UNSTOPPABLE / Before the first act
This is Ryan’s story, though his part begins long after the first act.
No life begins with its own arrival.
We inherit the ambitions, curiosities, and contradictions of those who came before us. Some remembered, others forgotten, yet none entirely absent. To understand what follows, we must first return to what came before.
Daybreak
Four days after his birth on Acoma Mesa in 1861, my great-great-grandfather was named Gaire, meaning Daybreak. He would later become Edward Proctor Hunt, and eventually be known as Chief Big Snake.
A fitting place for this story to begin.
“Daybreak” Edward Hunt 29 years old (Circa 1890). Photographer: Charles Fletcher Lummis (1859–1928)
1861 | Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico Territory
Born on a mesa high above the desert, he was named Gaire meaning “Daybreak”.
At ten, a horse nearly killed him. His family prepared to bury him. Then, as the story goes, the boy opened his eyes to the sun.
At school, his hair was cut and his language forbidden. But the name he carried into the world was one he chose. In the pocket of a donated coat, he found a Bible with a note offering its owner’s name. He made it his own: Edward Proctor Hunt.
Center “Daybreak” Edward Proctor Hunt 67 years old (Circa 1928).
HISTORY RECORDED
Edward had been a student, a merchant, and a father. In Europe, he stepped into another life. Performing with his family in a Wild West show, he was known onstage as Chief Big Snake.
In 1928, at sixty-seven, he sat before a different audience in Washington. With his sons helping translate, he spent weeks recounting his version of Acoma’s origins to Smithsonian researchers. What he had carried in memory took shape on the page.
His telling left a lasting record, but also a lasting dispute over whether that sacred inheritance was his to share.
I imagine the man in that room shaped by every world he had entered. What he learned, what he endured, and what he went looking for had all become part of him.
His travels took him across an ocean. His words would carry him across generations.