'It lies within the culture' (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

'It lies within the culture'

By JENNI DILLON
Star-Tribune staff writer Tuesday, August 30, 2005
http://www.jacksonholestartrib.com/articles/2005/08/30/news/wyoming/8a4b695d8986c7718725706c006ef74c.txt

ETHETE -- Two lines of women sit facing each other, hidden from the
afternoon sun under a tent canopy behind the Wind River Tribal College.

The hands of four of the women swing back and forth in time with beating
drums, fists closed. Each woman hides a small stick on one of her hands.
It is up to a player from the opposing team to guess where the sticks
are hidden, earning points for her team in a traditional Arapaho hand
game called koxouhtiit.

About 100 yards away, under another canopy, Arapaho adults step in a
circle as drums echo off the stone of the old mission building nearby.
They are learning traditional social dances, or nii'eihii ho'eii.

The games and social dances are not everyday activities for the Arapaho
people living on the Wind River Indian Reservation, but they once were.
Traditions as simple as games and dances, as integral as the Arapaho
language and religion, have fallen by the wayside in recent decades.
Some tribal leaders, however, are working to return such knowledge to
their people.

Last month, the college hosted a three-day immersion language camp for
adults, re-teaching not only language, but also elements of religion
and culture.

"We teach on the protocol of the religion, the history of the tribe,
wellness and health the way it used to be compared to now," said Eugene
Ridgely, bilingual education coordinator for the college. "This
afternoon, we get into traditional games, then some social dancing."

Though most of the participants won't walk away with more than a few
words of Arapaho, several will buy English-Arapaho dictionaries and
at-home tutorials. More importantly, some will gain a spark of interest
in their culture, perhaps taking advantage of language classes offered
regularly at the college or of other cultural renewal activities
sponsored on the reservation.

The quest is about more than protecting a dying language and culture.
It's about turning to the ways of the past to correct some of the
modern challenges facing the Arapaho people.

"If we had retained the language like we should have, the family
structure would still be strong," said Zona Moss, Ridgely's secretary
at the college. "It lies within the language, within the culture."

Ardeline Spotted Elk, a great-grandmother who has spent her life on the
reservation, spent the three days teaching about kinship, or
neito'eino', traditions in the tribe. Weeks earlier, she shared her own
memories of growing up in a different era and of how the world has
changed in her lifetime.

"We lived in real old cabins, with dirt roofs and floors. We had to get
water from the river. We had kerosene lamps. Everything was gravel,"
she recalled. "We learned Arapaho. We never spoke English until we went
to school at St. Michael's (Mission).

"It was a real nice, real enjoyable life. We just enjoyed our lives.
There was no alcohol, no drugs; we just lived a real peaceful life. The
way it is now is a real terrible life."

Not everyone on the reservation agrees that life has changed so
negatively, but some differences are indisputable.

Merle Haas, founder of the tribal college, said she prefers not to dwell
on the negative.

"My people are a proud people," she said. "But I suppose we have all the
social ills that are outside our reservation."

Employment problems

Empirically, it's hard to pinpoint just how extreme the reservation's
social and economic problems are.

The Wind River Indian Reservation makes up a big piece of Wyoming's
Fremont County, though most of the county's population is white. Even
the 2000 U.S. Census includes the border city of Riverton in its
definition of the reservation, making it difficult to separate the
Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho residents from their white
neighbors.

Fremont County does consistently have the highest unemployment rate in
Wyoming, and unemployment is even higher among American Indian workers,
according to the Census.

Kathy Vann, who heads the University of Wyoming Cooperative Extension
Service office in Ethete, explained that many men lack the education
necessary to get the few high-paying jobs on the reservation. Most are
forced to choose between travel-intensive work in the region's oil
fields or staying home with their families.

"I find that a lot of mothers work, and fathers, it's harder for me to
find jobs than for women, because there aren't that many jobs," she
said. "Men have to go to the biggest employer, the oil fields, where
they work seven-on, seven-off."

"That puts a lot of stress on mothers, taking care of kids alone for
seven days," added Lisa Perry, a 24-year-old UW student who works in
the office during the summer.

Even with some men working the oil rigs making good money, families in
Fremont County tend to bring home considerably less income than those
in other parts of the state, making poverty a stark reality for
reservation families.

Many families turn to grandparents for help; American Indian
grandparents are more likely than any other demographic group to live
in the same households with their grandchildren.

In Vann's family, for example, her ironworker sons gave up on traveling
throughout the western states for work, and one of their families moved
in with her.

"My (surrogate son) moved out of his mother's house and couldn't make it
financially, so he moved back in, along with his wife and three kids,"
she said.

"My sons got tired of living in hotels. I don't know if they thought
about getting their own place. They probably did, but didn't see why,"
she said with a laugh.

Perry said there is a shortage of housing on the reservation, and both
she and Vann tell stories of families who spent years on waiting lists,
applying for housing when their children were born and finally being
approved as grandparents.

Vann said she believes some children are being raised by their
grandparents because of rampant teen pregnancy and a culture of drug
and alcohol abuse by parents.

Residents of the reservation say alcoholism remains a chronic problem,
and methamphetamine use is on the rise.

Brian and Margo Williams, a couple raising seven children in their
blended family, tell of family members, friends and acquaintances who
have become addicted to the drug, sometimes abandoning their children
to get high or stealing from friends and neighbors to support their
habit.

"Meth around here is getting crazy," Margo said.

Brian's uncle and aunt, Darrell and Billy Hanway, are raising their
3-year-old granddaughter, whose father was killed in an impaired
driving accident. They also have a 1-month-old grandchild who was born
in a treatment facility due to his mother's drug addiction.

Not just the reservation

But while the numbers are somewhat worse, many Arapaho people said the
problems aren't limited to the reservation.

"I don't know if it has anything to do with the situation on the
reservation," Vann said. "I think, statewide, a lot of communities are
like that. It reflects what's going on in Wyoming."

Tribal elder William "Icky-John" C'Hair went a step further.

"I find that the problem is not within any one group or within any one
location," he said. "The problem is of such a magnitude, it's not only
nationwide, I think it's pretty much worldwide. We're just like any
group identified as a community -- the south side of Chicago, the east
side of New York. I think that the problem is prevalent."

The difference is that, in a community as small and tight-knit as the
reservation, such issues hit every home.

And, on the reservation, people are looking to different kinds of
solutions: ones from the past.

The Wind River Indian Reservation has several programs to combat its
social troubles, including the Indian Health Service Center, Bureau of
Indian Affairs Social Services and an Intergenerational Family Resource
Help Center.

Schools work with these agencies to provide services for children, and
Wyoming Indian Schools also work with the tribe to bring back
traditional values. The Arapaho language is part of the curriculum at
Wyoming Indian elementary, junior high and high schools, though C'Hair
said it is given too little time in the school day. He wants to see a
new immersion preschool program grow, introducing the language to 3-
and 4-year-olds, whose linguistic abilities are the most ripe, and
following them through their academic careers.

This fall, Arapaho Charter High School will open near the town of
Arapahoe. Designed to combat high dropout rates among reservation
students, the school will be centered on Arapaho language, culture and
values and will use more hands-on and individual teaching styles to
keep teens interested in education.

The Arapaho Council of Elders also works to provide education to all
tribal members on traditional skills, from radio personality Big Joe's
daily Arapaho language lessons beamed into cars and homes to subsidized
courses in language and nearly lost skills such as meat cutting.

It's not just about history or identity, C'Hair said. He said the
Arapaho language and culture provide a lifestyle guide that can help
stem the tide of social challenges.

"We believe, we firmly do believe, that the language was a gift from our
Creator. As such, it is sacred to us," he said. "Without it, we cannot
exist in the manner the Creator intended for us."