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    489 views12 pages

    Rez Life Introduction

    Uploaded by

    api-252344608

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
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    INTRODUCTION In northern Minnesota, not far from the headwaters of che Mis- sissippi River, you may see a sign. From a passing car it is easy 0 iiss: in the summer the trees that march over fields and the ditch grass that crowds the road threaten to overwhelm its in the winter, when the snow has been pushed from the road and has leveled off the ditches, the sign sometimes blends too well with the snow to be seen at all. Seen or not, the sign reads: WELCOME TO THE LEECH LAKE INDIAN RESERVATION HOME OF THE LEECH LAKE BAND OF ONBWE PLEASE KEEP OUR ENVIRONMENT CLEAN, PROTECT OUR NATURAL RESOURCES NO SPECIAL LICENCES REQUIRED FOR HUNTING, FISHING, OR TRAPPING. If you're driving —as since this is America is most likely the case—the sign is soon behind you and soon forgotten. However, something is different about life on one side of it and life on the other: Ie’ just hard to say exactly what. The landscape is unchanged. The same pines, and the same swamps, hay fields, and jeweled lakes dropped here and there 1 ye ———— REZ LIFE among the trees, exist on both sides of the sgn ‘The houses don't look “ll char different, perhaps ltele smalls, ieee more ramshackle, The thildnen playing bythe road do look differen, chong, Darker. The coe, mos: of them, sem older, And pethaps something else is differ- ent, t00. -Youcan ste these kinds ofsignsall over America. Thete re roughly Ur ————————D Bureau of Tndian Affairs (BIA) docssit have a sure coune of ow many Fe tions there are (this might say something ‘about the BLA, or it might LL allofthe 564 fed- ————LL—_—UCN Some Teadnns dont hae reservations bur all reservations have Indians, and sav resevecons have signs These ate eibal ates in Breil ‘Afghani- stan, and Pakistan, among many other countries But reservations as nee know chem are, with the exception of ‘Canada, unique to Amer ica. You can see these signs in more chan thirey of the states, brit most SL, ———— settled by Europeans: the Grea Plains, the Soushwest the Northwest, and along the Canadian border stretching from Montana ro New York. Youcan vec them in the middle of che desert, among the Hew rocks of the Trallends, in che suburbs of Green Bay, and wichin che mise) sP% of ‘Ningaa Falls Some ofthe reservations that chess gh announce are Hauge. These are ewelve reservations in ‘the United Seates bigger than ies eof Rhode Island, Nine reservations ae larger ha Delaware (bearing the same name asa eribe chat was pushed from the region). Soome reservations ate so small ea dhe sign isl sem larger than end te denotes. Mas reservations are poos few ave ‘become ‘cathy In 2007 the Seminole bought he Hard Rock Café franchise. “The Oneida of Wisconsin helped renovate Lambest Field in Green Bay: And whenever Brett Fave (who dims Choc blood) scored Bay plow there as a Packer aft, oF Minnesota VEIN he did it 2 Davin Treven under Oneida lights cheered ira ee eaten eee Indian reservations, and those of us who live on them, are as Am con sale Be baseball, and muscle cars. Unlike apple pie, however oo ted to the birth of America itslé The Oneida were oe Revolutionary Army who fed US. troops at Valley F e ied defeat the British in New York, and the Iroquoi Conta acy served as one of the many models For ronson Mer Eg ile om the oun dy roped cit theories of communism. Indians hav disproportion m. we been di imei we ric igh ean Sars wwe fighting now: on July 27,2007, the last soldiers “Able Corn pany 2nd 36th Combined Atms batalion Tamed bows ae ae ser ving twenty-two months of combat duty in tg, ae the ine ‘Company was the most deployed company in sehiory of the Iraq War and was also deployed in Afghanistan nd snia. Some of the members of Able Co eee eee aaa Dee how inoloed in America’s busines Indians have been, mos very wll go a lifetime without ever knowing an Indian or spending hi on an Indian reservation. Indian land makes up 2.3 of the land in dhe United States. We number slighty over 2 talon (up Sicany from not quite 240,000 in 1900). Iris paar fs grid and our reservations. Yer Americans are captivated by nd = ae part a 3 story that America tells itself, from th nksgiving tothe Boston Tea Party up through Cr ; ee Pee of the Lite Bighorn, and ceo ee ch both grown fiom small bingo hall lighting up the prairie stares industry making $14 billion a year. No one in America today A ones REZ LIFE a r—— T= thebirth eehis or her country tothe millions of Americans who Ihave lose (and sometimes won) money in an Indian casino. “Whiteshave notusebecn captivated by ws they've een captured. {In 1790, when he was only ten years old, John Tanner was captured from his family’shome in Kencucky by the Shawnee, ates hhewassold to an Ojibwe fly asa slave and traveled with his family as far north to etn the Lite Saskatchewan River (My ibe the Ojibwe, has been called Chippewa, Ojibway, and ‘Chippeway—but Ojibwe is our eee for ourselves). Hl spent his ife among che Offove and evens tually marsied an Ojibwe woman. Asan adele hhe was reunited with bch family, bur he was uncomfortable oe East and wens back co Fe tndian home as soon as he could, Then these she SY of Mary Jemison. She was aso eaken captive, along wich neighbor and her brothers, also by Shawnee, in 1758. Her brothers and another captive were scalped en route to Fort Duquesne {jn modern-day Pirrsburgh). ‘Mary survived. She married a Delaware, Bur ‘afraid chat she would be srolen back, the young couple moved vo the Genesee Valley in what is —”— remarried a Sen- raed had many children with him. She never wen back to “white society” Many captives didn't go back, preferring life with Indians. "Thavis exactly what many people whose lives are intertwined with, Indians say today. My father, after eeaping Austr and the Holo- cena in 1938, led to che United Seaes wich his paren ‘Aer much »m smelled like my grandfather. Es t = lke "eath Tesla lik bins eee a lee o wandered through the house unt ony old her Anton arrived, I was glad he was there. : sonality for such jobs—calm, seemingly or ae 16 REZ LIFE ‘Anton and lifed out the heavy furieure une all ehae was efe was the small rectangle ofa room and the salle, more porene MO TE rfcaneectangle ofthe braided throw ug thar covers ‘hae was left sf my grandfather’ brain. We were’ doings grt job and neither was the rg, Tecugged ache feet, and carrying forniure while stepping over tease har, and in short time the raghad been stepped oP and flipped see and bunched up. Quite alor of blood showed through. We tied not to notice aoa he bed fame ou to che gage Since my grande imadeifon to beinga hard, was somewhat senciment hhe held on te aloe of junk. For instance, he had saved all of his father’s logging taquipment, an so one wall was covered with o-maN Swede saws, cons aes peavey and te ike In he farcomet Pung small Fenn drum. 1 remember hearing about this drum from my mother

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