PEOPLE OF THE SOUTH WIND

Approaching Storm, Central Kansas
Kansa Thunderhead, Central Kansas

There's a very good reason that the original Kansa Indian natives who hunted the northern Kansas Flint Hills were called "people of the south wind". There always seems to be some sort of wind blowing unchallenged through the tall grass prairies of this stark and somewhat treeless landscape, especially along the rim rock edges of the grassy hills. Ancient glaciers and erosion formed these hills, and the creeks in the valleys harmonize with the rustling leaves of the cottonwood trees that gather at the water’s edge. At the very least, a light breeze is always waving the inland seas to the rhythm of life throughout this land. And it is generally moving northward from its birth over the warm and humid waters of the Gulf of Mexico into Texas and Oklahoma and then occasionally colliding with dry and cool air from Canada over the territory named Kansas.

As a youth, I walked these pastures with a shotgun over my shoulder or grasped it in focused anticipation of the exploding rush of pheasants, prairie chickens, ducks, and coveys of quail. During one of those splendid hunts, I spied a small shaped flint arrowhead on the ground as our party moved toward a covey of quail that had retreated into a lush area of small brush and bluestem grasses. That arrowhead had possibly been launched onto the south wind, flying on a feathered wooden shaft in pursuit of the same wild game that I was hunting. I was struck by the bond that now existed between the native warrior of the south wind and my own spirit which fortuitously crossed this same sacred path that day. I’ve always admired these vanquished stewards of the land ever since I learned of their solemn ritual after the hunt. The native Indians would always offer up a prayer of gratitude for the spirit of the bird or animal that gave up its life to sustain theirs. That sacred understanding of the oneness of the universe has been lost on modern man who is now far detached from this closeness to the land and its creator.

Kansas can be a state of mind, as demonstrated in 1872 by a Native American Comanche, Parra-Wa-Samen or Ten Bears, who was responding to a treaty when he stated, “I was born on the prairie, where the wind blew free and there was nothing to break the light of the sun. I was born where there were no enclosures and where everything drew a free breath. I want to die there and not within walls. I knew every stream and every wood between the Rio Grande and the Arkansas. I have hunted and lived over that country. I lived like my fathers before me, and, like them, I lived happily”. Who knows? Perhaps that was Ten Bears' arrowhead I picked up.

On a hot and humid summer's day, the awesome manifestation of the plains Indians’ Great Sky Spirit looms ominously on the southern horizon. These are spectacular days with gusting southern winds and bright sunshine, inevitably giving way to dark and threatening skies. Walking those vast plains, I came to be impressed by the magnificent beauty and fury of the boiling, churning, building mounds of moisture laden thunderheads. Later in life, I experienced these towering clouds up close and personal from corporate and commercial jets as we cautiously wove our way around the intense turbulence contained within these marvels of the skies. They inevitably spawned their innocent but increasingly violent lives in the skies of the southern horizon. And then they began their swift and steady assault on the northern Flint Hills of the Kansa people, riding the wild bucking and twisting broncos of the south wind.

THE KANSA FILINT HILLS

Ghost Rider's Saddle, Central Kansas
Flint Hills Pond, Central Kansas

The Flint Hills in central Kansas are home to America’s last tall grass prairie which was recently set aside as a national preserve to assure its future. The bluestem prairie grasses are the green gold and life blood of these hills and home to thousands of grazing cattle. Limestone rim rocks outline the wind and storm exposed hill tops as you gaze across the landscape. The skies above are a vast canvas that can be a motionless blue from horizon to horizon at one minute and boiling thunderheads in the next. Red tail hawks ride the updrafts and circle the land in search of small prey and deceptively fast prairie chickens cruise in formation on their way to grain fields or daytime resting grounds. Cottonwood trees line the small rocky streams that meander through the draws and natural valleys at the bottom of these silent prairie sentinels. Fossilized remains of an abundant ocean life linger just under the surface and in the limestone rocks and stream beds to remind the casual visitor of the vast inland sea that once covered the land. After the water receded, Native American Indians such as the Osage and the Kansa, known as the people of the south wind, roamed and hunted vast buffalo herds that thrived on the tall grasses. Later, seasoned cowboys would watch after Texas longhorns on their talented horses. It was said that they could ride across acres of moonless pasture land on a stormy, cloudy night and hit the home gate to the safety of their ranch house.

WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE’S KANSANS

Tallgrass Prairie Faith, Strong City, KS

“Kansas, said our greatest statesman, John J. Ingalls, is the child of Plymouth Rock. In the beginning of the settlement of Kansas, the State was invaded by immigrants from New England or sons and daughters of New Englanders, who came to Kansas to make this a Free State…there is your ideal Puritan civilization: a prosperous people, burdened neither by an idle luxurious class who are rich, nor taxed to support a sodden and footless class verging upon pauperism. A sober people practically without a criminal class, an intelligent people in so far as intelligence covers a knowledge of getting an honest living, saving an occasional penny, and living in a rather high degree of common comfort; a moral people in so far as morals consist in obedience to the legally expressed will of the majority with no very great patience for the vagaries of protesting minorities. A just and righteous people in so far as justice concerns the equitable distribution of material things, and righteousness requires men to live at peace among men of good-will. A free people in so far as freedom allows men and women to have and hold all that they earn, and makes them earn all that they get. But a people neighbor minded in the Golden rule, a people neighbor bound by ties of duty, by a sense of obligation, by a belief in the social compact, in the value of the herd, in the destiny of the race. All these social totems are concentrated in the idea of God in the Kansas heart. We say in Kansas that the Republican Party and the Methodist church were the spiritual forces that controlled the State. ‘Ad astra per aspera,’ to the stars by hard ways, is the easy approach to grace, no royal road to happiness, no backstairs to beneficence. There is no earthly trail paralleling the primrose path in which one can avoid the wrath of God and the lady next door. Life and liberty are indeed highly esteemed in Kansas; but the pursuit of happiness only upon conditions set forth in the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, and their interpretation by the Kansas statutes.”

--William Allen White: “Kansas: A Puritan Survival,” Nation, April 19, 1922 (Prominent owner/editor of the Emporia, Kansas Gazette)

KANSAS SKIES

Yellow Brick Road, Central Kansas
Barbed Wire Skies, Central Kansas
Prairie Thunderhead, Central Kansas

The grandeur of Kansas skies can be absolutely awesome! And nothing compares to the Rocky Mountain high of building thunderheads over the panoramic prairie grasses on a hot and humid late afternoon in July. The Gulf moisture riding on southern winds collides and churns with the cooler air drifting down from the Canadian north. Then the artistry begins to rapidly reveal itself in a completely random and grand scale across what only minutes earlier had been a vast blank canvas of clear blue Kansas sky.

The experience might be likened to watching an atomic bomb exploding into a large mushroom cloud of radioactive dust in the distance. And then helplessly waiting as the destructive shock waves rapidly approach as the sky grows dark and ominous. Violent streaks of lightning scar the sky and meanacing rumbles of thunder mark your distance from the onslot as it descends upon you with all the fury of nature unleashed.

WEATHERED WOLF CREEK BARN

Wolf Creek Barn, Door Slider, Spider Web, Worn Saddle

The old weathered barn has withstood many Kansas seasons of temperature and moisture extremes. It has stood resolute where it was built for the homesteaders who toiled inside her. The rusting door hinge had ran back and forth across its rail at all times of the day to permit implements and men to tend the land and in the day's last light to once again seek shelter from the harsh elements. Now the spider has laid claim to the opening and his turf is uncontested. Unsuspecting flying insects now become its prey as they seek security. The old dried leather saddle now only carries dust particles instead of the adventurous children's romps across the prairie grasses. It's riderless image is a silent reminder of the lively family that once carved out an existence on these sweeping midwestern plains.

FLINT HILLS SUNDOWN

Flint Hills Sundown, Central Kansas

The land can be harsh and hard on those who dare to tame it.
But that same landscape can be transformed in minutes to a vast canvas that would render any Renaissance artist humble.

CIRCLES

Sun Wave, Internet Domain

The circular dance of life would seem to be an eternal round, with all creation joined in the dance. These circle or round dances have endured through the ages as spontaneous or choreographed joyful social activities. Once we begin to learn the rhythms of life, the steps in our spiritual journey begin to fit each measure of music and understanding of God’s word. Our lives revolve around circles and even though we live in a broken world, the circles never break. Many of our circles seem to be spinning faster and faster, like a marathon merry-go-round ride with only one rule; nobody gets off as long as you’re in the dance. The days progress from sunrise to sunset to moonrise to moonset, as we spin around on our planet one more time.

The annual seasons move from spring to summer to fall to winter as we complete one more trip around the sun and add one more candle to our birthday cake. We’re born dependent, experience childhood, grow to independent adulthood, then ease into old age and begin to circle back. Generation follows generation, one season follows another, and the years fly swiftly by, filled with happiness and tears. Only time will tell if it was time well spent.