As South Dakota’s anti-Indian Governor Kristi Noem urges people to abandon social distancing and flock to our state, Montana Governor Steve Bullock is respecting tribal decisions to keep visitors out even as he opens up his paleface-held territory:
Montana’s second phase of reopening Monday [June 1] includes allowing bars and restaurants to operate at 75% of capacity and letting groups of up to 50 gather as long as they can meet social distancing guidelines. Montana is also lifting its 14-day quarantine for out-of-state visitors.
…The eastern entrances to Glacier National Park, which lead to the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, are expected to remain closed until the Blackfeet Tribal Council lifts its prohibition on nonessential travel, Bullock said [“Montana Gates to Yellowstone Park Opening Monday,” AP via Flathead Beacon, 2020.05.29].
Montana’s tribes, like their brothers and sisters in the Dakotas, recognize that tourism and other economic opportunities need to take a back seat to protecting their elders and their culture:
For these Native American nations, losing an elder to the coronavirus, or any untimely death, is no small matter. Elders are often the bearers of vanishing languages, history and important cultural knowledge. The Indigenous populations here are small — fewer than 80,000 people in this state combined — so any losses would be significant.
“When an elder dies, there’s a whole history, a whole line of information that we lose,” Stewart-Peregoy said. “It’s like the library burning down.”
…“We’re very concerned that we’re going to lose the last of those with the history of the people, the ceremonies and the traditions,” said Rae Peppers, a Crow member who lives on the Northern Cheyenne reservation in eastern Montana. “That’s what we’re really protecting” [Kathleen McLaughlin, “Montana’s Tribal Nations Preserve COVID-19 Restrictions to Preserve Their Cultures,” Kaiser Health News, 2020.06.05].
Montana tribal leaders are planning to test all reservation residents for coronavirus, and they’re keeping outsiders out:
Some people fear that the state’s reopening to tourism without mandatory quarantine or testing for visitors will set up more conflicts with Indigenous nations that have chosen to keep their borders closed. The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead reservation, located in the heart of one of the state’s most popular vacation regions, has suspended all nonresident recreation on reservation land and urged residents to report infractions to tribal authorities.
Already, tribes have dealt with people taking flight from pandemic hot spots, attempting to shelter on reservations that have no active cases. On the Northern Cheyenne reservation, Peppers said tribal leaders have kicked out a handful of nonresidents camping, believing it to be a haven from pandemic hot spots [McLaughlin, 2020.06.05].
We wasicu have always puzzled our Native neighbors; white folks complaining about sensible public health precautions add to their bepuzzlement at their occupiers:
Across Indian Country in Montana, there have been no protests in favor of reopening or organized calls for getting back to business as usual. Instead, Peppers said, the scattered protests from some non-Indigenous people against stay-at-home closures have been puzzling.
“It’s such a lack of respect for the situation, it’s silly that they’re protesting it,” she said. “Maybe it’s because they’ve never experienced trauma” [McLaughlin, 2020.06.05].
Yeah, it must be traumatic for white privilegists to find they can’t do whatever they want wherever they want to whomever they want.
Sadly, it is too late for some….
https://www.npr.org/2020/05/31/865540308/navajo-nation-loses-elders-and-tradition-to-covid-19
I’d go to this Blackfoot lottery in a second:) Russell’s more watercolor era primitvehttps://billingsgazette.com/entertainment/arts-and-theatre/visual/four-russell-watercolor-paintings-up-for-auction-in-march/article_c919929e-502e-514d-a638-9cfa9bdf6c3e.html
Grew up ranging between Lame Deer and Belle Fourche
https://billingsgazette.com/entertainment/arts-and-theatre/visual/four-russell-watercolor-paintings-up-for-auction-in-march/article_c919929e-502e-514d-a638-9cfa9bdf6c3e.html
Sorry
Sanford Health has nixed the state’s hydroxychloroquine trial. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I for one am shocked that this trumpian idea failed.
“The state’s hydroxychloroquine trial was discontinued Friday morning by Sanford Health after the publication of new research from a larger controlled trial showed the drug had no efficacy in preventing COVID-19 for people exposed to the virus.
Results from a study by the University of Minnesota, which had a similar design to the planned South Dakota trial, found no benefit of hydroxychloroquine as a post-exposure preventive therapy to the drug.” Rapid City Journal 6.5.2020
So those that have taken the drug can now feel free to try to catch malaria in Polo, South Dakota. No one knows what this has all cost taxpayers, but NOem’s head dingaling, Kim Malsam-Rysdon, Secretary of Health for the state of South Dakota, seems to have indicated that the arse kissing of her boss on trump’s behind, was priceless.
We’re on our own kids and that is why it’s so important for the tribes to be the adults in the room and take care of the people in their charge. We could all learn from this, but that is doubtful, so we’ll just keep dying and getting sick out here in white world. So tribes, keep up the great work,some of us envy your spirit and compassion.
Jerry-kudos! Biden 50%-Trump 43%. Watch out for extraordinary damage to avoid prison.
I admire the tribes’ efforts to protect themselves, especially their elders. It speaks of courage and compassion.
Cory, I think this is a superior summation: “Yeah, it must be traumatic for white privilegists to find they can’t do whatever they want wherever they want to whomever they want.”
That’s pretty much what’s going on. A collection of white people is emulating their Lead Pouter by throwing tantrums when they don’t get their way. What a stunning lack of maturity! The inability/unwillingness to delay gratification or reduce self focus shocks me. I did not know a quarter of the white US population is so embarrassingly childish and ignorant.
Wow.
All tribes need federal help in healthcare and especially now. Here is a letter to Moscow Mitch and Chuck Schumer detailing what is needed now for all of Indian Country. https://files.constantcontact.com/a3c45cb9201/6df3ac19-c1c2-4e81-9f47-9905c50c4132.pdf
There shouldn’t be a delay in this request, should there be Senator Rounds and Senator Thune? This should be right up EB5 Short Rounds election year top shelf.
The tribes chose to go on defense against coronavirus. They are doing more for their community health, apparently, than Kristi Noem did by going on “offense” with her noisy HCQ trial.
I am in Perkins County this week camping at Shadehill Resivoir.
Made sure we gave the Tribal police
the thumbs up when we passed the
Cheyenne River Indian Reservation
Roadblocks off of Hyw. 73.
Now that the hydroxychloroquine obsession turned out to be a dangerous dud, Rodeo Barbie is distancing herself slightly, making sure everybody knows she wasn’t behind the push for it.
https://www.keloland.com/news/local-news/s-d-partners-stop-hydroxychloroquine-trial-after-similar-study-shows-no-benefit-on-covid-19/
If the tests had somehow worked, you know she’d be on teevee nonstop promoting her success. Like a dimestore version of The Leader, she has a talent for self-promotion and grifting.