“Listening when we were supposed to have been asleep…” · by Bear Heart Marcellus Williams
The old people used to teach by telling stories—that’s how we learned our legends. When elders came to visit, it almost always meant that, unless they lived nearby, they’d spend the night and go on the next day. At bedtime, the family made a palette for the children in the same room with the elders, and it was done for a reason. Understanding human nature, they knew that children like to eavesdrop. Knowing we were listening when we were supposed to have been asleep, the grown-ups told one another the legends of our tribe. They already knew the stories—they were telling them for our benefit. If we’d thought about it, it should have seemed odd for old people to be telling stories to one another. If they’d said to us, “I want you to listen to this story,” we’d probably get bored, maybe forget about it, so in a way, they were great psychologists, because the thing that you’re interested in most you’re going to remember.
There was no television then, and those stories, told mostly in the wintertime, were our entertainment. The stories also held lessons as to what was appropriate and inappropriate behavior among our people, so the children were getting an education at the same time. I learned a lot of things when I was supposed to have been sleeping. One was the story of how the mourning dove came to be.
“Knowing we were listening when we were supposed to have been asleep, the grown-ups told one another the legends of our tribe. [...] If they’d said to us, ‘I want you to listen to this story,’ we’d probably get bored, maybe forget about it...”
A little boy asked his grandfather, “Why does that dove have a sad song?” His grandfather told him, “It was something that happened a long time ago. A little dove’s father and mother were killed by some humans, so he was raised by his grandmother, who loved him very much. As the dove got a little bigger, he started playing with other birds out in the forest and he’d stay out late. His grandmother said, ‘I wish you wouldn’t do that. It worries me for you to stay out late. Something might happen to you.’ The dove said, ‘All right. I won’t stay out so late.’ But then he met some other birds who played a game called gambling. I don’t know what kind of gambling they did, but they played for acorns, walnuts, and hickory nuts and he’d go from one place to another to gamble. Once he got a whole lot of walnuts and didn’t come back for several days.
“One day a messenger found the little dove and said, ‘Your grandmother is very ill. You should come back.’ ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘after this game.’ But after that game, he played another game, because he was winning. Two days passed and another messenger came. ‘Your grandmother’s very ill. We don’t know whether she’ll make it through the night.’ ‘All right,’ he said. But he couldn’t stop and still another day went by until all of a sudden he lost everything he had. He thought he had a lot of friends, but they had all left and he found himself alone.
“Then he began to think of his grandmother. He remembered how she loved him and took care of him, how she was always there for him when he was sick. ‘Now I’ve let my grandmother down. I’ll go straight home.’ By the time he got there, his grandmother had died, so he told the people, ‘From this day on, my song will be a sad song in mourning for my grandmother.’ And that was the beginning of the mourning dove’s song.”
