Rez Life: An Indian's Journey Through Reservation Life (37 page)

The cemetery was no exception. We gathered near the grave I had not dug because I was busy cleaning up his blood and brains from the floor of his bedroom. It was like the many others I had dug there, the same nice rectangle carved out of the sandy soil, soil that seems made for nothing better, for nothing more, than digging graves. There’s hardly room to stand. The ground is filled with the bodies of my family. My aunt and one uncle and dozens of cousins and great-uncles and great-grandparents. I wonder how the ground can hold so many of our bodies. At times like this I think that maybe we won’t make it. There are too many of us who are dead for us to make it. Too many of us are getting around to dying too soon. It’s a wonder that there is enough Indian land to hold us all, to hold our bodies. And it’s hard sometimes not to agree that we’re all dead, and rez life isn’t so much a life as an excavation: one large empty grave that no one has bothered to fill in or, better, can’t fill in because we refuse to climb the crumbling sand.

Lost in these thoughts, I was standing to the side, behind a few rows of mourners. I had been a pallbearer and so I’d had my time with him, had done my duty. My mother, who was yet to break down, leaned over and said, “You’re stepping on Stan.” So I was. Stan Matthews. He’d been raised in the Cities but reconnected up north. And there was my uncle Boobsy (who had lost three fingers and an eye as a child when some other kids dared him to smoke a blasting cap). And Bumsy—the kindest, gentlest man who ever served thirty to life for holding up a jewelry store. The guy he was with was shot and killed by the owner. Bumsy got thirty. My older brother and I and my cousin Delbert would sit in his tiny tar paper shack on a summer evening and watch him comb his hair back and blot the stains from his Dickies and, when everything was ready, drink a spoonful of melted butter before heading out into the cricket-laden night to get drunk; the same Bumsy who once, while he was out of prison on parole, borrowed a car and got drunk and being lonely drove around Bena asking people if they wanted a ride. He must have been very drunk because everyone declined. Finally, in anger and spite, he picked up every single dog he could coax into the convertible, took down the top, and drove slow circles around the village, singing Johnny Cash so loudly the dogs howled along with him. And Vanessa. She’s there, too. Resting in the sand. My cousin, my age. As defiant and tough and sassy an Indian girl as you’d ever meet. She once pushed me off the edge of an embankment into a gravel pit and said, “Take that you son of a bitch.” She also said, much later, “Blood is thicker than water,” and proved it a week later by driving her car through two yards, up the ditch, and into the path of an oncoming RV. And my uncle Sonny—who hunted deer from his bicycle and when stopped by the warden said there was nothing that said he couldn’t hunt deer from a nonmotorized vehicle and the warden had to agree with him; Sonny who could read something once and have it memorized, including the teacher’s exam key, which always sat on her desk.

And I began to wonder: maybe the miracle is not that the ground can hold so many Indian bodies. Maybe the miracle is that it is able to hold so much personality, because among the graves of my family and our village are the graves of our friends and neighbors. How on earth is it possible for that little bit of sandy soil on the south shore of Lake Winnibigoshish able to hold all that personality, all that history? And in all of us there is some Scottish blood, and Irish, too. Also French and German. And, going way back, African. There was, during the days of the fur trade, a black slave by the name of Bonga who was manumitted by his British owner at Fort Mitchilimackinac around 1790. He joined the French coureurs de bois, and made the trek from Mackinac Island to Montreal and over to Rainy Lake and back many times before he stopped in what is now Leech Lake and married an Ojibwe woman. There he stayed, as did his descendants, many of whom now have the last name Bonga. We come from them, too. And from Scots and Germans. There’s more, I thought, much more. How can it all fit in here, how much more crowded with story and personality and life can the ground get?

The answer: always more. But as I looked around it was easy to see that we’re not so short on personality aboveground, either. There’s still plenty of that to go around. At Leech Lake and everywhere else, too. None of it is dead. None of the people are dead, none of the sense they made of their lives is dead, and on the reservation at least, none of the whims, acts, and actions of presidents, Indian agents, congressional reformers, tribal leaders, and tribal citizens are dead. Or if any of this is dead, it is certainly not buried: nowhere more than in reservation life can we see, can we feel, the past shaping the present. On the reservation the past is hardly past at all.

The coffin was down. Father Paul did whatever it is that Catholics do. The Leech Lake color guard was there—consisting of veterans from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the First Gulf War, and Afghanistan. They saluted and fired three volleys, the sounds disappearing over the lake. My cousins and I collected the spent shells and threw them into the grave, and then we bent to work with the shovels and covered up what was left of my grandfather. The funeral was Catholic because he was Catholic. The ground is Indian. And those who dug the grave are Indian. And the lake and the earth that surround it are ours and are Indian, too. The Leech Lake Reservation color guard stood at attention and the American flag flew alongside the Leech Lake Reservation flag. I tried to see which one flew higher but it was impossible to say for sure.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

This book contains no composite characters or pseudonyms. No dialogue appears in quotation marks unless the person being interviewed was recorded on audiotape. Remembered remarks and remarks made that were not recorded do not appear in quotes. This book also does not use the kind of loose historicism that takes the form of “He must have been feeling”: unless people said exactly how they felt, to the author or in print, I have refrained from speculating or giving them feelings. Opinions are mentioned as opinions, and facts as facts. When the two get blurred I’ve tried my best to distinguish between them.

Like reservations themselves, this book is a hybrid. It has elements of journalism, history, and memoir. As such it is meant to be suggestive rather than exhaustive. It is meant to capture some of the history and some of the truth of reservation life—which is not any one thing but many things depending on where you’re looking and to whom you’re talking. But if readers are interested in further sources, there are many places to begin. David Wilkins has written some of the best stuff on politics, law, and government in
Uneven Ground: Indian Sovereignty and Federal Law,
American Indian Politics and the American Political System
. For a history of gaming,
Indian Gaming and Tribal Sovereignty: The Casino Compromise
by Steven Andrew Light and Kathryn R. L. Rand, and
Indian Gaming: Tribal Sovereignty and American Politics,
by W. Dale Mason, are useful. Treaty rights, especially relating to the treaty disputes in Wisconsin, are well documented in
The Walleye War
: The Struggle for Ojibwe Spearfishing and Treaty Rights
and
Walleye Warriors,
by Larry Nesper. Melissa Meyer’s
The
White Earth Tragedy: Ethnicity and Dispossession at a Minnesota Anishinaabe Reservation
is a stunning account of the land grabs during the Allotment Era. And
The State of Native Nations: Conditions under U.S. Policies of Self-Determination,
published by the Harvard Project, contains a wealth of factual information about tribal government and economic conditions.
Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience 1875–1928,
by David Wallace Adams, is a very good account of Indian boarding schools; and for firsthand accounts and boarding school testimony Brenda Child’s
Boarding School Seasons
is a book not to miss.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

When you work for five years on something that involves a subject as vast as “reservation life” you are bound to have too many people to thank. But I would like to give special thanks to my family: Robert Treuer; Margaret Seelye Treuer; Eugene Seelye Sr.; Luella Seelye; Lanny and Davey Seelye; Sam Cleveland; Nate, Josh, and Jesse Seelye; and my siblings, Micah, Megan, and Anton. I am proud to call you all family. Also my wife, Gretchen Potter. All of you have been patient and understanding and nonjudgmental as I muddled my way through this. I want to thank Scott Lyons, whose perspective is always a considered one—would that you were chief. Sean Fahrlander, Brooke Ammann, Keller Paap, Shaye Perez, Steve Hagenah, Lisa LaRonge, David and Brian Bisonette, Charley Grolla, and Daniel Jones—you all showed a particular amount of trust. I hope I have earned it. I would also like to thank the very many people I interviewed or talked to, many of whom looked at me as though I had lost my mind when I said things like, “So what is reservation life like?” The answers, as all of you knew better than I, are both obvious and elusive. I hope I’ve answered them in this book. I relied on many people with different kinds of expertise beyond mine. This book brought me to my knees, but you all helped me up and I thank the Indian people across the country who took time out of their lives to talk to me. Naturally, all mistakes are my own. Problems of perspective are my own, too. For better or worse, this is my take on things, my take on our lives. I have no doubt that faced with the same task, all the people mentioned above and all the people I talked to would have come up with a different vision of reservation life. So it goes. I owe a debt of gratitude to the many writers, academics, historians, activists, and researchers whose work I admire and lean on. Keep it up.

I would also like to thank my agent, Joe Veltre, for believing in this thing; Matt Polly for his strategic advice and open ear and twenty years of friendship; and my editors at Grove; Morgan Entrekin, Brando Skyhorse, and most of all Jamison Stoltz—your vision and input and keen and tireless editorial suggestions saved this book from many a disaster and shaped what it is. I thank you.

NOTES

Introduction

9
William P. Dole, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, to Caleb B. Smith, Secretary of the Interior, November 10, 1862, Office of Indian Affairs Correspondence File, Northern Superintendency, National Archives.

Chapter 1

24
Interview with Charley Grolla, audiotape, May 2010.

24
Interview with Anishinaabe Legal Services attorney Megan Treuer, January 2010.

24
Grolla interview, August 2010; all subsequent direct quotes from Grolla are from this interview.

25
Princeton Union Eagle,
July 6, 2006.

26
Terry Maddy, interviewed at the Country Kitchen in Bemidji, May 2007. No voice recording.

27
See
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/08/18/waterrights/
.

27
Ibid.

28
See http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/10/26/district2b/.

29
Ibid., p. 267.

32
See
http://www.oneida-nation.net/brhistory.html
. Also in Joseph Glatthaar and James Kirby,
Forgotten Allies
(New York: Hill and Wang, 2007).

35
Peckham,
Indian Uprising,
226; Anderson,
Crucible of War,
542, 809n; Grenier,
First Way of War,
144; Nester,
Haughty Conquerors,
114–115.

37
C. A. Weslager,
The Delaware Indians: A History
(New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers University Press:1990) pp. 304–305.

47
See
http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/faq/mnfacts/fishing.html
.

48
See http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=72386#readon.

52
See
http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2004/08/09_robertsont
_redlkfish/
.

52
See
http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/199804/ 15_gundersond_walleye-m/
.

54
Bemidji Pioneer,
August 15, 2006, p. 5.

56
Bemidji Pioneer,
July 30, 2006;
Minneapolis Star Tribune,
July 30, 2006.

Chapter 2

61
All quotes from Sean & Mike Fahrlander recorded April–May 2008.

66
William Warren,
History of the Ojibwe People
(Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1984), pp. 155–156.

67
Ibid., p. 158

70
Treaty of 1837,
http://digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler/vol2/treaties/chi0491.htm
.

71
Ibid.

78
Minneapolis Star,
March 27, 1939, p. 2.

80
Annual Report of the Secretary of the Interior for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1938
(Washington, DC, 1938), pp. 209–211,
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5058
.

83
Quoted from David Wilkins’s excellent introduction to Felix Cohen,
On the Drafting of Tribal Constitutions
(University of Oklahoma Press, 2009), p. xxi.

84
Ibid.

86
Larry Nesper,
The Walleye War
(University of Nebraska Press, 2002), p. 93.

87
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal,
April 4, 1990.

87
Nesper,
The Walleye War,
p. 100.

87
S
ee
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1683&dat=19950617&id
=imsaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Bi0EAAAAIBAJ&pg=2968,1358204
.

94
See
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE3D9123CF932A05750C0A961948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1
.

96
Quoted from:
http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0700/frameset_reset.html
?
http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0700/stories/0701_0146.html
.

96
See
http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/5views/5views1e.htm
.

97
Ibid.

103
See
http://www.seattlepi.com/movies/180683_nwbrando03.html
.

105
See
http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/199903/03_engerl_ojibwe-m/?refid=0
.

106
See
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19980811&slug=2765909
.

Chapter 3

113
All quotes from Margaret Treuer in this section are from February 2009.

121
Sharon O/Brien,
American Indian Tribal Governments
(University of Oklahoma Press, 1993), p. 112.

122
Ibid., p. 206.

122
New York Times,
August 11, 1881.

124
Wilcomb E. Washburn,
Red Man’s Land/White Man’s Law: The Past and Present Status of the American Indian
(University of Oklahoma Press, 1995), p. 180.

124
Graves and Abbott, eds.,
Indians in Minnesota
(University of Minnesota Press, 2007), p. 16.

125
All quotes from Robert Treuer are from August 8, 2009.

128
See
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/06/ a-victory-for-native-americans/57769/
.

136
See
http://welsa.org
/.

144
Information from National Tribal Justice Resource Center, http://www .tribal-institute.org/lists/tlpi.htm.

147
See
http://www.tribal-institute.org/lists/jurisdiction.htm
.

150
David Wilkins,
American Indian Sovereignty and the Supreme Court: The Masking of Justice
(University of Texas Press, 1997), pp. 190–191. See also, O’Brien,
American Indian Tribal Governments,
p. 208.

151
See
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12260610
.

151
See
http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/national/41568937.html
.

152
Cass County Sheriff’s Office Arrest Report IC #: 07-015876-CL, October 21, 2007.

152
Ibid.

154
Interview with Steve Hagenah, Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, summer 2007.

156
All quotes from Brian Bisonette are from May 21, 2010.

157
Melissa Myers,
The White Earth Tragedy
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999).

Chapter 4

166
Interview with Steve Hagenah, summer, 2007.

167
Interview with Margaret Treuer, November 11, 2009.

168
M. Inez Hilger,
Chippewa Families
(St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1998), p. 38.

169
Andres Duany,
Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream
(New York: North Point Press, 2000).

170
See
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/local/tribalhousing/partone/undermined.html
.

172
Roz Diane Laskner and John Guidry,
Engaging the Community in Decision Making
(Jefferson, NC: , 2009), p. 22.

172
Ibid.

172
Ibid.

173
All quotes from Shalah Tibbetts were recorded in interviews conducted in May 2010.

177
Audio interview with Steve Hagenah recorded on September 17, 2008.

179
From “Tales of the Old Home Town,”
Cass Lake Times,
October 19, 1972.

181
See
http://www.startribune.com/local/11574686.html
.

184
Quoted in
Bena: Celebrating the Centennial History
(Walker, MN: Cass County Historical Society, 2006).

185
See
http://www.atg.wa.gov/prescriptiondrug.aspx
.

185
Office of Applied Statistics,
http://www.oas.samhsa.gov/2k10/182/AmericanIndian.cfm
.

188
Stacey Lyon and Keenan Goodfellow, recorded at Cass Lake Boys and Girls club, October 29, 2008.

188
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services provided these statistics. And for those good at math they offer the following explanation for totals coming to over 100 percent: “Percentages may total more than 100 because Hispanics may be counted by Hispanic ethnicity and race.”

189
All of Weise’s Internet postings can be found on links at jeffreyweise.com.

190
All quotes from Dustin Burnette were recorded in Cass Lake in May 2010.

194
Frances Densmore,
Chippewa Customs
(Saint Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1979), p. 48.

194
Ibid.

195
Ibid., p. 59.

197
Warren,
History of the Ojibway People,
pp. 128–129.

198
George Copway,
Life, Letters, Speeches
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006), p. 137.

198
Ibid.

198
Bishop Henry Whipple, reported in Winchell,
The Aborigines of Minnesota
(Minnesota Historical Society, 1911), p. 655. Ashley C. Morrill to Clark W. Thompson, August 18, 1862, in
House Executive Documents,
Vol. 2,
1862–1863,
p. 217.

199
See
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~adoption/topics/IAP.html
.

200
B. J. Jones,
The Indian Child Welfare Act: The Need for a Separate Law
(Chicago, IL: American Bar Association, 1996).

204
See
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~adoption/archive/ICWAexcerpt.htm
.

206
Interviews at Boys & Girls Club in Cass Lake, 2008.

Chapter 5

216
The State of Native Nations
(The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, Oxford Press, USA, 2007), p. 130.

216
Ibid., p. 132.

218
Coachella Valley Water District 2005–2006 Annual Review and Water Quality Report.

218
Ambrose Lane,
Return of the Buffalo
(Westport, CT: Bergen and Garvey, 1995), p. 17.

220
Ibid., p. 20.

228
Interview with Helen (Bryan) Johnson and Bob Johnson conducted at Project 260 offices, Cass Lake, May 2010.

230
Kevin Washburn, “The Legacy of Bryan v. Itasca County: How a $147 County Tax Notice on a Mobile Home Set the Foundation for $200 Billion in Indian Gaming Revenues,”
Minnesota Law Review,
Vol. 92.

230
See
http://www.tribal-institute.org/lists/pl_280.htm
.

230
Ibid.

231
Washburn, “The Legacy of Bryan v. Itasca County,” p. 936.

232
Ibid., p. 942.

234
Ibid., p. 944.

237
Ibid., p. 946.

247
Minneapolis Star Tribune,
February 1, 2009.

Chapter 6

266
Interview with Keller Paap, August 2009, Scattergood Lake.

270
See
http://www.nps.gov/archive/alcatraz/tours/hopi/hopi-h1.htm
.

270
Ibid.

271
J. Fear-Segal, “Nineteenth-Century Indian Education: Universalism versus Evolutionism,”
Journal of American Studies,
Vol. 33, No. 2 (1999), pp. 323–341.

272
Dan Jones interview with author, January 2001.

273
Daniel Jones, Royal Reporting Services, recorded September 24, 2009.

274
Dan Jones interview with author, January 2001.

278
Interview with Brooke Ammann in Milltown, Wisconsin, May 18, 2010.

284
Kevin Diaz,
Minneapolis Star Tribune,
November 10, 2009, http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/69722942.html.

287
See
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1635873,00.html
.

292
All quotes from Ryan Haasch are from interviews conducted in May 2009.

297
Olympia Sosangelis,
“Something More Than an Indian”: Carlos Montezuma and Wassaja, the Dual Identity of an Assimilationist and Indian Rights Activist,
dissertation (Boston, 2008), p. 49.

298
Interview with David Bisonette at Shue’s Pond in Hayward, Wisconsin, May 20, 2010.