House Made of Dawn

Each summer along the southern California coast, “small, silversided fish” (54) spawn at high tide. The tiny fish struggle against the tide. In Los Angeles, a chapel hosts the Los Angeles Holiness Pan-Indian Rescue Mission. Reverend John Big Bluff Tosamah preaches at the chapel, which is barely more than a dimly lit room in a basement. The shaggy, catlike priest is stricken with a mixture of suffering and pride. During one sermon, he discusses the Gospel of John, the power of language, and the emptiness of a world without words. He blames certain Christians for corrupting the language of God and allowing people to communicate thoughtlessly. He blames the author of the Gospel of John for obfuscating the truth with excessive language when the word of God is actually simple. Tosamah warns his congregation of Indigenous American men that the white people seek to manipulate them through words with “a grace and sleight of hand” (56)—unless, he says, the congregation learns how to comprehend God’s word.

Tosamah’s sermon moves to a recollection about his Kiowa grandmother, Aho. Although she was illiterate, Aho told great stories. She held a reverence for “the power and beauty of words” (57) that has been lost in the corrupt, white American world.