The Arapaho Way: Continuity and Change on the Wind River Reservation by Sara Wiles

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Arapaho Way: Continuity and Change on the Wind River Reservation by Sara Wiles Angelica Lawson (bio) The Arapaho Way: Continuity and Change on the Wind River Reservation by Sara Wiles University of Oklahoma, 2019 SARA WILES'S PHOTO-ETHNOGRAPHIC BOOK The Arapaho Way: Continuity and Change on the Wind River Reservation highlights the lives and significant events surrounding twenty-two featured individuals, their extended families, and friends. Following a forward by Jordan Dresser (Arapaho) and a brief introduction, the book is divided into three sections, organized chronologically beginning in the early 1900s and concluding in 2017. After publishing Arapaho Journeys in 2011, Wiles sought to add more personal and historic depth to this second volume of Arapaho ethnography by including more family and historic photographs alongside her own and by placing biographical stories within larger historical contexts such as the boarding school era, the occupation of Alcatraz, and the early days of the American Indian Movement. The layering of family stories, as in the opening section "Connecting Families through Photographs and Oral Histories," adds depth to her photo-ethnography. "Discovering Matilda Spoonhunter" comprises the entire first section; this is an intriguing story accompanied by thirteen black-and-white photos. The narrative examines interactions between two families—Matilda's (Arapaho) and Minnie's (non-Arapaho) during a tenuous time, when homesteading was taking place near the newly created Arapaho reservation. Wiles does not problematize the negative impacts of homesteading in Arapaho territory; instead, she focuses on the friendship between Matilda and Minnie, who became fast friends after saving a child's life together. While the story lacks exegesis, it is lovely in how it highlights "the founding mother of two prominent Arapaho families," Matilda Spoonhunter, who until now had been hidden in the shadows of her more famous brother, Sherman Sage. Matilda's story shines among the photos of generations of her descendants and is one of many examples of fascinating women's stories in this collection. The many biographies of Arapaho women are especially compelling and cover a wide range of topics and time periods beginning with Matilda's story and ending with Nora Oldman's, who along with her husband William C'Hair, participated in the protests at Standing Rock. These stories are a positive [End Page 192] aspect of the collection and cover a wide range of topics. A favorite is Rubena Hernandez's story. With thirty years of flagging experience, Rubena began working on the Seventeen Mile Road project when she was seventy years old. Wiles contextualizes Rubena's biography by telling a story of personal significance to the Arapaho people of the Wind River Reservation—about a project that sought to improve the safety of an extremely dangerous road on the reservation. Wiles adds depth to her photo-ethnographic project by strategically pairing stories. Chapters pair themes of attending high school and college off the reservation, as well as themes of performance and rodeo. The most powerful pairing comes near the end of the collection with chapters about a recently committed hate crime and Arapaho tribal member Ron Howard's efforts to organize a peace march in the aftermath. The chapter explores racist attitudes toward Arapahos and hatred toward homeless Native Americans, in particular. It is followed by a chapter about one of the victims of the crime, James Goggles Jr., who was shot in the head by a non-Indian intent on murdering homeless Native Americans. Goggles was one of two men who were shot and the only survivor. Pairing—essentially layering these stories together—helps to humanize the stereotyped homeless Arapahos derogatorily referred to as "park rangers" (182). Although Wiles shines a light on the deeply entrenched racism surrounding Arapaho communities, she only slightly contextualizes that racism within the larger history of resource extraction, water wars, and other policies and practices that led to the disenfranchisement of Arapahos by neighboring towns. Readers looking for a highly academic or nuanced critique of settler colonialism's impact on this reservation community will not find it here; yet there is value in these very intimate and distinctly Arapaho stories and photos. Wiles states in the introduction that these are photos of friends and people...