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203 twenty-four The Mille Lacs Band of Chippewas i had no awareness, and certainly no knowledge, of the Mille Lacs Band of Chippewas before they contacted us in 1983. But this very interesting band became our clients, and in the years that followed we immersed ourselves in their legal problems. Their home is at Mille Lacs Lake, which lies 100 miles north of Minneapolis. It is a huge, beautiful lake, covering 207 square miles. It is one of Minnesota’s most popular fishing lakes, containing large populations of walleye and bass. Around the shore are fishing resorts that do a booming business in the summer. In winter, thousands come to the lake for ice fishing, using little huts that are hauled onto the frozen lake surface. Unfortunately for the Mille Lacs Band of Chippewas, or Ojibwe, as they call themselves, their reservation is in the midst of an intense concentration of fishing resorts and sports businesses, and their treaty rights and even their reservation have been threatened by their neighbors and by the state of Minnesota. The band has about 2,300 members and their reservation encompasses 61,000 acres. But it has been “checkerboarded” into small parcels of Indian land, scattered over a large area and surrounded by non-Indian land except for a few contiguous parcels.1 Still, the Mille Lacs people have managed to retain much of their cultural integrity as an Indian people, gathering wild rice on Mille Lacs Lake and other nearby lakes, fishing and hunting, conducting traditional ceremonies and dances, and retaining their Ojibwe language. I first went out to the reservation in the winter of 1983 to meet with 204 the mille lacs band of chippewas their governing body, the band council. The Mille Lacs seemed different than other tribal people I had worked with. When I first met them they seemed tense and beleaguered. The band had struggled to overcome poverty and the problems of alcohol and poor health. They seemed determined to build their tribal government, but they also seemed bruised by the intolerance of the non-Indian community and tensions with the state government. They felt frustrated at every turn, and their existence as a tribe seemed to hang by a thread. Yet they retained their Ojibwe culture and language. As an outsider, one doesn’t see this immediately, except for a few phrases of Ojibwe casually exchanged around the band offices. But at the annual meeting of the band, Art Gahbow, the band’s chairman, delivered his address entirely in Ojibwe as his audience listened intently. Art Gahbow was a heavyset middle-aged man with a hearty laugh, and he wielded power with the self-assurance of an old-fashioned political boss. Over time I came to know many band members. On one of my trips I was invited to attend a Mille Lacs dance held in a low one-story building that served as a community hall. One of my Mille Lacs friends told me that, if I attended the dance, I would certainly be called on to join in the dancing, so I should learn the basic dance step. He showed me and I tried it. At first I was clumsy and couldn’t do it, though it was actually a simple rhythmic movement, but after a little practice I got it. That evening when I entered the hall with my friend, the drumming and chanting was already in progress as I took my seat along the wall. Groups of Mille Lacs women danced arm in arm followed by groups of Mille Lacs men. The air was incredibly thick with smoke. At first I thought it was all from cigarettes, but then I saw an Indian pipe with a clay bowl and a long wooden stem being passed around. It came to me and I put the mouthpiece to my lips and drew gingerly on it. The taste of tobacco was rough on my tongue. I carefully blew the smoke out of my mouth and passed the pipe on to the man sitting next to me. Then I noticed that the women seated against the opposite wall were eying me, and my Mille Lacs friend chuckled. “They’re going to ask you to dance,” he said. Almost immediately two women came over and held out their hands. “Come on, you dance with us.” I stood up, went out on the floor, and awkwardly joined in the group’s dancing. This was greeted with amusement and approving...

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