Sharing Our Stories of Survival: Native Women Surviving Violence (16 page)

Respect, as seen through the eyes of the indigenous people, encompasses the whole of the universe and one’s relationship to it ... [T]hrough respect the place of everyone and everything in the universe is kept in balance and harmony. Respect is reciprocal, shared, constantly interchanging principle which is expressed through all aspects of social conduct.
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As indigenous people of this land, we adhered to this worldview and fundamental value. Respect was the basic foundation of our traditional law. Fienup-Riordan has called Alaska Natives and other indigenous peoples the “original ecologists.”

One reason for this is that their worldviews are dependent upon reciprocity—do unto others as you would have them do unto you. All of life is considered recyclable and therefore requires certain ways of caring in order to maintain the cycle. Native people cannot put themselves above other living things because they were all created by the Raven, and all are considered essential components of the universe.
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For example, in the Athabascan culture, adherence to the preconstitutional law was taught and passed on from generation to generation through the stories of creation called
K’ondonts
’
itnee
.

According to our elder Eliza Jones, “This is our gospel, this is what we live by.”
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Intertwined within the
K’ondonts’itnee
is the concept of respect. These legends teach about the reciprocal, shared, constantly interchanging principle to which Smith refers. As Eliza Jones says, “after listening to a story one night, we had to repeat it back to them before they told us another.” Learning the
K’odonst’itnees
verbatim ensured that the stories stayed alive and retained accuracy. Effie Willams, another respected Athabascan elder, described the
K’odonst’itnees
as, “our rules—those are our rules.”
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According to Catherine Attla, “Respect is the belief that we have. It is like the Supreme Court for us. But the other cultures do not acknowledge this concept of respect in us.”
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This belief is evident in the totality of the indigenous people of Alaska. Everything has a spirit and we must acknowledge and show respect for each and every spirit.

Traditionally, each tribe depended largely on the word of the medicine people and elders for advice and intervention in a case of inappropriate behavior. Their decisions were based solely on the beliefs and values of respect. The medicine people and elders were, in essence, our traditional tribal legal system. Their words of wisdom evolved from stories of creation. The medicine people were powerful and their ways of healing were effective. Most medicine people were elders. They were approached by community or family members when things were not in balance. The medicine people listened to concerns and offered words of wisdom in addition to performing a ritual/ceremony to bring back the balance.

To help practitioners along this reciprocal path, Native peoples developed many rituals and ceremonies with respect to motherhood and child rearing, care of animals, hunting and trapping practices, and related ceremonies for maintaining balance between the human, natural and spiritual realms.
¹⁰

In his book
Gwitch’in Native Elders,
Shawn Wilson writes about the influential role that elders played in the community. With the onset of the Western society, their role slowly became less influential. They did not lose sight of their culture and its inherent importance, but the community did not hold them in as high esteem. Wilson stated that this is the origin of the downfall of the Native community and the wellness of its people.
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Since tribal communities were not as dependent upon their elders as they were in the past, this resulted in the slow deterioration of indigenous traditional law.

Alaska Native people have always believed that women and children are sacred, and they have been treated accordingly. Through the teachings of respect we learned that to violate another person or any living thing was what the Athabascans called
hutlaanee
. Violation of some of these
hutlaanee
is comparable to being convicted of a felony in the Western society. At times, when someone has broken a certain
hutlaanee
, the tribe shuns that person. Allowing that person to remain in the tribe jeopardizes the well-being of all. Consequently, when a serious
hutlaanee
is broken, that person is usually banned from the tribe. This has been the ultimate deterrent to violent behavior.

Consequently, there existed little or no violence amongst tribal members. “People of one village lived as close relatives.”
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The teachings of respect and the consequences for inappropriate behavior were effective. The community took the responsibility of immediate response to violent behavior. The leaders of the tribe resorted to banishment if all else failed. Banishment is the ultimate shame that anyone can bring upon himself or herself. It brings shame to not only the individual, but also his or her ancestors and the future generations of that familial lineage. That was a very effective deterrent to inappropriate behavior and violence against women.

Attitude was thought to be as important as action: therefore one was to be careful in thought and action so as not to injure another’s mind or offend the spirits of the animals and surrounding environment. For one to have a powerful mind was to be “aware or awake to its surroundings.” Their rituals and ceremonies were intended to help maintain this balance and to regain it if messages from nature and the spiritual realm so indicated. Year after year these ceremonies were performed in exactly the same way, with the idea that someone performing or observing would gain intuitive understanding of something that the person had not understood before.
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Unfortunately, the fundamental value of respect does not have the same power and influence that it once did. With the changes that have occurred in our political, educational, economic, spiritual, and social realms through the colonization efforts, our fundamental belief in respect for all things is eroding at a faster rate than that which we can cope with. This is evident in our Native communities in the form of high rates of alcoholism, drug abuse, suicide, and violence.

Leadership has changed very dramatically in rural Alaska. The elders are not as involved as they had been in decision making. Currently, leaders are elected (which is not traditional), and the concept of unwritten tribal law is not exercised as effectively as it was in the past. We find that in most tribal communities the change in leadership happened simultaneously with the development and implementation of the Alaska Native Land Claims Act of 1971.
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This landmark law was the ultimate turning point for many diverse issues for the tribal communities. It was during this time that alcoholism, drug abuse, suicide, and violence reached epidemic proportions in rural Alaska. With the changes in leadership and the economic realm, village personalities began changing—and not all for the better.

Prior to this era, traditional leaders were usually people who had proven themselves to possess such leadership qualities as honesty, integrity, cooperation, and humility. Today, we find that leaders are elected officials who may or may not possess these qualities. Many times we find that our leaders are from the larger families in a community, which, at times, may not be in the best interest of the community. We also find that, in some cases, the leaders themselves are perpetrators of violence. This becomes a barrier to providing safety for women as well.

We are experiencing a very high rate of violence against women and children. Domestic violence and sexual assault are both tolerated and accepted. Violence against women and children is being perpetuated in communities where there exists no form of contemporary law enforcement and no local infrastructure to address these incidents.

In a small community, one incidence of domestic violence or sexual assault can have a very lasting negative effect on the whole village. With the slow response or lack of response by the Alaska State Troopers, abuse is both tolerated and accepted. Recently, one small community reported one sexual assault of a minor and a very violent instance of domestic abuse. Arrests are either pending or have been made in both incidents. The whole village is now divided, which sets a very unhealthy environment in which to raise our children. Many times no arrest is made, which sends the perpetrator and the whole community the message that violence against women and children is both tolerable and acceptable.

State Laws and Alaska Native Women

The response to tribal members who behave inappropriately has changed dramatically in recent years. If people do not adhere to traditional ways, we have looked to Western styles of government to address the violence. We now have nontribal members forcing nontraditional approaches on the community through such avenues as tribal court development, tribal ordinances, and tribal protective orders. These processes are alien to us. This epidemic of violence against women and children is fairly new to our tribal communities. As such, we have never been prepared to address these issues. With the approaches to these incidents being developed for us by nontribal, nonresidential individuals and entities, there is added confusion as to who is responsible for responding to these incidents and in what manner we are allowed to respond.

The state of Alaska has a mandatory arrest requirement that requires a state law enforcement officer to arrest a person if the officer has probable cause to believe that the person has, either in or outside the presence of the officer, committed domestic violence or violated a protective order within the previous twelve hours.
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Unfortunately, the mandatory arrest law is largely ineffective in remote villages. It can take the Alaska State Troopers anywhere from a day to ten days to respond when a community reports an act of violence against a woman or child. In some cases, it may take longer depending upon weather conditions, the urgency of the other matters they are dealing with in other villages, and the apparent severity of the situation. If they do respond, it is commonly after the twelve-hour period for mandatory arrest, in which case an arrest is up to the discretion of the officer.

Many state officials have interpreted Public Law 280 to mean that the state is the only authority allowed to respond to violent incidents. This message has been conveyed to tribal communities, implying that the village government is limited in its authority to respond to violence. Consequently, many tribal communities have begun to rely solely on the state law enforcement officials to respond. Therein lies the problem. The state has discretion as to what incidents they respond to and in what time frame. Some incidents do not get any response and those that do can have a lapse in time anywhere from one to ten days. Incidents that do not result in an arrest give the community a clear message that to disclose incidents of violence will not necessarily hold the batterers accountable for their behavior. It also gives tribal communities the implicit message that violence against women is both acceptable and tolerable. Many incidents are unreported. The response by law enforcement depends largely on their training in the area of violence against women. Many times, law enforcement officers will minimize the incident and question the validity of the woman’s word, especially where alcohol and/or drugs are involved.

With the application of PL 280 upon Alaska statehood, the sovereignty of our Native villages was in question. There was much confusion as to what PL 280 really meant. Recently, one such case,
Native Village of Perryville v. John W. Tague,
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has received national attention. Tague had perpetrated violence against several community members. These victims and other community members of the village asked the Perryville Village Council to banish Tague. The Council issued a village order and requested state assistance to enforce the order. However, some state officials were disinclined to enforce the order. The Alaska chief assistant attorney general contested the Council’s action, saying that the
injunction
banishing Tague and the
writ
of assistance asking for help enforcing the injunction were improperly issued. He informed the Alaska Superior Court that his office would advise the Department of Public Safety to vacate the permanent injunction and writ of assistance. He also argued that Tague was not a member of the Native Village of Perryville and that the sole authority for state recognition and enforcement of Perryville’s protection order was in PL 280. Although the state has ruled to uphold the tribal banishment order, this is an example of the confusion that exists in our state on the PL 280 status.

Frequently the only people standing up for a woman in need of protection from a batterer or rapist are members of the local community. Consequently, the life of a woman depends largely on the local community’s ability to provide immediate assistance. Given the extreme danger created by abusers and the remoteness of the communities, villages must develop their own programs using existing local resources. The development of this local response is the only assurance that women and their children in rural Alaska will be provided with the very basic human right of safety.

Currently, arrests are being made, perpetrators are being court-ordered to batterers’ re-education programs, and women are being sent to urban shelters, but the problem continues. Perpetrators go through the program but recidivism is still very high. This approach to domestic abuse is still new and often seems foreign. Most tribal members do not fully understand the state legal system. It is an alien response to an alien problem. We need to develop an approach that makes sense to our people. We need programs that are culturally and community specific and within the tribal legal realm that we are familiar with: our tribal sovereignty.