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Martin, Bill, and John Archambault Knots on a Counting Rope illustrated by Ted Rand Holt, 1987 32 pages, color illustrations grades 3-6 Diné (Navajo)

Scenario: Two children’s book authors and an illustrator, whose recent work has received critical acclaim, are discussing possibilities for their next work.

“Well,” says one, “I want this one to be about a boy.” “O.K.,” says another, “—and let’s have him blind!” “Great, that’s good, but there’s a lot of stuff about blind kids—we need another hook....”  “I know! I know! He’s an Indian! A blind Indian!”  “Oh, wow, perfect!...But won’t we hafta do a lot of research? I mean, I don’t know very much about Indians, do you?” “Oh, sure, I’ve got all these rugs my old man bought from the Navajos back in the forties—said he got them for a song.” 

This, of course, is probably not how it happened, but judging from the results, it might just as well have been.

A boy—he looks to be about ten—sits with his grandfather beside a small fire, in the early evening. “Tell me the story again, Grandfather,” he asks. “Tell me who I am.” The story is told, entirely in the dialogue created by the boy’s constant interruptions—the circumstances attending the boy’s birth, his first horse, and the race in which he rode her, thus “crossing dark mountains.” For anyone, this form makes it almost impossible to read the book aloud, with any degree of comprehension on the part of the child audience. For the Native reader, Knots on a Counting Rope is repulsive, in its deliberate pandering to the romantic mythology about “Indians” in the minds of a certain kind of white adult purchaser.

To begin with, the conversation is embarrassingly overwrought: 

A wild storm came out of the mountains...crying, “Boy-eeeeeeeee! Boy-eeeeeeeee!” [yes, nine e’s—I counted them]...and your mother said “I hear it in the wounded wind. A boy child will be born tonight.” 

And,

“Blue?...blue? Blue is the morning...the sunrise...the sky...the song of birds....O, I see it! Blue! Blue! Blue is happiness, Grandfather! I feel it!...in my heart.” 

And,

“You have raced the darkness and won! You can now see with your heart, feel a part of all that surrounds you. Your courage lights the way.” 

Storms are not wild; they just are. And, excuse me, but what the hell is a “wounded wind”? Is this how the authors think their readers expect Indians to talk—all primitive and poetical? I don’t know anybody who talks like that. I don’t even know any white people who talk like that.

Now, what Nation is this? You won’t know from the text. Only in the advance publicity for the book, does it say: “The costumes (sic) are a mixture of Hopi and Navajo celebration garb. Because their reservations are so close to each other, the tribes usually participate together in ceremonies.” 

The illustrations might offer a clue: the setting is obviously Southwest, there is a lot of silver and turquoise around, and what may be a hogan in the background of one picture. On the other hand, the faces of the people are more Northern Plains than anything else. One guy, with a nice, bushy mustache, looks quite a bit like a Micmac/Métis friend I used to have.

The hairstyles are certainly not Navajo. The women all wear braids; the men have their front hair braided, and the rest hanging loose down their backs. Mandan, Piegan, Blackfeet and Atsina peoples wore versions of this style. I wonder if the illustrator found it more attractive, or more obviously Indian-looking, than the clubbed and wrapped way of dressing the hair that is still worn by traditional Diné?

The men also wear pointed Tom Mix hats, with big concha bands. The grandfather wears two eagle feathers sticking straight up out of the back of his hat; the little boy has one. Is this supposed to be a consolation for having been born blind? The book does not say what else he may have done, to be allowed this honor. The women wear little, round Cheyenne-style button earrings.

And, except under special circumstances, Native peoples do not “participate” in each other’s ceremonies. They may attend tribal events of another Nation. Is it necessary to say that Hopi people would not be showing up at a Navajo horse race in sacred ceremonial gear?

The boy of the story is given the name “Boy-Strength-of-Blue-Horses” by his grandfather, because when he was born—

too weak for crying—two great blue horses came galloping by...

“and they stopped, Grandfather. They stopped and looked at me...”

…“and you raised your arms to the great blue horse, and I said, ‘See how the horses speak to him. They are his brothers from...” 

…“from beyond the dark mountains. This boy child will not die. That is what you said, isn’t it, Grandfather?”

On my first reading of this book, I actually turned the page back, to see where the horses came from, before I realized that this is supposed (I think) to be an instance of “Native spirituality,” and the closeness of Indians to the animal kingdom—or are the horses blue to show that they are spirit beings?

But, no matter where the blue horses came from, nobody gives a kid a name like that.

No Native person would be dumb enough to say of a child whose life was threatened, “this boy child will not die.” That would be both an insult and a challenge to the spirits. Traditional Navajos would not hold a naming ceremony “after you smiled your first smile.”  Babies are usually named immediately; especially, with a frail baby, they’d name him right off, lest Someone might think they didn’t want him.

And, finally, a child born blind does not have great, dark, glowing eyes. Nor would such a child ask a question such as, “Will I always have to live in the dark?” nor say, “I could see through the dark,” nor would he be obsessed with finding out about colors. “Dark,” “see,” and colors are concepts of sighted people; they would have no meaning for a child who was born blind. Such a child might ask, “Will I always be blind?” 

Most non-Native readers will have no way of knowing that there is very little of Knots on a Counting Rope that is true to any specific Native culture. Even the relationship between the boy and his grandfather, which had the potential for being the one genuine thing about the book, is marred by the authors’ ignorance:

• A child would never constantly interrupt an elder, even if he’d heard the story a hundred times. He would just sit quietly and listen.

• No one would say, “I love you. That is better than a promise.” We have learned too bitterly and too well that our love for our children is no protection for them against anything.

• Grandparents do not tire of repeating stories, or admonish children for asking for them, or tell them that “this may be the last telling.” 

• What is this “counting rope” business anyway? Did the authors get the idea from the ancient Peruvian quipu? Or is this another of those “old Indian customs” of which none of us have ever heard?

Of some white people who write about Indians, it can probably be said that at least they meant well, despite the end results. Of some, it can be said that they knew better, and did it anyway. Unless they walked around with a bag over their heads, these guys have to know that what they have created has nothing to do with any Native reality. The romantic imagery of this book is no less a white fantasy than the bloody savages of more overtly racist titles. Knots on a Counting Rope has nothing of respect for any Native People. It is a crass, and deliberate, rip-off—an insult to all of us, and most of all to the people of the Navajo Nation.

—Doris Seale

from Through Indian Eyes: The Native Experience in Books for Children, edited by Beverly Slapin and Doris Seale. Fifth edition. Berkeley: Oyate (2006).