🪐Math, our language to describe the universe☄️

Swing down and cut. A voice comes in the broken place. Pull the tree-wing up by its roots.

Wingina [the local chief] welcomed the visitors, and the Indians gave freely of their supplies to the English, who had lost most of their own when the Tyger [their ship] grounded. By the time the colonists were settled, it was too late to plant corn, and they seem to have been helpless when it came to living off the land. They did not know the herbs and roots and berries of the country. They could not or would not catch fish in any quantity, because they did not know how to make weirs. And when the Indians showed them, they were slow learners: they were unable even to repair those that the Indians made for them. Nor did they show any disposition for agriculture. Hariot admired the yields that the Indians got in growing maize; but the English, for lack of seed, lack of skill, or lack of will, grew nothing for themselves, even when the new planting season came round again. Superior English technology appeared, for the moment at least, to be no technology at all, as far as food production was concerned.⁹⁸

Indeed, without the assistance of the Indians in everything from donated food supplies to instruction in the ways of hunting and fishing and farming, the earliest European settlements, particularly in North America, could not have taken root.

Existence gets painted with nonexistence, its source, the fire behind a screen.

Smoke born of this fire hides the fire. Pass through the smoke.

Take hold the hand of absence, and let it draw you through the Pleiades.

You see clearly the glory of nothing and stand, inexplicably, there.

given up everything. You live in absence. More is required.

Mix an eye medicine with the ground. Sweep the memory-pictures clean.

Swing down and cut. A voice comes in the broken place. Pull

the tree-wing up by its roots. Love wants an arm and a leg.

You are the central pole through the nine levels connecting them and us to absolute absence.

So that we can have what we want, you give failure and frustration.

That man there, you suggest, might remove his head before entering the temple.

Then he could listen without ears to a voice that says My creature.

A month of walking the road, you make that distance in one day. Never mind gold and silver payments. When you feel generous, give your head.

If these attitudes and behaviors varied in emphasis from one native group to another, one characteristic of America’s indigenous peoples that does seem almost universal, transcending the great diversity of other cultural traits, was an extraordinary capacity for hospitality. We have noted this in our discussion of the Iroquois and the Indians of California, but in fact, the native peoples’ affectionate and fearless cordiality in greeting strangers was mentioned by almost all the earliest European explorers, from Vespucci in South America in 1502, where the Indians “swam out to receive us . . . with as much confidence as if we had been friends for years,” to Cartier in Canada in 1535, where the Indians “as freely and familiarly came to our boats without any fear, as if we had ever been brought up together.”

the cultural traits and the material achievements of the native people were turned against them once the European invasion began. Indian openness and generosity were met with European stealth and greed. Ritualized Indian warfare, in which few people died in battle, was met with the European belief in devastating holy war.

with its knotted neck broken tells you the same. A candle as it diminishes

explains, "Gathering more and more is not the way. Burn, become light

and heat and help melt." The ocean sits in the sand letting its lap

fill with pearls and shells, then empty. The bitter salt taste hums, "This."

The phoenix gives up on good-and-bad, flies to nest on Mount Qaf, no more

burning and rising from ash. It sends out one message. The rose purifies

its face, drops the soft petals, shows its thorn, and points. Wine abandons

thousands of famous names, the vintage years and delightful bouquets, to run

wild and anonymous through your brain. Empty, the flute closes its eyes

to Hamza's nothing. Everything begs with the silent rocks for you to be

flung out like light over this plain, the presence of Shams-i Tabriz.

that's paved with words

given up everything. You live in absence. More is required.

In addition to this technique, smaller fish were harvested by the use of plant derivatives that stupefied them, allowing the natives simply to scoop up large numbers as though gathering plants in a field. Water birds were taken by floating on the water’s surface large calabashes which concealed swimmers who would seize individual birds, one at a time, without disturbing the larger flock. And large aquaculture ponds were created and walled in to maintain and actually cultivate enormous stocks of fish and turtles for human consumption. A single one of these numerous marine corrals held as many as 1000 large sea turtles. This yielded a quantity of meat equal to that of 100 head of cattle, and a supply that was rapidly replenished: a fertile female turtle would lay about 500 eggs each season.

Still, the Arawaks were careful not to disturb the natural balance of these and other creatures; the evidence for this is that for millennia they sustained in perpetuity their long-term supply of such natural foodstuffs. It was only after the coming of the Spanish—and, in particular, their release of dogs and pigs that turned feral and ran wild—that the wildlife ecology of the islands found itself in serious trouble.⁹⁴

In sum, as Caribbean expert Carl Sauer once put it, “the tropical idyll of the accounts of Columbus and Peter Martyr was largely true” regarding the Arawak. “The people suffered no want. They took care of their plantings, were dextrous at fishing and were bold canoeists and swimmers. They designed attractive houses and kept them clean. They found aesthetic expression in woodworking. They had leisure to enjoy diversion in ball games, dances, and music. They lived in peace and amity.”⁹⁵

In pieces, and at the same time, a perfect glass filled with sunlight.