Tori Amos: Piece by Piece Read online

  By this time in the story Nanny would be snoring—after all, she's been up since four-thirty a.m., getting the homemade biscuits and the skillet-fried cornbread prepared for the army of people she would be feeding through the day. I, on the other hand, was transfixed. Poppa's drawl drew me back in. “Shug, now be honest, now: have ya figured out how Margaret Little outfoxed the Bluecoats?” And, as always, I said, “Poppa, tell me. My memory isn't so good.” He would look at me and say, “Yer only six and a half, Shug. Ya betta have yerself an extra helpin’ of mustard greens every day so yer mind don't turn hollow, like them Bluecoats in their grave. Shug, that like to tickle me to death, yer memory ain't good. Well, if you'll listen I'll tell ya again. Margaret Little would say to me, ‘Ya gots to know your enemies, C.C. To figure out how yer enemy thinks, ya gots to crawl inside his blood, inside his veins. Now ya look into that fire and ya picture yer enemy and ya feel his breath in yer lungs. Now ya walk 'round like this and shur 'nuff, perddy soon ya'll be thinkin’ like your enemy, and then ya know what's gonna happen? You, C.C., will know exactly the next move yer enemy's gonna make.’ ”

  Poppa about now would inhale from his pipe, and I would crane my neck to try to get a whiff of the apple-sweetness. “Shug, have ya ever defiled a Christian grave?” “What are you talking about, Poppa?” “I said, defiled a Christian grave, Shug … I can see by the look on yer face, I need to explain. Ya see, Margaret Little knew how the Bluecoat thought. She knew that nothin’ was sacred to the Bluecoat down South. But, ya see, the Bluecoat's God was not Southern, but he definitely was Christian. So Bluecoats, as well as any other God-fearin’ Christian, all got buried in white Christian graves. Yep, even the Bluecoats as well. So, turns out, Margaret Little pinpointed the only piece of land that wouldn't get burned. That wouldn't be drenched in blood. And ya know where that was? Yep, them white Christian graves. Margaret Little knew that she was never gonna be allowed to be buried in a white cemetery. Ya see, Shug, there was white churches and black churches back then. And ya wasn't allowed to mingle socially. While Granddaddy Rice was alive, which wasn't for much longer, the church wasn't gonna say no to Granddaddy Rice and his money. So Margaret Little accompanied him to church sometimes, but mostly she had her church in the woods surrounded by the kingdom of the Great Mother.

  “She'd say to me, ‘I saw me some fresh dirt, and the word was, Bluecoats was tryin’ to bury their friends if they died. So I went into this Christian cemetery and dug me some graves m'self. I'd taken all our seed, put 'em in as many bundles as I could, and dug fresh graves for my seed all 'round these fresh Bluecoats. And I even thought to m'self, bein’ since they'd slaughtered all our livestock, I was sure I could come up with a recipe for Bluecoat stew. But ya see, my seed wouldn't be harvested till after the Bluecoat turned into a No-coat. I also had me some dried beef and enough eatin’ for me, Granddaddy Rice, and the youngins for at least a couple moons. I had it wrapped in such a way that would discourage any vermin from gettin’ to it.’ ” Poppa's eyes would shine when he said, “And the Bluecoats came and, likes I said before, left nothin’, just a wasteland, but shur 'nuff Margaret Little was able to feed her family with the dried food she had hidden in the fresh white Christian graves. I asked her how in the world she planted the seed. And she turned and looked at me and gave me a look that could freeze the sun. ‘C.C., I'll tell you what I did— since they butchered our oxen to eat for themselves and took our horses, there was only one thing left to do—I got me a young lad from the village and had him steer me as I became the oxen m'self. I strapped that harness on and plowed the fields with my body. When harvest time came, it wasn't a lot, but it was more than enough for Granddaddy Rice and the youngins and the young lad and his family.’ ”

  I looked over at Nanny and realized her people were on the Eastern Cherokee tribal rolls also. That's one reason Nanny and Poppa joined forces. They were both called half-breeds.

  CONVERSATION BETWEEN TORI AND ANN:

  On Nanny's side, her grandfather, who had also tried to escape the Trail of Tears in 1838–39, had been murdered. Many of her family's stories were lost. Her grandfather was known as John Akins. John had married a white woman who remarried a white man soon after John's murder. The white woman's new white husband didn't want anything to do with her “savage brat,” and so she gave up her son. At just around two years old, little John Akins, named after his daddy, was abandoned.

  Nanny always referred to her daddy, my great-grandfather, as Poppa John. He was reared by former slaves who had just been freed. He was a half-breed; his mother was German, and his father, a Cherokee man, was dead. Nobody would take him, so this black family with few material possessions nurtured him with love. As far as he was concerned, this was his family. Eventually, Poppa John's biological aunt pieced together what had happened to her nephew and made contact. They developed some semblance of a family connection, and much later on in life, after Poppa John had created many children who loved him with a wife he adored, named Ellen, his little German mother reentered his life. Because not one of her white kin would take her in, this tiny woman in her eighties, standing four foot nine inches, demanded a room at Ellen and Poppa John's. When Poppa and my mother would start giggling up a storm, I would hear my mom say, “Oh, Poppa, you shouldn't say that.” And I always knew they were talking about that mean little woman. At that point Nanny would join in the giggling and say, “Mary Ellen, I know it's an awful thing to say, but what Poppa says about old Granny is the truth, but I'll let him say it 'cause he's a goin’ to hell anyways.” Poppa would chirp right up and look down at the ground and say, “I'm addressin’ you, Granny, where I think ya gone. Ya was as mean as a snake in life that even the snakes won't take ya now. I'm tellin’ ya the truth, Shug. I was sure she was that mean old biddy from ‘Hansel and Gretel,’ and I never let yer mama anywhere near Granny because I knew she'd likely turn her into Mary Ellen pie.”

  Poppa John was a woodcarver and made furniture. The chair that old Granny sat in all those years ago, having been taken in by the little boy she'd abandoned, sits in my beach house. It was lovingly made for her little size by Poppa John. This was in the Carolinas, near the Eastern Cherokee Nation. They all eventually settled right outside Charlotte to work in the mills in Catawba County, ancestral land of the Catawba tribe. I was born in Catawba General Hospital.

  The Cherokee land … I heard about the broken treaties all my life, from my grandfather, and then my mother, who can go on and on and on concerning the details; she knows a lot about it. The idea that your possessions can be taken, your land can be taken from you, has been fundamental to me and has made me very clear about what I own spiritually. And I refuse to let anybody be able to take my sacred ground. You can take my land, but not my sovereignty, my inner sacred ground. That's what my grandfather held on to with his stories; what my mother kept with her books that she memorized, so that if they were taken from her, or burned, the words would be emblazoned across her heart. Words by Emily Dickinson, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, by Robert Frost, wove an invisible gown for my magical mother. My mother's family learned through the hardest experience that you must preserve the realms within.

  SONG CANVAS:“Ireland”

  Hazelnut, the village mutt, lives in a call box in Timoleague, Co. Cork. Two buckets of rose hips sit next to the Aga rangecooker for Dunc's special syrup. Ireland in the summer …

  Here is where I seem to remember slices. Here is where I've come to remember Poppa's stories of the Cherokee Nation. Go figure. The Cherokee and Irish have both had their cultures invaded, and maybe that's why they have bonded within my family bloodline—but it's more than that. I don't know if there is something in the water, something in the rain. And jeez. It's been raining. The August fires are burning steadily here in the old Irish house. The tank tops we all brought are whispering warm-weather chants under cardigans. The guys have gone down for a Murphy's or a Guinness on tap, down at Paula's place. It doesn't matter if she hasn't seen us in a year; she always acts l
ike we're regulars. Maybe that's just the Irish way, but it pulls me back time and time again. When I was writing the song “Ireland,” I was reading some book a journalist had given me on James Joyce and I was drawn into the fabric that made up his tapestry, his life. There was a spoiled nun who taught him the names of the mountains on the moon … I figured if “Ireland” was referring to James Joyce, then it needed to have nuns, and if it had nuns, then it needed to have white-collar sadomasochists from Wall Street, and if it had that, then it needed to have Vikings, since anywhere you go around Ireland their presence is still felt. And if you had Vikings, then you needed to include the ancient Irish legends, which are usually divided into four cycles. The first one is the Mythological Cycle, whereby the Tuatha Dé Danann, who are descendants of the goddess D'Anu, known as the divine people, begin the richness of Irish mythology with stories that tell of their origins and their ways. Stories of the malevolent Fomorians, who battle the Tuatha Dé Danann for control over Ireland. Tales of the Sídh—a term for an otherworldly being, or a place—a mound where the Sídh live. The Tuatha Dé Danann were defeated by the Milesians by the end of the Bronze Age (circa 300 B.C.), and their otherworldly presence took the form of the Sídh in the legends. After their defeat, writes their contemporary chronicler Eithne Massey the Sídh “took refuge in the world of hollow mounds and magical islands far out to sea, but often used their otherworldly powers to help or hinder mortals.”

  The Sídh's historical myth is the source of the bastardized concept of a fairy—as if anyone gives a rat's ass. But for all those fairy haters out there, at least now you'll know the origin of that which you hate.

  Next up comes the Ulster Cycle, then the Fianna Cycle during the Celtic Iron Age, and then the Cycle of the Kings during the early Christian era. “Ireland” incorporates the story of Macha, a goddess of Motherhood and Blood, who was nine months’ pregnant when she was forced by her husband to race against the king's horses to fulfill a boast he had made. Macha did in fact run faster than the horses—and cursed the sons of Ulster after having given birth to her twins. Late at night in pubs in Ireland, sometimes you will hear a reference to Macha and her curse, which many believe can still befall you when you least expect it.

  Queen Maeve and the warrior Cú Chulainn are the main characters in the Cattle Raid of Cooley also known as the famed Táin Bó Cuailgne. The Morrigan embodies one of the triple battle fairies. The desire men felt for the beautiful Deirdre was what ended her life, as far as I'm concerned one of the saddest stories of all time. Eithne Massey's book Legendary Ireland: A Journey Through Celtic Places and Myths is where you can dive into more on this.

  TORI:

  Okay so here I dive. I dive into my father's side. In Co. Cork I find the Irish-Scottish Rib and jump on. The whole Irish-Scottish part of my culture has never been a problem, for chrissake. I mean, come on, I bought a house in Ireland in 1995. The Irish, the Scots in the family, you know how that can be—for sure there was the usual family stuff, but not usually much of a problem. But there was one person. The Puritanical. The Shame Inducer. I was five. She was and always has been my greatest adversary and challenger. She was my grandmother. My father's mother. I think she was made a saint somewhere in the hills of the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia between Fancy Gap and Galax. Galax—home of the fiddler's convention. I remember going when I was five, and there was a sign that read ACUPUNCTURE AND CHINESE MEDICINE, and my grandmother issued the edict that Chinese medicine was sent from the devil.

  Can someone not be considered evil but do harm? Harm to those who serve the Great Mother, while Grandma herself proclaimed to be a feminist because she had a college education in the early 1920s … all the while preaching that women should turn over their virgin bodies to their husbands and their souls to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Yes, Grandma was an ordained minister/missionary as well as a teacher. I would say to her, “Why do you have to bring Jesus into this, Grandmother? I happen to like the guy, so let's just leave him out of this.” “I can forgive you for your sinful words, Myra Ellen,” she would say. “I am just guiding your father on how you should be handled. How you should be molded into a respectful Christian young woman. Everything we do we do because we love you.” Yeah, right. Barf. At around this time, as punishment, she had me in the corner, trying to pray the fear of Jesus into me after I “talked out of line,” because I spoke out against the horrifying decision that she had made to put my brother in a shoulder brace in the hopes that he would hold his shoulders back. I felt I just had to unravel the way she planted thoughts in people. Soul-destroying thoughts.

  The Irish side of my dad's family had been weavers, and that became my first clue into this. I made an oath in that corner: Grandma, I will weave myself into your ideology so I can hunt for the hidden codes of control that affect those around you who fear your judgment, even including, at times, my father. I will escape your grasp by holding your hand. And I will pray—take me to your God because this cannot be Jesus’ loving Divine Father, so take me to your God, this control freak who makes boys think that their John Hancocks will grow boils if they let themselves spill their seeds into shy but friendly thighs. Take me to your God, this control freak that has suggested that Satan, with barracuda jaws, lives inside the petals of a girl so that if you let a boy between your jeans, then guess what? Grandma will be waiting with Bible in hand. If she could she would pull you in front of the judges at the end of days, during their roast lamb dinner, and make you drop your jeans so that they can extract a sample from your love stains—to prove what? The need to control … The need to dominate by subjugating others so they believe in your God, in your way. Where is emancipation in this kind of spiritual bullying? At five I knew I was at war with my grandmother. As far as I was concerned, she was masquerading as a feminist while jailing the Feminine. If a woman wanting to choose her own path, sexually and spiritually, went against Grandmother's puritanical belief system, then she would be treated—

  I would be treated, or you would be treated—as a pariah. This made me close ranks within my Being. Close ranks so that my grandmother's methodology and orthodoxy could not filter the coffee out of this bean. The American Inquisition. It can be traced. And chased.

  So, this was the Scotch-Irish grandmother who instilled the fear of God in me, in a very negative way. Yet I respected the mental capabilities of this woman, because she did recognize something. She knew that I was not one of them. In a way, she gave me a huge gift. Because of her reaction to me, I began to understand my path. I was given a clue: I began to see the burn-the-witch mentality of strict Christianity, and I began to recognize that I really needed to search out my spiritual family. Because her ideology wasn't part of it. Behind the Christian love-your-neighbor-as-yourself facade, there was another story. There was not a lot of compassion there if you had been deemed a sinner. There was not a lot of support for who people really were. But I realize, now that I'm older, that the Great Mother even encompasses the adversarial Grandmother. From the Beginning, from the myth of Sophia breaking away from the ancient Creatrix to find her autonomy, the Great Mother was forming herself. From the ancient Inanna forcing herself to the underworld to visit her sister, Ereshkigal—passing through the seven gates of the underworld and then being hung on a hook, rotting—where she had to look at her sister, and her sister had to look at her. Both needed each other to see inside themselves, to see inside their own shadows. To come to terms with who they really were, not who they thought they were. And again, the Great Mother was learning to relate to other pieces of the Feminine.

  Many years after I faced down my grandmother as a child, the mythic astrologer Wendy Ashley told me that my chart contains a crazy number of planets in the house of religion. I mean, it's just there. It's part of who I am. I am a daughter of the Church. From very early on, I've seen how Christians can manipulate people by manipulating Jesus’ message, but I've also known loving people within the Church who walk the path of compassion. Either way, I can't fully get
away from Christianity's influence, and I don't want to get away from certain aspects—the message to love your neighbor as yourself, the idea of resurrection—those aspects of Jesus’ message. Many people believe in those principles though they are not practicing Christians. The truth is, I believe that if Jesus were alive today he would not be a member of a Christian church, because hypocrisy is at the center of many a church's crossroad.