When men get insensibly drunk they go “monstering,” they give you the “death look.” There was a man and his wife, I won’t mention their names. They seemed to have a good marriage and to be happy together. One day he got into drinking the hard stuff, more than usual. He went berserk and killed her. He doesn’t know why he did it, doesn’t even have the slightest remembrance of it. The day before, I saw them laughing and joking together, Another friend of mine was found dead in her home, strangled with a nylon stocking. A young woman, Nellie, was discovered early one morning, lying dead among some trash cans at St. Francis. She was badly beaten up. I used to be good buddies with her. She had a brand-new baby. On the res, death is a way of life.
Sometimes it is the man who dies. One girl I knew, she was with this man who drank a lot. He was always partying. She had a good job in the tribe as a secretary. One time they had a party. She was in the kitchen and he came up behind her and started choking her. She grabbed a knife, stuck it into his heart, and killed him. She is now in a halfway house in Sioux Falls. And we had the case where a woman, out shopping in her car, caught her husband in another car making love to a woman. She revved up her vehicle and rammed them at full speed. Everybody was killed.
In 1984, a famous case of woman battering involved a Northwest Coast lady, Paula Three Stars. She had lived with a man, Sonny Evening, for a number of years. He was a wino who beat her into a bloody pulp every time he got drunk. He did it once too often, and Paula, tired of being hurt, killed him in self-defense. Now, men have always had the right to kill, if necessary, in defense of themselves, or their families, and of their property, but this same right was not always given to a woman. Paula was originally sentenced to ten years for first-degree murder. She felt “stunned, betrayed, and outraged.” Thanks to intervention by a number of courageous Native American spokeswomen and organizations, her sentence was later changed to three years’ probation, and she was released. Another famous case was that of Yvonne Wanrow, a Colville Indian, who shot and killed a white man, William “Chicken Bill” Wesler, a known child molester. Wesler burst into Yvonne’s home in the wee hours of the morning totally drunk and lurched toward the bed in which Yvonne’s three children were sleeping. The day before, Chicken Bill had tried to molest Yvonne’s nine-year-old son, Darren. He had threatened the boy with a knife and bruised his arm but Darren had managed to escape. Chicken Bill had also previously raped the seven-year-old daughter of Yvonne’s baby-sitter. When he broke into her house Yvonne was still on crutches, with one leg in a cast, the result of a fracture. She took no chances but let Chicken Bill have it point-blank, defending not only herself but also her kids. In spite of the fact that the intruder had been arrested many times for similar offenses and was well known to the police, Yvonne Wanrow was indicted for murder and had to fight for years to preserve her freedom. There are many similar cases, but these two will suffice to highlight this problem.
We have to struggle against domestic violence. Women are now beginning to fight this situation. They go into tribal politics. They are not afraid to put a restraining order on violent men. They give strength to each other. We have the White Buffalo Woman Society at Rosebud, and the Sacred Shawl Society in Pine Ridge. The White Buffalo Woman Society was founded in 1979 by Tillie Black Bear, herself a victim of domestic violence. She has also started a drive to have all the Medals of Honor given to the soldiers who massacred our women and children at Wounded Knee in 1890 revoked.
If a man hits a woman, she can turn around and put him in jail for domestic violence. A tribal judge might release him even if he cannot make bond, but he can’t go back to his house or go near his wife and make trouble. And the court forces him to go to domestic violence counseling. They have all kinds of programs for that, both for men and women. They can take a couple’s kids away for child neglect. They can make you go to alcohol addiction counseling. There is a halfway house in Antelope called Little Hoop. You go there for thirty days’ counseling and you can’t have any letters or phone calls. Many children are taken to foster homes because of domestic violence. Some men, when ordered to have counseling, will just say: “To hell with it,” and split, going to Denver or St. Paul, living in Indian ghettos, leaving their women and children to fend for themselves. But some guys, who care for their families, will admit their mistakes and try to make a go of it.
In some tribes we have had instances of incest. This is something absolutely new, the result not only of alcoholism, but of too much contact with white America’s “civilization.” In the past, incest and child molesting by close relatives were unknown because this crime violated the most important taboo among Native Americans. The fear and abhorrence of incest was so pronounced and widespread that it led to so-called avoidance taboos, which made: it impossible for a mother-in-law to speak to or come near a son-in-law, or for a father-in-law to even have a conversation with his daughter-in-law. But now, the vices and crimes of the white, dominant society trickle onto our reservations as the result of the suppression of our old religion, which formed a bulwark against them.
Another problem we are facing is the removal of children from their mothers because the father is drinking, or on account of “primitive living conditions in the home.” Children are torn from their families for the flimsiest reasons, to wind up in white foster homes or orphanages. We also oppose the many attempts by white childless couples to adopt our kids. A child adopted out of its tribe is lost to us. Our kids are our greatest hope for the future and we cannot afford to lose them.
I remember that in Michigan, Indian women formed the Native American Child Protection Council (NACPC) to prevent the “wholesale abduction and adoption of Indian children.” They pointed out that because of the shortage of white babies available for adoption, and because nobody wanted black babies, there was now a sort of gold rush stampede to adopt Indian infants. They pointed out that adoption agency scouts were going into Native American homes, telling the residents that their place was unfit “because two or three children were sleeping in one bed.” Hell, in most Indian families I know, there are two or three kids sleeping in one bed. We don’t have the white-style “nuclear families,” with a limit of two children, and our houses, mostly shacks and trailers, are too small for more than one bedroom.
The NACPC got together with other Indian women’s groups and there was, and is, a shared feeling that our children should not be adopted out unless at least one member of the couple is a Native American. We are also of the opinion that children should not be given in adoption until there is a guarantee that the child will not lose its Indian identity. In this fight to keep our little ones, to preserve for us a future generation, we run again and again into those whites who want to convince our families to give up their kids for either monetary, racial, or religious reasons.
Among the worst offenders is the Mormon Church. The Latter-day Saints build some of their churches on Indian reservations. They have a program to place our children in Mormon homes, luring the parents with promises of a better life for their children, saying: “Your kids will get a better education, better food and clothing, and better living conditions than you are able to give them.” They even try to bribe the children with gifts of candy and toys. The Indian women are pestered and badgered to sign papers for a “voluntary placement program for one year,” meaning forever. They say: “We will make your children ‘shining with light and delight fulsome,’” whatever that means. Well, it means child stealing. Hand in hand with that kind of stealing goes a theft of land in a grand manner, particularly in the Southwest. We are all hell-fired up to fight this alien church.
Another fight I was involved in was trying to prevent the forced sterilization of Indian women. My sister Barb was sterilized without her consent. Mom thinks that Barb needed a hysterectomy for reasons of health. She always says that Barb might have died without it, but Barb and I don’t think so. There was at that time, some fifteen or twenty years ago, a trend among white BIA doctors to sterilize Native American w
omen, either by taking out their wombs or by tying their tubes. The prevailing attitude among the white people running our lives was: Those damn Indians, breeding like rabbits, living in substandard conditions, existing on welfare, are being a burden on the American taxpayer. And most of them are not even legally married! Let’s prevent those squaws having more papooses!
Many women were unmercifully harassed by white social workers and hospital people, who told them that they were bad mothers since they were always drunk, their homes were unsanitary, and they didn’t have money enough to raise children. Again and again, Indian women were told: “Wouldn’t it be better for you not to have more children rather than have them wind up in a faraway foster home?” As an example, in July 1974, in one small hospital in Claremore, Oklahoma, no fewer than forty-eight sterilizations were performed on Native American women. One of the strongest fighters against this form of genocide was Dr. Connie Uri, a Choctaw-Cherokee medical doctor who lived in Los Angeles and supported Indian civil rights causes. Altogether, several hundred essentially illegal sterilizations were carried out during those years. Chicano women were also targets of the sterilizers. Barb went to a conference on this subject in Europe, describing what was going on.
Women on the res generally like Lakota Woman. They tease me, calling me a star. They tell me: “It’s about time someone had the guts to tell the truth, to write about what’s going on. Everybody talks about it in private, but nobody has the guts to go public with it.” Many Indian women have told me that they are real proud of the book. There are even some guys who have come up to me on the res, saying that they like the book, asking me to autograph it for them. They even tell me: “Right on, sister! Let it all hang out, tell it like it is! It’s important.” They even have the book up at the college. But there is a negative side to it too. Some say that I destroy the romantic image of the noble Indian. One of my aunties criticized me for the personal stuff I put in the book. She is a fundamentalist Christian and just does not understand how I could have put such embarrassing things on paper, mentioning things that should never be spoken of. A lot of women come to me for advice and I tell them: “I am not an elder. There are grandmothers who have been in the world longer than I, who have a long life of experience, who can tell you a lot more than I could.” I just tell the sisters: “Be strong for yourself and each other.” I suddenly have many white women admirers. Some are New Age people and they send me crystals as gifts. They are beautiful and I like to look at them, but I do not know what to do with these wonderful sparkling things that seem to have a rainbow at their core. I know that there are some people who have a gift to use crystals, but I am not one of them. I have gotten many letters from women who have read the book. Some wrote me: “I can feel for you, because I have been through the same things,” or: “I remember those days, you brought it all back for me,” and: “Truth is always beautiful, even when it is ugly.” Some white women wrote that they did not even know that Indians still existed, that they are still struggling for survival. One black woman wrote: “I love you, sister. I live in an urban slum, you live in a rural slum. That’s the only difference. What you experienced, we experienced.” Some writers want help, others want to help. One woman in California wanted to come and live with me. She wanted to get into Indian spirituality and have visions. She wanted to live in a tipi. I wrote her that living in a tipi wasn’t all that great, especially in winter, and with children. I advised her to stay close to the hot and cold water, the gas stove, and the flush toilet. I hope that my book did some good. I agree with the woman who wrote that truth is beautiful, even when it is ugly.
I am proud of our Indian women, proud for their courage in adversity, for holding the tribes together. I think of them often, and I remember. I think most of all of ANNIE MAE AQUASH. She stayed with us for a while. She was a Micmac, but she learned our Sioux ways. She took medicine with me in meetings of the Native American Church. Wherever Indians were mistreated or had problems, there you could find Annie Mae, in the middle of it. She told me: “If any of my brothers are shot at, or being killed, I’ll go and fight with them. I’ll defend my sisters, if they are in trouble. I’ll die for my people. I do not care for living a long life. I’ll put my body on the line. Better to die young than stand aside and see others fight.” She died young, her frozen body lying in the snow. I think she knew that hers would be a violent death. Her spirit lives. She was a very special friend to me.
I feel particularly close to the sisters who were with me at the Knee. There is LORELEI DE CORA. She was our “pistol-packing mama,” who at only nineteen years of age ran the medical clinic inside Wounded Knee. A Miniconjou Sioux, she had been invoked in the movement since she was sixteen. She was for some years married to Ted Means, brother of Russell. I remember her telling the crowd at the Knee: “This is where it’s at, the fewest and the poorest making a stand here. We are the grass roots.” She was one of the founders of Women of All the Red Nations. Several of our women took part in the firefights. And when someone was wounded, our nurses—Lorelei DeCora, her sister Mary, Madonna Gilbert—would go out and bring them in amid a hail of bullets. Now she works as a nurse at our tribal hospital, where she runs a program fighting AIDS on the res. I recently asked her: “Did we really do all those crazy things way back?” She just laughed: “We thought they were the normal things to do.”
And there is KA-MOOK. Once known as Darlene Nichols, she’s an Oglala from Pine Ridge. She was, until recently, married to Dennis Banks, one of our leaders and a founder of AIM. Ka-Mook was arrested in 1975 on a firearms charge and taken to jail in Wichita, Kansas, where she gave birth to her second daughter, whom she named Ta Tiyopa Maza Win, or Iron Door Woman. She wrote from jail at the time: “Iron Door Woman is the perfect name for her, She has been behind iron doors for 2½ months and her name tells it.” Ka-Mook was held in solitary confinement under maximum-security conditions. Shortly before she gave birth a guard poked his finger into Ka-Mook’s belly, saying: “Are you sure that’s a baby in there, and not an M-16?"—his idea of a joke. She also wrote from her cell: “The feds are putting us behind bars to hold us down, but they can’t keep us in jail forever. One of these days we’ll all be out again and we’ll be that much stronger. Maybe then our children won’t have to suffer and go through the things we’re putting up with now. And by shoving us behind bars they’re also making our people on the outside stronger. And I’m here for a reason and that reason is my children and all the children of my people.”
I owe much to GRANDMA JOSETTE WAWASIK, an Ojibway lady who acted as the chief midwife for me when I gave birth to Pedro on April 11, 1973. She helped deliver my baby with bullets flying through the air and the pigs’ armored personnel carriers churning around real close to the perimeter. She went on calmly, pressing on my belly, lifting the newborn out, cutting the umbilical cord as if this was a routine birth in a peaceful city hospital. She was holding my baby up at the window for everybody to see, and there was drumming outside, and the singing of the AIM song, and tears and laughter, and hugging all around. “I am here at the Knee because I believe in life,” Grandma Wawasik told me. I will remember her forever. After I had my baby they made a big meal for me, but the boys were so excited they ate it all up, so I had tea. Carter Camp, one of the AIM leaders, claimed Pedro as his nephew. He said: “I’m going to be his first uncle.” Dennis Banks made him a birth certificate from the Independent Oglala Nation. I still have it.
And I will also never forget GRACE BLACK ELK, Wallace’s wife, who, sadly, has gone to the Spirit World. At the Knee she told us: “They can’t do anything to us but kill us and, if they do, others will come up after us to finish this fight.”
One of the bravest women I ever met was GLADYS BISONETTE, from Pine Ridge, who always stood up to the goons who had murdered so many of our people, and who told our mini-Hitler, Dicky Wilson, to his face that he was a killer, a crook, and a drunken fool. It was Gladys, and a few other women like her, who, shortly before the takeover, at a meeting i
n Calico, told the men: “Let’s make our stand at Wounded Knee, because that place has meaning for us, because so many of our people were massacred there. If you guys don’t want to do it, we women will, and you men can stay behind and mind the kids.”
After the marshals opened up on us, Gladys spoke to the women, saying: “There were bullets coming out of the night, whizzing around our heads, our chests, our legs, bullets over and around us, but none of those bullets found their way into our bodies, because the Great Spirit protects us. Don’t be afraid of those bullets—pigs’ bullets, I call them.”
Beside Gladys stood ELLEN MOVES CAMP, a Lakota, who had been fired from her job with the health service because she stood up against the oppression that was going on. She remembered: “There were only two men from AIM at the meeting in the Calico community hall, but there were three hundred of us women, and elders, old chiefs, and all of our medicine men except one. He was too old and sick to come. It was there and then that we made the decision to make our stand at the Knee. It was the women who came forward and spoke out and who first came up with the idea to take over the Knee. The men were hanging back, worrying about the consequences. It was the really old people, the grandfathers and grandmothers, who agreed with us, saying: ‘Go ahead and do it!’” At the Knee, Ellen ran around with a headband reading IMPEACH NIXON. Like most of us, Ellen has mellowed out. She has to stay home now, at Wanblee, South Dakota, minding the grandchildren, our common fate.
Ohitika Woman Page 21