WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.760 align:middle line:90%


00:00:06.760 --> 00:00:12.080 align:middle line:84%
Toward the middle of
"Swallowed Light,"

00:00:12.080 --> 00:00:16.160 align:middle line:84%
I struggle with this
tension or relationship

00:00:16.160 --> 00:00:22.940 align:middle line:84%
between one, language,
two, history, and three,

00:00:22.940 --> 00:00:27.900 align:middle line:84%
where myself or my
nimiipuu people.

00:00:27.900 --> 00:00:33.960 align:middle line:84%
People of my community, where
they reside in that tension,

00:00:33.960 --> 00:00:35.190 align:middle line:90%
and it's quite--

00:00:35.190 --> 00:00:38.660 align:middle line:84%
you occupy the space
that's really--

00:00:38.660 --> 00:00:41.060 align:middle line:84%
it's hard to
express, and I think

00:00:41.060 --> 00:00:45.710 align:middle line:84%
that's why I tended to
turn towards the lyric.

00:00:45.710 --> 00:00:49.280 align:middle line:84%
And in that, my uncle,
he always talked

00:00:49.280 --> 00:00:52.370 align:middle line:84%
about reading the treaty,
reading the treaty.

00:00:52.370 --> 00:00:57.500 align:middle line:84%
He always had it in his
glove box, in his trunk.

00:00:57.500 --> 00:01:00.880 align:middle line:84%
And I remember
reading the treaty

00:01:00.880 --> 00:01:04.450 align:middle line:84%
and holding on to the language,
the legal language of it.

00:01:04.450 --> 00:01:06.740 align:middle line:84%
And I struggled a lot
because a lot of it,

00:01:06.740 --> 00:01:10.840 align:middle line:84%
I didn't really understand,
and I had discussions about it

00:01:10.840 --> 00:01:13.390 align:middle line:90%
before over the years.

00:01:13.390 --> 00:01:18.460 align:middle line:84%
And, finally, I had this
idea to use that language

00:01:18.460 --> 00:01:23.500 align:middle line:84%
and to place me and
my fragmented language

00:01:23.500 --> 00:01:26.080 align:middle line:90%
and self into that.

00:01:26.080 --> 00:01:29.530 align:middle line:84%
So I took the first
article of the treaty

00:01:29.530 --> 00:01:32.140 align:middle line:84%
and the 11th article,
which is the last,

00:01:32.140 --> 00:01:35.910 align:middle line:90%
and I pushed them together.

00:01:35.910 --> 00:01:42.440 align:middle line:84%
And so this is "Self
Portrait as Article I or 11,

00:01:42.440 --> 00:01:47.390 align:middle line:84%
Treaty with the Nez
Perces, 1855, cession

00:01:47.390 --> 00:01:49.355 align:middle line:90%
of lands to the United States."

00:01:49.355 --> 00:01:52.740 align:middle line:90%


00:01:52.740 --> 00:01:58.320 align:middle line:84%
In the year of their Lord,
this 11th day of June,

00:01:58.320 --> 00:02:02.990 align:middle line:84%
I enter the
boundaries of my body.

00:02:02.990 --> 00:02:07.820 align:middle line:84%
The said centuries here
dissolve and re-ink:

00:02:07.820 --> 00:02:15.250 align:middle line:84%
nimiipuu hereby cede,
relinquish, and convey--" here.

00:02:15.250 --> 00:02:20.110 align:middle line:84%
I want to convey how my
physical testament is written,

00:02:20.110 --> 00:02:26.180 align:middle line:84%
and at a particular point,
then erased into the land.

00:02:26.180 --> 00:02:30.660 align:middle line:84%
To the United States
all their right, title,

00:02:30.660 --> 00:02:33.260 align:middle line:84%
and interest in
and to the country

00:02:33.260 --> 00:02:36.680 align:middle line:84%
occupied or claimed
by them, bounded

00:02:36.680 --> 00:02:39.885 align:middle line:90%
and described as follows to wit.

00:02:39.885 --> 00:02:42.780 align:middle line:90%


00:02:42.780 --> 00:02:47.160 align:middle line:84%
In the year of their Lord,
in the boundaries of my body,

00:02:47.160 --> 00:02:55.290 align:middle line:84%
they intend to clarify the
divisions and say to wit.

00:02:55.290 --> 00:03:01.380 align:middle line:84%
And so I enter every name of the
dead into each source of water,

00:03:01.380 --> 00:03:04.920 align:middle line:84%
each river mouth,
every flattened field.

00:03:04.920 --> 00:03:08.940 align:middle line:84%
And I cross out the
cross of the divide,

00:03:08.940 --> 00:03:14.520 align:middle line:84%
and I lie down on the crest of
every mountain has its name.

00:03:14.520 --> 00:03:20.370 align:middle line:84%
A place of-- a place of where
the animals and humans met.

00:03:20.370 --> 00:03:23.810 align:middle line:90%
A place where the story began.

00:03:23.810 --> 00:03:27.770 align:middle line:84%
A place where the
blood was washed.

00:03:27.770 --> 00:03:35.420 align:middle line:84%
The place at the heart named
for our monsters, tim'néepe,

00:03:35.420 --> 00:03:41.930 align:middle line:84%
a place where the gray coldness
looms like hiqúxquxcenki,

00:03:41.930 --> 00:03:49.130 align:middle line:84%
where America names over
the land, lapclápc wéetes,

00:03:49.130 --> 00:03:53.780 align:middle line:84%
a place where the blue
haze of warmth looms like

00:03:53.780 --> 00:04:00.430 align:middle line:84%
hi'lap'ápxp'apxanki, where
the bodies lie unburied.

00:04:00.430 --> 00:04:06.340 align:middle line:84%
I a silhouette, a hereunto,
between the articles

00:04:06.340 --> 00:04:12.660 align:middle line:84%
of the and a, definite
and indefinite.

00:04:12.660 --> 00:04:14.910 align:middle line:84%
And it is here in
the boundaries I

00:04:14.910 --> 00:04:22.770 align:middle line:84%
have no choice but to set my
hands on this 11th day of June

00:04:22.770 --> 00:04:28.860 align:middle line:84%
on behalf of the above named at
the place on the day and year

00:04:28.860 --> 00:04:33.435 align:middle line:84%
herein before written
to seize the body shut.

00:04:33.435 --> 00:04:37.010 align:middle line:90%


00:04:37.010 --> 00:04:43.210 align:middle line:84%
An empty cross fallen,
sealed and signed

00:04:43.210 --> 00:04:46.410 align:middle line:90%
in the presence of us.

00:04:46.410 --> 00:04:51.000 align:middle line:90%