There are but Three

“There are but Three,” spoke the Eldest, her bright eyes shining in her creased leather face. “Each is tossed and torn by Sister Wind.”

We’d watched with envy as our brothers and sisters left for the fire-talks of the Clan. Now it was our turn to meet with the Eldest. The Chief’s messenger arrived at half-moon. My father and mother called me to our fire to hear, “You will attend the fire of the Eldest at moon-dark.

The fire in the Eldest’s hut was low and chill crept mouselike through chinks in the daub. We listened, eager for clanship, but secretly wishing for toys and play,.

“Sister Wind is with us always. She pushes and pulls the Three, and you, young ones, it is to you to feel her breath and know when to raise a sail and ride upon her back and when to set a windbreak and hunker till she calms or passes.”

“There are but Three. There are Three stories in your head to listen to, Three heartbeats to dance with, Three spirit sunfires to surge in you and Sister Wind blows them all. There are but Three, The Where, the How, and the Who.”

The Eldest paused. She took a sip from her cup. We looked at each other. I  know not what others were thinking but the story in my head said “What?”  The Eldest took another sip and, just before my head-story came jumping from my mouth, she continued.

“Some would now ask ‘What?” or perhaps “Why?” Good questions, but I ask that you keep them behind your teeth for now.” The Eldest looked into my eyes and smiled.

“For now let us look at the Three, the campfires Sister Wind puffs out her cheeks, and bellows-like blows upon.

The Where.

“The Where is our home. Our food comes from the Where, from the grains, leaves and flowers  that we coax from the earth, and from the animals who give us the blessing of their pelts and flesh.  The Mother feeds us, gives us water, shelters us from hot and cold, wet and dry. The Where is a part of the Clan because, as our feet walk upon the land, as we drink and sail her waters, as we look to the sun, moon and stars, we know where we are and from where we come.

The How.

“The How is the knowing and the doing and the tools that help the Clan to live. We forget the How to our peril. There is the knowing of the Where, the seasons and signs, the hard winter that follows fall of many acorns. There is the knowing of the tools, the wheel that grinds and moves the grain. The How is shared from mother and father to son and daughter, from neighbor to neighbor and it sustains the clan.

The Who.

“Many would say the Who is the Clan. That is true, but I urge you, young ones, not start there. Each of us grew in the Where and we learned the How. But before there was a Where or a How there was a You. The Shaman has helped some of you discover the animal who guides your spirit. Some of you may find a part of a Where that nourishes you. Some will let a How define You. But whether you become makun,  healun, foodun, hunter, grower, warrior or chief. The clan begins with You.

“You are the Clan and the Clan is You. You share the Where and the How with the Clan and the Clan is your belonging. If you become Trader or travel to other clans, you will learn to see beyond the Clan to People. You head-story may say You-Clan-People, but remember,

‘We are each of us unique, our Clans may differ, but we are all one People.’”

Just then Sister Wind blew a frigid blast and the Eldest got up, put another log on the fire and blew upon it till it caught.

“Sister Wind reminds me I was speaking of her” said the Eldest chuckling.

“I think Sister Wind blows when we are too comfortable. She breathes upon the Three sometimes separately, sometimes all at once in a big storm.

Sister Wind blows upon the Where.

“Perhaps the Feedun tells Council that hunters say the game moved or a grower that a crop has failed. Sometimes the Clan has betrayed the Mother and the Healun says the spring makes us sick.

When Sister Wind blows upon the Where the question will be: Windbreak or Sail? Windbreak should the Clan repair the Earth, or sail, should the Clan or some of us move to a new Where?

If it’s windbreak, the Clan must join together, share the work, and improve. If sail, then whoever moves must know they travel to a new Where and those there are also a clan and group of unique Yous. When you meet, connect with your You to the People and let the understanding of your Clan follow later.

Sister Wind blows upon the How.

“The Maikun may find a new knowing or tool. It is the nature of maikuns to do this. It is also the nature of others to think the old knowing is ‘perfectly fine.’ Remember the miller’s dislike of the water wheel and how he protected his donkey who turned the millstone? When Sister Wind blows upon the How, remember to test the new knowing and not forget the old. Think deeply; sometimes new tools change more than the work they make easier.

Sister Wind blows upon the Who.

“Willow bends before Sister Wind; if she did not, she would break, but she gives not up her Willowness. So You must bend and grow and help others in the Clan to also.

“When Sister Wind blows, it falls upon You to decide: Windbreak or Sail. Then you must win others to that choice. This is when you must tell the Why and the Why Now, and Why the other way will work no longer. Then explain the new Where or How and become a new Who, but give not up your Willowness.”

The fire had burned low again. The Eldest smiled and shooed us home. Sister Wind breathed gently on me, as I pondered my Willowness.

An attractive archetype

Americans are a scrappy lot. We’re “cussedly independent.” After all, the United States was founded by “embattled farmers” who broke the rules of war by wearing buckskins and hiding behind trees to shoot at soldiers marching in lines wearing bright red target-coats.

So it isn’t surprising that we love the “pirate” and the “outlaw,” those who “disrupt,” break the rules, or “stick it to the Man.” You can see it in our literature, Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn,  our movies, Pirates of the Caribbean  and The Godfather and TV shows, The Sopranos  and Breaking Bad. We idolize business leaders like Henry Ford, Steve Jobs and Elon Musk.

Fashions change, but the pirate’s earring, the outlaw’s bandanna mask, the gangster’s pinkie ring perpetually resonate.

It is a romantic archetype, daring Outlaw, passionate Revolutionary, swashbuckling Pirate, Maverick, Outsider, Rebel. We cheer Zorro and Batman, rich men turned thieves and justice warriors for the poor.

Americans didn’t invent this archetype. The British have Robin Hood; the French have Cartouche. The Germans have Schinderhannes and the Australians have Ned Kelley, The Keralans in Southern India have Kayamkulam Kochunni, the Irish have Gráinne O’Malley, and the Chinese have Song Jiang. Outlaws with a heart are a global phenomenon.

There are brands that promote themselves as outlaws, Harley-Davidson, MTV, Apple. Some celebrities style themselves  bad-boys, like Erroll Flynn, who famously played Robin Hood, or Charlie Sheen  or bad-girls, like Madonna or Milie Cyrus. Country singers Willie, Waylon, and Kris were called outlaws because they resisted album strings tracks. Hank Williams Jr, and Chris Stapleton carry on the outlaw-country tradition.

Some leaders strike an outlaw pose, which, I guess, is OK until they start breaking actual laws or behaving in toxic ways. Then maybe it becomes a little less romantic and a lot less cool.

The Law is the law . . . except . . . maybe . . .

The United States was founded in the tradition of English common law. Before the Norman conquest of 1066 England was ruled in Anglo-Saxon legal tradition. Crimes were personal. Victims were entitled to compensation. If I killed your cow, I paid you for it. If I killed your wife I paid you, maybe more or less depending on the wife and the cow. If the parties could agree on compensation, great; if not, the chief or a jury of locals decided the crime price.

The feudal Normans built stone castles with square towers and keeps on hills overlooking thatch covered villages. The Normans, a colonial power, needed to keep the peace, so there were rules of accepted behavior. Crimes became less individual, and more crimes “against the community.” Adjudication of the law was centralized, conducted by clerks, literally clerics, literate clergy. These clerks’ knowledge of law came from Cicero, Virgil and the Vatican and was described as flowing from the Divine Right of the King. It’s tough to make exceptions to God.

The outermost rim of an Anglo-Saxon village was called the pale. If someone’s behavior was wild and uncontrollable it was described as “beyond the pale,” outside village acceptable behavior that might get you banished. The Normans expanded the concept of outlawry, to be outside the community and protection of the law.

Everyone had to follow the rules, even Kings. Henry II discovered this when his knights murdered Thomas á Beckett,  Archbishop of Canterbury. Royals were slow to learn.  King John’s barons spelled out the rules in the Magna Carta in 1215.

This is what the Adams, Jefferson, Franklin crew were upset about; George III was not following the rules. So they built a government to ensure “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It was a representative republic, which, despite visionary words, wasn’t all that representative, and we’ve been trying to grow into the words they used ever since.

The founders broke the rules to break away, but they were rule based folks. Sam Adams, the firebrand of the Son’s of Liberty, was an outlaw to the Crown and a patriot in our history books. So Americans had this dichotomy from our beginnings. We love “law and order,” a “government of laws not of men,” “the rule of law.” We also love the Outlaw and the Pirate. Maybe everyone does.

Unintended consequences

I have been rebellious for much of my life. I rebelled against my parents, my teachers, against bosses, against anyone who had the smallest bit of power over me. I broke some laws. I’m not proud of that, but fortunately I never hurt anyone or went to jail. I loved the pirate image; I even once contemplated an earring.

Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean is a fun romp. Captain Jack Sparrow meets up with Edward Teach, Blackbeard. The real Edward Teach was captured and beheaded after a career of capturing ships, killing their crews and marauding coastal communities. Maybe the earing isn’t so cool.

One filmmaker shows the horrific consequences of outlaw behavior. We laugh as Vito Corleon (Marlon Brando) in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather talks about an “offer he can’t refuse.” Then we wake with the man who discovers a severed horses head on his bloody satin sheets.

Jesse James, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid have been lionized in books and movies, but you rarely hear from the families of Pinkertons guards or Bolivian federales they killed. Al Capone, the bootlegger operator avoided getting caught by becoming a local folk hero. The victims of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre didn’t get a say. Capone was put away by the IRS for tax evasion.

People talk blithely about tax evasion a “victimless crime.” This is the Anglo-Saxon view of crime. The victim isn’t one person or one company, it is a crime against the community.

Some admire how drug dealers “beat the system” until your brother dies of a fentanyl overdose or your little sister is caught in a gang crossfire. We call terrorists “freedom fighters” until they commit an unspeakable crime in the name of “liberation.” The Pirate and Outlaw are too wrapped up in ”rules don’t apply to me” to care about anything but themselves.

But that earring, bandana, and pinkie ring sure are cool.