Word: blackfeet
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...conquered. The worst is to live through the ordeal that follows: to submit. The suicides, the alcoholism, the mists of despair that today envelop many reservations all seem legacies of a colonial past that won't go away. "Winter in the blood" is the way James Welch, the Montana Blackfeet novelist, describes the consequences--a freezing up of the Indian psyche in the face of daily deprivations of the spirit. "I was," he writes, "as distant from myself as the hawk from the moon...
...millions of Americans, Indian enterprise is synonymous with souvenir stands peddling leather moccasins and rubber tomahawks. But the Blackfeet and many other tribes across the country are determined to change that stereotyped image and provide employment on their economically depressed reservations...
...decade ago, jobs near the Blackfeet reservation were mostly seasonal. Some Indians found work as ranch hands or lumberjacks during the warm months, but in the winter, when temperatures often dipped to -20° F, unemployment around Browning rose...
...Person journeyed to Washington to seek help. Federal officials suggested that the Blackfeet make pencils and offered financial aid amounting to about $300,000. An investment broker put Old Person in touch with private investors in the Northeast willing to provide more seed money. With a grand total of $500,000, including $101,000 of their own capital, the Blackfeet launched the company...
Though sales started slowly at first, today some 300 of the 500 largest U.S. industrial companies supply their employees with inexpensive, disposable Blackfeet products. Sears features the Indian pencils and plastic pens in some of its catalogues and sells more than 8 million of them annually. The U.S. Army and Air Force distribute Blackfeet wares in their PXs worldwide. With sales last year of $5.1 million, the company earned a net profit of $175,000. The business supports 100 jobs on a reservation where unemployment still hovers near 50%, and Chairman Old Person confidently plans to borrow more money...