Sharing Our Stories of Survival: Native Women Surviving Violence (8 page)

74
  Vine Deloria Jr.,
Custer Died for Your Sins
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988), p. 51.

75
  Indian nations within other regions of North America experienced unique circumstances in negotiating continued control of lands and territory. The relationship of the women of these nations to the land was unique according to their societies.

76
  See R. Douglas Hurt,
Indian Agriculture in America: Prehistory to the Present
(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1987).

77
  Bethany Ruth Berger, “After Pocahontas: Indian Women and the Law, 1830 to 1934,”
American Indian Law Review
21, no. 1 (1997): 7.

78
  Ladiga II, 43 US. (2 How.) at 583.

79
  Act of February 8, 1887, 24 Stat., 388.

80
  
Moore v. United States
, 150 U.S. 57 (1893). Palmer’s land was rented from an Indian. This land was also claimed by a full-blooded Choctaw woman named Lizzie Lishtubbi. Four days before the murder, defendant Moore married this woman. He had previously boasted that he was going to marry the woman and get the land; “that she was old and would not live long, and he would get a good stake.” One of the witnesses told him that he would have trouble over it, as Charles Palmer was about the gamiest man in the territory. He replied: “I am some that way myself” As he started to leave, he said: “I may not get to marry the widow; and if I do not, if you give me away, I will kill you.”

81
  See Dennis McAuliffe,
Bloodland: A Family Story of Oil, Greed and Murder on the Osage Reservation
(Council Oak Books, 1999); Lawrence J. Hogan,
The Osage Indian Murders: The True Story of a 21-Murder Plot to Inherit the Headrights of Wealthy Osage Tribe Members
(AMLEX, Inc., 1988).

82
  Dee Brown,
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West,
1970, p. 90 and David Stannard,
American Holocaust: Columbus and the Conquest of the New World
, 1992, p. 131.

83
  Monroe E. Price,
Law and the American Indian Contemporary Legal Education Series
(1973), quoted in Lila J. George, “Why the Need for the Indian Child Welfare Act?”
Journal of Multicultural Social Work
5 (1997): 166.

84
  “School Days of an Indian Girl,”
Atlantic Monthly
, 85, Issue 508 (1900).

85
  Nineteen Hopi fathers were arrested and imprisoned for over a year at Alcatraz for failing to enroll their children in a government boarding school with deplorable conditions. Wendy Holliday,
Hopi History: The Story of the Alcatraz Prisoners
, available at
www.nps.gov/alcatraz/tours/hopi/hopi-hI.htm
.

86
  U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, “Survey of the Conditions of the Indians in the United States, Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Indian Affairs,” Senate, on SR 79, 70th Cong., 2nd session, 1929, 428—29, 1021—23, and 2833—35.

87
  See Michael Sullivan DeFine,
A History of Governmentally Coerced Sterilization: The Plight of the Native American Woman
(University of Maine School of Law, 1997), available at
www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/9118/mike2.htm
; Charles R. England,
A Look at the Indian Health Service Policy of Sterilization, 1972—1976
, p. 1, available at
www.dickshovel.com/IHSSterPol.html
.

88
  Comptroller General of the United States, B-164031(5), November 23, 1976. The regulations specified: “(I) continued a July 1973 moratorium on sterilizing persons who were under 21 years of age or mentally incompetent, (2) specified the informed consent procedure for persons legally capable of consenting to sterilization, and (3) omitted the requirement that individuals seeking sterilization be orally informed at the outset that no Pedersi benefits can be withdrawn because of failure to accept sterilization.”

89
  Presentation by a survivor during the Alaska Native Women’s Statewide Conference (2003).

90
  Bachman,
National Crime Victimization Survey Compilation
.

91
  Indian tribes received initially a 4 percent set aside in VAWA 1994, a 5 percent set aside in 2000, and a 10 percent set aside in 2005.

92
  H.R. 3402 (VAWA). The Acts of 1994, 2000, and 2005 required that a percentage of the total funds be set aside for Indian tribal governments to enhance their governmental response to domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking. Further, these acts recognized and required that full faith and credit be given protections orders issued by tribal courts: “any protection order issued that is consistent with subsection (b) of this section by the court of one state or Indian tribe (the issuing state or Indian tribe) shall be accorded full faith and credit by the court of another state or Indian tribe (the enforcing state or Indian tribe) and enforced as if it were the order of the enforcing state or Indian tribe” 18 U.S.C. § 2265(a) (2000).

93
  Karen Artichoker, “About Circle Sentencing,” May 1996 (unpublished).

94
  Joe Garcia, elected president NCAI, November 2005; Leonora Hootch, shelter director, elected Village of Emmonak Council, November 2005; Cecilia Fire Thunder, Cangleska advocate, elected president, Oglala Sioux Tribe 2004; Tex Hall, strong supporter of the safety of Indian women, re-elected president, National Congress of American Indians, November 2003. Eleanor David, co-director, Alaska Native Women’s Coalition, elected to Village of Allakaket Tribal Council 2003. Wayne Taylor, public zero tolerance for domestic violence campaign, re-elected chairman of the Hopi Indian Tribe. Arlene Quetaki, specialized domestic violence prosecutor, elected governor, Pueblo of Zuni 2001; and Elmer Makua, batterer re-education provider, re-elected to Village Council 2000—present.

95
  Supra note 36.

Questions

1. How is the petition that was signed by the Alaska Natives of Hydaburg an example of the subjugation of women from that community? What rights were removed from Alaska Native women? Why did the community agree to the petition?
   
2. Why would Nancy Ward’s speech to the Treaty Commission have surprised non-Native attendees and treaty commissioners? What does it tell us about women in Cherokee society? Why were her American female counterparts unable to respond to her call for peace?
   
3. What does the story about Russian sailors abusing Native Alaskan women reveal about that nation’s laws on violence against women? What were the repercussions for violence?
   
4. Why might tribes in PL-280 states have a more difficult time responding to violence against women?
   

In Your Community

1. Are there stories in your community that reveal the status of and teach about respect for women? How did you learn about these stories?
   
2. How did the General Allotment Act affect women in your community?
   
3. How does your tribal community work to protect women today?
   
4. What responsibilities do you believe the federal or state governments have in protecting the women of your community? How have they failed or made strides in keeping women and children safe?
   

Terms Used in Chapter I

Common law:
Unwritten law of the tribe, developed through custom and tradition.

Concurrent:
Together, having the same authority; at the same time.

Covenant:
A binding agreement; a promise.

Customary law:
A law based on custom or tradition.

Eroded: Caused to diminish or deteriorate.

Fee lands
: Land that is owned free and clear without any trust or restrictions.

Government-to-government:
A relationship between equal or near-equal nations that prevents one having control over the individuals in another.

Inherent authority:
An authority possessed without its being derived from another.

Mother’s right:
The right of a mother to her children.

Suggested Further Reading

Anderson, Karen.
Chain Her by One Foot: The Subjugation of Women in Seventeenth-Century New France.
New York: Routledge, 1991.

Berger, Bethany Ruth. “After Pocahontas: Indian Women and the Law, 1830 to 1934.”
American Indian Law Review
21, no. 1 (1997).

Bouvier, Virginia Marie.
Women and the Conquest of California, 1542-1840: Codes of Silence.
Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2001.

Braveheart-Jordan, Maria, and Lemyra Debruyn. “So She May Walk in the Balance: Integrating the Impact of Historical Trauma in the Treatment of Native American Indian Women.” In
Racism in the Lives of Women,
eds. Jeanne Adleman and Gloria M. Enguidanos. New York: Haworth Press, 1995.

Bubar, Roe, and Pamela Jumper Thurman. “Violence Against Native Women.”
Social Justice
31 (2004): 70.

Deer, Sarah. “Federal Indian Law and Violent Crime: Native Women and Children at the Mercy of the State.”
Social Justice
31 (2004): 17.

Devens, Carol. “Separate Confrontations: Gender as a Factor in Indian Adaptation to European Colonization in New France.”
American Quarterly
38 (1986): 461.

Fiske, Jo-Anne. “Colonization and the Decline of Women’s Status: The Tsimshian Case.”
Feminist Studies
17 (1991): 509.

Skin on Skin

five little girls
Kiowa, Pawnee, Ojibwa, Choctaw, Crow
we were babies out of our teens
hundreds, a thousand miles
separating us from loved ones
Haskell Indian Junior College
was our home

a simple walk to the 24-hour grocery store
“Strength in numbers,” Montana said
this statement was true, but not for us
Dillon’s, hangout to the skinheads
they were present
as reliable as the locusts that claimed
everything in Kansas that summer

it started with taunts through the store
down one aisle then another
continued into the muggy heat
that took one’s breath away
hearts racing,
we turned toward our version of home

we kept close to one another
“Stay near the houses,
they wouldn’t want witnesses,” Jocelyn whispered.
we could see the rooftop of our dorm,
when they made their move
then we made ours

run! Is what instinct told us
what Mother said to do in that situation
I could feel ancestors next to me
felt long black hair brushing against my sweaty face,
was it my own or someone else’s?

we were caught in the tall dry grass
bordering campus

I felt dead dry stalks pushing through my t-shirt
realizing nothing thrives in this state
except the hate which was delivering
blows to my face and head

I swallowed blood, smelled the fear
coming from the skinhead
who was kicking me in the ribs
I heard cries, screams
and above everything else . . . rage

I remember a flash of black boots
I remember the words
“Dirty stupid squaws, get out of our state!”
“All you stupid squaws need haircuts!”
then I saw the flash of a switchblade
gleaming in the hot September sun

I heard my Grandmother’s voice screaming,
“Move, Makoose, move!”
I felt the strength & love of my family with me
as I began to kick, scream and rage
against my attacker
my friends did the same,
I believe our helpers were with us

soon we heard screaming breaks on asphalt
I saw a flurry of Indian boys
friends on the football team
Just getting out of practice

my last image of my attacker
in his black t-shirt gleaming in the sun
as he ran with his fellow skinheads
for the high ground, like a war party
was on their trail

I felt strong arms lifting me up
holding me, trying to stop
the bleeding from my nose, lip and eye
the wounds near my ribs
these scars I still carry

they never found our attackers
I guess all skinheads look the same right?

I didn’t tell my parents for two years
when I did, we had a healing ceremony
for the whole family

sometimes, late at night, nightmares haunt me
I wake up sweating, shaking & clutching my ribs
where your knife made contact

someday you, like my scars
will fade away

My Grandmother tells me this.

Sally Brunk (Lac du Flambeau Ojibwa)

Chapter 2

Sexual Violence: An Introduction to the Social and Legal Issues for Native Women

CHARLENE ANN LAPOINTE