Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir

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world,” or “to make story again in the world,” a phrase that embodies the very act of creation and Indigenous identity. I have tried to honor her words and her work as a storyteller, activist, historian, and intellectual. I have tried to create a story out of the shards she, and so many others, left behind. But it isn’t, and never was, just my story. As Cherokee writer Thomas King says, “Take it. It’s yours. Do with it what you will. But don’t say in the years to come that you would have lived your life differently if only you had heard this story. You’ve heard it now.” Tom King throws down a challenge that every listener must heed: Indian or not, haven’t we lived under the burden of California mission mythology and gold rush fantasy long enough? Isn’t it time to pull off the blood-soaked bandages, look at the wound directly, let clean air and healing take hold? I think of my grandfather’s stories; I think of Isabel’s stories, and how their words survive, reach out for listeners. El Potrero lies in the shadow of Mt. Diablo’s profile, the sacred place of emergence toward which my grandfather Tom Miranda yearned as a young man, knowing—without quite knowing that he knew—that who we are is where we are from. “Xue elo xonia eune,” Omesia told Isabel, “I come from the Rock.” “What I wanted to see,” Tom said so long ago, “was where the hell that light was coming
from.” These are stories worth following home. Our bodies, like compasses, still know the way.
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© 2013 by Deborah A. Miranda All r
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P.O. Box 9145, Berkeley, CA 94709 (
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Table of Contents Title Page Copyri
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Chairwoman, Ohlone/Costanoan-Essele
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DeAnna Rivera, Wendy Teeters, Kimbe
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Introduction California Is a Story
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heels and tight dresses. She’d tr
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Theirs was the kind of desire that
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ut who are we, when we have survive
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the way Tonto spoke if you wanted t
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as a truth. As a whole. Even if the
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South while simultaneously requirin
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those giant dioramas behind glass),
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video project must have been a lot
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where voices can speak after long a
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Los Pájaros based on writings by J
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ut the women were caught with Spani
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When arrows were raining everywhere
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Deby Miranda, fourth grade picture
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Tell them to dig a big round basin
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Mission San Miguel campanario, circ
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lusty songs out beyond the padres
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Discipline Due to their animal-like
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customs.” Luckily, the Spaniards
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Also known in Spanish as azotes (st
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striking force. The whips might be
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Wooden club used to strike quickly;
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tuned-up souls. These reconditioned
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grandchildren, was never legally an
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Padre Figure 11. Franciscan mission
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we were his beloved and abused floc
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Dear Vicenta
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Well, I shouldn’t complain. Those
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Vicenta, I keep thinking of how you
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Mission to the chapel in Monterey,
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Not conquered. Nimasianexelpasaleki
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Meadows knew she was a valuable res
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sacred, and we have a right to spea
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Isabel Mar. [19]37 understands “j
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amongst the men, passed as just men
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seek every kind of way to feed them
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his plump arm, swung him around acr
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Bridges: Secularization Post- 1836-
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Wear their heavy aprons, high-necke
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Ularia’s Curse “Pero la maldici
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“Will you miss us, River?” she
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and Santa Clara, and as editor of t
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From The Argonauts of ’Forty-nine
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or near the goldfields in ’49, sh
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In 1857 the California State Legisl
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So when I see this woman’s image,
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Exorbitant amounts of money are mad
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Ms. Hawthorne shared that this phot
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have so many questions. What kind o
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as humiliating and opprobrious. It
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face. Oh let black smoke rise above
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ecognizable. Old News 1. It is diff
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with great desperation. 2. Sacramen
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3. San Francisco Bulletin, January
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killed one Indian, wounded several
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Jacinta’s Medicine Jacinta Gonzal
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They pierce the body like knives, l
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including my great-grandfather Tom
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If there was a connection to the mi
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in Monterey, was working to raise i
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Fr. Casanova’s Mass at Carmel, 18
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Mission register, baptism of Tomás
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María Inés García, probably on h
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Tomás Santos Miranda died in 1943.
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clearly were meant to keep rabbits
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a cookout. It reminds me of how my
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to turn tail and run for the hills.
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His hands—or rather, the one hand
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In 1877 it had been 107 years since
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through the infinite varieties of C
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yet still have an identity and comm
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Jr., circa 1981 I want Tom’s voic
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Also beneath the surface of this st
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a hell of a—he said, “I’m goi
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and of course, since he was old, hi
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stealing horses, drinking, and caro
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José Robles, circa 1879 Recently,
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would clear up and the air was clea
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“Well then, I can’t tell you ve
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two. I took my first drink when I l
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He Told Me, “Have You Ever Been i
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He says, “How high do you want to
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play cards all the time, but I didn
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I says, “You’re Slavonian, aren
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One morning George came up to the h
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I thought, “All these bastards ha
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The government can do some funny th
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never heard anything, Dad. They had
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out behind the church instead of as
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flogging in silence; oh renowned Yo
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dark civilization we endure. Teach
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though. I have arranged to talk to
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gangrene of the leg. I immediately
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ecord. 3. The ulcer on Juan’s leg
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John Peabody Harrington, April 29,
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Teheyapami Home Achiska: 1961-Prese
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luminous in the dark air, she is hu
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to me for that easy solution. My fa
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My lips are pressed so tightly toge
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But Buddy kisses my mama in a way t
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earth, bruised. And after my family
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What if it doesn’t kill him, what
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unwrapped, coming loose, unleashed
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kitchen knife—from my house, ride
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cost, but doesn’t transform. I fi
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want, though. Innocence; the almost
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calluses formed on my fingers from
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safe in Mommer’s kitchen. The pin
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In that cusp of time on the mountai
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disappearance at every turn. If I
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I am of the seventh generation sinc
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Eventually the woman who gave birth
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stalks were watered generously each
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around the gopher traps she’d wat
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asked, pointing to two girls runnin
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about the girl without a mother, th
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oom several times in an hour to wra
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After a second he asks, “Is this
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times” without success. I know he
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walked the woods and pastures toget
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ear-view mirror as he saw that conc
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where it floated around for decades
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of arms and legs, mind and humor, h
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design together, complement the sha
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uried their subversive tongues. Now
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I try to write all this down, but w
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And he saith unto them, Follow me,
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to apply that first year. After all
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of Life does not—cannot—teach C
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ut not over here, and secret techni
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Breath of Life tribe, located in th
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never occurred to any of us that Da
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want to use, the work of language r
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Mantuxite, mantuxite, It is true, i
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tourists, carry our ancestors out t
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Do you remember us? Do we look like
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of lumber, my father made bunk beds
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My father was pleased when I progre
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My father liked to cook. He was ver
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Sitting down to eat a meal cooked a
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steady carpentry jobs right from th
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uneven circles, slung them one by o
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lack coffee that he’ll let himsel
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My father, however, had one piece o
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Power: Al Miranda Jr. and Deborah M
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undemanding, gentle if withdrawn. B
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tolerate bed-wetting, for example,
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I remember Little Al trying to cove
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I knelt down and pulled the soaking
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kept moving. It was the drinking, i
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“Is Al Miranda there? Midge Miran
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Alcohol worked on him like an evil
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even changed her surname to Ramirez
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eucalyptus trees, dust, and sweat.
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leather belt from his waist, doubli
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That was the first time I really un
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very end, our father was alone. Al
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one, take a breath, swim to the nex
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I need a song with guts. I need a s
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“I have substantial evidence that
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pair of socks in Southern Californi
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Page 343 and 344: are, hairy skin gaped. Ay! Well, ha
Page 345 and 346: He risked a quick glance up at her
Page 347 and 348: Just as he straightened fully, suit
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Page 353 and 354: (see the sample report to learn the
Page 355 and 356: Mission Project Worksheet Name ____
Page 357 and 358: Please, parents, try to refrain fro
Page 359 and 360: Dear 4th Grade Students and Parents
Page 361 and 362: fun and I can’t wait to see what
Page 363 and 364: World” “Art and literature and
Page 365 and 366: drawn toward a mysterious light whi
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Page 369 and 370: constructions that surrounded it, t
Page 371 and 372: Places of power are not tread on li
Page 373 and 374: stocks, flogging, whatever the padr
Page 375 and 376: Hand-drawn map of El Potrero, as it
Page 377 and 378: In 1852, seven years after Fructuos
Page 379 and 380: died unexpectedly in 1893, at the a
Page 381 and 382: years were ended with drunkenness.
Page 383 and 384: Perhaps it seems strange to others,
Page 385 and 386: uglier alternative, suggested some
Page 387 and 388: looked at us, but it didn’t come
Page 389 and 390: (probably six feet tall at the most
Page 391: foot—pale cream, clean, nothing g
Page 395 and 396: dandy; Al Miranda, Keta Miranda, an
Page 397 and 398: Smithsonian Institution, 1907-1957,
Page 399 and 400: most missions had two priests worki
Page 401: and Carmel: Eden by the Sea (Guilfo
Page 407 and 408: About the Author Deborah A. Miranda
Page 409 and 410: About Heyday Heyday is an independe
Page 411 and 412: Alice Guild; Walter & Elise Haas Fu
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Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir

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