Annual Interdisciplinary Graduate Symposium presented by the Anthropology Graduate Student Association

I will translate four of the pieces of the commissioned artwork for you in verbal terms and hope to paint a complete picture of each of them.

The first piece is fairly straight forward as it depicts a single Indigenous man and three wounded animals. For the time period in which this piece was created (c. early 1900s), the open range hunt had been dead for at least 40 years. This is particularly important as it relates to a practice long since forcibly eradicated and denied to an Indigenous individual of this age bracket by the federal government. The mere possibility that this individual ever participated in an open range hunt is very remote to almost impossible as the animals depicted in this piece are the North American bison, the species that provided a staple food, clothing, and lodge cover for this tribe, and the elk, previously found in abundance in the Black Hills range on the western edge of the Teton Bands’ former territory. The last animal depicted in this piece is the wolf, an old and well-known animal to the Oglala, however, to my knowledge the wolf was never hunted for food. It would have been normal for a hunter to tell tales of successful hunts of the first two animals, but completely out of character to include the wolf as an animal inherent to the Oglala in their food chain. What is stark about this piece is the appearance of all three creatures in the same piece and all wounded at the same time. I think that even the casual observer might speculate that food was an issue at the time of the creation of this piece.

The next piece of art is of two Indigenous men firing weapons at one another. Traditionally, Indigenous people did not engage in battle with one another with the intent to kill or eliminate their enemy as this created a very dangerous atmosphere of retaliation that would have only led to critically dangerous loss of population to the losing side. In the case of internal tribal murder or accidental death, the offending individual would more often than not be deemed by the Elders to have to assume the responsibility for feeding and providing for the dead individual’s family, a burden under the best of circumstances, nearly impossible as the result of intertribal death from open warfare. Prior to contact, this scene of one Indigenous man holding a bow and arrow and the other holding a modern weapon and openly engaging in close quarters battle would not have occurred. The clothing depicted in this piece is also odd as it shows each man wearing blue leggings with red and white trim at the bottom. From my perspective the artist is declaring an emergency by reversing the colors of the U.S. flag and the warriors are wearing them upside down, a sign of distress which the Indigenous peoples have been in for decades at the point the artwork was created. One man is wearing a blue shirt and the other is wearing a red shirt, both are wearing bone chokers to protect their necks, both have a single Eagle Feather flat on their head, and both show a head wound. The shirts could be of wool cloth that was available from the trader their tribe did business with and could also have significance within their tribal structure. The Eagle feather they wear has significance with regard to their individual accomplishments on the field of battle or for some other feat each has performed selflessly for the good of the tribe. The bone chokers may seem superfluous at this time in history, however, the beads could slow down the advance of a bullet and would definitely protect against a sabre blow if made and kept up properly. The head wounds are indicative of a slow decline in Indigenous populations due to Indigenous on Indigenous violence, white on Indigenous violence, and the constant government/cavalry presence to provide instant compliance or more indiscriminate Indigenous death and loss.

The third piece of artwork is a very multilayered piece as it depicts a number of items/issues, some of which are traditional, some of which are influenced by other factors.

All of the figures in this art piece are lying prone on the ground in a circle around a central figure. At first glance, the image of the circle appears to resemble a full Eagle Feather War Bonnet as seen in countless movies. Looking closer, the image is of 46 individuals all wearing white Ghost Dance Shirts, including the central figure who has nothing on his head. This scene also has on the right hand side and just above the opening to the circle, a U.S. flag. Also, in the upper right hand corner is a lodge (tipi) painted red. In the rest of the piece there are ten lodges in a row above and a row below the central lodge, which is larger than the rest. I can only guess that the artist wanted us to understand that the Ghost Dance is dead, that all of the Chiefs who supported it are dead (the central figure as representative and literally at the time of the artwork), their followers are dead, the U.S. has won the battle over the Ghost Dance, and the Ghost Dance Lodge has been bled to death. What is peculiar and leads me to believe that this artist has no frame of reference to compare to concerning the traditional method in which lodges were set up. The artist’s rendition shows the lodges arranged in rows with the doors facing in, much like you would see in a Hollywood movie. This tells me that this artist is fairly young and has heard the oral histories of the Ghost Dance and its demise, yet has not heard the stories of how lodges are set up, with their doors all facing east no matter where they are in the circle of lodges. The loss of individuals is devastating. The loss of cultural knowledge, to include language, medicine, ceremony, and oral history, is interrupted by the loss of generational Elders who possess this knowledge and it is catastrophic in nature.

The fourth piece of artwork is also of interest understanding that is has been between 30 and 40 years since the content of the art piece took place and the focus of the piece was last seen alive and astride a horse. The figure is none other than Yellow Hair or George Armstrong Custer, a colonel at the time of his death. Yellow Hair is ornately dressed in a Cavalry Blue top with brass armbands, a full length chest breastplate of white bone, a coup stick in his left hand, and a riding crop in his right hand, both of which are nicely decorated. Yellow Hair is also wearing a full Eagle feather war bonnet and he sits on his ornately decorated horse on a red, white, and blue checked horse blanket. His leggins are either yellow wool or smoke tanned leather with blue beadwork on them. The horse is also something to see. Neck hair braided, right flank ornately painted, a very fancy red, white, and blue “scarf,” for lack of a better word, an Eagle feather in the horse’s bridle, and another one tied to its tail with a red band of material. This artist could be within the age bracket of having seen Yellow Hair and his men wiped out, however, and as noted above, the overwhelming probability of this is not good. In all likelihood, this artist has created a heavily stylized drawing of Yellow Hair and embellished it accordingly after hearing many stories told of the Battle of the Greasy Grass.
Significance

These four pieces were chosen for their overall representation of the various groups of artwork in this unpublished collection, to include works by children.

The first piece details the absolute state of starvation the Indigenous populations were experiencing during this timeframe. Woolford’s (2009, p. 82) “ontology of destruction” explains the loss of the culture of open range hunting and its deep multigenerational effect on having to survive on rotten or no meat rations, any type of grain being filled with mealworms and/or other pests, along with institutionalized regular shortages of goods for distribution. In a story in Stirrup (2005, p. 656) and “recounted by Jeanette: In 1918 the last buffalo died… It didn’t die from gun or arrow, but from an intense loneliness.” The very people who depended on the bison for all of their needs were gone, so even the bison were left to a future of uselessness in accordance with their millennia-old contact with Indigenous peoples and were no longer needed. Card (Winter, 2003, p. 65) uses the term “robbing them of self-respect” to explain how the loss of hunting rights effectively emasculates the Indigenous male and forces him to assimilate or become irrelevant. This is also another point made by Woolford when he quotes Lemkin regarding the term “ethnocide” (Woolford, 2009, p. 86) and how the loss of cultural relevance leads to genocide or ethnocide of the group as functional beings. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) would lead the several categories of psychological effects keeping these Indigenous peoples company. Dependent Personality Disorder (DPD) would follow directly on the heels of PTSD, especially when their anticipated rations do not feed the people for a day, never mind the month. The abandonment associated with the loss of hunting rights and traditional obligations to those hunted for socio-religious purposes, as well as the loss of pure subsistence hunting, would explain Acute Stress Disorder (ASD). The significance of these findings is that PTSD, in particular, has managed to infect subsequent generations of Indigenous populations with ease and veracity as clearly manifested in this depiction of hunger and longing. This also brings the ASD finding into play as the everyday stressors of the post-Hunter/Gatherer reservation lifestyle has had such a denigrating and absorbing effect, as well.

The second piece is also very disturbing as this piece sets Indigenous man against Indigenous man in a blatant act of personal destruction. It again belies traditional warfare due to the act itself. It is a testament, for lack of a better word, to the insidious and destructive nature of white warfare contact. It is also an indicator of PTSD and ASD, as well as Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) in the form of Dysthymic Disorder, which has become institutionalized on all Indigenous reservations by this time and has also leached down into the populations of each reservation into the general population, to include children. The significance is that Dysthymia is the longitudinal and persistent occurrence of major depressive episodes present in the population for extended periods of time. In the case of Indigenous populations forced onto U.S. government reservations, Dysthymia is not just an everyday occurrence, it has become, at this stage in the artists’ lives, an accepted way of life. Additionally, both of these men depicted in the artwork could be suffering from PTSD as they have been on a war footing for so many years and seen and been engaged in tragic activities that are far outside their tribal norms.

My third choice of artwork pieces is of the Ghost Dance. It is the Ghost Dance that was one of the extremely important issues surrounding the catastrophe of Wounded Knee and the Final Solution in the form of corralling Indigenous peoples into and keeping them corralled onto reservations. As previously stated, the Ghost Dance was a significant point of time in the lives of almost every Indigenous reservation and almost all of their respective populations. This was the pain of extreme traditional loss of life, the loss of culture, the loss of freedom even to feed themselves. All of these factors lead to Dysthymia, PTSD, ASD, and others, to include ethnocide, alcoholism, spousal and child abuse, and the literal neglect of the institution of normal daily life. Even the act of bereavement is denied these holocaust survivors as they cannot even bury their dead in accordance with their respective cultural norms. This piece holds significance to me due to the nature of its finality. The Traditional leaders are dead and with them the knowledge and backbone to stand up for the peoples’ rights at all costs. The Traditional people are dead because there was no one left to teach the Original Instructions, the Old Ways, to the next generation who were already dead inside. The US government is now the authority and it has no idea how to deal with these once vibrant people who now are hollow tumbleweeds blowing aimlessly about with no purpose. It is a sad day when an obligation is made public and then crushed because a government agency does not like the idea, regardless of its Traditional foundations.

The last piece is in and of itself an oddity. As discussed earlier, the artist could possibly have been at the Greasy Grass that day and seen the absolute destruction of Yellow Hair and all of his men, however, the probability of this is extremely remote due to the other bone crushing elements of Indigenous life in the post-apocalyptic timeframe leading up to the creation of these pieces of artwork. Yellow Hair was despised by the Teton Bands as a whole, and by the Oglala and Cheyenne in particular. His incessant search and destroy activities against these tribes was legendary. His growing knowledge of their capabilities should have been enormous and, yet, his arrogance continued to blind him to the very real threat that these two tribes in particular were capable of when cornered. The fact that even when warned by his Crow scouts, who wasted no positive emotions on either of the two tribes, Oglala or Cheyenne, Yellow Hair ignored their warnings and led his men to their death. The Crow knew what was about to happen and disappeared as quickly as they could. Despite this, and this is where things get strange as Yellow Hair was such a persistent and dedicated soldier, the Oglala, in particular, held Yellow Hair in a strange state of awe at his refusal to give up and his literal desire to die pursuing his convictions. It is in this light that the fourth piece of art was created. The artwork is detailed and elegant and is a tribute to the oral history that survived the grinding, incessant, and debilitating conditions of the reservation. It is this tribute to a soldier who fought and died for his convictions that inspired this piece of artwork to be created. This piece may even be an unknowingly cathartic effort on the part of the artist to help relieve the pain and suffering of the crushing effects of daily life weighed down by Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Acute Stress Disorder, and Dysthymic Disorder, almost all of which has literally been passed down from generation to generation.

This project spoke to me when I first saw the images of those whom I consider to be extended family. Without knowing who the individual artists were, I do know that they are from a tribe with which I used to have close contact and still have a few intimate contacts within. I know of their history of pain and suffering, having seen it up close and very personal, and will forever hold these people in awe for their fortitude and refusal to give up. Despite the original intent of the man who commissioned these pieces of art, he presented one of the few opportunities available to the artists to vent their anger, pain, frustration, loss and even admiration for Those Who Have Gone Before US and reside with the Ancestors, many of whom have made the Journey themselves.

These four pieces of artwork are a mere glimpse into the collection they were extracted from and described here. We will never know who the artists were, however, at some point in the future I can only hope that I or someone else will be able to bring these incredible peeks into the past and what they represent to a much larger and wider audience. To the UB Anthropology Graduate Student organization I have a grateful thank you to A.J. & the rest of the Committee for your patience while I put together a different paper than the one I originally had in mind. Nothing has changed on the reservation to date to address or correct any of the issues I have brought to the surface here, yet, perhaps we can begin chipping away at them soon.

Also, many thanks to Dr. Lisa Poupart for her brave trust in allowing me to use her poem in its entirety. It speaks specifically to the injurious and devastating nature of white social ills and their insidious effects on Indigenous populations even to this day.

REFERENCES

Beard, L.F.

2010. Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language,

Composition, and Culture 11(1): 109-134.

Card, C.

Winter 2003. Genocide and Social Death. Hypatia 18 (1): 63-79.

Conn, S.

March 2001. Agonizing over Indians. American Quarterly 53(1): 185-191.

First, M.B., Frances, A. & Pincus, H.A.

2002 DSM IV TR; Handbook of Differential Diagnosis. Washington D.C., American

Psychiatric Publishing, Inc.

Poupart, Lisa M.

2006. “Inheritance” a poem in Traces in Blood, Bone, and Stone:

Contemporary Ojibwe Poetry, Kimberly Blaeser (editor). Bemidji, MN: Loonfeather Press.

Rich, E.

Summer 2004. "Remember Wounded Knee": AIM's Use of Metonymy in 21^st Century Protest

31 (3): 70-91.

Robyn, L.

2002. Indigenous Knowledge and Technology Creating Environmental Justice in the Twenty

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Shepard, J.P.

Winter 2008. Hualapai History, Memory, and American Colonization. American Indian Quarterly 32(1): 16-42.

Stirrup, D.

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Quarterly 29 (3&4): 651-672.
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Chapter 10
Eradicating the Silence: The Changing Tide of Sexual Violence against the Women of Standing Rock Reservation
Jennifer Loft

Global Gender Studies

Sexual violence is quickly becoming an alarming problem throughout Indian Country. In some tribal communities, Native American women are starting to consider sexual assaults a normal part of life (Dobie 2011). Rape, for example, was once extremely rare in tribal communities. However, due to the processes of colonization and assimilation, Native American women now experience some of the highest rates of sexual assault, rape, and domestic violence across the United States and Canada (Deer 2009). According to the United States Department of Justice, Native American women are two and a half times more likely to be raped than women of other racial groups, translating into one in three Native women being raped within their lifetime (Sullivan 2007).

The United States Department of Justice also reports that almost two-thirds of Native American women have been sexually assaulted at some point in their lives; other reports claim a statistic as high as three-fourths of Native American women being sexually assaulted during their lifetime. Native American women are three times more likely to be sexually assaulted than their counterparts of other races (Dobie 2011). They are also three and a half times more likely to experience any type of violent crime, as compared to national averages (Rosenthal 2010).

While one may be quick to label sexual violence an “Indian problem,” that would be a rather incorrect assumption to make. Seventy percent of violent crimes against Native Americans are committed by non-Natives. A staggering ninety percent of sexual assaults against Native American women are committed by non-Natives (Amnesty International 2004). That such a large majority of these crimes are committed by non-Natives leads to a complex issue with jurisdiction and whether tribal or state police should take action against the perpetrator. This demonstrates that sexual violence against Native American women is not just a community issue, but a national issue.

Sexual violence perpetrated by non-Natives against Native American women is resulting from a continuation of the colonial mentality. Sexual violence is deeply imbedded within this mentality, as it is often a metaphor for colonization. Sexual violence is similar to the worst traits of colonization in that there is an attack on the body, an invasion of physical boundaries, and a disregard for humanity. These facets of colonization, just like sexual violence, are about power and control over victims (Deer 2009). The institution of power and control is relevant to the discussion of sexual violence in tribal communities, particularly at the Standing Rock Reservation.