Indian Chief and the Aussie
An Australian travel writer at the beginning of a 6-month tour of Canada was checking out of the Vancouver Hilton. When he paid his bill, he asked the manager, "By the way, what's with the Indian chief sitting in the lobby? He's been there ever since I arrived."
"Oh, that's Big Chief Forget-me Not," said the manager. "The hotel is built on an Indian reservation, and part of the agreement is to allow the chief free use of the premises for the rest of his life. He is known as Big Chief Forget-me Not because of his phenomenal memory. He is 92 and can remember the slightest detail of his life."
The travel writer took this in. When he waited for his cab, he decided to put the chief's memory to the test.
"'Ello, mate!" said the Aussie, receiving only a slight nod in return. "What did you have for breakfast on your 21st birthday?"
"Eggs," was the chief's instant reply, without even looking up, and indeed the Aussie was impressed.
He went off on his travel writing itinerary, right across to the east coast and back, telling others of Big Chief Forget-me Not's great memory. One local noted to him though that 'How' was a more appropriate greeting for an Indian chief than "'Ello mate."
On his return to the Vancouver Hilton six months later, he was surprised to see Big Chief Forget-me Not, still sitting in the lobby, fully occupied with whittling away on a stick.
"How!", said the Aussie to the Chief, who again did not stop to look up.
"Scrambled," said the Chief.
Property Rights
About 1966 or so, a NASA team doing work for the Apollo moon mission took the astronauts near Tuba City where the terrain of the Navajo Reservation looks very much like the Lunar surface. Along with all the trucks and large vehicles, there were two large figures dressed in full lunar spacesuits.
Nearby a Navajo sheep herder and his son were watching the strange creatures walk about, occasionally being tended by personnel. The NASA team noticed the two Navajo men and approached them. Since the man did not know English, his son asked, for him, what the strange creatures were. The NASA people told them that they are just men that are getting ready to go to the moon. The man became very excited and asked if he could send a message to the moon with the astronauts.
The NASA personnel thought this was a great idea, so they rustled up a tape recorder. After the man gave them his message, they asked his son to translate. His son would not.
Later, they asked a few more people on the reservation to translate and every person they asked would chuckle and then refuse to translate. Finally, with cash in hand, someone translated the message, "Watch out for these guys, they come to take your land."
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