DOWNFALLS OF MY TRIBE

By Dianna M. Andrews

Many moons have past and I'm beginning to grow older. Through the years I have been trying to preserve the knowledge of my culture. My Grandfather used to speak to the younger generation when he was alive. My grandfather has taught me and other of my generation to value our traditional ways. When I was a young child I would ride along with my Mother and Father and help them search for game. Whether it be grouse, deer, elk or moose. I searched with my eyes for they were better than binoculars.

We also lived off the land.. My family picked berries, dug bitterroot and fried game meat. Huckleberries was considered a gourmet meal for my family and the Bitterroot a delicacy. Every season was a new way to survive from the Mother Earth.

During the early era of past generations of my grandfathers Kootenai people. In the Fall season the Tribal people pitched in to stock up on hides for clothing and blankets and the children in the camp gathered plenty of firewood and the women in camp made moccasins and tanned hides for clothing. They also skinned and cut and dried the game that was killed.
Growing up for me was very exciting because i was raised Kootenai Indian. My grand folks were the ones I called my Mom & Dad. They taught me the way of life of the Kootenai Culture. And as well as the Salish way of life in the Salish Culture.My family taught me how to play stickgame and how to fancy dance, so I competed in the Fancy Dance contests during various Pow-Wows around the Northwest United States.
The Kootenai men often constructed hand drums, bows and arrows. My Grandfather -Dad loved to widdle and carve on wood. some of the other men made canoes out of Bark Trees, during the early generations, and the Kootenai men fought for the tribe and often against the Blackfeet Indians for they were known as the enemy according to the Tribal History books.
The Kootenai Tribes are superior of all tribes and are known as the most fluent tribe and the most powerful in the Nation. They're two other bands of Kootenai people one band resides in Grasmere British Columbia, whish is spelled Kootenay, and the other resides in Bonners Ferry, Idaho, that band is quite wealthy due to the Tribe operating their own business venture with the Best Western Hotel Franchise.
The band I was raised into resides in Elmo, Montana called the Dayton Creek Kootenais.
Dayton Creek Kooteni Band was once led by a Great Chief known as Koostahtah. My children are descendent's of this Great Chief. The language is very unique and the hardest to learn and categorized as the most difficult to learn. Within my tribes talents we do horse Hair Braiding and long ago Vision Quests, we hand Jump Dances each year on New Year's Day for three days We have our Sweat Lodges and when necessary our Medicine Dances. My Dad - Grandpa was a superb medicine man.
Although in this day and age I'm not a fluent speaker of our language. I grew up too much in the white mans world. but I do know my traditional ways and how important it is to participate in the preservation of my culture.
As a child I'd won a few fancy dance competitions. i placed second at Hot Springs Pow-wow. back in June of 1977 and also place a second during the Kyi-Yo Indian days held at the University of Montana at the Adams Field House,and I placed third during the Arlee Pow-wow all that same year. The Arlee Pow-Wow was my greatest accomplishment for tribes from all around Montana and Washington and even from Canada were there. I've also participated in Stick Game Tournaments around the different Pow-Wows during my marriage to Chief Koostahtah great grandson. I learnt how to build a sweathouse fire at the age of 9 years old.
The Eagle, Hawk, and the owl play a significant role within my tribes culture. The Eagle represent great luck. The hawk signifies a great spiritual journey and the Owl signifies bad luck or even death if you listen to it if it actually talks to you in your native language. The Coyote also represents a major role and the Bear is introduced as our Brother as well as our Protector. The Bear has insides like human beings therefore we do not kill our brother.
I've traveled to various Pow-wows including areas in Washington, Idaho, New Mexico and up into Canada to a place called Hobbema Alberta and all over Montana. 5520500 barbara ross Although it may seem that all Indian tribes are the same we are not. In fact we are all different. In our beliefs our spirituality and our values, our cultures vary. But many of us have adapted to the white mans way of life.
My Grandmother whom i call Mom was a child when her band called the Salish Indians was approached by the Jesuits and told they were to move from the Bitterroot Valley near Stevensville. Chief Charlot (Charlo) was instructed by the Jesuit Priest have all the tribes medicine bundles thrown into a fire for it was part of the devil and they should convert to being Catholic People, they were sent to save these poor unforsaken Indians so Chief Charlot did as he was told. they also brought the white man into their teepees and did right by the white man and moved from their land and gave up their very sacred ritual of praying from then on. Now as years and years have past the Salish resides on the same reservation with the Kootenai Nation with the population of about six thousand or more enrolled and only a handful still practice the Catholic religion.
I'm not saying that they don't believe in God, but they each have their own faith. Some like my natural Mother had to go to the Ursaline School at the Jesuit Fathers in St. Ignatius, Montana and was treated like a heathen and slapped aroundfor speaking their own language. Some of the indian women were molested by the priests, some were locked away in broom closets for days. My Mother Louise quit the Catholic school at grade level three and never returned to any kind of education. Others told me about the head nun slapping their hands with huge rulers and sometimes actually slapping them in the face with her own hand. But, on Parents day visits the Priests and the nums would put on a totally different mask and entertain us with Pow-wows and a big feast. i can remember attending one when I was about four years old because my mother's two younger sisters attended the Urasaline School. I ate cake and had a lot of soda pop.Although we adapted to the white mans ways only with one exception and exception being survival. We were taught how to read and write.
My ancestors were granted many material processions for giving up land, language, children, horses, even our buffalo. Promised to them by a Treaty signed by Stevenson, and Peter Ronan, and of course Chief Charlot (pronounced Char- low) and Chief Koostahtah, but it took years to finally get those promises to mbe made a reality, sure we have a nice reservation and Per-Capita payments from our resource of Kerr Dam and yet we still fight over Water Rights, and our hunting rights and now we are fighting over taxes and today over our Tribal Enrollment and the rights to the profits from the white mans gaming machines.
About a third of the tribe is working hard to teach our children our language we have culture committees on both sides of the reservation we have grants to pay the elders for the knowledge and we have sufficient buildings to gather the people for lessons of our tongue. Speakers to capture the unity to gather our tribes back when we were of one. Speaking of what existence we have of our future id we don't kindle and learn today what we knew yesterday.
Alcohol beverages have become my Indian tribes greatest elimination. My ancestors have passed away to the other side but not from old age or disease but of alcohol related deaths. in fact it has made my family into spousal abusers, child molesters, and child abusers and thieves. Alcoholkilled my mother Louise and my brother Thomas and my cousin Mike, they were killed by a drunk driver head on on December 14th, 2003.And alcohol send me to Prison because I was a drunk driver endangering other people on the highway. Not only alcohol but speed, marijuana, cocaine, sleeping pills, loertabs. Addiction Treatment Programs is in great demand. My tribe also faces gambling addiction because the monthly General Assistance and Social Security and The Welfare checks to even the bi-weekly paychecks go right down the coin hole of the Keno and Poker machines and the Lottery sales have doubled gambling i would say is my tribes biggest downfall.
The people who suffer from the gambling is the children because they don't eat, they starve because Mommy & Daddy got drunk and gambled away the paycheck again and they sold the food Stamps for the month just to try and win one hundred dollars. Life was better on the Reservation when the gambling was being negotiated for a State Compact to decide on the Revenue.

The second downfall is the manufacturing of illegal drugs, meth labs, pot growers, and even going to the Doctor to get a prescription of loertabs to selll for ten dollars a pill. Again, who suffers? THE CHILDREN. They still don't eat or get cared for because Mommy and Daddy need to get High and see people, places and things that aren't there inthe drug world. Children being hurt through hallucinations and then Mommy and Daddy are arrested for Child Endangerment and Child Abuse & Neglect and sometimes even Child Molistation. Then the Foster Parents are bringing the children to visit Mommy & Daddy through a glass window.
The third downfall of my tribe is money. Money because it has made enemies between Brothers & Sisters, Parents and children and especially between friends. The price to high so my people unwilling to help out other family members because they don't want to be enablers to alcohol use or support gambling habits and some don't remember borrowing it and never pay back the ones who they borrowed it from.
Struggling for survival. My family consists of a mother who had a very bad gambling habit and a sister who is selfish and stingy and tow brothers who are alcoholics and another brother who went to prison for child molestation and survived a self inflicted gunshot to his head and a baby sister who has a drug habit and a deceased step dad who used to beat us for his own pleasure and is buried six feet under. myself I'm a gambler and a recovering drug and alcohol user and i was a victim of spousal abuse and I have attempted suicide many times. i survived a bad car wreck back in 1978 which took the lives of my grandparents in which we collided broadside with a snowplow and I was at the age of twelve, plus i survived two car accidents on in which I collided with a semi-truck and totaled my car I was pretty drunk. I even survived hypothermia, and survived child abuse, about 3 ro 4 years old my natural mothers boyfriend tried to drown me in hot scolding water by putting my head in sink and letting it fill up with hot water.. I'm a mother of four children survivor of suicide because my oldest son committed suicide on Halloween of 2000 by self inflicted gunshot to the head, I believe it was murder. and I'm a true alcoholic my mother drank alcohol while I was in womb, and she put beer in my bottles that is why grandparents took me and raised me. I love money but what is good about it if your locked up in Prison if it wasn't for my inheriting my son estate I wouldn't of had any money in prison. My natural mother Louise taught us children to manipulate people out of a few dollars when we were real young sure we starved but she was happy playing bingo or playing the keno machines. May she rest in peace.
There's people like my son Barney Dean Finley, Jr (DaBoo is what I call him his nickname) who couldn't take on the demands of life he gambled and used pot and had experienced the taste of alcohol, but he graduated from high school and was attending College and he had a very pretty girlfriend whom he wanted to marry and start a family. For reasons unknown he gave his life to the bullet of a twenty-two Magnum on Halloween the year 2000 at the age of seventeen. Of course my tribe was devastated because he was always so happy.
That's the fourth downfall of my tribe "Depression". There's so many of my Indian people on anti-depressants or other prescription drugs it's crazy. It seems like they make up excuses just to get pain pills or be depressed. Mental Health has a huge caseload. People who are suicidal for attention I used to be one of those people, now I'm a survivor of a suicide because of my oldest son. I know better not to try it again because i wouldn't want my children to go through the trauma again.
My tribes have established a govern to it's own policies and Justice System. It has brought on State conflicts and has won jurisdiction to govern it's own Tribal Government. my Tribes have subsidezed Housing Units, Tribal Health Department with it's benefits and Tribal Work Programs and it's own Tribal Alternative Junior High and High School along with it's own Community College and a Tribal Police Department. The Tribal Council acts when they want to and they govern for them own selves, we have our Tribal Culture Committees ande we even have Tribal Doctors and a Best Westen Motel that don't even give us per-capita, We also have a Veterans Society. My tribe is called The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation.
The word flathead came in when Meriwether Lewis and that Clark dude past through with Sacajewea and saw another tribe visiting the Salish and Pend d'Orielle encampment that tribe was seen by Lewis & Clark wearing boards on their heads to make their heads flat even the babies in the cradle boards had boards strapped on their heads. So, Lewis & Clark wrote in their journals about this and called my Mother's people Flathead Indians which maybe written in their expedition diary and that name stuck. Today we are known as Flathead & Kootenai instead of Salish & Kootenai.
Our tribe has received numerous grants to boost the tribal economy and create jobs but the ones who get the jobs are the people who are related to the ones who has the jobs. The Kootenai people stick together and share the clothes off their backs. The Salish people are greedy they also breed with the white man and have brought yet a fifth downfall to the tribes called Split-Family Decision, they want their children to be enrolled even if they have a nipple of blood they want to be called Indian.
My personal opinion to that subject is if they wanted to have Indian babies and have those babies entitled to Indian Rights and Benefits of the tribes they should of married and beared children from another Indian or another Indian Tribe. Not after marrying a white man and bearing white children and expect people to consider those children Indian. Now it's a big controversy brought on by petitions and an issue for the Tribal Government to decide.
The sixth downfall to our tribe is teenagers giving birth to babies and unable to care for them properly and having to resort to dropping out of school to raise a baby and also living on Welfare checks and being a single parent. Teenagers being influenced by rap music and being lured into what maybe called gang activity. No one around to stress discipline. No respect for the Tribal Elders, Elders raising their grand children or great grandchildren, because the parents are busy gambling or drinking or getting high or because the parents are incarcerated. Children now a days have no manners and seem to think they know it all.
The Elders of our tribe are struggling to get by on SSI or Social Security checks, single mothers on Welfare checks and Food Stamps and people in the poverty level receiving commodities, and living on what food they receive from the food banks, or Church Support Groups.
Some wouldn't have to turn to these places if they didn't sell their Food Stamps for half price or gamble away their paychecks. Hopefully they'd go out and seek jobs and try to be better role models for our teenage children if we'd only encourage our children towards education we'd have a better economy and an healthier environment for the next generation to come. Right now education is a vital ingredient of our existence because we need to learn how to bring back our language and traditional ways and how to keep our tribe from becoming bankrupt and provide more stable jobs and provide more housing units for the homeless and use the tax free dollars to provide more housing units for the homeless and use the tax free dollars to provide incentive programs for the children who are willing to go to school. And have programs to benefit the Elders so they don't become sicker but are cared for better. Most importantly we should work together to keep the tribe from becoming extinct. We need more Care Givers and Day Care providers to ensure our children and Elders are not neglected and free of abuse and are being taken care of properly.
Very few of my tribal people know how to do everything such as bead work or know the language or how to make teepees, or find the plants used for medicine, or how to carve out the game you know like skinning a deer or elk or moose or to tan the hide or sing our War Dance Songs or even demonstrate the Snake Dance or perform the Canvas Dance or participate in the Round Dances or Chicken Dances some don't even know how to play Stickgame and that's a shame We don't even have the traditional weddings anymore. Even the Coyote Stories don't get told as much as before which they should be told during the winters months. It's all a shame that only a few of my people know how to do all of these old ways. But we are fortunate to know that most of us can do a few of these things today.I know how to bead, hunt, I know how to sing stickgame and war dance songs, I know some of the berries and plants, I used to fancy dance in my younger years and still know how to dance. I know some workds in both languages and I know a couple of coyote stories and I've attended some of the sacred ceremonies and taken in the sweat lodge. But I'm far from being a real Indian. In fact my real father would be ashamed of me.
My real father was a member of the Arapahoe tribes from Riverton Wyoming, Fort Washakie. I have no knowledge what-so-ever of his cultural ways. I've met an uncle and two aunts from his tribe. My Dad's brother and two sister. My name should of been Dianna Addison but my natural mother gave me her maiden name. Today My aunt throw in my face to hurt me that I was conceived because my mother had an affair with a married man. But by God I am born. Her maiden name is Andrews and she kept me from ever meeting my real dad. i do know my Dad was an slcoholic and a diabetic he died of a diabetic coma in 197. I was ten years old.
I was taken away from my natural mother by my Grandma Annie Mary and my Grandpa Basil Lefthand at the age of three months and was raised as their daughter till their deaths in 1978. I'm my real mothers oldest child and the youngest of my real fathers children, I'm also the youngest of fifteen children of my grandparents. Annie Mary & Basil Lefthand whom have died January 4th & January 24th, 1978. my grandmother died on January 24th from injuries sustained from our car accident.It's scary to think that one day we won't be able to speak our language or know our ways of our culture. Literally on the outside of my body I'm of brown color but on the inside of me I'm as white as a Polar Bear. I learned how to drive the white man pony. I talk to a handle affixed to a wall and watch a color box that captured the souls of many and I listen to people singing through ear muffs but can't see anyone there.Since the white man showed us his way of life i can see no turning back because we are accustomed to this way of surviving. Because the white man wanted it all no diversity no one to be different no one to be productive on their own. They ruined my Indian way of life. Now I eat and crave a taste for the cows, pigs and chickens over our traditional deer, elk and moose and pheasant, we drink soda pop and coffee and orange pekoe tea rather then juniper tea or sage tea. Water now has to have flavor. We're craving pizza, tacos, and pumpkin pies rather than dried meat. We eat canned soups rather then our boiled rib soup. We even need olives and potato salad rather than our huckleberries and bitterroot. We need designer jeans and silk underwear and sultry shirts over our ribbon shirts or buckskin dresses. we wear diamonds and gold chains rather then our chokers or beaded medallions or beaded belt buckles and some of my people have several holes in their ears and a hole in their noses that we wear studs or earrings.
My people no longer grow their braids long instead they wear it shaved off or army style, the women wear it like Marilyn Monroe, or Farrah Fawcett, or the Dorthoy Hamill look some men still wear braids but the young boys would rather have short hari instead of being called a girl. The women wear white man war paint to look like Pamela Anderson thinking they can snag that handsome white man, because Indian men are not good enough and the Indian men pump up the iron to snag that cute slut sultry looking white woman because in their eyes Indian women aren't good enough anymore then together we've produced half breeds and argue because they want those children enrolled as Indians a matter to the public to decide.
I wanted Indian children therefore I married a Kootenai man and gave birth to two boys and two girls. Barney Jr., Susan Louise, Barbara Jean and Jason Jerome Finley. I divorced because my marriage became abusive. He almost killed me. I turned to alcohol for comfort and committed infidelity and tried to take my own life. Although I've dated white men I've never stopped loving my husband after we divorced and I will not ever stop loving him because he is the father of our children, but no way in hell I would ever go back to being controlled. We tried to make it work for 17 years. I was married at the age of 16 and now I have been divorced for 14 years. Still not found noone who wants to be with me for me.
My heart desires a decent man whether his color is white or brown. I don't desire being his punching bag I have a lot to give and I have a lot to learn to keep surviving in this white world. But I won't forget my background nor where I came from.
What have we sufficed to? What standards do we now have? I should say none. We don't value our bodies or our morals we have symbols, names tattooed on our bodies we did no such thing a century ago we had respect for ourselves. We've sufficed to self inflictions rather than blood brother rituals. We even try to claim somebody for our property. We fight like cats and dogs because our husband or wife looked at somebody else. Sometimes were totally inhuman. We don't trust anymore we have became weasels, thieves misers, bums, and hobos. Some of my people have became Smiths and Jone's and forgot where they came from.
What happen to the traditional names we used to have? Where we were named for the first thing our parents saw when we were born. Like "Two Dogs Fucking", or "Comes At Night", or "Morning Star", or "Thunder Child".
Now a days men don't seem to care about what a real relationship is they sleep with all the women who are willing and have children they don't claim. Women seem to think that just because a white man looks and smiles at them it's love at first sight. To much lust and not enough dust to dill the air. Pathetic but that's how some of the Indian women are especially when they never truly been loved I for one feel like that and sometimes and most always lose that good white man, but I mend myself and move on. Someday one will say to me "Be Mine" that day will be the best day of my life when i have a good man at my side. But most often then none lust can ruin the best friendship in the world.
As I sat there at the Crossroads Correctional Center in Shelby Montana writing this I wondered how many other people of my tribe wonder about how the white man has turned our brown bodies white or thought about some of the stuff I just talked about or am i the only one who wjp sees these as downfalls.
I wonder how many Tribal people will care that my children are without a mother while I sat in prison, and now without a brother and without a grandma and uncle, and how my future grandchildren will feel about having a grandma who went to prison because she was an alcoholic, I wonder how people judge me, But I have forgiven myself and sought out rehabilitation, not many will they will live in their addictions and self pity forever without wanting to change. I want to change for the future of our Indian children to be a role model who will fill them with encouragement and caring and lead them to succeeding in the world of education, and talent I want to stick up for justice and rights of our Indian people and see that every Indian has the opportunity to achieve success and be able to take care of themselves. There are so many resources out there and so many yet to create and by working together all Indian people could live in a better environment.
How many people know that i have a record of criminal activity due to drinking and driving dating back to 1986.. And in 1995 I drug a Tribal cop down Highway 93 after he'd already had me in the back of his cop car but didn't know how to shut off my motor so he let me back out and I turned off my motor with my screwdriver and turned it back on and put the gear shift to first, second while he was hanging on my car door and I had the Ronan City Police barricade the corner at Lakes turnoff and eluded the police anyway. They let me go issuing a warrant. I turned myself in and received a deferred sentence and probation it came off my record. But in the 2001 being put in that private prison for eluding the Highway Patrol and having them chase me for about 30 miles and charged with Criminal Endangerment and received a deferred sentence but ended up with that sentence being revoked so now it will remain on my record for life.
My children have seen what alcohol has done to me and made it perfectly clear that when I got released in which I am now that "If I use alcohol agin that they don't want nothing to do with me". I guess i can say I'm fortunate to have been put in Prison because I am able to tell about my tribe and tell some about my experiences and strengths and hopes and able to express some of my opinions, because now I see how I can make a difference in this world.
Since being incarcerated I've noticed some bias and some prejudice amongest the staff and inmates. Even on the outside I've encountered some prejudice. But you know I gave it the benefit of the doubt because I'm an Indian and i love everybody. I know that what I have to say don't matter one way or another so I don't question nothing. I feel now more confident about what I have to say because I speak the truth and life as a Indian isnot easy. (Editors Note: I know Dianne personally, I never knew she had writing abilities, while I have long known her personal difficulties, I have a new appreciation for her candor which reveal a life of pain and loss. She is a very unique lady. Her searing self portrait evokes an honesty that we seldom see or hear. I do not agree with everything she said here, I appreciate her honesty, I believe she hits on a lot of issues in listing tribal downfalls, with very minimal editing, her words are posted here UNCENSORED). I may not agree with everything she has said, but I will always defend her RIGHT to say it. This is the whole premise of UNM--that Indian country has been censored for 500 years and now is the time to end it. ---Melinda Gopher) I want to thank UNV founder, Brock Conway and Steve Millward, for INSISTING that this be published. Thank you as well to Dianne.