At Rocky Boy’s reservation, two institutions are tying today’s life to traditional ways
Prague 2007: Common Ground
For students who grew up in densely populated central Europe, Rocky Boy’s reservation seems like the middle of nowhere. The Great Plains seem never-ending and the Bear Paw Mountains look as if they do not belong to the countryside. The American Indians, who have been living for centuries on this 120,000-acre piece of land, have been living in poverty all their lives.
The reservation, created by the federal government, put together two tribes who were traditional enemies and had fought fierce wars over the scattered resources of the land. Now, the two tribes cooperate with one another and govern their land. According to Native News, a University of Montana journalism class that reports on American Indian issues, Rocky Boy's reservation provides a home for 2,622 members of the Chippewa-Cree tribe.
As each generation of people grows older, it has been a struggle for Indians to keep their culture and traditions alive. Two institutions on Rocky Boy’s have helped keep the culture significantly.
Stone Child College
Stone Child College, which lies deep within the Bear Paw Mountains in Box Elder, provides a variety of cultural classes. Language, medicinal botany, and the history of the American Indians are just a few of the culture-related courses. A main goal at the college, according to Sam Windy Boy, professor and cultural expert, is to promote, preserve, protect and perpetuate culture at the school and on the reservation. Windy Boy thinks his biggest challenge is getting the younger generation more interested and involved with their heritage and roots. Even though Stone Child College offers students the guidance of a tribal elder and multiple cultural classes, he thinks there is a huge social gap between elders and youth.
Na-Toose Clinic
Another Rocky Boy’s institution striving to maintain cultural values is the recently built Na-Toose Clinic. The clinic offers standard health care along with traditional ways of healing illnesses.
“Three of five patients ask for traditional healing methods and the assistance of a medicine man,” said John Johnson, assistant CEO of Na-Toose Clinic. The importance of access to traditional medicine is crucial for the members of the tribe, Johnson said, adding that people sometimes need “faith-based healing.” Though other reservations in the United States offer traditional Native American medicine healing practices, the clinic is the only one funded in Montana. American Indians on other reservations in Montana have to make traditional healing practices happen on their own.
Preserving culture
These two Rocky Boy’s institutions are, to a certain extent, helping to maintain culture, traditions and rituals of Native Americans. However, Windy Boy feels there is still a younger generation whose members are less connected to the culture of their ancestors and their original language. Traditions are not as important as they once were for the younger people, he said.
He blames social disorders such as alcohol and drug abuse as contributing to the inability of people to connect spiritually, or at all, with their culture. What keeps American Indian traditions alive, he says, is the fact that they don’t exploit these traditions to the general public. Non-Indians will never learn the procedure of smoking the pipe and the holiness of tobacco. Nor will they ever be told about the specific practices of the medicine man and sweat lodge rituals. There is a strict protocol to obtain this cultural knowledge. If offered at all, it is on a step-by-step basis and depends on the individual.
The spirituality and healing processes are so sacred because they believe that if they are exploited to the general public the healing will become meaningless and the culture will be lost, Windy Boy said.
Clinical Medicine Men
Traditional medicine is what led us to visit Rocky Boy’s reservation. Although it was nearly impossible to gather information about American Indian culture and rituals, we learned that if we followed certain procedures at the beginning of an interview some of the secrets might be disclosed. But it is not unusual for journalists to be refused an interview. If you try to get closer to the spirituality of American Indians you risk not getting the information you are seeking.
Patients who seek ways of the medicine men usually use sweat lodges to cleanse their bodies and take part in ceremonies to purify their minds, Johnson said. These two common practices are connected with medicinal plants as well. The herbs or plants used to heal common, day-to-day sicknesses or even fatal sicknesses have been used for many years.
For example, the roots of a wild rose are believed to help treat stomach aches and diarrhea; the wild plum is believed to prevent miscarriages; and sage is believed to help treat the eyes, stop nose bleeds, and alleviate other problems. The advantage of traditional medicine is it not only helps heal the physical body, but the mind as well, Johnson said.
All of these practices are accompanied with “give-aways,” which are ceremonies in which friends and family will give the ill person gifts to help heal and bring good fortune. The treatment of a medicine man is not just physical, but also emotional and spiritual. He brings in all of these holistic factors to help heal someone. It is a way to balance a person.
The most important character in traditional healing processes is the medicine man. A very common "new age" term for the medicine man is "shaman," but Native Americans do not use this word, Windy Boy said.
A medicine man is usually an experienced elder who gained his knowledge from other medicine men. It is often passed down from father to oldest son, but it is also possible for a believer to go on vision quests in the outdoors to discover spiritual connections with nature. There is a spiritual, unwritten law that is handed off from one medicine man to the next — it isn’t talked about, it is just simply known, Windy Boy explained. That is why it is almost impossible for any person without certain cultural knowledge to obtain the rituals and specific practices that go on during a healing session of a medicine man.
Paths to treatment
At Na-Toose Clinic there are two ways to treat people seeking a medicine man: individually or in a group. If someone is seeking a medicine man for a specific purpose or type of healing it is considered to be an individual case and the hospital will find a medicine man for the patient. Commonly the medicine men come from out-of-state areas. In a group session, a person will get in touch with a medicine man on his own and have him come to Rocky Boy’s. The group will participate in the healing process together.
Sessions with the medicine man at Na-Toose Clinic may vary. The usual number of times a person may go to a medicine man is four because it is a sacred number. But the precise number depends on the individual and what his problem is, Johnson said. Windy Boy believes the amount of time for a cure by a medicine man depends on the individual patient. He said it could be overnight for one person and weeks or months for another.
Various medicine men have various healing specialties. For example, some specialize in cancer or heart disease. That is why Na-Toose Clinic invites medicine men from all over United States and not just locally.
Windy Boy argues that the clinic should better utilize spiritual healers on its own reservation. The clinic’s failure to do that, he says, upsets him because he believes using local people is a step toward connecting spiritually. Thus, the ways of medicine on their own reservation are not being practiced, Windy Boy says. Coming together, he adds, is a big step toward gaining cultural ground.
Section on Stone Child College, I am not a professor but Tribal History Project cultural consultant please correct on the website. Sam Vernon
Posted by: Windy Boy, Sam Verno | December 20, 2007 at 09:52 AM
It is not true that the Crees and Chippewas were traditional enemies. In fact you will find the Crees and Chippewas intermarrying perhaps more than any two other tribes.
It appears that Little Bear, who along with Rocky Boy worked together to form the Rock Boy Reservation, most likely was more Chippewa than was Rocky Boy himself. One of Rocky Boy's wives was a sister of Big Bear AND one of Big Bear's wives was a sister of Rocky Boy.
The intermarriage of the Chippewa and Cree gave rise to a tribe called the Oji/Cree back in Ontario, that it to say their language was Oji-Cree.
Long before the Rocky Boy Reservation was formewd, the bands lead by Rocky Boy and Big Bear could already be called Chippewa Cree. It should also be noted that Turtle Mountain Community College offers classes in Chippewa-Cree as well as classes in Chippewa.
Posted by: Gerard Vandeberg | January 02, 2008 at 07:09 PM