Life on Reservations

An Indian reservation is a legal designation for an area managed by a Native American tribe. There are about 326 Indian reservations in the U.S.A. The name reservation comes from the conception of Native American tribes as independent sovereigns at the time when the U.S Contitution was ratified. The largest reservation, the Navajo Nation Reservation, is similar in size to West Virginia. In 2012, there were over 2.5 million Native Americans with about 1 million living on reservations. Many Native Americans who live on reservations deal with the federal government through two agencies: the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service. The two poorest counties in the United States are Buffalo County, South Dakota, home of the Lower Brule Indian Reservation, and Oglala Lakota County, home of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, according to data compiled by the 2000 census. Today, many Native American casinos are used as tourists attractions, including hotel and conference facilities, to draw visitors and revenue to reservations. Successful gaming operations on some reservations have greatly increased the economic wealth of some tribes, enabling their investment to improve infrastructure, education and health for their people. (KK, CJ, GB, LD and NB)

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High School sports

Our topic is American High Schools and why teamsport plays such an important role.

At every American High School there are different sport teams, for example basketball, football and so on. But these are the most important sports and most represented sports in America. Even cheerleading is a very popular ‘sport’ at high schools to cheer the high school sport teams. Every single game they perform at the sideline, rage a dance and shout the name of the team (e.g at football games). You can see them in many American films, too, in which a high school is an important place for the film. Following these baseball, football or basketball teams is easy, as they play in seasons against each other and so there is a rankinglist, too. Often some of the players which play in high school teams become professional players in basketball, football or baseball if they are good enough. If you decide to go to the training of the basket, football or baseball team, it is often the parents of the students who decide, because they want that for their kids what they never achived (e.g to be a famous football player).

High school sports are mostly teamssports and that is another good point because everyone learns to play and work with each other and only as a team you can win a game! The students also spent more time at school. The Americans also want to show that they care a lot about fitness and promoting fitness and health, because some people think: yes America… there are lots of ‘fat’ people and so they send a message to this prejudice. And the best thing for the school is the better the single teams are and the more they win (a cup or something) the more money the school gets. These were the main points why sport plays such an important role at High Schools.

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The Spokane Tribe of Indians

The Spokane Tribe is an old North American tribe. It lived near the Spokane river in an reservation area of 1200 square kilometres for thousands of years. The name Spokane actually means ‘Children of the Sun’. They spoke a language that was closely related to Okanogan, which is also an indian language. From time to time, other Indian tribes influenced the Spokane Tribe by using horses or plank houses. The Spokane Tribe of the Plateau region built gout canoes, because it was a special way to transport things and to paddle fast from one way to another. They ate salmon, trouts and a variety of meat from the animals they hunted. The tribe also used spears, lances, knifes, bows and arrows to go hunting and to protect their families.

Later they were first contacted by white settlers and fur traders. But they suffered from diseases, for example smallpox, and their land also was grabbed by white people.  In the 1860s white settlers pushed a lot of Spokanes out of their territory. In 1877, Lower Spokanes relocated the Spokane Reservation. In 1887, Upper and Middle Spokanes moved to the Colville Flathead Reservation. Another interesting fact about the Spokane Indians is, that Uranium, a chemical element, was discovered on their reservation.

The Spokane Reservation is located in Washington near Columbia. Today the area of the reservation is about 96,536 acres, which are only ten percent of their old area, because the rest is held by the government. With about 1500 inhabitants it is the smallest reservation of North America.

Some of their jobs today are, for example, forester, seasonal fisher or social worker. Mining and logging companies employ many residents, but also farming and livestock industries. Timber sale is largest income of the people.

A famous tradition is the ”Salmon Ceremony”.All men of the tribe are invited to this ceremony. First, one man is chosen to cut a Salmon into seven pieces and cook them in a special way. Then, other four men eat them. They believe, that the Salmon will return next year, so the tribe won’t starve.

Women and men wear a traditional dress, a breechcloth, a long rectangular piece of cloth tucked over a belt. The men wear leggings with the breethcloth, the women wear a skirt with the breethcloth. (CM, CW, MS, MW, DA)

 

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Social studies – life on a reservation

One third of the American Indians live on reservations. There are currently about 310 reservations in the United States. The so-called reservations are areas which are owned by Indians.

1. What are the poverty and health statistics for those on reservations?

The poverty on reservations is at the forefront. The number of poverty decreased to 28,4% in 2010. In addition, reservations also suffer from low education systems, poor healthcare services and low employment, which are the actual reasons for poverty. Although studies of urban Native American health are limited, those that do exist suggest similar health-related variations, including higher rates of and deaths due to accidents, liver disease and cirrhosis, diabetes, alcohol problems, and tuberculosis compared to the general population from the same area.

2. How do they compare with the general population?

Native American today represent roughly 1.5% of the total U.S population. More than one-quarter of the Native American population lives in poverty, a rate that is more than a double of the general population and one that is even greater for certain tribal groups (sometimes approaching 40%).
Native American children and families are even more likely to live in poverty. The U.S Census Bureau statistics found out that 27% of Native American families with children live in poverty, whereas 32% of those with children younger than 5 years do – rates that are again more than twice as high as those of the general population and again are even higher in certain tribal communities (up to 66%).

3. What are living conditions like on a reservation?

Living conditions on the reservation have been cited as “comparable to Third World”. Typically, tribal and federal governments are the largest employers on the reservations. Many households are overcrowded and earn only social security or disability support. Four to eight out of ten adults on any reservation are unemployed and many are earning below poverty wages. Often heads of households are forced to leave the reservation to seek work and grandparents take on the role of raising their grandchildren just because of low wages. In addition, there is a housing crisis. But there are also 90.000 homeless or underhoused families. People partly live without running water, telephones or electricity.

4. What are the great differences between life on and off the reservation?

Many American Indians found life to be most difficult after being forced off their native lands. Federal policy dictated that certain tribes be confined to fixed areas to continue their traditional ways of life. The problems with this policy are various. In addition, many economic issues plagued the reservation. Nomadic tribes lost their entire means of independence by being limited to a defined area. Farmers found themselves with land unsuitable for agriculture. Many missed the know-how to implement complex irrigation systems. Warring tribes were often forced to live in the same neighborhood. The results were harmful. Faced with disease, alcoholism, and despair on the reservations, federal officials changed directions with the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887. Each Native American family was offered 160 acres of tribal land to own outright. Although the land could not be sold for 25 years, these new land owners could farm it for profit like other farmers in the West.

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The author Sherman Alexie

Sherman Joseph Alexie (he is also called Junior, like the boy in his novel) was born on October 7th 1966 in the Sacred Heart Hospital in Spokane, Washington, and spend his childhood on the Spokane Indian Reservation, which is located in the west of Spokane.
Alexie was born with hydrocephalus, which means that there was too much celebral fluid in the cranial cavity (in his brain), so he was not expected to survive. However, his surgery was successful and he survived. He did not have any mental damages, like expected, but there were other effects, e.g. seizures. He was nicknamed “The Globe” because his head was larger than the others. This was also an effect from which he had to suffer. At the age of seven he had to take strong drugs to control his seizures and bed-wetting. Because of his health problems, he was excluded from many of the activities that young Indian males normally do.

Sherman Alexie has five siblings. His father is also called Sherman Joseph Alexie, and he was a member of the Coeur d’Alene tribe, which is an Indian tribe. He was an alcoholic who often left the house for days at a time. To support her six children, Alexie’s mother Lillian Agnes Cox, who was of Colville, Choctaw, Spokane and European American ancestry, sewed quilts and worked as a clerk at the Wellpinit Trading Post. One of his paternal great-grandfathers was of Russian descent.

Sherman Alexie decided to leave the reservation and attend Reardan high school which was twenty-two miles off the reservation. He was the only Native American student. After a few months he became a star player on the basketball team, he was also elected as class president and participated as a member of the debate team.

1985 graduated from Reardan High. He won a scholarship in 1985 to Gonzaga University, a Roman Catholic university in Spokane, because of his success in high school. He hoped to become a doctor, but he found out that he was squeamish during dissection in his anatomy classes. Because of the enormous pressure to succeed he felt in college he began drinking heavily to cope with his anxiety.

Sherman Alexie was unhappy with the law so after a time he found comfort in literature classes. He planned to be a doctor, but he realized soon that he wanted to do something different. He started at a poetry workshop and this made him want to try to be a writer. He was at a low point in his life, and Kuo (a respected poet of Chinese-American background) served as a mentor to him. The book “Songs of this earth on turtle´s back“ changed his life. He started work on what was published as his first collection “The business of fancy-dancing: stories and Viviane poems“. It was published 1992 and because of that success he stopped drinking. In 1995 he was awarded a bachelor´s degree from Washington State University.

In 2005, Sherman Alexie became a founding board member of Longhouse Media, a non-profit organization that is committed to teaching filmmaking skills to Native American youth, and to using media for cultural expression and social change. He is married to Diane Tomhave, who is of Hidatsa, Ho-Chunk and Potawatomi heritage. They live in Seattle with their two sons.

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Life onReservations

The definition of reservations is an area where the Native Americans live. You can find them in the USA and Canada. They also exist in several South American countries like Brazil, Columbia, Paraguay, Venezuela and so on. The biggest reservations are in Brazil and at the Amazonas.

The Indians lost their inhabited homeland and where housed to terrible conditions in strange reservations, so that they had to adapt to the new conditions. Mostly they were forced to stay in these areas, which were secured with fences. The reservations are a hopeless place for the Native Americans, the only positive thing is their environment because of the solidarity their families. Nobody thought about how they felt, when eventually their traditions were suppressed.

Most Indians today are alcoholics, sick, jobless and dependent, so they often encounter prejudices and are underrated. Because of poverty and alcohol in their community, they have a lot of problems with sexual harassment. Authors compare the reservations to their early days as a prison camps, which the Indians were not allowed to leave without permission. Even today they are only allowed to leave the reservation if they are “civilized” enough. Cultural and economic levels seem to be more or less on third world standard.  The land the Indians received was badly selected on purpose by the settlers so that they never had a chance for positive development.

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