<p>Dear Brothers and Sisters </p>
<p>Hear what I say! Today, I have gone with the people to celebrate the passage of subiyay (aka Gerald Bruce Miller) to the spirit world. And I am here to share with you that while subiyay may be gone and our hearts are heavy, as he promised us, his breath is still here.</p>
<p>subiyay has for many years been the vidadad, the spiritual teacher, of the Skokomish Tribe, some 25 miles from our home. While I have known him in passing for a long time, he only came into our lives in a significant way through the life of my older daughter Aliyah this past 18 months or so, and it is for her that I must commemorate his life and spirit.</p>
<p>subiyay was born the last of 15 children on the Skokomish Reservation on Puget Sound. He was born at a time when one could still look and see that the trees were many nations and races, and through the languages of these nations all gathered together, he heard the teachings of the tree people, told in a language that was dying even as he was growing up.</p>
<p>Brothers and sisters, subiyay was a youth when there was still material to be gathered for the making of the baskets, which he learned from his elders, who are also now gathered on the other side. From them, he learned uyayeh - the medicine of the plant people. He learned the secrets of the inner bark of the alder tree, how it can be used as an anti-inflammatory, as a tonic to fight off streptococcal disease, and as a poultice to bring down the itching of a mosquito bite. And he learned of the medicinal qualities of the salmonberry, of the mushrooms that grow on the willow, and of the huckleberry leaf and devils club that can be used against diabetes, the disease that afflicted subiyay for the last 15 years of his life. All of these and more he resurrected and taught to my daughter in his home, and to other peoples sons and daughters, as they worked in his garden, or stripped cedar bark, or wove baskets together, or simply sat quietly by the fire.</p>
<p>subiyay went to schools where they took away TWANA his language, and his culture, but he was later to understand that it was the way of schools to do the same to the language and culture of other peoples as well. He spent the better part of the rest of life reclaiming them. He was open-hearted with people of all nations, many of whom came to him from all parts of the world, with gifts of their woven rugs and mats and baskets to trade with those of his people.</p>
<p>Brothers and sisters, subiyay fought in a war against people whom he came to understand were not his enemy, and with whom he could later sit and share the gift of food and laughter. He became an actor and playwright, and worked in New York with the director Robert Wilson, actor Sam Shepard, composer Philip Glass, singer Bette Midler, and many others, until the spirit of his ancestors called him home to make baskets with his mother and his aunts, and to teach their making to the children, and to the many who came to stay with him. And when he taught, he burned the sacred scents, for he had learned that when one smells the sacred scents, one remembers the teachings. He knew many dances, and the stories of the people, some of which would require several risings and settings of the sun to tell.</p>
<p>Brothers and sisters, subiyay taught whomever came to learn, for he understood that his immortality lay in the teachings he would leave behind, and in that way become part of the history of the people. He did not look to the skin color of those who came, and treated rich and poor the same, those quick of speech and those slow of tongue, for, he taught, there is no time for division. He was proudest of being a teacher of teachers, those who will pass it on. And so though our hearts are heavy, we should not mourn, for subiyay has left behind many teachers.</p>
<p>Brothers and sisters, as we are gathered together today, many from afar and many from close by, seated by the woodstoves in the sacred smokehouse, we celebrate the beginning of subiyays new journey with the four gifts: the gift of the drum, the sound of our mothers beating heart; the gift of song, given to us by the bird people, each of us with her own spirit song, and which allows us to express our hopes and convictions; the gift of dance, which allows us to tell the story of the people; and the gift of spoken language, and with it of memory, to carry the knowledge of the ancestors from the beginning of time and transport it into the future. So hear the beating of the drum, the singing of our songs, dance the journey of the people, and let us tell the tales of subiyays life, and be mindful of one of his great teachings:</p>
<p>Dont teach all your children exactly the same thing. If you teach them all the same thing, and in the same way, they will come to believe they do not need each other. And that is no teaching at all.</p>