European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - July 7, 1968, Darmstadt, Hesse                              For mrs. Dan Houle Home is a grim two Coom Shack on Turtle Mountain reservation. The poor Chipp the Chippewa indians Call them the Turtle mountains Low wind rounded Hills hardly mountains that Ripple along the 12-mile length of their reservation in North Dakota there is awesome Beauty in the country eve when it is locked in Winter s ferocity. In the Spring the land takes on gentler and More moving Beauty. By april the Indian month of the frogs the Snow has gone and the stands of tortured Trees turn Green with leave sit is difficult to ignore the importance of the land because the 7,000 Chippewa indians who live on it in conditions ranging from abject poverty to welfare department existence Are wedded to i its hostility. The land is a Barren raging mistress. Dan Houle s log and mud House two rooms whose Walls lean crazily in Ward near the ceiling was a turmoil inside and out. But it always is and Houle a 48-year-old half Breed who perpetually wears a dark Wool  a Gold pin on it and his Stocky tired full blood Indian wife were rarely distracted by the children. Presumably a Mother does get used so ssh in in la sae known each other 11 years and they have had a child in every one of ? Houle s noon meal for her Hus band and the six children and herself consisted of a heaping bowl of toed potatoes and a pan of Squaw bread Ahard Flat loaf made of flour baking View Fly 311u w3tei.a Juwad Cut " a i 4-1%. Cart r hah the children except Tor Ine sick eau sleeping on the bed crowded around mrs Houle but did not eat. She Bike the bread for them and spread rnai Garine on it. We eat potatoes a lot she said. Children have been burned by it  hesitantly asked do. You think it is bad to live in a Little House like this ,. U to a Point Houle does himself but Only to a Point. He would like to havea better House. And he found one. Once but the welfare people would t let him pay for it out of his poverty program paycheck. The House was Selling for Luu Aii there seemed to be Little he could do about it. So he continues to go to work in Belcourt on Days when the Community action program is working and he brings Home a Check of $132 27 Ever two weeks. He believes he is doing the Best he can on an Indian reservation where there Are no jobs no industries and not much else to do except ," Houle said we never get mad. What Good does it do to get mad i you get mad someone comes and puts you in  Jin Houle does not talk easily to strangers. He was born and raised on the reservation and has left it Only once to go to Walla Walla wash., to pick apples. He was not gone Long. He does not want to leave  Houle family House on land owned by his wife s parents is about the size of a garage. Heaped around i Are the bodies of broken cars a Chicken Coop made of a Tarpaulin thrown Over boxes. There Are at least 15  first room of the House serves As Kitchen and living room. There is Ine Hectric stove that does not work a Tele vision that does and a Greasy collapse ins Couch the a Tchen table came sheinall from a child s doll set Poost of the children eat on the floor or on the Beds in the other  Are two full Beds a half bed and a crib in the other room and there the family sleeps. Mrs. Houle arranges the Little ones in tiers on one bed Andthil older children lie Side by Side across Between the two rooms is a choking hot woo burning Iron stove. The smaller Page 12 the rediscovery of be i the powwow Charles t. Powers Nana v Only once had Houle pondered Tak ing his family away from the Reserva Tion. Last summer. To California. Twas supposed to be a Good Deal. To pick they All came Back he said find ing it funny. Hitchhiking. Walking. Some of pm had bloody  like the men who went to California they All come Back to the Turtle mountains even if they have been away for years. Of the More than 7,300 Indian son and around the reservation now less than half were there in 1960. And More return every Day for they Are taken care  care is free. They Are Given a Small amount of surplus food cheese chipped meat flour vice and Beans. A few May be a or nourished by they do not starve. Children go to school without Cost and there Are no Tseven million dollars was poured into the reservation last year nearly All fit going to welfare programs and poverty action projects operated under the provisions of the office of economic Opportunity. But aside from a tavern an two service stations there Are no Busi Nesses on the reservation and All that Money winds up in the hands of the merchants mostly White in the two Little towns just off the reservation. A watchmaking company runs a Small factory in nearby Rolla where a few indians Are employed assembling the jewel movements a Job they Are Wel suited for officials Point out because of their manual dexterity and patience the Osly tribal owned Industry Ever attempted a company which made android a Hentic Chippewa Arti facts went broke because there were no tour,�5 to buy them and because the in Rivans out so much time and craftsman a the for work that the prices they had to charge were too High Formost people to pay for a Stone Hatchet. The Alt Alcan Indian tvs Redis covered Inthey Middle of this Cen the was found living much ase and when colonies were settled in the new world. The inevitable trappings of the new age were there primarily the motor car but he was starving and those of his children who were not dying at birth faced a life that seemed As hopeless As his father  the discovery was made the nation that had been largely responsible for creating the conditions n which the indians lived set about bringing Relief to the descendants of our first Resi de president John p. Kennedy called those people the least understood fall americans. And Lyndon b. Joltn son after assuming the presidency declared that the time has come to put the first americans  Congress has appropriated $1.5 billion for Indian programs since 1960 the . Public health service which has had the responsibility for India medical care since 1955, spent  million for Indian programs in 19bb of 1ot1 " the annual budget of the Bureau Indian affairs Bia. Is $270  the Indian claims commission established in 1946 to hear claim against the government mostly Tor lands taken without compensation has paid Indian tribes More than $225 Mil. 110the Bia estimates there Are 523,600 indians in the c9untry. About 472 000live on reservations or land allot ments which Range in size from afew acres to the 24,000-Square-mile sprawl of desert occupied by the Nita is possible to take the �1.5 billion the government has spent since 1960and add the $225 million the claims commission has awarded in its 21-Yearhistory, and arrive at a share of about $3125 for every Indian Man woman and child in the country. But it is not that simple. Just 10 years ago North Dako families found Homes in the hulks f old motor car bodies eight people the flattened seats huddling in opaque Light that glowed through a Dows insulated by Snow eight be Obj sharing the Greasy White meat of dog in Utah a man1 who could speak Navajo made rounds in a jeep to Colla school children from parents to could speak no English and Londei at the strange absence of the Bias eyed youth children who were hide or sent out to tend the sheep in Vance of his arrival. For the word been sent by the Moccasin Telegraph on Indian reservations in South 1 Kota Arizona new Mexico Monta Mississippi Minnesota and Oregon per cent of the adult population choking with tuberculosis one inf anal three died before reaching his birthday and the minds of unkind thousands had taken that Subtle asure Warp which was brought about the listless formless character of to existence Imes Are better than that somewhat. It is still possible to on an Indian reservation Pover Blanch the face of the most hard Urban social  among the squealing Stu children running half naked an footed through the Winter Day will be a boy. Who has pants coat and who carries a Small boo his hand. And that is the diff Renand the Hope. He goes to school. The clash of cultures a special priest says is Only beginning. T facts Are cataclysmic. It s a of deciding am i an Indian or take suicide he says. Sui was something almost completely heard of in Indian culture. No have 25 suicide attempts a Mon one  thirty per Cen them he says Are under 20, and of them Are  psychologist says there is a studying these suicides the Nana Navajo youth is part of purest democracy in the United  programs such As head Start have Given Indian children new Hope. A Pilch is two or three times the a a Faal average. Being Indian he asks. It s not Patter of being Indian. It s a matter olb eing  is an american Indian a different of person partly perhaps. But Only in the Way that a negro is Dif Ferent or a greek or an italian or any group that seeks survival in american society and yet strives to retain some of its own identity. In attempting to Analyse the Long and continued on Page la t the prosperous navajos Sally Anifer sheep to Solly 9e Phe woman a Specter in ru0.1 flapping Blanket dashed Ai the Corral scuttling after the Shee wailing. The sheep pleated in ten front of her and bolted away from Gathe old woman was Sally stank wizened bespectacled and Neaily Iless widow who on her last Buth Daj somewhere around 70. She does no with any certainty How old she is information being of no real use Tushe has More important Thini consider Foremost among the wealth namely the 100 or so she herds through the  and Yucca Cactus or n. Ern Ai Izona. Floor she was born on the Dut two Hogan less than a mile  Circle dug out of the i surrounded by gnarled pickets Wood jammed into the cur she daily drives her sheep. The Blunt red Butte a mile East o Hogan door now and she Nasreen so far away from it w could not turn and see it is the say was the last of Many it borne by her Mother,.andl when Kulyj Rowil is simply unimportant and through the Winter she us � and 1" the Spring an older came , her husband and stole1 with them in the Shadow of those Days for a Man a w1fyes when she was  a Ler list of two Livins sons anon c0n?e into thiewes so s not have a11 of her sister whose away to a new Hall belonged to her and role the Charley Stanley teachers Stan lev r a Chil built Hal lives in a tent s 8 near the Road the past wet eve was a difficult one for All navajos but especially for , not Only because of the terrible blizzard but also because her son s wife was pregnant and sick. When the baby finally came it Wasin january and the old lady helped de liver it the next Day doctors fro the Public health service Hospital five Miles away went to the Hogan an took mrs. Jones and her baby to the Hospital. They kept her there for eight Days until Stanley Jones got impatient went to the Hospital to get her. He went tothe Hospital on a saturday afternoon when both of the doctors were gone and Only an elderly fat and command ing nurse was on  wife cannot go Home she said she has heart  Jones who had never spoken More than a few words of English an who did not completely understand said. Good 1 take her Home now she s had a lot of children a nurse recalled. This makes her 19th preg Nancy she has 11 now counting this one she s had four miscarriages and four died after  you know what 19 pregnancies can do to a woman no one can Stan that her heart s just worn out that s All just worn out tie Navajo Are a Happy people full of practical jokes and a Sharp sense of irony. They find it funny when the White Man and his civilization com seeking the Indian and his wilderness. The Navajo live on a chunk of land inthe Southwest roughly the size of West Virginia. The land is rugged though no totally Barren. The people Are Clever Friendly hard working and intelligent. And they Are aided by other people who having developed a real and abiding love for them know How to help them until they can Start helping themselves. With All those ingredients you have the Navajo indians of today 24,000 Square Miles of them on the larg est Indian reservation in the nation 109,000 people quickly growing to 200,000,the largest tribe in the nation. It is without any serious Competition the richest Indian tribe in the country. But still its people live simply some times primitively for the most part in the Back country far away from electricity. Generally except when blizzards rav a their land and starve their sheep As they did this past Winter the Navajo Are a contented people warm and  Are also blessed with what one admiring Indian official at a neighbor ing reservation called the purest demo Cracy in the United  pure there fore a Little slow but highly responsive to the people and possibly the bes tribal government to be found anywhere in  Navajo adopted an agricultural Way of life from the Pueblo indians learning How to irrigate and Plant Grain. Later the spaniards brought them sheep goats and horses which replace the growing of Corn. The people Learned to love  animals gave them their food and their clothing. Today the sheep Are their greatest economic Force. And the indians remain nomads of a sort moving from summer pastures to Winter Pas Tures preferring the Solitude of theland Over the cramp of villages.  it did to most indians world War ii wrought tremendous changes in the Navajo thousands of whom serve Din the military. When they returned to their Homes Many were no longer con tent to live As they had for centuries. Coincident with the drive for change Oil was discovered on reservation lands and the companies which probed there Rock for it paid the Navajo millions of dollars for rights. Since then Oil natural Gas Coal an uranium have been discovered on the reservation and the tribe has profited from each. With a few exceptions such Money has gone into a general tribal fund rather than being allowed to individual members of the tribe. It is probably the secret of the tribe s  year the Navajo tribe had a budget of $22 million. It had an income of $13 million dollars. Today it has a Bank balance of $53  the solid financial position tribal officials Are concerned that an Nual expenditures now exceed income. It s apparent says Raymond Nakai the Small energetic Man who is serving his second term As tribal chair Man that the Navajo tribe will have to reduce spending or obtain additional Revenue  Thi stars and strips the stars and stripes Page 13