Image provided by: The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs; Warm Springs, OR
About Spilyay tymoo. (Warm Springs, Or.) 1976-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 1, 2005)
Spilyqy Tymoo, Wqrm Springs, Oregon September!, 2005 " ' -j ---.rrT7: , Tribal members traveled to Mt. Hood Meadows recently for huckleberry picking. Mount Hood Meadows hosted the outing, in cooperation with the tribes. Some who made the trip used a ski-lift to travel to higher elevations to look for berries (photo above). Meanwhile, Bobby Brunoe, general manager of tribal Natural Resources, and Louie Pitt, director of Government Affairs, and others spent time at the Mt. Hood area with congressmen Greg Walden and Earl Blumenauer . They discussed future management policy of Mt. Hood, and the off-reservation treaty rights of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. (At right, Pitt discusses resource management.) Photot courtwy ol Rch Tdmtdg The great debate over fry bread Madras Paint & Glass Serving Central Oregon for 40 years Specializing in. . . Need to take Residential picture of AUtoGia 1 1 Windshield Repair building ShowerDoors Mirrors & Screens Direct Insurance Billing Chip Repairs (Tea QC 7:30-5:30 M-F $59.95 9.4 Sat 1076 SW Hwy 97, Madras, OR 97741 475-21166 (AP) - When you first sec it, plopped down on a paper plate in all its caloric bliss, the round, doughy (rent is so appealing, so alluring it's hard to believe this wondrous sight can cause any thing but delight. Hut fry bread, that fluffy concoction American Indian women lovingly make in their kitchens and people line up for at powwows and western fairs, has come under attack as a haz ard to health, Suan Shown I larjo, a Chey enne and Muscogee Indian, wasn't trying to cause a debate. She just was exhausted with yet another one of her relatives dying of diabetes. She zoned in on fry bread as a culprit and whipped out a January column for Indian Country Today de claring it junk food that leads to fat Indians. She made a New Year's reso lution to abstain from fry bread. Then she did something some Indians consider insane: She asked them to give it up, too. Word spread through Indian Country. Outrage! The nerve of I larjo! What started as a woman's disdain for the yummy delicacy suddenly became the great fry bread debate. Ask any Indian about it and you'll either be greeted with rolled eyes - or sparkling, hungry eyes. After all, fry bread is synony mous with Indian culture. South Dakota has just made it the of ficial state bread. And many In dians don't want anyone com ing between them and their hot, greasy skillets. "It's like giving up turkey at Thanksgiving," said Gayle Weigle, an Anishinabe Indian who runs a Web site celebrating fry bread stories and recipes. "It is a tradition." Indian women like Margarita Gonzalez on the Tohono O'odham reservation here rise before dawn to start making fry bread. Gonzalez makes four dozen each morning and makes her living selling them in an empty lot in Sells. "It's like a craving you get for it, the aroma of it. You have to try to keep yourself from it," she said, taking a break from serving the lunch crowd. To say fry bread is tasty isn't doing it justice. It's scrumptious, sweet, and puts a crazy spell on anyone who craves it, But it's loaded with pesky calories - at least 700 for one paper-plate size piece - plus a whopping 27 grams of fat, ac cording to a nutritional analysis by the U.S. Department of Ag riculture. "Those things are awesome," tribal police officer Mario Saraficio said, getting excited at the thought. "It's bad, but it's Wannler Cafe . . .now this is REAL Bar-B-QM 8iiE3i5ii 9 Southern style cookin' A hospitality! We know you deserve great food and serviceWe care about doing it right! SMOKED ON SITE DAILY! Beef Brisket Turkey Breast Chicken Pulled Pork Ribs Sausage BEST OF SALAD BARS! STUFFED BAKED TATERS! Take Out Welcome! Mon-Fri 11-2 & 4:30-8:00 Sat 11-7 35 'd' STREET MADRAS, OR 97741 good. If (lie doctor told me I had to give if up, I'd say prob ably not." Fry bread came to be by ne cessity. When the government moved Indians off their land and onto reservations in the 1800s, they were kept from their traditional foods such as elk, corn, deer and rabbit. In their place were rations of flour, salt and lard, and Indian women did what they could with it, cre ating the wonderful fry bread that would become part of their culture. Ingredients vary today, but the main ones a,re still white flour, salt, sugar and lard. Some call it a popovcr, and options arc endless for how to eat it. There's the Indian taco, fry bread with red chili and beans, or the extra sweet version with powdered sugar or honey on top. In Phoenix, there is the popu lar Fry Bread I louse restaurant, where you can get fry bread pretty much anyway you want. The most sinful? Fry bread topped with gooey chocolate syrup and oozing with butter. Sure, folks there talked about the fry bread flap, but it didn't seem to make much difference. "They're still in line," said res taurant owner Cecelia Miller. Fry bread is so embedded in the culture many Indians can't imagine going without. T-shirts declare "Fry Bread Power For ever!" or "FBI - Fry Bread In spector." There's an entire Web site dedicated to warm, fuzzy memories about fry bread. So Mar jo's column was the equivalent of taking spray paint to sacred petroglyphs. I larjo, who heads the Morn ing Star Institute, an Indian rights group, compared fry bread to a "lead Frisbee" and even likened it to "hard-core porn, No redeeming' qualities,'! "It's the connecting dot be tween healthy children and obe sity, hypertension, diabetes, di alysis, blindness, amputations and slow death," Ilarjo wrote, deeming it, quite simply, "Rot ten stuff." On the national radio show Native America Calling, the fry bread furor was one of the most popular topics this year. One man boasted that he downed 12 pieces in one sitting. Another man said he was des perate for fry bread and couldn't find any. "Anytime you say fry bread, people smile. F.xcept Suzan Harjo," Weigle said. "It's almost sacred. It just makes you happy." Weigle originally started her Web site www.frybreadlove.org to talk about a benefit concert for the homeless children she worked with in Minneapolis. "The attitude is, 'I'm going to get (diabetes) anyway. ' And to some extent, it's true. They will get it." Or. Paul Weintraub Why that name? To her, fry bread means comfort, Soon, she was posting fry bread recipes, pictures and heartwarming sto ries. She's thinking now of a recipe book. Not every case of obesity and diabetes among Indians can be blamed solely on fry bread, of course. But Ilarjo has a point. Among Indians, the preva lence of Type 2 diabetes - the most common form - is more than double what it is in the gen eral population. Fueled by obe sity, poor diet and a sedentary lifestyle, Type 2 diabetes is oc curring a full decade sooner in Indians, when people are be tween 20 and 29 years old. Many believe the diabetes rate began to skyrocket when Indians stopped living off the land and began using govern ment rations. For decades, re searchers with the National In stitutes of Health have been studying the Pima Indians in Arizona, who have the highest incidence of diabetes in the world, to determine if there is a genetic reason they are more susceptible to the disease. Here on the Tohono O'odham reservation near Tuc son, more than half the 14,000 residents have diabetes. A $4 million dialysis center is under construction, necessary to serve all the people who have devel oped kidney disease from dia betes. 'At the Sells hospital, it's un usual for doctors to sec a tribal member who doesn't have dia betes. It is so prevalent, doctors and nutritionists struggle to con vince Indians they can help pre vent it. The attitude is, "I'm going to get it anyway," Dr. Paul Weintraub said. "And to some extent, it's true. They will get it." Gloria Maldonado has lived with diabetes for 22 years. Her mother had it, so does her brother and her 24-year-old daughter. "I figured sooner or later I would get it," she said as Weintraub examined her. Fry bread didn't get Maldonado, 53, in this situation by itself, of course. She struggles to give up junk food and doesn't exercise. But she has switched from cooking fry bread in lard to dipping it in oil. See FRY BREAD on 10 4Mb tmilMmw tmaib A his Smith IV is 13, and will be in the seventh grade at Jefferson County Middle School. His younger brother Mateo, 8, is going into the third grade at Warm Springs Elementary School. In school Alris likes Social Studies. Mateo likes drawing. A favorite part of school for both Alris and Mateo is PE. Alvis and Mateo Smith And after school they like to practice base ball at the Commu nity Center ball fields.
