Northern Plains Indians Research Articles

Young Adult Migration from a Northern Plains Indian Reservation: Who Stays and Who Leaves

We evaluated how ambitions, community ties, monetary sufficiency, employment, and alcohol consumption related to whether young American Indian adults had moved from their Northern Plains reservation. Of 518 Northern Plains reservation residents in 1993, we located 472 in 2003-2005 and found that 89 lived more than a four-hour drive from the reservation. Coding the 472 as to whether they had stayed on/near the reservation or moved away, we ran logistic regressions on data they reported in 1996 to determine which demographic and attitudinal variables were associated with having moved. We found ambitions and goals were more associated with moving away than were ties to the community, which in turn were more related than monetary and personal characteristics that promote independence and prosperity. The more importance they placed on getting a good education or carrying on the tribe's traditions, the more likely they were to have moved away. We found too that the odds of moving away decreased with greater alcohol consumption. Tribal council members and college administrators therefore may wish to promote policies that increase opportunities for young adults to achieve higher education goals while remaining on reservation to carry on tribal traditions. Benefits may also come from encouraging and assisting reservation members studying off-reservation to return after completing their education. These findings would argue too for greater investment in alcohol services for reservation-dwelling populations.

“We Never was Happy Living Like a Whiteman” : Mental Health Disparities and the Postcolonial Predicament in American Indian Communities

In the context of increasing attention to disparities in health status between U.S. ethnoracial groups, this article examines the dilemma of divergent cultural practices for redressing disparities in mental health status in American Indian communities. Drawing upon an ethnographic interview with a tribal elder from a northern Plains Indian reservation, a prototypical discourse of distress is presented and analyzed as one exemplar of the divergence between the culture of the clinic and the culture of the community. Situated in the context of continuing power asymmetries between tribal nations and the U.S. federal government, the implications of this cultural divergence for the efforts of mental health professionals, practitioners, and policymakers are identified as a predicament that only the conventions and commitments of a robust community psychology have the potential to resolve.

Prevalence of Food Insecurity and Health-Associated Outcomes and Food Characteristics of Northern Plains Indian Households

ABSTRACT Food insecurity has been associated with chronic disease. Low economic status is one of the primary predictors of food insecurity and American Indian communities have some of the highest rates of poverty and unemployment in the nation. This project collected data on sociodemographic attributes, food insecurity and environment, and health status among Northern Plains Indian household members. Forty-four percent of the households surveyed (n = 187) reported food insecurity and prevalence of food insecurity significantly decreased with increasing household income. After adjustment for income, food insecurity was significantly associated with poor general health (odds ratio (OR) 2.77, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.39–5.54) and bodily pain (OR and 95% CI = 2.14 (1.12–4.10)). Programs that decrease the prevalence of food insecurity and health disparities in this population are urgently needed.

Riding Buffaloes and Broncos: Rodeo and Native Traditions in the Northern Great Plains. By Allison Fuss Mellis. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003. xviii, 266 pp. $34.95, ISBN 0-8061-3519-0.)

Allison Fuss Mellis examines how Northern Plains Indian communities subverted the goals of federal assimilation policy by transforming an indigenous equestrian way of life into a ranching and rodeo culture that perpetuated traditions of intratribal and intertribal gathering and competition. Mellis focuses on how the Crow and Lakota communities made rodeo into a native tradition. Mellis first outlines how, in the early reservation period in the late nineteenth century, Plains communities forged a new identity that incorporated cowboy culture. Cattle ranching and involvement in wild West shows were both economic strategies and a way to perpetuate valued social relationships and cultural understandings. Tribal agricultural fairs were promoted by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the early twentieth century, and gradually these were modified by Indian management and by the introduction of war dancing and rodeo activity. As these communities obtained increasing independence, rodeo activity assumed greater importance and contributed to community unity and the perpetuation of social and cultural traditions. Mellis describes how, during the New Deal, local reservation-wide rodeos became central to the formation of modern national identity, particularly for Crow and Lakota. Indians determined the cultural content of rodeos and used rodeo activity to garner support for wider political goals. Rodeo culture encouraged family ranching, expressed traditional values, and promoted pan-Indian alliances. Women assumed leadership positions in rodeo associations and participated as cowgirls and rodeo princesses. During the 1945–1970 era, all-Indian rodeos increased in number and importance. Rodeo families became increasingly important in reservation political and economic contexts, and Mellis provides sketches of several of these family histories. After 1970 all-Indian rodeo cowboy associations succeeded in organizing events such as the Indian National Finals Rodeo to recognize regional champions. Federal self-determination policy helped facilitate the expansion of rodeo activity to youths, for example, in tribal colleges, where rodeo was an important sport. By the 1990s, non-Indians were participating as judges, announcers, and clowns, and they also contributed livestock. Mellis convincingly argues that for modern native Plains peoples rodeo has become part of their culture and identity.

Risk Factors for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Among Northern Plains Indians

Iyasu, Solomon; Randall, Leslie L.; Welty, Thomas K.; Hsia, Jason; Kinney, Hannah C.; Mandell, Frederick; McClain, Mary; Randall, Brad; Habbe, Don; Wilson, Harry; Willinger, Marian

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in Native American Infants

Source: Iyasu S, Randall LL, Welty TK, et al. Risk factors for sudden infant death syndrome among Northern Plains Indians. JAMA. 2002;288:2717–2724.Infant mortality among American Indian infants is consistently above the US national average, with Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) the leading cause of infant deaths in the Plains Indian region of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Iowa. SIDS is defined as the sudden death of an infant younger than 1 year, unexplained through case investigation, including a complete autopsy, examination of the death scene, and a review of the infant’s clinical history. The SIDS rate was 1.5 per 1,000 live birth for American Indian infants and 0.7 per 1,000 live births for all races combined nationally.1 This multi-institutional study was undertaken to determine prenatal and postnatal risk factors for SIDS among American Indians. A population-based case control study among American Indians in the Plains area from December 1992 to November 1996 included 33 SIDS infants and 66 matched living controls. A standardized parental interview, medical record abstraction, autopsy protocol, and infant death review were utilized. Assignment of the SIDS diagnosis meant that there was no evidence of abuse or neglect. The number of case and control infants who were placed prone to sleep, who shared a bed with parents, or whose mothers smoked during pregnancy were similar.The mean age at death of the SIDS infants was 109 days; 51.5% were male and 64.7% died during the autumn and winter months. Adverse maternal behaviors among all infants included smoking during the 3 months prior to pregnancy and smoking throughout all 3 trimesters (the difference between cases and controls was not significant), use of alcohol during the 3 months prior to pregnancy, and alcohol use during each trimester (the difference between cases and controls was significant in the first trimester only). Binge drinking was more common among case than control mothers, with the difference significant for the first trimester (46.7% versus 19.4%). Case mothers consumed an average of 4.5 drinks per day versus 4.1 for control mothers on the days that they drank (P<.08). The percentage of infants put to sleep on their stomachs in the 2 weeks prior to death did not differ between case and control infants. Infants who had 2 or more layers of clothing or covers were at an increased risk for SIDS (unadjusted OR, 3.9; 95% CI, 1.4–10.9). Infants whose homes were visited by a Public Health Nurse (PHN) had a significantly lower risk for SIDS than those who were never visited (adjusted OR, 0.2; 95% CI, 0.1–0.8). This study identifies 1 factor that is and 2 factors that may be amenable to public health action and further research in the prevention of SIDS: 1) visits by PHNs, 2) periconceptional maternal alcohol drinking and first trimester binge drinking, and 3) infant layers of clothing.There are a few published studies reporting a relationship between maternal alcohol use and SIDS, but no reports of a correlation between maternal prenatal alcohol use and the risk of SIDS. Excess thermal insulation for a given room temperature has been previously associated with an increased risk of SIDS, particularly in the presence of coexisting viral illness and prone sleep position.2,3 In a previous report, bed sharing and parental fatigue were thought to be associated with SIDS but that study did not indicate a significant relationship between bed sharing and cigarette smoking or alcohol consumption and SIDS.4Simple social justice requires a response to the finding of such excess mortality to determine if it is, in fact, amenable to public health interventions in this population group.

Risk Factors for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Among Northern Plains Indians—Correction

Risk Factors for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Among Northern Plains Indians—Correction

Risk factors for sudden infant death syndrome among northern plains Indians.

Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is a leading cause of postneonatal mortality among American Indians, a group whose infant death rate is consistently above the US national average. To determine prenatal and postnatal risk factors for SIDS among American Indians. Population-based case-control study of 33 SIDS infants and 66 matched living controls among American Indians in South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska, and Iowa enrolled from December 1992 to November 1996 and investigated using standardized parental interview, medical record abstraction, autopsy protocol, and infant death review. Association of SIDS with maternal socioeconomic and behavioral factors, health care utilization, and infant care practices. The proportions of case and control infants who were usually placed prone to sleep (15.2% and 13.6%, respectively), who shared a bed with parents (59.4% and 55.4%), or whose mothers smoked during pregnancy (69.7% and 54.6%) were similar. However, mothers of 72.7% of case infants and 45.5% of control infants engaged in binge drinking during pregnancy. Conditional logistic regression revealed significant associations between SIDS and 2 or more layers of clothing on the infant (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 6.2; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.4-26.5), any visits by a public health nurse (aOR, 0.2; 95% CI, 0.1-0.8), periconceptional maternal alcohol use (aOR, 6.2; 95% CI, 1.6-23.3), and maternal first-trimester binge drinking (aOR, 8.2; 95% CI, 1.9-35.3). Public health nurse visits, maternal alcohol use during the periconceptional period and first trimester, and layers of clothing are important risk factors for SIDS among Northern Plains Indians. Strengthening public health nurse visiting programs and programs to reduce alcohol consumption among women of childbearing age could potentially reduce the high rate of SIDS.

Smoking cessation and prevention: an urgent public health priority for American Indians in the Northern Plains.

The purpose of this study was to compare the prevalence of cigarette smoking and smoking cessation among American Indians living on or near Montana's seven reservations to those of non-Indians living in the same geographic region. Data for Montana Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) respondents (n = 1,722) were compared to data from a BRFSS survey of American Indians living on or near Montana's seven reservations in 1999 (n = 1,000). Respondents were asked about smoking and smoking cessation as well as cardiovascular disease (CVD) and selected risk factors. Quit ratios were calculated for both groups. American Indians were more likely to report current smoking (38%) than non-Indians (19%; p < 0.001). Thirty-seven percent of Indian respondents with CVD risk factors reported current smoking, compared with 17% of non- Indians with CVD risk factors. However, there was no significant difference in reported smoking rates between Indians (21%) and non-Indians (27%) with a history of CVD. Indian smokers were more likely to report quitting for one or more days in the past year (67%), compared with non-Indians (43%). Quit ratios were significantly lower among Indians (43%) than among non-Indians (65%). High smoking rates in Indians, particularly among those with other CVD risk factors, demonstrate an urgent need for culturally sensitive smoking cessation interventions among Northern Plains Indians and highlight the need for the Surgeon General's focus on smoking in minority populations.

The Aberdeen Indian Health Service infant mortality study: design, methodology, and implementation.

Of all Indian Health Service areas, the Aberdeen Area has consistently had the highest infant mortality rate. Among some tribes in this area the rate has exceeded 30/ 1000 live birth and half the infant deaths have been attributed to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome,a rate four to five times higher than the national average. The Indian Health Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the Aberdeen Area Tribal Chairmen's Health Board collaborated to investigate these high rates with the goals of refining the ascertainment of the causes of death, improving cause-specific infant mortality rates and identifying factors contributing to the high rates. Ten of the 19 tribes or tribal communities, representing 66%of the area population, participated in a 4-year prospective case-control study of infants who died after discharge from the hospital. Infant care practices and socio-demographic, economic, medical, health care, and environmental factors were examined. The study included parental interviews, death scene investigations, autopsies, neuropathology studies, medical chart abstractions, blood cotinine assays, and a surveillance system for infant deaths. Controls were the previous and subsequent infants born on the case mother's reservation. From December 1,1992 until November 30,1996,72 infant deaths were investigated. This report describes the study methods and the model employed for involving the community and multiple agencies to study the problem of infant mortality among Northern Plains Indians. Data gathered during the investigations are being analyzed and will be published at a later date.

Validation of a self-administered questionnaire to screen for prenatal alcohol use in Northern Plains Indian women

Objective: This study among American Indian prenatal patients was conducted to validate a self-administered questionnaire (SAQ) designed to (1) identify women who had consumed alcohol during pregnancy, (2) identify women who may be at risk of drinking during pregnancy, and (3) determine the quantity and frequency of alcohol and other substance use just before and during pregnancy. Methods: The validation involved three components: (1) review of the SAQ responses by a public health nurse; (2) structured patient interview with the research nurse; and (3) medical record abstraction postpartum. Results: Compared to extensive interview and medical record data, the SAQ is sensitive (76.6%) and specific (92.8%) in detecting pregnant women who had consumed alcohol during pregnancy. Conclusion: The SAQ is a useful screening tool for alcohol use in this population.

Initiation of formal death investigation procedures among the Northern Plains Indians: a necessary adjunct in the study of American Indian sudden infant deaths.

The high rate of infant mortality among native peoples in the Aberdeen Service Area of the Indian Health Service (primarily North and South Dakota) prompted a multi-institutional study of this problem. The study investigators assumed that local coroners or medical examiners would be able to perform suitable death scene investigations. However, during the design portion of the study it became apparent that, with one exception, none of the participating Indian Nations had a death investigator or even a legal mandate to provide death investigation. To allow the study to go forward, and ultimately to better the community health within its service area, the Aberdeen Area Indian Health Service submitted a draft enabling coroner legislation/resolutions to the area tribes. By November of 1996, 6 of the 19 Indian Nations enacted enabling coroner legislation. To facilitate both the study and general death investigation within the area, the Aberdeen Area Indian Health Service since 1993 has held five 2-day death investigation training programs covering a variety of death investigation topics which were attended by 68 participants. Without further recognition of the need for tribal death investigation and additional funding, these gains in tribal death investigation will probably be transitory.

Relationship of prenatal alcohol use with maternal and prenatal factors in American Indian women.

Demographic factors and patterns of substance use among women who did not consume alcohol during pregnancy were compared to women who did consume alcohol during pregnancy. One-hundred seventy-seven Northern Plains Indian women who received prenatal care at an urban clinic in a rural state were screened for substance use as part of the validation study with a self-administered questionnaire. Women who drank during pregnancy were more likely to be single and have less education than women who did not drink. While most of the women in the study had available transportation resources, the women who drank during pregnancy were less likely to have transportation than the women who did not drink. Women who drank during pregnancy consumed more alcohol more frequently before pregnancy than did women who drank before but not during pregnancy. Compared to women who did not drink during pregnancy, women who drank during pregnancy were more likely to smoke cigarettes and use illicit drugs, to have parents who drank, to feel they drank the same or more than other pregnant women, or to have experienced more relationship breakups and physical and emotional abuse. Prenatal patients who drink alcohol during pregnancy need more intensive counseling regarding their multiple risk behaviors.

Questionable data and preconceptions: reconsidering the value of mammography for American Indian Women.

Although the benefits of mammography are well established, many remain skeptical of the value of mammography for American Indian women. This skepticism stems in part from a belief that breast cancer is too rare an event among American Indians to warrant widespread screening. The validity of this assumption for Northern Plains Indians is challenged by a discussion of the limitations of available data on breast cancer in American Indian populations (including lack of generalizability, underestimation, and an overreliance on relative rather than absolute measures of cancer incidence) and by findings from the Minnesota Breast and Cervical Cancer Control Program, a federally funded program providing free breast and cervical cancer screening to American Indian and other women in Minnesota. In light of this information, the authors recommend that the low priority of mammography for American Indian women be reconsidered.

Smallpox Used Them up: References to Epidemic Disease in Northern Plains Winter Counts, 1714-1920

Northern Plains Indian winter counts (chronologies) provide a record of epidemic disease in the area from 1682 to 1920. These indicate that epidemics occurred on average every 5.7 years for the area and every 9.7-15.8 years for individual groups. Disease outbreaks tended to follow episodes of famine or disease and tended to be followed by episodes of abundance of game when human mortality had been high. Epidemics preceded sustained contact with non-natives. The groups keeping winter counts recognized that epidemic diseases were spread through intergroup contact. Recorded reactions to epidemics include population dispersal, attempts to identify effective medicines, avoidance of outsiders, and changes in religious practices. The winter count data confirm models of disease etiology and provide a Native American perspective on the frequency and severity of epidemics during the contact era.

Psychosocial Barriers to Health Promotion in an American Indian Population

Northern Plains Indians (N = 200) completed the Indian Specific Health Risk Appraisal and measures assessing beliefs about risk factors and personal risk. Participants rated personal risk optimistically, judged their risk factor standing as superior to that of their peers, and neglected to consider risk factor standing when appraising personal risk. Moreover, participants were often not improving their standing on risk factors they considered relevant to their health. Such biases in health beliefs may prevent health interventions from being successful.

Becoming and remaining a people: Native American religions on the Northern Plains

The power of religion to preserve individual and group identity is perhaps nowhere more evident than among Native American peoples. In Becoming and Remaining a People, Howard Harrod shows how the oral traditions and ritual practices of Northern Plains Indians developed, how they were transformed at critical points in their history, and how they provided them with crucial means of establishing and maintaining their respective identities. This book offers a bold new interpretation of anthropological studies, demonstrating how religious traditions and ritual processes became sources of group and individual identity for many people. Harrod reconstructs the long religious development of two village peoples, the Mandans and the Hidatsas, describing how their oral traditions enabled them to reinterpret their experiences as circumstances changed. He then shows how these and other groups on the Northern Plains remained distinct peoples in the face of increased interactions with Euro-Americans, other Indians,.and the new religion of Christianity. Harrod proposes that other interpretations of culture change may fail to come to terms with the role that religion plays in motivating both cultural conservatism and social change. For Northern Plains peoples, religion was at the heart of social identity and thus resisted change, but religion was also the source of creative reinterpretation, which produced culture change. Viewed from within the group, such change often seemed natural and was understood as an elaboration of traditions having roots in a deeper shared past. In addition to demonstrating religious continuity and change among the Mandans and the Hidatsas, he also describes instances of religious and social transformation among the peoples who became the Crows and the Cheyennes. Becoming and Remaining a People adopts a challenging analytical approach that draws on the author's creative interpretations of rituals and oral traditions. By enabling us to understand the relation of religion both to the construction of social identity and to the interpretation of social change, it reveals the richness, depth, and cultural complexity of both past Native American people and their contemporary successors.

Along for the Ride: The Prevalence of Motor Vehicle Passengers Riding with Drivers Who Have Been Drinking in an American Indian Population

American Indians, especially those residing in the Northern Plains, experience considerable preventable morbidity and mortality from alcohol-related motor vehicle events. Research focusing on unintentional injuries associated with drinking drivers has disregarded the epidemiology of their passengers, who are equally at risk. The purpose of this investigation was to define the prevalence of motor vehicle passengers riding with drivers who have been drinking on a Northern Plains Reservation. We surveyed a sample of 151 Northern Plains Indians about their experiences riding with drinking drivers. Associated behavioral and demographic risk factors were also examined to identify possible predictor variables. The majority (54%) of respondents reported riding with a driver who had been drinking at least once during the previous three months. Most often, passengers ride with a friend who has been drinking, on a weekend night. Injury risk may be compounded because few respondents reported regular seat-belt use. The results off our study suggest the need for immediate comprehensive prevention efforts focusing on motor vehicle passengers.

Figures in a western landscape: men and women of the northern Rockies

northern Rocky Mountains and adjacent high plains were the American Here was the final enactment of our national drama - the explorations, the final battles of the Indian wars, the closing of the frontier. In Figures in a Western Landscape, award-winning biographer Elizabeth Stevenson humanizes the history of the region with a procession of individual lives moving across the generations. Each of the 16 men and women depicted has left behind his or her own unique written record or oral history. They have bequeathed to us stones that are rich in anecdote and colourful detail. Among them: Meriwether Lewis, America's most introspective explorer, whose journals provide the first English-language record of the Northwest's rivers, mountains, and plains, and offer a memorable account of how their newness struck his imagination. Osborne Russell, 21-year-old fur trapper from Maine who vividly described the region's beauty (wild and romantic scenery) and hardships (65 miles in two days without eating) and who passed on a useful survival tip for geyser country - you could boil meat by suspending it in a hot pool. Pierre Jean De Smet, first Catholic missionary to the Northern Plains Indians, who was said to have found gold nuggets on the site of the future Virginia City but, knowing a gold rush would mean the Indians' ruin, quietly pocketed the nuggets and kept the discovery to himself. James and Granville Stuart, early settlers lured by rumors of gold in the 1850s, who crossed three dangerous rivers on a 150-mile trek through the wilderness because they heard rumors of an even rarer commodity - books. Pretty-Shield, wife of the Crow scout who warned Custer to turn back at Little Big Horn, who hated no one, not even the white man, and who told her story to an astonished interpreter in the 1930s. In a concluding chapter, Stevenson draws on previously unpublished material to reveal new information about Martha Jane Cannary Burke, better known as Calamity Jane, the woman who could ride, shoot, and drive a mule team as well as any man (but who once failed to pass because she didn't cuss her mules like one), and who lies buried in Deadwood, South Dakota, next to the man some said was her husband, Wild Bill Hickok. These and other men and women whose stories Stevenson tells all helped to shape - and were in turn shaped by - the uniquely challenging landscape of America's last West. Stevenson's other books include: The Crooked Corridor: A Study of James; Henry Adams: A Biography (winner of the Bancroft Award); Babbits and Bohemians: American 1920s; Lafcadio Hearn: A Biography; and Park Maker: A Life of Frederick Law Olmsted.

475 Pregnancy Outcomes in Northern Plains Indians

475 Pregnancy Outcomes in Northern Plains Indians