Soaring With Eagles and Hawks

The Red Road was believed to be the path through this world leading to the Higher Power.
—Bill Miller

It has been said that one of the greatest injustices done to Native Americans today is the attempt to keep them living in the past. White America is alternately fascinated by historical Native American culture and ignorant of, or apathetic toward, contemporary Native American struggles. We’ll stand in line to see Kevin Costner in Dances With Wolves (with a white man playing soldiers and Indians), but few will ever walk down the reservation road Bill Miller invites us to in his most recent release, The Red Road.

This is a story about a journey. It’s about trails and paths. At times it’s about drifting aimlessly; more often it’s about soaring with eagles and hawks. Through it all, Miller, who was raised on the Stockbridge-Munsee Indian reservation in central Wisconsin, never fails to praise God, to honor his Mohican heritage, or, with quiet forcefulness, to hold white America accountable for its actions.

Miller opens his first recording on a major label with "Dreams of Wounded Knee," a stirring requiem that masterfully blends guitar and flute to call forth mourning and wailing. This is followed by "Praises," a spiritual that transcends time and place through a combination of Menominee chants and English lyrics. Joined by the Smokey Town Singers, a group of Pow Wow performers based on the Menominee Indian Reservation in Shawano, Wisconsin, "Praises" opens and closes with "Ma-Nee-Ta-haem" (We feel good in our hearts)/"Wa-Wa-Non" (We thank you)/"Mau-Ne-Ka-Ko-Saw-te-wa" (We have everything) /"Mah-Maw-Koh-Ne-No" (Our father up above), while Miller praises the Creator for all of creation: rivers, mountains, eagles, his children, and his people.

The chorus to "Faith of a Child" is a paraphrase of Isaiah 40:31. This song stands out as the only moment on the album not directly inspired by Native American traditions or struggles. It serves to broaden the scope of Miller’s lament to all who struggle and fail to meet "the world’s standards of perfection."

While this piece and "Tumbleweed" feature Miller’s storytelling gift through song, his talent for narrative is showcased in "Many Trails," a spoken-word folk tale created by Miller and inspired by an old Mohican saying. Through the story about a boy, the whippoorwill he pursues, and the coyote who tricks him, the listener is moved to contemplate her or his own journey. How do I stay true to my path? What or who are the coyotes who get in my way?

"Many Trails" is followed by "Trail of Freedom," a folk song about finding America—not the pop culture, MTV, Madonna America or even the baseball, hot dogs, and apple pie America, but the America of indigenous people of both the past and the present.

If you’re looking merely for drums, flutes, and New Age chants, look elsewhere. Miller has put together a collection that is as hostile and honest as it is engaging and evocative. The listener is in one moment swept up by Miller’s haunting flute and the rhythmic drums of his accompanying musicians, only to come crashing down in the next moment into a world of broken treaties and human suffering.

The album serves to issue a dual call. One call is to Miller’s Native American brothers and sisters to find strength in walking down the trail of life together, to take pride in their history, and to envision a brighter future. This call is evidenced in "Trail of Freedom": "Brothers we must walk with the pride of Chief Joseph/Have the courage of Geronimo/For this trail, it’s long, so you have to be strong/just to find your way back home."

The second call is to the rest of America to acknowledge not only the past centuries of oppression but also the place of Native Americans in the 1990s. Miller celebrates the past, but asks us to focus on the here and now. As he closes the album with "My People," Miller sings in a clear use of the present tense, "My people are the Navajo/My people are the Cherokee/My people are Arapahoe/My people are Menominee/My people are.

The Red Road By Bill Miller. Warner Western, 1993.