6 Chair Night/Curbside Phoenix

A Six-Chair night contains the following lesson: you can avoid paying for a cord of wood by throwing derelict chairs into the fire. As you recall an aspect of oral tradition is that the listener learn "how-to" do something from the story. Of course there are untold rules at play here, that the chairs are brought to the elder because that is the job of all younger tribal members, to always make sure that elders have everything they need. Big Red is fulfilling his duty to the elders. As you've noticed, Ruby never gives him gas money or pays him for delivering the chairs, he just does it because that's how the culture is set up - stratification by age. And Indian children are taught from birth to take care of the elders.

Curbside Phoenix was the story of Big Red going "junking" at 2am in the city. Through this narrative we learn how to go junking and the history of Big Red's junking exploits. And, wow, he found a Mercury coat rack and brought it back to life - since we are spared metaphors here, we don't have to worry about what the god Mercury means within the context of the narrative or anything like that - it functions to acquaint the reader with poverty and it's inner-workings on the Onandaga Rez. The snow plow also brought to bear the aspect of poverty and how the community plays roles to bring relief to one another. By plowing people's driveways, Big Red saves them from hours of back-breaking work. The people did not pay him for each time he swept out their driveways, but remembered him for the holidays and showered his family with food and gifts. One gift was the refurbished pea coat from which we learned how to rip out the old lining, stuff with down, and sew in another lining to produce a thrift store phoenix:)