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About Spilyay tymoo. (Warm Springs, Or.) 1976-current | View Entire Issue (April 30, 1976)
PAGE 2 WARM SPRINGS, OREGON APRIL », 1976 To My People DAVE WILLIAMS (left). Warm Springs Fireman of the Year, is congratulated by Jack Fiala. Williams has been on the volunteer fire force since Photo by Sandy Rangila Fireman of The Year Honored Dave Williams, a member1 of the volunteer fire depart ment since 1966, was ^namMf* Warm Springs Fireman of the Year last Monday. He received an engraved award from Jack Fiala, facilities manager, for his outstanding work over the years for the fire department. He was honored for several reasons according^to Fiala. ‘Dave is down here every Monday night to attend COFA meeting (Central Oregon Fire-* mans Association), and he goes to all the chiefs meetings.” Williams also just finished designing .and building a hose rolling apparatus for the Warm Springs fire department. “He takes an active part in teach ing and training all the fire men so each will know as much as possible about all the equipment and safety mea sures. The honored fire fighter claims he’s never been injured during a fire. He5 did admit that he was scorched pretty good when the wind* changed while he was wetting down a burning trailer house. “Unpre dictable winds and gusts are the fireman’s worst enemy,” said Williams. He added that the roof is a dangerous place during a fire. “You never know if it’ll cave in or where it might break through.” He said that he usu ally tries to stay on a ladder up against the building when ever possible. Williams works as a for estry technician and has been working with forest and range fires since about 1946. He said that the range fire season in this area is usually from June to October. Among his other qualifi cations as a fireman, Williams is also an Emergency Medical Technician. He stresses safety measures, though, and tries to teach the men in the depart ment precautions so they won’t get themselves into trouble. Williams said that he de rives satisfaction from saving a house and precious belong ings of the occupants. “Even with insurance,” he said, you cannot compensate for ir- repldbeable articles.” I know that throughout this nation there are red brothers and sisters who feel as I do. I am currently incarcerated and I wonder if my other brothers and sisters do not see and feel the mistreatment that can so. feel. Like our people in society we also suffer, for the word discrimination is not only a word used in society, but, also against the fallen inside pri son walls. When my brothers stand.up and speak, and show proudness of who they are, they are labeled by institution personnel as, “Radical, Mili tant Indians.” When my sisters speak and try to regain the privilege of once again going out into society, they are quietly pushed aside, with the answer, “You have a drinking problem or a drug problem that needs to be conquered before we let you go.” But I ask, how can you show the changes of responsibility if not given responsibility. It’s so hard to understand the whiteman’s way of justice, when you see others who are not Indian, moving faster to the freedom of . society and also having the same problems you have. Do the white man really believe that, because we were born Indian, our probelms of alcohol and drugs are more difficult to cure? Do they really believe what they start ed saying so long ago “Indians cannot drink socially?” To you, my brothers and sisters, I know this is as confusing as it is to me. It makes me sad to think of all the brothers and sisters who are .incarcerated like me, who are daily strug gling to show their white peers that they are just as capable of responsibility as any other person inside the prison walls. I wasn’t fortunate enough to be born in the days of Chief Joseph’s wars, df Sitting Bull’s. But from what I know«of those days it was certainly like these modern times. I learned of the hard times of our people from older Indians, that had seen the broken trails of treaties, the rape of our mother Earth, and the bringing of Alcohol, I didn’t learn these things through the Whiteman text book. They were written by the whiteman. What more Can I say? A brother incarcerated at the Boise, Idaho prison once wrote “We are forbidden to worship and practice Indian religión, are forbidden to have a medicine man to minister our spiritual needs, but yet all the other religious groups are permitted to have their Bishop, Chaplain, etc. Where is this so-called right for the Indian and his religion?” I have to agree with this brother, there is no equality. The whiteman is so con fused about our ways, that they think if we asked to have a medicine man come inside* the walls to smoke a sacred pipe, we would be smoking goofy weed like their mara- juana smoke. It’s a shame that so many young Indians do not know their native tongue. I, for one, am not aware of my own. I can speak various words in different Indian languages. It makes me sad in my heart that I don’t know my own. It’s a shame that years ago, old Indians were beat, because they only knew how to speak , v * %- *■ v.x v v w -w *• their own tongue, and that most Indians learned to speak only tbis English, like all other trademarks of the whiteman that were pushed on us. | We all know to gain free dom once again we must “re habilitate ourselves”. What really is rehabilitation for our fallen brothers and sisters? I mean to say, to every ladder there is an “UP”. But with the games played on you, it’s up’s and down’s, when you do reach the top in a place like this, they find a way to bring you back down to the bottom. Like our ancestors we are at war. Only we are not equipped with bows and arrows, only words, and the belief in our Great Spirit. And He, I am proud to say, is one thing they cannot take away from each and every one of us. Periodically they may have taken our rights to be free, but they cannot take our belief’s that we each hold onto. The penal staff may have the upper hand in how long we must stay inside these stone houses they have built, but they cannot erase our proud ness of being Indian. The way I look at it, there were Indians long before the whiteman ap peared and there will be In dians long after they are gone. The whiteman celebrates his BICENTENNIAL with the mockery of wagon train am bushes, with whites painted to be Indians, Of course they wrote the history, where every time they massacred, it was a victory; and every time we won, it was. a massacre. How could they expect any Indian inside prison or out to cele brate with them? To their BICENTENNIAL, I say “bah”. It was the beginning of the Indians mistreatment, of the loss of our ancestors, for tak ing our lands. Do they really want us to salute them for killing our ancestors, for tak ing our lands? Why they ex pect us to be happy for all the wrongs they’ve committed against us, is beyond me. We are still a proud people. Whe ther we be locked up or not, we must always maintain the courage that our ancestors had so long ago. We must never be ashamed of who we are. We must always remember that we are the children of the Great Spirit. We must stand up and fight for our rights like our ancestors did, for we must never let our ancestors deaths be in vain. They believed. They died. We believe. We live! We will carry on where they left off! So, in this message to all my brothers and sisters, whether they be locked up in prison or locked up in the whiteman’s society, I say, “Have faith in the Great Spirit, keep yoiir beliefs, and may the eagle fly high for each of you, the grass be green, and the sun always shine on your faces. ............. Thelma Broncheau, ........ Colville Tribe
