squanto, the frozen man

One of my favorite songs is "The Frozen Man", by james taylor. And i'll never be able to hear it in the same way again.
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Last thing i remember is the freezing cold
Water reaching up just to swallow me whole
Ice in the rigging and the howling wind
Shock to my body as we tumbled in
Then my brothers and the others are lost at sea
I alone am returned to tell thee
Hidden in ice for a century
To walk the world again
Lord have mercy on the frozen man

Next words that were spoken to me
Nurse asked me what my name might be
She was all in white at the foot of my bed
I said angel of mercy, I'm alive or am I dead?
My name is William James McPhee
I was born in 1843
Raised in Liverpool by the sea
But that ain't who I am
Lord have mercy, I'm the frozen man

It took a lot of money to start my heart
To peg my leg and to buy my eye
Newspapers call me state of the art
And the children, when they see me, cry

I thought it'd be nice just to visit my grave
See what kind of tombstone I might have
I saw my wife and my daughter and it seemed so strange
Both of them dead and gone from extreme old age
See here, when I die make sure I'm gone
Don't give 'em nothing to work on
You can raise you arm and you can wiggle your hand
(not like myself)
And you can wave goodbye to the frozen man

I know what it means to freeze to death
To lose a little life with every breath
To say goodbye to life on earth
And come around again
Lord have mercy on the frozen man
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There are other taylor songs that have deeply touched the lyrical part of my spirit, most notably "Secret O' Life" and "Sleep Come Free Me", but none moreso than this one. Something about poignant beauty in the face of profound isolation.
Every year, my dad and step-mom host a Thanksgiving pageant at their home in the mountains. As friends and neighbors gather at the lakeside dock, a group dressed in pilgrim and native indian costumes arrive in a boat. Upon reaching the dock, there is a skit. Songs are sung, cider and pumpkin soup eaten.
I've been part of the pageant for years, usually as squanto or the turkey (or the tofurkey). I've done so in the face of mild personal uneasiness. Something about putting a happy face on the most horrific genocide in human history. A couple others have shared my reservations, but we haven't quite turned our backs on this well-intentioned celebration of family and community, and we've done what we can to inject some enlightened and historically realistic touches.
I've been reading "Lies My Teacher Told Me", by james loewen. It's about how textbooks avoid the truth or tell outright lies, in the service of making our country more noble or palatable. Chapter Three is about our Thanksgiving myth. Needless to say, i've found material for this year's pageant. The point of my contribution, and indeed in large part the point of loewen's book, is not to make white people feel terrible guilt (although that's part of the process). Loewen's greater goal is an understanding of how native indians shaped our country in profounder ways than have ever been credited. One of the key elements of the "american saga" is the idea that persecuted europeans brought democratic ideals to a new land, for a grand new social experiment. But it might be truer to say that those ideals owe a greater debt to the non-hierarchical native societies we absorbed. It's also credible to suggest that the seeds of our views on gender equality sprang from the same source.
I'll go into more detail in a few days, when i post the squanto speech i'll be inserting into this year's pageant.
For now, back to why i'll never hear "The Frozen Man" in the same way...
If asked who squanto was, most would say that when the Mayflower landed, he came as an emissary from the natives to help the pilgrims survive that first brutal year. He taught them how to fish, and grow corn and other foods. A few might also mention that he had been taught our language by english fishermen.
Corn was indeed involved...so the textbooks aren't entirely wrong.
When the Mayflower landed, squanto had already crossed the Atlantic as many as six times. His early life is historically uncertain, but according to one source, in 1605 this patuxet boy was kidnapped by a british captain, along with four penobscots. He spent nine years as a servant in England, before his master returned him to Massachusetts. What is more certain is that in 1614, a british slave ship captured squanto and two dozen others, and sold them in Spain. He escaped, made his way to England, and then to Newfoundland in 1617. Unable to get home, he joined the crew of captain thomas dermer, heading back to England. Ultimately, he convinced the captain to return him home on his next voyage to Cape Cod. In 1620, a grown man, he walked into the village he had been stolen from twice, to find nothing but corpses. One of the diseases europeans brought to America had hit the patuxet two years before, killing most and scattering the few who were left. This was squanto's world when the Mayflower landed. He joined them not out of goodwill, but because he was utterly alone. They called him a savage, yet he was far more worldly than they. Most of them spoke but one language, while he knew at least three. They looted his people's graves and smelled awful, as regular bathing was not the european way (a big part of the reason why they were so disease-ridden...that plus the shit in the streets, of course). Squanto became the go-between for the pilgrims (or separatists as they were known, who were but a 1/3 minority on the Mayflower) and the wampanoag, the nearest tribe, who befriended the pilgrims out of self-preservation; the plagues had so decimated them that they were vulnerable to other tribes. Their relationship with Squanto was strained, as he was not one of them. They assigned a messenger to oversee his dealings. In 1622 a bloody fever overcame squanto, and he died, possibly poisoned.
Take a moment, then round back to the song that began this article. A man looking at his family's graves, waking up in a world so horrific or alien that it couldn't possibly be real...
I know what it means to freeze to death, to lose a little life with every breath, to say goodbye to life on earth...and come around again.
Lord have mercy on the frozen man.