First time I read about an Indian-modified-tree trail marker, I said, “Come on.” The idea of trail marker trees, though, has caught on, much like “dream catcher” and one I read a couple dozen years ago that before arrival of white man and his horses, Indians were pretty much vegetarians. Yep. That is an idea among present-day Indian vegetarians. Which leads to a joke: “Vegetarian” is Indian for “Lousy hunter.”
The thing with the bent trees, though, shows people are all too likely to take things as explained by a specific political belief. Anything that purports to show Indian harmony with nature must be truth.
But, if bent trees are supposed to show the direction to a trail, why are they always found next to trails?
And, why are bent trees always pretty much the same shape? The one that means “rough trail ahead” is the same shape as one that means “good water up the road.”
After
the 1861-65 war, when Eastern newspapers began to report on settlement of Western
lands, politics shifted to “Lo, the poor Red Man.” Eli McCullough, in The Son,
asks an Eastern newspaper reporter which tribe he is from. Before the flustered
white man can reply, McCullough says (paraphrased), “Oh, that’s right. You
killed off all of yours.” And yet, he is saying, you come out here and try to
tell us how to run our business.
