Tug Dumbly # 49 - War Path

War Path

Cherokee, Comanche, Iroquois, Apache, 

Chinook, Dakota, Winnebago …

Native American Tribes?

No – campervans, planes, helicopters, cars

military machines, luxury brands

lifestyles to kill for.  

There’s only one Jeep Cherokee.

‘… and in sports today Washington Redskins

played an off-colour game’.   

Then there’s the Braves and the Chiefs.

The Indian Chief a motorbike 

Chief Blackhawk a helicopter

Chief Pontiac a hood ornament

on the car christened in his name.  

Geronimo! the paratrooper’s cry, jumping from a plane.

Weird how the conqueror steals the names

of the defeated and dispossessed for his cars

and killing machines, destroys a people

then uses their name to destroy other people.

Talk about transferable kills.

Tomahawks once split whitey skulls on the

plains of the Wild West. Now Tomahawk

Missiles split buildings full of little brown people

in the Wild Middle East.

The ‘Indian Wars’ a moveable feast

transferred from the Yank backdoor

to Indo-China, Mesopotamia …

a military export of Global Peace.

This weapon’s swap a funny beast

like Apocalypse Now! with cavalry

commander Bill Kilgore leading a squadron

of Iroquois choppers to mow down

Vietnamese in their own rice paddies.  

Don’t try and figure loyalties.

Maybe natives should get royalties

for all those cars and football teams

and killing machines branded with their name.

Would Australian Aboriginals cop the same?

Introducing all new Toyota Gadigal

Ford Eora, Holden Wiradjuri …

I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Local mobs don’t have that cool, cinematic

John Wayne ring: Comanche! Apache! …

Probably a lucky thing.

Australia did build a pair of World War 2 planes

with Aboriginal names – the Wirraway

and the Boomerang. (They didn’t come back).

But no danger our new submarines could

ever be called ‘Koori Class’, even if

like a ripped-off people, they can sink

and stay under, a long, long time in the dark.