Amerindian Adages

Amerindian Adages

"When his arrow's too narrow,"
Apaches observe, 
"where's the brave who'll behave
with the requisite nerve?"

"When our clans hatch no plans,"
keen Comanches declare,
"a chief’s daughter courts slaughter –
and death without hair."

Notwithstanding Elk’s* efforts 
with soothsayer's sticks,
any finely fletch’d feather
wet weather predicts.
     * Not the more famous Black Elk
but his fellow Oglala called simply
Elk. Both men toured with Buffalo
Bill's Wild West in 1887.

"Gitche Manitou gives us
proportionate rope --
hemp to hang ourselves with,"
hold the Hopi. (They cope.)

"Building igloos takes ice,"
elder Inuits drawl;
Jemez* chiefs note, “Al fresco
takes nothing at all.”
      * Pronounced "HEY-mesh." 

"Our kayaks need keels,"
goes an ancient Kaw fable,
"like lunch on the lawn
needs a one-legged table." 

"March a mile in my moccasins,"
Mashpees assert,
“lest you never know nowt
'bout the nature of hurt."

“Once bitten, twice shy,”
say the Osage’s sages.
“Who’s tooth-prick’d three times
is a fool for the ages.”.

“Quick! Picture a number!”
This old Quapaw saw
bodes the run of papooses
you’ll sire with each squaw.

There’s a Seminole saying goes
something like this:
“When the peace pipe’s de trop,
give the pow-wow a miss.”

There used to be Utes
who knew ev’ry Ute dictum.
Oy vay! All turn’d out
to be obiter fictum.

The wise Winnebago chief
whispers, “Smoke tea
if you’d be ke’oke’o-
(e)xtra)-kanaka-free!”*
     * ‘Ke’oke’o kanaka’ is Hawaiian for
‘white man.’ Waukesha (Winnebago
stomping ground) is admittedly a ways
further than an arrow’s flight from
Waikiki, but only if audiences won’t
allow for some poetaster’s license.)

"The Yurok’s from Vegas,
so that’s why a Yurok
knows zilch ‘bout a kayak."
(And zip 'bout a currach.)