MEGA MILLION DOLLAR INDIAN -
Part Five
Cante and I gradually settled into the life of being multi-million dollar Indian’s. Prior to hitting the jackpot we spent our whole lives living payday to payday so it wasn’t easy adjusting to being millionaires. But, we couldn’t escape the fact that we had millions of dollars to spend and we could shop every day, twenty-four seven if we wanted and we could eat what ever and where ever we wanted.
This new life style had a dual effect, we got up every morning and gave thanks to the Creator for our good fortune. I was determined to keep my end of the bargain and give God ninety million dollars. On the other side of the coin money can be a corrupting force, we caught ourselves on several occasion thinking our shit didn’t stink anymore.
Cante and I remembered that the best compliment an Indian can get is to be called an “Ikce Wicasta,” which means a common man or women. You can have good looks, brains, above average athletic ability, education, and money, but you remain just a regular person, a common man.
I eventually put the ninety millions dollars in US Bank’s Wealth Management program. They “guaranteed” me a five percent annual return. This is approximately $4.5 million dollars a year in interest. I also hired an attorney to set up a non-profit corporation.
Every time we went into the bank they treated us like royalty.
McDonald’s, Burger King, and Taco Bell junk food took on a new meaning. We would snub our noses at those places now, Wifey would inevitable say “yuck” every time we drove by one of them places.
The day after we got back to the Twin Cities from the Nawizi Reservation Cante and I went on a shopping spree to Nordstrom’s and Saks Fifth Avenue. We now considered Penny’s and Macy’s to be in the same league as Wally World and Pimida.
At the same time we were careful not to act uppity or snobby or try to be something we weren’t just because we now had money.
I have a Starbucks coffee house friend who was a millionaire before I hit the Mega Million Dollar lottery and one time we ironically had a conversation on wealth. Al is a millionaire many times over but if you looked at him you would never know. He said it was natural for people with money to spend it and “show off.” That was fine with him, but after awhile one realizes that you can only wear one pair of shoes at a time and only drive one car at a time. And, eventually that gets old. Al said his satisfaction comes from knowing that he has money in the bank, he finds great comfort and security, or peace of mind in that fact.
On our shopping spree we stopped at Louis Vuitton’s to purchase a purse for Cante. The store clerks ignored us, I guess they thought we were just two poor Indian’s wishing we were rich. I patiently waited for them to wait on us but when they didn’t I whistled at them, like you whistle at a dog, Cante’ nudges me and say’s “quit that.”
The two young sales clerks were a little indignant, but when I slapped down a stack of hundred dollar bills they fell all over themselves apologizing to us.
Thinking about my wise friend Al’s words I said, “Don’t stereotype people, you never know who’s got money and who doesn’t now days.” “For all you know I could be one of them casino rich Siouxdoe Indians.”
“In my case I hit the Mega-Million Dollar lottery recently, and the young clerks looked astonished and said, “Are you that Joe Blow guy?
“That will be me,” I said.
“When we heard that some guy named Joe Blow won the lottery we thought they were pulling the our legs.”
I snuck a quick peep at their legs while Cante was looking at the purses the sales clerks were now piling on the counter.
Nice legs I thought to myself.
“We promise, Mr. Blow, to treat our customers better, please accept our apologies and a twenty-five percent discount.”
I tipped the nice legged clerks a hundred dollars a piece.
A couple of weeks later we drove to New York City and we stayed at the Ritz Carlton near the Battery for five hundred and sixty dollars a night. After a week we visited everything in the Big Apple and we then drove to Washington DC and actually thought about renting a condo and living there.
Washington is like New York City, it is the cross-roads of the world, and we met people from all other the world.
I especially liked the Library of Congress. One day I came across the history of the Nawizi Reservation. I researched and digitalized every bit of information on the Nawizi Reservation from the period 1867 until the early 1960‘s.
“What are you going to do with all that information,” Cante asked?
“I’m going to start my own tribe.”
“The Nawizi Tribe is made up of two bands of Dakota Indians.” “The two formerly separate bands Sisseton and Wahpeton’s were thrown together after the Minnesota War of 1862, after Minnesota kicked them out of Minnesota in 1863.”
“Anyways, over two hundred Sisseton and Wahpeton Indian volunteered to serve as scouts for the military so Congress in 1867 gave the Sisseton and Wahpeton bands of Dakota Indian a nine hundred thousand acre reservation in northeastern South Dakota for their loyal service.” “It was not a popular or welcomed choice to become a scout but with little options they did what they had to do to survive.”
“Today, even after one hundred and fifty years there are a lot of Sisseton and Wahpeton Indians who resent the scouts. They say the Indian scout we’re working for the hated United States government and we’re traitors against their own people.”
“And, the crazy thing is that most Sisseton and Wahpeton’s today don’t know what band they descent from, or if their ancestors were scouts.”
“Cante, I bet you don’t know if your descendent are Sisseton’s or Wahpeton’s.”
“No, I don’t, Cante replied, “I never thought about it and my mom and dad never said what we were.”
“Well, you’re not alone Cante, I don’t think most Indians who live on the “rez” know if they are a Sisseton or Wahpeton, so they conveniently claim both bands.”
“Actually, I think that is why there is so much trouble and dissension on the reservation today.”
“And, you come right down to it that is probably the reason the Nawizi Tribe rejected my offer to pay off their bills.”
“There must have been some real reasons why the Dakota Indian’s were separated into seven bands of Dakota Indians when they lived in what is now Minnesota, North, and South Dakota.”
“They called themselves the Oceti Sakowin, the Seven Council Fires.”
“Personally I don’t think that it was just about splitting up the hunting areas.” I think that because of family feuds, petty jealousies, and the old adage “too many Chiefs and not enough Indians” played a big factor in them dividing themselves into seven groups or bands.”
“The Dakota Indian is no better or no worst than the rest of the human races, but we got more Indian romantics who like to pretend we were one big happy family and we lived in some kinds of paradise back in the old days before the white man came.”
Part Six
“Start your own tribe,” Cante asked incredulously?
“I think it’s a helluva’ idea, I know I am a descendant of the Sisseton band, so I’m going to take that ninety million dollars and start a new Sisseton tribe.”
“How do you do that?”
“I thought you said you’re going to give that money to God,” Cante asked?
“I’m not going to spend any of that ninety million dollars on myself, I’m going to use it to do God’s work, doing some good with it and hopefully creating something good that will benefit mankind or the Dakota Indian.”
“I dunno for sure, but the Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters is right here in Washington so I’m going over there and see what has to be done.” “I’ll hire a lawyer and get the process going.”
“Since Congress allowed Indian gaming, Indian’s have come out of the woodwork hoping to cash in on the new buffalo.”
“There are some white and black people up in Connecticut, and even some whoever whatever people living on Long Island New York that just recently received federal recognition. Then, of course, the Siouxdoe Tribe in Minnesota are a bunch of imposter Indians that the BIA allowed to become federally recognized.”
“If I put the whole ninety million dollar I have into it establishing a new tribe we could be the richest, debt free, non-gaming tribe in America.”
“Won’t that be something Cante?
“I’ll make you an Indian princess.”
“Ko-it-cha,” Cante replied.
“I remember my dad back in the 1960’s talking about the Nawizi Tribe settling their Minnesota land claims case against the US government, they were represented by the law firm of Sonosky, Chambers, and Sachse, a national law firm devoted to representing Native American interests in a wide range of endeavors including federal Indian law, tribal law, Indian self-determination and self-governance matters, I think there are still in business here in Washington, I’ll get hold of them and start the process,” I said.
“Don’t tell them you got ninety million dollars in the bank, they’ll take you to the cleaners,” Cante said.
Over the next several weeks I visited the Bureau of Indian Affairs and retained the legal services of Somosky and Chambers.
A meeting was arranged between both parties with the intention of outlining the salient issues on becoming a federally recognized tribe.
I explained to them the US government threw out the Sisseton and Wahpeton band from Minnesota in 1863 and these two bands wandered the prairies until 1867 when they were granted the Lake Traverse Reservation. The Sisseton and Wahpeton’s were two separate and distinct bands of Dakota Indian thrown together at the convenience of the US government. For one hundred and fifty years these two bands have tried to live as one tribal government, but it hasn’t worked. On the surface all seems well, but underneath this sense of normalcy there lingers hate and outright resentment of each other.
These two bands have tried to make it work for the simple reason that’s all they have, they even changed their name to Oyate, which means People, but they still hate each other. The real irony is that most Sisseton and Wahpeton’s have forgotten which bands they descend from.
The situation on the Nawizi Reservation reminds one of the situation that exists in Iraq. As bad as Saddam Hussein was he kept the Sunni’s and Shiites from killing each other. As soon as the US military deposed him, the Sunni and Shiites were right back at killing each other.
The Sisseton and Wahpeton situation also reminds me of the white and black situation in America. On the surface America has made a lot of racial progress, but underneath this progress there remains a hate and resentment that has existed since slavery days.
I don’t know if this makes any sense but when I visit the Nawizi Reservation there are some tribal members who for some unexplainable reason I just get along with better then other tribal members. And, I think the reason is because they are descendants of the Sisseton band just like me. Its kind of like meeting a Dakota Indian in another state, or city, or even in another country, as soon as you find out you are both Dakota Indians there is an instant affinity toward each other.
“What I am telling you gentlemen is that the government threw two bands of Dakota Indians together and now after one hundred and fifty years there are many of us who want to correct this grievous historical error.”
“And, I am going to tell you that despite my dear wife’s trepidations I won a multi-million dollar jackpot several months ago, and I am willing to dedicate this money to getting the tribe started. I haven’t thought of every angle yet, but at this time, I or we, aren’t doing this to get government handouts or start a casino, although I won’t discount the casino possibility.”
“But, I like to think of myself as a progressive minded Dakota Indian and I personally disagree with the United States governments social welfare programs, or their approach to solving the “Indian Problem,” or honoring their treaty obligations.”
“I would like to take this new tribe in a different direction, the same-o, same-o social welfare programs aren’t working, and there are a lot of us who are sick of the corruption, graft, greed, and stupidity that exists on the Nawizi Reservations.”
“My feelings are that every member of this new tribe should or could own a new home, nothing like the mansions in the Washington DC area, but a good home, and nothing like the HUD funded ghetto’s that have sprung on reservations across America.” “Home ownership in my opinion is essential to a stable people and good tribal government.”
“If you gentlemen could help me achieve this goal I would be grateful, thank you all for attending, you will hear from me or my attorneys.”
After the meeting I told Cante that I hadn’t even talked with anyone back on the Nawizi Reservation about starting a new tribe. But, we agreed that between the both of us, our families, which was considerable, they would all jump on the idea. We decided tentatively that to be a member, a new member would have to be able to trace their lineage back to the Scouts, there were over two hundred scouts that served the military, and it was because of their scout service the US government gave them the Nawizi Reservation.
We decided that because of the many inter-tribal and inter-racial marriages and mixing over the last one hundred and fifty years we would not have a blood quantum requirement.
The second group of people to be considered for membership were those who were on the original rolls at the time the reservation was opened on February 19, 1867.
Cante says, “You know the Nawizi Tribes doesn’t allow its members to be enrolled in more than one tribe at a time, so how are you going to deal with that?”
“You know there will be hundreds of people who don’t met the first two requirements, but are fed up with the Nawizi Tribe, and will want to join this new tribe, so how you going to deal with that?
“Well, I personally don’t care if your enrolled in another tribe, I said. “The reason the Nawizi Tribe doesn’t allow dual enrollment is because they don’t want a tribal member to get something from more than one tribe.”
“I thought the Nawizi Tribe believes in Sharing and Generosity as their core Dakota values, Cante says,”
“If, a Nawizi tribal member is part Oglala and part Sisseton it’s not like the member is getting a whole bunch of money.” “Shit, we’re talking about crumbs here,” she states indignantly.
“I don’t know Cante why getting something from two tribes is such a big deal, but your right, its crumbs, but that is the reason why the tribes doesn’t allow dual enrollment because for some reason they think that it’s a crime.” “I heard people say its “double dipping.”
“How can it be double dipping if one tribe gives its members something, and the member’s other tribe gives them something, that’s two different tribes. That’s not double dipping. If one tribe wants to give a member something what business is it of the other tribe, how is that double dipping?”
“You’re asking the wrong Indian, Cante.”
“So how are we going to handle that issue, are we going to let enrolled members of the Nawizi Tribe join our new tribe?”
“Well, the big issue is can a potential new member trace his lineage back to February 19, 1867, or was their ancestor a scout.”
Part Seven
Cante says, “Let’s hit every casino all the way back to South Dakota, we’ll have plenty of time to figure it all out.”
Before we left Washington I met with the BIA officials and my attorney’s again and they felt that it was indeed possible to begin a new tribe. The BIA will require that each new potential member provide an extensive genealogy. That should not be to difficult, the BIA assured me, the BIA has extensive genealogy records, it will be just a matter of a member doing his own family research. The biggest obstacle will be if the tribal council of the Nawizi Tribe will approve our request to break off into a separate new tribal entity. If they are not in favor of the split this may require an extensive court battle that could take years.
On our drive back to South Dakota Cante and I discussed several other issues regarding starting a tribe.
1). What about a tribal land base? 2). Who is going to govern the new tribe? 3). A tribal council or a board of directors? 4). Or, do we even want to pattern our new tribe after the tribal council concept. 4). Am I going to give up control of my ninety million dollars? 5). Since it’s my idea and my money am I going to be the Chief, Chairman of the board or CEO? 6). If we are granted tribal recognition do we want to go after federal Indian money? 7). Do we want to engage in gaming? 8). Shall we buy land and request that it be put into Trust status? 9) Shall we buy land and pay taxes on the property?
“My idea is to continue to invest the ninety million dollars and get an annual return of $4.5 million dollars, I talked with a building contractor recently and he said you could build a decent home for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, a two or three bedroom house, complete with a rake, lawn mover, and an instruction manual on how to maintain a home. That being the case, I want to dedicate $2 million of the $4.5 million to new home purchase, that is thirteen new houses a years, in five years that is 65 new homes. I can leverage the ninety million dollars and get federal housing tax credits, and also build apartment complexes for those who don’t want to own a new home. In ten or twenty years every tribal member can have a new home.”
“The other $2.5 million dollars of the interest money each year we can use for various initiatives. If we play our cards right we never have to touch the ninety million dollars.”
“Ultimately, my dream is to be able to find some kind of viable business that will employ our tribal members, at this point I’m not in favor of creating a tribal social welfare system, and become a bunch of poverty pimps depending on federal money.”
“If we decide to engage in gaming I don’t know if the Nawizi Reservation can sustain another casino, so my thinking is to partner with a larger city in North or South Dakota and split the gaming revenues with them.”
“And, pay taxes just like a regular businesses, white people like taxpayers, and that should cut down on the political objections if we pay taxes and share the revenue.”
“Say we make a deal with Sioux Falls or Mitchell and put a casino on I-90, and share the revenues with them, how can they refuse?”
“Sounds like have given this a lot of thought,” Cante said.
“If any of my ideas actually come to fruition it will take a lot more thought and I’m going to have to get some of the best Indian minds to help me pull this off.”
“The reason the United States government was able to rip off the millions of acres of Indian lands was they took advantage of the Indians lack of education and sophistication in the white mans ways.” “The government was smart enough to recognize the various Indian tribes as nations, by doing so this gave them the capacity to make treaties with the various Indian nations.”
“After the government treated most of the Indians land the government then suspended the treaty making process in 1872.”
“In the case of the Nawizi Reservation and the two bands of Dakota Indian the government threw together in 1867, the government felt they were removed far enough away from the white settlers so they left them alone until 1887, twenty years later. There were millions of new immigrants pouring into this country looking for new lands so the government came up with the General Allotment Act scheme, this act allowed the government to parcel out one hundred and sixty aces to the Indians and then convinced them to sell off the surplus, which was over six hundred thousand acres of land.”
“The Indians who lived during that time never bothered to make wills so when they died off their original 160 acres is now some of the most fractionated land on the planet.”
“When I was working for the Nawizi Tribe we bought some of this fractionate land and one parcel we bought had one hundred and one heirs.”
Cante and I took our time getting back to South Dakota and the Nawizi Reservation.
Coincidentally, the annual August pow wow was only a week away when we arrived, the pow wow where Cante and I had met twenty-two years earlier.
Since the Nawizi Tribe had money from their three small casinos the Indian politicians sponsored what they called “District Day’s” just before the annual pow wow. If you were a tribal member you could go to the casino and receive a free meal and two hundred dollars. No member believed the Indian politicians did this out of the goodness of their hearts, or their own pockets, rather, they were motivated by the fact that tribal elections were just a couple of months away.
Cante and I went and had a free meal and we each picked up our two hundred dollars. We noticed several tribal members looking at us suspiciously. You could almost read their minds, “Their millionaires and their getting two hundred dollars each.”
Little did the “Haters” realize Cante and I gave away the four hundred dollars to the homeless Indian alcoholics who hung out in the town of Bumduck.
We had developed a pamphlet outlining our idea of starting a new tribe. We set up a booth at the pow wow grounds and handed out over three thousand pamphlets. Of course, there were a number of skeptics. After discussing the plan with them I could tell that their skepticism was based on their lack of knowledge of the history of the Nawizi Reservation.
Almost everyone we spoke with had heard that I had won the Mega Million Dollar Lottery and that I offered to pay off the Nawizi’s Tribe’s bills.
We must have heard the comment over twenty-five hundred times, “How stupid are our leaders?”
“And, I must have said over twenty-five hundred times, “They don’t call the Nawizi Reservation the Nawizi Reservation for nothing.” “Nawizi, as you know means jealousy in the Dakota Language.”
Part Eight
In the pamphlet I had a short survey which asked if they wanted to join the new tribe if in fact I was able to get the governments approval. Nearly everyone who replied said yes. The survey also asked why should a new tribe be started. The number one reason given was the current tribal government wasn’t working. Their was an overwhelming consensus that the current tribal leaders were all about lining their own pockets with the money from the tribes gaming industry. The number two reason given was that throwing two separate bands of Dakota Indians together in 1887 was a bad idea and forming a new tribe would be a way to correct the governments historical error.
I had scheduled a “town hall” meeting to discuss the matter in two weeks and invited everyone to attend. Cante and I planned to put on a big feast and give away door prizes since we knew Indians liked a free meal and door prizes.
An emergency tribal council meeting was called a couple of days after the annual pow wow, of course, I wasn’t invited, to discuss the pamphlet that I had passed out at the pow wow. I hadn’t shared my survey results with them so their discussion focused on whether the idea of starting a new tribe was legal. Surprisingly over half of the seven tribal council members said they won’t object to someone starting the process of forming a new Sisseton Tribe. My informant who worked at the tribal office said the council actually stated that the US government had “fucked up” back in 1887.
I found the information from this meeting very encouraging to say the least.
However, after the council discussed the formation of a new tribe several Nawizi tribal members asked the tribal council to go into executive session. My informant told me later that several tribal members did not like the fact that Cante and I had received four hundred dollars at the recent “District Days.”
The comment was made, “Why should they be getting district day money, their millionaires, talk about two greedy ass Nawizi tribal members.”
They asked the Nawizi Tribe to disenroll Cante and me from the tribe. They mentioned that it was becoming common practice for other tribes in America to throw out tribal members. They reasoned that we didn’t need the money and our disenrollment would mean more money for the poorer tribal members who did need the money.
Councilman Johnny Walker from the Red Eye District agreed and make a motion to have the tribal attorneys start the disenrollment process. The vote was 4 to 3 to disenroll Cante and I. The reason given was since we were promoting the idea of starting another tribe, and if we succeeded, we would be eligible to be members of the new tribe.
The Nawizi Tribe has a constitutional provision that prohibits tribal members from being enrolled in more then two tribes at once. In Indian country, most tribes do not allow a tribal member to be enrolled in more than one tribe, even if, say a members’ father is from one tribe, and his/her mother is from another tribe. The member has to make a choice to which tribe he/she wants to join.
I was told the illogical reason for this prohibition was that an Indian could get something from two tribes, and due to the limited resources of the tribes this constituted a violation of some esoteric tribal moral code.”
Apparently, several years prior a female Nawizi tribal member also enrolled with her mother’s Seneca Tribe, when someone reported this to the tribal council they disenrolled her. When she appealed the tribal councils decision to the tribal court the court ruled that it is the tribes inherent right to set membership requirements.
“Cante, so what do you think about us getting disenrolled,” I asked?
“Ko-cha, as if it makes any difference.”
“Tribal membership is like being in the Boy or Girl Scouts, its all cool if you’re a member, but if your not, what difference does it really make.”
“The haters are right about one thing,” Cante said, “We are millionaires.”
“We certainly don’t need Nawizi Tribal membership to survive, we’re still citizens of Bumduck, the state of South Dakota, the city of Edina, and the state of Minnesota, and the United States.”
“With the ninety million dollars we got in the bank and can start our own tribe.”
“Now your talking girl, I knew there was a reason I married you, Cante Don’t Play.”
We laughed.
“Remember it all started because I bought four lottery tickets.”
“There were over two thousand Indians who showed up for our initial meeting. We ran out of food, so Cante ran to the store and bought all of the “Ring of Reds” (ring of bologna), and all of the bread and potato chips.
This prompted Butch Pretty Sounding Voice, to say, “Now that’s a real Indian meal.“ Butch was a local country western singer I hired to entertain us. Butch PSV, as he was known was a local favorite because he once had a four member band that he inadvertently named the Four Skins. When he realized that foreskin was also the skin that covers the penis it was to late, the Indians never let him forget it, and his error actually increased his popularity.
The law firm from Washington was there as were several high level BIA officials from Aberdeen and Washington.. Their combined research revealed that it was indeed possible to form a new tribe based on the US governments error back in 1867.
I had decided that I would buy a large vacant department store building on the Main Street of Bumduck and this would become our new tribal headquarters. We decided not to buy any other land as this could cause legal problems and slow down the process of starting a new tribe. This would also minimize the animosity with the local white governments. If our new tribe eventually decided to purchase land we agreed we would pay the property taxes on it. We also decided that we would apply for only certain federal discretionary grants that were not social welfare related. We did not want our new tribe to become a new tribal “welfare state.”
The federal government realized that by allowing a new tribe to become federally recognized would not create any extra financial burden on the federal government because the new tribe did not create any more Indians, rather it divided the one tribe into two tribes.
We also decided against a tribal council type of government, instead choosing to form both a non-profit and a for-profit corporations, each with a board of directors to conduct our for profit and not for profit businesses.
With ninety million dollars of unencumbered cash in the bank our possibilities were unlimited.
Not to anyone’s surprise the biggest question was “what are we going to do about the Nawizi Tribes prohibition against dual enrollment.”
I said I personally did not have a problem with a member of our new tribe being enrolled in another tribe. I understood that Indians for hundreds of years have intermingled with people from other tribes and races.
However, we did set one restriction - a member of our new tribe could not own two homes, one bought by the new tribe and one bought by the Nawizi Tribe.
The ball was now in the Nawizi Tribe’s court, they would have to abolish the dual membership prohibition, or the Nawizi Tribe could keep it’s dual enrollment prohibition and lose half of its membership.
Eventually the Nawizi tribe decided to repeal the dual enrollment prohibition. The process to establish the new tribe took only eighteen months. In the ensuing years the new tribe became far more progressive than the Nawizi Tribe.
There is an old Indian proverb, “You can lead a Sunka Wakan (horse) to the mini (water) but you can’t make it drink.“ Some Indians are so used to being poor, broke, and ripped off that they think being poor, broke, and ripped off is what an Indian is. The End.
LOVE UNDER THE BUFFALO ROBES
Part One
When I was growing up on the Nawizi Indian reservation in northeastern South Dakota during the 1950 and early 60’s there was an interesting phenomena going on. White men came to the reservation from Minnesota, North and South Dakota with the specific purpose of soliciting sex from the pretty young Indian girls.
Most Dakota girls are beautiful when there are young.
We called these white-men Squaw Men. Squaw and Buck are two derogatory terms directed toward Indians. So calling a white man a Squaw Men wasn’t complimentary.
I never did find out why Buck and Squaw are derogatory terms. The word Squaw sound offensive enough so I’m thinking that if I was an Indian women I’d be offended, or if a white man called my mother a Squaw I might kick his ass. I only heard the word used once by a dumbass old German guy who lived on the reservation all of his life.He was the kind of guy that gave white people a bad name.
If a white man called my dad a Buck I know for sure my dad would have kicked his white ass.
Actually, there was not a lot of racism on the Nawizi Reservation, not the type of racism that existed in the south between whites and negroes.
I never heard of an Indian getting lynched for looking at a white women.
The “racism” that did exist was due to good old fashion human nature. In us humans beings there’s something in our “fallen” nature that goes back to Adam in the Garden of Eden, we just like to look down on other races of people who are different then we are. Not just the race or color thing, but we also look down on people who don’t have money, or they may belong to a different religion or church.
Its funny, when it comes to sex we human beings generally set aside our racial, economic, and religious differences.
I’ve never heard of a man guy turning down a piece of ass because a girl went to a different church then he did.
The idea was to come to the reservation bars and engage willing Indian girls in conversation and drinks. Of course not all Indian girls engaged in this type of behavior.
The Squaw Men would buy the beer, feed the juke box with their nickels, and buy the girls cigarettes, all with the hope that they would later go someplace and screw.
Sometimes the Indian girls would “gave it up,” and sometimes they didn’t, but if they liked free beer, music, and cigarettes they usually gave it up.
Modern day Indian-White quid pro quo.
This phenomena was nothing new, this same behavior occurred when the white men first came to the Upper Midwest region in the late 17th century. Many of the early white men engaged in the fur trading business.
Contrary to what some Indian romantics would want us to believe the Dakota Indian actually coveted the white man’s trade goods. Take for example the metal pot and pan. For time immemorial the Dakota Indian was without a metal pot and thus did not have the means to make soup.
Soup and fry bread are modern day Indian delicacies directly related to the fur traders who brought metal pots and frying pans.
Consider how different life had become with a metal axe and a metal knife. The greatest of all the white man’s invention was the gun.
My great grandfather was said to have shot sixteen buffalo with sixteen shots. Enough meat to feed his large tiospaye (family) all winter.
The Dakota Indian would trade their furs for guns, powder, mirrors, pots, pans, bead, pots, pans, axes, knifes, etc.
And, some Indian women would trade their bodies for pots, pans, mirrors, beads, cloth, and guns, knives, etc.
The early white men like the modern day Squaw Men would trade their goods or cash for sexual favors.
Early American Indian-White quid pro quo.
In 1862, the Dakota Indian declared an ill-advised war on the white people in Minnesota. This resulted in the Dakota Indian being kicked out of Minnesota, but not before sixteen hundred Dakota Indians were rounded up and incarcerated at the military post Fort Snelling, near present day Minneapolis/St Paul.
There were one hundred twenty nine half-breeds in the long column of Indians forced marched across Minnesota. In less then a century, about 10% percent of the Indian population were the product of inter-racial sex.
Another interesting phenomena on a Indian reservation was the best jobs on an Indian reservation are working for the United States Government.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs and Indian Health Service are the two primary federal agencies charged with carrying out the governments trust responsibilities to the Indians. If you were lucky enough to get one of those jobs that automatically put you in the reservations upper class.
I went to college on the GI bill and came back to the Nawizi Indian Reservation and got one of those cushy reservations jobs working for the United State of America.
I met a pretty young Indian girl, ten years my junior, and I got her pregnant. I didn’t mean to. I was kind of pissed at her for not taking the necessary precautions.
I have this cockeyed idea that it is the women’s responsible to keep from getting pregnant. I got this idea from my Dakota Indian culture.
For time immemorial it is the Indians girls “job” to bear children and by doing so the Indian race will never die out.
I know modern day Indian romantic’s would like us to believe the Indian lived in some kind of Garden of Eden, but my view is that life was hard and infant mortality took an extraordinarily toll on the population. If a women bore ten children, maybe only half would live to full maturity.
Rarely have I heard Indians “brag” or even talk about their sex life.
In the Army, one of the big cultural shocks for me was to hear white and black soldiers talk or brag about the size of their penis’s and how much cunnilingus they engaged in. I remember one white guy say his dick was so big that he couldn’t smile because he didn’t have enough skin.
Indians just don’t talk about their sex lives or their sexual exploits.
They don’t talk about they just do it!
Neither my girl friend or I believed in abortion so we kept the baby. After I knocked her up a second time we went to the Justice of Peace and got married. I wanted my two kids to carry my last name - Fierce Bear.
Chaske (the first born son) Fierce Bear and Winona (the first born female) Fierce Bear.
My wife and I both desired a decent life-style, which included home ownership and a new car, plenty to eat, and to make sure the Fierce Bear kids had everything they needed.
This lifestyle took all of my bi-weekly government checks. Distressed over my lack of finances I offered a prayer up to God, I prayed that He would give me a good business idea.
It wasn’t to long afterwards that the idea of loaning money to other Indians came into my mind.
I had eight hundred dollars in my savings account. I took that eight hundred dollars and loaned it out and I got nine hundred and sixty dollars back. I loaned that $960 dollars out and got back $1,150. I did that a thousand times, re-investing my profits into the payday lending business.
After ten years I was loaning out over $1.5 million dollars from that original investment of eight hundred dollars. I inadvertently discovered the white man’s greatest financial invention - compounded interest!
Business was so good that I hired a person to run my payday lending business while I continued to work at my cushy government job.
Payday lending is a good reservation business mainly because credit has always been an issue with native Americans. There has never been much employment on Indian reservations and it follows that Indians never had much money. Unfortunately for them, good banking practices do not allow banks to loan to people who don’t have a job or much money. Consequently, most Indians do not use banks and other financial institutions. Of course, this well established banking practice causes the Indian to accuse the white owned banks of racial discrimination.
As an Indian reservation payday lender I take a different viewpoint. Lending money is all about minimizing your risk. Whether your Wells Fargo or the Shylock on Main Street you have to have some reasonable assurance that your going to get your money back.
Payday lending has a bad name in America. The critic’s of payday lending call people like me Predatory Lenders.
If a borrower gets behind on payments the real Predatory Lenders keep adding on interest to the original loan. However, I never ran my business that way. If you borrowed a hundred dollars from me I will charge you twenty dollars. If you don’t pay me back the hundred and twenty dollars back within thirty days, six months from now you still own me a hundred and twenty dollars.
If I have to take a customer to tribal court for collection there is a thirty dollar court filing fee that I paid. If I got a successful judgement, and I usually did, you now owed me $150.00 dollars. Of course, if the poor Indian, blacks, and whites in America would have paid their bill like they promised all this talk about predatory lenders won‘t be occurring.
Jenny or Jen was a nice looking white women, about thirty five years old. She came from a poor, alcoholic family. She used her beauty and innate intelligence to escape her tough background and she marry one of the local businessmen. The marriage didn’t last long, my guess is that because of her poor background and her recently acquired expensive tastes she almost bankrupted her poor husband. She was always well dressed, probably over-dressed for the small town located on the reservation.
“Do you loan money to white people,” Jen asked me one day.
“I loan money to anyone, I answered, “the only color that I know is green.”
“Are you serious,” I asked?
“Yes, I’d like to borrow five hundred dollars, I’m expecting my tax refund in a couple of weeks.”
“How much do you charge for five hundred dollars?”
“Only a hundred bucks, you’ll owe me six hundred dollars on the payback,” I said.
“Only, she said?
“Only,” I answered.
“Ok, I need the money now, I seen this Coach purse that I want right now and I can’t wait.”
“I don’t need to know that.”
“When I loan money to someone, once I hand it to them, they can do whatever they want with it,” I said.
Two weeks later when it came time to pay she called me to her office at one of the local small businesses that relied on Indians for half of their business income.
“I didn’t get as much back as I had expected, my Ex’ is messing with my tax return.”
“But, I got a plan that you might be interested in. Why don’t you come to my house tonight about seven,” she said.
Right away I knew what she had in mind. “Lets see where this goes,” I thought to myself.
I also thought to myself, “I wonder if I can sneak out of the house for a couple of hours without arousing my wife’s suspicion.”
“Ya, I guess I could stop by, I said.”
“You can’t tell me now what this is about?”
“No, I’d prefer not to right now.”
“Okay then, I’ll be there at seven.”
After supper I told by wife I was going down to the gym to play some basketball, to work off the great meal she had just cooked.
I arrived by foot at Jen’s house. I ring the door bell, I could hear her holler, “Come in!”
I open the door, the first thing I noticed is that the lights were turned down low.
Opening the door I said, “Knock, Knock, Jen are you here?”
“I’m in the bedroom, come in here.”
I go to the bedroom entrance and she is lying on the bed in one of those night gowns that you see in Victoria Secret’s store windows.
“Pretty sexy,” I say.
“It’s all yours,” she says.
“I bet it ain’t free,” I say.
“No its not, it will cost you six hundred dollars.”
“That’s a lot.”
“How about if I take it in installments,” I say.
Part Two
Back in 1850’s there was a Dakota Indian by the name of John Other Day who went with a treaty delegation to Washington, D.C. To everyone’s amazement he met and brought a white women back with him to what is now western Minnesota.How did a “wild” Indian talk a white women into coming back with him to wild west was a topic of great discussion back in those day, and even today a hundred and fifty years later the Dakota Indians are still talking about John’s amazing feat.
Some say she was a prostitute so it wasn’t such an amazing feat. Other’s say that white men have always mated with Indian women, so what’s the big deal if a Indian guy reverses the tread and screws a white women?
The President of the United States father is from Kenya and his mother is from Kansas. So some say we have a Black President.
You never hear anyone say we have a half white President.
Yes, our President is exactly one half Black and one half White. This fact throws the old racist saying, “If your black get back, if your white stick around” all out of whack.
Sometimes the lines of reason get blurred when we talk about interracial sex.
The next white women to enter into my life was Jane. Jane worked as a dental assistant at the local dental clinic.
I had a dental appointment and Jane was the dentist’s assistant that day. After the dentist shot me up with Novacaine he went to work on another patient while the Novocain and Jane worked their magic.
“I heard that you’re the only payday lender in Bumduck, would you borrow me money, she asks?”
“Do you have to be an Indian to borrow from you?”
“No, the only color I see is green,” I said.
I thought to myself I have to come up with a better line than that one of these days.
“Can I borrow two hundred dollars?”
“Sure, it will cost you forty bucks, two hundred and forty on the payback.”
“Fine, I’ll come by your office after work.”
“We close at five, but after I get off work at my cushy government job I usually go to the loan office to check up on things, so I’ll meet you there,” I said.
“Here fill this form out, I don’t require a lot of paper work, or a credit check, your word and you job our my best security.”
When Jane came to the office it was after 5:00 pm. I gave her the money and we engaged in small talk for about a half an hour.
“If you don’t mind me saying, your kind of a nice looking old man,” Jane said smiling, “I don’t mean “old” man in the usual sense, but you must be at least twenty five years older then me, but you don‘t look as old as my dad.”
“Well, thank you young lady, I do take care of myself - eat right, don’t smoke, drink, or chase wild women.”
Jane paid me back on time. A month later she borrowed another two hundred dollars. This pattern of borrowing continued for a year.
One day she calls me at work and says, “I need to borrow five hundred dollars, what’s the interest on five hundred dollars.” “I have some extra money coming in about a month and I will pay you back then.”
“The interest or pay back will be six hundred dollars,” I answered.
“I’ll come by after work to pick it up.”
At the office later, after some small talk Jane asks, “Have you ever heard the word Hootchie?
“Sure have, why, who’s a Hootchie?”
“I am.”
“How so?”
“I like to get screwed.”
“I like your candor.”
“I been borrowing money from you for a year now, instead of me borrowing money from you how would you like to screw me for it?”
“Are you serious?”
“That is quite a prostitution, I mean proposition, never had one like that before.”
“Let me think about it.”
“What is there to think about?”
“Well, there are several considerations.
“Number one, I’m married.”
“Number two, there is the moral question.”
“Number three, you could blackmail me.”
“Number four, you could get pregnant.”
Jane responds, “Number one, married people do it all the time.”
“Number two, what’s the moral issue? If your mommy and daddy, and my mommy and daddy didn’t screw you and I won’t be here!”
Number three, I’d never blackmail you, never thought of that possibility until you mentioned it just now.”
“No, I may be a Hootchie, but I am no criminal.”
Number four, have you heard of birth control?
“I’ve been on BC since I was sixteen years old when my mommy and daddy first found out I was screwing the football team.”
“Well, I wasn’t exactly screwing the whole team, but that’s what my dad said when he found out, it was only a couple of them, but you know how word gets around in a small town.”
“So what’s the big deal anyway?”
“There’s nearly seven billion people in the world, so that means man and women have screwed at least seven billion times, right?”
“Right now, as we sit here talking, somewhere in the world it is night time, and I’ll bet you there must be at least one billion people screwing!”
“Ha, ha, ha, I suppose you right I said.”
“Want to make it one billion and one, Jane asks?”
“Sure, why not.”
Part Three
Jane and I engaged in this sexual relationship for a couple years. It ended one day when she announced that she was going to get married, she had met a half-breed guy, a half white and half Indian who she liked, and when he asked her to marry him she agreed.
She said, “It won’t be fair to him if I was screwing you on the side.”
I chuckled and said, “Well, isn’t it ironic that you say that, because that is exactly what I have been doing to my wife the last two years.”
“Changing the subject Jane says, “I’m curious, is sex different between Indian and white girls?”
“Well anatomically speaking, no,” I said.
“Why do you ask?”
“Oh, my girl friends and I were talking about this recently.”
“So what did you girls conclude,” I ask?
“One of the girls said she had sex with a black guy, and another gal said she had sex with an Asian guy, and I said I had sex with an Indian guy, and all of us girls screwed white guys…”
“Oh shit!” “I hope you didn’t mention my name.”
“Hahaha, don’t be silly.”
“So, what did you girls conclude?”
“Nothing really.”
“I bet you thought we were going to say this race is better than that race, but, no, we didn’t say that, if there was any consensus we all agreed that it’s up to how one felt or feels at the time.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, do you remember that time, we went to my place, and you screwed the shit out of me?”
“I guess we were both extra horny at the same time.” “Anyway it was good, and other times it was just good.”
“Well thanks a lot,” I say.
“You know what I mean.”
“Ya, I guess I do.”
“When I was growing up white men came from all over to screw Indian girls and I often wondered why the white women weren’t giving them what they wanted,”
“And, they had to come to the reservation to get what they weren‘t getting at home.“
“I heard about that, Jane said, my boy friend is a product of those times.”
‘He’s kind of sensitive about it.”
“Why should he be,” I asked?”
“Oh, I think it bothers him because he never knew his dad.”
“And, I think he kind of wonders about his mom.”
“I mean, he wonders if his mom was a whore.”
“I never thought of it like that,” I said, “I never thought that the children of those sexual encounters gave it any thought.”
“Interesting.”
“The way I look at it,” Jane said, “is it happened, and the kids had nothing to do with it, and when you actually think about it there isn’t a damn thing they can do about it anyway. “It is what it is, period!”
“Nonetheless, I think there has to be some moral implications, it just doesn’t seem right, that men would come to the reservation just to screw some willing Indian girl,” I state.
“Well, if you ask me, Jane says, “the key word you said is, “Willing.”
“Willing Indian girls,” right?”
“Ya, that’s right they were willing.”
“Ya, now days they call it consensual sex.”
“Consensual sex, I like that word, Jane said, “Consensual sex, that’s what you and I have been doing the past couple of years.”
“And, nobody got hurt, ” Jane added.
“You could say your new boy friend is one of those who go hurt,” I say. “Otherwise, he won’t be wondering about his mother now, if she was a whore, and who his real dad is.”
“He can wonder, and anguish, and be pissed all he wants, but it isn’t going to change anything.” Jane states.
“I guess it will be up to me to convince him that it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to me.”
A couple years later I mused over that conversation. I seen Jane recently. Of course, we don’t talk anymore, we may give each other a passing glance or quick smile or wave. The past is the past.
They seem to be doing okay for themselves, both of them have jobs, they had a new car, and two children.
There was one consequence of white men breeding with Indian women that we hadn‘t discussed.
Since Jane’s husband is half white their children are one-forth degree Indian blood, just enough to be classified or certified as a tribal member. If their children marry anyone other than another Indian their grandchildren won’t be Indians anymore.
The Native Americans are the only racial group in America that has a thing called blood quantum. A blood quantum is suppose to tell the federal government and the tribal governments how much Indian blood you have running through your veins.
The federal government and the tribes want to know how many members there are in a particular tribe. The government doles out billions of dollars to the Indian tribes each year, the bigger the tribe, the more tribal members, the more federal money the tribe receives.
Most tribes in America require 1/4th degree of Indian blood. This was once the federal standard, but the government has now left it up to each tribe to decide how much blood is needed to be a member of their tribe. Some tribes have done away with blood quantum’s altogether.
One of the unspoken reasons that blood quantum’s is such an asinine idea or requirement is because of love under the buffalo robes. Many Indians today don’t know who their biological fathers are. Their mothers never told them the truth.
I do not know if they were embarrassed or ashamed of their youthful indiscretions, or maybe they had multiple sexual encounters and weren’t sure who the father was, or they had came to the same conclusion that Jane did, it didn’t matter, it is what it is.
I know tribal council leaders today who claim to be full blood Indians and the simple truth is they are not. Many of them are in denial and their biological lies are passed on to their children. I have even heard their children claim that their fathers are full blooded Indians. So the lie goes on and so does the stupid blood quantum idea.
Part four
My wife had an affair with a co-worker. Of the nearly 7 billion people on the planet, she was adamant that she had found her "soul mate." After all, if I were the perfect husband she would have never cheated on me.
I wasn’t really mad at her in light of my own indiscretions. The problem with screwing around on your spouse is that it violates the trust aspect of a marriage or a monogamous relationship.
And that’s what separates us humans from the animal kingdom.
I chuckle to myself when on TV they show lions, bears, and cattle breeding with the female lions, bears and cows, and then after the females are impregnated the male lion, bear, or bull wanders off and leaves the rearing of their offspring to the female lion, bear or cow.
We all probably know some human males who do the same thing.
I recently read about the Apple Computer guy Steve Job’s. Steve Jobs was given up at birth. Steve Jobs biological father was a Syrian and his mother, a college student from Wisconsin. Later when Steve became a billionaire he went looking for his biological parents.
After finding his mother she apologized to him over and over for abandoning him. Steve reassured her that “things had turned out just fine.”
The reason that extra-marital screwing around has gotten a bad name is because not all of the children of those sexual liaisons “turned out just fine,” and as I said, it violates the trust factor that human beings have developed over the millenniums.
Sue, when I met her was a forty-five year old white women. I just started talking to her at the grocery store one day.
“I’ve seen you around all of these years, but you know how it can be in this town, the white people and the Indians have self-imposed segregated societies, sure we live in the same town, go to the same school, and pretty much do the same things.”
“But, at the end of the day we each go to our own side of the town.”
“We even go to our own churches, we have two Catholic, Presbyterian, Baptist, and Episcopal churches.”
“Of course, we can go to either one, but we prefer to go to church with our own kind.”
“Hahaha, Sue laughs,” you’re right she said, “I always thought it was kind of strange, but I don’t see anything wrong with it, do you?’
“No, not really,” I say.
“What do you mean not really, you sound like you have some misgivings?”
“Well, it does seem strange that we‘re worshipping the same God in different churches, but then it’s been that way as long as I can remember, and I guess it’s the way the Indian and white people want it.”
“It is what it is, I say.” Damn it, I have been saying that a lot “it is what it is,” I think to myself.
I invited her to have coffee and to my surprise she readily agreed. She said that she had divorced her husband of twenty-four years and her kids were all on their own. Her ex-husband moved away and she lived alone in a large house and she greatly desired human interaction.
“These past three years have been rough, the embarrassment of getting divorce, and learning to live alone has not been easy.” “I had to see the psychologist and was on anti-depressant medications.”
“One day I quit feeling sorry for myself.” “I refocused on what is important in life.”
“And, here I am having coffee with a complete stranger.” “An Indian too boot,” she said smiling.
“Even though we had both lived in this same town for all our lives we don’t know each other.”
That is why Sue and I got along so well, we were complete strangers who would drink coffee, smoke cigarettes, and talk for hours on end. We especially liked to talk about the events that went on in our town and the different white and Indian people who lived in the town. I enjoyed her “white perspective” and she enjoyed my “Indian perspective” on the events and people of the town.
We eventually had sex. Two people old enough now that we didn’t have to play mind games or worry about getting pregnant and I was relieved that I did not have to “perform” or prove my sexual prowess anymore.
Sue told me that when she was a young girl she had gotten pregnant and her parents forced her to give away her baby. This had caused her much anguish. She admitted that this was the reason she got divorced. Her husband knew about it and when he got drunk he would inevitably bring it up. After twenty-four years of verbal abuse she filed for divorce.
“One of the things that I have thought about and have noticed is that you Indians don’t seem to make a big deal out of being born out of wedlock,” she said one day in one of our many conversations.
“I have heard white people in this town say privately that Indians are less moral or religious so they don’t place a moral stigma on being a bastard. ”
“I cringe when I heard that kind of talk, my gosh, I gave a child away because my parents thought that it wasn’t right for a sixteen year old girl to have a illegitimate child.”
Sue put her hands to her face and began to sob.
Maybe what America needs is more love under the buffalo robes I thought to myself.
The end.
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