Growing Up Native American by Bill Adler

juice only…That will sustain you. It is what warriors sometimes have to do.”
    â€œGive, give! Quick!” And Ohiya gasped and rolled his eyes in agony, according to his notion of correct dying from starvation. His mother passed out a pinch of the food to each one and took some herself and they sat holding it in the mouth, swallowing the juice only.
    â€œI wonder, Ohiya, whether the storm has spent itself…it seems suddenly very quiet. Just peek out and see.” She said this to find out if the children were tired of the game. Far from it. At least Ohiya wanted to prolong it, for he stuck his head out and then jerked it back in with teeth chattering noisily. “Ouch! My ears are nearly frozen off, it is so cold…I think we must stay here some more.”
    Waterlily said, “Mother, in that case, tell us a story.” And so Blue Bird told them not one story but two and then a third. They were the same little stories long familiar but always welcome—about the stupid bear; the deceitful fox; the wily Iktomi, master of trickery; and about Meadowlark and her babies.
    In due time the children, who had wriggled about into more comfortable position against their mother, were sound asleep, their heads on her lap. She gazed on them tenderly as she wiped their flushed faces damp along the hairline, for it was actually a very warm day. “A lapful of babies—what more should a woman want?”
    She sat very still, her back against a rock, so they might have their rest, until someone called from beyond the hill telling them their evening meal was waiting.
    On the way back she carried the baby while the two older ones walked ahead. Suddenly Waterlily turned back to her and said, “Mother, this was such fun! Can we go walking with you again—often?”
    Waterlily went everywhere with her grandmother, Gloku, and her aunts and others, and always it was very pleasant, for they were all most agreeable. But now at last she had found her preference, her own mother, who could play games and talk about many things that were perplexing, clearing them away.She would stay close to her from now on. It was well she decided this, for very soon she would be needing more guidance through the extraordinary days of adolescence that were not too far off. And then it would be her own mother who would be most understanding and helpful.

from L IFE A MONG THE P IUTES
Sara Winnemucca Hopkins
    B orn near Humbolt Lake, Nevada, in 1844, Sara Winnemucca (Paiute) grew up to be a staunch advocate for her people and their rights. She traveled throughout the United States, lecturing about the cruel abuses faced by her tribe at the hands of unscrupulous Indian agents who stole and made personal profit from the government food and supplies meant for the tribe. In her autobiographical and historical work , Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims, Hopkins narrates the story of her family and the unjust treatment her people received after contact with and conquest by the United States government. Please note that the spelling “Piutes” in the title exemplifies the convention of the time. Today, the accepted form is “Paiute .”
    In the excerpt that follows, she tells of a grandfather who kept his word even in the face of betrayal. And she writes of the terror of being buried alive by her mother in her attempt to hide Sara from invading white men whom the tribe believed were cannibals. This belief had its basis in the fate of the Donner party who, while trapped by a snowstorm in a mountain pass, had indeed survived by eating their dead. The party’s Indian guides, Lewis and Salvadore, refused to do so. These heroic men, who had steadfastly remained with the doomed immigrants, fled for their lives, only after being told of plans to murder them for food. Nevertheless, they were eventually tracked down by members of the party. When they were found, exhausted and too weak to move, they were both