Some notes on ‘Chief’ as a (hockey) nickname

In Seeking the Center, there’s a scene where Claude is referred to as “Chief” by an opponent:

Good thing you got ol' Chief there to look out for you, eh MacKenzie?

It's not meant as a compliment, either for MacKenzie, who, it is implied, is not man enough to stand up for himself, or for Claude, whom the opponent tries to belittle by referring to him by the racial stereotype “Chief.”

Hockey nicknames are known for their unimaginative-ness, and while researching Seeking, I quickly learned that “Chief” is, or was at one time, the go-to for First Nations/Native American/Métis players of hockey - and other sports as well. According to Don Marks, author of They Call Me Chief: Warriors on Ice, “almost every Indian who played in the NHL or anywhere else has been called ‘Chief' at one time or another.”

Jim Neilson, who played in the NHL in the 1960s and 1970s, told Marks,

I’ve been called Chief all my life, everywhere else I go. In hockey, you know that your teammates were calling you Chief in a friendly, natural sort of way. But then you would play guys from other teams and you knew it wasn’t so friendly. Most of it was just during the heat of the battle and they were trying to throw you off your game and you just ignore it.

Stan Jonathan, Mohawk/Tuscarora NHL forward from 1976-1983, said, also to Don Marks,

They called me Little Chief and I didn’t mind that. It was when they called me ‘wahoo’ or ‘F#$%’n little Indian’ that I didn’t like [it]...

Judging from Neilson’s and Jonathan’s comments, the context of the name-calling could influence players' feelings about it. But also, as Jonathan indicates, the term “Chief,” while intended to isolate, belittle, and ridicule a person on the basis of race, might have been different, in some sense, than other slurs.

Year in Nam is Leroy TeCube's memoir of the year he served as a G.I. in Vietnam. (I also wrote about it in an earlier post.) Like Jim Neilson and Stan Jonathan, TeCube, a Jicarilla Apache man, was given the nickname “Chief” by his "teammates," i.e. the soldiers in his platoon.

When I joined the platoon it consisted mostly of white GIs, followed by blacks and Hispanics. I was the only American Indian. Someone asked, ‘What race are you? You look like an Indian.'

TeCube describes how he discussed his tribal affiliation with the guys, until finally one of them says, “In that case we’ll call you ‘Chief.’” TeCube answers him, “In my traditional way the title of chief is earned and shown respect.” He then recalls: 

Most of the guys would call me Chief from then on, although a handful of individuals called me by my real name. Up until that moment throughout my training no one even suggested calling me Chief. I wondered why that was so. Perhaps because as trainees we were used to being treated as animals and were addressed by our last names. Now here in Vietnam everyone had an identity. 

Regardless of how the name was intended, TeCube chooses how he will take it - he re-appropriates it - and throughout his service in Vietnam he works hard to live up to the name “chief” and what it means to him and his traditional beliefs. He writes:

I also thought of my new responsibility from my Jicarilla Apache way...the short translation of Nahn Tahn is leader. A more indepth translation, however, describes it as someone who is also an orator. He tells his people what happened in battle or what is about to happen to them next...being Nahn Tahn was something to be feared. Only the very strong took on the responsibility. One had to set a good example and ensure that the needs of everyone in his group were met before he thought of himself. He must never be corrupted or gain wealth from his position. The main criteria were that he never retreat in battle and he show a lot of courage. He had to be the first one into a conflict, and if need be, he would fight single-handedly with an enemy leader…

Towards the end of his time in Vietnam, TeCube recalls “meeting a fellow soldier who was Navajo...as we talked I realized he was also a leader within his platoon and was also called Chief. This gave me a good feeling, knowing that another individual lived up to the name.”

Finally, TeCube is awarded sergeant’s stripes. He writes: 

That day I felt a great sense of pride and accomplishment. I never expected to be a sergeant when I entered the army. Now I had orders in my hand stating just that. I also knew that I had earned the rank….It took a little time before I got used to being called sergeant or sarge. Some called me Sergeant TeCube. Most of the time I still went by Chief or Sergeant Chief. This had more meaning. According to my traditional beliefs, I had now earned the right to be called Chief.

TeCube - along with all of his platoon-mates - quickly recognizes the futility of the Vietnam War, but, having no choice in the matter, he takes it as an obstacle to overcome, just as he takes the moniker given to him, "Chief," as a personal challenge. And while I didn't know about TeCube and hadn't read his story when I was writing Seeking, I like the way that, without knowing it, the player who calls Claude "Chief" unwittingly points to certain facets of Claude's character and aspirations, facets that don't come to light until later in the story. Claude feels that he has little choice but to play what he thinks of as "this white man's game," and while, like TeCube, he is certainly aware of racism and the obstacles it places in his path, he soldiers on, keeping his identity, self-respect, and dignity intact.

Update: I’ve written another post about Claude and the idea/ideal of the Chief.

Photos from a weekend of Badger hockey

A men's hockey game at the Kohl Center.

Pep band plays before the start of men's hockey game.

UW players on the bench.

Break out.

Screening the goalie.

View across the arena.

A couple of weekends ago I visited Madison, Wisconsin. I had hoped for a winter wonderland - snowshoeing in the woods, skating on an outside rink or even on a lake - but the weather didn't cooperate. However, I did get to see three (3!!!) hockey games at the University of Wisconsin. Watching live hockey is fascinating - you can see the plays unfold and check out the behind-the-play mayhem. When you watch a televised game, you can only see what the cameras show you.

On Friday evening the men's hockey team ("Badgers" is UW's nickname) suffered an overtime loss at the hands (paws?) of the Golden Gophers of the University of Minnesota - an epic duel of rodents. The men play in an arena about the same size as those used by professional NHL teams, with various food options, a pep band, and a large, very active student section.

On Saturday and Sunday I saw the women play. UW is the top ranked college team in the country and they didn't disappoint, beating the University of North Dakota Fighting Hawks both afternoons. The games were close, hard fought, and a ton of fun. The Badger women play in a new arena that seats close to 2300 extremely enthusiastic, emotionally invested fans. Attendance was good - even on Sunday, when the game overlapped with the Green Bay Packers' do-or-die playoff football game. I came away extremely inspired by these young women, on both teams, who battled it out with at least the ferocity that the men displayed. I wish that everyone could see them play!

The Kohl Center concourse features display cases related to athletics at the University.

This display portrays Brianna Decker, a UW alumna who, in 2012, won the Patty Kazmaier award for best female NCAA Division 1 hockey player. She currently plays for the Boston Pride in the NWHL. She is also on the U.S. national team. 

Introductions.

Going back the other way.

Some sports writing by Jack Kerouac

I haven't had much time for blogging lately, but with the Super Bowl approaching, I thought I'd share a piece of my favorite writing about football - a passage from Jack Kerouac's 1950 novel The Town and the City. What I've quoted below is part of a much longer scene describing a high school game between fierce rivals on a blustery, autumn New England day. 

They saw the Lawton team across the field in a huddle of great captains, standing in the wind in their dark uniforms, helmeted fantastically, all grotesque, wild, and ominous; they saw the officials in white placing the new yellow football on the kickoff line; they saw the whole mob-swarmed terrific stadium in a gray windswept blaze of vision. Whistles were piping in the air, silence was falling over the multitudes, the game was ready to begin.

And then when Peter saw the ball up in the air, wobbling and windswept, and saw it bouncing down before him, he was mortified with fear. Then he lunged for it, picked it up, snarled and ran straight downfield with all his headlong might, crashing and stamping through a confusion of hard bodies and falling finally on the icy midfield beneath ten others, and the game was on....

Down on the field the teams lined up, the linemen digging in low and glaring at each other, the backs crouching, the quarterback calling out numbers with his whole body jerking behind each shout, the officials waiting expectantly nearby, and all of it windswept on the dark field to which all eyes were fastened excitedly. The lines collided, biffed, scattered, long rangy youths sprawled, someone ran and ducked into a pileup of bodies, and it was no gain...

The crowd suddenly roared as someone ran wide around end, around reaching hands, arching his back and waving one arm, cutting back suddenly on dancing feet, wavering, darting aside, plunging on a few yards and pulling along to a stop under a pile of bodies. The crowd's roar surged away into droning chattering sounds, cowbells and drums rang in the sharp air...

And now suddenly the crowd rose to its feet with one roaring cry of surprise, explosive and vast, as a Galloway player swept wide around the end, leaped into the air, twisted, and shot the ball several yards over dark helmeted heads, as another Galloway player paused, twisted, reached out for the ball, barely grasped it in his fingers, turned and went plummeting downfield along the sidelines. The roaring of the crowd surged and grew thunderous, the Martin mother jumped up on her seat to see, and she saw a figure racing down the sidelines, shaking off tacklers with a squirming motion, plunging through others with a striding determination, tripping, stumbling, staggering on half fallen and half running, straightening out once more, plodding, faking, yet suddenly approaching the goal line in a drunken weary run, staggered aside by another lunging figure, momentarily stopping, then carrying on again, striding to the line falling, with a dark figure smashing into it, now wavering on bent knees, now finally diving over and rolling in the end zone triumphantly.

A momentous race, at home and in 'Nam

A few summers ago, while researching for Seeking the Center, I read a number of books about sport in Native American/First Nations cultures. (If you're a member of Goodreads, you can follow me there and see what's on my bookshelf.) American Indian Sports Heritage by Joseph B. Oxendine, in particular, stresses the centrality of sport to Native life and belief, as does Tom Vennum in his American Indian Lacrosse: Little Brother of War, which I wrote about here. 

I'm reading Year in Nam, now, Leroy TeCube's memoir of his experiences serving as an infantryman in Vietnam in 1968 and 1969. TeCube is Jicarilla Apache, and in his book he often reflects on the role his heritage played in his actions and ultimate survival. In light of my earlier research, I found the following passage especially interesting. It weaves together TeCube's memory of a traditional tribal relay race with a life-or-death race to cross a bridge under enemy fire in Vietnam.

Published by University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London. Winner of the 1996 North American Indian Prose Award.

As I ran across the narrow bridge I had a flashback to my youth. On September 15 of every year my tribe has a traditional relay race between our two clans. The outcome of the race determines the type of year ahead. Depending on which clan won, there would be more wild game or crops. This race gives my people an idea of how to plan their activities for the year to come.

The relay race is on a racetrack three hundred yards long and about ten yards wide. Head runners are determined at a preliminary race the day before. Before the race starts, elderly men paint the runners in an aspen kiva, conduct prayers for them, and run down the track blessing it. When they finish the race starts with the head runners running at a full sprint down the track. When they reach the end of the track another set of runners runs back. This goes back and forth until a clan gets ahead by a full length of the track. When that happens the clan in the lead wins the race. If the runners from each clan are evenly matched the race could take several hours.

I had participated in the race several times. It could be very deceptive, especially going in an easterly direction. That is because in that direction about three-fourths of the way down is a slight rise that looks like the finish line. If you are not aware of the illusion your energy is expended when you reach this point, and you have to continue on with heavy legs. Elderly men holding aspen branches give you words of encouragement and whip you on the legs with the branches for added strength. It works. You find the burst of energy needed to take you to the finish line

I was now about three-fourths of the way across the narrow bridge. My legs were heavy from carrying my pack. I thought of the elderly men in our traditional race. In an instant, just that thought gave me the encouragement to continue. I ran off the bridge on the other side and took cover next to the trail. After catching my breath I fired toward the wood line. Out of the corner of my right eye I could see the others running the same race. Eventually, we all made it across without a casualty.

As TeCube describes, the ritual relay race has spiritual and practical dimensions, but also serves as a way to build and inspire courage and determination. It would be interesting to know whether, traditionally, the race was in any way considered to be, like American Indian lacrosse, a "little brother of war," or if it just worked out that way for TeCube in this instance. In any case, it was a treat to, unexpectedly, come across this intriguing recollection.

Romance, girl power and the Women's March

Romance novels sometimes get a bum rap - denigrated for taking on "trivial" subjects such as love and relationships. And, let's be real: the fact that the majority of their audience is female also earns them a fair amount of disrespect.

I've had enough of this. These so-called "women's issues"  - the issues that concern the creation of families, reproduction, and nurturing - are indisputably central to human life. Let's not allow them to be marginalized.

But I digress (slightly).

Not every novel has to be serious. A thriller in which a secret agent saves the world from an evil overlord can be flighty and fun, and that's fine. By the same token, romance per se is not trivial. It can be quite weighty.

Early on in Seeking the Center, Agnes identifies the force against which she will struggle during the course of the novel. She muses: 

Dad didn't want her to move to Wapahaska. He was afraid that she would never come back. From Wapahaska she would be lured to Thompson, or some other big city, a place that had mutated, like the cannibal Windigo of the old stories, into a silent, howling flash-freeze, parched and ravenous. But instead of feasting on her flesh, it would feast on her spirit.

Agnes was well aware of the dangers, though, and they didn't lurk in any particular geographical location. Being young, female, and brown-skinned meant that she was expendable, and set her up for the worst anyone anywhere cared to dish out. Huddling in fear at home in St. Cyp was no guarantee of safety, much less of vanquishing Windigo and feeding her own spirit.

Traditionally, Windigo is the cannibal spirit of the Algonquin tribes of sub-Arctic Canada, a place where, during the long, cold winters, starvation often threatened. In that difficult environment, in what must rank as one of the cruelest reversals imaginable, Windigo could possess a person so that, instead of feeding their family, that person would eat their family. Notice that the primary issue wasn't that Windigo could cause death, but rather that it could unravel our most important relationships and interdependencies. It could undermine the very foundation of society itself, and threaten the survival of humankind. 

During the centuries since Europeans first came to North America, Windigo has come to represent the greed of capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism which, in the words of scholar Grace Dillon, "makes sense because imperialism is cannibalism: the consumption of one people by another." (In my mind, at least, this links up with the longstanding, tragic issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women: these women have simply been consumed.) In Agnes's mind - and in her father's - Windigo is a force that threatens to swallow her up, either physically, spiritually or both.

What I didn't know when I first wrote Seeking the Center was the degree to which, in the traditional Windigo stories, the spirit targets women - often young women - by disrupting their potential marriages and their reproductive and nurturing roles. Windigo was no dummy - it struck at the very heart of the family and therefore of society. But what I also didn't know was that, in those same stories, women are the people most able to defeat Windigo, using tools and attributes associated with their traditional roles: i.e., pots, pans, knives, bodily fluids, and that extra-special something they possess when menstruating.

I bring all this up to say that these northern people put young women and their relationships front and center in the battle for the preservation of society. In Seeking, as in romance in general, the characters are looking to create relationships and, the implication often is, become a family unit, thus perpetuating society and humankind. Male as well as female - people of any gender - these romance characters win their personal battles to the extent that they engage their nurturing impulses, their capacity for love.

As Claude the hockey enforcer says in Seeking, "There's fighting on the outside, but the inside battle is what it's about. You know, taking care of each other." 

Which brings us to today, January 21, 2017, the start of a new era. Windigo threatens. Let's get out our pots and pans, and whatever we've got, and march, and fight. Our families and our society are depending on us.

Who's my favorite character?

Someone just asked me to name my favorite character in Seeking the Center. This is tough. I love all my characters. But, while I reserve the right to change my mind without notice, at this moment I'd have to say that Claude (a.k.a Deuce) is my favorite. Why? Well, what's not to like?

As Achille says, "he's big, he's strong, he's--". And then the poor guy starts coughing and can't finish his sentence. But you can fill in the blank.

As Agnes notes, "Wow."

And as far as Owen is concerned, "even though he liked old Deuce, and respected him, it pained him to remember the Wolves' dressing room, and being up close and personal with the big guy and his goddamn perfect muscles and his huge, fighter's hands and his golden skin and all the rest of it."

But, beyond the admirable physical specimen that he is, what I love most about Claude is his courageous, straight-ahead nature. He doesn't let concerns about consequences stop him from doing what he needs to do. He's not afraid to drop the gloves, but he doesn't hesitate to offer his hand to a person in need, either. He's not too good to yank your chain when the occasion calls for it, but he's not above laughing at himself, either.

Above all, he doesn't blame other people for his problems. And while he's a player in what he thinks of as "this white man's game," he is his own person. In his own quiet but deliberate way, he makes things happen. (Except on the one occasion when he needs a little push. But you'll have to read about that for yourself.)

And that's why I love Claude.

Do the little things

A week ago tonight I celebrated the release of Seeking the Center with friends and family here in the town where I live. When I was thinking about the evening ahead of time, I wanted to be sure to thank my guests properly for all the support they've given me over the years. 

There's the support that came in the form of encouragement, and questions about my progress as I made my way through the process of researching, writing, editing and publishing. But there's also been support on a deeper level.

In hockey, there's a stock phrase - one of those hockey cliches - that is often applied to players who aren't necessarily flashy, but who are consistent, reliable, and conscientious. They are said to "do the little things." Implied in that is a type of faith - faith that those "little things" will add up to success for the team in the long run.

I'm lucky to live in a community where we're not only privileged to begin with - we are, and we can't forget that - but also, where so many are committed to "doing the little things": volunteering in the community, in the schools, and with our kids' sports teams; taking an interest in each other and looking out for each other. It's worth noting that many of us are also, in this Washington, DC, suburb, career government servants who work hard every day for the people of our country and the world.

We don't expect some savior to come in and score the winning goal off some flashy play. But we have faith that, if we all try to do the little things, it'll mean success for all of us.

In life as in hockey, true awesomeness resides in those who get up every morning, for years and years, and try to make things better, one little thing at a time. Many thanks to everyone who has helped to make this a place where we can enjoy the peace of mind to do what we're inspired to do. And let's keep trying to make things better, both within our little community and beyond.

Getting just a wee bit political, maybe

Last night I attended the concert that showcases and honors this year's National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellows. The National Heritage Fellowships are awarded by the Arts Endowment to "recognize the recipients' artistic excellence and support their continuing contributions to our nation's traditional arts heritage."

A basket woven by Theresa Secord, Penobscot Nation

In other words, the awardees are people who have taken a traditional art form--for example, Dakota flute making and performance or Laotian khaen playing, white oak basket making or Huastecan son performance--brought it, through their own personal passion, persistence, and skill, to the next level, and--very importantly--been persistent in their efforts to assure their art's survival by being teachers, spokespeople, and/or advocates.

The concert at which each year's honorees present their art is always an incredibly moving affair, presented by the National Council for the Traditional Arts and a small cadre of devoted folklorists who come back year after year to assist. This year it was broadcast live over the internet, and you can watch it here.

Believe me, I don't want to take anything away from the artists themselves, from the amazing variety and beauty of the traditions represented, or from the profound nature of taking a precious tradition, with deep roots, and carrying it forward to future generations. But to me the evening represented another sort of continuity as well. It began with a set of tunes performed by awardee Billy McComiskey, an Irish button accordion player from Baltimore, joined, to my surprise, by two previous heritage fellowship awardees Mick Moloney, a multi-instrumentalist and vocalist, and Liz Carroll of Chicago, one of the greatest Irish fiddle players you'll ever have the good fortune to hear. I have special places in my heart for both Mick and Liz, because I remember them as good people and great to work with. But Liz is special to me--I don't know why, maybe because she's a woman and not many years older than I am.

When Liz was awarded her heritage fellowship back in 1994, I was a young person working in the field of folklore in DC, lucky enough to score an invitation to the ceremony on Capitol Hill. First Lady Hillary Clinton officiated, and she was very engaged, taking time to greet and congratulate all the fellows, especially D.L. Menard, a Cajun musician from her home state of Louisiana. But she also expressed particular interest in Liz and in Liz's entourage, which included her two young children.

Twenty-two years later? I don't want to make this post political, but I can't help noting that Liz, her children now grown, continues to honor us with her lively, nuanced fiddle playing, and Mrs. Clinton, now a grandmother, is still seeking to further serve our nation.

I have great admiration for people who show such persistence in their true passion over the course of a lifetime. The wisdom and experience that they have accrued and are so willing to share are things that we can't afford to throw away. 

Book Review: Killing Frank McGee by Don Reddick

Frank McGee was a Canadian hockey star during the early years of the 20th century, and, according to the cover copy of this book, “the only legitimate Hall of Fame athlete of any sport to be killed in action fighting for his country.” Killing Frank McGee is a fictionalized account of McGee's near-miraculous prowess as a hockey star (he was blind in one eye and only 5' 6" yet scored prolifically), and his considerably less extraordinary death in the trenches of France during World War I.

Interestingly, Reddick chooses to tell McGee’s story not through the athlete’s own thoughts or words, but rather through those of the novel's two narrators, Alf Smith and Billy Kinnear. The result is an unusual sort of character sketch in which the context and surroundings are clearly pictured, but the man at the center remains a bit of a mystery.

Those surroundings, though, are dense and vividly described. On the home front, we’re treated to a startling close-up of Smith, an Ottawa Hockey Club coach and player-coach whose disdain for the privileged classes (including the McGee family of which his teammate Frank is a member) is matched only by his single-minded determination to win the Stanley Cup. Through Smith’s opinionated musings, the era’s economic, social and class terrain, as well as the hockey culture of the time, come to life.

If Alf Smith shows us the Canada that created Frank McGee, Billy Kinnear, a young, sensitive, working-class man from rural New Brunswick, brings us the war that kills him. Through Kinnear, Reddick renders not only the blood, mud, stench and deafening thunder of trench warfare, but also the humanity of the soldiers who cling not so much to life, which they cannot hope to grasp, as to spirit.

Up to the moment of his death and beyond, McGee remains that mystery, that blank slate upon which we, or Kinnear, or any of his other fans and followers may draw what they will. An unusual way to portray your protagonist, perhaps, but isn't it rather in keeping with the way the rest of us "mere mortals" tend to view our star athletes and war heroes?

Girl literary role models: Before Hermione, there were Harriet and Claudia

Seen at Posman Books in Chelsea Market, Manhattan: a display of New York-related books, including Harriet the Spy (1964) and From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (1967).

These two classics were favorites of mine when I was a girl. Their unapologetically smart, poised, self-assured heroines Harriet M. Welsch and Claudia Kincaid, respectively, were, decades before the appearance of Hermione Granger (1997), among the few girl literary role models in existence--among the few that I deemed worthy, in any case! 

Seeing these books on the shelf was like running into old friends. Never mind the afternoon's unexpected, heavy rain shower--I had a warm glow for the rest of the day.