The people's voice., 1958-04-11


stockholders, but the officers of tn,
tribal corporation are told by the In
dian Bureau that the tribe must fl
nance it's own relief program. AnC
now! that it must bear the distribu
tion costs of the surplus food pro
gram.
The directive of the Congress or
these Withdrawals of Bureau partici.
patton may be found in House Con.
current Resolution 108 of the 1858
Session of Congress. A policy change
has not been forthcoming in spite of
the best efforts of Western realists,
who know that neither the tribes nor
the states nor private groups are
equipped to deal with the compounded
and special problems of Indians. Re-
sponsibility lies elsewhere, in addition
to the resources.
There are additional service costs
forced upon the tribes, making the
budget for food all the more made
quate. l read recently in the Tribal
Council Minutes of the Blackfeet, for
instance, about $4,000 expense for
medical care to tribal members
stranded off the reservation; $1,000
for glasses given to the school chill
dren in the reservation schools, ap-
preparations from tribal funds for
school lunches, etc.
If the end result of these service
burdens and the abrogation of fed
eral responsibility is to break the
tribes, then woe to Montana.
AS sociologist, I must insist that
the tribe, sub-group, is strength
and a real resource to the wider
group of our society, as well as to the
Indian member himself. These were
de-tribalized Indian girls (four of
the six rebels) who recently tore
apart the State Vocational School and
the city Jail, costing the. institutions
hundreds of dollars of damage. Great
Falls has disproportionate number
of girls at the State School, 12 of
them. Four of these are Indian girls
from the de-tribalized homes here
outside tribal controls. There are an
additional four girls from our city
indian settlements who should be |
lnder custody, so the officers told
ne last week, but there is no room
'or them in our crowded institutions.
The offenses are truancy and run
ling away. All are under sixteen.
| know the girls. Three out of the
our are from homes on Hill 81 where
here is never enough to eat. One
nan, for instance, on Unemployment
Compensation, has his two farm-la-
'orer brothers and their families with
lin, totalling seventeen people. The
mother of one of the girls beat her
enseless for insubordination, but
low she has given up trying to disci-
Zine her. These girls are not likely
o be mothers tomorrow.
Casualties are increasingly noted
lso among the young men of the
ribes. encountered two in the past
TX weeks, from leader-families on
he reservations, who were under 20
ears of age and seriously disturbed
One stood crying at the
eception desk of the hospital, his
ocket full of leaves. He told me that
ney were his only food for two days.
third boy whose family I have
nown to be solid, church-going ranch
RS, the father, tribal judge, was
ound mentally, but he told me, 81 =:
lst travel around. Too tough on the
The next day after our talk I read
lat he was in jail on a pickpocket
large. What of the leadership to-
orrow? r
We do our best these days to break I
D the culture groups, the tribes, and Il
destroy Indian pride, making the {
dians ashamed of their Indianness. o
will not be the budget-makers in D
'ashington, D. C. who will reap the a
1t will be ourselves. the u
tizens, of the West, who pay no n
ed. Il
The gift of surplus food, in the =,
Meantime, would be such small
GESTURE on our part, but it would \
ymbolize much to our Montana =:
indians, our native people, our
hadow population, who are not at
ii sure in their minds that we want