Native+people+in+the+English+speaking+world

= The white Native American =

My name is Ama. I am the chief’s wife in this tribe, which have been called Apsaaloke. It is a Crow tribe in Montana. I am 56 years old and I’m a wise person, but there are older people in this tribe that are wiser. They are teaching us others to become just like them when we get old. When the chief and the warriors is out haunting, I’m looking after the women and children. I’m not often cooking or making clothes but I have to see what they are doing. Because we don’t have much materials to make all we want. We have to plan which clothes we have to make for the summer and the winter, and that we have enough food to everyone all the time. We make clothes of skin from animals that the men in our tribe get, but the haunting isn’t always successful.

Actually I am not born in this tribe. You may not believe it, but I’m a white woman. I was only two years old when the Apsaaloke found me in the forest. My parents wouldn’t have me, so they left me alone in the big world. I’m sure they wanted me to die there because it was winter and they gave me no clothes to wear or food. The warriors saw what my parents had done, but at first they were very afraid to help me. They thought it would come lots of white people to kill them. So they kept an eye on me for two days before they took me to the rest of the tribe. They gave me food and warm clothes, and they were really nice to me like I belong to them. No one did ever come to try to find me. They probably thought I was dead anyway. The old chief and his wife decided to let me be one of them, but the warriors and women were very sceptical and afraid to have me in the tribe. They tried to do everything to make me go away. I was still a little girl and didn’t understand what they wanted. So I kept smiling because I thought they looked really funny. But the old chief said that if they didn’t want me here, they had to leave the Apsaaloke instead of me. They decided to stay since they really liked themselves here. After a year they saw that I had changed my behaviour and looked more and more like a Native American girl. And they started to like me. That was really nice because I thought it was very hard being a white girl living with Native Americans. When I was 7 years old I knew that I was different than everyone else. But I felt like a Native American child and knew that I now had a new family that loved me, so I didn’t care about it. My upbringing was just like everyone else in this tribe. I played, talked and did pretty much as a Native American does.

I played a lot with Hohots Tamalweyat, who lately became my husband. He is just 2 years older than me and was the old chief’s son. We hang together everyday, and when I was 16 years old and he was 18 we became girlfriend and boyfriend. Actually we couldn’t be together because the rule said: You can only be in a relationship with a person from the same tribe, and not with a person that isn’t born in the same tribe or live in tribes another place. We knew we had to follow the rule, but we couldn’t stop our love for each other. So we decided to start meeting in secretly. We thought it was a little bit funny, but we were also scared if someone saw us. We were very afraid someone saw us, and what they would have said. I loved him more and more each day that went, and I thought he was very romantic. I knew that this was the man I would spend my life with. One day I met Hohots in the forest, some warriors had seen us. Of course they said it to the old chieftain. We got very surprised when he asked why we had not said it before and that he didn’t care if we were together. He looked at me like I’m his own child. When the old chief suddenly died, we knew that it was Hohots and I who should now be the leaders of the Apsaaloke.

We in this tribe live in tepees. It is made of skins for animals or birch bark. My husband and I live in the biggest one. It is a lot of signs on it so you can see that here live the chieftain and his wife. Everyday we are cautious to go far away from our tribe camp because white warriors can suddenly come and kill us. Especially when the warriors are out haunting. The Apsaaloke’s were more afraid before, but since I’m a white person too our tribe have got more feelings of security.

Everyone in this tribe have a name that means something. My name, Ama, means water and my husband’s chief of grizzly. I don’t know what my name was before, but I was given the name, Ama, because water was the only word I could when the Apsaaloke found me.

As I have mentioned I am learning more and more about all sorts of things every day here in Apsaaloke. That is thanks to all in this tribe, also they who now is dead. They taught me everything I had to know before I became the chieftain’s wife. A chieftain’s wife must have control on the rest of the tribe when the warriors are out haunting, food, clothes, teach children to become gorgeous women, take care that everyone have something to do and look after our most expensive belongings. Everyone thought I was the best woman that could have been a chieftain’s wife. Whatever people are thinking, I am a real Native American and the Apsaaloke is my family. It is only my colour of the skin that separates us.