OCR Text |
Show Utah ' s Indians 4 2 W E S H A L L R E M A I N : U TA H I N D I A N C U R R I C U L U M G U I D E Interviewer: Do you think that's because the Northwestern Shoshone, and correct me if I'm wrong, have lived more of an assimilated life-style? Timbimboo-Madsen: Umm-hmm. Interviewer: Explain to me that assimilation, and the way that affects you. Timbimboo-Madsen: I think for those of the Northwestern band, the assimilation came, it was both good and it was both bad, because you had to give up something for the other. But it was a way to survive, too. I think after the massacre they felt that it could happen again and maybe next time there will be none of us left anymore. I think they had to try and if the leaders of the tribe said, "This is the way we need to go to survive; this is what we're going to do." They embraced the Mormon Church. One of our elders, Kenneth Neaman, said that it, the religion, was so much like our own religion. We believe in life after death, we believe in one great being or spirit or god. Maybe the difference is how you pray to it, to them or to him or what-ever but it's the same. I think the idea of family also touched them because you know, without that family structure for Native American peo-ple, you can't survive. You need all those helping hands. You need to pass on your skills to the next generation. So that unity was important. Interviewer: Is there a cost to that assimilation? Is there a cost to the living with both worlds? Timbimboo-Madsen: I think the cost for the as-similation for us has been the, the loss of some of the living skills of our ancestors. Certainly, and the skills that they had then, how useful are they now? But I know and my husband has certainly said, we can survive if anything ever happens. We can put meat on our table. We can clothe our fam-ily. And we can probably survive in the elements. And those skills, so many people don't have and take it for granted that the store is always gonna be there. Look, is there gonna be gas there to-morrow? But trying to recapture it, it makes it so much more important because it was lost. It means more. I think as far as living in the com-munities, I would say, education was important to the people our tribe. But not everybody was fortunate enough to take advantage of that. But some of ‘em were, and some of ‘em did go far with their education. There's a lady up in Fort Hall, and we would go up there and they would say, yes you guys are our relatives and you were the people that wash a lot. Or you were the, we wanna come down and visit you people because you people put up fruit. But that's what they learned from the Mormon people, was that part that people looked at us and said, "Those are those Indians, those Mor-mon Indians." It helped because the people of the communities knew us. I think back around 1860s, seventies and eighties, when the commu-nities were still trying to settle in. There was a lot of dissension. I think land ownership was impor-tant to the nonnative people that came in to here. And so it caused some problems. Patty Timbimbo-Madsen, interview with Nancy Green, interview #1, We Shall Remain, KUED Public Television, http://www.kued.org/productions/weshallremain/pdfs/PATTYTIMBIMBOO1.pdf. |