One Man's Family

April 14, 2005

One Man’s Family

Back in the Sixties, when hippies finally began to show up at Browning Indian Days, scandalizing the old mission-raised ladies who ran their lodges in traditional ways, a man named Adolf Gutohrlein showed up with a blonde wife and a little baby, traveling in a camper converted from an armored car. This Swiss/Austrian/Hungarian man from California was devoted to Blackft and hoped to be assimilated. The next time he arrived, he was with Beverly Little Bear, a Canadian Blackft, and was called Hungry Wolf.

The Hungry Wolf marriage partnership lasted a long time and produced many handsome, intelligent, lovable children. The family business was producing artifacts and homemade books about how to make artifacts, plus much anthropological information and photographs from old books Adolf wore braids and spoke Blackft. The family lived like old-time Indians as much as they could. We admired Beverly who seemed able to manage all of this. And we were a little wary. “Wannabes” can be predatory.

Over time their book-making -- they called their booklets “Good Medicine” -- became more sophisticated and found publishers. The first “real” book was eighth in the Harper & Row Native American Publishing Program. (The other seven were “Seven Arrows” by Hyemeyohsts Storm; “Ascending Red Cedar Moon” and “Carriers of the Dream Wheel” by Duane Niatum; “Winter in the Blood” and “Riding the Earthboy 40: by James Welch; “Indians’ Summer” by Nas’Naga; and “Going for the Rain,” by Simon Ortiz.)

This Hungry Wolf book was called “The Blood People: a Division of the Blackfoot Confederacy, An Illustrated Interpretation of the Old Ways.” (Copyright 1977. ISBN 0-06-450600-2) It is exactly what the title says.

“The Ways of My Grandmothers,” the second book, is by Beverly Hungry Wolf alone and gives credit to Ruth Little Bear, Beverly’s mom. (William Morrow and Company, Inc. Copyright 1980. ISBN 0-688-03665-1)

The next book is “Shadows of the Buffalo: A Family Odyssey Among the Indians” by Adolf and Beverly Hungry Wolf. (William Morrow and Col, Inc. Copyright 1983. ISNB 0-688-01680-4) Political correctness has entered the context and it is a far more humble book, quite conscious that romantic notions overlook a lot of tough realities, and suddenly aware that lines are being drawn about who is entitled to write such books. I know the old people in this book and he does them justice.

The most recent book that I’ve seen is “Daughters of the Buffalo Women: Maintaining the Tribal Faith” by Beverly Hungry Wolf. The publisher is given as “Canadian Caboose Press,” which I take to be a second self-publishing imprint. By now Adolf was really into railroads and wrote books on them. The family was said to be living in a railroad car -- maybe a caboose. (Copyright 1996. ISBN 0-920698-56-5) Actually there were several cabooses and rail cars, amounting to a private museum. Adolf went to Cuba where ancient railways still exist, and acted as an engineer for a while.

I hear the Hungry Wolf marriage has broken apart for the usual reasons. Adolf made a trip back to Europe where he was much admired, especially by women. Beverly was badly hurt in a car accident and lost her mother. The kids were grown and established. Maybe they’ll team up again later.

Their writing is charming because it is personal, often direct accounts of their own experiences, and bridges several boundaries: between white and tribal, between the US and Canada, between the old days and now, and -- most endearingly, between their old selves and their new selves. They are not afraid to disclose that they grow and change.

Recently when Mike Swims Under, an important wise man and guide on the Amskapi Pikuni side, passed on to the Sand Hills, at the funeral (Methodist) Adolph Hungry Wolf sang every relevant Siksika song he knew -- maybe some that were irrelevant, grumbled those who didn’t know that many. It took a long time. For a while Beverly taught at Piegan Institute, an immersion Blackft language school in Browning. Also, at Blackfeet Community College. Since Bob Scriver died and his shop and museum were dispersed, it’s harder for me to keep track of them. They used to check in, now and then. Bob intended to give his Thunder Medicine Pipe to Okan Hungry Wolf but died too soon.

When I used to read to my high school classes, “The Ways of My Grandmothers” was always one of the favorites. I should reread all four books. I pick them up and get distracted by the photos. It was estimated that the “Good Medicine” archives held 20,000 ancient photos plus their own family snapshots.

The Blackft language incorporates a distinction that translates roughly as “real.” Grizzly bears are “real bears,” while black bears are “nothing bears.” Buffalo are “real meat” while elk, deer, cow are “nothing meat.” Siksika are “real people” and everyone else is “nothing people.” “Nothing” is not really meant to be pejorative, I think -- it just implies that whatever-it-is isn’t “primary.” It’s not the real thing. It doesn’t matter so much. All that nothing stuff is a default category -- not much is known about all that.

I hesitate to say that these four books and the others are “real books,” because those would be books written in the Blackft language, wouldn’t they? Is it possible to write a modern book about the “real people” since their language was never written, but represented by iconography?

But they are warmer and more real than collections of legends (which they often include) or anthro-rigarmarole. Bob and I were suspicious of Adolf at first. Was he running a con game of some kind? Certainly he has a few Napi/Trickster aspects. But gradually he became “real,” rather in the way that the velveteen rabbit in the child’s story became real. It just took four decades. Maybe he felt the same way about us.