeared only one shot , but it tore his flesh  terribly , he had a  hole in his back , but his  chest was opened up very big . The bullet was big, he  never had a chance ....

-----------He had a gun , but  that day he only took his bow and arrows , it was the cool fall time of the year .. the leaves had not quite  started falling yet , but the color changes were there ... He had picked a beautiful day to hunt deer ....
 Someone had picked the same day to hunt him .....

 --------I pondered in my mind how I would get revenge  on the white man who did this to him . I knew it was
 a white man because of the tracks we found next to his  body . They were boot tracks .

----------Hatred filled  my heart for days .. I was empty , I felt dead inside,  My father was my best friend as well as my teacher  ....

----------The white men had constantly been  trying to get us to leave our village . And it was  moved several times ,, each time deeper into the  forest .. The white man had broken every treaty that our people had with them .... And now their new leader  Andrew Jackson , had sworn to eliminate the Choctaw  from doing anything or even being seen.  The white men  did not punish white men for killing a Choctaw . We  are savages we are told by them ..

-----------But I  know all white men are not bad , but still the killing  continues  , especially to our northern brothers .. We  are told that entire villages , hundreds of Choctaw  and Cherokee were killed in one day, and this great  White man , Andrew Jackson was the leader. And now he  is called the big chief , and he will surely kill all  of us .. I am afraid for my mother and sister .. So  many of the males have already been killed .. My
 grandfather , my father , my uncles , many of us are  with the spirits now .. ,, it seems death  ceremonies
 happen all the time now ....

--------Each night I lay  wondering how could this have happened .. What evil  spirit lives in these white men ... I examined all of  my fathers weapons,,  for hunting and for fighting ,, he was probably killed by a gun similar to the one he  traded mink pelts for , when I was very small .
 ------------I missed my father very much ... About four weeks later , I had a dream, I dreamed I was with my father when I was much younger .. I was not paying attention and we were hunting , we walked along and I
 got curious and poked through an old rotten log .. Out  of the log came hundreds of  yellow stinging bees ..
 The bees swarmed and stung me all over .. My father said  run and take off all of your clothes .. So I did what
 he said , and the bees stung the clothes and left me  alone .... This had never happened to us so I did not
 know what the dream meant.

----------------I few  nights passed and I had a second dream ,, this time I  was young and my father was teaching me how to swim  ... I was pretty stupid and I panicked and started  going under the water.. I grabbed my father and almost  drowned him .. But he grabbed me just right and pulled  me to shore  ... ,, but in real life this never  happened , my uncle had taught me how to swim.
 -------------A few days passed and I had another dream  ,,, we were hunting and we came near a white man's camp.   Dogs came out and attacked us , one of the dogs bit  me , my father took his knife and killed the dog ..
 Then the white man came out and was ready to shoot my  father for killing his dog ... So we took off running
 in fear of being shot . But again in real life this  did not happen ..

-------------Then another dream happened ,, my father took the spirit form of a dog .. and was talking to me .. He told me to work hard to  get everyone together to leave the big river country ,  and go north to safety .... ---------I woke up from  this dream and went outside ,, I sat next to the camp  fire shaking .. My fathers pet dog came over to me and  sat on his hind legs and stared at me . I looked and  his eyes were crying and had a strange glow in them ..  I had never seen a dog cry nor ever seen a dog that  had red colored bright eyes like this dog . I looked  into the crying eyes of my fathers  dog , the dog was  really crying , I had never seen this before, ... I  looked deep into his eyes and I saw my father .. The  spirit of my father was inside of the dog ... Then the  dogs mind began to talk to me .. The dog showed me a  picture , and then I saw the dog cry even more and  howl.. My father was in the picture showing me the way  to leave .. I held the dogs head in my hand by his  ears and could not believe my eyes , my father was  inside of his pet dog , I looked into the dogs eyes
 and my father was looking back at me ..

----------I  talked to my father through the dog eyes , and the dog  sat still and quiet , tears were flowing from the dogs  eyes . My father told me to help convince the village  people to leave immediately ... And to tell my mother  and sister they must listen to me ... I said I would , and I spent the rest of the night talking to my father
 through the eyes of the dog .. -------------It took a while but finally the village people listened to me , within a month we were on our way north .. Later we  were told the few that stayed behind were murdered in a raid by the white men ... I felt very lucky to be  alive , all because I looked and saw the 

"Tears Of The Dog"