Tug Collective

Roberta Conner “Our People Have Always Been Here” [from Lewis and Clark Through Indian Eyes, edited by Alvin Josephy Jr.]—To hear tribal history requires listening to many connected stories all interrelated, just as all things in creation are connected. Looking back at our tribes' recent past, the arrival of Lewis and Clark and company is part of the same story as that of subsequent arrivals-other explorers, then trappers and traders, then emigrants-which led to the Treaty of 1855 and the tribes' move to the reservation. These are not events unique unto themselves. They are connected to ancient times and modern times because they shape the stories of our people, who are still here, and the stories of our lands on which we still live. Lewis and Clark are also connected to subsequent incursions by the Founding Fathers' visions of a continental nation and the consistency of methods used to obtain lands and to justify the taking of them from l1ative peoples, reaching back to the 1400s. If each person’s life is a story, then the lives of Lewis and Clark and the Indians who received him or her are not only the story of the time of the expedition. In one lifetime much would change. Men who were little boys at the time of the expedition's arrival would, forty-nine years and seven months later, be asked to cede their homeland to Lewis and Clark's a great chief: albeit the man in the presidential chair had changed. One tribal leader would argue in 1855 that they had been good to Lewis and Clark but that they had been blind. In Clark's next career as superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Missouri Territory, he would use the relationships he made with some tribes during the expedition in order to move them to what is now Oklahoma. Each story unfolds to the next story. They are not isolated.

“Vote for Juneau, you know?” It’s hard to capture the slow rhyme to the voice of the MC who rattled off this line spontaneously at the 118th Arlee Esyapqenyi (Celebration) on the Flathead Reservation in Montana over the weekend. Denise Juneau, Democratic candidate for US Congress, was addressing the crowd of hundreds gathered inside the main pow-wow space. “I know the Republicans were here yesterday,” she started in. “They fed you food and all. But don’t let that fool you.” Her message was clear: Vote Democratic. “I would be the first Indian woman in Congress,” she pointed out. “So, if Indians vote, I win.”

Mary Poole had just given birth to her first child when Aylan Kurdi’s body washed ashore off the Turkish coast. The images of the three-year-old toddler, who drowned with his brother and mother in an attempt to reach Greece from Syria, awakened an impulse in Mary that most of us would feel, but few of us would be likely to act upon. Could we not welcome some of these refugees here, Mary thought? An affirmation made aloud in the company of friends gave founding to Soft Landing Missoula, and now, less than 12 months later, the Garden City is set to welcome its first 100 refugees. The journey from Point A to Point B has been met with controversy (surrounding counties have vowed to ban refugees) and generosity (high school students have already organized to pull together backpacks—complete with supplies—for their future classmates). It’s also been met with lots of room for personal growth for Mary. What do you do when people you consider friends espouse a position that comes from a place of fear? As one local reporter put it, Mary has had to learn “to funnel the passion into closing the divide that separates polarized points of view.” It helps to have Betsy Mulligan-Dague, and the Jeannette Rankin Peace Center that she’s Executive Director of, by your side. Betsy, whose featured in the documentary, Beyond the Divide: War, Peace, and the Courage to Find Common Ground, has been practicing the art of civil discourse and conflict resolution for some time now, developing curricula for the public schools, writing a children’s book, giving workshops, and being an ally to those who advance peace, justice, and sustainability. “There’s a great undercurrent of powerful and positive movement here,” Betsy shared with us when we met her and Mary at the Peace Center, named in honor of the first woman to hold elected office. We’ve been thinking a lot about what it takes to live in a country that lives up to its ideals of democracy, equal opportunity, and generosity. An undercurrent, like the one Mary and Betsy have chosen to channel, direct, and move within, seems paramount, even if it means having to re-commit oneself to those ideals each and every day.