Friday, May 11, 2007

Some Thoughts on Censure


Back in the spring of 1980 I was hitchhiking with a friend through Arizona and we were picked up by a Navajo man named John Twobirds Arbuckle. He drove a beat-up old sixties sedan and drove us from the mountains north of Phoenix all the way up to Sedona. Along the way he told us this story:

Years ago there was a Navajo man who lived with his family on some land granted to him by treaty. He had a beautiful wife and two healthy children, a house, a barn, and several head of sheep and cattle. A White man came to him one day, penniless, and asked if he could sharecrop the Navajo’s land. The Navajo took pity on him and let him stay in the barn and help work the land until he got back on his feet.

One day, while the landowner was in town, the sharecropper got drunk and, enraged that he should be living at the mercy of the Indian, killed the man’s wife and children, burned down the house and barn, slit the throats of the sheep and cattle and ran away into the hills. When the Navajo landowner returned and found his house and barn burned to the ground and his family and livestock slaughtered, he vowed to spend the rest of his days finding the man who did it.

The Navajo searched throughout the Southwest, up through the Rockies and across the plains. Many, many years went by as he made his way back and forth across the Great Divide, through the Pacific Northwest and into Canada. From there he walked deep into the heart of Alaska and outside the small town of Bethel he spotted a figure way up on top of a mountain…


He spent the entire day climbing the mountain and at its peak, just as the sun was going down, he came face to face with the man. With so many years gone by it was hard to tell if the old man in front of him was, in fact, the sharecropper, so the Navajo said, “Are you the varmint who killed my wife, killed my children set fire to my house and my barn and slit the throats of all my sheep and cattle?”

The sharecropper replied, “Yup… that was me.”

The Navajo looked at him straight in the eye and said, “Well… You’d better watch that shit.”


USA - 856
FB - 617

25 comments:

Annie said...

You are so going to get a beating for that.

Anonymous said...

You idiot, John Arbuckle is from Garfield. None of us are fooled, even the retards who thingk the war doesn't exist

Anonymous said...

john twobirds Arbuckle is a real person and I know him.....I told him about this blog and he said he remembers you and laughed when I told him you remembered this story.

He told me this story once too, He lives in NM now.

Freewayblogger said...

Tell John that both the hippie and the French guy he picked up 28 years ago are alive and doing well. Let him know he's been an inspiration to us both.

Man I love the internet...

Anonymous said...

I too know J twobirds it has been now over 10 years ago.
That is definetly a JTBA story.......

Please say hello to him for me if you can as I don't seem to be able to find a contact
Tell him
SHE WHO FLIE'S WITH SPIRIT!

Peace all xx

Anonymous said...

i have met the man named john twobirds arbuckle - in fact i worked with him at a company called the l.r. clinton grp around 17 years ago in aurora co - he gave me an autographed copy of his book singing words - he is a real person , and easily one of the wisest men i have ever met . he never told me the tale of his family posted above but he did tell us numorus other tales of his journey. we didnt stay in touch though i wish i had. still i remember him now all these years later - he had a profound effect on the way i veiw the world - if your still out there john ... thank you.

John L. Arbuckle said...

That's my brother for you. Goin' and spreadin' that wisdom around. Glad to see the fellows he helped are doing well. Incidents like this just makes me love him all the more.

jared arbuckle said...

wow, look at what happens when i google my dad.He died yesterday.we are amazed and humbled at how so many people he touched.

Freewayblogger said...

Jared, my deepest sympathies and respect.
Your father gave me and my friends a ride in
the middle of the desert and opened his home
to us as well. I remember him fondly to this
day. Very few people would show such simple
kindnesses these days. Very few did back then.

If you'd like to hear some quotes I remember
from your dad, write me at freewayblogger
at yahoo. Peace, scarlet

katie aka red buffalo woman said...

john was a great man i knew him a lil over 10yrs ago. my deepest sympathy goes out to his entire family please let terra and joe know that i have been trying to get back in touch with them for over 5 yrs now abd i miss all of you terribly love always and forever red buffalo woman

Anonymous said...

I'm confused. John TwoBirds Arbuckle, the head of Terra Mater International is alive and well. Jared, why have I not met you? I know some of his children including JC, Bear & Raven, many of his wives including Tara, Josephine, Chris, yet I have not met you.

Anonymous said...

His father was John Arbuckle, a Bad River Ojibwe from the shores of Lake Superior who was a WWII hero and a professional boxer. I met him at his dad's funeral in Ashland WI. He didn't even stay for the feast, but at least he came. He must know his ancestry as the name Twobirds was his great grandmas maiden name who only spoke ojibwe. It's too bad my cousin did not look to the his own Anishinabe to find religion. Inronically, the Bad River rez is the home base to the Medewiwin society, the largest and most active religion for the objibwe people.

Anonymous said...

Hey anonymous, Jared and bear are the same person, if you knew them well you should know that! And yes he did die in September 2010

Anonymous said...

He is real, or was. He is dead now, died in 2010 sept 16, and is buried on his home property here in NM.Sounds like one of his stories. But he wasn't navajo. Just raised on the Navajo rez in OK.

Freewayblogger said...

He was a good guy, and funny. Like I said, he gave me and two friends a ride and then let us stay at his house in Sedona. Not many people do that sort of thing - at least not anymore and not in this country.

His was the only house that didn't have a lawn, and he said he liked it that way because it was the only house where the animals came.

Anonymous said...

John Two Birds Arbuckle was a sexual predator who abused his oldest daughter under a trumped up story about a prophesy by "White Shell Woman." He was a cocaine dealer in Lincoln Nebraska in the 1970s and an FBI informant who helped send many AIM activists to prison. I doubt very much that he has died. I think a white man named John Arbuckle died and the identity has been confused.

raven arbuckle said...

My father was Not a sexual predator, he never touched me or my older sister, and fuck you for saying so when you can't even post with your name anonymous coward. You're buying into propaganda that was created to bring him down. He is dead, and he is missed and loved by many as you can see from this post. He was an AIM activist himself, in fact he helped start the whole movement. Do some research, talk to people who Actually knew him before you come forth spewing shit with your forked tongue.

Anonymous said...

he did not help to start AIM. read the COINTELPRO papers! Ask yourself why he wasn't with his own people.....It was NOT because of his bogus vision. ask why they never came to see him! Ask why he was in prison! look at the old newspapers in Nebraska! Ask yourself why everyone kept leaving? I am not the same poster as above. But I do know that they are not talking about the two older sisters you know about, but the rather the one he did tell you about. The one that printed him started all of the whole vision mess done in Sedona, and the alternate reality he created for you all.

Freewayblogger said...

For the record someone from NSW wrote in with allegations of abuse by JTA and complicity from family members. I declined to publish it.

Anonymous said...

Dear freeway blogger, how is this a blog when you won't allow the truth to be published. Protecting all his wives is more important to you than the truth. Shame on you.

Freewayblogger said...

Naah. Just that you, or someone, was taking pot shots at the dead, calling his daughters "stupid", implying they were enablers and generally piling on post-mortem what they should've dealt with while the guy was alive as opposed to taking it out on the next-of-kin.

Also, remember, the reason he appears in this story is because he gave three strangers a ride, fed and housed us and generally showed us the sort of humanity that's all but disappeared these days.

In other words, I'm gonna need a whole lot of convincing, or at least some evidence, before I help you work out your issues with the dead upon his daughters.

Anonymous said...

You are as bad as he was. Karma karma karma

Anonymous said...

Your a fool, google red road shame ons. You will see a hundred stories of his sexual rape.

Freewayblogger said...

Googled it. Found hundreds of stories, not one of them dealing with JTA or rape, so here, give this a try: Google "Ferrari 250 GTO" and see if you also get hundreds of stories about JTA & rape. If so, I think we've found your problem.

Anonymous said...

I have know John for almost my entire life. He was a good man and would never touch this daughter like that. I am saddened to think that there are rumors out there that say such horrible things about him. I know the sacrifices he has made for his children and is still making. All I can hope for is that no one believes propaganda such as this. Rest in Peace John Twobird.