Sherman Alexie blogs

flight book tour blogDuring the reading, I cracked wise about the Nez Perce Indians (It's an old tribal tradition to playfully (and sometimes not so playfully) mock other tribes.) I told the story of the time back in college when a few of us Indians grabbed the list of our fellow students who'd self-identified as Indians and went a-calling on their dorm rooms and apartments.

We took along a few of the grungiest Nez Perce dudes we could find to put a scare into the box-checker Indians (as in 'Hey, if I check this book that says I'm Indian, maybe I'll get scholarship money'). And then I remarked that grungy and Nez Perce might be redundant (eliciting laughs and groans from the crowd).

Then a guy from the back row shouted out something unintelligible. "What?" I asked. He shouted that same unintelligible something. "What?" I asked again. And he said, in a normal speaking voice, that "Horace Axtell is probably one of the greatest tribal elders ever. And he's Nez Perce and he's not grungy."

I started laughing and said, "Wow, did they remove your sense of humor at birth? Or did you lose it in an accident?" He mumbled something back and I said, "Oh, no, you're one of them serious people. You're one of those folks who think Indians are serious. You revere us, don't you? Oh, my, that just shows me that you don't know any Indians. You know who'd be laughing hardest right now? Horace! I know Horace. Have known him for years. He's a hilarious dude. If he was here, he'd probably be telling dirty jokes backstage."