and no one would play with him;
he was lonely in this world.
So Rabbit thought to make a person.
And when he blew into the mouth of that crude figure
to see what would happen, the clay man stood up.
Rabbit showed the clay man how to steal a chicken.
The clay man obeyed.
Then Rabbit showed him how to steal corn.
The clay man obeyed.
Then he showed him how to steal someone else’s wife.
The clay man obeyed.
Rabbit felt important and powerful.
The clay man felt important and powerful.
And once that clay man started he could not stop.
Once he took that chicken he wanted all the chickens.
And once he took that corn he wanted all the corn.
And once he took that wife, he wanted all the wives.
He was insatiable.
Then he had a taste of gold and he wanted all the gold.
Then it was land and anything else he saw.
His wanting only made him want more.
Soon it was countries, and then it was trade.
The wanting infected the earth.
We lost track of the purpose and reason for life.
We began to forget our songs, our stories;
we could no longer see or hear our ancestors,
or talk with each other across the kitchen table.
Forests were being mowed down all over the world to make more.
And Rabbit had no place to play.
Rabbit’s trick had backfired.
Rabbit tried to call the clay man back,
But when the clay man wouldn’t listen
Rabbit realized he’d made a clay man with no ears.
SONG: WINDING THROUGH THE MILKY WAY
CEHOTOSAKVTES
CHENAORAKVTES MOMIS KOMET
AWATCHKEN OHAPEYAKARES HVLWEN
REDBIRD: Two beloved women sang this song on the trail of tears. One walked near the front of the people, one near the back. When either began to falter, they would sing the song to hold each other up.
DO NOT GET TIRED.
DON’T BE DISCOURAGED. BE DETERMINED,
TO ALL COME IN. WE WILL GO TO THE HIGHEST PLACE.
WE WILL GO TOGETHER.
Rattle ends the song.
REDBIRD: Now, our ceremony begins.
SCENE 1
Light bright day.
Light up on kitchen table.
REDBIRD: It was at this kitchen table I was forbidden to sing when I was fourteen. I wasn’t the best singer. It wasn’t about that at all.
The man who had made himself keeper of our house stood there with my stack of albums in his hands.
I had bought and paid for them with money from my dishwashing job. The music was my comfort, my joy.
REDBIRD dances and sings. Sings first, then plays horn.
I sang, and when I sang I felt all sorrow, all sadness fall away. I could fly far away with my singing wings.
REDBIRD ends with sax riff.
This is what I think about your singing, he shouted, as he broke my albums:
There will be no more singing in this house.
When I come back from a day’s work, I need peace and quiet. And if you tell your mother,
I will break the both of you as easily as I have broken your silly music.
Some of my light was put out then.
I walked away and left part of myself behind.
“This is where it begins,” I told Spirit Helper as we sat at her kitchen table.
She asked me, “Redbird, why are you here?”
My father is wandering drunk about the earth, and
my mother was stolen by a heartless keeper.
“Why are you here?”
My son is lost in a cloud of drink.
My daughter is in the streets of the city.
“Why are you here?”
I’m here, because I have lost my way.
“Okay, then I think I can help you,” she said.
“If we make the right tracks, we will find the lost pieces of your soul.”
Then Spirit Helper called in the guardians to open the door.
REDBIRD as SPIRIT HELPER. She chants.
We call in the guardians of the night sky.
We call in the guardians of morning light.
We call in the guardians of falling apart.
We call in the guardians of making right.
We call in the memory keepers, those who have kept the songs of the earthly soul.
We call in the keepers of peace, though they be heavy with the witness of war.
We stand here respectfully at the edge of our small world and ask for help from the shining ones who have gone before.
REDBIRD: (to the audience) After she called in the guardians, Spirit Helper told me, “Redbird, we have to return to the beginning of the story if we are to find all the pieces.”
SCENE 2
Light bright day.
REDBIRD: When my spirit crossed worlds to join my father and mother, there were no songs to assist the birth.
There was no cedar or tobacco … but—my mother had drugs!
My body was a wet, ripe, bloody seed
And it was about to be spit onto the red earth of Oklahoma.
That’s when I changed my mind.
My mother’s body pushed. I pushed back.
We struggled. I panicked.
It was then that Spirit Helper lifted me to see my laboring mother-to-be. She was just a girl, a beautiful Cherokee waitress who was so in love with my father-to-be, a good-looking Creek man who was puffing away on a Lucky Strike outside the waiting room.
But, but I heard myself stutter: I don’t want this world at all.
It was then I heard the voice of the Spirit Helper: “You will forget everything.”
“But I won’t forget,” I argued.
BABY cries.
And then, I did.
SCENE 3
Light night.
REDBIRD: They partied every Friday night after payday.
My father brought home his buddies and their supplies from the bootlegger next door.
My