Native American

Photo by By Charles Fletcher Lummis (1859-1928) (http://www.scvhistory.com/scvhistory/hs3008.htm) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

In this Age of Innovation and Information infiltration, it still amazes me when I learn new history. Aside from the blatant oxymoron, what I mean is, when I uncover what seems to be a significant piece of human or cultural history that should have been learned during the accrual of basic education- it feels like Ive been lied to, important information has been withheld and I feel ripped off-why didn’t I know this? 

Ultimately, Historians have a vast responsibility with Father Time as a heavyweight opponent and infinite miles to cover. I remember watching an episode of Jeopardy where one contestant was a Smallsville Highschool History teacher and he relayed a story about his students challenging him to teach his syllabus backwards-alleging that he would not make it to World War II-they were correct. Those omnipotent teachers only have so much time to teach the most critical of lessons and introduce the most influential of characters along whichever the individual State’s Education standards dictate. It's up to us to exercise our "freedom of information" and act upon both acquiring a clear or informed picture but also sharing this knowledge. If you are reading this then I know you are a life-long scholar, a student of life, a story seeker and the most intelligent of readers whose brain needs food and whose mind requires nourishment. Food for thought is the ideal sustenance, so let's take a nibble on what it means to be naturally Native American and virtually unknown. 

Most Americans know who Theodore Roosevelt is. Of course even the infamous Native American Geronimo or the likes of  writers like John Muir and Jack London, and what about if I asked you to name a blind librarian (and writer), you’d likely say Borges. True enough-but all of these seemingly disconnected and random individuals share a common companion with the likes of Charles Fletcher Lummis. Although since 2006 a festival on the first Sunday in June celebrates "Loomis Day" acknowledging his unique contributions to an American history.   

Charles F. Lummis was born on March 1^st 1859 in Massachusetts and passed away as a resident of Los Angeles on November 24^th in 1928. His resume, like many early American young men, is an ambitious assortment comprised of titles such as; journalist, ethnographer, archeologists, photographer, historical preservation activist, poet and librarian. His other hobbies included travel, smoking, sightseeing, cultural exploration, adventure, and women.  

First, we should address his unsettled nature. Lummis was raised by his father (his mother died when he was just 2 years old) his father was also a (and his own home-schooling) schoolmaster.  Freud would likely attach this early life predicament as a logical and justifiable explanation for his ‘womanizing’ reputation later in life, but the generational blame game gets old, don't you think? As characters in our own stories we are all charmingly flawed in some ways- all we can hope for is to have a satisfying ending.  

His most acclaimed piece of poetry is an ode titled “My Cigarette” and yet it still described as a “minor hit” but was nonetheless reprinted, requested and represented so frequently that Lummis decided to have it registered with the U.S. Copyright Office.

Here is the poem which is featured on a Charles Lummis website.

My Cigarette
(1879)

My Cigarette! Can I forget
How Kate and I, in sunny weather,
Sat in the shade the elm-tree made,
And rolled the fragrant weed together?
I, at her side, beatified
To hold and guide her fingers willing:
She, rolling slow the paper’s snow,
Putting my heart in with the filling!

My cigarette! I see her yet,
The white smoke from her lips curling,
Her dreaming eyes, her soft replies,
Her gentle sighs, her laughter purling!
Ah, dainty roll, whose parting soul
Ebbs out in many a snowy billow,
I too would burn, if I might earn
Upon her lips so sweet a pillow!

Ah, cigarette, the gay coquette
Has long forgot the flame she lighted;
And you and I, unthinking by
Alike are thrown, alike are slighted.
The darkness gathers fast without,
A raindrop on my window plashes;
My cigarette and heart are out,
And naught is left me but their ashes!

So he wasn’t the best poet, but he happened to fund his way through Harvard (where he was classmates with Teddy Roosevelt) with the production and sale of his bark paper packaged collection of poetry ‘Birch Bark Poems’. The first editions sold for a quarter (twenty-five cents each) and he sold over 3,500 ‘copies’ in 1879.  When he was just 12, his grandparents had given him a working miniature printing press, which he then become consumed with producing and playing with publishing ever since. Lummis knew what he lacked in poetic talent he could make up for in presentation, and he succeeded.  Peeling, flattening and tweaking the thickness and sizes of the bark taking into account ink absorption, this little book was a true labor of learning.

Birch bark letter N 955 (XIIth c.) found in Novogrod Vielikij: the letter Matchmaker's Milusha to Marena [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

By Lummis, Charles F. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons,Portrait of a Charles F. Lummis sitting and writing at a roll-top desk, ca.1902

Lummis was a traveling man, with an itch for the exotic and a yearning for the (wild) West. In 1884 after working as a journalist in Ohio, he was offered a position at the Los Angeles Times, which he accepted. Lummis walked 2,200 miles. It took him 143 days.  It’s a good thing he liked Los Angeles, which at that time had just over 10,000 residents, his travels across the Southwest blossomed a special affinity for the Native American Indian populations -which he became passionately philanthropic about. 

Working as an editor for a magazine called Out West in 1892 after much travel, women, and job jumping, he discovered and published works by writers such as John Muir and Jack London-including his own regular contributions to the publication.  Lummis stayed in that position for over a decade and concurrently built a unique home which he dubbed “El Alisal”, which had a sycamore tree adorning the stone-adobe-esque type castle. Lummis was a relic romantic, or history buff, and served as President of the “Landmarks Club of Southern California” whose efforts specifically focused on Spanish Missions-a topic every child in the state of California must learn in elementary school.

Exterior view of 'El Alisal' Photo by By Pierce, C.C. (Charles C.), 1861-1946 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Lummis was the city librarian of Los Angeles for a number of years before becoming plagued with a series of bad fortune, starting with his claim of developing “jungle fever” which he claimed to have contracted while traveling in Guatemala which caused blindness. After a year of being completely blind, he miraculously regained his full vision, but was now alone (his second wife finally left him after being fed up with extra-martial affairs), he was let go from the library position and stopped writing. His story ends with the description of being “destitute” and perhaps a bit disillusioned with the delirium of the 'American Dream'.

If teachers wish to paint the picture of the typical American (at any educational level), the story of Charles Lummis should be told.  Not just for his incredible journey through the new lands and times, but for his straightforward contribution in defining what being an American really is, the rewards and consequences for natives of this naive newborn nation we call "America: Land of the Free and Home of the Brave."

Excerpt from “Flowers of Our Lost Romance” by Charles F. Lummis, published in 1929, London: Forgotten Books

“There aren't " nor ever were " any 'lost races' in the New World; no mysterious vanished civilizations; no dwarf nations nor giant nations; no people that knew more astronomy than Greenwich ever dreamed; no ex-Egyptians that had their ancestors 'backed off the top of Cheops.' They were just plain Americans " with God, and not Le Plongeon, for creator. Plain American Indians " forTndian' is no worse blunder than 'America,' and the acceptance of four centuries has made both proper. Indians of hundreds of tribes, scores of idioms, dozens of graces of visible culture and impressiveness to the careless eye; but all Indians, so much alike in the essentials of social, political, and religious development, when you get under the showy skin, that no man has found a vital difference. So let us please remember that the Aztecs, Toltecs, Mayas, Yucatans, Incas were just daily people who 'done their level best, ate, slept, worked, multiplied, worshiped, and slew, and left their mark behind them. And all are just Americans!”