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            Leslie isn’t without her own support network.  For almost two months now, she hasn’t had a working vehicle, so it is her mother, or grandmother, or Tanya who help her get to school. It is her mom who watches 5-year-old Lela, while Leslie’s in class.  It is her oldest daughter, LaDawn, who fills in as mom when Leslie is busy.  It is sister Tanya who reminds her about assignments.  It is Falls Down who acts as a mentor, her mother and grandmother who act as motivators.
            Working together – each person filling established roles and aiding their kin – is a key component of Crow culture.  The Crow are the only Montana tribe divided into clans. The clans are matrilineal, meaning children belong to their mother’s clan, but family lines blend, making all clan adults responsible for the clan’s children.  There is no Crow word for cousin, uncle or aunt; they have only sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers.  These clans determine relationships and social customs, explains Little Big Horn College Registrar Robert Howe.
            “There are important roles based on respect,” says Howe.  “For example, mothers do not speak to their son-in-laws, so for the 15 years my daughter has been married, my wife has never spoken directly to or faced her husband, and for the first three years of their marriage we lived in the same house.”
            So where are the Crow men?
            Historically, Crow men gained honor and respect by earning coup, or war honors.  They brought pride to their clan, along with safety and food.  Through military activities, Crow boys became Crow men.
            Crow men today are still proud, but haven’t the old outlets to bring honor to themselves or their families. Now, many of the duties once performed by women – like setting up tepees and organizing sweats – are performed by men.  And the women have found another duty, bettering themselves and their families through education.
            LaDawn is Leslie’s oldest daughter.  She is a 17-year-old senior at Lodge Grass High School who has a lot in common with her mother.  LaDawn has her mother’s eyes – the same striking almond shape and unusual green color.  Their hair is the same shade of chocolate-brown, streaked with red highlights.  Their cheekbones are defined and their chins delicate. .LaDawn expects to attend Rocky Mountain College in Billings on a scholarship next fall.  She exudes confidence without saying much and her siblings respect and listen to her as though she were their parent, which sometimes, in practice, she is.
            But there are similarities to her mother LaDawn hopes to avoid.
            “Seeing our moms, our aunts, we don’t want to be like them,” LaDawn says.  “One of my aunties is a drug abuser who doesn’t have heat and lives in a trailer the size of a bedroom; I don’t want that.”
            LaDawn and two of her friends sit in the high school’s library; they’re skipping classes, but seem unconcerned.  No one will miss them, they say, even as a voice on a loud speaker announces they have two minutes to get to their next class.  It’s a Friday – a catch-up day – and they’re already ahead in their classes. They’re right; no one comes to find them.
            These young women are a mother’s dream realized.  All three of them plan to attend college next fall, keep good grades and achieve their goals.
            Kelsey Hugs wants to be a pediatric nurse.  Natoya Not Afraid, an accountant.  LaDawn’s goal is the most focused of all.
            “I want to become a family physician so that I can return to the reservation and treat people with diabetes, because it’s killing our elders,” she says in a firm and steady cadence.
            Their determination stems from the experiences they’ve seen. They want husbands who are faithful, homes that are nice, cars that run, and money to spend.
            “Seeing them struggling, paying from bill to bill, going from check to check, and not knowing if you’ll ever have enough – that’s what motivates us to make it,” says LaDawn.
            “Because we want more, we want it all,” adds Kelsey.  “To be able to go somewhere and afford anything you want, to have a car and a big house, and take trips with your family.”
            Though the girls point to the challenges their parents have faced, their own paths have not been easy.  Natoya is already a mother who says that without the help of a teacher and friends, she would have quit school. In LaDawn’s freshman year her mother moved to Arizona for six months after her divorce, leaving  LaDawn in charge of younger siblings. She turned to partying as a release and struggled before pulling things together and getting back on the honor roll.
            They say many female classmates see education as a vehicle for change. Many male classmates, they and their teachers agree, don’t have the same motivation.
            The young women say in Crow culture boys aren’t disciplined as strictly as are girls. And many are too proud to ask for help.
            They also often lack strong role models.
            “Most of them are mad at their dads and kind of hate them for leaving their moms,” Natoya says.  “Who are they supposed to look up to?”
            Statistics back up some of their observations.
            More than twice as many males than females dropped out of Lodge Grass High School  last academic year. 
            Standardized tests taken last year found 70 percent of male 10th grade students scored two levels below proficient, while 39 percent of females scored at that “novice” level. In reading, 80 percent of the boys ranked as novice, compared with 67 percent of the girls.
            Leslie says she knows what motivates her daughter.
            “She’s seen me go through all my ups and downs,” she says.  “Sometimes my husband would come home drunk and beat me up and she was old enough to see that and remember — that you don’t forget.”
            It’s 11:30 on a Monday morning and Dusty Plainfeather is in bed at his grandmother’s house, covered from head to toe with blankets.  He doesn’t want to talk; he just wants to sleep until it’s time for his first class at 1 p.m.
            The figure that finally rises from the bed is imposing.  At age 21, Dusty is 6 feet 3 inches and easily more than 200 pounds.  His dark black hair drops below his baseball cap and grazes the tops of his broad shoulders where an NBA jersey hangs.  A thin mustache frames the unsmiling upper lip of his round face, and thick eyebrows add punch to large, dark eyes.  But when his half-sister –  precocious 5-year-old Lela – demands his attention, the eyes sparkle, his voice lightens and he smiles as he teases her.
            There’s a story that both Leslie and Tanya tell.  A legend in which a young boy is carried off by a jealous stepfather and left to die.  The boy survives, lives with the rams in the mountains and returns one day to avenge his stepfather’s deeds.  They say the message explains why so many children on the reservation live with grandparents or aunts and uncles extended family is thought to be better than stepfathers.  Leslie says the story fits her son.

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