Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Native Pride Hat?

Amen. Don't need no pride hat want nothing to do with the rez

A reservation Indian giving postscript:

February of 1984, because I knew it was a thing to do I picked up a tin of pipe tobacco and brung it to a guy named Frank Fools Crow on Pine Ridge while I was giving a guy a ride home. Until I Googled the guy’s name just now other than him being a significant older Traditional guy who had been sequestered away from boarding schools in his youth I wasn’t aware of specifics.

Frank Fools Crow when I met him was a big, barrel-chested, bow-legged guy, I figured he was maybe 80. The internet has him listed as “Clergy” which is prob’ly an apt description. Frank Fools Crow was born around 1891, meaning he was about 93 in 1984.

In his youth he had travelled with Buffalo Bill Cody’s show. I knew he had been chosen in his childhood as a vessel to carry Lakota culture into an uncertain future, I didn’t realize the people teaching him woulda been born in the 1840’s and ‘50’s.

Near as I could tell, that guy had lived his whole life serving his people. So he belongs to the small pantheon of remarkable people I have met including WWII Ace Saburo Sakai and the Dalai Lama

‘Nother Indian-giving postscript…..

Recalling the motorcycle I was on it was prob’ly 1988, I was out at Mescalero doing the directing-traffic thing. That year I had gotten especially friendly with a family camp, joked around a lot, parked my motorcycle there.

When I left I rode over to the Tularosa side of the reservation where just across the rez line was the usual liquor store. In addition to liquor, cases of beer were stacked clear to the ceiling.

So I picked up a cold flat of beer, hadda be at least a case, maybe mor, balanced it on the gas tank and brung it to that family. Told them I had found it laying in the road , it was cold so it had prob’ly fallen out of Wendell Chino’s airplane 🙂 Then I left for real, heading back to stay with friends in Capitan.

Wendell Chino was the Tribal President and a big money guy. During the festivities he had been making low passes over the fairgrounds in his Beechcraft (??) twin engine airplane.

I didn’t realize at the time Mr Chino, for better or worse Tribal President his whole life, was responsible for Ski Apache, The Inn of the Mountain Gods Resort, the first Indian Casino, a thriving timber industry and high dollar guided trophy elk hunts on that 780 sq mile reservation. Relative prosperity and a high standard of living to the tribe, which is prob’ly why their beautiful reservation (and it is) had a vibe night and day different from many.

Anyways, a 600 mile ride home the next day. Stopped at a McDonalds en route in Seminole TX or somewhere and shortly thereafter got sick as a dog from food poisoning. Ended up checking in at a roadside motel for a whole 48 hours before I could continue.

Karma for bringing alcohol onto a reservation.

I'm kind of proud of the fact that my great grand parents had enough of "jolly old England" and apparently England had enough of them to get the hell out and find a spot in America on ground formerly owned by indians to live on. No tribes in my neighborhood. No leftist Brit's either. No Californians or New Yorkers. I guess you could say I live in a pretty good neighborhood simply because my great grandparents didn't fit into their old country.

kwg

One of mine bailed because he got caught poaching the king's rabbits in belguim. Ended up here.