August 1977 Ray and Irma Gone (Our Parents in Hays)

May their memories be a blessing

8-2-77 trailer

Ray came over to the trailer at around 5:00. He had a cup of coffee with us. He asked me if he could borrow the choker he gave me. I gave it to him. Then he asked me if I had film in my camera and I told him I did. He said that he wanted me to take some pictures for him. He and Cyndee are going to a pow wow this weekend at the Blackfeet Reservation. Both of them are going to be dancing and he wanted me to take pictures of them in their dancing outfits. I told him I would come over early next week to do it. Ray said that was good.

I asked Ray how White Cow Canyon got its name. He answered that he really didn’t know. “It might have had something to do with a family name. Now it is tribal land. I’ve lived here all my life, and I don’t know how a lot of these places got their names. I’ve never really thought about it. I know that Eagle Child got its name from a man who lived at the base of the mountain.”

Ray asked me what I have been doing lately. I told him that I’ve been doing some catching up on my research and I apologized for not getting to see him in the last week or two. He said not to worry about it.

You and Susie get out more than any of the volunteers here. Whenever I see you, you’re out in the community. You’re always visiting someone or going to all of the activities here. And whenever you go to anything, pow wows, funerals, wakes, weddings, anything, you guys always help out. You’re always helping and people see that. You don’t even have to worry about people thinking that you’re ripping them off because of your research. People don’t think that at all. They know what you guys do in the community. People around here aren’t as blunt as I am. They don’t express their feelings as openly as I do. They’re more quiet than me. But they do allude to things, and I know what they’re talking about. When I’m in the store talking to people, I hear what people say.

I told Ray about the conversation I had with a person I ran into at the Indian Days pow wow. This person is a Gros Ventre who is also a teacher. He told me not to do research without returning something to the community. Ray knows this person well and likes and respects him.

Ray said, “You don’t have to worry about that at all.”

If I were you, I would take what he says with a grain of salt. I don’t know if you know anything about him, but he was born off the reservation and was raised off the reservation. He went to a very good college there. He finally decided to come back and is teaching. All he knows about the Gros Ventre is what he’s read in books. He doesn’t know anything from firsthand experience. It is all from books. When he studies the Gros Ventre, he commutes onto the reservation. He doesn’t even stay here. He leaves every day. You have it up on him. You’ve been here more than he has; you’ve spent more time here, and you’ve spent more time in the community than he has. You know about the Gros Ventre firsthand and you know what’s in the books. So, you don’t have anything to worry about in this community. You and Susie are doing something very difficult. I think about it a lot of times. I put myself in your shoes and I think what it would be like if I went to Columbus or Cleveland and tried to do what you’re doing. I don’t know if I would have made it or not. You help out at different activities and ceremonies. You’ve learned all about these things and have learned enough to know what to do to help out. I don’t know if I would be able to learn as much as you have if I went to Ohio, or if I could help out like you have here.

Susie told Ray that she had been out picking june berries but they’re all dried out now, so I can’t get anymore. Ray said that in the old days the people didn’t worry about this. “The women would pick the berries and then just leave them in the sun to dry out. They would store them in a sack, sometimes in a rawhide sack. They didn’t have freezers in those days. But the dried berries could be used the same way as the frozen berries.”

I told Ray that I was looking forward to hunting season (October 23 – November 1) and that I would like to go out with him this year. He said he would love to go out with me. He said that Gordon used to hunt and that he was quite a walker. He walked all the time and everywhere.

We used to go out hunting with a big bunch of people. It was like an army. There would be all my brothers and sisters and their kids and even grandchildren. There were a lot of us, and it was a lot of fun. It was great to be out there and just walking around, eating out and taking pictures. We haven’t done this now for years.

I used to go out hunting a lot, but I haven’t been much since I had a heart attack. Once I went out with Cyndee and Pete’s boys. I drove out in my truck. Pete’s kids didn’t have a gun. There were so many boys that they didn’t have enough rifles to go around. They have to take turns. So, Pete’s boys went dogging and they chased a big buck out of a coulee. They chased him right in front of us, about 25 feet away and broadside. Both Cyndee and I shot and we both missed him. I was sure mad. I can understand why Cyndee missed. She had a case of “buck fever,” and she got really nervous, but I should have got him. Sometimes you get them and sometimes you don’t.

Once I was out with Pete, we used to hunt a lot together. He took a shot at a buck, it was a long way off, and he dropped him with one shot. It was lucky. It’s hard to explain. Sometimes you get them and sometimes you don’t. Another time when I was with Pete, he took a shot at a big buck only about 30 feet away and he hit it right in the hind quarters. He couldn’t deny it, he was the only one who shot. If a deer is ever hit in the hind quarters, I’ll always tell everyone that it wasn’t my shot. I never hit them in the hind quarter. Ray laughed.

I was out with Quentin once and his brother, who is now dead. We were cutting poles down along Beaver Creek. We saw a doe and I saw that she moved her ears and turned her head just a bit. I knew she either saw me or smelled me. I went down from the hill and waited. A deer will always go back where it came from. Sure enough, she walked back out and after five minutes she passed me on the side of the hill and I got her. She was only ten feet from me.

I don’t think Irma wants to get a deer. She goes out hunting, but I think deep down she doesn’t want to shoot one. I was out with Irma once and we spotted a big buck on the other side of a coulee. He didn’t see us, so I stopped the truck and we crawled up to the top of a hill Indian style. We got up to the top and still the buck didn’t see us. So, I told Irma when I count to three, we both shoot. She said ok. I counted to three and I heard one shot. I thought, that’s perfect, we shot at exactly the same time together. I looked over at Irma and she said that she didn’t shoot. I forgot to pull back the hammer.

Ray said, you can call a deer in during rutting season. “You can scrape the antlers together, and a buck will come to fight. If it thinks there’s another male in its territory. Or you can buy a scent. They sell this commercially. This will bring in a buck.”

Ray said that Tuffy once told him a story.

He was driving toward the Agency, and he was on the highway on the prairie, just on the other side of the Longknife’s and he saw an antelope buck and the buck was in the bar pit. As Tuffy got close, the buck took off and ran in the bar pit alongside the road. Tuffy stepped on the gas and caught up with the antelope. He was going 70 mpg. He said the antelope took off and with a burst of speed, ran ahead and crossed the road in front of his car. Antelopes are really fast. They’re smart too. Whitetail are really smart. Antelope will run in a herd, a small group, and they have a lookout. A whole group will be grazing and one, the lookout, stands on top of a hill. If he sees anything, he’ll puff up his tail and that signals the others to watch out. When they puff up their tail, it’s really pretty.

“There aren’t as many deer here as there used to be. You used to see them all over. You don’t see as many now.” Ray said that he and Raymond used to work for the BLM and they would air drop us into the mountains. “We would make a heliport or cut trails in the mountains, and we would see deer in there. They’re in the thick areas, but still not as many as there used to be.”

I just heard that the supreme court made a decision that an Indian can hunt anywhere they want and any time, on and off the reservation. There was a test case near Great Falls. An Indian was picked up for poaching, and he said he was allowed to hunt off the reservation. It went to court finally and it went all the way to the Supreme Court. They made a decision based on treaties made with the Indians that an Indian can hunt on and off the reservations whenever they want, not just during the hunting season. The problem is they can really make it a hassle for you before the court makes a decision. You could end up in jail for a few weeks, but when the court finally made a decision, it would be in the Indian’s favor. But no one wants to go through all this, so they just avoid getting caught. The game wardens are allowed to come onto the reservation and search for game now, too.

Ray asked if we went to the Fool’s Dance this past weekend and we told him we did. He said that he wasn’t there.

I didn’t get to the pow wow until 3:30 but I heard that they didn’t do the dance the way they used to do it in the old days. The dancers wear cans around their ankles and a can belt. It’s an Assiniboine dance, but they had dancers who weren’t Assiniboine. Some were Gros Ventre, Sioux and Blood. They do everything in fours. When the leader left his special lodge, he’s supposed to put his head and one leg outside the door and back in – he does this three times and doesn’t come out until the fourth time. This is a special tipi which is put up the night before and is used only for this reason. They go around the camp and dance after stopping every 25 or 30 feet with the maker in the middle singing and pounding his coup stick on the ground. The whole dance takes a long time to do. Then when they get up to the cow, it used to be a buffalo, they crawl up to it and go away three times. The maker doesn’t reach it until the fourth time. When they run back, the dancers hide behind a pebble or a cow chip. Then on the fourth time, the maker counts a coup by touching the cow with his coup stick. The cow is on a coulee away from the camp. Then the maker kills the cow and all the dancers butcher the cow. I told Ray that the dancers didn’t kill the cow. He said that was wrong. They are supposed to do it. But I guess that Al is getting pretty old. The maker uses an eagle bone whistle to start the dancing. When they get back to camp and throw the meat, this has something to do with the enemy and counting coup; the cow represents the enemy. They did a lot of things wrong in this dance. If people couldn’t follow instructions, then they shouldn’t have danced.

Ray said that there used to be two groups in Hays, the Black Lodge and the Mountain Crow.

Some people realized that the dances were going to be lost, so many things were changing. So, as a way to get interest back in the dances, and to get the dances going again, they decided to introduce some competitive spirit. These two groups were in competition with each other, and it really did help to raise the interest in the dances again. Hays was arbitrarily divided in half. They just kind of drew a line and divided it in half with one side being the Black Lodge and the other side being the Mountain Crows. These groups did help to keep the dances from dying, and they were dying. I remember that some husbands and wives were on opposite sides. It was a lot of fun.

The week of Christmas, there was a real big dance. These two groups would compete for seven nights in a row. The first three days, the Black Lodge group would put on the dance and the second three days, the Mountain Crows would put on the dance. These two groups would compete to see who would put on the best dance, who could feed more and the best food, who had the most dancers dancing on their nights. Just who could be the best and most enjoyable time. Then on the seventh night both put on the dance together. That was something. It was a big dance. People sure enjoyed themselves at this dance. And everyone had a chance to enjoy themselves. You know how it is, like your experience at the Congress. When you put it on yourself, you don’t really enjoy yourself, but this way, everyone had a chance to have a good time. And the competition was all in fun.

These two groups competed at other dances, too. They competed at the Hays Fair. I remember being at one of these Christmas dances. I had just started dancing. I was about ten years old. It was late at night, and I was tired and dozed off on a bench. The singers started, but I was half asleep and the drums and singers seemed way off in the distance. There were two men on each side of the door. These were whip men and in those days, whip men did their job. One of the whip men came up to me and, whack, I got whipped across the thigh. Once that drum starts, and the singers start singing, the dancers have to be up dancing. Well, I went out on the floor and started dancing. Old Whitecow was dancing. He was old and heavy and he used to dance with his head down. He didn’t see me and he ran right over me. He was dancing real fast. He always danced fast. He knocked me right to the floor and he didn’t even stop. He kept going.

We used to have these dances in a hall. It was down where Henry Fox lives. It was round and was made of wood. It had beams around the outside and in the center of the floor. The roof was low on the outside. The roof was open in the center. We used to build a big bonfire in there and it used to be pretty warm. The building got pretty old and it just rotted. We didn’t have any place in Hays for a while and all the people complained about it. Finally, the BIA put up a building. It was in the late 1930s, and it was where Jimmy Main lived; where Snuffy is now. I think that was one of the reasons why people lost interest in the dances and why the dances were dying out was because of this hall. It was square and it had a floor. The old hall was round and it only had a dirt floor. I think the environment was just too strange for these people in this new hall. They weren’t used to it. That’s why a lot of people lost interest in the dances. The dance hall didn’t have electricity for a long time, and they had to use kerosene lamps for the light. And we had heaters all over the floor and it kept the place warm. The building burned down in 1954. We didn’t have another hall for a long time. People here kept screaming for a hall, but we had nothing for a long time. Finally, the BIA built us a hall, the senior citizen center, in the late 1960s. They did it just to quiet us down. But the hall is just not big enough. We couldn’t hold a dance in there. It’s just too small and with the people who come to dances, it wouldn’t hold them all. We used to have tea dances, too. I think they also called them night dances. I can’t remember that much about them, but people used to drink a lot of tea and they danced. I think they sang special songs for this.

Ray said that the Indian Days pow wow was real good. The announcers were good. They made people laugh and they joked. They announced and introduced a lot of people who came from far away. The announcers really helped to make the pow wow enjoyable. Both of the nights of the pow wow were really good with a lot of dancers and drums. It was a successful pow wow.

I told Ray that I was very confused about the Chippewa French, the landless group that lives here on the reservation. Then Ray proceeded to give me the following explanation.

The Chippewa Cree live on the Rocky Boy Reservation. They were two bands, and they call them bands, not tribes, that came to that area and ended up on that reservation together. These two bands, one of them Chippewa and one Cree that intermarried so much that they’re Chippewa-Cree, but they’re not. They would say that they are, but they’re not Chippewa Cree.

The people here are Cree that intermarried with the French. The people here are French Canadian Cree. It’s the group of French Canadian Cree that were with Riel. They were up in Canada and Riel tried to overthrow the Canadian government. It didn’t work out and he escaped into the US. He went down near Great Falls and stayed there for a while. Then he went up to Canada and was caught. But a lot of these Cree here were his people. The Canadian Cree that intermarried with the French. Some of these people settled in and around Lewistown and Roy, and they homesteaded all around the reservation. But not on the reservation. Most of these people lost their homesteads through taxes. And they started to come up to the reservation. They gradually came up here to the reservation. It wasn’t all at one time. It happened slowly. It was the last names, Gardipee, Doney, LaRoque, Turcott, Morin … these are all French Canadian Crees. They’re also called Metis and we also called them the Red River Cart Crees. They got this name because they traveled around with horses that pulled carts with two large wheels.

Irma’s father had a homestead just south of the reservation. He lived in a cabin just south of the reservation border. Irma’s uncle married Irma’s mother. The land that Irma has now was not her father’s homestead off of the reservation, but it was her mother’s land. Her mother was a McConnel. She was Assiniboine. That’s why she has land. A lot of these people are from the Little Shell Band. They’re not a tribe. They are from North Dakota. They settled in North Dakota and ended up on Turtle Mountain. Chief Little Shell had a band of Cree. The Turcott’s, Irma’s family, was one of this group. A lot of these people came up here to go to school. The schools would take all kids. It didn’t matter what tribe or band you were from. The schools took everyone. So, a lot of the French Canadian Cree came up to the reservation to send their kids to school here.

But these people aren’t Chippewa or Chippewa Cree. The proof of this is that they don’t have land, they’re the landless Indians. It’s proof because if they were Chippewa Cree they would have land and they would be on Rocky Boy or would have land on Rocky Boy. But they don’t. They live here and they’re landless.

I asked Ray if the Gros Ventre or Assiniboine ever tried to throw the Cree off the reservation when they first got here earlier. Ray said that land then was never what it is now. It just didn’t mean anything like what it does now.

People had no conception in the old days of ownership of land. People just didn’t think about it. All the land was shared. Everyone owned it. So, no one thought about moving anyone off of it because it was “owned.” It was all shared. That’s just the way it was. But the Crees still didn’t have land that they owned on the reservation. Their homesteads were off the reservation like Irma’s father. They are landless now because they lost their homesteads to taxes.

Ray said that he thinks the Gros Ventre and Assiniboine got along really well before the money got involved in it.

There were problems caused because the Gros Ventre got more in their treaty payment than the Assiniboine and there were more problems because of the community projects that the government said we had to have. The treaty was signed in 1855 and an agreement was made for giving money back for taking the Indian land. The treaty said that we would get $1.25 an acre from the government for the land. We didn’t get the first payment until 1936. At that time, the tribal council had to decide who was going to get the money. They decided to make it one quarter Gros Ventre or Assiniboine. If less than that, one eighth or one sixteenth degree blood, they wouldn’t share in the per capita payment. But in 1936 the government only paid us 24 cents out of the $1.25 an acre. Then we got the rest of the per capita payment in 1973. But the government said that the only way we could get the money is if we programmed some of the money for a community development project. So, we decided to take all of the principal and pay this out in the per capita payment. And then there was a lot of interest. That money had been sitting in the US Treasury for so many years. And they decided to use this interest for a community project. So, they submitted projects to the government. It was on paper and that’s all the government cared about. But do you see any projects here. The mission gym is the only thing. There’s nothing else. The reason they can’t do any of these projects is that there’s nothing the Assiniboine can build here which would be used only for the Assiniboine and there’s nothing the Gros Ventre can build that would only be used by the Gros Ventre. Assiniboine, Gros Ventre and Cree would use anything built here. So, nothing’s been done. The Gros Ventre won’t do anything and say it is ok for everyone to use it cause they don’t know that the Assiniboine would do the same thing. And if they didn’t, there would be a lot of hard feelings and bitterness. I can’t think of any project for just the Assiniboine or just the Gros Ventre. So, nothing’s been done with that interest money that’s supposed to be for a community project.

I don’t know what they’re going to do about it. But there wasn’t much trouble between Assiniboine and Gros Ventre until this money thing started. Another thing causing problems in this community is that only one quarter degree bloods and more got the per capita payment in 1973. The one eighths didn’t get any of the money and some have contested it. The treaty committee just used the 1936 decision of one quarter blood to get it. But the one eighths have sued and some of this money was put aside for them. It’s in the court now. This has also caused some bitterness in the community.

I asked Ray when they were going to have the giveaway for his mother. He said that the giveaway would be around Memorial Day, probably at the pow wow. I asked if friends and relatives or the family could help out with the giveaway. He said that it was done all the time. “They almost always get help. Some people give money or blankets. The family will give the money or blankets to whoever they want. People also give food to help the family put on the feed.”

8-3-77 trailer

Ray said that the Gros Ventre and Arapaho were one group at one time. I asked him how long ago the split took place and who split from whom. He said that the Arapaho and Gros Ventre were one group until about 1865.

It was a little after a bad smallpox epidemic. If you ask the Arapaho, they’ll say that they were the larger group and the Gros Ventre split off from them. If you ask the Gros Ventre, they’ll say the same thing, so I don’t know. This is what I do know about it though. Both of them were one group until about 1865 and they were down in Oklahoma. They had a fight about something, these groups of clans and there was a fight that happened and one of the Gros Ventre killed an Arapaho. Before any retaliation could happen, all of the clans of the Gros Ventre ran north to where we are today. That’s about all I know about it.

I asked Ray what ONAP (Office of Native American Programs) did. He said that there were a bunch of programs under ONAP.

The government funds most of these programs and the money for them is channeled through ONAP. ONAP is supposed to have autonomy in these programs, but they don’t. The government has a lot of guidelines for the programs and the government runs them. Headstart is under ONAP, so is Outreach, they’re the ones who will drive people into town and they run the senior citizen’s program. I think detox is under ONAP. The Indians should be running these programs, but the government is doing it.

Ray said that one of the biggest problems with the government programs was that there is either very little or no accountability for these programs.

No one goes back and checks on how the money is being spent and how the program is working out. If I were a taxpayer, I would be complaining about a lot of these reservation problems. I can understand why people would complain about these programs. A lot of times the money is not used the way it is supposed to, and the programs aren’t run the way they’re supposed to. With some accountability they could check on these things and correct them.

8-14-77 mission

I was talking to Ray after the workshop. He said that he really enjoyed himself. He said when the old women were talking about the pipes this morning he was surprised.

They said they didn’t know anything. It’s hard to get them to open up. Maybe they just didn’t want to open up. Everyone is scared to move those pipes, but I’d move them. They’re like a brother to me, the way I feel about them. I would move them and take the consequences. The way I look at it, the pipes are being desecrated. I believe that’s the reason for all the problems in the community today. The pipes are being desecrated. I would move them, and I believe that the Great Spirit would look on all this as a good thing and would know my good intentions, even though I don’t know the right ceremony to handle the pipes.

I said to Ray that I heard that the Feathered Pipe was gone and that it wasn’t in the shack by Happy’s house.

Ray said that was right.

One day Ironman II came to the house and was very upset. He came to see my dad. He was crying, so my father knew it was really serious. Ironman II went home and my father sat at home thinking. He took his time drinking coffee, and he thought about what it would be that was wrong and what he would say. Ironman II hadn’t told him yet. Finally, my father went to see Ironman II at his house. Ironman II told him that he felt into the pipe bundle and the main pipe was missing. Ironman II told him that he never did open the bundle. He just felt inside and felt that it wasn’t there. It could be though, because like I said, he never did look inside. But he told my father that the main pipe, the Feathered Pipe was gone. My father thought about what he wanted to say to Ironman II. Finally, he said, the pipe is gone because it’s gone back to the Creator, the One who gave us the pipe. He took it back because there wasn’t any use for it anymore. It did what it could for us Gros Ventre people for a long time, but we don’t need it anymore. Now there’s Christianity. It did it's use but with Christianity, that use is over and the Great Spirit took the sacred pipe back. I think that my father told old Ironman II the right thing. He said the right thing to him. The Feathered Pipe has a human face on it and the expression of the face would change. The face had a different expression for everyone who looked at it and each time the person looked at it, the face changed its expression.

Willie Bradley has talked about moving the pipes to a mountain top and returning the pipes to the Creator, since we don’t use them anymore the way they’re supposed to be used. I don’t like that idea, though. To me that would mean making the pipes an orphan. Most everyone is scared to move or handle the pipes. They should be moved. I love the pipes like a brother.

Most people don’t know much about or anything about the pipes. Andrew’s own father was a pipe keeper and Andrew doesn’t know anything about the pipes. He even had the chance for being a pipe child. He just didn’t care. Those old women didn’t know anything about the pipes either. Maybe they just didn’t want to talk. And a lot of what they said was wrong. When Elmer asked them about it, they conferred with each other before they talked. Katie said that it was the Feathered Pipe that the Assiniboine stole, but it wasn’t. It was the Flat Pipe. The Feathered Pipe might be gone but it is impossible to know because he didn’t open the bundle. He just felt the bundle and felt it missing.

Ray said that there would have to be a lot of social changes before a lot of these Gros Ventre traditions could be salvaged or revived. “For one thing, there will have to be a change in social attitude. Like with the hand game, kids would come in and participate, or they were kept away. Well, now if the hand game is going to survive, the kids are going to have to be there so we can pass it on to them.” Ray said that he was ready to use the hand game set of hand game sticks that he had.

Ray said that he didn’t know for sure, but it was possible that one of the superintendents had the Feathered Pipe.

He was the BIA superintendent about that time. He took a lot of artifacts from here. He collected a lot of things. Janette Warrior has the Flat Pipe at her house. She doesn’t know anything about it. She’s supposed to smudge it, but she doesn’t. People have been talking about getting an Arapaho medicine man from Wyoming to come here, and to work on the ceremony and to help us move the pipe. They started talking about this at the treaty committee meeting. I don’t want them to bring in anyone from the outside. That’s wrong. We should do it. It is our pipe, not there’s. Even though we don’t know the ceremony to handle or move the pipes, I’d rather that we move them than to bring in an outsider. I’d rather move them and take the consequences than to bring in an outsider.

8-24-77 Ray and Irma’s

We took Susie’s family to meet Ray and Irma. When I was going to sit down at the table, Ray gave me a chair next to Susie’s mom. He asked me if I was allowed to be near my mother-in-law. We both got a really good laugh out of that. (Traditionally, the Gros Ventre practiced mother-in-law and son-in-law avoidance. Beatrice and BJ still observed this practice as much as possible).

I asked Ray if the new constitution was going to be voted on in the November elections. He said that they were supposed to vote on the new constitution, but they were having trouble with the BIA.

The BIA’s not accepting the new constitution. They’re finding all kinds of things wrong with it. They won’t accept it until it says just what they want it to say. So, it is going to have to go back to the constitutional convention and they’re going to have to rewrite it until the BIA accepts it. John Capture is the chairman of the constitutional convention, and he will have to stay on until the BIA accepts the constitution.

Ray said that he’s had a crew cut all his life, ever since he was in the navy. “When I was a kid, I had long red braids and I was covered with freckles.” Susie laughed and said that Gros Ventre aren’t supposed to have freckles and red hair. Irma said, “yeah, what tribe do you belong to anyway.”

Irma said that there was a time when you could look at the designs on beadwork and from the designs you could tell what tribe the work came from. “But you can’t do this anymore because everyone trades and borrows these designs. So, you can’t identify the tribes who make them anymore.” I asked Ray if this was the way it was with songs. He said that it was. “A lot of groups have borrowed songs from other tribes, so you can’t identify tribes from the songs anymore either.” (You can identify the songs if they are sung in the language of the tribe when there are words used).

Irma went into her room and brought out what she called a ‘papoose sack.’ It was all beaded with a design and was shaped like a cradle board. It was made of buckskin and was laced up in front. She said that she used to have a doll that went inside it. “The doll and my leggings and some other beaded things were in the old mission school. My mother lent the sisters these things and they had them on display on a bulletin board. The sisters were under the impression that these things were given to them, and they were going to keep them. I was going to talk to them about getting these things back, because my mother only lent them these things, but then the building was burned down, and everything was destroyed.”

Ray said that when he was in Canada he got some black twist. He brought it out of his room to show us. It was in a paper package which he unwrapped. It was dark black tobacco and was about three inches long and a half inch in diameter. He said that this stuff is real strong.

The old timers used to smoke it all the time in a pipe. He smelled it and said that it smelled like Copenhagen, like snuff. They took this black twist and would take a knife and cut off a piece from the end. Then on a chopping block they’d cut it into small pieces until they cut it as small as they could get it with the knife. Then they’d go into the mountains and would get a bunch of larb (a plant found all over the mountains). They’d take the leaves off and would dry them out in an oven in a baking pan. Then they’d cut up the larb and mix it with the twist. This was called knickknick.

I told Ray about the mining operation in the mountains that we saw yesterday. Ray said that they closed down the mines in 1939 because of the war.

They had a big operation up there for years. I had a friend who worked up there and he was killed. There were five big vats in the mill up at Ruby Gulch. They had some kind of chemical process that they used to separate the gold from the ore. And they would send the tailings down fleus from the mill. This guy fell into one of the vats and suffocated.

They used a lot of cyanide in this chemical process, but I don’t understand it. I don’t know how they got the gold out. There’s cyanide in the water now. The source of the creek is directly under the mines. There’s enough cyanide in the water that I wouldn’t drink from it. The tribe is suing the mining companies over the cyanide in the water. They say that it is at a high level.

Ray said that People’s Creek that goes through the canyon would be a good place to pan for gold.

The source of the creek is directly under the mines so I’m sure there’s a lot of gold in the creek. When they had those mining operations their equipment was very crude and I’m sure they didn’t get all the gold out of the ore. There’s still a lot of gold in the tailings.

Susie’s dad said that there wasn’t much water in People’s Creek in some places. Ray said that it dries up every year.

Most of the creeks and rivers are down this year and most of them are down early because of drought. The Missouri River was down this year real early and about as low as I’ve seen it. The only creek around here that has water all year round is North Fork in the Little Rockies.

Irma said that she saw me driving the bus this morning. She said that the bus drivers are all supposed to have a chauffer’s license and some training in first aid. I didn’t tell Irma that the bus had crappy breaks and no sideview mirrors. The least of the problems with the bus is that I didn’t have a chauffer’s license.

Irma said that she got a new car. She said that because of her CHR work, she has a chauffer’s license. She also said that the CHRs were going to get CBs for their cars from the CHR program.

I asked Ray when the present school district was established. He said that Cleveland and Hays used to be in the same school district.

There used to be small one room schoolhouses around here, like in Cleveland and Rattlesnake, but Hays had its own grade school. Up until three years ago, Hays had the mission grade school and high school, but the public school in Hays was only a grade school. The kids had to go to Harlem, school district 12, for high school. Then three years ago, we got a high school in district 50, and we had to fight hard to get it. The brick building was the grade school until the change but now it is the high school. They brought in trailers for the grade school. Now school district 50 has a grade school in Hays and one in Lodge Pole and they have the high school in Hays for both communities. School district 12 is Harlem, and they handle the northern part of the reservation.

I told Ray that we went to see Jack Plumage and that the interview went really well. Ray said that he thought it would. I had told him previously about it. Ray said that the tribal council was a farce. “They just need three people, a chairman and then one person from each district. There are only three county commissioners, and they run the whole county. Twelve people on the tribal council is too much. They can’t get anything done with so many people.” Irma really laid into Jack last week about no recreation in Hays. Irma is mad because the Agency is building a large recreation complex with a swimming pool and skating rink and Hays still doesn’t have any recreation.

8-27-77 Ray and Irma’s

We took Susie’s family over to visit Ray and Irma at about 1:00. They were the only ones home. Ray came over in the morning while we were out hunting, and he made plans with Susie and her mom for all of us to go with Irma and him to a buffalo jump that he knew about in the area. But it rained very hard until about 12:30. Ray said that the mud would be too deep and the gumbo too slick to go out there. So, we stayed at their house.

I asked Ray if he knew anything about Bob Swan, the new educational consultant on Ft. Belknap. He’s from Rocky Boy and has a PhD. Ray said that he used to work with the Indian Community Action Program at Missoula, the University of Montana. “When I was CAP director here, I worked with him and his program pretty often. He is going to work on adult education here on the reservation. He’s also going to work with the GED program. I don’t know what he’ll be able to do here. It depends on what kind of money he has to work with.”

Ray said that all the rain and cold weather, especially at night, was very unusual for the month of August. “It’s rained so often this month, and it’s hard to believe that it rained again today. Our driveway just turns to a big mud pool after it rains. It’s all gumbo out there and with all of the rain we’ve had, the driveway has been that way all month. We’ve been on a list to have gravel put down out there, but they haven’t done it yet. We’ve been waiting for a long time.”

Ray left the room and went to his bedroom. He came back into the kitchen with a blue vest with Indian designs in felt, one on each pocket in the front and a large diamond in felt on the back. He asked Susie’s father to stand up and when he did, Ray put the vest on him. Then he said, “It’s yours.” Lou thanked him and Ray said, “You’re welcome.” Then Irma went into the bedroom and came back to the kitchen. She gave Marti two beaded necklaces, each with a matching beaded chocker. She said that one of them was for Susie’s mother and the other was for Susie’s sister. Marti thanked Irma and told her that they were beautiful. Irma was very modest; she had made them.

Irma’s cat had kittens again. There were four in the litter. This is the third time this year that the cat has had kittens. Irma put a cardboard box in the living room closet with a small blanket on the bottom of the box for them. Irma put the kittens out on the floor to play. She gives all the kittens away to family and friends. Irma was teasing that every time she lets the cat out it comes back and has a litter. They also have a ten-month-old puppy. Its name is Pudgy. It stays outside of the fence that surrounds the yard and they have a doghouse for it near the fence gate. They have two bowls next to the house, one for water and one for canned dog food. The puppy is a blue healer.

Ray said that the money came in for the forest crew, the firefighters. They passed out $56,000 yesterday to the four crews. There were about 22 people on a crew, so that money went to about 88 people. They were out for about two and a half weeks. Irma said that there were a lot of new cars around now since the fire fighters got paid. Ray said that the firefighters would be called out until sometime in October. He said that one year when he was a crew chief that they were called out until November.

Ray said that he was looking forward to the football season at the high school. I plan to follow the kids around to their games this year. “Maybe we could go to the games together and trade off driving. I’ve followed the kids around before. They’ve lost a lot of their good players.” I told Ray that Mike Doney graduated last year and that he was going to college this fall. Ray seemed surprised. “It’s so hard to believe that these kids are grown up. I can remember when they were so young.”

While we were watching a baseball game on tv, Ray said that when the CCC was here during the depression (Civil Conservation Corp), in the 1930s, they used to have a real good baseball team. “It was a hardball team. We used to watch baseball games all the time. They used to play the teams all along the highline. I used to enjoy watching them play. It was a lot of fun. In all those years, I could never throw a baseball. I don’t know what it is, I can’t throw anything. My father was the manager of the team, and I was the bat boy.”

Irma gave Susie the recipe for rose hips jelly and choke cherry syrup.

Rose hips jelly:

Pick stems off rose hips and mash in cold water. Add 1 cup water to each cup of fruit. Boil 15 minutes, mash and simmer 10 minutes more. Set aside for 24 hours in a glass container. Strain juice. Take 2 ½ cups  of juice and add 1 cup of apple juice and 1 box of pectin. Dissolve pectin, bring to a boil, add 4 ½ cups of sugar and stir. Boil 6 to 7 minutes. Let stand until slightly cool, skim and pour into jars.

Choke cherry syrup:

Cover cherry with water. Boil until most of the cherries have turned white. Let cool slightly. Strain juice into another pot and add equal portions of juice to water – boil twice. Let cool between each boil.

Irma told me to be really careful about the berries I pick because some of them are poisonous. Red berries.

8-29-77 trailer

Ray came up to visit at about 2:30 this afternoon.

Ray said that he knows a good place to go hunting and he asked me to go out with him this season. “I also know where there’s a buffalo jump around the reservation and where there’s a lot of tipi rings. Why don’t you come up some evening, and we’ll go out and I’ll show you these places. It will be good for us to get away for a little while.”

Ray said that the old timers told stories so well.

They were just so natural at it and that’s how they did most of their teaching, by telling stories. I can remember a lot of these people from when I was just a kid, and I can remember being around them. So much has changed since these days, the way we teach and the way we discipline children. All of this has changed. They taught by telling stories and they taught by example. The children would observe everything and that’s how they learned. The children learned from their families or from their guardians. They didn’t have schools in those days. They learned everything by watching and observing those people. And the discipline was different in those days. Let me give you an example. Today, if a child put their hand near a hot water faucet and were about to put their hand in hot water, the parent would grab the child’s hand and would pull it away. And they would have some profane things to say, and the child would probably get slapped across the head. In those days, the old timers would have done it differently. They used to either remove the child from the danger or they would remove the danger from the child. They didn’t use any words. They would just do it. Then they would get the child curious. They taught by this kind of lesson. The child would get curious and would start to wonder why their parent did that. So, they would ask about it. The parent would say something like, if you put your hands on the hot rocks, you will burn yourself and you will get blisters. And then you won’t be able to play for hours. The children respected their parents. The parents never hit their children, and they never used profanity with their children. They disciplined their children in other ways and the children respected them. And it worked real good, too. They didn’t have problems with kids back then like we do now. These old timers did things different from the way we do things now and I can remember a lot of them. You felt so relaxed just being around them. There was no rush for time. They did things when they felt they wanted to do them. Not just because they were supposed to or it was time for them. They were so good to be around. They didn’t talk very much, but when they did say something, it was important. They knew just the right things to say and how to say them. They could sure make things sound important. I’ve learned a lot about these old timers and about the traditions. I’ve learned a lot about these things because I’m interested in learning about them.

Ray said that Joyce was at the house this morning talking to Irma. They started talking about Joyce’s aunt and she said she wished she knew more about her. She had a real light complexion and she wanted to understand more how she was related to her and other relatives. “I told them that it was important for us to know our roots. The tribe has all the programs and for each one there is a director and an assistant director and an assistant to the assistant and they hire and pay all of these people. They should hire some people to work on their roots and establish their genealogies for the people on the reservation.”

Ray said that things are bad in the community. “I don’t know what religion can do about improving the community, but they should do something. The Catholic institution is so big, you’d think they could do something about social justice. But I don’t think they will. I don’t think they’ll do anything about it and to help us here.”

“I’ve been so pessimistic about everything. Some people can find the best in every situation, but not me. I think that my pessimism has caused a lot of my depression. I’ve had this attitude for the last three years.”

He was sitting across from me at the kitchen table, and I made him a cup of coffee and gave him one of my cigarettes. He looked extremely depressed. His cowboy hat was pulled down and he was frowning. He lifted his head slowly and said that he felt like his whole life has been a big waste and he didn’t know any good that he’s done. I said, “Ray, that’s just not true at all. I hope in my lifetime I can do half of what you’ve accomplished in your life so far and you have a lot of years left. You have good kids that love you and care for you. And you’ve held every important position on the reservation and have done so much to improve the different agencies you’ve worked for. And you’ve done so much to help your people.”

Ray sat quietly for a minute and then he answered me.

I’ve been so depressed because I take life so seriously. I think all the time about these things. I’ve thought about all the things you’ve said and I’ve come to my own conclusions about it. And it is a lot of the reason I’ve been so depressed. I’ve held all of these jobs, but what’s it been good for. I think it’s been a waste. It’s been hard on my family and there haven’t been that many changes here. There are still an awful lot of problems in Hays and on the reservation. I don’t know what it’s been good for. I was director of Head Start and the CAP Office and the director of Urban Rural. But I don’t think it’s been worth it. I don’t think it’s done any good.

I had the same hard time when I started working at these jobs. People would say that I was trying to be a big shot while I was working at these jobs. People gave me a hard time. People here don’t want anyone to do well for themselves. They don’t like it when you do well for yourself. These people have taken it out on my kids, too. The kids hear what their parents say, and they’ve made it hard on my kids.

I’ve also been depressed about my sickness. I guess I’m just not used to being this way and not being able to do a lot of things. Also, not working has caused me to feel real bad.

It makes it hard, too, that I’m a perfectionist.

I told Ray that my father was the same way. I gave Ray some examples of my father’s behavior and his personality. My father was also a very serious and thoughtful person. Ray said that he was the same way. I told Ray that my father influenced me to be the same way, and I don’t hold it against my father. I still love and care for him. Ray said, “I’m glad you told me that. It gives me a new way to look at the situation, and I really never thought of that before.” Then I told Ray that my father also had an illness that kept him from working. He has heart trouble and he hasn’t worked for years. And he’s been depressed most of that time, because he’s not working and he wants to be. Ray said that he’s been this way for the past three years. “I’ve been depressed and my attitude’s been bad. I’m going to have to change my attitude. I won’t let myself be this way for long.”

I’m a perfectionist though, and it is hard on my family a lot of times. When I get something in my mind, I want it done immediately and I want it done with perfection. I get that way about the dishes. I look at them in the sink, and I want them done right away. Sometimes I clear the table after everyone’s done eating. They don’t like that, because they want to sit at the table and talk for a while and have a cigarette. But I want the dishes done as soon as we’re done eating.

I told Ray that my father was the same way. I told Ray, at least you let people finish eating. That sometimes my father starts cleaning up before we’re all done eating and that’s rubbed off on me. Ray laughed really hard and said, “I’m glad you understand about me. I’m a lot like your father, aren’t I? Maybe that’s why we got so close.”

(Ray and my father were so much alike in so many ways. They both served in the military during WWII and had similar life-altering experiences. They were about the same age. And their life stories and their personalities were so similar. My father also grew up very poor in a large family. My father went to work with his father at a gas station during the depression when he was just eleven years old. When I was with Ray, I thought about how much he was like my father. They came from such different backgrounds – an orthodox Jewish man living in Cleveland and an A’aniii Catholic living on a reservation! Ray and I so appreciated our relationship. I felt very close to Ray and I definitely understood him. He and my father loved their families and cared for them, they had wonderful values and they worked hard to make this a better world for their people. They weren’t perfect; they were just very human. Good humans … or as we say in Yiddish - mensches).

I sometimes think that my kids don’t appreciate me, what I’ve done for them. But I know that’s not true. Well, this morning, I was thinking about all of this and decided that it’s just no way to be. That the dishes would get done eventually and the kids would get them done when they get up from the table. I just have to be patient and realize that they’ll do all of these things.

The way I’ve been has been just so hard on everyone. Everybody in my family. My depression gets so bad that I can’t stand when other people are happy. I just don’t understand sometimes how people can laugh. That’s just how bad it gets for me. And when I hear people laughing and having a good time, it gets me real mad because I’m so depressed. I can’t understand it. I’ve been so depressed that I can’t laugh anymore. I’m not sure what I’m going to do about this depression, but I know I’ve got to do something to change my attitude. All individuals deal with everything differently and everyone deals with depression differently. I will do something about it, because it has been hard on me and my family.

 So much like my father … and I deeply loved them both.