Shades of Shit

A shade is an open and covered cooking, eating, and work area used in the summer when the house gets too hot. This is an Apache tale told to and translated by Keith Basso. [Basso 1996] He recorded two versions from two different sources. This is my version. This is not an appropriation but an honoring by retelling. A good story is always honored by a proper retelling.

Gather round because I want to tell you about Shades of Shit, a bad place so I'm only gonna tell it once.

Long ago it was nice, with good water and land to grow crops. First Family got the best spot and raised the most corn. Second Families came later. Their land wasn't as nice but they still did well. Then a drought hit. Second Families lost all their crops. First Family still had plenty of corn. They all wore the same outfits and took big shits in the bushes while Second Families started to starve.

Then a delegation from Second Families went to First Family. "Can you help us?" they asked. "We are hungry and you have plenty. Could you please share your corn with us?"

First Family scoffed. "Why should we share our corn? It belongs to us. We found this Place first, thus we are superior to you. Besides, people in Other Places will give us Shiny Things for our extra corn. Shiny Things that we can wear with our outfits. So we can shine like the sun!"

"Please, our children are starving!"

"Go!" And they did.

For a while, nothing happened. Second Families tried to make do. Then a child died of starvation. Second Families gathered up ironwood clubs, studded with Sharp Things, and surrounded the First Family dwellings. If anyone tried to go outside Second Families threw rocks and waved their clubs at them. First Family had no place to shit! They had to do it in their shades where they prepared and ate food.

After a bit First Family decided it was OK to shit in their shade. It actually was kinda cool! They posted pictures on Social Media of them eating and cooking food surrounded by great piles of turds. Other First Families saw this and they too started shitting in their shades. Influencers picked this up and soon everybody, even those in Other Places, acquired the habit. The First Family channel "I shit where I eat." started trending, soon they had 1 million followers. They even issued a meme coin.

Meantime Second Families had given up. The smell had become awful. They packed their things and fled this Place. First Family was triumphant. They had owned them! They continued shitting in their shades and trolled those who thought differently. Then a plague swept through the place killing everyone. It was abandoned, no one returned.

Shades of Shit is a bad place. I'm not going to talk about it anymore.

Basso, Keith H. Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language Among the Western Apache. The University of New Mexico Press, 1996.

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