In the shadow of Wounded Knee: Inside the life of the Oglala Sioux

DailyMail ^ | Aug 2 | James Nye

[fish hawk]

To be blunt, you are wrong. Many Reservations have private owned land with in their borders. My Rez, the Yurok Reservation in N. Calif. has many many privately owned parcels with in the Reservation's boundary. When it comes to Indians and Reservations, be cautious at making flat out statements as there are always exceptions to the rule.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***It’s the government that tried killing them off in the 1800’s doing the same thing now. ****

The CROW and the US have always been friendly and allied against the hostile tribes. It was the Sioux and Cheyenne that tried to wipe the Crow out.

The Custer fight took place in Crow territory when the above hostile tribes invaded.

[Bigg Red]

That picture does not display poverty. It displays laziness. Just because one is poor, does not mean they have to be dirty...

&&&
Bingo!

[fish hawk]

Trust me (being you don’t seem to know) Federal laws do apply on Reservations and in fact many State Laws do too. Sometimes a little research helps before posting on a subject you are not familiar with .

[China Clipper]

Mrs China Clippers' father worked for the BIA.

As kids they and their dad lived on the reservation for years.

The things she remembers and shares about living conditions and situations are truly saddening. Her high school class of 1976 had 50 kids in the class. 40 of them are already dead or in a hospital. She says they would hold pow-wows with a fire and everything in the middle of their living room houses. Given to them BTW by the "benevolent government". In fact, they were given EVERYTHING except what they really needed-self worth.

In general, they appear to be a broken, beaten and hopeless people.

And we (USA) created it by our indifference and our guilt.

[DesertRhino]

It really isn’t true that they didn’t believe in property rights. In the plains, horse herds were personally owned, bought, sold, traded, gambled with, etc.
There was an active trade culture throughout the Americas.
Tools, luxuries, necessities, hides, etc, were all part of a robust trade culture only limited by the difficulties of travel and transport. Barter yes, but they clearly understood i own this, you own that. Land was held in common, but possessions and property they made were not.

While it was hard for an Indian in 1825 to understand buying and selling a parcel of an immense land as personal property, i think you would find everyone today really gets the concept and would enjoy it.

And it sucks that they have to leave the reservation to achieve it. It would be like someone telling you can have full freedom, if you’ll leave your hometown and go to a very different culture. In this day and age there no reason they shouldn’t enjoy full economic freedom where they live.

[CatherineofAragon]

That kind of bacteria goes into my dishwasher. Look, call me crazy, but I don’t want fecal germs where I eat.

[liberty or death]

There sure are trying to kill them off now and believe me they hate white people. We have a funeral home here and there are 20 Native funerals to every white one.

My young employee is Crow/Cree & Lakota. Crow is the least of it but my point was more generic to Indian/Government relations and how Natives trust in the same government that has a history of betraying them. Kinda like the Dems and Blacks.

[DesertRhino]

You eat out of the sink? Barbaric. Maybe think of the sink as a miniature bathub for a miniature person.

Seriously, sane kitchen practices allow the sink to be used to clean anything from dirty boots, baby butts, gun cleaning, mopwater, and then dishes later.
This sounds like Obsessive compulsive disorder.

[fish hawk]

As an Indian, I've voted your post as the most intelligent and thought on this thread. On our Reservation, there are people living like the pictures shown and then there are some with nice kept houses and have good jobs (to be honest, the good jobs are off the Rez). My big problem with our tribal members is that they always vote for Democrats because of the promises they make every election year, but never come through with them. How that goes on and on every year is beyond me. My tribe is about 96% Democrat and everyone knows that Democrats love people that have to depend on them.

[dirtboy]

I have been on several reservations and have noticed a couple of things. With the exception of casinos and tourist traps, there is damn near zero retail establishments on the Res. Usually a gas station and store with overpriced food and other items. Along with cheap tobacco products. I have never seen a hardware store or a clothing store or even a fast food place. And of course there are no Walmarts or Kroger or Home Depot. For some reason any business that creates jobs and profits seem to be discouraged.

An object lesson comes from the Navajo Reservation in NE Arizona. I drove through there a decade ago, and it was the usual squalor except one location - Kayenta. It has hotels, fast-food restaurants, a grocery store, and looks pretty typically American.

I later read that Kayenta, alone in the Navajo Rez, has a degree of home rule and independence from the corrupt tribal leadership.

Where there is better government in tribes, such as with the Mississippi Choctaws, they do much better.

[fr_freak]

In general, they appear to be a broken, beaten and hopeless people.

And we (USA) created it by our indifference and our guilt.

I don't believe in collective guilt. I'm not going to say "we" created this, because I darn sure didn't and most people I know have never had anything to do with indians or reservations. If any indian had ever asked me, I would have told him to refuse to accept anything from the government, ever, because the government just wants you as slaves. But nobody ever asked me. And, by the way, this is the same federal government that is currently trying to make slaves out of all the rest of us. So I'll be darned if I take the blame for the actions of a government that I'm currently opposed to.

In my opinion, two things created this mess: 1) massive government bureaucracy, 2) the indifference of the indians, themselves. I am aware that many indians were originally herded onto reservations by the feds, but what keeps them there now? At what point do we finally say that grown men and women have to take responsibility for themselves? Any one of those people could simply get up and walk away from the reservation any time they want. But they don't. It sure isn't me keeping them there.

[NativeSon]

I am not near as knowledgeable as I would like to be.

Heck, I grew up in Philly and have never dealt with the "issues" that my family had - most people look at me and think I'm Hispanic or Semetic... But what I know is that the gub'mint is the root of AI issues, always has been, always will be.

[CatherineofAragon]

"You eat out of the sink? Barbaric. Maybe think of the sink as a miniature bathub for a miniature person."

That was definitely poor phrasing on my part. I should have said "on kitchen surfaces."

"Seriously, sane kitchen practices allow the sink to be used to clean anything from dirty boots, baby butts, gun cleaning, mopwater, and then dishes later. This sounds like Obsessive compulsive disorder."

Whatever. If OCD includes not wanting mop water, boots, or fecal bacteria in my kitchen sink, sign me up. There are plenty of other places for those. THAT, to me, is sane behavior.

[South40]

I have been there also; I have a sister in law who is from there. It’s nothing like other reservations like the Cherokee, Navajo or any of the successful gaming tribes they have here in San Diego. I have never seen more extreme poverty. It was quite depressing.

[Eska]

One of my upriver Indian buddies told me once he got out of the village and had his own new house away from all the alcohol, he figured out pretty quick life was much better and didn't want to go back. The old Indian Village in his community has become more like a club house where they have meetings, school, social events, ect; the Indians mostly now live intermixed throughout the larger White Community and are part of the economic mix. In the original village, there wasn't an economy. The Indians want jobs just like the Whites. Canada has really fostered a good program with their Native Population. Way better than what I see in Alaska.

Good that I'm not the only Repub that has seen what I have; they want success for their kids too.

[Eska]

Apologies, wasn't directed at you, you just were the last post if I remember right. If you have worked & lived around Indians, I don't have to tell ya anything; yu have seen it yourself, like you said.

Wife and I have taught in a few villages, I'm so use to being around Indians; I fit in better with them than rural Whites.

[Eska]

Here in Alaska, the Indians lost their lands after WWII. Govt took their kids off them, shipped them off to schools, many were abused and died. Anger still remains to this day about it all. Govt should return much of the BLM lands to the Indians and should have the Indians run much of our park lands. Indians would do a better job than feds, actually. I don’t see any govt making all the treaties right either, but they could enhance economic activities by having Indians operate fed land holdings.

[miss marmelstein]

In the tenements of Old New York, the kitchen sink was the bathtub as well. Back in the 1980s, I’d let a friend come over for a shower because she hated using that damn sink as a bath.

[Eska]

Ya know up here, ole Murkowski got elected by promising the Indians all the gold they could eat. She got all the dem Indians to vote for her as a write in, won by 12K votes. Now she crys poverty and the Indians figure they've been had once again.

Local village carpenter built a new fish wheel, getting some kings last week. Caribou starts on the 10th Aug and moose, pretty quick too. Indians got a couple for potlatch last month.

Me and a couple of the local guys built a new ladder stand and putting it back at base of mnt, on a lick. 20 foot high, 4X8. I spent $600 on the steel but it ain't gonna rust out in 50 years and I figure people from the village will be takin moose & caribou back there for many years after I've left this earth, a good thing.