Healing the Indigenous Way

Saaniyazhi by Candace L. Harrison of Diné College

You seen them, I guess. Their face get all twisted up on one way, and their eyes might get twisted up on the left side and their mouth would twist around too. Their eyes run all the time and they can’t hardly see. You can see the gums in their mouth and the teeth. They get to slobbering so bad that they got to hold a rag over their mouth,” explained the Comanche eagle doctor Sanapia, who was recounting the symptoms of one of her patients afflicted with “twisted face.” She continued: “Sometimes their hands get bent up and their arms get turned around and they be shaking sometimes. Oh, they stink when they get it, just like dead persons. I’ll tell you, when you doctor someone with twisted face, it’s the most nasty thing you could do.”

“Twisted face,” also known as ghost sickness, or bƐdƐyai, was a peculiar ailment that afflicted Comanches beginning in the first few decades of the 20th century. As Sanapia described above, the symptoms included paralysis of the hands, arms, and facial muscles. Victims also emitted a foul odor, similar to a decomposing corpse. And they all expressed a great deal of amorphous fear. Some of the symptoms resembled those that stroke victims experience, others correlated more with Bell’s palsy. But ghost sickness was unique—Western remedies failed to cure it and only Comanches experienced it. Upon closer examination, those afflicted described high levels of discrimination, alienation, and cultural marginalization. Although this ailment was only reported in the past century, its origins go back further. As with all Native nations, colonization upended Comanche society. But the changes, the decline, the devastation they experienced were especially acute and pronounced. A Numic-speaking people who trace their roots to the Intermountain West, the Comanches arrived on the Southern Plains in the early 18th century. They adapted to the environment, developing an equestrian-based culture that quickly established hegemony throughout the region. They defeated both the Apaches and the Spanish and carved out what Bancroft Prize-winning historian Pekka Hämäläinen calls the “Comanche Empire.” They cultivated extensive trade networks and accompanying borderland markets that ranged from New Mexico’s Rio Grande valley to the Mississippi river. They raided for horses in Mexico as far south as Zacatecas and San Luis Potosí. By the end of the 18th century, the Comanches, “the Lords of the South Plains,” possessed a territory more expansive than all combined European-controlled areas north of the Rio Grande.

But this meteoric ascendency was eclipsed by an even more precipitous decline. Following the Mexican American War and the subsequent Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the United States laid claim to all lands extending to the Pacific Ocean, including the modern-day states of Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico, a region forming the heartland of the Comanchería. Inevitably, this set the two powers on a collision course, which exploded into full-blown warfare in the 1850s and 1860s. The Comanches, already reeling from declining bison herds and a 20-year-drought, could not match the staggering number of soldiers the United States fielded. A series of military setbacks, culminating in the Battle of Palo Duro Canyon in 1875, ultimately led to the Comanches’ forced confinement on the Fort Sill reservation in the southwestern corner of Indian Territory.

The trauma, however, was just beginning. In the 1880s, non- Native “boomers” streamed into Indian Territory and illegally homesteaded. Eventually political pressure mounted, and in 1889, much of the territory was opened for a succession of “land runs.” Eleven years later, passage of the Jerome Act resulted in the allotment of the Fort Sill reservation. By the 1930s, roughly half of the Comanche Nation was landless. All of this dovetailed with exorbitant efforts to assimilate and erase the Comanches’ culture and language, leaving the people—the Nuhmuhnuh— destitute.

In this issue of Tribal College Journal we take our cue from U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland (Laguna) who called on all of us to confront these historical traumas; only then can true healing commence. In the feature article, “Healing, Support, Empowerment,” Norma Marshall, a professor of Native studies at College of the Muscogee Nation, and Dr. Jurgita Antoine, the deputy director for Native language research at the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, show how healing can begin at our tribal colleges and universities, where students are culturally immersed, enabling them to connect with their Native language. “Catharsis of the soul must happen daily,” Marshall and Antoine explain. Communicating, singing, praying in one’s Indigenous language ties students to their forebearers, but also grounds them and soothes the soul. At Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College (NHSC) on the Fort Berthold reservation in North Dakota, students are confronting trauma another way—through horse culture. In this edition of Talking Circle, “Ii’cuwashghiri Maagi’shiihe: The Healing Power of the Horse,” NHSC equine studies director Lori Nelson illuminates how building a close connection with this animal is therapeutic and raises self-awareness. “The horse is gifted with acute sensitivity to reflect back to us what is true in ourselves and in our own lives,” Nelson says. Turn to page 42 to find out more.

Yet another way to confront trauma and begin down the road to healing is through storytelling. In the Voices article, “The Transformative Power of Story,” longtime College of Menominee Nation professor Dr. Vicki Besaw shares her experiences as an educator confronting trauma in the classroom. To be sure, TCU students often bring with them traumas that have never been addressed, let along discussed. But Besaw shows how Indigenous storytelling offers a powerful means to facilitate healing while strengthening tribal identity in the process.

There are some situations, however, where healing remains a far-off ideal. In such cases, documenting the trauma to raise our collective consciousness and seek justice is the primary goal. In the article, “Suing for Awareness,” Dr. Karla Cavarra Britton, dean of the School of Arts and Humanities at Diné College, showcases the photographic work of the Navajo trans-customary artist Will Wilson who has documented the environmental effects of uranium mining in the Navajo Nation. Wilson’s photographs are at once eerily beautiful and shockingly disturbing. In the most visceral way, he illuminates the trauma inflicted on the Diné and our Mother Earth.

The corrosive effect of colonization has taken many forms. But for Indigenous peoples, connecting to culture, whatever the means, has proven to be a powerful panacea. In treating ghost sickness, Sanapia held a traditional Comanche ceremony for two days, employing both prayer and medicine at sunrise, mid-day, and sunset. Through this reconnection to culture and the old ways, all her patients recovered. Today, tribal colleges and universities are doing the same for their communities.

Bradley Shreve, PhD, is editor of Tribal College Journal.

REFERENCES

Hämäläinen, P. (2008). The Comanche Empire. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Jones, D.E. (1972). Sanapia: Comanche Medicine Woman. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.