While finding our way through the open prairie to the town of White Cloud in the Iowa Nation we kept wondering about tribal life before Doppler radar.
Just where did Indians find safety from tornadoes?
"Grab the largest Indian in the village and hang on!" said Ruben Kent, an Iowa tribal member in his 40s.
Would Native people have made it this far without their knack for finding humor in nearly every moment of struggle? For Kent the answer would be ``no.’’ A graduate of the Institute of American Indian Art in Santa Fe, Kent spends his days taking care of his mother and working on pottery, beading and some sculpting.
"Oh people still hunt around here, birds, deer, but not Indians anymore. I guess we don’t have enough feathers," he said.
Kent is one of the dark Iowa Indians. On this reservation, there’s a division between the light- and dark-skinned Indians. But unlike his mother, Viola, who refuses to get to know the neighbors, who refuses to attend tribal events, Kent is a local icon. As we get out of the car at the local filling station, Kent won’t acknowledge that he’s well-known.
"Not at all," he said as someone waves to him at the gas pumps.
Humor is how Kent responds to casino goers, those who take pity for the Indians, those who are interested in Indian spirituality, those who want to be saved. "Save you? I’m too busy trying to save myself!" Kent said.
Marion Montclair digs for roots for traditional use on the Fort Peck reservation. Digging roots becomes a "passion" she says. |
In many ways, Marianne Montclair is the Ruben Kent of the north. At the Fort Peck reservation, Montclair is just as well-known around town. She is the sole advertising rep for the Wotani newspaper. Born and raised in Poplar, Mont., Montclair is a born-again Christian bent not on saving people but in raising hell with them. Raising hell, to Montclair, is teasing, having fun with people she meets.
At lunch in a local bar and restaurant for her 47th birthday, everyone she greets curiously has the same name, Nancy. Even my name is Nancy according to Montclair.
"Well, Nancy," she says to me. "I was born here in Poplar. I’m 47 years old. Lived here all my life. There were five of us, four girls, one boy. Full-blooded Sioux. My dad’s Oglala, my mom’s Yankton."
"What was it like growing up?"
"Ah, good and bad. Mostly I was with my gramma a lot. She always talked Indian to me, showed me how to do the beadwork. She’s the one who made me a salesman. I would go and sell her beadwork for her. I would take the beadwork to her customers. She’s the one who made me this traveling salesman I am. My dad’s a carpenter. Still is. He’s 83 years old. He still drinks, smokes, chases women. That’s what keeps him young. Growing up it was good and bad, good times and bad times. I got married super young. Five days after I turned 17, I got married. My parents split up and they were gonna make me move with one of them and I didn’t want to move with either of them."
Marion Montclair demonstrates the proper form for chewing roots on the Ft. Peck reservation in N. Montana. |
Montclair thought about becoming a stand-up comedian, but she truly could not imagine herself living off the reservation. When she’s not selling ads for the paper, she digs for roots. She stops by her house so she can pick up her digging tool, something she calls "Mr. Quick." When asked how many of the four or five cars on her lawn actually run, she says "We have so many cars even the animals have their own."
Kent and Montclair have a passing interest in next year's commemoration of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial. Kent expects he will be asked to save more white people when their tribe holds an evening of traditional dance for the tourists. And Montclair? Well, Marian just knows she is going to meet more people to raise hell with.
Marion Montclair leans on her digging tool, "Mr Quick" as she pauses during digging for roots on the Ft. Peck reservation in N. Montana. |
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