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lummi indians
I don't think this made it to the list, last night, so here it comes again...in response to the conversation about Native Americans, here is one particular tribe of American Indians that I am very familiar with...
Vikki,
The Lummi nation in North West Washington State has about 6000 members. They have, what seems to be about four family names on the whole reservation >>> solomon, Far, Jefferson and a couple of others that I can't remember. Most were forced to change names as well as become christians back in the good old days of stealing cheap land from natives...
The biggest problem that the reservation suffered, happened in the mid 90's. It was Crack and Meth that destroyed a lot of the community. Unfortunately that was about the time when a wave--a crack and cheap meth hit that corner of Washington State in the rural areas as an epidemic. Hell even inland farmers got caught up in the epidemic...imagine a 60 year old farmer who had little experience with urban living, all of a sudden taking a hit on the crack pipe. Many had early heart attacks, lost farms and so on.
I know that a great number of young members of the tribe got swept away with the crack, meth and pharmaceuticals wave. I'm not sure how it is going there these days but I can't help to think that it must have gotten better...for it couldn't have gotten worse. I lived in the area back then...there was a big difference between the Lummi and the Nooksack Indians who lived further inland--as well the Native American up in Canada who had more tribal Independence than many US indigenous peoples have.
Because of the business I was in at the time, which involved crossing forested borders--I was asked a few times to teach several lummi tribe members how to become woodsy again. That was very ironic considering their history...Seems that everybody wanted to get in to the smuggling racket back then. Except the locals lost track of knowing the ways of tracking. [I did teach a few native friends how to stay out of trouble and how to safely navigate in dense forest]
Hanging with those guys was very intense--they always liked to say to me when I was dealing with them...Richard... your on the rezz...then they would "try" to take all my shit. That was oddly enough a way of being excepted. I was sort of a forced way to always be alert...in order to go native now and then, one paid the interesting price of enjoying a hyper-real awareness. The other thing was...that the Rezz seemed to be portable...it meant where ever we were, even if I were leading them through the forest of British Columbia, it was the Rezz.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lummi
Richard Haden----
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Vikki,
The Lummi nation in North West Washington State has about 6000 members. They have, what seems to be about four family names on the whole reservation >>> solomon, Far, Jefferson and a couple of others that I can't remember. Most were forced to change names as well as become christians back in the good old days of stealing cheap land from natives...
The biggest problem that the reservation suffered, happened in the mid 90's. It was Crack and Meth that destroyed a lot of the community. Unfortunately that was about the time when a wave--a crack and cheap meth hit that corner of Washington State in the rural areas as an epidemic. Hell even inland farmers got caught up in the epidemic...imagine a 60 year old farmer who had little experience with urban living, all of a sudden taking a hit on the crack pipe. Many had early heart attacks, lost farms and so on.
I know that a great number of young members of the tribe got swept away with the crack, meth and pharmaceuticals wave. I'm not sure how it is going there these days but I can't help to think that it must have gotten better...for it couldn't have gotten worse. I lived in the area back then...there was a big difference between the Lummi and the Nooksack Indians who lived further inland--as well the Native American up in Canada who had more tribal Independence than many US indigenous peoples have.
Because of the business I was in at the time, which involved crossing forested borders--I was asked a few times to teach several lummi tribe members how to become woodsy again. That was very ironic considering their history...Seems that everybody wanted to get in to the smuggling racket back then. Except the locals lost track of knowing the ways of tracking. [I did teach a few native friends how to stay out of trouble and how to safely navigate in dense forest]
Hanging with those guys was very intense--they always liked to say to me when I was dealing with them...Richard... your on the rezz...then they would "try" to take all my shit. That was oddly enough a way of being excepted. I was sort of a forced way to always be alert...in order to go native now and then, one paid the interesting price of enjoying a hyper-real awareness. The other thing was...that the Rezz seemed to be portable...it meant where ever we were, even if I were leading them through the forest of British Columbia, it was the Rezz.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lummi
Richard Haden----
Message sent by the Situationist list.
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Re: lummi indians / Vikki Riley <riley.vikki-AT-gmail.com> / 03 Jul 2009
Re: lummi indians / JEAN PARR <jeanparr-AT-btinternet.com> / 03 Jul 2009
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