Susie had been experiencing severe headaches that wouldn’t resolve. She went back to Columbus toward the middle of October to have some medical testing done.
I missed Susie while she was away, but I continued working all my numerous jobs for the mission, I was teaching my introduction to cultural anthropology course at the Urban-Rural College, and I was working on my fieldwork research. It would be difficult to characterize the extraordinary focus I had on my research. I was a man possessed. Or more accurately stated, I was a man obsessed.
It would be equally difficult to describe my feelings about my experiences on the reservation and living in Montana. I loved my surroundings, and I loved the people from the community. We quickly made friendships with people who were incredibly caring and kind. I was alone up in the trailer at the mouth of the canyon at the foot of the mountains, about a mile away from even the mission and without a telephone. And yet I didn’t feel alone.
My parents wrote to me while Susie was back in Ohio. They were concerned about how I was faring out in the wild without my companion. I wrote them back and told them that I was fine. I explained to them that I woke up every morning and had no idea what my day was going to be. What I did know was that I was going to see something that I had never before seen in my life. I was going to have totally new experiences. I was going to learn things that I hadn’t known. I was acutely aware that I was having an experience that would change me … all in the most positive ways. There was no routine in even the most routine activities. The entire experience was exhilarating. Beyond the fact that I had been preparing for my fieldwork for the past seven years throughout my studies, I was totally immersed in an experience that was entirely transformative.
I had a wonderful support system. Camie, Ray and Irma, and Gordon and Edith regularly checked on me, and included me in their family activities whenever possible. I had a wonderful relationship with Beatrice and Mary at school. I often spent a lot of time in the kitchen with them between bus duty, teaching my classes and cleaning the school. I had become very close with Mike and Bill, the other volunteers at the mission. Those friendships were also a profound learning experience for me. We came to the mission with such entirely different life experiences and backgrounds. Both came through the front door of the Jesuit Volunteer Corp, i.e., they weren’t Jewish. They were both devote Catholics. Mike would eventually become a priest. Bill would return home to the state of Washington, become an architect, get married and raise a family. Mike was a carpenter in Indiana before serving in the army in Vietnam. It would have been hard to imagine that the three of us would have found ourselves in the friendships we had outside of this experience we shared at the mission and on the reservation. Over the years, I lost touch with Bill. I did have a lifelong friendship with Mike. They were such good people, and we shared the most important values. Mike and Bill came to the mission because they wanted to make a positive difference in this world. Their compassion, empathy, caring and kindness were the foundation of our friendship.
Did I have my lonely moments? Yes. But most of the time I was too busy to think about it. So, yes, Mom and Dad … I’m doing just fine.
If one observed my life, my family, my friendships, my personality, my activities, it might not be apparent that I’m sort of a loner. I don’t exactly mean like a ‘Ted Kaczynski kinda loner’, but I do appreciate being alone. It has taken me more than a few decades to even recognize it in myself. Most of the time when I am alone, I am far from lonely.
And I had my trusty maniac dog, Gahanab.
Someone driving a truck turned around in my ‘front yard’ and hit Gahanab. I didn’t see who it was, and I never wanted to know, because they didn’t stop. I was angry. Our veterinarian was in Malta, about 80 miles away from Hays. I quickly drove to the mission and asked Mike to go with me up to the vet. We took Bill’s car, because it was easier to get Gahanab into a sedan than either mine or Mike’s truck. Father Retzel called the vet to let him know what happened and that we were on our way.
When we got to the vet, he quickly examined Gahanab and told us that he was going to keep him and that we should return to Hays. He told me to call later in the day and he would let me know what was going on. When I called, the vet told me that Gahanab was in shock and that his pelvis was broken in three places. He told me to call in the morning and he would give me Gahanab’s status.
Mike and I drove back to Hays. I returned to the trailer and spent the rest of the day and most of the night praying that Gahanab was going to be ok. While that entire episode occurred almost fifty years ago, I remember the event vividly. I also remember it being the last time I prayed with the expectation that I was being heard by the Great Spirit. I can’t say what happened to me since then. But I’ve arrived at the notion that any prayers I might utter get lost in the atmosphere. I envy people who pray with a firm belief that they are being heard. Pauline had it. My Zadie had it. Like most faith issues, I don’t believe that it is something you can be taught. You get the basic concepts during your socialization, and it ultimately translates for you, or it doesn’t. I’ve had sufficient crap in my life that having this kind of faith would have been really swell. It is just not there. I’m grateful that I had it while going through this horrible episode with Gahanab’s injury.
I called the vet from the rectory the next morning and was told that Gahanab was going to be ok, and that I should come to take him home. Mike went with me to get Gahanab, and I paid my bill which equaled my month’s salary from the mission. I had some serious nursing to do with our puppy, but I was so grateful that he was going to recover.
After that incident, we rarely allowed Gahanab off a leash or chain unless we were outside watching him. I felt badly for him, because all of the dogs in Hays ran around like they owned the place which they did. During our second year at the mission, Susie and I moved into the green trailer behind the rectory. I will describe that move in a future blog. Gahanab was outside at the mission and was off his leash running around with a fairly large pack of dogs. Large packs of dogs was a thing on the reservation. In fact, during calving season, ranchers have to be vigilant about the dogs because they can take down and kill a calf. And the ranchers will do what they must to protect their cattle.
There was a horse in one of the mission fields and the dogs had him pinned against a fence. They were running the horse up and down the fence line. I was watching it from a window in the trailer. I was getting ready to leave the trailer to save this horse, because they were running it into exhaustion. As I was about to leave, I saw the horse jump straight up in the air. It was desperate and made a move to save itself. The horse landed squarely on Gahanab’s back. While gasping for air, my immediate thought was, ‘the dog is dead.” Gahanab jumped up, shook himself and ran. Maniac. Fortunately, the horse got away.
When we would walk Gahanab in the canyon, we would let him off leash and he would often run straight up the canyon wall. On more than one occasion I had the thought that this dog would never adjust to living in the city. He sure wasn’t a house dog. He needed the canyon, the creek and the mountains. Columbus, Ohio was going to suck mightily for him.
And while I’m on the subject of the packs of dogs on the reservation, Gahanab was on his chain in front of our trailer and a very large pack of male dogs was running after a female in heat. They were taking turns having their way with her. I felt sorry for her, and I also felt sorry for Gahanab who was not spade. I went into the trailer and got a box of his Milk Bones. In full view of the rectory and the convent, I offered the female a treat and brought her inside the length of Gahanab’s chain. I kept feeding her the treats while Gahanab took his turn. I hope he appreciated my gesture. It was a totally brazen act for me to perform this service where it could have been seen by a crowd, all of whom had taken a vow of celibacy. I probably should have felt more embarrassment and shame than I did. Sure, let the Jews into the Jesuit Volunteer Corp.
The trailer Susie and I were living in belonged to a woman who lived for most of the year in Seattle. It was on her father's land. He was a rancher who lived in a home with his wife across from the mission and down the road from us. He had his cattle in fields between his home and our trailer and often the cattle would mosey on down to our trailer. When Gahanab was outside in the front yard, he would bark incessantly at the cattle and often had them rounded up against the fences. He had no fear.
One morning, Susie and I started to feel the entire trailer rocking back and forth. I ran out onto the front porch to figure out what new adventure might have arrived on our doorstep. A small herd of cattle were lined up against the trailer and were using it as a scratching post. Go move them, Gahanab.
One afternoon I was standing at one of our front windows looking at Gahanab running around in the front yard with what looked like a large stick in his mouth. He was zooming all over the yard and I decided to go outside to get a better look at what he had in his mouth.
It was the leg of a deer. I had no idea where the rest of the deer had gone. I can only hope that it wasn't limping. He would periodically find animal bones outside and would bring them home to chew on them. He had numerous skeletal parts of animals all over our yard. Oh, yeah, Gahanab is going to do just great living in the Columbus suburbs.
The day after we brought Gahanab home, I had Bill and Mike over for dinner. They enjoyed having dinner at our place and taking a break from their usual fare at the convent. The sisters lived a very austere existence, and that included the meals that were prepared for the nuns, priests and all the volunteers. I’m not a great cook, but I do my best to avoid austere.
Susie and I went to visit Ray and Irma on a Saturday afternoon. When we walked into the house, the OSU-UCLA game was on tv. Ray, Irma and Lyle were watching. We had no idea it was on and were pleasantly surprised. The game was on a station that Susie and I didn’t get in the trailer because we are too close to the mountain, and the signal goes right over the top of us. Susie told everyone that her parents and sister were at the game. We spent most of the game looking for them (among 100,000 people). Irma served us lunch. Susie had made rolls, and we had those as well.
There are many people on the reservation who have picked a team as their favorite and they avidly follow these teams. They do not tend to pick the underdogs. Their favorites tend to be the Vikings, Cowboys, and Rams. The same is true of baseball. Many of the people like the Reds. Many of the people on the reservation are also avid boxing fans.
Ray and Irma told us that the liquor store across the street had been robbed the night before. They threw rocks through the windows and stole a lot of the merchandise. This liquor store was controversial. It opened the year before Susie and I arrived on the reservation. Before this store, there was no alcohol allowed on the reservation. If people didn’t purchase alcohol in stores off the reservation (usually about 30 miles north in Harlem), they would go to the DY bar. This bar was about twenty miles south of Hays and along some dangerous roads. There were many accidents and deaths that occurred between the DY Bar and Hays. The family that opened the liquor store had to get permission from the tribal council to do so. The council decided to allow it, hoping that there would be fewer accidents and deaths if people didn’t get into their cars and drive drunk after leaving the DY. Ray and Irma weren’t thrilled with the location of the store because it increased traffic across from their home. Traffic in Hays … now that is an interesting concept. But it was happening. And there were often beer cans all over the road.
Ray described for us how you can tell if it is going to be a bad winter. He said that this is how people used to do it. If there are a lot of berries and hay, it is a sign of a bad winter, because the Great Spirit provides for the people by creating this abundance. If the geese fly low, it will be a mild winter. If they fly high, it will be a bad one. If it will be a mild winter, they have time to stop along their way. If it will be a severe one, they will fly high and will not stop so they can get to the warmer climate faster.
I was on phone duty and went to Jessie Ironman’s to deliver a message. Charles and Roseann’s kids were there because they went to Great Falls. Jessie is taking care of a number of her grandchildren. Charles and Roseann take their kids to Jessie’s house when the temperatures are really cold, because she has better heat in her home.
Jessie has a wooden pole that runs from on top of the refrigerator to the wall. The pole is fastened to the wall by a piece of cloth that forms a pocket, and the pole runs through it. The pole is about two feet above the stove. It is permanently attached. There was about a three-pound slab of meat lying over the pole and a pot on the stove with something boiling in it. She was drying meat.
I was talking with Frank Cuts-the-Rope at the mission. There had been a council meeting, and I asked him what it was about. He said that it was to enroll some of the new children on the reservation. Quarter bloods are enrolled but they are not given allotments. The only way to get land on the reservation is through inheritance. The enrollment is important to get certain benefits such as any settlements that bring per capita payments.
I asked him about the land that the houses are on in Hays and New Town. He said that this land belongs to the tribe as land sites. This land is leased out on a 25-year plan. If people do not buy the house, the land returns to the tribe. If they keep up the payments, they can buy the house. The lowest rent payments are $13 per month and the highest are $36 per month. Each house is on a two-acre plot. An allotment is 520 acres. This allotted land keeps getting divided up into smaller pieces through inheritance. His younger brother was given some land by his brothers and sisters because without this help his share would have been too small to do anything with it. They are not allowed to sell this land to whites. The only way a white may buy this land is if it is changed to patent and fee (which may take an act of Congress). People can sell their land back to the tribe. The council encourages this if they want to sell land to get the money. One white did sell his land on the reservation back to the council after he bought it himself from a woman who had patent and fee land. He made a tremendous profit on it. He tried to do it again, but the council told him not to come back to the reservation anymore. The council is trying to avoid what happened to Turtle Mountain (North Dakota); they sold so much land on the reservation to whites that there is almost nothing left of it.
Gahanab was tied up in front of the rectory with a 20-foot chain. The chain cost us $8. While the girls’ basketball game was going on, some of the high school students came up to the gym. For some reason, they had been let out of school early. They stole the chain right from under Father Retzel’s window while he was asleep. A mercury light was broken on the side of the gym. Someone hit it with a rock. It was worth about $175. Someone put can tops under all of the tires of someone’s truck while they were playing bingo. When they left, all their tires were punctured. Rubber hoses were found all over the parking lot after bingo that were used to siphon gas out of the cars and trucks. One of the mission garden hoses was cut up for this purpose. Just another day in the neighborhood.
The girls from the mission team had their first basketball game today. It was played at 2:00 in the old gym. The girls were very passive, timid and, at times, frightened of the girls from Turner. Turner is a white town, north of the reservation near the Canadian border. When the other team first arrived, the mission girls ran into the locker room and hid. Instead of fighting over who would get to be the first five to play, they groaned if we told them that they were going to start. We practically had to force some of them to go out and play.
At 3:30 on Saturday morning, Susie woke me up and told me that there were three guys walking up to the trailer. (Why was Susie awake?) I went outside to see what was going on. As they approached me, I saw that they were covered with blood. Two of them had the ends of their fingers cut off and the third was holding his wrist. They were all very drunk. They told me that there had been an accident in the canyon. I got them into my truck and started toward the mission where there was a telephone. A police car was approaching, so we stopped, and the kids got into the police car. The police car drove up into the canyon and I followed. There were five others in the canyon. They were driving a small Dotson pick up. They were all drunk. They had stacks of hay in the back of the truck and a case of beer under the hay. One of the girls had gotten caught under the dashboard and another had cut her head. There were three policemen, and an ambulance arrived. About five people from the community came to help. All the kids were taken to the hospital. One of the girls was pregnant. The kids were all treated and released. When we were leaving the canyon, cars were heading up to observe the wreck and all the goings on. Three cars passed us loaded with kids. Even without the services of a camp crier, this is the kind of news that would spread through Hays like wildfire, even in the middle of the night.
I found it both bewildering and humorous that people would head out in their trucks to see what was going on in the middle of a disaster. I had a sort of shelter in place kind of approach to most disasters. I never felt compelled to be the first to find out about bad news or to have an up close and personal relationship with disasters of any variety. During the two years we were in Hays, we experienced some hellacious blizzards. Hays was only about sixty miles from the Canadian border, so we would get temperatures as low as 30 or 40 below zero. The winds would whip through the plains on the eastern side of the Bear Paws down from Canada and would hit Hays in full force with few trees or structures to protect the community. And we would get snowstorms measured in feet. It never failed, in the middle of these blizzards, people would head out in their trucks to see what was going on. It is true that there was no local radio or television station to let people know the weather and road conditions, but going out in this stuff was dangerous. On the upside, if someone was caught outside in the middle of one of these storms, they were likely going to be found and saved by the parade driving through Hays.
The reservation has obtained about ten head of buffalo. There is at least one bull. They are keeping them up near the agency. The 5/6th graders were very excited about this and were talking about it during class.
I was talking to Camie about tribal affiliation and I asked her how a person identifies if they belong to a number of different tribes through intermarriage. She said that her children are both Chippewa Cree and Gros Ventre. When they are with her in-laws, they say they are Chippewa Cree. When they are with ‘my people,’ they say they are Gros Ventre.
There is usually one sonic boom a day from the fighter jets doing maneuvers above the reservation. There is an air force base in Great Falls. Is it possible that this is designated as an unpopulated area?
They Hays Lodge Pole High School football team played their homecoming game at Dodson which was their home field for the season. The school teams are called The Thunderbirds. The school has begun building a football field up in Whitecow Canyon. There were about 30 adults and 20 kids there to watch the game. The high school cheerleaders were at the game, but they did not wear their uniforms. The game was the same except that they played on an 80-yard field, and they used only eight players.
The season was six games, and this was the last game. The kids have only been playing football for three years and are just beginning to catch onto the game. They practice every weekday behind the school on a very small field – 30 yards – and it is covered with rocks and debris. The coach at the Hays Lodge Pole School is a quiet and patient man and he never gets angry at the kids.
Gordon has 14 brothers and sisters. He is the oldest boy, and he has an older sister that lives nearby on the reservation. His mother lives up at the agency. His siblings range in age from 18 to 37 years. Most of them live in the Spokane area. Gordon’s grandfather was a full-blood Gros Ventre. During his lifetime, he moved to live with the Cheyenne. He married a Cheyenne woman. Most of the children and their parents moved back to Fort Belknap. The children (Gordon’s generation) are ¾ Cheyenne and ¼ Gros Ventre. Edith is almost 7/8th Gros Ventre. He was laughing that his kids have more Gros Ventre blood than he has.
Edith had an eight-year-old daughter who died during a tonsillectomy. As close as we were to Edith, we never asked her about the details, because it was just too sad and painful. Given the medical services on the reservation, it wasn’t difficult to imagine. Sad beyond words. May her memory be a blessing.
Gordon said that in the past a person could leave their house and not have to worry about locking it. Someone could come in and eat and could stay there and sleep while the family was gone. They would leave the place as they found it and would always clean up after themselves. Today you wouldn’t dare do this. He had a 30-30 rifle stolen not too long ago. The family had been out for the night and when they woke up the following morning, it was gone. It was a very unusual gun, and someone had to have known that he owned it. Because of the close relationships of everyone on the reservation and especially Hays, and also because of the fact that just about everyone knows everyone else’s business, the materials stolen could not be used in the community without someone sighting the stolen good and telling the owner. Things that are stolen are usually taken to the DY bar where they can be sold to someone or traded.
Gordon also had bridles, blankets and halters stolen. His kids had always wanted horses, but he could never afford to buy them. Once he had been out on two fires and he earned $700. A friend of his said that he needed some money very badly and he asked for $150. He said that in exchange he would give him a mare and a pony, and he would also toss in a saddle and bridle. Gordon had built up a herd of ten horses and built a stable behind the house. This was when the stuff was stolen.
I had my 7/8 grade class doing reports about the state of Montana in my history course. One of the boys had the World Book Encyclopedia out and he looked up marijuana … because, after all, he had the M’s. He called me over and said that dope really doesn’t do anything to you and that it wasn’t as bad as alcohol. While he was talking, he took out a hash pipe that had been used. Another of the boys turned around and said that he was sure that it did something to your brain because it really mixes you up, and so something is happening.
Ruby is an outreach worker. This job involves taking meals to senior citizens and driving them to do their shopping if they cannot get around. She also runs the sewing center and helps with the senior citizen’s lunch program on Wednesdays. The outreach workers are now supposed to take care of all people who cannot get around, and not just senior citizens. Most of these programs are paid for by the Tribe which gets the money from various federal programs. When the federal government cuts back on these kinds of programs, the people on the reservation really suffer.
Bill said that after WWII there was a lot of surplus food that was given to people on the reservation. One of these surplus items was pork and other pig products. He heard that Jenny had thrown away all of the pig products because the skin on the animal was too pink, and she thought that the meat was from a human.
Mike heard that at one time, the government had a program for the Indians to raise pheasant on the reservation. Many people either killed so many for food or let them run wild that the program was given up. There are a great number of pheasants on the reservation today.
Ray had spent the weekend and part of the previous week at a Bishop’s conference in Detroit. The conference went from Wednesday to Sunday. He received money from the mission and from some other Catholic organizations to pay for his flight and for other expenses, such as room and board. It was a conference of laypeople and parish priests, and they were voting on issues to be presented at a meeting of the bishops in Washington in November. There were about seven groups that were to discuss different issues: family, church, ethnic groups and race. Ray chose to be in this latter group.
He said that the major issues passed by the conference were to have female priests, to make abortion up to the conscience of the individual, and to allow euthanasia. Irma said that she wouldn't like it if there were female priests. She also said that abortions were wrong and so was euthanasia. I asked her if abortions were performed on the reservation, and she said that the hospital will arrange for a person to go to Seattle if they want an abortion. She said that these were rare on the reservation.
Gordon told me that before they moved into their present home, they lived in a two room log house. One of the rooms was for the kids and the other was their bedroom, the kitchen, and the living room.
The dance committee held a dinner and many of the traditional foods were served. They served the organs that Lilly separated out from the butchering for the powwow. They invited many of the older people from Hays because they knew how much they would enjoy a traditional meal.
The hunting season opened Sunday, October 24. The people on the reservation do a lot of hunting in the Missouri breaks. Even though they can hunt all year round on the reservation, hunting season is important for the people on the reservation. The game off the reservation is far more plentiful and hunting is an important source of fresh meat for the people. Extended families will go out and hunt for a day. The older people point in the trucks on top of hills and the boys walk the coulees. They will take as many deer as they can during the hunting season. When they get a deer, they put it in the back of the pickup, and someone sits in the back with the tags on the deer’s leg. If they see a warden coming, they punch the ticket. But if they can get to the reservation line, they are home free, and they will be out again. The game wardens have no jurisdiction on the reservation. I need to repeat, taking deer during the hunting season is the way people get fresh meat - you know, the stuff that doesn’t come in a can from the Department of Agriculture Commodity Food Program.
Some of the families have posts set up in their backyards for butchering the deer. There are two posts with another nailed across. There are pulleys or ropes so that the deer can be hoisted up with a block of wood through the shanks on the rear legs. The volunteers at the mission go out with different families and do the same type of hunting as the people. They will also take as many deer as they can get. I never asked any of the volunteers if this might be the kind of stuff they cover during confession. Most of the meat is given away. Some of it is frozen and some of the meat is dried. Mike gave half a deer to an old woman in Lodge Pole who has several kids that she is raising.
Ray had loaned me his .22 rifle because he had heard a bob cat near our trailer and wanted for me to be able to defend ourselves. Lyle came up to the trailer and asked to borrow it back, because he is going pheasant hunting. He asked me if I wanted some of the meat. He said that Gordon and Edith would help me fix it because they are good cooks. They can’t be shot off the road, but they can be killed anywhere else on the reservation.
I was talking to a woman and she said that the police on the reservation are really ineffective. The police are related to everyone and they are neighbors and friends. They cannot do anything. Even the FBI agent assigned to the reservation does not do anything. She thought that the police should come from off the reservation. Her son was given a traffic ticket because he was driving and did not have a driver’s license. They told him to come to court and when they went, the judge did not show up. So, they decided not to come back. The tribal police went back for them, and when they went back to court, she really yelled at them and the judge for not showing up. By then he had a license, and the judge suspended the charges.
She said that if you get into a fight with someone, the whole family gets mad and gets involved in the fight. She said that you have to be careful. As an example, she pointed to one of the other women and said that if we got into a fight her whole family would get mad at my whole family.
Gordon and Edith came up to the trailer at 5:00 and asked me if I wanted to go to the show with them in Harlem at 5:30. We saw ‘The Outlaw Josie Wales.’ It was a movie with Clint Eastwood and Chief Dan George. It took place during the civil war in the southwest. There was a scene when two fur traders tried to rape an Indian girl and there were other scenes of Indians fighting whites. Most of the people in the theatre were from the reservation, and it was quiet throughout these scenes. Gordon and Edith really enjoyed the movie. On the way home, Edith told me that she read the book, and she was comparing how the movie handled some parts of the book differently. They both like Clint Eastwood and they think that Chief Dan George is great. Edith said that she once saw a movie where the Indians were treated very badly and if she weren’t around so many people in the show she would have really cried. When we were in the movie theatre, Gordon poked me and said look over there … he was pointing out Jenny Gray, one of the respected elders in the community. He said that it was really rare to see her in a movie theatre.
As we were walking out of the movie, the first snow of the year was falling. It was October 22nd. The kids were walking out and screaming when they saw it.
On the way to Harlem and then back home after the movie, I had a wide ranging conversation with Gordon and Edith.
Both Clarence and Frank are very well-known and respected western artists. Gordon told me that he once had something in hock from Frank, and he gave him one of his paintings to get it out.
I unwittingly got involved in the hocking system early in our time on the reservation. I will explain it in detail in one of my blogs. It was a well-defined set of rules to help people get money when they needed it in an emergency. At this point in time, I will say this. We had a spare bedroom in the trailer. One day I was walking past it and noticed that I had more than a few rifles leaning up against one of the walls. The thought bubble over my head at that moment … holy crap. Like the whole Jewish money lending thing … I need to get the hell out of this immediately. If people needed money, I would ask them what it was for. If I thought it was a legitimate emergency, I would lend them the money with the expectation that I might never see it again. There would be no more participating in the hocking system.
I have seen Clarence and Frank’s paintings all over Montana. I even saw one in the vet’s office in Malta and the receptionist said that Dr. Curtis had many more of them at his home.
Gordon said that there were about 1,000 Gros Ventre living off of the reservation. This is about half of all the Gros Ventre. It is not easy to live off the reservation. You have to know what you’re doing. If you live on the reservation, you have to play a certain role – you have to do what everyone else is doing. And it is the same way off the reservation – if you move away, you have to play the role of the people out there. You have to know just how to handle yourself. I could do it, because I know what you have to do. Edith’s sister and her husband lived off of the reservation. They were doing really well, too. They had a house, some cattle and some horses and were making some money. Well, they were doing so well they decided to move to California and live the easy life. So they sold everything and moved to California. Now they are back on the reservation. They lived really high for a little while, then they ran out of money, and they had to come back to the reservation. Gordon said that he had an aunt who moved away from the reservation, and kept saying how much she liked it and would never come back to the reservation, because it was so good. She is also back on the reservation today.
Gordon explained that the only way that an Indian would sell reservation land to a white is for the person to transfer the land into patent and fee land. The person is saying that I don’t want to have anything to do with the reservation anymore, and the person is no longer an enrolled member of the tribe. They lose all the benefits of the enrolled members of the tribe. The person is terminating himself. And now he can’t afford to pay all the taxes on his land and cattle. Gordon said he knew a person who did this. He sold his land when he was well off. I feel sorry for him, because he loses more and more land every year because he just cannot afford the taxes.
Gordon explained that the forest department on the reservation is in a trial stage. They are being given money by the BIA to see how well they can maintain the forest on the reservation. Some of the crew is paid with title money and some from manpower money. The BIA and BLM want to see if they can do a good job with this project. They were given $60,000 to start. If it works out, they will get $5 million over the next 10 years. In the meantime, Gordon will be laid off work on December 1st, because this money is running out. Gordon said that he plans to go to the agency to find another job. He really likes this forestry work. He likes to work outside clearing the forest, cutting wood, and making roads through the mountains. He said that the crew chief has been giving the jobs to his family members. Gordon said that if he was in that position that he would probably do the same thing. Gordon said that the forest is too young for a lumber and sawmill. Because of the fire in 1936, the trees are very young and too small. They would need a large operation to compete, and they just wouldn’t have it in the Little Rockies.
Gordon was talking about the “Chippewa – Cree” on the reservation. He said that they are called “breeds” which means that they are a little of everything; Indian – Chippewa, Cree and French. They like fiddle music. They are originally from Turtle Mountain in North Dakota. They say that they are Chippewa – Cree like those on the Rocky Boy Reservation, but they are not – they are just Cree, not Chippewa – Cree like those on Rocky Boy.
I have done some reading about the people from Turtle Mountain (those that refused to settle on the reservation in North Dakota), the Chippewa-Cree that were given a reservation on Rocky Boy in the Bear Paw Mountains, the Metis, and the French-Chippewa-Cree, the descendants of French trappers and traders who married Cree and Chippewa women. It is difficult for me to understand the differences between these groups; to me it is not so clear-cut.
Edith was talking about the mission and being Catholic. She said that her parents were very strong Catholics, and they made all the kids go to church for the mass on Sunday and for all the holy days. They never missed mass. They would really feel guilty if they missed. Even today, she feels guilty if she misses the mass. When she was drinking very heavily, she would not go to the mass because she did not feel that she was worthy to go. But even then, she felt very guilty that she was not going. She said that she is turning more and more to the Indian religion, but she has never practiced it before. She has a lot of questions about Catholicism that she is not sure about.
Edith and her generation were raised as strict Catholics by her parent’s generation. Her parents were the generation that felt the brunt of the Church’s programs to acculturate the tribes. They were discouraged from practicing the traditions and experienced harsh punishment if they tried. Thus, they didn’t pass on the traditions to their children to protect them from this experience. Edith and her generation are becoming more interested in the traditions, and also resentful about the way these traditions were lost. They are frustrated as their interest in the traditions has increased, but they have lost so much knowledge about the rituals and beliefs. And the language has been almost entirely lost.
Gordon was also raised a Catholic, but he told Father Retzel that he does not go to the church anymore because he wants to pray to God or the Great Spirit in his own way. He does not need to be in the building to pray. He thought that father was probably wondering about why he never goes to church anymore. He wanted to assure him that he does pray in his own way.
Edith said that her grandfather, Gros Ventre Johnny, died when she was three years old, and that she does not remember him.
Gordon said that the vandalism, theft, and violence in Hays were really getting out of hand. The parents cannot control their kids, and sometimes if they try to punish the kids, they threaten their own parents. Sometimes if someone accuses someone’s kids of doing something wrong, the parents will stick up for their kids – whether they do not believe that their kids are doing anything wrong or they just try to protect them. Gordon and Edith said that if their kids do something wrong they will punish them and really give them a wallop. When the kids are at school the teachers are supposed to take care of them and if they misbehave, they are to be punished, and they accept that. This is not at all like the old days. In the past if someone did something wrong, anyone could punish the kid. Gordon said that if he misbehaved, someone would really let him have it and then they would take him home and tell his folks, and then they would let him have it again.
Gordon said that people would get tired of all of this violence and vandalism someday and decide to take matters into their own hands. He said that people would finally come to realize that they had better do something about their kids. He said that vigilantes would start to take matters into their own hands when they had enough of how things work around here.
Gordon said that when he was a kid he liked to get into trouble. It wasn’t anything horrible, but it was a lot of mischief. So, they finally sent him to Miles City for three years (1955 – 1958), it was a reformatory for minors. It was a really rough place, and they were treated pretty tough. They had to work very hard; they did not get good food or much to eat, they did not have shoes, and there was one guy there who made the kids make their beds so tight that he could bounce a quarter off of it. If the quarter did not bounce off, they would have to make the bed again. When he was finally able to leave, they all told him that he would be back – he said, “not this Indian.” And when he got home, he really straightened out. He said that this is what the kids needed today; someone to be tough with them and to set them straight.
A football field was started in Whitecow Canyon. They had the field level and were waiting to put sod on it. Someone took a motorcycle and ran all over it, really chewing it up. Gordon said that he could imagine what they will do to with when it has grass on it.
The new homes in Whitecow Canyon do not even have people living in them yet, and some of the kids have already started breaking the windows. Gordon said that this was the second set of windows in them; that they had been broken up already.
Gordon said that he had a lot of respect for John Capture and Davey Hawley. Both were good leaders and really tried to help people.
Gordon said that the Gros Ventre are rich. They have about $7-$8 million coming to them from a settlement with the government on school lands. The land was taken away from them to have schools built on them. They were told not to do anything with this land but were never asked for their permission. The settlement is coming along presently. The Gros Ventre treaty committee now has about $440,000. There was a meeting of the committee which had been chaired by John Capture, but he quit out of frustration. This group cannot decide what was going to happen to this money. No one wants to use it for something that the Assiniboine and Cree could also use – because it is not their money. But it is difficult to find a project that only the Gros Ventre can use, especially considering the intermarriage, and the closeness of the community in a spatial sense. If a community center were built, for instance, how could only the Gros Ventre use it. Gordon said that a per capita payment would probably not amount to much since it would have to be split up among the 2000 Gros Ventre. He said that this was not the way to do things. People have to stop looking at just the present; they must also start looking toward the future – their future and their children’s future and the future of their children’s children. They should invest some of this money in a corporation, like Bethlehem Steel or something like that and let the money add up, and get dividends every year, and not just per capita payments which would not amount to anything.
Another problem that they have with this money is that there are 1000 Gros Ventre living off the reservation. They would like to see per capita payments because they cannot benefit from anything that is put on the reservation or for any program on the reservation. They were not happy about the money used for the new mission gym. They want to see the money in their own hands. They are enrolled Gros Ventre people and have every right to share in the money just like the Gros Ventre who live on the reservation.
The issues Gordon discusses about the treaty committee were significant problems during the two years we lived in Hays. The disparate interests between the three different groups on the reservation and between those Gros Ventre who live on the reservation and those that live off the reservation caused issues that were not resolved during our time on Fort Belknap.
Gordon said that people are upset with the Tribal Council. People complain that the money is misused. Many people signed a petition so that the whole tribal organization would be audited by the government economists. Gordon said that he would be surprised if there was any resolution. What usually happens is that the federal government people come to the reservation, and they get no further than the tribal council. They ask how things are going, and they tell the government people that everything is great, and they leave, going back to Billings or Washington thinking that everything is going well on the reservation. They never get down to the people to find out how things really are. It is the same way with BIA money. There is so much money for the Indian people in the BIA but by the time the salaries are paid to all the employees of the organization, it never gets down to the people that it is supposed to help.
These photographs are from the first snow we received in Hays in October. It might have snowed a bit earlier in the mountains. It was so beautiful.
This was Gahanab's first experience in the snow, and I took him out to explore.
On a beautiful Saturday afternoon in October, as Gahanab was showing improvement, I decided to take a hike up into the mountains with him just above our trailer, and of course, I brought my camera.
I have so many photographs of our front yard. I was totally mesmerized by mission ridge which took on so many unusual colors depending on the sky and the light. But this row of trees also had me hooked. If I were more highly evolved, photographically speaking, I would have gotten up close and taken abstracts. The different seasons transformed this line of trees into the most spectacular textures.
As we ascended the first hill, I kept taking photographs.
And I would turn around to capture what was in front of me from this height. This photograph includes the road out of the canyon and up into the mission and Hays. This is a nice shot of St. Paul's Mission.
This is a full shot of our front yard. It was spectacular and the most beautiful place I've ever lived. I'm sorry I don't live there now. The isolation would not be a problem. When I was in my twenties, the cold didn't bother me. Today, with arthritis and new knees, the cold is not my friend. But the beauty would have made it easier to go outside, even in the Montana cold.
We had an unobstructed view in 1976. The first home that was built on this plain below mission ridge was Jeb Stiffarm's place. That didn't happen until after we moved to the mission. In my recent trips to Hays, I observed a small neighborhood of homes on this plain. Our trailer is no longer there, and the two-story log home has also been taken down. But seeing those homes below mission ridge, was something of a bummer.
The top of Mission Canyon can be seen in this photograph.
And I'm high enough to get a clear shot of Three Buttes.
As I climb even higher, this is a better view of part of the canyon.
This is mission ridge and an early attempt at fine art photography. My photographic evolution would include lots of dead and interesting-looking trees.
Seeing the jet contrail above the holy site up in the mountains, Eagle Child, was cosmic.
Another view of the mission.
This is the television transmitter that broardcast a mixture of CBS and NBC programming out of Great Falls. The only television Susie and I received was from this transmitter. All those indentations on the side of the transmitter are bullet holes. Consequently, this transmitter was out as often as it was on.
This might be my favorite shot of Hays, Montana. These are October colors.
A nice view of the Little Rockies.
And Mission Ridge and Mission Canyon.
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