Indigenous wisdom through the ages
“All things are bound together. All things connect.”
— Chief Seattle
"We will be known forever by the tracks we leave."
— Dakota
In maybe one of the most alluring covers I’ve ever seen for a book of poems, John C. Mannone’s book “Sacred Flute” (Iris Press, 2024, 77 pgs.) — with a photo of an indigenousYuma musician taken sometime around 1900 — makes you want to turn the page and see what’s on the inside.
And what’s on the inside is “a collection of poems infused with and inspired by Native American Indian culture, history and legend which focuses on Native American nations on the North American continent.”
Section headings include “Land & Nature,” “Identity,” “Love,” “Dark History,” “Apocalyptic,” “Spirituality & Healing” and “Afterlife,” featuring Indian nations including Abenaki-Passamaquoddy, Mohawk, Pueblo, Oglala Sioux, Hopi, Dakota and Shawnee — a broad band of subject matter as well as many Native cultures and locations on the North American continent.
As a professor of physics and nuclear safety, Mannone has written a book far afield from his academic base and in this reviewer’s opinion has succeeded in what he has set out to do, which is to encourage and inspire readers to not only pay more attention to Native attributes, but to maybe become “new natives” themselves in a world of changing demographics and consciousness. In his back cover endorsement, J.P. Dancing Bear writes: “This book is a celebration. It is not mired in politics, technology, economy, or other artificial social frames. It is not just for one people, but has truth for all people.” So this book is not an academic exercise, but a collection of intelligent and heart-felt poems in honor of peoples who have been overlooked, murdered and misplaced by white European cultures.
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After reading this book from cover to cover what stood out to me as much as the poems themselves — which in large part are love poems to an unidentified person, or persons — were the many quotes and epigrams that appear throughout the book. On their own, they would comprise a small volume in themselves as wisdom teachings all coming from Native Americans from individual tribes. For instance, in the beginning section on “Land & Nature,” in the poem “The Trees Wave Their Branches,” is the epigram from a Cherokee prayer: “O Great Spirit, help me to always speak the truth quietly, to listen with an open heart and to remember the peace that may be found in silence.” And then on the next page as a postscript for the poem “After the Felling of Trees,” Mannone includes a passage from Cree prophecy: “When all the trees have been cut down, when all the animals have been hunted, when all the waters are polluted, when all the air is unsafe to breathe, only then will you discover you cannot eat money.” In the section on “Identity” we are given words written on the back of a Native American painting in the Koshare Indian Museum in La Junta, Colorado: “I saw myself/I saw myself singing/I saw myself living/I saw myself happy.”
Moving on to one of my favorite subjects, the poetic chapter on “Love,” has one of my favorite quotes from this section — this one from a Pueblo prayer: “Hold on to what is good,/Even if it’s a handful of earth./Hold on to what you believe,/Even if it’s a tree that stands by itself./Hold on to what you must do,/Even if it’s a long way from here./Hold on to your life,/Even if it’s easier to let go./Hold on to my hand,/Even if someday I’ll be gone away from you,” which is followed by the poem “The Uncovering” where Mannone writes: “I will toss her a plum-stone and see,/then tempt her with sugary, red plums/growing in the green field by the lake/that catch the crimson from the sky.” How could anyone refuse such an offering?
In the poem “On a Quiet Walkway” which depicts a place off Laurel Mountain Road here in the Great Smoky Mountains, Mannone adds the postscript to his poem that is from the Ute peoples: “Don’t walk behind me;/I may not lead./Don’t walk in front of me;/I may not follow./Walk beside me that we may be as one.” Love it!
In the section “Dark History,” which begins with an Oglala quote that declares: “There can never be peace between nations until it is first known that true peace is within the souls of men.” Amen. Also in this section is the poem “Ayuhwasi,” which is the Cherokee word for “large meadow, “ which Mannone wrote at the site of the Cherokee Indian Removal Memorial and Museum in Birchwood, Tennessee, where he saw sandhill cranes flying over the Hiawassee River: “hundreds of them,/thousands, wings/raised in prayer/as they fly over the trail/of tears; they shed/feathers. And respect/falls from heaven/like an ever gentle/wisp of mercy.” Lovely image!
As we near the end of this book, we can’t forget the “Apocalyptic” section and the Hopi quote: “Don’t be afraid to cry. It will free your mind of sorrowful thoughts.” In this section there is a poem titled “Staurolite” that is inspired by the Cherokee legend of fairy stones, and there is also the poem “Ant Hill People” which is inspired by Hopi legend.
But we have to end on a positive note from the section on “Spirituality & Healing,” which begins with the quote from an American Indian Legend: “If anyone desires a wish to come true, they must first capture a butterfly and whisper that wish to it.” And, finally, I leave you with words from an Indigenous elder named Walking Buffalo: “Do you know that trees talk? I have learned a lot from trees: sometimes about the weather, sometimes about animals, sometimes about the Great Spirit.”
(Thomas Crowe is a member of the Tuckasegee community. His latest book is titled “New Natives: Becoming Indigenous in a Time of Crisis and Transition” (Iris Press, 2025.)
