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]]]]]]]]] AMERICAN INDIANS: SWEPT UNDER THE RUG [[[[[[[[[[[[[
In South Dakota, Oglala Sioux pay heavily (12/27/1988)
for their artificial economy
by Mia Dyson (nursing student, Columbia University)
The Op-Ed page of The New York Times 12/26/88
[Kindly uploaded by Freeman 07656GAED]
This summer I worked in the field health nursing department on Pine
Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Many people told me that
the reservation system is the least the Government can do for the
Native Americans. No, it's the worst. Native Americans are being
bought off.
True, any attempt at changing the system would result in huge
struggles, in an opening of old wounds, in the loss of an American
status quo. But struggles are preferable to stupor, pain to ignor-
ance. Native American culture is strong enough to withstand the rav-
ages of change that would accompany the dismantling of the reserva-
tions.
The reservation is home to 19,246 Oglala Sioux. It is a rugged,
beautiful land devoid of trees and laced with white chalk bluffs
tucked among grassy hills and wide lonely prairies. Storms glide
across the sky like huge ships, often thundering without spilling any
rain.
The Sioux were herded onto Pine Ridge reservation in 1878 in order
to provide a safer environment for the white American pioneers who
wanted to settle in the area. Decimination of the great buffalo
herds by white settlers caused widespread famine among native
Americans, and this made many Indians resigned to relocatiny to
reservations.
The Sioux had a reputation among the Plains tribes for fierce
nationalism and aggressiveness. In the late 1800's, they fought
white domination heroically, or savagely, depending upon one's
perspective. But in the end, the combined force of enemy Indian
tribes and the white military proved superior. In 1908, the famous
massacre at Wounded Knee on Pine Ridge reservation was the final
major armed encounter between whites and Native Americans in North
America.
Subsequently, the Government implanted a welfare system in the
infrastructure of the reservation to meet the basic needs of these
people who had lost much of their land. Federal assistance permits
Pine Ridge to continue to function as a semi-autonomous society. A
powerful governing body of Oglala Sioux has great autonomy in
managing the allocation of its public assistance.
But the Oglala Sioux pay dearly for their artificial economy.
Because the governing tribal bodies want to keep Western influence at
a minimum, there is little commercial activity. The result is an un-
employment rate pushing 75 per cent.
The Oglala Sioux have responded to large-scale public assistance by
accepting a very low, but guaranteed, level of subsistence and by
largely losing their initiative. Why work when you can earn [sic]
more on welfare?
Why does this system exist in the middle of one of the most right-
wing, capitalist countries? I do not accept as an answer the
shameful past behavior of the white Government. Rather, the answer
lies in political inertia.
The system is fairly invisible, has little effect on our interna-
tional reputation and doesn't demand much energy or attention from
policy makers. Just imagine the upheaval if anyone attempted to
change the system. Native Americans would resist a loss of their
rights as reservation dwellers, and many non-Indians would view this
as another act of white domination over, and interference in, Native
American society. Yet maintaining fragmented, destitute cultures as
viable semi-autonomous societies freezes Native Americans into an
unchanging tableau.
Societies have a life span. They are born, they flourish, they
decline and they evolve into aother societies. It is sad enough that
American society seems to be in a decline. But sadder still is the
fact that the Native Americans are living on a political respirator.
The few seeds for growth or for change are often washed away in
floods of alcoholism.
Certain traditions, beliefs and mores have been salvaged and con-
tinue to be passed down the generations. But these historical roots
have become cultural ornaments and rarely provide purpose and meaning
to individuals' lives. Although the continued support of the reser-
vation system has not prevented Western influence from seeping in and
displacing this aspect of Native American culture, it has isolated
the Indian people from participation in mainstream life. Our
pluralistic society, enriched by so many peoples and cultures, is
barely influenced by Native American philosophies and traditions.
Torn screen doors, flies droning over food encrusted dishes, naked
babies crawling over grimy linoleum floors -- this is often the first
impression of family life that greets the field nurses on home
visits. Yet amid the lethargy and low morale, there is still room
for statements of identity. During pow-wow season, the women work
with great energy to create beautiful costumes for their sons and
daughters to dance in. Families are defined in much greater units
than our own nuclear families, and loyalties extend through these
enlarged circles. These are cultural characteristics that we harried
and high-tech non-indians would benefit from being exposed to.
I have often heard Indians at Pine Ridge say they wanted to be left
alone. While they grant responsibility for satisfying thier basic
needs to the Government, and yet remain separate from its productive
mechanism [sic], the Sioux are not being left alone. They are being
swept under the carpet.
Let's not romanticize the Indians as an episode in our colorful
past, but rather let us recognize that they are a people of the
1980's as they were a people of the 1880's. Then, and now, they are
America's hidden shame. History cannot be rewritten, but it need not
cripple the future.
* * *
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