Dear Robert,
Blackfeet Sorrow is a fine manuscript. It's a kind of docu-drama, with the history of the Blackfeet woven out of actual, moving, and very readible documents. It has great power and ought to be read by every high school student in Montana, for a start. As it says, no-one can understand, unless they have lived throufgh the long and terrible history inflicted on this tribe by white savages, greedy captialists, corrupt and well-meaning bureaucrats and, alas, in the end by the Blackfeet themselves at the end of an exhausting, disillusioning, and corrupting century .
This said, some comments or questions do occur to me, if I may?
1. What are the sources used? What documents used by whom or found by this author in what archive? And has anyone used these documents in similar fashion? If not, that's a scandal!
2. The ms. is best up to page 67, which is to say most of it! Very cogent, dramatic, successful, though Rich Clow could help a little with the very nice account of the Milk River business, which ain't over yet!
3. From page 67 to the end, the issues are still the great ones that will bring this terrible, needed story to completion, but the issues from Collier's dictated constitution on to the present are so complex and intertwined that the complex and intertwined narrative can get episodic and disconnected and seem at moments repetitive. This history would test the skills of the greatest writer, believe me, and all the important points and perspectives are there; it just needs a little narative simplification. I'm not the one to solve this normal challenge, alas. Perhaps feature the Collier Constutution and "democracy" early on here, And start out with a summary of where the history would then go: "The Collier constutution seemed to offer "democracy," but it did not ,for many reasons. It was imposed, not the choice of the people, nor easily amendable by them, nor did it truly empower the tribe. It did not solve the problem of outside economic interests, often supported by the BIA and\or Congress, with the power to force and bribe their way into control of the vast resources of the reservation. That process continued unabated. It did not guarantee the first-class educational system that, alone would have permitted the tribal members to control and wisely exploit those resources. It could not change a postcolonial psychology that would have made an automaton of any hero. And finally, the constitution could do nothing about a tribal council virtually immune to removal and either easily decieved by still more false promises or made so cynical by a century of corruptions of all kinds that some of them profitted from their positions." Something along somesuch line, briefly at the start of these pages?? Or whatever quick glance ahead seems true to these last twenty pages, and to which those pages can therefore easily be true as they unfold? A brief, gentle roadmap.
4. Finally, How many fullbloods were there after 1933, and today? Can thei rbe a democracy based on 20% of tribal members? Can there be a tribe of so few members? Blaming corruption on the less-than-fullbloods troubles me. The whole burden of the book is that this history would have destroyed any society,even one as resilient and intelligent and hopeful as the Blackfeet. I'm not sure that pure blood solves this problem?
Best, and thank you. This is exactly, exactly what we all need to understand. History weighs. It weighs heavily. It is the heaviest element of all. If we don't always remember this history, we'll all go on getting caught in the same sort of disastrous traps. Even the best of men and women go down unless, aware, they shoulder the burden of history until they can begin to feel it move,. But how hard it is to feel hope, after all of this. Well done.
Ken
Blackfeet Sorrow is a fine manuscript. It's a kind of docu-drama, with the history of the Blackfeet woven out of actual, moving, and very readible documents. It has great power and ought to be read by every high school student in Montana, for a start. As it says, no-one can understand, unless they have lived throufgh the long and terrible history inflicted on this tribe by white savages, greedy captialists, corrupt and well-meaning bureaucrats and, alas, in the end by the Blackfeet themselves at the end of an exhausting, disillusioning, and corrupting century .
This said, some comments or questions do occur to me, if I may?
1. What are the sources used? What documents used by whom or found by this author in what archive? And has anyone used these documents in similar fashion? If not, that's a scandal!
2. The ms. is best up to page 67, which is to say most of it! Very cogent, dramatic, successful, though Rich Clow could help a little with the very nice account of the Milk River business, which ain't over yet!
3. From page 67 to the end, the issues are still the great ones that will bring this terrible, needed story to completion, but the issues from Collier's dictated constitution on to the present are so complex and intertwined that the complex and intertwined narrative can get episodic and disconnected and seem at moments repetitive. This history would test the skills of the greatest writer, believe me, and all the important points and perspectives are there; it just needs a little narative simplification. I'm not the one to solve this normal challenge, alas. Perhaps feature the Collier Constutution and "democracy" early on here, And start out with a summary of where the history would then go: "The Collier constutution seemed to offer "democracy," but it did not ,for many reasons. It was imposed, not the choice of the people, nor easily amendable by them, nor did it truly empower the tribe. It did not solve the problem of outside economic interests, often supported by the BIA and\or Congress, with the power to force and bribe their way into control of the vast resources of the reservation. That process continued unabated. It did not guarantee the first-class educational system that, alone would have permitted the tribal members to control and wisely exploit those resources. It could not change a postcolonial psychology that would have made an automaton of any hero. And finally, the constitution could do nothing about a tribal council virtually immune to removal and either easily decieved by still more false promises or made so cynical by a century of corruptions of all kinds that some of them profitted from their positions." Something along somesuch line, briefly at the start of these pages?? Or whatever quick glance ahead seems true to these last twenty pages, and to which those pages can therefore easily be true as they unfold? A brief, gentle roadmap.
4. Finally, How many fullbloods were there after 1933, and today? Can thei rbe a democracy based on 20% of tribal members? Can there be a tribe of so few members? Blaming corruption on the less-than-fullbloods troubles me. The whole burden of the book is that this history would have destroyed any society,even one as resilient and intelligent and hopeful as the Blackfeet. I'm not sure that pure blood solves this problem?
Best, and thank you. This is exactly, exactly what we all need to understand. History weighs. It weighs heavily. It is the heaviest element of all. If we don't always remember this history, we'll all go on getting caught in the same sort of disastrous traps. Even the best of men and women go down unless, aware, they shoulder the burden of history until they can begin to feel it move,. But how hard it is to feel hope, after all of this. Well done.
Ken
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