Peace, Love, and Lutefisk: Adventures i Norge

I have just returned home after four days in Pine Ridge, but it feels like I was there so much longer. I feel like I learned more in those four days than I have all summer, and although I am nowhere near qualified to be an expert on Native American issues or history, quite a few things stood out that I want to share.

First, the biggest thing is realizing how little I knew. It is unbelieveable that this enormous part of South Dakotan and American is glossed over at best in schools, media, and conversations. For me, this trip was supposed to be for research for my master's thesis, but it was quickly apparent that it was more of a personal journey for me, one that I think I have wanted to take ever since reflecting on my South Dakota roots while in Norway.

I feel like I have seen poverty before in Tanzania and South Africa, but Pine Ridge was different. The people there were not as poor as in other places, but the barriers for people succeed seem greater. The first thing that stood out was the lack of commercial opportunities in Pine Ridge. There is not a single bank in the city of Pine Ridge (the largest city in the Pine Ridge Reservation), and the only outside businesses are a Taco John's fast food restaurant, a small Alltel cell phone store, and a gas station that has grown from an old trading post to its current 24 hour status. There are no small businesses, clothing stores, sports stores, libraries, restaurants, nothing. In fact, the largest employers are the Bureau of Indian Affairs (Fed Gov't), the Tribal Gov't, and the Tribal Gov't services like police, hospitals, etc. It is no wonder then that the unemployment rate on the reservation is 85%! Can you imagine that?

The problems are all so interrelated as well. Another problem on the reservation is a housing/land shortage. People there often live with 8, 10, 12 people to a small trailer-size home. As I understand it, every family from the tribe is allotted a portion of land. When I say family, I mean 3 generations of extended family. In order to sell land, there has to be approval from 75% of the family, which makes it incredibly difficult considering that a majority of the family lives outside of the reservation and are often impossible to contact, especially without help from the government or anyone else who could help faciliate. Thus, if you grow up in your dad's house and want to stay in the reservation, you either have to squeeze another house on the land or live in your father's house. This compounds the problem of getting businesses to the rez since it is so difficult for them to get land themselves.

On top of this, insurance is extremely expensive because of vandalism and probably stereotypes that insurers may have of the reservation. Pine Ridge is also miles away from anywhere so businesses don't want to come there, and the land that the Lakota were corralled onto is basically worthless. Crops hardly grow and there is hardly enough grass to even have a ranch. Plus, there's the history. I learned so much of the dark history of the US while at Pine Ridge. The Lakota controlled land from Canada to Kansas and Wyoming to Minnesota. When gold was discovered in California in 1849, the Oregon Trail cut through Nebraska and the US gov't and the Lakota signed an agreement of non-violence on the trail. This evolved from removing Lakota from the trail to eventually confining them to western SD. Then, Custer illegally entered the Lakota's terrority and discovered gold in the Black Hills, which is the holiest place for the Lakota. It's their Garden of Eden and Jersulaem rolled into one. The Whites of course wanted the Black Hills to extract the gold and they tried to buy it. The Lakota refused (who would sell the wailing wall for mining?), and the US began a nasty policy called sell or starve. They basically slaughtered the buffalos throughout the plains, shooting buffaloes off of trains and just leaving thousands of carcasses to rot. The buffalo were the life source of the Lakota and as the buffalo disappeared, it became more difficult to continue the semi-nomadic life style because there main food source become more and more scarce. As it became more difficult to hunt food, they were forced onto the reservation where the government offered food. The gov't continued to take more and more land, and it culminated in the Wounded Knee Massacre. In 1890 Black Foot, the chief of the Lakota tribe, led his people towards the Pine Ridge Reservation. They were intercepted by US forces and disarmed and escorted to Wounded Knee, a small valley about 10 miles from Pine Ridge. The Lakota were surrounded by troops armed with an early machine gun and at some point, a gun discharged and the US troops opened fire on the 300 unarmed men, women, and children, chasing after and killing victims up to 4 miles away from the camp. It was the last conflict between the Lakota and the US gov't.

This pillaging and massacre-ing was followed by almost a hundred years of forced assimilation by outlawing the Lakota language in schools, "adopting" (read taking) Lakota children from their parents into White families, and outlawing traditional religions and cultural activities. This all culminated in the 1970's. Two Lakotas in two seperate incidents were killed by Whites who were eventually found not guilty. This ignited a civil war on the reservation. The American Indian Movement (AIM) took over the city of Wounded Knee for 71 days as protest to governmental policies. There was a shoot out with government agents and a few casualities on both sides, but it set off a fight between Lakotas who wanted to return to a traditional lifestyle and those who wanted to be more connected with the outside world. In the 1970's there were over 70 unsolved murders as the tribe was divided and in the midst of a civil war between traditionalists and modernists. Everyone was in one camp or the other and at the time Pine Ridge was one of the most dangerous places in the US, maybe the world. Showing up as a white person would be inviting disaster. Even today, there is a tension between tradition and modernity, and although it is no longer violent, it is interesting to see some people practice traditional beliefs like sweat lodges (where lakotas sit in sauna like places and pray) and the sun dance (a traditional religious dance), while others embrace english and christianity. Interestingly enough, many people also practice a hybrid of both.

I definitely feel guilt and embarassment of what my government and relatives did and continue to do. Fortunately, I feel after being there that there is hope. I mean, if a culture and people can survive almost 100 years of violence and efforts to destroy their culture, it seems that their culture could have a rebirth with space and support from others. There are huge problems with poverty, opportunities, sexism, alcoholism, domestic abuse, and discrimination, but there are talented, hard working people fighting to improve conditions. We just have to do what we can to help and acknowledge what we have done in the past.

There are so many other interesting experiences from Pine Ridge such as the splinter University system in which teachers travel around the reservation so students don't have to and debates in the tribal council now, (done in a mix of English with a little Lakota), about opening a women's health clinic (possibly abortion clinic) on the reservation to circumvent SD laws outlawing abortion. But I ramble. Basically, it was a good experience. I don't know if it will help my research, but personally it was an important experience. I am far from an expert, but I want to learn more and hopefully some of these thoughts will help spark interest in someone else.