A few weeks ago, in the middle of September 2008, I was in Oregon at the annual retreat of the National League of Cities. I was part of a faculty of four on a 3-day session presenting to 120 elected officials. Using the Columbia River as background, the association had opted on a theme of “Lewis and Clark–Exploring the Frontiers of Leadership in Local Government. I was there to close the conference with a morning of Storycatching, looking at how story impacts leadership style, and the necessity of understanding the story of place in serving as a civic leader.

The opening keynoter was a man named Don Coyhis, a Mohican tribal leader involved in the Wellbriety Movement, a combination of the Twelve Step program and Medicine Wheel, restoring cultural health and freedom from addiction to the Native Nations. His presentation focused on the destruction of Indian culture through the kidnapping, forced housing, and re-education of generations of Native children in residential schools. It was a profound presentation, deeply moving and complex in its understanding of the devastation of cultural shattering and the work required to reinstate those patterns and restore health to the community. (See the website: http://www.whitebison.org for a look at their recovery focus.)

Listening to Don, I realized that what he’s focusing on in tribal communities, is also a need in white dominant culture. How often I find myself lamenting the loss of human values that seemed timeless a mere 50 years ago: regard for children, the elderly, the sense that social systems should care for the less fortunate, that people have a right to tolerance, etc. etc. “A healthy community,” said Coyhis, “is rooted in cultural and spiritual heritage. And when that rootedness is destroyed, the community roots itself in shame, anger, violence, hedonism.” How ironic that destroying Indian culture has in many ways contributed to destroying white culture: one group of people cannot harm another group without being harmed themselves: soul loss is mutual.

And then, the connection between Don’s story and my story went even deeper and more personal. listening to him, part of my family story in the first chapter of Storycatcher came flooding back into me: my grandfather’s first job in the tiny community of Fort Shaw, Montana, when he arrived there in 1911 was as a teacher in the Fort Shaw Indian School. A residential school, converted usage for a cavalry garrison, kidnapped children of the Blackfeet Nation. 

My father, now 88 and living near me, remembers his father talking about those times and how the students would runaway and start walking 100 miles home. “Dad said he used to have to saddle up his horse and buggy and chase after Indian children. He felt that having to physically recapture those kids and bring them back to the Fort was one of the worst actions of his entire life. He began to advocate for public education, and by 1913 helped close the school and open a local school district for the white children moving into the valley. The Indian children were then released to their tribes.”

In 1904, ten Native girls from Fort Shaw traveled to the World’s Fair in St. Louis and won the basketball tournament becoming world champions. In 2004, their descendants and the descendants of the white settler families, erected a monument at the ruins of the fort honoring them and acknowledging the existence of this archipelago of suffering. (See pages 13-14 in the book, for a fuller version of this story.) In September 2008, Don Coyhis and I stood in a soul connection beyond words at the end of his speech. I handed him the book. “My grandfather was part of that system,” I said. Tears filled my eyes. “I am deeply sorry.” In May 2009, Coyhis is leading a forgiveness movement at 100 school sites, reclaiming the souls of the children who died there and reunifying the lineage of the tribes. He has written Obama and McCain announcing the tribes’ intentions and inviting the US government to make a formal apology for this policy as has been done in Canada and Australia. 

There are so many stories right now about social justice and injustice and the need for generational healing. This is one I am going to watch, for the healing of Don’s tribe–and my own. 

Copyright ©2009 Christina Baldwin. All rights reserved.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS