I am reading a book by Jonathan Lear titled Radical Hope. It is a historical study which recollects how the Crow tribe slowly lost their culture and way of life as nomadic hunters and warriors. Although there are many fascinating details and accounts about the Crow warriors, I found one character quite fascinating.

Lear discusses one of the last Crow warriors, known as Wraps His Tail, who was thought by the U.S. Government to be the provoker of unrest towards the later half of the nineteenth century in attempting to create an alliance with former enemy tribes in the Sioux and Blackfeet.

Wraps His Tail soon became know as Sword Bearer by his followers because of this somewhat mystical sword he carried, which no one quite knew where it came from, but had a myth of invincibility behind it (Lear, 30).

“‘This sword,’ he said, brandishing the bright steel blade over his head, ‘was sent me by the Great Spirit. Once while I was on the mountain top making strong medicine it came floating down to me from the Blue. While I carry it, nothing can harm me or any of my followers-no poisoned arrow-no white man’s bullets.'” (31).

Lear continues on to note that Sword Bearer, with his sword, could predict thunderstorms, and claimed that he could strike down lighting upon the earth; but essentially Sword Bearer provided a sense of hope for traditional Crow people in the face of a cultural extinction (31).

Bear with me.

The sword itself is significant because of what it symbolizes, not just outwardly, but for Sword Bearer himself personally; it is a source of bravery and courage, it is a tool acquired by some kind of divine intervention, coming down from the heavens, a gift of birthing bolts of lighting and the cloak of invincibility.

There is certainly something to be said in the empowerment that we find in our tools, and also in the great cultural responsibility that comes with using them as well.

As an arborist, I can identify with Sword Bearer, not in that terrible context of losing my culture or my people, but certainly in the empowerment I feel from my own tools. There is a ceremonial, or a spiritual aspect of using them, cleaning them, sharpening them-preparing them for the cut. Drawing out the Silky Gomtaro high above my head, “brandishing that steel blade” and slicing through a piece of wood high above the earth, somewhere in between the root system and the Great Spirit. I, too, just as the Sword Bearer, have felt this invincibility gliding through the crown of the Great Tree. I have felt the electricity, too, coming from the loud scream of a top held saw, and the thunderous boom of a punky chunk slamming deep into the earth below.

“While I carry it, nothing can harm me or my followers…”

Those words of the Sword Bearer strike up the great notion of responsibility that sword carries as well, because it is a form of protection. As arborists, I think it is a positive idea to consider all of our tools as a source of protection. Not just the obvious PPE we talk about in the standard conversation, but things like all of the rigging hardware we can choose from to mitigate dangerous loading of a tree, ergonomic and efficient climbing gear, aerial lifts, cranes, traffic control cones and signs and caution tape, communication systems and the list continues. With these tools should come a huge sense of protection for working in sometimes dangerous and exposed situations. Never let the culture of safety be threatened. These things are all our swords to bear.

Like Sword Bearer, we should carry our sword today and always.