Crow Fair eventually encompassed active participation by the entire tribe and gradually revived more American Indian rituals. After World War II, agricultural aspects went by the wayside and social and cultural affairs stayed. Tribal Leaders Placing an American Indian statue atop the Capitol dome will increase the appreciation of Oklahomans for the historical role Indians have played in the state, Wilma Mankiller said Monday. I was taught as a child that life is a circle, the sacred hoop, and as we travel the hoop, it is the journey that is of importance, not the destination. It is how we conduct ourselves when our journey touches another's that has value, rather than our arrival at that place.
Children blindly accept the wisdom of their elders.
There is a peace that comes when a truth you accepted as a child is validated in the cold light of adulthood. I am the child of farm workers. As a child, life in the fields means hard physical labor, inadequate education and the kind of despair that breeds violence and alcoholism. When I was 11, my father was employed year-round by a farm in the Puyallup Valley. Calif. Seeking to stem the staggeringly high school-dropout rate among American Indian students, in the late 1960s tribal leaders and educators agreed that Native students would respond better to Native teachers.