The Bristlecone: Honoring Our Elders and Ancestors - Elk Whistle (USA)

Bill Neal, known as Elk Whistle, is a

performer, recording artist, storyteller, teacher,

and director of the Elk Whistle Ensemble.

Neal, whose ancestry is Cherokee, plays the

plains–style cedar flutes of the Lakota, Kiowa,

and Comanche Nations, and the river cane

flutes of the Choctaw and the Cherokee. He

was honored in a naming ceremony when the

Tongva Tribe, the original people of the

Greater Los Angeles area, gave him the name,

"Mah–na–che–a–shun," which means “He

Sings With His Heart.” Elk Whistle also sang

for a number of years with the Red Spirit

Singers, a northern traditional powwow drum

group based in Southern California.




The following derives from an impromptu

talk that Elk Whistle was asked to give after


playing flute at the November 2007 Monthly

Sampai at Shumei America's National Center

in Pasadena. The November Sampai is

customarily set aside for honoring elders and

ancestors. The text has been edited for use in

this publication.



"I do not usually speak without my flutes in my hand.

Usually when I speak I tell stories about the songs that the flutes play.

Fifteen years ago, for some reason I was given the gift of playing

these instruments. The flutes that I play come

from a time when the world was still young and

all the living things on the Earth could still understand

each other and could still speak to

each other. When Native People talk about all

the living things on the Earth, we mean the

two–legged, the four–legged, the winged ones of

the air, the dwellers of the water, the creepy–

crawlies, the green things with roots that cling to

the earth, and even the stones of the Earth are

living things with a spirit and a voice and a will.

When I play these flutes, I always hope that

people hear within the voice of the flute that

connection between all other living things in the

circle of life.

The Lakota people of the Northern

Plains have seven sacred ceremonies, and in

all of their ceremonies they use an expression

in their language, which is “mitakuye oyasin.”

“Mitakuye oyasin” roughly translated

means “all my relations.” When they say “all

my relations,” they are talking about every

single living thing in the circle of life. Among

my people and among all Native People, we

talk about the sacred directions. Among my

people, the Cherokee or ‘Tsalagi,’ we talk

about seven sacred directions. The four cardinal

directions, East, South, West, and

North, represent all of creation. The fifth direction

is the Sky above, the sixth direction

is the Earth below, and the seventh direction

is Inside, at the Center.

When Native People talk about

standing at the Center, they mean

that they understand that they have

a hundred percent responsibility

for what they create in the world.

They are a hundred percent responsible

for how they live their

lives. There are things in the

world that we do not have control

over. What we do have control

over is how we behave when

things take place, how we react,

the decisions we make in response

to those things that

happen. The decisions and actions

we take in response to

all these things that occur is

how we create in the world.

Where you are right here,

right now, is the sum total of

every action and every decision

that we have ever made in our

entire lives that has brought us

to this point. We created it that

way. We are all creators, and as

creators, we have a hundred

percent responsibility to

every other living thing

in the circle.

These are things that I am still learning

myself. I am still learning how to live my

life. The flute that I played for you is a very

important flute to me. I always begin with it

and I almost always end with it. It is starting

to get a little battered–looking; it has water

spots on it from being rained on. I had a little

problem with that for a while. When I

would start playing, the wind would start

blowing and it would start raining. One of

my elders, a Kickapoo from Oklahoma, who

has since passed on, was very knowledgeable

in traditional Native People's ways. On

more than one occasion, he took me aside to

explain to me what my responsibility was in

playing these instruments. He told me about

a young man who was playing his flutes and

did not understand the power of the instrument

(because they are not just musical instruments),

and so it rained for six weeks

straight from his playing. The elder told me

to stick to the love songs, because one of the

traditional ways in which they were used

was by young men playing love songs for

young ladies.

I had to tell him that, in order to stay out

of trouble with the flutes, I had to be careful

about playing the love songs because I did not

want my wife to get upset with me. My flute is

starting to look a little battered, but it is the

flute that I used to welcome my

grandson into the world and to help

my elders pass on.

On the mouthpiece of the

flute is a black lump, the

lifeblood, the pitch of the

bristlecone pine tree of California.

Maybe some of you are familiar

with the bristlecones? If you go to

the Sequoia National Park, in the

Visitor's Center there you

hear languages from all over

the world from people who

come to visit those gigantic and

wonderful trees. But the bristlecone

pine is not a gigantic tree like the sequoias.

It is not as tall as the sequoias.

Bristlecone pines grow at ten– to

eleven–thousand foot elevations

in almost pure rock. They grow

in places where the wind blows

so hard and the snow on their

branches is so heavy that the

trees get broken and twisted. So,

they are very small and have

very twisted shapes. But there

is a kind of scientist called a

‘dendrochronologist’ that

is involved in studying

those trees. These scientists have discovered

that the bristlecone pines are the oldest living

things on the face of the Earth. There are

bristlecone pines here in California that are

nine to ten thousand years old, and they are

still growing. They are still putting out new

needles in springtime.

When my wife and I were there, visiting

those grandfather bristlecones, I asked for a

gift. I put a little bit of the lifeblood of one of

those grandfathers on the mouthpiece of my

flute. I hoped that when I played that flute, and

tasted the lifeblood of that grandfather, it

would remind me of something that I thought

I needed to remember. I am a grandfather,

too. I will be 65 on my next birthday. Sometimes,

there are people listening to my words

and my songs who are old enough to be my

grandfather, and yet none of us have been here

very long.

When they teach about the history of this

Earth that we all share in the schools, they

have a chart that goes all the way across the



top of the blackboard from one corner of the

room to the next corner of the room. The history

of the two–leggeds is at the very end of

the chart. And yet in our brief time on this



Earth, we have figured out how to destroy

everything - the water, the soil, the air - each

other - and the Earth itself. So when I play

my flute and I taste the lifeblood of that

grandfather bristlecone, I hope for my

sake that it helps me remember that I need to

live my life in balance. I always hope that it

helps give me a sense of perspective about

what my place is in the circle of all living

things. We owe one hundred percent responsibility

to every other living thing in the

circle. These flutes come from a time when

the world was still young.

Back in the 1960s, the Smithsonian Institution

took a look around in Indian country

to see where this instrument was still

alive. They only found six Indian men in

the entire country who were keeping this

instrument from becoming nothing more

than a museum exhibit. One of those was a

man named 'Doc' Tate Nevaquaya, an elder of

the Comanche people of southern Oklahoma.

The Smithsonian Institution made some

recordings of his music, and the state of

Oklahoma declared him a living treasure

before he passed on. This is an unusual

thing in this country, where most do not

have a tradition of revering our elders. Native

People of North America have always

revered their elders.

Today, after 500 years of living in a society

with a dominant culture that is different

than the Native way, a lot has been lost. Until

1978, there were laws in this country that

kept Native people from their religious ways.

It was only in 1978 and again in the early

1990s that laws were passed to give back to

the Native People the right of religious freedom

that everyone else takes for granted as

citizens of this country. Fortunately for us,

our elders have kept those old ways from

disappearing—the songs, stories, ceremonies,

and dances. We honor them for that,

and our elders mean a lot to us. They are respected

in our community, and we thank

them for what they have done for all of us

who have come later. This flute that I have

been playing today came alive again for a

reason. We are at a crossroads. There is an

old Ojibwe prayer that says, “It is only the two–

leggeds that are broken.”

Here in Southern California, there are

people from all over the world living side by

side, probably more so than anywhere else in

this country. We are all still learning how to

be human beings together. I always hope that

people can hear in the voice of the instruments

a reminder that we are all part of the circle. We believe

the spirits of our ancestors are still here

guiding us, so I am thankful for the opportunity

to be here today, as you honor your

ancestors, as well, and give thanks for that

which has been given to all of us. It is too

easy to forget in the day–to–day struggle to

meet the demands of life how much has

been given to us. Native People sometimes

get caught up in dealing with the hardships

that have been handed to them. But all people,

in one way or another, have hardships.

We have to remember how much has been

given to us. I am thankful that I can do what

I do. I have no musical training, and I did

not start playing until I was 50 years old. I

feel like this gift was given to me for a reason,

and so I do my best to try to live up to

the music in one way or another.

I always hope that people, when they hear

the voice of the flute, will understand what

my words are about."




Editor's note:


The bristlecone tree survives


the environment found at 10,000 to 11,000


feet above sea level, the bitter extremes of cold,

wind, aridity, and exposure to ultraviolet light,

by growing very slowly. This slow growth results

in a very hard wood, so resinous that it is

extremely resistant to decay and disease. A

hero of vegetation, this pine gets tougher as

conditions become harsher. In times of long

draught and cold, the bristlecone dies back,

leaving mostly deadwood and just a thin slip

of living bark to sustain its future life; then,

when more favorable circumstances come, it

grows again.

The highly alkaline soils favored by the

bristlecone, along with the other harsh conditions,

result in little underbrush or ground cover

in the terrain on which it grows, thus eliminating

competition for the scarce nutrients.

Known as the Methuselah Tree, named for

the longest–lived Biblical character, a living

bristlecone has been dated to over 4,900 years

old, making it among the oldest living things on

earth. Ironically, this oldest living bristlecone

discovered so far, the oldest on earth, was cut

down for research purposes—research that

eventually proved the tree's antiquity. When a

bristlecone pine at long last dies, its wood could

be so thick and resistant to weather and pests

that it might survive the elements and stand for

over a thousand more years.

Bristlecones live at high elevations throughout

the Southwest of the United States.




Shumei's English Language Bi-Monthly Magazine

Vol. 275 May/June 2008


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