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Home is where the history is profile by katie burford @ photo by graham k johnson Listen carefully to a story of pride, education and heritage Michael Yellow Bird, professor of social welfare, challenges racial stereotypes in his classroom discussions. When Michael Yellow Bird tells the story of his life and his people, he does so in the metered narrative ✩ does so in the metered narrative manner of a storyteller. He makes frequent pauses, talks softly and never rushes. The professor of social welfare at the University of Kansas says that he prefers to be called an Indigenous person because he is not an Indian — he is not from India —and not a Native American—as anyone born in America is a native American. Ifone is patient, does not interrupt and really listens, a theme begins to emerge. The theme is one of triumph over oppression, of joy in the face of hardship and of continuity despite dislocation. This story has no beginning or ending, but the speaker starts by telling of the earthlodges and therefore, so does his story. Earthlodges were the structures inhabited by the Sahnih people along the Missouri River in the area that is now North Dakota. Yellow Bird's father is Sahnih, and his mother is both Sahnih and Hidasata. He never lived in an earthlodge; the river bank his people occupied was flooded when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built the Garrison Dam. Nevertheless, the structure of the earthlodge is etched in his psyche. Earthlodges were built to provide shelter, but earthlodges were also symbolic of the ordering of the cosmos for his people. The structure was supported by four poles. The four poles not only held up the dome but also were the framework for his people's spiritual beliefs: the four semicardinal directions. Each direction stands for certain characteristics of both the physical and spiritual world. "The darker the skin, the more punishment. Some of the native teachers were the worst ones ... they were the product of their own abuse." michael yellow bird professor of social welfare Although Yellow Bird, 43, never lived in an earthlodge, the poles symbolize where he grew up. The Southeast Pole This is the pole of spirituality, of new life. It is the sunrise. It represents all green and rooted plants. This pole is a reminder of Yellow Bird's earliest memories. "As a child in my house, I heard my grandfather speaking and singing to my grandmother in our language, Sahnish," he says. This is the pole that represents the ceremonies, the narrative stories of the elders and the traditions. "It is all the things that were ethnically cleansed from my people," he says. cleanser in our people's life It is the new spiritual life that he entered as a man when he participates in the sundance ceremonies. The sundance ceremonies are several days of fasting and dancing. They are private moments of personal revelation — private in that only he knows their contents but global in the way that they affect his life. The Southwest Pole This is the realm of the physical world, of all four-legged animals, of thunder that signals the coming of the rain, of water that is life and of all things that inhabit water. It is the pole of the physical body. Again Yellow Bird recalls the sundance ceremonies and the way his body experiences the dancing. It is like when he was a child and would run hard and fast on the Fort Berthold reservation, near White Shield, N.D. It is the moments he would spend with his father, Willard or Wolf Trail, hunting and fishing. "He would tell me about not violating the sanctity of the spirit — we believe that animals have spirits, that all that life is connected. This is why it is important not to waste and if you do, there are consequences," he says. mayfly to the eagle. We believe the wind is a sacred power, and it carries a message with it," he says. "This represents the wind and all nations that fly—from the The world of airborne creatures kept Yellow Bird intrigued as a child. The Northwest Pole "I found a niche in the natural world." he says. He learned to read very young and devoured all that he could find on the natural sciences. He dreamed of someday being an ornithologist, a branch of zoology that studies birds. branch of zoology that studies birds us. But this would not be the path that his life would take. He remembers how he used to steal books from his brothers and sisters — 10 brothers and four sisters — before he was old enough to go to school. "When I got there, it was a nightmare. It was all control and accept your position as a marginalized person" he says. He remembers the children at the Bureau of Indian Affairs grade school being beaten with rulers and made to spend the whole day in the closet. "The darker the skin, the more punishment," he recalls. "Some of the native teachers were the worst ones ... they were the product of their own abuse." After his first year of college at the University of North Dakota, he was nominated to go to West Point during the Vietnam War but later declined the nomination, rejecting this stereotype. "My people were farmers not warriors," he says. While in college, he would return home and see the problems — the alcoholism, the abuse and the poverty — that plaged his reservation, he says. He knew that all these problems were related to his people losing their land, being displaced and forced to give up their culture and their way of life. Overwhelmed by their suffering, he took a hiatus from school. During this time he, too, became aimless, he says, spending his nights drinking and running with his friends. "I realized I was living in a manufactured world of the compressed," he says. Slowly, he became aware that his calling was to change this world; his role was to act on behalf of his people. He choose to forge his interest of the natural sciences to pursue of career of social service. "How could I become an ornithologist with so much to be done?" he asks. He returned to school at the University of North Dakota to earn his associate's degree in education. After a brief time working at the United Tribes Education Technical Center in Bismarck, N.D., he was one of the teachers selected to attend the National Indian Education Association meeting — an honor later revoked when they learned he only had his associates degree. He resolved to never again let a lack of education stand in his way. In 1980, he graduated from the University of Wisconsin, earning a master's degree in social work. He returned to this University in 1986 for his doctorate, earning the degree in 1994. The Northeast Pole "This is the pole of Mother Corn. She is our Jesus," Yellow Bird says. "She teaches us how to live respectfully. She teaches us standards of ethics, humility, honesty and our relation to everything." This is also the semi-cardinal direction of night, the time of dreams. It is the realm of the emotions. While he was in graduate school, Yellow Bird suffered a severe case of depression and had to be hospitalized for 30 days. During this time, he became preoccupied with death. Every time that he would call home, his mother would tell him of another of his people who came to a violent end or who had taken their own life. Even in the hospital, death remained a tangible presence in his life; it was a specter he could not shake. When he got home, his mother told him that he needed to see a medicine man. "Every pore of my being was open to the healing," Yellow Bird says. Earthlodges were built for shelter, but they also serve as symbolism for the cosmos of the Sahnish people who dwelled along the Missouri River in what is now North Dakota. Contributed photo The awareness came to him that he had been experiencing layers and layers of grief for the suffering of his people, for all the accumulated years of their oppression, for having been born into "a culture of inferiority" and for his own inability to alleviate their suffering. Making a difference "It was all the poles together that inspired me to become the person I am today," he says. Today, he makes his daily contributions to his people by guiding them to opportunities that will help them fulfill their potential as human beings. Last year, he received a grant from the Office of Minority Health in Washington, D.C. to develop a curriculum that enables social workers to become better at providing aid to those living on reservations. Also, he helps administer the Equal Opportunity Fund at the University. The goal of the fund is to "produce native professional social workers to work with native populations." Adam George, a student in Yellow Bird's diversity course, was a biology major before switching to social work in his fourth year. He says that Yellow Bird's class has challenged nearly all the beliefs that he had on race prior to taking the class. "He's not afraid to tackle difficult issues," said George, Wichita senior. "He always takes the most subtle stereotypes and deconstructs them." Yellow Bird also is making a difference through his own family. His wife, Pemina, is an activist for repatriation. For 12 years, she has worked to rescue the remains of their ancestors and other objects sacred to their culture. She organizes groups around this cause and lobbies politicians around the country. Together the two have raised their four sons: Jason, 23; Mike Jr., 19; Pete, 17 and Matt, 15. He knows that his sons will face many hardships in their lives, but he hopes that they will find support and balance in the poles of the four semi-cardinal directions. 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