| Every now and then, near the old homestead, a Chesapeake oyster shell gets turned out of the ground, like some flint arrowhead left behind as a memory prod by a Shawnee hunter. Prods like these are everywhere and bind our lives, some crossing timelines and cultures; some, like grass, so common they’ve all but lost their evocative power for most of us. As traditionalists, they surround us. Aren’t we always faintly aware that the bow we lift is a memorial to some stiff-legged peasant at the Battle of Agincourt, or to the “Ice Man,” asleep beside his on a high frozen mountain, or to Hercules, because of his virtue and courage as an archer, the only ancient ever completely transformed from mortal to god on Mt. Olympus, or to Ishi, hiding, with the terrible knowledge that he was the last vessel in a drowning world? Doesn’t the arc of the loosed hunting arrow outline the umbrella under which all these worlds stand together? Don’t you summon their courage and integrity with each arrow you intend for a life? Hunting the Osage Bow, Chapter 1, pp. 22-3 |
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