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Tobacco Roulette by Erin Cole

Indians in Montana have the highest lung cancer rate in the nation. At Rocky Boy’s Reservation by the time lung cancer patients get diagnosed, it’s too late to save them.

In the crevice of a pine-studded hill near her home, Luanne Belcourt pauses in the stiff spring wind to light a cigarette. Instead of smoking, however, she takes a solitary puff and then places it upon the grave of her brother-in-law, Robert Geboe. To an outsider, this act might be viewed as a bizarre display of irony, as Robert died of lung cancer. But here on Rocky Boy’s Reservation, this cigarette is a sacred offering.

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Photos by Alisia Duganz

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