“Our people listened to that white man. They believed his words. They took the bow and arrow and gave him the book. And so it is to this day. To this day, reading and writing belongs to the Aniyonega and not the Aniyunwiya.”

He pulls out his pipe, refills it with tobacco and lights it. Then he looks over it at me.

“You have heard that story?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say. “I have.”

My father makes a circle in the air with his pipe. “I doubt you have heard that story as many times as I have heard it. At one time or another it seems as if everyone who knows me told me that story. Each of them hoped it would prove to me how foolish I was when I said we should be able to write our own language. They all believed that reading and writing belonged to the Aniyonega, not to us.”

He shakes his head.

“I have always listened to stories,” he says. “Most stories have much to teach us. Stories can help us understand much. But some stories are like that one I just told.”

“How is that, Father?”

He lifts his hand and waves away the cloud of smoke hovering in front of him. “They are not solid. Like this smoke, there is nothing to them. They were made up to explain something that could not be understood. Yet that story, even if it is one that was just made up, could have great meaning if it was told properly.”

“What do you mean?”

“You simply need to add this to the story. Add to it that our people did not understand how useful books and writing could be. They did not realize that books and writing could be used to make the white man more powerful and the Indian weaker.”

I think about how much truth there is in my father’s words. Just last week the white missionary who wants to teach us how to read and write English told me something like that.

“Through writing,” the missionary said, “words spoken long ago, when written down, will never be forgotten. We use our writing every day. We use it to make agreements with one another, to form alliances, to build great nations. Knowledge, like that in the sacred Bible can be passed from generation to generation. Such knowledge is power.”

“Like you,” my father continues, looking down at his broad hands as he speaks, “I have always wanted to make things. I wanted to make things that were useful, things that were beautiful. I enjoyed trading, but it did not satisfy me. That is why I turned to drawing, to working with metals. People appreciated the things I made. And that pleased me. But I was also worried about everything happening around us. Our world was changing. And it was all because of the Aniyonega. We had to give up more and more of our land.