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Smoke Signals 1 1
MAY 1, 2011
MAY 1,2011
n
Smoke Signals
TRAUMA continued
from front page
night, it could be cold. One time, I
wanted to get a wrap against the
cold, and he thought I was talking
back."
"It's just amazing how much
trauma is here," said Tribal mem
ber and Behavioral Health Direc
tor Kelly Nelson. 'The number we
serve is only skimming the top, and
I don't think the number is going
down."
It wasn't always so clear that the
first set of problems played a major
role in the second set, but in the
last 30 years Indian academics and
behavioral specialists have come
a long way and it is now taken as
truth that the constellation of all of
the physical and behavioral prob
lems can be attributed to long-term
mass trauma, also called Histori
cal Trauma or Intergenerational
Trauma because it is passed down
through generations. The latest
generations don't even have to
have suffered the original trauma
to experience the effects.
The telling difference between
historical trauma and ordinary
trauma, said psychologist Clay
Mathewson, who worked in the
Tribal Behavioral Health unit in
the 1990s, is that "people who were
in Vietnam or (Hurricane) Katrina,
they know something has shifted,
but when the trauma is historical,
going back generations, not hav
ing your emotions, or being over
whelmed, becomes the norm. They
don't even know there's something
going on."
To the extent that the drivers of
these intergenerational traumas
are intentional, reported Mitch
ell M. Sotero in a 2006 paper in
the Journal of Health Dispari
ties Research and Practice at the
University of Nevada, Las Vegas,
they "threaten basic assumptions
about an orderly, just world and
the intrinsic invulnerability and
worthiness of the individual."
"What is trauma? And what
isn't?" asked Leslie Riggs, a Tribal
member and supervisor of the Voc
Rehab 477 Program at the Tribe.
"Am I distant and detached because
that's my nature? Or because I suf
fer from historical trauma?"
"I know what Post-Traumatic
Stress Disorder (PTSD) stands
for," he said, "but maybe not how
it informs my behavior. Maybe we
can't know, but that doesn't mean
we can't ask questions."
"There's more work to be done,"
said Kevin Gover (Pawnee), cur
rently director of the Smithsonian
Institute's National Museum of
the American Indian and assistant
secretary for Indian Affairs in the
Department of Interior during
the Clinton administration, "but
there is no doubt about how real
it is. There's a lot of reluctance to
acknowledge it, and that is bound
up in not wanting it to become an
excuse for any failings we have."
Indians in Grand Ronde and
aboriginals around the world are
not alone in experiencing historical
trauma. It is a disease of the colo
nized, enslaved, and victims of war
and genocide. The problems come
from all the major institutions of
any society: religion, government,
medicine and industry. But the
solutions, specialists say, start in
the community.
For the western world's indig
enous peoples, current historical
trauma was set in motion by the
Papal Bulls of the late 15th cen
tury, when the Catholic Church
followed by the Church of England
seeing European explorers ven
turing into what was wilderness to
them codified the idea that it was
okay to make the indigenous of the
world subservient. Just as conquer
ing the land enabled the spread of
European monarchies, conquering
the people enabled the spread of
European religions.
The Episcopalians (the Church
of England in America) repudiated
this policy in 2009. The Catholic
Church has yet to repudiate it.
If much of the problem, from the
19th century, was intentional, the
starting place and the biggest insult
of all came from European diseases
that decimated the forebears of the
Grand Ronde Tribe. From 160,000
in the 1700s, their numbers had fall
en to 40,000 when Lewis and Clark
came through and to 2,000 by the
1850s when the Natives of Oregon
were marched to reservations.
"That's an awful drastic blow on
the population," said former Tribal
Elder Merle Holmes to a 1976 fed
eral task force, Task Force Ten,
charged with investigating the lot
of Terminated Tribes.
These losses made all that was to
follow so much harder to bear.
Many historical events starting in
the time of the treaties held sway
up to Termination and beyond.
"One traumatic set of events of
the time are the volunteer militias
of southern Oregon and northern
California," said Tribal member
David Lewis, director of the Tribe's
Cultural Resources Department.
"This was a major period of events
where whole villages were mas
sacred by whites, and many of the
dance houses were burned to the
ground with hundreds of people
inside. A true holocaust according
to the definition in the dictionary.
The period lasted from about 1850
to 1860.
"Volunteers were settlers and gold
miners and farmers who sought
the complete extermination of the
Indian people of the region. This
was all related to racism, prejudice
that followed Indian people to the
reservations and was still a com
mon presence when Termination
released everyone into society. My
father told me that when he grew up
it was a time of racism for Indians,
which is reiterated by Don Day for
his youth in Salem. In some areas,
like southwest Oregon, that history
of conflict is still raw even today."
Psychologist Joe Stone, Ph.D.
(Blackfeet), director of the Grand
Ronde Tribe's Behavioral Health
unit from 2000-06 and currently
director of Behavioral Health at
the Indian Health Service in Gal
lup, N.M., published his first major
paper on historical trauma during
his time here.
He named U.S. federal policies of
assimilation among the causes:
Loss of land;
Imposition of an unnatural social
order;
Suppression of language, ceremo
nies, culture and spirituality;
Destruction of indigenous family
systems;
And denial of the historical im
portance of Native Americans.
The actual policies responsible
included:
The 1850 Donation Land Act that
encouraged settlers, by offering free
land, to move west into local Tribes'
hunting and fishing grounds, and
thereby also took away prime meet
ing and trading places;
1855 treaties that took away,
among many Native peoples,
Oregon Indian rights to lands be
tween the coast and the Cascade
mountain ranges;
Trails of Tears: 1856 removal of
Indians from their homelands
to the Siletz, Grand Ronde and
other Oregon reservations;
The General Allotment Act of
1887 that converted 33,148 acres
to individual allotments to open a
path by which the land would go
from Indian trust land to taxable
(fee status) land after 25 years.
The act fostered a huge transfer
of reservation land from Indian
to non-Indian owners;
The 1901 Congressional Act that
ceded 25,791 acres, nearly half of
the Grand Ronde's reservation,
to the public domain in 1904.
Declaring it surplus, the federal
government sold it, mainly to
non-Indians;
The Termination Act of 1954,
which, in Grand Ronde's case, took
away all Tribal land but the small
cemetery, and ended treaty guar
antees of housing, education and
other basic needs in exchange for
the rights to own the land Indians
had used from time immemorial,
back 11,000 years at least.
Merle Holmes, referring to the
1901 Act ceding 25,791 acres to
the public domain, told the task
force, "The United States, we feel,
acting as trustee for the Indian
people, were pretty negligent and
didn't act in the best interest of the
people they were representing as
this particular section of land took
away the wealth of our people, both
past and present."
"I could tell my dad felt it," said
Jim Holmes, a member of the
Tribe and Merle Holmes' son. Jim
and his brother, David, also a
member of the Tribe, "had a real
easy childhood," he said, living in
Salem, away from the reservation,
and so felt no ill effect from the
big traumas that their father was
describing to the federal task force.
j i
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In fact, what Jim saw was just the
little things.
"I think that he felt that people
kind of talked down to him. It would
be little things, like at the grocery
store, they would say, 'This costs
a little more,' as if he couldn't af
ford it."
Termination as
the centerpiece
The centerpiece of historical
trauma in Grand Ronde was Ter
mination. It ended any pretense
of promise or debt by the federal
government to the Grand Ronde
people, and treated Tribal heritage
as a throw-away commodity.
"With Termination," said Tribal
Elder and former Tribal Chair
woman Kathryn Harrison, "came a
pain in your heart that never goes
away."
In what at the time may have
been a new low in political cynicism,
U.S. senators sold Termination leg
islation "as a method of making the
Indian equal before the law," accord
ing to the Task Force report.
While President Dwight D. Eisen
hower pledged in his 1952 campaign
to have "full consultation" with
Indians on federal Indian policy,
according to the Task Force studies,
only about 16 percent of western
Oregon Indians understood that
the Termination of 1954 meant loss
of treaty-promised federal services.
Seventy-four percent said later
that Termination legislation was
passed completely without their
knowledge.
To those that approved the leg
islation, it was sold as a way to
give Indians small financial wind
falls due from successful lawsuits
against the federal government.
Those windfalls needed enabling
legislation to distribute per capita
payments. Authority to distribute
these funds was tied to the Termi
nation bill.
Interior Secretary Douglas McKay,
a former Oregon governor, played
Graphic created by George Valdez
Sen. Joseph McCarthy's Commu
nism card, calling Tribal identity
"socialism," and pitted it against the
spirit of individual capitalism.
Kathryn Harrison remembers
Termination coming this way: 'The
people from the BIA came here and
said, 'You might as well get used to
Termination because it's coming
anyway."'
At the same time, said David
Lewis, former Tribal Elder Abe
Hudson was working at the state
Capitol. "He used to listen in and
then they'd talk about it here (in
Grand Ronde)."
Grand Ronde Tribal Chairwoman
Cheryle A. Kennedy was a child
when the prospect of Termina
tion first appeared on her radar in
Grand Ronde. Her understanding
of it came from what she could
glean from her parents and other
adults in the family.
"Children are so wise," she said,
"and they know if you're afraid.
They can feel it. Your words can
say, 'It's okay,' but children can
look in your eyes and see that it's
not okay.
"As an adult now, knowing what
I know, I'm less fearful. I'm feeling
more secure and confident that
principles like perseverance, hard
work, integrity and honesty will
bring to fruition what you are at
tempting to do."
While housing promises had
come and gone over the years, the
federal government never delivered
much in the way of health care or
education either to Grand Ronde,
even before Termination, ironically
leaving many without a clue that
anything had happened.
Before or after Termination, said
Tribal Elder Dale Langley, "I don't
remember any difference."
"The medicines the federal gov
ernment provided Indians in the
1850s were still there in the 1890s,"
said David Lewis.
"(Tribal Elder) Nora's (Kimsey)
mother was paralyzed," recalls
Tribal Elder Leon "Chip" Tom, "and
she was always in a rocking chair.
They didn't have a wheelchair,
so they pulled her around in the
rocker."
"I cut my foot swimming in the
river," remembers Langley. "The
next day, they took me up to the
community hall (where the doctor
was) where Verna Larsen used
to live. They didn't have any pain
killer. They just held my arms and
legs, and she put some stitches in."
Usually, if he cut himself, he said,
his folks just put turpentine on it
and sent him back out to play.
In the 1930s, recalls Kathryn
Harrison, 'They gathered kids at
the different reservations and took
them to Chemawa (Indian School
where there was an Indian Health
Service outlet), and they took their
tonsils and adenoids out if they
needed to or not."
When Chip Tom was 10 or so, his
folks brought him in. "I saw that
bucket there filled with bloody ton
sils," he said. "I didn't know what
to think."
The same was true of dental
care. "It was real poor," remembers
Tribal Elder Margaret Provost.
"They didn't fix your teeth. They
just pulled them."
"That was the thing that inspired
me to work for Restoration," Pro
vost said.
Tribal Elders remember that af
ter Termination, the government,
even at the local level, continued
to resist giving Indians good health
care. The principal at one school
was a good example.
" 'You let one Indian through and
they'll all expect it,' " a Tribal Elder
recalls him saying.
Time and again, though, Indians
fought the neglect. Kathryn Harri
son remembers former Tribal Elder
Eula Petite, who was a teacher for
many years in Grand Ronde, stand
ing up to authorities.
"The doctors came to the school,"
said Harrison, "and she told them,
'You're not going to treat just the
white kids.' "
For all the fight, though, the pub
lic neglect took its toll on Indian
families. Early on, for example,
Tribal Elder Nora Kimsey was one
of four children out of 12 who sur
vived childhood.
And today, tragic statistics for
disease and social difficulties
among Indians far outstrip any
other ethnic group. The Indian
suicide rate in 2005 was twice the
national average.
Side effects of federal policy and
practice included distrust of the colo
nizer. Generations out, the trauma
continues and so does the distrust.
"We flat didn't go to the doctor
unless we were dying," said Tribal
Elder Gladys Hobbs, who was 10
years of age at the time of Termi
nation. "So many doctors, dentists and
professionals at Indian clinics are
white," said Joe Stone, and without
referring to their trustworthiness,
he noted that still today they are
not trusted by Indians.
He spoke at a 2010 conference, In
ternational Network of Indigenous
Health Knowledge and Develop
ment, held at the Suquamish Na
tion in Washington, with his front
tooth missing.
The many faces
of Termination
Termination had many faces,
though. It also was a time when
federal efforts to mainstream In
dian populations played out with
job opportunities and financial
assistance becoming available. It
encouraged off-reservation jobs and
opportunities.
Denise Harvey's mother, former
Tribal Elder Maxine Leno, went
to Nevada in search of federally
provided opportunities and then, in
the Bay area, she attended beauty
school.
"While everybody was learning
in school that women don't have
rights and can't get jobs," Harvey
said, "Mom owned a beauty shop
(through BIA programs)."
"I took everything they offered,"
Leno told her daughter.
"Everybody started moving
away," remembered Margaret
Provost. 'They had to for the jobs,
and they went all over the U.S. It
just wasn't the same out here. Few
people stayed."
Ultimately, Provost herself, who
turned out to be a prime mover in
the Restoration effort, also moved
away to find work.
"(Some) Indians developed a
culture to survive the neglect," ac
cording to David Lewis. "Men took
up logging and women took up
agriculture," principally running
farms and large gardens. They also
harvested other folks' crops.
The Depression, for example, was
not a bad time for many in Grand
Ronde. Dale Langley is not alone
in saying he was never hungry
growing up. "I didn't know what
the Depression was," he said. "My
grandfather had milk cows and a
garden, chickens and rabbits, and
he sold calves for deer meat."
Understanding how
historical trauma works
The loss of land, language and
culture, the uprooting of family life
and meaningful work among par
ents ends up preventing infants, in
psychological terms, from "regulat
ing arousal," in Joe Stone's words;
or said another way, children with
parents who are not in control of
their lives or emotions also grow
up without self-control. Without
self-control, self-confidence is im
possible. Without self-confidence,
resilience to difficulty fades.
Cheryle Kennedy says historical
trauma "masks itself in over-indulgences,
abuse and materialism. I
relate it to being non-productive."
'The power you feel when you feel
that the whole community wants
you to heal, it is incredible," said
Donald Warne (Oglala Lakota),
executive director of the Aberdeen
Area Tribal Chairmen's Health
Board and university level teacher
of Indian Health Policy. "We walk
with all our ancestors and all our
people. Knowledge is never lost. It
keeps coming back."
Others see healing as not getting
rid of the trauma but a process that
Indian people had to go through.
"There are greater forces out there
that determine our purpose in life,"
said Leanne P. Hiroti, a Maori spe
cialist in fertility and reproductive
issues in New Zealand.
Cheryle Kennedy counters de
spair with optimism, hope and faith
that things can be better.
"You're looking out at the future,"
she said, "and thinking, 'I've got to
work harder, be more educated,
more prepared,' so (to fight this)
maybe our standards are higher.
"But," she says, "even though
there's always the discomfort, you
can't let it consume you. You've got
to see it for what it is."
One part of the solution, from
White Bison, sponsor of the Well
briety Training Institute, "is about
learning how to grieve," said Marlin
Farley, of the group.
Longtime Grand Ronde Tribal Vice
Chair Reyn Leno recalled that his
father, former Elder Orville Leno,
"was very angry. Every time we did
something with Chemawa, he'd say,
'Why do you support that now? I ran
away from that place three times.'
That was a difficult one. He had a
severe hatred of the government.
"I always try to look for some
good out of the bad. I think you'll
find with Indian people, it's hard
for them to forgive and it's easy for
them to be angry; but if you stopped
and dwelled on the past, you could
be angry for the rest of your life, but
does that do you any good?
"You can use these things as les
sons, or you can sit and dwell on it
and go in circles."
Academics began publishing
papers on historical trauma in the
1980s, led by original work from
Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart of
Columbia University in New York.
Her research mirrored work in the
behavioral medicine establishment
that in 1980 added PTSD to the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
of Mental Disorders.
Before that, the idea of naming
the problem, no less treating it,
was unspoken. One of the mantras
of treating historical trauma today
is: If you can't name it, you can't
treat it.
Though historical trauma still
has not made the list, it has defi
nitely been named.
Listed or not, Stone says, cli
nicians ought to recognize the
syndrome and incorporate the
underlying symptoms into a diag
nostic and treatment criteria for
indigenous patients.
"When people come to you," said
sociologist L.B. Whitbeck, a leading
voice in historical trauma circles
from the University of Nebraska at
Lincoln, "half of the job is already
done." B