Don’t waste your hate,
Rather gather and create.
Be of service. Be a sensible person.
Use your words and don’t be nervous.
You can do this, you’ve got purpose.
Find your medicine and use it.

I’ve been suggesting music in The New Territory for a year, and I like to think I haven’t steered you wrong yet. So, this time, I’m making a departure from my usual review writing. Trust me as we head off in this new direction together. I’m not writing about musicians in your hometown, or a wunderkind you might find strumming a banjolele in your local deli. I’m not even going to tell you about a band from the Midwest. Instead, I’m going to tell you about a seven-piece, world-traveling band from Oregon that’s going to become important to the Midwest this year. And because I feel like I already know you, I think you’re going to like them.

The band behind “Manifesto” is Nahko and Medicine for the People, and they’re about to become your favorite band. Their music is going to remind you of how you’re supposed to feel inside. And tomorrow, you’re going to feel a little better.

Those first words I heard from Nahko’s “Manifesto” have been important to me, and I think, right now, you could probably use them too. They’re words that have sunk in with my five-year-old son, and when I hear him singing them, I feel proud and hopeful for the future. These days, we don’t often get to feel this way.

And in music, we’re bombarded with mechanical tracks, or lyrics wherein musicians brag about their status as money-makers and lovers, or we’re trying to relate to the woes of singers dissatisfied with life, love, and themselves. And that’s fine—it is important to remember we aren’t alone in these bits of the human experience. But there’s more in this life that’s good. This year, I want all of you to feel good, and to radiate to everyone you meet that such goodness is possible.

Here’s music that delivers the social consciousness of Ben Harper or Michael Franti but with the most positive self-reflection towards the topics. Frontman Nahko Bear is upfront with himself about his shortcomings, but he sings as much about forgiving himself as he does about forgiving others. He inspires his listeners — and himself — to be aggressive about moving forward. With his lyrics, he asks if we’re doing enough to be the best possible contribution to the earth and to the rest of the human race. Then, Nahko and the band put their energy behind legitimate causes and actually create some change. They’re using what fame they’ve already garnered to raise awareness and support for organizations they believe in — groups that support Native American rights, mindful environmental stewardship, and music education.

And while the messages of the music are important, the songs themselves aren’t overwrought — they’re downright fun. Nahko Bear drives many of his rhythms with his acoustic guitar, similar to G. Love, Jack Johnson, or Dave Matthews. The rest of the band, Medicine for the People, moves us with bass lines and horn jams funky enough to make booties shake. Beats alternate between smooth and rowdy, making you bounce along to percussion heavily influenced by tribal music. And even as we dance joyfully, Chase Makai’s 12-string acoustic and Tim Snider’s violin soothe our souls.

Nahko considers himself a world citizen, and the influence of his travels stands out in his music. His style visits upon the complexities of his heritage. Musically and lyrically, there is this clear homage to his roots that reach into a bloodline that’s part Apache, part Puerto Rican, and part Filipino. The influences of Hawaii, where he’s lived and has a farm, run deep. His lyrics move through beautiful juxtapositions; between quick delivery and slow melody, or between soft reflection and aggressive vows of self-development or forgiveness. His tongue moves fast, and he drops brilliant, rapid-fire rhyme schemes between measures of smooth, slow melodies.

In mere seconds, Nahko delivers the lines of “Make a Change” with an incendiary cadence. In that time I prioritize and point myself toward making changes of my own.

The clock is tickin’, I can hear it through the
static

Now I’m not being dramatic, enemies don’t
sleep
In fact some aren’t human and that’s hard
to believe
‘Cause I’m such a visual person, my third
eye don’t lie
He’s a wise guy inside, even fooled himself
twice
Thinking maybe I’m not ready to be leading
the way
I mean, fuck, I’m only human, bound to
make some mistakes
An earthquake took place within my life-
time of fear
I hear this too shall pass, the beginning is
near.

It’s sunny music. You may have to prepare your mind for joy and positivity before delving into it because generally, we’re busy and we’re isolated from each other and from everything real. We just aren’t used to feeling good anymore. In the digital age, we need something more tactile. We’ve cultivated too much stress through the screens of our TVs, computers, and smart phones.

Like many in the midwest, you probably celebrate a personal tie to the land you’re on. It’s okay that in the middle of the day, when you’re in your office, all you want to do is kick off your shoes and walk in real dirt and feel warm sunshine on your skin, or you want to be out with your friends, laughing and loving. And that’s how I know Nahko and Medicine for the People is going to resonate with you deeply in much the same way.

It’s more than just feel-good music for the sake of feel-good music. It feels good because it is the sound of coming together with the earth, with history, and with the people around you.

When Nahko and Medicine for the People come around on tour, go see them. They’re going to hit you with “Dark of Night,” and you’re going to grab onto the hips of your significant other and sway to its rhythm at dusk on a lush lawn at some beautiful outdoor venue on an exquisite Midwestern night. And you’re going to remember this review, and you’re going to say, “Jorge was right.”

The post Find Your Medicine and Use It appeared first on The New Territory Magazine.

Main Street
Metamora, Indiana

By Heather Chacón

My first memory of Metamora, Indiana, is of being twelve and sitting on a wooden bench on the front porch of an old house-turned-shop with my friend, Holly. It is December. Above us hang several pieces of artwork for sale, paintings of landscapes and animals on reclaimed barn wood done by a local artist. We are sipping hot chocolate with lots of whipped cream and laughing while her parents shop inside the crowded building, the laughter making what happened next all the more startling. A man suddenly grabs a painting off the wall above our heads and takes off running. He nearly makes it off the porch before being tackled, suddenly and fully about the waist. Other people, whether patrons or employees we do not know, secure the painting. There are murmurs of “shoplifter” amongst the crowd, and eventually the store owner appears to loudly berate the man and ban him from the store. I do not remember any police being called, but the collective scorn from that crowd frightened me regardless.

Had I been more familiar with the history of Metamora, I would have also understood that the concepts embedded in this event — artistic ownership, community censure, thwarted commerce, repurposed materials as the start of mythos-building — were as much a part of this town’s history as the nineteenth-century buildings and homespun atmosphere I loved.

You see, Metamora got its name from the play Metamora; or, The Last of the Wampanoags (1829), written by John Augustus Stone. Stone entered this play in a competition sponsored by one of the (many say the) most prominent American actors of the nineteenth-century, Edwin Forrest. Keen to find a play he believed would be well-suited to his style of acting and physical presence, as well as show that the young nation could produce works of literary and dramatic merit, Forrest offered $500 for the best original “tragedy, in five acts, of which the hero, or principal character, shall be an aboriginal of this country.” From among the fourteen plays submitted, the Committee of Award (headed by William Cullen Bryant) chose Stone’s.

Initially Stone was elated to win the prize and have his work performed by such an important thespian. This pleasure soon turned to worry and dismay, however, as Metamora became a meteoric success that helped establish Forrest’s professional reputation and personal fortune without yielding such stability for its author. The play’s popularity hinged, in part, on Forrest’s acting talent, but it also gave the American people the opportunity to celebrate a uniquely “American” history.

While some brochures and websites mention the town is named after a play, very few include any details of its plot or popularity. Set in 1600s New England, the melodrama tells the tale of Metamora, a fictional chief cast in the “noble Indian” mode, who eventually kills his wife to protect her from the terrors of settler colonialism and enslavement before being slain by white pioneers. Importantly, by 1829 New England was largely under the control of white settlers, thus allowing northeastern audiences watching Stone’s play the chance to experience catharsis rather than fear of Native American retaliation. Yet Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act, passed in 1830, insured white Americans’ interest in stories dramatizing the usurpation of Native American lands and “disappearance” of their earlier inhabitants. The play became such a cultural phenomenon that it inspired the name of Metamora, Indiana, when the town was platted in 1838. This was not unique, as towns named Metamora can also be found in Michigan, Illinois, and Ohio — locations that had more recently been settled on the frontier.

Forrest performed Metamora to great acclaim until his death in 1872. The play spawned at least 35 additional “Indian” dramas and Forrest made thousands by playing the role. Stone, meanwhile, never saw additional remuneration above his $500 prize money, unless you count Forrest buying Stone’s headstone after Stone committed suicide by drowning in 1834. When Stone died many whispered that Forrest’s unwillingness to share the profits of Metamora contributed to Stone’s melancholy. The scandal clung to Forrest for a while, but ultimately did little to impact his popularity.

Today visitors to Metamora, Indiana, will find little evidence of why the town bears this name or the fact that it was established on land that used to be the home of Miami and Shawnee peoples. Instead, public memory centers largely on its identity as a “canal town.” Metamora was established along the proposed route of Indiana’s Whitewater Canal, an infrastructure project designed to transport raw materials from the state’s interior to the Ohio River. Construction of the canal section in Metamora began in 1836 and was completed by 1847. Yet the canal was unfortunately prone to flooding due to the relatively low elevation of the surrounding land and its proximity to the Whitewater River. By the 1860s, the railroad supplanted canal travel as the preferred means of transporting goods.

With this change, Metamora met challenges well known to much of the rural Midwest: declining populations, gradual shrinkage of family-owned farms, a dearth of well-paying jobs. A resourceful bunch, Metamora residents still used the canal to power several grist mills in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, one of which still operates at the Whitewater Canal State Historic Site under the care of the Indiana State Museum. Their grits are extremely good, particularly on a summer day when you can watch them be freshly ground and placed directly in the bag.

In the last few years, interest in the town has risen somewhat, in part due to renewed interest in preserving historic architecture like Metamora’s nineteenth-century shops and municipal buildings. The town’s beautiful natural setting, affordability, and relative proximity to Cincinnati draw visitors who want to stroll around antique shops or take the family on a historic train or canal boat ride. It’s a pity most visitors to Metamora’s functioning wooden aqueduct, the only one still in existence in the United States, have no idea they’re also visiting a town named after the “last of the Wampanoags.”

Maybe it’s time to make sure that darker history is not also carried off into the night.

Heather Chacón is a proud native Hoosier and scholar of nineteenth-century American Literature. She is an assistant professor in the Department of English, Communications and Media at Greensboro College in North Carolina. When she isn’t grading or in the archives, she enjoys being outside and visiting historic sites—beloved pastimes she first developed in Indiana.

The post John Augustus Stone – Metamora, Indiana appeared first on The New Territory Magazine.