September 1977 The Gone and Lodge Families

9-3-77 Gordon and Edith’s 

I was with Gordon and Edith and Quentin came in and asked to borrow their jumper cables. Gordon sent Jr. to get them. I never heard anyone turn down a request to borrow anything. This borrowing goes on all the time, and people aren’t going to turn down a request because they know that they will also be doing borrowing of their own.

Matt Gone said that he was working on the forest crew all summer. We’ve been spending most of our time thinning the forests. We have to thin 85 acres before the end of the summer. Most of it is in Bear Gulch (in the Little Rockies) but we are also thinning in other areas. When we thin an area, they’re using the wood for the sawmill. They have the CATs come in and with cables, they snake the logs out of the forest to the sawmill.

Matt and Gordon were talking about the Chief Joseph pow wow. Matt said that he couldn’t see honoring Chief Joseph. We shouldn’t be honoring a Nez Perce Chief. We should be honoring a Gros Ventre chief, like Red Whip.

Matt, Gordon and I were talking about the new mining operations in the Little Rockies. Gordon said that the land was sold out by an Indian. “We got ripped off real bad. There was only one man who knew the old Indian who sold out his people, who sold our mountains. The Boy is dead now. He was the only one who knew the old Indian who sold out his people. They moved the stakes up there in the mountains. That’s how we lost our land up there. I don’t know what will happen to the mines and the new mining company when the tribe gets the land back up there. They took a lot of gold out of these mountains. They made about 160 million dollars in gold.”

9-4-77 trailer 

Edith and Dion came over for lunch after mass. Edith said, we had visitors the other night. We asked who it was and Edith said, we don’t know. “Gordon was in the back room putting baby to sleep and we heard some noise like a paper rattling or something. He thought it was the cat, and right at that moment, Dion said that he wanted to sleep with the cat. So, Gordon said ok, but when he reached over to get to the cat where he thought it was making noise, there was nothing there. About the same time, I was in the kitchen, and I got scared all of a sudden because our dog was really howling an eerie sound. In the old Indian way, they think that when the dogs howl like that it means that there are ghosts walking around. And right then Venetia came out of the bathroom and came to me and said, mom, I thought you were crying. I just heard someone crying and I thought it was you. Geez, it really scares me. It’s so spooky. You know, this valley is filled with people who were never buried because people were dying off too quickly. And also there are those trees up near Whitecow Canyon that they call ‘the Ghost Pines’ where the old people used to lay their dead in those trees. And some people were buried too close to the ground. It sure scares me. Also, that night, Matt Gone said that his dog kept him up all night howling. He didn’t get any sleep.”

“Then there was this time that I never told him about. One night we were in bed. Gordon was already sleeping and I was lying there and I felt a tug on the covers. I thought that darn cat, but then pretty soon I felt the tug a little harder this time and I just kept laying there waiting for it to happen again and it did. I always blame the cat for things like that because she is crazy. I looked around and there was no cat there and there was no one in sight. Well, I got so scared that I woke Gordon up and told him that there was someone in the room. I told him to stay up with me until I fall asleep. He tried to but he didn’t make it. But I finally turned on the light and slept with the light on. I then bought myself a night light.”

9-5-77 Hays 

Sunday evening Susie drove over to Edith’s and invited her over to the house to watch Jan on the Jerry Lewis Telethon. Edith told Susie that Glen, Dory and Jr were out hunting, and she said she hoped they would get something because they needed the meat.

Father came to our trailer at 5:30 in the morning to watch Jan with us. He said that Caroline called from the Agency at 2:30 last night. She said that Dory was shot in a hunting accident and that he was in the intensive care unit in Havre. She said that Glen and Edith were up there with him, and she wanted me to go check on the kids. So, I went over to the house and Kay took Jr, Venetia and Dion over to her mother’s house and was watching them over there. Caroline said that Glen was coming back down to Hays in the morning. She also said that Dory was doing ok. At 7:30 we called Caroline at the Agency from the mission. Susie talked to her. Caroline said that Edith was in the bedroom sleeping. Susie asked if there was anything we could do. Caroline thanked Susie and told her that she was going to take Edith back to Havre when she woke up.

Caroline said that Jr shot Dory. It hit him in the arm with a 30-30. Jr thought he was a deer. He feels really bad about it. Glen feels really bad, too. At first the doctors thought that Dory’s nerves were badly damaged and he wouldn’t be able to use his arm but now they think he will be ok. They said he’ll be in the hospital for a long time. Glen is coming back down and will stay with the kids.

9-5-77 trailer 

Bertha said that they got some new doctors at the hospital (PHS) this year and she thought that they were really good.

9-8-77 mission

I was talking to Glen at bingo and asked him how Dory was doing and what happened. Glen said that they went out to hunt and we saw three deer. “I shot at one and it fell, but it got back up. Jr was below me and Dory ran out towards the deer. The deer fell again and Dory took a shot at it. Then it got up again and Jr saw something move in front of him and he shot at it. It was Dory. He hit him right through the upper left arm and Dory is a lefty. Jr was using a 30-30. We ran up to Dory. He was conscious and we were talking to him. I took off my belt and tied it around his arm to help stop the bleeding. Then I drove him straight up to the Agency hospital. They cleaned out the wound in the morning, and they put a cast on his arm. He’s going to be ok. The nerve that moves the hand up was damaged, but it is going to be ok. The bullet shattered the bone in his arm. They operated on it yesterday to see if they could take off the cast and put on a splint. It’s too early. They’re going to have to leave the cast on. Mom is still up there. Gordon is too. They might come back in the morning. I’ve been going to work every day, and the kids are in school. Vaughn’s home now and he’s been helping out with watching Dion.”

9-13-77 Gordon and Edith’s 

Susie and I went over to visit with Gordon and Edith. When we walked up to the house, Edith said to us, “well, you still look the same.” She was implying that we haven’t come to see them for a while. It had been about a week. I’m seriously smiling while I’m thinking about this!

I asked Dory how he was doing. He said he was ok. “I’ll have this cast on for a while, though. I won’t be going to school until it is off because I’m a lefty.” It was on his left arm. He said that his hand hurt where the nerves were growing back. “I came home last night from the hospital.”

Edith explained what had happened to Dory. “The boys went out hunting. They were way out there on the southwest corner. Jr shot him in the left arm. He was using a 30-30. It’s a good thing that Glen didn’t shoot him. It would have blown his arm off using that 7mm.” Dory said that he felt something hit his arm, but he didn’t know that he was shot right away. He was hit from the back. Then he looked down at his arm, and he saw that it was covered with blood and he yelled. The other boys ran to him. Glen put his belt around his arm to help stop the bleeding.

“I guess Glen was pretty scared and Dory had to tell him what to do. Both Glen and Dory have taken courses in first aid. They had to take these courses in school, so they both know what to do. Then they drove back to the highway. Glen dropped Kay off at the junction and Kay ran all the way back here to tell me. Glen drove Dory up to the Agency. I guess that Jr. got pretty hysterical on the way up to the hospital. Kay told me about it at around 9:30pm and she took her father’s truck and drove me up to the hospital. Diana Bow called her mother (Bertha) and had her and Caroline go the hospital to meet me when I got there. I didn’t know that Diana had called them, and I was wondering what they were doing there. They were up there when I got to the hospital. Just as I got there, they rolled out Dory on a bed. He’s been in the emergency room. They took him out to the ambulance, and Glen and a nurse rode with him to the Havre hospital. I went up with Bertha and Caroline. They took him into surgery up there to clean out the wound. The bullet went all the way through. They also had to give him blood. He was just white when I saw him. I bet he lost more than a pint. Kay came back down and took the kids to her house to stay for the night. I stayed at the hospital for a while, but then I went back to Caroline’s to sleep for a while. She took me back to the hospital the next day. Kutcherick (FBI special officer assigned to the reservation) had Glen’s car impounded. I don’t know why they did that. It didn’t happen in the car. They could see that. They had all three rifles impounded too. We’ve gotten the rifles back and they gave Glen his car back in the afternoon.”

“I went out with Glen to the spot where it happened to help him find his knife and cap. He dropped them out there. Someone had already found and taken his knife, but we found his cap. You could just see where it happened and where they went, cause you could see pools of blood all over.”

I asked Edith how Jr. was doing. She said that he was really hysterical when it happened, but he isn’t saying anything about it now. “He’s not talking about it. All he’s said is that he isn’t going to hunt anymore.”  Edith said that the bone in his arm was shattered and the nerve was damaged. We were worried that the bone would be lost, but the doctors told us he’s going to be ok.

Gordon said that they made a movie last Sunday. “There were seven of us, me, Edith, Ray, Caroline, Bobby, Dale and Vaughn. We went down to the breaks, and we made a movie and a tape. There was a man who came through this area from Germany a long time ago. He would travel through places and would write about it and would draw pictures of different places, like if they saw a buffalo, or if they came to a group of Indians. Well, there are a group of people who are retracing this group and doing what this other guy did. They’re going to all the same places and making movies of these places.”

“We made plans to meet these guys at the landing at the Breaks and they made a movie and a tape of us. They took pictures of us dancing and singing and taped our music. It took about 45 minutes. They told us that they would cut it up and make a movie out of it. He said that the movie would be shown in the United States, and he hoped that we would see it one day. We were given $150 to split up.”

“I started to think about it, but I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t know what everyone else was thinking about it. I thought, they are going to make a movie and show it on the screen in Germany and here and what are we going to get out of it. I’m thinking, we stepped into another hole. The first time was when they made a record and we weren’t paid enough for it. But I didn’t say anything.”

“These men were from Germany and they had heavy accents, even more than Sister Benno. It was hard to understand some of the things they said. They had a thick book that the first man wrote, and this is how they were following where this man went and this is where they were going. They were telling us about these groups they have in Germany. They have different tribes there like we have here, like the Indian tribes, but the names are different. They go around and visit each other, too. They have pow wows and they dance and sing. It’s kind of strange.”

“George Horse Capture set this up for us. He arranged something else for us too. On October 12^th, we’re going to Cody, Wyoming, me, Edith, Caroline and Bobby. They’re going to build a plains Indian museum. I don’t know who is building it. They want to put on a ceremony before they break ground. They said that it wouldn’t be right if they didn’t have Indians put on a ceremony before they broke the ground there. So, we’re going to put on some kind of ceremony.”

Gordon, Vaughn and Dory kept going outside through the back door and I asked Edith what they were doing back there. She said that Glen went out hunting with Mike a couple days ago and they got an antelope. We were going to sell the meat but then Gordon decided to make dry meat. He cut it up, and now he has it hanging out to dry. He cut it thin, but you don’t want to cut it too thin or it breaks and cracks up when it gets dry. So, I went outside.

Gordon and Vaughn were looking at the meat. They had a ladder type framework leaning against the south side of the house. They had about seven-foot boards, two of them about 6-8 feet apart from each other. Three nails were pounded into the end of the boards and then three boards were put across the nails, 3 rungs. The meat was draped over the rungs all across the length of the three poles. The meat was covered with flies and wasps. Gordon and Vaughn went into the house and took some drapes and hung these over the meat to help keep the flies off.

Gordon said that you use any of the cuts of meat. I cut all the meat into strips – about 8-9 inches long and 4-5 inches wide. Then I salted it real good. That’s why the flies and bees bother it. It has to dry pretty soon. It will take about four days for it to dry. If it doesn’t dry, the meat will sour. It will spoil. You can store the meat anywhere after it dried. We put it into a cloth bag. Then you can eat it like beef jerky or you can boil it.

Gordon asked Susie if she would make choke cherry syrup for them. Susie asked them to come over tomorrow night and she would help them. She told them to bring over large pots and a lot of sugar and jars. They said that they have a lot of choke cherries. Gordon said that his mother brought them over to us. “We have to use them soon or they will spoil. I have them in the shed. I might put them in the freezer until we use them.” They have a freezer in the back hall. “We’ve been saving some jars and we’d like to put wax over them. They might spoil if we don’t cut the air out of them. You should get a vacuum in the jar. Edith has never made syrup. She’s getting at the age where she should be doing these things. The kids are getting older and they’ll be out of the house soon. The kids will be asking her for syrup and dry meat and things like this.” Edith said, “No they won’t. I never went to my mother.”

Edith got up from the table while we were visiting and poured herself a cup of coffee. They have a Mr. Coffee machine. Then she sat back down at the table. I got up and said, ‘is there anymore coffee.’ Edith looked at me seriously and said, “Do you want some coffee, Sandy, help yourself.” Edith laughed really hard. “I’m sorry. I forgot to ask you if you wanted any.” I got a cup from the cupboard and poured myself a cup.

There were cultural epiphanies along the way, if one paid attention. And this was definitely one of those. It was so easy to go on auto-pilot in the experience we were having on the reservation. We had a daily routine and because of our work and social relationships were a part of the flow of the community. A significant part of my research involved resisting going on auto-pilot. This was not at all easy to do, and required daily reminders about the meaning of participant observation.

For example, on one occasion, Susie mentioned to me how unusual it was for so many people in the community to end the expression of a thought or idea by saying ‘init.’ Not everyone used it, but most people did and it was an integral part of the language. I had never heard it. Susie was really surprised that this had gone entirely over my head. When I started to pay attention, I understood why Susie was amused at my missing it. Auto-pilot and going with the flow just doesn’t work very well for a cultural anthropologist. It actually gives me a headache just thinking about it. I don’t have the patience or energy to be on the alert and paying attention to everything. I don’t have the energy to stay awake all day.

Anyway, Edith’s behavior with me was definitely unusual … unless she had felt in her bones that my relationship with her allowed her to forget to offer me coffee when she got herself a cup. This was so not the Indian way, and we observed Gordon and Edith enough over this first year to know that anyone who walked into their home was going to be offered something to eat and drink. And this was more so the case if they themselves were eating or drinking. If Jr. or Venetia or Dory wanted something to drink, Edith would have told them to go get it. She sure as hell wasn’t going to be waiting on them. And there you have it. I expressed a desire for a cup of coffee, and like one of her kids, she told me to go get it.

Because of Susie’s and my age, and because of our relationships, Ray and Irma were more like parents to us. Gordon and Edith were like siblings. And we carried these relationships throughout their lives. It was more difficult with Gordon because his relationship with Edith was so complicated … but the feelings were always there.

Gordon’s mother, Lilly, lives in Spokane. So does Vaughn. Gordon and Edith’s son. They came to Hays together. Lilly is Pat Bear’s aunt. They were all going shopping at the Agency.

Dion was outside in the yard, and he was pulling around an old, rusty, red wagon with a golf club inside. Every once in a while he would stop and take out the club and smash the ground or a post or some wood. Later in the morning when we were at the kitchen table, Dion came running down the hall screaming and crying. He threw his arms around Gordon. Edith said, it looks like it is time for your nap. Dion stopped crying and screamed, no. Then he said that he hurt his head. Edith pulled back his hair to look but there was nothing there. Dion said, “You better take me to the hospital.” Edith, Susie, Vaughn and I laughed. Gordon didn’t laugh.

Edith had an application on the table for the headstart program. The application asked for personal information and why you wanted your child to attend, and if you are willing to volunteer. Edith said that she wanted Dion to go, but wasn’t sure if he could. They’re going to take four and five year olds first, but we sure hope he can go.

Gordon said that Jr. had to go to a hunting safety meeting at the senior citizens hall. Gordon said that he was making Jr. take the course. The public health service is putting it on. Irma and Joyce will probably run it. They’ll be teaching first aid. They’ll teach how to prevent a hunting accident.

9-13-77 trailer

Gordon and Edith were at the house vising with us. I was really tired. I said to Susie, “we better go to bed, Susie, these people might want to leave.” Gordon and Edith laughed. Gordon uses this joke with us regularly.

Gordon said that Dion was real smart. He learns everything very quickly. But he can sure be embarrassing sometimes. We were shopping one day in Chinook. Mr. Hasenkamp was in there and Dion went up to him, pulled at his hand and said, “Hi, big fella.” He is a big man. I was sure embarrassed.

9-13-77 trailer

At 8:30 in the evening Susie and I were reading the evening prayers for Rosh Hashanah. Gordon came to the house from the Christian Mother’s meeting. He knocked and waited at the door until we let him in. When we go to their house, we knock once and then let ourselves in. Oh oh.

Gordon realized that we were in the middle of reading a service. He looked down at the book in front of me. He said he was sorry. I told him not to worry about it, and we invited him to stay. Gordon sat in Gahanab’s chair while we read through the service. Gordon knew that it was the Jewish new year because we had told them about it. When we were done, he shook my hand and wished me a happy new year. Then he did the same with Susie. Susie offered Gordon a piece of honey cake and a roll. She explained to Gordon the symbolism of the cake and a sweet new year. Edith then came in and sat at the table. Susie gave her a piece of honey cake and a roll. Edith only had half of the roll. Susie told Edith that when food was offered to her that it was the Indian way that she had to eat it. We all got a good laugh out of that.

We showed them our Jewish calendar and explained some of the holidays and that our calendar was based on the lunar cycle and not the sun. They listened attentively and were really interested.

9-14-77 Hays 

This morning I walked the ridges surrounding Hays to take photographs of the community. I ended up on the ridge above Irma’s house. I walked down and knocked on her door. She yelled for me to come in. She was home by herself.

Irma said that she used to walk over the hills like I had just done. We moved, my mother and I. We lived near the mission near where the pipe is now. We had a log house there. But we still had her land here (where their house is now). And I had a horse here. I called it Brownie. I used to come here to ride the horse after school and I used to walk all the way over these hills. It is a nice walk.

Irma said that she had to leave soon. Joyce was going to pick her up and they were going to the senior citizen center. She said that Joyce would drive me back to the mission. “We’re having a meeting about social security. We have a man from the government coming down from Havre to tell the older people about the social security program, who is eligible, about benefits and about how much people should be getting. And they can ask questions. He’ll answer their questions. There’s a lot of questions about lease money. When these people get their lease money their social security gets cut off for that month. They’ll try to get all of this worked out. They brought down a whole bus load from the Agency for the social security meeting.”

“Roseann is having a new house built and when she moves out of her home, we’re going to try to get that house for an old folks home. We need one down here. They have one at the Agency. It is a home in the low rent homes up there. They have a full-time nurse who is there all day, Kathy Walker (Teresa’s daughter). She’s an LPN. And there’s someone who lives there all the time. They get paid by manpower. There are three men who stay there, and it causes a problem. There’s something about Indian men; it’s hard for women to have to bathe them. It’s very embarrassing. I guess it is like that for all men. They need to find a man to do this.”

Irma said that the trees were turning colors so early. It’s pretty. It is an early fall this year. I don’t like to think about it. I don’t like the winter. It was fun when we were kids, but it is hard now.

9-15-77 mission 

Gordon and Edith use an expression to refer to someone who is doing something really well. They say, “You are really ‘moose.’”

9-15-77 trailer 

This morning, Glen came to the trailer with Dion. He brought up the leather belt he made for me. I gave him the blank about three weeks ago. He learned how to stitch the belt at school. I told Glen I wanted to give him something for it and he told me that he didn’t want anything.

Glen said that he was leaving for school on Sunday. He’s a sophomore at Bozeman. He said that he would be home for hunting season and for the Chief Joseph Pow Wow.

I went outside to see Glen’s new truck. It was older but in good condition. He said that he had to get plates for it. He said it wouldn’t be very much. On the reservation, they don’t have to pay state tax for plates, which is most of the cost.

Glen had made me a leather belt, and I wanted to pay him. I asked Gordon and Edith what I should do. Gordon said, “We can’t tell you that. It’s really tough for us to tell you that. You have to decide on your own. He didn’t want you to pay him anything. Why don’t you just get him something. You could get him some shells for his rifle.” I said I would do that. Gordon told me he has a .243.

Gordon and Edith came over last night to make choke cherry syrup. Edith wanted Susie to teach her. They brought over the choke cherries, two big pots, ten lbs. of sugar, pillowcases, cheese cloth and jars.

9-16-77 Irma’s  

We had dinner at Irma’s with Ruth, Lyle, Cyndee, Irma, Shannon and Susie Bell was there.

While we were eating with Irma, she asked me how much I would charge her for two loads of black dirt from the mission. She said that she didn’t expect to get it for nothing, but she didn’t want to get ‘took’ either. I told her that if she supplied the help, she could have it for free. Irma said that she needed the dirt to fill in a trench in the yard where a pipe or tank used to be. We had to move it because the gas truck kept running over it. The ground was sunk in now, and Irma said that she’d like to plant some trees there. 

We came over to show slides. One of them showed the kids drinking beer in the canyon. Cyndee, Lyel and Irma all said that was Devil’s Kitchen. That’s where everyone drinks. It is just beyond the natural bridge and there is a ladder up to a small cave in the rock.

I showed a slide of Snake Butte. Irma said that her father used to work there. He helped to get the rock for Ft. Peck Dam. Cyndee said that someone dynamited the reservoir there. Some nut. And now there’s no fish.

Cyndee got a job at the agency as a secretary for the extension office. She worked with Don Addy. This is the end of the fiscal year, so she’ll lose her job on Tuesday, and she will have to apply again, along with everyone else. They’ll rehire on October 1^st. She said that Don liked her work, though, and he put in a good word for her. Cyndee said there is so much politics involved in that hiring board.

9-16-77 trailer

Mike said that he was at Gordon’s for about three hours this afternoon. He taught Gordon how to flint knap and how to make arrowheads.

9-18-77 Gordon and Edith’s

Kay came over last night and told us that Edith invited us for breakfast today for Glen before he left for college. He is leaving for Bozeman today. Davey Gone was there. Davey, Dory, Gordon, Edith, Glen and I sat at the table to eat. Jr, Venetia and Dion were also there. Edith asked me to say grace for them. I thanked the Lord for the day, the meal and for Glen’s safe trip to and from Bozeman, a successful year, and frequent trips back home. We had cereal, bacon, eggs, pancakes, choke cherry syrup, peanut butter and coffee. Glen said he was going to try to leave by 11:00 and will go through Lewistown.

Gordon told me that there is going to be another peyote meeting and that I should be sure to go to it this time.

“It is going to be when Bertha moves into her new home. It was in the Camp Crier that it will be next month when she moves in, so sometime after that. She is going to have a singing party and a peyote meeting. It will take them all day to set up a special lodge for the peyote meeting. Freddie is putting it on with people from Crow. It has to be set up in just the right place so that when the sun comes up in the morning, the sun comes through a little hole in the tipi and hits the peyote chief right on the forehead.”

Gordon said that he would like to get more involved in these Indian things, but he has so many children.

“If it was just me and Edith, I would, but I have a lot of children and I am afraid that I might do something wrong, and it might come back at me, and harm me or my children. When an Indian is afraid that he might not be able to make something, he’ll back out before he gets in too deep. I have a pipe (he made it) that he would like to pray with it, so he could pray on Sundays.” (It seems as though Gordon is using what he knows about the Catholic Church to explain a lot about what he doesn’t know about the traditional Indian religion). He said he would go over to Willie Bradley’s with a blanket and $5 and ask him to teach him to pray with it.

He asked us if we have holy water in our religion. We said no. He said, in the Indian way, we make our own holy water (again reinterpreting the Catholic Church to explain traditional Indian religion).

“They use the holy water in a jug in the peyote meetings to purify themselves. Also at the peyote meeting, they will burn either sweetgrass or juniper or cedar and make a lot of smoke in there, and then they will smudge their whole bodies with this smoke. You pray in there just like you were in church, just like a Catholic or a Protestant. They will pass around a bowl, so just take a little bit. You will take it with a spoon. Don’t do what I did at the meeting at Crow. First, they passed around berries and fish, so when the third bowl came around, I thought it would be pemmican or something, so I took a great big piece on the spoon and I rolled it around in my hand. I tasted it and it was peyote and I had to eat the whole thing, too, before I could start praying. So, I had to put the whole thing in my mouth and it tasted real awful. It was bitter and sour. Just take a small piece (He showed us on his finger, just the tip of it).”

“Boy, I’d like to see you on peyote, Sandy. They don’t use a hand drum. They have a big cast iron kettle. It has legs on it. They cover it with a raw hide, or something like that. And it has water in it so they get it wet, and then you can hear it really loud. They will pass a feather around and if you don’t want to sing, you can just pass it on. In the peyote meeting, they have a strict rule. You cannot walk in front of the singer. And also, be sure to really go to the bathroom a lot before you go in, because once you are in there, you can’t leave. It goes on all night. There are two fire keepers. They have logs in there and they are crossed like this (he showed us with his hands by interlocking his fingers) and there is a half-moon made of sand in the tipi.”

The first time he saw it he said he thought it was made out of cement. But it is made out of sand. There is a road through there, a line, and in the moon is where they keep the Medicine Chief, the Chief Peyote. When it is over, they sweep up the ashes and it looks like a bird. It takes all night. He told this to me as a warning, because he said that Bobbie and Freddie are good for not telling you what to expect, and not preparing you. Edith said she probably won’t go to that at all. It goes on all night, and she doesn’t participate.

Gordon said that they will pass around the peyote a few more times during the night to keep you going. You’ll have hallucinations. Gordon said that Freddie gave him some canvas to make a sweat lodge. He has to get the willows to make the structure. He said he has a dipper. He showed us on his hands, it was about ten inches.

“You can come up and I’ll show you how to make a sweat lodge. On Saturday night of the Catholic Indian Congress, they had a sweat lodge that they built during the day. They have to dig a hole about a foot deep and there has to be water nearby because when you come out of the sweat lodge, you are real hot and you jump into some water. You have willow like a switch. Sometimes they use sage. You hit yourself until you are red, just like sunburn. It gets all of the dirt out of your pores. In the sweat lodge, it is pitch dark. I don’t know why, but it seems like every time the Indian has a ceremony, it has to be dark. It is dark in the sweat lodge, but the rocks are red with heat. They pray 16 times all together. They pour water on the rocks four times. Then they take a break and open the flap. Then they do three more times.”

Gordon said that he and Matt Gone waited outside until the fourth round because the first ones are hard to take.

“Each time they pour the water on the rocks, you pray. He goes around and each person will pray. One time, Freddie said, ok Gordon, this will be your round. Gordon said that he cannot pray in his language, so he will pray for each one of them in his heart instead of out loud. He said that sometimes they pray for a long time. Freddie prays for five or ten minutes. It gets hot in there. The best thing to do is just sit very still, and not say anything. But they let you lay down if you want. They have very strict rules about this, too. There are certain times that you cannot walk in front of the door. Once you go in there, you can’t come out until it is over. Once when he went in there, he was expecting it to be just he and Freddie, Matt and Bobbie, but there were five carloads of people there and a lot of kids too. So, they just built one more fire. They were all Crow children. The last time is hard. Freddie will tease you and pour more water on the rocks. Like he’ll say, you all must be cold, and pour on more. Or say, you can take it.”

Gordon said that an old Indian once told him that everything in their culture used to be round, their tipis, their spoons (made from buffalo horns), their pemmican grinders, everything that they had and everything in their culture was round. And now everything is square. They never had square things in their culture. Their homes never had corners in them. He also said that they did everything four times and everything in their old culture was based on the number four.

9-20-77 trailer

Edith came to the trailer for her GED class with me. I asked her if she thought we were going too slowly. She responded that if we went any faster that she wouldn’t learn anything. I told her that I wanted to be sure that she got her high school diploma before we left in the spring. She said that she would. I said, then you can go to college. Edith laughed, but I told her that I was serious. She said, “You know, I would really like to be an accountant or book keeper. That’s what I would really like to do.” I said, well, then you can do it. Edith said that she would have to go to college in Havre and would have to stay up there because we don’t have a car. How could I stay in Havre with a family. I told Edith that something could be worked out. Edith said that she once started a bookkeeping course at the public school. They brought someone in to teach it, but then he left and didn’t come back. They never did it again.

Edith was really smart. She could have accomplished anything she set her heart and mind to do.

Edith said that Dory went to the clinic yesterday in Havre, the outpatient clinic at Northern Montana Hospital. Bertha took him there. They put a new cast on his arm and they checked the bone. They said that it wasn’t healing like they want it to, but they’re going to let it go and see what happens. They want it to heal on its own. There’s a piece of bone that is missing and they want it to knit itself together. He has to go every Tuesday for a checkup. I guess Bertha will take him. I didn’t go. He went back to school yesterday. I’m worried about him getting bumped or the other kids roughing him up. I told Edith that Dory could handle himself. She said, I guess you are right. Dory could always take care of himself. Dory says that he isn’t in pain.

During GED Edith asked me if Father was home. I told her he was. Edith said that she wanted to talk to him about coming to bless our home for us. We have too many spooks. We’re always hearing noises. Davey heard someone calling him. They called his name. It was this morning. It was early, about 6:30, and it woke him out of a sound sleep. He asked if I called him, and I didn’t. That’s a warning, when someone calls you like that. It’s a sign that something is going to happen. Just before Dory was shot, we heard something just like that. My mother and my grandmother used to tell me that when someone calls you, that’s a warning that something bad is going to happen. I asked Edith if it always meant that something bad is going to happen. She answered, I guess not. I’ve heard someone call before and nothing happened after. But we’re always hearing something in the house. The cat hears it, too. Gordon and I moved back to the back bedroom and Dory moved into the blue bedroom where we were. There’s noise in the closet in that room. He doesn’t like to sleep in there. We hear spooks in there. I had to put a night light in there for him. I want Father to come and bless our house. We’d all rest easier if he did. All of us. Me and Gordon and the kids.

9-23-77 Gordon and Edith’s 

Edith said that in the old days Indians didn’t have bad teeth. They didn’t eat anything to decay them like now. She said that they just wore them down.

9-24-77 Irma’s 

We went over to Irma’s to celebrate Lyel’s birthday. Raymond, Linda, Tiger, Cyndee, Ruth, Lyle, Shannon and Irma were there. Cyndee and Irma prepared a great meal – they grilled steak with onions, carrots and potatoes, we had squash, salad, fry bread and cake and ice cream.

Susie asked Lyel if they still had their kittens. He said that they gave one away and they still have two. Lyle joked that they should just have them for dinner.

Joyce and Leonard came in about 2:15. We had already eaten, but they had cake and ice cream with us. Leonard is in the army. He is stationed at Fort Hood in Texas.

Ruth lit the candles on Lyel’s cake. He is 21 today and we all sang ‘happy birthday.’

Evie also came over to celebrate Lyle’s birthday.

Irma said that the head of the health department was Jessie James. That’s really her name. We have this meeting at Kalispel at the Outlaw Inn. Now everyone is saying that Jessie James and her gang are going to the Outlaw Inn next week.

9-24-77 mission church 

Edith, Gordon and Gootch were cleaning the church. Father asked the Christian Mothers to clean the church once a week. Gordon said to me, see, Edith can get me into the church. Edith is always trying to get Gordon to go to church with her. I told him, yeah, but all you’re doing in here is cleaning.

9-24-77 trailer 

Sisters Alice and Maria came to visit tonight. They are Franciscan Sisters from Pryor on the Crow Reservation. I asked them about how Fred Gone was doing. They said that he quit his job at the mission school at St. Charles Mission. She said he is working now as an alcohol counselor. Sister Maria said that she thinks he really likes the job.

Sister Maria said that she was once talking to Fred about the sweat lodge. He has it down there all the time. He told me that he learned how to do it in a dream. He doesn’t do it the Crow way. He learned the old Gros Ventre way in a dream. He told me that the Gros Ventre lost the way they did a lot of things. They lost most of their culture.

Maria said that she had the feeling that Hays was a very depressed community. She said that she couldn’t exactly put her finger on it, but the people seemed very depressed.

Sister Maria said that the Franciscans were very old-fashioned. She is from Cincinnati. She is principal of the grade school in Pryor and also teaches the 8^th grade.

9-26-77 Gordon and Edith’s 

Gordon said that they got a letter from Minerva Allen and Dion was accepted into Headstart. It starts on October 10^th. 

Gordon said that they had to take a first aid class this week. I applied for the job with Headstart, and I think I’ll get it. They told me to be sure I take my first aid. I would be working ten hours a day if I get the job. I’ll have to drive the kids to the Hays Headstart and home, and then the same thing in Lodge Pole. Then both buildings in Hays and Lodge Pole have to be cleaned. I won’t mind it though because it is good money.

9-26-77 Hays – Judy Grays Susie  

After the puppy dinner, Edith and I walked up to the mission for my arts and crafts. Edith wanted to stop at Judy Grays on the way. Bertha was there. Judy was beading a medallion. I was introduced to Judy. Judy said, “So you are Susie Siegel. I’ve been hearing your name for a long time, but I didn’t know who you were.” I said the same. Bertha said, you just don’t run in the same circles. Everyone laughed.

I complimented Judy on her beadwork. She thanked me but she didn’t think she was very talented. Judy said that she had earrings to match the medallion and she showed them to me. She said when she was 12 years old, Bertha heard that if you stuck a porcupine needle in your ears that it would work it’s way through and pierce your ear for you. So, we tried it on three of us. Bertha said it wasn’t true, and we ended up having to push them through.

Just as I was about to leave for arts and crafts, Davey came in. I kidded him that I hadn’t seen him in a long time. He said, really? Then Davey asked me my name. I said, Susie, Davey, I just had dinner with you. Davey said that he didn’t realize that I was the same person because I thought you went down to the mission. Bertha said, Davey, you embarrass me.

Edith said that she could remember when they had to wear dresses to church even on the coldest days in the winter. She said that there is a woman who was wearing miniskirts to church. Because of her, Brother Ryan got up one day and made a speech about it.

9-26-77 mission arts and crafts Susie

Edith and I left the mission arts and crafts and looked up at the full moon. Edith said that she really enjoys walking at night during the winter when the moon is out and the snow is crunchy. I don’t even get cold. She turned and looked at the moon again. She said, as many times as I’ve seen that, I never get tired of looking at it and I can never believe how beautiful it is.

9-28-77 trailer

Cyndee came over to visit. She said that she was going to go to the pow wow on Friday and Saturday and stay with her dad at the Agency. She said that her boyfriend was going to be up there. I asked her who her boyfriend was and she said, Benny Rider. He lives up at the Agency.  We’ve been going together since February. I met Benny when he was working at the café. He was the bartender in Ronny’s bar. He doesn’t work there anymore. I’ll be up at the pow wow with Ben. His grandmother is going to be there, too. She’s a real old woman.

9-29-77 Gordon and Edith’s

When I got to Gordon’s house this afternoon the front door was locked. That is very rare for them to lock it. I knocked on the door and Dion answered. Dion said, “just walk right in.” I thanked him. Dion was such a character.

Gordon was sitting at his work table in the living room. He was working on a leather knife sheath. He said, I won’t need this when I’m finished. I asked him what he meant. He said, I’ll be out hunting this season, but I probably won’t get anything. We both laughed. He had completed the basic part of the sheath, and it was stitched with metal cord. Gordon said that he used metal cord so that the knife wouldn’t cut through the stitching. He said that he was going to put fringe around the edges and buckskin also around the outside. I’m going to decorate the buckskin with beadwork. Once I get the sheath finished, there’s someone around here who’s going to wear it. If you see Glen, he’ll be wearing it. He’s good for that. I’ll make something and he’ll take it and start wearing it or using it.

Gordon loved his culture and he was so unique in that regard. He was an exceptional craftsman, and he took on projects that not many other people would attempt. He knew of the old artifacts from the A’aniiih way of life and he tried to make them – whips from the whip men at dances, scrapers for hides, hand drums … so many different projects. Some of the old people, like Vernie, also made items like this, including dresses and moccasins. But Gordon was a young person engaged in this activity. I didn’t know any other young person who was. Gordon was truly unique and gifted, and we learned so much from him. He was so proud of his way of life, and he wanted us to learn about it. He was my brother in every sense of the word. Our relationship was a blessing … for both of us.

Gordon said that Edith went to Havre for a Christian Mother’s meeting. Father asked her to go. He drove all over Hays looking for women to go up to the meeting. Edith and Teresa Lamebull were the only ones. Edith is the president of the Christian Mothers. Cel drove them up there and he was going to bring them home.

Dion was running around the house wearing a cowboy hat and a belt with a holster and a toy gun. I asked Dion if he was a cowboy. He said, yeah, I’m a cowboy. I said, no you’re not, Dion, you’re an Indian. Gordon laughed.

Gordon said that four of his brothers were coming in for hunting season. I told Gordon that I only met one of his brothers, Dale from Great Falls. Gordon said that he had seven brothers. I’m not that acquainted with my brothers or my sisters for that matter. We’re not that close. My mother left the reservation with all the kids. She left in the 1940s. She went to Spokane. I stayed here. My grandfather raised me. I was the only one of my brothers and sisters that he raised. All of the others left with my mother. My older sister is here in Hays. But we don’t see each other much. But when we do see each other, we enjoy seeing each other. But we keep our distance.

Gordon said that he was going to get a big hunting party together this year. We sure have a good time. I think we have about the biggest hunting party around. (It’s mostly the Gone family, Edith’s brothers and sisters, in laws and their children). Each group has their own hunting party here. There’s the Doney hunting party (he pointed to Matt Doney’s place and Matt Jones) and Lou Shambo’s family has a hunting party. These people go out in the same hunting party every year. These hunting parties stick together. We have a lot of fun.

Puppy Dinner and other Interesting Treats

9-18-77 Gordon and Edith’s  

Gordon said that Frank really honored them. “He wanted to give us some ‘Indian pork’ – puppies.” Edith asked Sandy if he wanted to come up for the dinner or if he wanted to watch the whole procedure. She knew he would want to see it for his research. Edith said that they wouldn’t do it until it was dry outside because they needed to find dry wood to start a fire. They singe the hair off of the dogs.

9-22-77 Gordon and Edith’s  

When I was leaving the house, one of the puppies Frank gave Gordon and Edith ran past the door outside. Frank gave them three puppies. I stuck my head in the door and told Edith that my dinner just walked by. She came outside and said that she almost made them today, but it’s too cold and wet. I couldn’t find any dry wood. I won’t do it in this weather. It’s too cold out. I told Edith to please give me at least a day’s notice before she made them.

9-26-77 mission  

I told Mary that I was going to a puppy dinner tonight. Mary said that she likes it, but she doesn’t know how to fix it. Beatrice fixes it all the time. Beatrice said that they used to eat puppy as a regular meal, but then they made it special. Like now, they always serve it at hand games. Even when they ate them all the time, they had them as pets. Beatrice imitated and said, ‘ooo Tippy, ooo Gahanab!’ Then she laughed. (She knew that Tippy was Susie’s family dog, and Gahanab was our dog. Beatrice was so funny!)

9-26-77 Gordon and Edith’s  

We were invited to dinner at Gordon and Edith’s tonight to have puppy. When we got there, the puppy was boiling in a big blue pot.

We got there at 4:00. I sat down at the kitchen table with Gordon. He said that he started making the puppy at 1:30 this afternoon. “We waited for you, but you didn’t come.” I told Gordon we had to clean the school and got there as soon as we could. Gordon said that both he and Edith know how to make pup because her mother used to make it and my grandfather made it. He said he was sorry that I didn’t get to see it, but he wanted to explain to me how they made it.

First, you tie their muzzle shut because they squeal a lot and this keeps them from squealing so much. Then you tie a rope around their necks, and you hang them. If they take too long you pull down on them to choke them faster. But the old timers used to say that you shouldn’t let them swing while they hang or it will bring bad weather or something like that. Then after they’re dead, you put them into a metal crate (milk crate) and we start a fire. Then we put them over the fire and we singe all the hair off. After you get all the hair off, you cut them up like a deer. You cut them down the belly from the neck down to the pelvis and you break the pelvis. Then you clean them and cut them like a deer. The only insides we eat are the heart and the kidney. Then you cut up the parts. You get five parts from a pup, the shoulders, the ribs and the hind quarters. Gordon didn’t include the head, but they also eat the head. Then you boil the meat with the skin on it.

When we got there the meat was already boiling on the stove in a big pot. The meat was covered with water. The meat was boiled for two to three hours. Edith was making wheel bread on the stove in a frying pan (cast iron) at the same time.

Edith said that she always makes this kind of bread when she has puppy. She can’t see having light bread with this. The bread is made out of flour, baking powder and salt. You kneed it a bit, then you spread it out with your hands and drop it into a frying pan with some grease. It is in the shape of a wheel or circle. To eat it, you break it apart. Edith said that she usually eats it with syrup, but she didn’t tonight.

After the bread was done, Gordon set the table. Davey, Gordon, Edith, Dory and Venetia sat with us and ate puppy with us.

Edith made the wheel bread all through dinner. She asked Gordon to watch it. At one point, Dory jumped up from the table and turned it. Edith said to Gordon, I thought you were going to watch it. Gordon said, “I am, I’m watching it burn.” So Gordon.

Before we ate, Gordon said to us, now I don’t want you to be scared off by what you might see in that pot. We cooked two pups, and we cooked their heads, too. The heads look pretty rough, but just don’t take one of them. He said that there was a hind quarter, a shoulder, ribs and the head. He said we could eat the skin if we wanted but a lot of Indians don’t because it was too rich. He said that it would look different than chicken skin. It is a little thicker and a different color. And he warned us to trim the fat off because if our stomachs can’t take that fat, it might make us sick because it is really rich. He said that Indians don’t eat much of the head anyway, they just eat the brains. A few people eat the meat on the head, but there isn’t very much meat, and you really have to know where to find it.

Susie asked Edith to pull her out a hind quarter. Susie said that she didn’t even want to look in the pot. She pulled it out and it still had the tail attached to it. Susie just couldn’t take it, so she gave it to me. Susie then took a shoulder.

I had the hind quarter that Susie put on my plate (with the tail attached). I didn’t eat the skin. The hair follicles were too visible. It was thick and a dark brown-gray. Under the skin was a layer of fat. I mentioned how much fat there was. Gordon said that there’s a lot more fat than this on most of the pups. The meat is dark, like the dark meat on a chicken, and it tastes very bland. Gordon and Edith ate theirs without salt, but Dory salted the meat. They used their fingers to eat it and pulled the meat and fat away with their fingers. Gordon said that his stepfather used to make faces when he talked about eating puppy. Then one day he came over, and I put a piece in front of him. He looked at it for a long time and then he ate some. He liked it so much that he ate six pieces.

Edith took the head. She cracked open the skull with a spoon and ate the brains. I told her that it looked like cottage cheese. Edith said that it did, but it wasn’t as white. Gordon wasn’t eating. He said he would eat later. He said that he had to go through the procedure. Edith argued that all he had to do was singe the hair off. She said that they couldn’t get it all off either.

While we ate, Gordon showed us a bone. It was clean. He said, this is how it should look when you’re done. You can eat the meat, the fat and the skin. He said that some people also eat this – he pointed to the cartilage. Dory, Edith and Gordon ate everything. Davey and Venetia didn’t eat the fat. Junior had deer meat. Gordon said that Vaughn and Glen eat everything, even the whole head.

Susie pulled the skin off of hers and said it was real squishy – it felt very water soaked and spongy. It was a dark grey color and the hair was a little visible. Underneath, a lot of the meat was just fat. There was a lot to scrape away, but it did look a lot like chicken. There didn’t seem to be much meat on them. Dory, Gordon, and Edith licked their bones clean. Susie left a lot of the meat, and so did I. Gordon and Edith finished off the meat we didn’t eat.

We all gave our skins to Dory and he salted them and ate them. Dion ran around the table making faces and made noises about eating puppy, but he ended up eating some with Gordon.

It had a taste all it’s own. It was a little like chicken, but a little more stringy, but very tender.

Gordon said that the next meal we were going to have was boiled dry meat. He teased Susie that he was going to get her to eat the insides of an animal and not tell her what she was eating. She told Gordon that she doesn’t even like liver.

I told Gordon that I wanted to take a few pictures. He said it was ok. Gordon was very sensitive about the entire experience. He very much wanted to share all of this with us, because it is an important part of the traditional culture, but he was so aware of the place of dogs in American society. I totally understood Gordon’s perspective and his concerns.

They prepared the puppies before Susie and I arrived, so there are no pictures of that process. Interestingly, Davey said that he took pictures of Edith preparing the puppy and when he gets back to Great Falls, he’ll have them developed and send me the negatives. I thanked him.

Gordon was concerned that his people would be judged for eating puppy. I assured Gordon that I would never discuss this aspect of their culture without context.

So, here’s the context. I’ve written about this before, so to summarize, if it is edible, there are people somewhere in the world who are eating it. There are societies the world over who have defined their food that other cultures would find disgusting. The Athabascan tribes who are neighbors of the Inuit call them Eskimos, which means raw meat eaters in their language. It is meant as a derogatory term. And so it goes. This is what humans do. Different often can mean unnatural and wrong.

My people eat all kinds of foods that every other society might find disgusting. I’ll spare you the list.

One might note that the very same society that thought of dogs as pets was also eating puppy. Well, allow me to address that issue. Most people in American society have totally separated themselves from the origins of their food. We walk around grocery stores and look at products without giving a single thought to the plants and animals we’re eating and how they are processed. Most of the people who are looking at a package of ground meat aren’t picturing the cow standing in the field.

There are children who grow up on farms who are very active in local 4-H programs. They raise sheep, cows, pigs and all manner of animals and then take those animals to be auctioned (slaughtered). They develop bonds with those animals, but they understand how food is raised and grown because this is their lives. That’s just the way things are.

People who judge others for their food choices just can’t help themselves. As I’ve noted so many times before, it is a function of the way we learn our cultures. But if you are made aware of what you are doing, and where those judgements are coming from, you can become much more sensitized about these cultural differences. So, please, cut it out.

I was getting ready to take a photograph of a puppy’s head on a plate. I looked up at Gordon before I pressed the shutter. His expression is difficult to describe … but I can see it even though it was so many years ago. I loved and love Gordon and would never want to do anything to hurt him. Gordon loved his culture and his people. Thus, while this photograph really came out great, I’m not going to be publishing it … not in these blogs. Not anywhere.

I will however publish this photograph of Susie offering up the most real and unvarnished expression of her reaction to the entire episode. As Beatrice so eloquently put it …. ooohhh, Tippy, ooooh Gahanab.

After dinner, Gordon and I went down to Lyle’s to watch football. The Browns were on Monday night football. In the mid-1970s, Hanford Dixon had not yet created the whole Dawg thing, but what a fitting ending to an amazing day. Watching my Cleveland Browns play on Monday night football, sitting in one of my second homes in Hays on the Ft. Belknap Reservation after having a puppy dinner. Gordon and Lyle rooted for the Browns for me. They beat the Patriots in overtime.

9-27-77 kitchen  

When I came into the kitchen this morning, Beatrice asked me how the puppy dinner was, and I told her the meat was ok, but I didn’t like the skin and all the fat. Beatrice said that the skin and the brain is the best part. She said that she didn’t like to hang those pups. I asked her if hanging was the only way you kill the pups. She said, that’s how most people do it. But my parents used to kill them by running them over with a wagon wheel – she laughed really hard. Mary looked at her and Beatrice told her – Old Lady Thick. I asked Beatrice how they held them down to run them over. She said, I don’t know, but that’s how she killed them. She ran them over with a wagon wheel. I asked Beatrice how she was related to Old Lady Thick. She said it was her father’s sister. She said that they used to have puppy a lot when they were kids. “My grandmother would come over, and my mother would ask her to take care of those things. My grandmother would fix the puppies. My mother knew how to do it, but it seemed like she was too busy taking care of kids and she had other things to do. It always seemed, too, that some of the kids would run off with one of the puppies if it was real cute. They didn’t want to kill it, and they would run away with it.” Beatrice asked me what Edith made for dinner. I told her she made puppy and wheel bread. Beatrice said that when she made puppy, she would boil a lot of potatoes with it.

9-28-77 Gordon and Edith’s

We went to dinner at Gordon and Edith’s. They served dry meat (from an antelope). They had prepared it by boiling it with bacon. Gordon explained how to eat it. You take a mouth full of the dry meat, and then you take a mouthful of the bacon and chew them together. He already salted the meat and most people don’t. He brought out a piece of dried meat for us to taste how salty it was. It was thin and even boiled, it was chewy and salty. It was reddish brown in color. Edith also served tater tots, fry bread and rolls. They also served me something that they called ‘paddle fish.’ After I finished eating it, Gordon said, you know Indians are great at playing tricks. “The fish you just ate was really punch.” He really laughed. Punch is the lower stomach – the upper stomach is many folds. The punch was breaded and fried. It was white and about a quarter inch thick. It was very chewy and there were parts that were covered with fat. It has a bland taste – the flavor came from the breading, salt and pepper.

He said a lot of people make it and it isn’t good. He boils it for about an hour and a half and then breads and fries it with salt and pepper. That’s what makes it good.

9-29-77 mission kitchen

Susie told Mary what we had for dinner at Edith’s last night. Mary said that she really likes punch a lot, especially the way they fixed it, fried like that. I really like it when it’s covered with fat.

9-29-77 trailer

Sister Laura came over this morning. She and Kathleen went to Jenny Gray’s for a handgame last week. It was really Minerva Allen who had the handgame for her kids, to pray for them before they went away to school. They played until 3:00 in the morning. They played with a few people’s sticks. They played two games with Jenny’s set. At 2:30 they took out George Shield’s sticks, but they just prayed over it. They didn’t use them for games because it was getting too late. Jenny said that they were supposed to open the bundle and pray over it, but they just prayed over the closed bundle. They passed around strawberries and salmon, and everyone took some and ate it. They kept passing it around until it was gone. Jenny said it was like the eucharist. Laura said that she thought that they had the berries and fish because it was a food they could always have no matter how hard the times were, berries and fish were always available. They served dinner, but it wasn’t puppy. Puppy is a traditional food for the handgame, although some say that it was a routine food until recently.

9-26-77 Gordon and Edith’s

Edith lent Susie a recipe she had been using frequently. She had a recipe book that she got from the Blackfeet reservation: Blackfeet Tribe, Demonstration Nutrition Program, Browning Montana dedicates this cookbook to you, the people we serve.

This book includes recipes for your reference to promote better health for you and your family. The book is prepared to compliment the Commodity Food Program. Many of these recipes are exchange recipes from people here on the reservation, The majority of the recipes are low budget and simple to prepare, Cultural foods are also included in this book. You will find that “Recipes to Live By’ may be the ingredients to brighten your day. We hope that you enjoy this cookbook since it has been designed especially for you. From the Nutrition Program Staff, Nutrition Program, Center for Disease Control.

These are the foods from the book (recipes are not included):

Crab Apple and Rhubarb Jelly

Chokecherry Jelly

Slick Trick (chokecherry syrup)

Huckleberry Syrup

Chokecherry Apple Butter

Chokecherry Wine

Fried Bread

Dry Meat or Jerky

Blood Soup

Pickled Beaver Tail

Campfire Liver

Jerky Stew

Moose, Elk, Deer Pot Roast

Indian Pemmican

Baked Trout

Baked Rabbit Indian Style

Indian Fry Bread

Pumpkin Bread

Fried Corn Bread

Indian Muffins

Bannock Bread

Indian Bannock Bread

Raised Fry Bread

Baking Powder Fried Bread

Sourdough Biscuits

Dried Chokecherries

Chokecherry Soup

Chokecherry Syrup

Sarvisberry Soup

Dried Plum Patties

Wild Grape Dumplings

Chokecherry Jelly

Indian Peppermint Tea

Bi-cultural Peppermint Tea

Tripe

Many Fold

Kidney

Tongue

Heart

Liver

Marrow Guts

Crow Gut

Straight Gut

Sweet Breads

Brains

Rocky Mountain Oysters