USA > Iowa > The Mesquakies of Iowa : a summary of findings of the first five years > Part 3
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
A close look at the merits and shortcomings of these services will show that continued federal responsibility for the financing of those necessary community services is un- avoidable for the forseeable future (and one can justify those expenditures in terms of a rough sort of equity in the same sense as one justifies expenditures by the Vet- erans Administration, for instance). A close look will also
28
THE MESQUAKIES OF IOWA
show that federal administration of these services, rather than tribal responsibility, is doing great damage to the Mesquakie sense of self-confidence and should and could be stopped.
"Withdrawal," A Federal Aim and a Mesquakie Fear
The Indian Service has in recent years, under economy pressures from Congress, adopted the policy of "withdraw- al"-the complete and early dropping of all federal respon- sibilities toward Indians. All resolutions from subcommit- tees in Congress, all directives from Indian Service offices in Washington, all concrete changes in the handling of af- fairs in Indian communities, all these things point in the single direction-withdrawal. It would be difficult to ap- preciate fully the amount of anxiety these moves are raising in the Indian communities across the land.
At the same time, there has been an increased interest in Indian affairs by state governments. It has happened repeatedly that a state government has set up a commission on Indian affairs and that commission, after study, has requested federal money to administer the federal services. These requests generally meet with acceptance because they fit in with the federal policy of withdrawal, being the first step in that direction, and the transfer of jurisdiction is accomplished-almost invariably over the opposition of the Indians themselves.1 But then trouble develops. Once In- dian Service personnel have removed themselves and been replaced by state personnel, the State commission learns that it is to be threatened each year by economy-minded Congressmen who want to cut out the appropriation and leave the state to pay the bill.
It would be very bad if the financial load for Mesqua- kie community services were to descend on state and county taxpayers. The attitudes of these people toward Mesqua- kies are vital to the continued well-being of the Mesquakies.
1. Of recent years it has become almost an item of faith that, for some as-yet-to-be explained reason, the transfer of jurisdiction to the states will wonderfully solve the problems. But the Indians in Maine, who have been under state jurisdiction always, have much the same problems no closer to solution.
29
THE MESQUAKIES OF IOWA
It is only human nature that, if this financial load were to be shifted to these taxpayers, they would (since it is not very satisfying to "blame" some unknown figure in Wash- ington) tend unconsciously to blame the Mesquakies.
It is equally clear, however, that without political help from their neighbors Mesquakies will not be long able to delay that mistake. Indeed, a transfer of administrative jurisdiction, initiated in this instance by the Indian Serv- ice, was almost effected in respect to the Mesquakie grade school last year. It failed when officials of the State De- partment of Public Instruction refused to accept the juris- diction when they learned of Mesquakie opposition to the plan.
Mesquakies are opposed to withdrawal. They call with- drawal "dumping" or breaking the "promises."
Dollars and Cents
Basically, most debates about withdrawal resolve them- selves to a matter of money and who is going to pay it. Future necessary annual expenses in the Mesquakie com- munity will total about $67,000. This includes $40,000 for the running of the grade school, $8,000 for high school tuitions, $7,000 for general health care under the contract doctor, $5,000 for proposed clinic, and $7,000 to cover the difference between county payments to Mesquakies for wel- fare purposes and county income from Mesquakie taxes. (All figures are approximate).
In no instance has it ever been seriously suggested by responsible officials that the responsibility for financing and the responsibility for administering the services are separable. The fact is that the two matters are separable practically and that the separation must be made if the present impasse is to be resolved with justice to all the parties involved.
It should be apparent that Mesquakies cannot assume, in the foreseeable future, the financial burden of those necessary services to the community. It should be equally apparent that Mesquakies can learn to administer their affairs only by taking over real authority. Having such
30
THE MESQUAKIES OF IOWA
Indians are citizens of the United States and of the states in which they live.
-Photo Des Moines Register
31
THE MESQUAKIES OF JOWA
authority would effect a substantial change in Mesquakie attitudes toward the "white man's" medicine and education.
At present everyone is unhappy. Congress and the In- dian Service want to get out; Mesquakies are anxious that they might be dumped; the county is nervous that the fi- nancial burden might descend on it; and the state might likewise fear new burdens. The problem is to arrive at a just arrangement which will not evoke all those anxieties and which will be relatively permanent as the Mesquakie community itself is permanent.
A Possible Solution
One possible solution is a permanent fund, appropriated by Congress and administered by a law firm selected by the tribe; the yearly income from that fund would be used to pay the annual expenses of services to the Mesquakie community. A fund of about $1,500,000 should earn the necessary $67,000 a year.
Starting such a fund could not be accomplished in a matter of a few months. It would involve steps to set up Mesquakie authority over areas of present services. The fund would be put into effect with, and only with, Mesqua- kie approval by referendum. There would have to be a pro- cedure allowing for modification or for a reversion to the present system if the people decided the new system was not working out as they had hoped. Perhaps the fund could be put into effect in about 2 years from the time responsible persons began working toward that end.
Such a solution should meet with the approval of Mes- quakies, once it is fully understood, for it would remove forever the anxiety of living at the whim of sometimes generous, sometimes niggardly Congresses. Further, the solution would not conflict with the strong Mesquakie be- lief that the present services are a federal responsibility in virtue of promises made to the people by the government. The solution would not alter that responsibility nor would it mean severing of relations with the federal government.
The solution proposed would remove the threat seen by the county in the possibility of a federal "dumping" of present financial aid. And there is nothing in the plan contrary to the interests of the state.
32
THE MESQUAKIES OF IOWA
V. MESQUAKIES AS A RACIAL MINORITY
The racial minorities of our country (but not the relig- ious minorities) ask but one thing of the society at large: the right to go and come without hindrance and subject only to the laws applying to all citizens. Mesquakie individ- uals ask this of the society too but as a community they also ask another thing: the right to be, in some senses, permanently apart. In preceding sections we have dealt with that second request. Here we will be dealing with barriers which hinder the going and coming of Mesquakies as individuals and without reference to his membership in a group with a distinct way of life.
Iowa has the good fortune of being free of the formal barriers which hinder racial groups generally and of being relatively free of the informal barriers which spring from the race-prejudice of individuals. The Mesquakie who moves away from the immediate vicinity of his community only rarely meets with prejudice and in this he is fortunate.
But there remains a formal barrier against Mesqua- kies, a state law which bars sale of alcohol to Indians. The law parallels a similar federal law which was recently re- pealed.
The state law is applied with absolute rigidity in the vicinity of the Mesquakie community and irregularly or not at all in areas of the state more remote. The law, as all such laws, has little effect upon the availability, through illegal channels, of alcohol to Indians. Indeed, the effect of the law is to encourage bootlegging and to force the Mesquakies to drink the "evidence" as quickly as possible and thereby to increase drunkenness.
The law has a symbolic importance to Mesquakies all out of proportion to the actual importance of obtaining alcohol. It is a constant reminder of an inferior status in the society. There is every indication that the law may actually increase the consumption of alcohol since the very act of drinking takes on a note of defiance.
The law has the bad effect of forcing drinking in the
33
THE MESQUAKIES OF IOWA
area of the Mesquakie settlement. The original founders of this Mesquakie community entered into an agreement among themselves that there would be no drinking on the tribal land and the people still feel that this is the best way. But local law-enforcement officials will permit no drinking by the Mesquakies away from the settlement area and they do not have sufficient manpower to police the Mesquakie community. Hence quite often, the young men drink in the community in violation of the feelings of their elders. When disturbances do occur, as they occasionally must when young men get too much in their cups, they happen in the community where there is no formal law-enforcement and therefore no check on the disturbance. Instances of dis- order in the Mesquakie community almost invariably in- volve drinking.
If the state law were abolished, Mesquakies could drink leisurely in the town taverns, away from the Mesquakie community and under the same law-enforcement which ap- plies to all citizens. There would no longer be this constant, irritating reminder of an inferior status. Under those con- ditions, the amount of drinking would almost certainly be reduced rather than increased.
VI. THE HUMAN ELEMENT
Throughout this discussion we have been talking, di- rectly or indirectly, about imperfect human beings, white and Indian, living out their lives as members of the two groups and trying to make the best of it. All are heirs to a long history in which the two groups have lived side-by- side with continual, important contacts. But those frequent contacts have always been, and still are, essentially super- ficial.
It is as if there were a great canyon between these peoples, a canyon whose width made the goings and comings of those on the opposite side look small and strange. That canyon is not unbridged and there are ceaseless crossings back and forth. But there is, as it were, an unspoken agree- ment that all men seal their tongues when they cross, that they go about their buying and selling quickly and return
34
THE MESQUAKIES OF IOWA
to "their own side" to resume their interrupted lives. Both Mesquakies and whites seem to have accepted that un- spoken agreement as being in the nature of things.
An attempt to understand the joys and discontents of the Mesquakie community must sense this silent going and coming; an attempt to understand must sense that silence or fail. If the Mesquakies and their neighbors do have a difficult problem, this is it. It is this silence which compli- cates all the discontents we have mentioned.
That silence gives rise to the oversimplified and un- corrected pictures which each group invents to represent "those others." Since there are tensions between the groups, those fuzzy pictures are most often unkind. "Two Tama Mesquakies went on the war path Saturday night and ended up in the county jail ," runs a local news story; or "In- dian is Held in Mink Theft," says the headline in a Des Moines paper; as if being Indian somehow accounts for drunkenness and theft. And, on the other side, a Mesquakie fails to make the high school team; "They just don't give Indians a chance," say the Mesquakies.
Such are the pictures each group creates of the stran- gers across the canyon. Those pictures reinforce an under- tone of mutual hostility-a latent tension that flares into the open with the unavoidable brushes that must enter into the day-to-day lives of men.
The need is for some persons, some groups, to take it upon themselves to spend many months just talking-talk- ing quietly to the whites about Mesquakies and to Mesqua- kies about whites and in the end getting whites and Mes- quakies to talk a bit more to each other. It is not a matter of gigantic engineering to erase the chasm for there is nothing really evil in being different. It is a matter of bringing each group to a degree of understanding about why the other group behaves in such "strange" ways. It is a matter of telling each group about the other's culture.
As an example, it is often said by whites that Mesqua- kies can't save, that they throw their money around; the
35
THE MESQUAKIES OF IOWA
truth of the matter is that Mesquakies attach much more importance to generosity than do whites and they would view saving, when others have need, as fundamentally in- decent. It is often said too, by Mesquakies, that white men know how to "get things done"; the truth is that white men are organized upward and downward in a huge pyra- mid of bosses and bosses of bosses and Mesquakies are organized in a thoroughly level manner with no bosses at all. Hence white communities are built for innovation while changes can occur in Mesquakie life only when no one in the group disagrees. So white men do "gets, things done" but this is not to the discredit of Mesquakies and there are certain psychological advantages for Mesquakies in a way of life in which there is not the ceaseless compulsion to "do things."
There is no reason why white men cannot understand and appreciate these things of Mesquakies, and Mesquakies of whites. But they do not understand today and someone must make the first step. One can imagine the almost literal sigh of relief that would rise as both groups came to realize that "those others" are neither incomprehensible nor quite so bad after all.
There are two parts of the present unkind pictures which are overridingly important. One is the notion that Mesqua- kies, or at least Mesquakie ways, will just "go away." White men believe this without question or exception; indeed, it is necessary for them to believe it since the present situation erroneously seems, to them, intolerable and no other solu- tion is apparent. Naturally that belief white men hold stamps everything Mesquakie as, by necessity, inferior. Mesquakies cannot but be aware of these white notions and they both resent them and half belive them. The notion has guided all white actions and some Mesquakie's actions throughout the last 300 years.
But the notion flies in the face of the fact that the Mes- quakie community is both strong and growing and, so long as the community exists, many of the things most basic to the Mesquakie way of life simply cannot be changed (leav-
36
THE MESQUAKIES OF IOWA
ing aside whether they should be) ; it has caused policy to be directed toward hastening a change that was thought to be inevitable but which was in fact literally impossible to engineer. If the end sought by interested white men in the past was impossible, it is small wonder that so much past activity was ineffectual or worse. It should prove quite a relief to responsible officials if they recognized that future frustrations of attempting the impossible were completely unnecessary.
The second aspect of the present unkind picture each group holds is the present pre-occupation with "problems." Both Mesquakies and whites have become to view each other's very existence as basically and unavoidably a prob- lem.
Since Mesquakies are the underdogs, their interpreta- tion of the "problem" tends to be shifting and mixed with self-doubt, blaming themselves and, at the same time, the white man. Insofar as they do see the problem as caused by white men alone, they feel helpless in overcoming it.
But white men are on top and they are serenely confi- dent about their interpretation of the "problem" and there- fore they keep up a steady din, consciously or unconsciously, for Mesquakies to "do something about it." This is a gi- gantic psychological burden for Mesquakies and the net effect on them is to increase their mistaken feeling that maybe there is something basically wrong with them, else they would be able to see more clearly just what it was that the white people expected them to do. Feeling thus person- ally inadequate, they become rigidly afraid of doing any- thing for if they try and fail that very failure will "prove" their self-doubts and no men can stand too much of that. Feeling thus personally inadequate, they become effectively inadequate.
It is precisely here that so many of the actions of white men to help the Mesquakies hit the rocks. It has happened repeatedly: A sympathetic person comes into the comu- nity. He "investigates" until he has gotten the people suf- ficiently edgy then he presents an elaborate solution to "the
37
THE MESQUAKIES OF IOWA
problem." The atmosphere has become electric with a "this is the day" tenseness. And at just that point, the Mesqua- kies freeze. They fear failure and they curse themselves for that fear. And generally, the white man becomes in- dignant that his time has been so wasted so he flies off the scene and leaves the Mesquakies to live as best they can with the self-accusation and the memory.
In short, the present need is not to get things stimu- lated; the need is to get people to relax. Both whites and Mesquakies must step back a minute and then start out anew. They must relax and enjoy the truly enjoyable things of their own and of the other's life. They must willfully relegate all the so-called problems to their proper, subordi- nate place in the overall picture.
And until these things are done, it would be foolish to expect substantial improvements in those few, minor areas where there are "real" discontents.
*-
38
THE MESQUAKIES OF TOWA
DC:
IND
The Mesquakies will decide what kind of community their children will have.
-- Photo Cedar Rapids Gazette
39
THE MESQUAKIES OF IOWA
VII. THE CHILDREN'S CHILDREN
We cannot plan the Mesquakie's future for them. They will decide what kind of community their children will have. But we can imagine how the Mesquakie might be living a generation from now.
The next generation will still speak Mesquakie, and they will still live in the Mesquakie way; we have no right to change that, and probably could not if we tried. These men and women will still be easy-going; they will still share with each other in time of need; they will still be a group of equals, with no bosses and nobody being bossed.
We hope that the next generation will worry less about their relations to the communities around them, and to white society in general. Then they will no longer be bothered by feelings of inadequacy; they will relax and be themselves.
The next generation will not be prosperous, as that is counted in money. Because they will share with each other, instead of trying to get ahead of each other, they will not get rich. But this will not make them feel bad. They do not want to be rich, and they believe that thinking about money too much is a little disgusting.
But the next generation we hope will no longer be con- sidered a financial burden on the country. It will not have to depend on the whims of Congresses and yearly appropri- ations. In short, the Mesquakie will not have to worry about the rest of us, and the rest of us will not need to worry about the Mesquakie.
This probable Mesquakie community of the next gen- eration would be running on its own steam-but at its own speed, and in its own way.
THE MESQUAKIES OF IOWA
40
INDIAN YOUTH ATTENDING TAMA HIGH SCHOOL
Front row left to right-Steven Bear, Talbert Davenport, Dennis Keahna, Bob Waseskuk, Jimmy Ward, George Buffalo, Rolland Youngbear, Wilford Blackcloud, Nathan Bear. Second Row-Iola Snow, Frances Wanatee, Geneva Poweshiek, Aurelia Scott, Marjorie Buffalo, Elizabeth Wanatee, Diana Morgan, Sylvia Morgan, Ger- aldine Davenport, Alma Youngbear. Third Row-Leo Morgan, Jerry Youngbear, Virgil Slick, Gerald Youngbear, Edward Davenport, Chris Youngbear, Gailey Morgan, Marvel Mauskemo, Leo Keahna. Fourth Row - Joyce Mitchell, Sandra Mitchell, Naomi Slick, Bernardine Davenport, Marjorie Kapayou, Betty Keahna, Etta Daven- port, Barbara Waseskuk.
THE MESQUAKIES OF IOWA
41
CHAMPIONSHIP DANCERS
of the 1953 Mesquakie Indian Pow Wow which is held the third week in August each year.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.