5/16 CHEMAWA [Salem, Oregon]

And so, at long last, the Journey began in earnest.



After the "success" of Carlisle, money was set aside for the creation of 500 new schools. The first of the 500 was Chemawa in Salem, Oregon. As an interesting sidenote, do you know who bankrolled those 500 new schools?

The answer is: The US Department of War. Think about that for a moment. Not the State Department, not the Dept of the Interior, and certainly not Education.

Anyways, Chemawa has come a long way, and is now a school one might be proud to have graduated from. That doesn't mean the wounds don't run deep, and there's a hidden battle between those who want healing and those who want the past to be ignored.



It was a good start to our Journey. The auditorium was large and comfortable, the mics worked, and attendance was good. I won't go into too many details about the ceremony itself, both because I am pressed for time and because White Bison has covered it already.

http://www.whitebison.org/wellbriety-journey/NewsStories.htm

The Chemawa article is a little disjointed -- I'm probably not supposed to say anything, but there was a mix-up behind the scenes. Basically, Maria's notes were printed to the web instead of the full story. It'll be our little secret. Or, maybe it's been fixed already by the time you read this.

Oh, and speaking of which, I finally met Maria-of-the-never-appearing-airplane. I noticed a woman who seemed to know what was going on. Since I was trying to hard to pretend to know what was going on, I recognized the look immediately and correctly guessed her identity. Knee-deep in work was a good way for us to meet.

The opening procession was a surprisingly emotionally-loaded event. The Eagle Staff and the Sacred Hoop were carried in, and before the first length of the room was finished, several marchers and many audience members were already weeping openly. There's going to be some tears in the next few weeks, I wager.

Photos: Elders Theda Newbreast and Horace Axtell speak to the audience.

A woman named Jolene sang a beautiful song -- it will be one of the first things I try to get to YouTube. I'll keep you posted.

Dad was there, as were Rich, Ollie, and the kids. It was nice to see them in the audience, although I had little time for socializing. I've absorbed the role of all-purpose A/V guy and ran some movies, projected some slides, ran a spotlight (which was awesome), tried (unsuccessfully) to wire the auditorium's speakers into a single 1/8 plug... (Any thoughts, Dan Houg?), raised and lowered the house lights (also unsuccessfully, but I blame an obvious short in the wiring. It'd scare me if I worked here. I hope they look into that soon), and generally ran around constantly.

Oh, and I ran two cameras simultaneously. I was beat.

At the end of the indoor portion, most people boarded the bus and moved to the cemetery. No one knew if we would be returning, so I rushed to try to pack up all my various pieces of equipment. Time waits for no me, however, and everyone else left for the cemetery. Somewhere between my third and fourth load out to the van, the door to the auditorium was locked behind me. That left me with a portion of my equipment, alone, and late to the graveyard. After freezing in place for several panicky minutes, I decided to leave my things and insist we return later.

Flustered and now quite late, I made two right turns instead of a left and a right, and got lost.

I'm not really sure what happened at the cemetery, although I did eventually make it there just in time to catch the ending prayer. I set up a camera in a far corner, at which point Elder Axtell stopped the prayer and singled me out, telling me to leave this place immediately. Apparently, he thought I was from the newspapers; someone intervened on my behalf and the prayer continued. Still, it stung for quite a while afterwards -- it had been a largely successful day, but suddenly I felt like an outsider instead of as a valued participant. Or at least a neutral participant. Or at least not an unwelcome outside presence, interfering with ceremonies I wasn't welcome to witness.

Bummer.

Still, I had logged 12 hours of footage, my feet insisted I'd been working hard, and I got to run a huge honkin' spotlight. In all, a good sort of day. Now for 39 more of them.

The Path, A Picture

Wish us luck!

Prelude to Chemawa

Remember when I ended this thread? I said I had a few things to cover first; I guess I had more than a few things. Now we're back to the first meeting before the first ceremony. Let's listen in, shall we?...

Maria's plane was still stuck in limbo, somewhere, so the White Bison presence was fourfold: Don, Marlin, Wayne, and (impossibly) myself.



Left-to-Right: Wayne, Maria, Marlin, a mountain, and Don. Guess how windy it was. Prizes for correct answers.

One of the things I was first surprised at was how clear Don was that this ceremony belonged to Chemawa and would be led by Chemawa. I'd assumed that we would have a set presentation that we would repeat in various places. Not so: Marlin later explained to me that the history of outside interaction in Native communities follows a clear pattern. Outsiders come in; and, irregardless of their attitudes, intentions, or methods, find some way of telling the Natives that "this is how you'll do things from now on." Colonists did it. Missionaries did it. The government does it. Social workers do it. Alcohol and tobacco groups do it. Domestic violence groups do it.

It has never once worked.

So, our goal is NOT to march in and say "this is how you'll do things, and this is what you need to hear, and this is what will improve stuff. Do it. We fixed you!" Tribal identity is ingrained in their psyches -- any approach that ignores that fact (and tries to impose an outside system) will fail. Our presentation is really only led by us a small amount of the time; the bulk of it is community-led and audience-led. Ultimately, the people who attend decide what the ceremony becomes. We just get the ball rolling, give some facts, and encourage forgiveness as a way of ending the deep-rooted bitterness people have. I kind of like the sound of that.

We have a few cornerstones, however, that we bring to the table.

We have the Eagle Staff -- an imposing staff adorned with 36 sacred feathers. To be honest, as I write this, I don't fully understand the Eagle Staff's purpose, but it's treated very carefully and is clearly important. I must remember to ask Marlin soon.

We have the Sacred Hoop. This I have a better grasp on. It is about 5' in diameter and has exactly 100 feathers that line the edge. I think there are 99 eagle feathers and 1 condor feather, but this is me going from memory. It is divided into four directions, each with its own color. The directions, depending on who you ask, stand for steps of healing (acknowledgement, acceptance, forgiveness, and hope), types of forgiveness (everyday forgiveness, forgiving the unforgiveable, forgiving of the self, and forgiving to free the spirit), people of the earth (red, black, yellow, and white)... and there's one other I can't remember. Incidentally, each of these lists were given in order, starting in the East and going clockwise. That's how it's done.

It doesn't seem to matter much exactly what the directions stand for; the point is that it is almost universally recognized in "Indian country" (a frequently-used phrase) as a sacred object, and one that inspires respect and prayer. Don estimates that, by now, thousands of prayers have been made by people touching the hoop. As best as I can tell, what makes it sacred is not necessarily what it is, but how it's been used and what it reminds people of. As an added bonus, something that has heard thousands of prayers must have racked up some pretty darn serious karma over the years.

Don, incidentally, has been appointed "Keeper of the Hoop," and it is his primary job to keep it safe. Additionally, he is bound to bring the hoop to any community that asks for it. Let's say that again: any community asks for the hoop, at any time, and he starts arranging transportation and goes in person to deliver the hoop. The elders gave him this life-task, and it is also the basis of his Indian name, which I will not even attempt to spell here.

Thirdly...

You look confused. I'm now back to talking about things we bring to the table for these ceremonies.

Thirdly, we have a petition. The goal is to deliver 10,000 signatures to President Obama asking for a government apology. As I've said before, perhaps the most important part of our journey is reminding people that an apology is due -- but it's not necessary to start healing. Forgiveness is what starts the healing; an apology is absolutely nothing but icing on the cake. It's up to each community to make their own cake, however difficult that may be.

We bring Brandi Jo to each ceremony. Brandi Jo is a wooden silouhette of a five-year-0ld girl. When she tried to stop her mother from being beaten by her boyfriend, the boyfriend kicked her in the head and threw her in the yard to die. She did die; she was eventually hidden in the house for several days, after which time he burned down the house. Brandi Jo is along for the journey to remind everyone that this difficult work is really for the children. If communities can make the massively tough step of letting go of their hurt and bitterness, domestic abuse is one of the things that will decrease proportionally.

We bring a spiritual bundle. The bundle is another thing that I don't fully understand, but it is connected to the hoop. The bundle is meant to representatively hold people's pain and anger -- it gives them something to focus on as they pray. On the last day, an Elder (or maybe multiple Elders) will do an ancient ceremony to purge the bundle of the bad karma it has picked up. Again, I don't fully understand this part, but if it helps people, I'm all for it.

I keep using the word karma. It is, no doubt, an incorrect term, but it's one I understand that's pretty close.

We will bring people to the forgotten gravesites of the forgotten children. We will lead the community in asking the little spirits to come home. Those buried there were taken from their families and were buried far from their homes, without their families there to say goodbye.

Personally, I'm not sure I "believe" in this particular kind of spirit -- the lost soul of a specific person who had wrongs done to them. However, the process is almost certainly very cathartic to the living, and I see the value in that. Also, if there was anyplace on earth that was likely to be haunted by wounded spirits, a forgotten and ignored graveyard where children were dumped by uncaring hands seems pretty high up on the list. In fact, I can't even imagine a more likely place.

I put "believe" in quotes because, like a lot of these posts, I don't have the words to say exactly what I mean. "Believe" is close enough to be understood. This whole experience falls well outside my normal day-to-day lexicon. And even at home I use words like "lexicon," so this is way beyond the pale.

Finally, we bring a few instructions from a council of elders. The most interesting of the instructions is this: "Neither we, nor the communities we work with, are allowed to seek reparations through lawsuits against the governement." Lawsuits are great for getting money, but seeking money will -- the elders say -- destroy this mission. What the people need is healing, and no lawsuit has ever brought about healing for anyone. They're not even good at providing closure, much less actually improving any situation.

--

Blaise Pascal once wrote: "I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter." That's kinda what's going to happen here. I've decided to stop trying to organize these notes neatly and just slam through the rest of them with whatever comes to mind. Time remains at an absolute premium, and I'd like to try to catch up to current-day before I must sleep.

--

The cemetary we will be visiting seems like a typical one. Many of the graves have been carefully chiseled "Unknown," and many contain only a name but no dates. In fact, none that I saw included a birthday. See a previous post for my opinion on how sick it is to write "Unknown" on a student's gravestone. It is virtually unknown -- in fact, it's hidden behind a paintball course and it hasn't been groomed in a long, long time. As we speak, crews are out mowing it and trying to clear the moss off of the sunken plaques. It needs the work badly. It was never intended to be visited, and we will need to rent a bus because there's no place for individual cars to park.

The school is still functioning, and has a proud image. I see that they won an award in 2006 for exemplary-ness. Exemplarity. Exemplaritude. Whatever. I later learn that we were initially blocked from even appearing at this school because they feared we'd destroy their image. Some of the powers-that-be would prefer that the past simply be erased and forgotten.

White-washing?

Don later described this in terms of the lessons he learned from his own alcoholism. For a long time, he was afraid to follow the pattern of "This is what was. This is what is now," for fear that people would stop listening after "was" and judge him harshly. When he built up the courage to say it out loud, he was shocked that everyone listened to the end and congratulated and supported him on the changes that led him to "what is now." Sobriety in his case, legitimacy and honor in the case of Chemawa. I'm not sure if he told that story to the school board or not, but I like it.

Buses will be coming in from other states, carrying elders who want to see the beginning of this journey. That's awesome.

Graduation was the previous day. It's still a boarding school; curiously, not one graduate was willing to stay an extra day to speak about their experience. They all went back to their homes. Even in the best of situations, the isolation of boarding schools must be difficult.

There's already a panel of six elders who will speak to the assembly. A sign-up sheet is in place for anyone else who wishes to speak. (As of the current day, we have not used a sign-up sheet since. It's just an open forum, now. This has its pros and cons.)

Chemawa is not one of these places, but I learned some towns on our route have already given all tribal employees that day off so that anyone who wishes to attend is free to do so.

Even the songs that are played will be local. We're asking for local musicians to play only tribally-appropriate music. Each location will have its own songs, but they fall under very specific headings. For example, all we have to do is ask for "your Feather Song," or "your Healing Song." The fact that these headings appear to be universal would make for some interesting research for a sociologist.

At each location, people will make offerings of whatever plant has local tribal significance as a purification medicine. The likely candidates are tobacco and sage, although apparently some places may include pollen and other things. We will carefully keep every grain, and burn them all together on the last day in Washington, DC.

One point that will be made is that it is also important for the men to apologize to the women. Gender roles were clearly defined in traditional life, and the men failed to defend the tribe against all the assaults made against it. Then, when that failure became clear, the men lost the will to stop things like the removal of children. In current day, the belief is that those old gender roles still hold true, and men are still dropping the ball. Instead of standing up for better schools, more loving families, and safer communities, men have largely given up and turned to alcohol, or left altogether. Single-mother homes are as common as they are everywhere else, if not more so. "Defend" can be interpreted a lot of ways, but irregardless, it's time for the men to apologize for generations of not living up to their duties or standing by their families -- much less staying sober so as to do those things well.

Along those lines, this is also an opportunity for self-forgiveness, one of the hardest kinds of forgiveness to do well. It's important, however; if you can't forgive yourself, you will eventually eat yourself alive. Honestly, I'm not sure self-forgiveness is something I can do. Have you tried? It's really hard.

Another reason for self-forgiveness is the removal of shame. Many people, of all races, are ashamed of how their ancestors have acted or not acted. Shame is a funny thing, particularly in the ways it can express itself. Aggressors often try to cover over shame by amplifying their aggressive behavior, hoping it will retroactively justify their actions. For a good example, look at the Republican party for the last seven years. Victims will often internalize their shame, and begin attacking themselves (or their allies) in a tragic, self-defeating cycle. Marlin spoke about one community of victims who feasted upon their historic shame until, at present, they're on the verge of destruction. In one year, they had over 200 attempted (failed) teen suicides, and 43 completed teen suicides.

Hate and anger will eat away at a person from inside, but so will sadness. The next cross-country journey has already been planned. They will follow in our footsteps exactly and give a seminar in each town about how to grieve -- a skill many have simply forgotten. This is, of course, particularly true for men. In the community above, Marlin says there is a critical mass of unexpressed, ignored grief that must be dealt with quickly. Let's look at just grief related to deaths. We've only mentioned teen suicides so far. Add to that the other suicides, natural death, accidental death, alcohol-related deaths, drug-related deaths, and homicides, all of which are present. Who grieves? Who has time to grieve? Working through grief is a process, one that takes time and energy. Everyone stops grieving effectively if every other day another community member is lost. You grow numb, and it starts killing your own spirit.

Lunch will be potluck. That should be interesting, in an open-community event.

After the meeting, our local contact (also named Don) took me aside and showed me the switchboard for houslights, the projector controls, the microphone audio mixer, and the master power controls for the auditorium we'll be using. I have very little idea how to work any of this, but I nod anyways. I'm so over my head, here. That said, I can fall back on my ability to learn quickly, and my conviction that this is a good project. If something needs to happen, God will make sure it happens somehow. I think this needs to happen.

I'll figure out what I'm supposed to do with an audio mixer when I need to know it. ...tomorrow...

Prophecies

By 1600, it was clear that Native communities were badly damaged. A time for healing was needed, and three prophecies were made, each of which would signal one step towards the era of healing.


First, an Eagle would need to fly to the moon.


Secondly, a Spider would need to spin a web that wrapped around the world. Then, she would sing a song that would vibrate the web, spreading it to every nation.


Finally, a pure white Bison would be born. This is a condition that occurs in bison approximately once per every 10,000,000 births. Yes, that's ten million.


***

Eagle feathers were brought on board the shuttle, and successfully made the entire journey. "The Eagle has landed" is one of the most famous quotes of American history.


For the first time ever, you can speak to the entire world. We even call it "the web."




In 1994, a white bison was born in Wisconsin.
White Bison, Inc. was founded by Don Coyhis later that same year.

After 400 years, the time to forgive is now. The time to heal is now.

Our Goal

Our goal is to short-circuit the process. This requires four steps.

First, people need to talk about their hurts. Boarding school victims are still alive today, and many have never spoken about it. Their children don't know why their parents are the way they are. No one is talking about this, and they desperately need to.

Secondly, the pain needs to recognized. One of the things we're doing is going to these schools, to their backyard cemetaries, and holding ceremonies for the unnamed and unknown children so casually and carelessly buried there.

Third, people must grieve. The tears are there -- either you cry them yourself, or you force them onto your children.

Finally, and most difficult, we must find a way to forgive. Without forgiveness, the truama will continue to eat away at each man, woman, and child. Forgiveness is the only thing that can end this hateful cycle.


We're delivering 10,000 names to President Obama on the last day of this trip, asking for a government apology. At every stop, however, we tell people that an apology will never bring about healing. If the apology is given, or denied, the true power still can ONLY come from forgiveness.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/Apology-For-Indian-School-Abuses

We've already traveled through a lot of regions, and seen a lot of different religions practiced. I don't know who's reading this, or what your beliefs are, but we face a daunting task -- one that's almost overwhelming and one which might change an entire people.

We would appreciate your prayers.

Intergenerational Trauma

The boarding schools were, in short, appalling. Many of them are still around and operational today. Of course, by 2009, reforms have been widespread -- they're simply not like that, today. So, one might ask, why does it need to be a concern today? Why unearth a hidden, painful past?
Intergenerational Trauma is the theory that some acts are so strong that their echoes affect up to seven generations into the future. I must admit, when I first heard of this concept, I was pretty doubtful. Time-travelling pain? Genetic experiences?
Now, it seems so obviously straightforward that it couldn't possibly be anything but correct.
Read the previous post again. Now, imagine that when you were three (the youngest age schools allowed), you were taken at gunpoint from your family. By the time you were six, you had a permenent limp from a whipping you'd received, you'd seen a friend sexually abused, and you rarely speak. By the time you were twelve, you'd been sexually abused yourself, many times over. You had no real connection with other people -- some schools kept a sharp eye out for student friendships: If two students became friends, they were separated and put in different dorms. You fear adults, and are frequently beaten.
Now, you're twenty, and you suddenly find yourself with your first child.
What kind of parent are you going to be? What kind of wife or husband are you going to be? What kind of family will you create?
You can have the best heart, and a true desire to do your best -- but you've never experienced love. You have no idea how a parent is supposed to behave: you haven't seen one since you were three. You haven't cried since you were five, because it earned you a beating every time.

---

You're three years old. You parents are emotionally distant, and often spend time staring into space or drinking in despair. You're twelve. Hitting is a common form of punishment, and your parents are frequently drunk. They never say anything about themselves or their past, and they're nearly strangers to you. You can never remember being hugged. You're sixteen. You're desparate to get out of your home. You drink heavily, yourself -- it's always easily accessible. Deep down, you're angry. You're so angry -- always so angry at your parents, the world, your life.

---

You're three years old. Your parents are only 20 and 21. Their relationship is based on neediness, not love. They drink, and they're angry when they drink.

---

You're a child of the fourth generation. Your great-grandparents went to boarding schools -- a fact which you know nothing about. As you move into your teens, you find yourself wondering why you're so angry inside. Why is your older brother already an addict? Why is your family life so unhappy?
And you have no idea, but in a few years it will majorly affect your ability to be an effective parent, neighbor, community member, and friend.

---

Intergenerational Truama. If there were only problem, one generation that grew up abused, only one major shock, it will only wear off after seven generations.
The abusive boarding schools lasted for many, many years, and have spawned a number of new atrocities that have set their own seven-generation cycles into effect. Some boarding schools remained abusive up until the current middle-aged generation. Those communities might remain wounded until the their current newborns' great-great-great-grandchildren.

Admin

I figured out pictures, and have inserted them as appropriate.

I'd also like to have posts added top-to-bottom, instead of bottom-to-top. I often upload more than one finished post in a day, and I think it makes it confusing. Anyone know how to do that?

I'm almost done with the background info and will pick up again with daily life soon. I feel the background information is important context, however.

Please comment -- it's nice to know someone's out there!

The American Genocide

The boarding schools are, to this day, rarely spoken of. They're difficult to find in any history book, and are not spoken of by Indians, Whites, or the government -- each for their own reasons.

Besides their loathsome goal of wiping out a culture, the schools quickly turned to methods that decent people shudder to hear. Once those methods began to produce results without arousing moral outrage, it became clear that working at these schools was carte blanche -- there were no rules because the students were subhuman.

Photo (c) .: Mandala :.


The goal of separating children from their culture was often carried out with cold efficiency. Don has met a woman, now an elder, who vividly remembers her first day at boarding school. She had never heard of boarding schools before, and only knew that she had been taken from her weeping family and taken by soldiers to a strange place with other children. She did not speak a word of English and had, in fact, never heard it before. The students were warned that they could only speak English -- but, being as the warning was given in English, it meant nothing to many of them. This little girl was one of the unlucky ones. Near panic, she sought out someone, anyone, who could explain to her what was going on. Obviously, her request was not in English, so she was selected to be an example. One teacher led her briskly to a side room, where an attendant waited. She was told to hold out her hands. Not understanding, she did nothing until the teacher demonstrated. The attendant took one of her hands; pressed it to the table; then, in one swift motion, hit her finger with a butcher's meat-knife hard enough to crush the bone and sever the finger.

She had no idea why this was happening. No one made any effort to explain it to her in a way she understood.

So the same thing happened the next day.

And the next.

The connection was made and she stopped speaking altogether. Today, she is an old woman, and has lived almost her entire life with only 7 fingers.


Children -- little kids -- were forced into silence and fear. Beatings were common for minor infractions, and more severe punishments were dealt out nearly at random. A man (who I personally heard speak) told about the time he was going between "classes" and fell hard on gravel. His knee was scraped and cut, and he cried. The school's solution was to take him aside to an upstairs room and leave him there until his leg got better. He was locked there for four weeks, only seeing a single nun who changed his bandage once a day and left meals, during which time his leg eventually grew grotesquely and turned a putrid green. Only once teachers began complaining about the smell was he brought back into society and grudgingly taken a doctor.

He overheard the doctor saying that two to four more days of isolation would have been enough to require amputation. As is, his leg was barely saved.


Due to the cramped quarters and miserable shelter, disease ran rampant. Typhoid, for example, spread wildly. The school's positions was that the little savages clearly had inferior immune systems. Bodies were often buried in unmarked graves.

I have been to the cemetaries behind these schools. How do you, in good conscience, put a seven-year-old girl, or an eleven-year-old boy, or any student of yours into the ground -- and when the workers come to put in the headstone, you tell them to chisel in "Unknown" ?

How do you bury a little kid and not bother to even ask anyone what his or her name is? How could any headstone ever read "Unknown" at a school?

And what are the chances that poor little Unknown's parents ever learned what happened to their child? Did any of the parents ever learn what happened to their babies?


But, the schools did raise a generation that was quiet, fearful, timid, and followed orders well. Additionally, they spoke English and knew almost nothing of their parents' religion, ceremonies, songs, or pride. In fact, they knew almost nothing of their parents. This was, obviously, a huge success, and so the methods were overlooked.

You could do whatever you wanted, so long as the children you worked with grew up as broken, fearful individuals.

Within a few years, staff enrollment began to swell. It was something of a golden age for sexual predators, who took whatever jobs they could find in the schools.

Abuse reached sickening levels.

Likewise, a number of sociopaths discovered that the students performed "better" if they were always on guard. Beating increased in viciousness and began to performed randomly and arbitrarily. Anyone could be caned, or whipped, or struck with a ruler at any time. Sure enough, all the students began sitting straighter and working harder and harder to be unremarkable, to not stick out in any way. The system worked perfectly.

The American Genocide Begins

In 1492, the wider European community made their first formalized contact with the indigenous peoples of North America. In a ridiculous and slightly arrogant misunderstanding, they decided to call them "Indians." Europe benefited greatly, absorbing turkeys, potatoes, tomoatoes, and the like. The Americans were badly damaged, gaining shiny trinkets, smallpox, measles, and facing invaders with weapons never before dreamed of.

In 1776, the United States of America was formed -- a melting pot for European people, European ideas, and European customs.

This is well-known history; and, although certainly sad, is not particularly different or any worse than every other colonial story throughout history. When two cultures clash, one becomes dominant. The other undergoes great hardships and becomes either extinct or a minority. It's not a pretty process.

Here's where this story becomes horrific: by the 1820s, some balance had been reached. The Indians were uprooted, dispossessed, and hurting, but there seemed to be some chance that coexistence on the same continent was possible.

Manifest Destiny destroyed any thought of peace and incited a protracted secret war whose effects are visible today. Manifest Destiny was a prevailing American spirit that the United States had a glorious destiny to spread from sea to shining sea. Anyone who got in our way was obstructing our good work and would need to be eliminated.

The open military actions are well documented, if rarely brought up anymore. They were ultimately too slow, expensive, and dangerous for our soldiers. Some actions are less documented. For example, the California state legislature passed a law formally recognizing Indians as dangerous animals. The state government would pay a staggering $5 for the body of a dead Indian man. The reward for a live Indian was only $3. A woman, alive or dead, was worth $2. A dead child was worth $0.75. The problem with this policy was twofold: the Indians kept having children, and it was too expensive. By the late 1860s, California was out over $12,000 in money paid to ordinary citizens dropping corpses off at the local government office. To try to offset the cost (which was substantial in 1860s money), the government took to selling the bodies of infants back to ordinary citizens, with the expectation that they would be used for bear bait.

This happened. This happened.

In 1879, the government finally hit upon the winning formula for eliminating the inconvenient red man, clearing the path for collection of endless resources, land for new states, and worry-free expansion. The problem, it turned out, was that no matter how many Indians were killed by soldiers or private citizens, there would always be a few more left who would grow increasingly stronger in defiance and rejection of white values. Savages are like that. They believed in their culture and it gave them the backbone to stand up to white society, no matter how few of them there were left alive.

The Carlisle Indian Industrial School was given a one-year probabationary period to see if it could successfully sever Native children from their culture. If all went as planned, the Native population would have nothing to fall back on after a single generation. The first boarding school was born. It would prove successful beyond expectation. The next year, Congressional funding was given to create 500 boarding schools across the nation. This happened.

The plan was simple: first, remove children from their parents, as young as possible. There was no formalized means of doing this. At gunpoint was the simplest. Positive or negative reinforcement was sometimes used, offering money for children, or jailing those who did not give up their kids immediately. One of the most intricate and effective methods was the planned elimination of the natural food-animals and terraforming of the land for strange crops. Then, Indians became dependent on government "assistance" for food. You keep your children, you and your children starve.

I had always heard stories of people shooting buffalo out of trains for fun and for bounty. It never occured to me to ask why anyone would offer a bounty -- I focused more on the "fun" aspect and shook my head with disappointment at their shortsightedness. The reason this practice was supported was that it made the Natives starve. It was a clear, fully thought out, and officially executed plan.

Now, children were loaded up by the trainloads and shipped, sometimes great distances, to the nearest school. The goals were threefold.

1. Eliminate any opportunity for exposure to their parents' culture, language, or customs.
In a short amount of time, the hope was for a Native population that had no reason to resist the dominant traditions.

2. Break the childrens' will, and make them subservient.
Their parents were too... difficult. It would be better to raise a people who would cave at the first sign of opposition.

3. Train them for menial jobs.
This was the only excuse for "education" the schools offered. As long as they're here, we might as well shape them into a work force for the jobs we don't want. No one learned math. Classes were in things like "sweeping."

Prelude to Prelude to Chemawa

Our first meeting with school officials actually took place before our first meeting with each other. Don did much of the speaking, and it was a great opportunity for me to clear up my understanding of our goals and objectives. In all, it was a great meeting; except for the few times that I was called upon.

School Official: "At what point will you start the PowerPoint?"
Me: "We have a PowerPoint?"

Lightheartedness aside, it's a true honor to be here. As cameraman, my role on this journey is a little bit different from everyone else's; but I still get to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the people who are going to change the world. It's an incredible feeling; it's also interesting how some honors bring about great pride, while others encourage sudden humility. This is one of the humbling kinds.

For those who weren't at the meeting or don't want to read anymore, here's a useful overview:



That's my boss. Neat, huh?

...now that I'm deep into this post, I suspect that I'll need to cover two other topics before I can adequately discuss this meeting. For now, however, I suspect I'll need to sleep, first. We keep long, long days, and sleep must be taken when it can.

If memory serves, tomorrow will be the easiest day so far -- only one meeting, no ceremonies, and only seven hours of driving. I will attempt to continue this tomorrow evening.

T Minus One, Part 2

I cannot remember what I was apparently given temporary custody of. One of those mysteries.

Likely answers include: several hundred books, which we will be selling en-route to pay for gasoline. Back-up camera equipment that White Bison found laying around their office -- none of which I have looked at for fear that it will prove to be better than mine. The Eagle Staff, which is in the back of my van and, according to US 50 CSF 22, makes me a felon for possessing eagle parts and (unknowingly) crossing state lines without being at least 1/4 Native American. I think I'm going to ask that someone else carries that from here on out.

I'm not sure why, when we were dividing up equipment, the Eagle Staff went in the car with the only white guy.



I'm not going to apologize for the several day delay between the beginning and the end of this post. Internet is spotty, and free time is less. All I can say is that I'll keep trying my best.



The interruption was due to Wayne's eyeball, which decided to start oozing and generally making a nuisance of itself. As I was, without question or qualification, the least useful team member that particular night, I offered to drive him to the emergency room. As we'd just met and had spoken all of about a dozen words, it promised to help each other remember our names.

The emergency room, on a Friday afternoon, is a grim place to be. Luckily, they decided to give Wayne last priority, so we had several hours (3.5) to grow acclimated to its various horrors. Face masks were a common sight -- apparently swine flu is not only here, but cousin Jacob had said that two kids in his school already had it. Incidentally, someone was wearing a face mask at the hotel, too. Wayne eventually half-dozen off, while I made lifelong friends with a little brat whose mother was lying on the floor near my feet. She was moaning loudly and may have been slightly dissolving. He, at about age eight or so, was sporadically yelling at her for not buying him a candy bar, intermixed with pouring his sugary drink on the table, then sucking it up. He was, in turns out, bored; a fact which he was not shy about announcing to the world. Often.

We became best friends after he noticed I was trying to divert myself with my GameBoy. He set up shop practically on my lap and began a long running list of facts and opinions.

"I have a PSP. It's better than a GameBoy."
"Is that a maze? I bet I could solve it."
"Have you ever heard of Mortal Kombat? I'm really good. The guy with the mask can rip your spine out."
"I want to play now!"
"That looks hard. Can I try?"
"My mom's whining."
"I sure wish I could play that for a while."
"My brother is good at racing games, but I'm better."

I'm ashamed to say that he wore me down, and eventually I just gave him the dang thing. He proceeded to show me how to beat the maze. Or the spider. Or something. I took a little nap.


By 2 AM, Wayne and I had driven across town to find eye medicine. He was leaning back in his chair, partially blinded, and I was searching for the hotel. This was about the time that the police pulled me over for suspected drunk driving.

In my defense, I was driving slowly to look for road signs. This also explains my partial turns, abandoned after deciding they were not the right way. Also, the van has a solid back -- thus, no real-view mirror and a huge blind spot. I guess he'd been following me for a while.

So, I get siren'd over and the police officer finds me, a little scared and pretty exhausted, and Wayne, who was apparently dead except for his eyes, which were violently escaping his body in leaky rivulets. I tried to explain that I was looking for a hotel -- he made a note of that before telling me that I had driven right past the turn-off for the hotel two blocks earlier. My nerve broken, I answered all his other questions with little noises and whimpers.

He ran my driver's license through his computer for a long, long time.