Dr. Maegan Rides At The Door, Director of the National Native Children’s Trauma Center, interviewed Dr. Karla Bird to talk about community-wide healing in March 2024. Dr. Bird is currently the Tribal Outreach Specialist for the University of Montana and recently served as the President of Blackfeet Community College (see full bio at the end of the interview). It is difficult for us to think about how community-wide healing can take place collectively given the challenges of cross-collaboration, and limited capacity and resources in communities. This conversation inspires change but also helps us reflect on the progress Native Nations have already made in an effort heal individuals, families, and communities. If we get bogged down on thinking about the broader picture, this conversation reminds us that we can always be mindful of how we are living our professional and personal lives in congruence with our cultural and community values and vision. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Dr. Maegan Rides At The Door: I’d like to start by talking about cultural revitalization. What examples can you share of cultural revitalization?
Dr. Karla Bird: Societies and ceremonies are being revitalized. Next week Lily Gladstone is getting a stand-up headdress. One of the conversations I had with one of our community members was about the stand-up headdress. The stand-up headdress is specific to Blackfeet and goes back to an ancient origin, all the way back to Scarface, Morning Star, and the sun. It was a transfer to Scarface. When we get a headdress, we get it from Scarface and originally from the Sun. It’s a transfer process. People have had sacred transfers passed down for generations.
When you say revitalization, one of the people I was talking to was saying that the stand-up headdress almost went extinct in the 90’s and you didn’t see them in the community like you do today. These things don’t go extinct because people no longer want to practice them. They go extinct because of the transfer. You have to have people with the right to do the sacred transfer. The few people who were left with this sacred transfer began transferring all of these headdresses, so now it's not uncommon to see people with stand-up headdresses. You are starting to see community members wear them.
We did some webinars at Blackfeet Community College where some of our ceremonies were hanging on by a thread. One of the people who takes care of the ceremonies had to relearn the songs from cassette tape. Then we have people like Carol Murray who is getting their honorary doctorate here soon at the University of Montana and who has repatriated bundles from museums. As a result of the Native American Graves and Protection and Repatriation Act (NAPGRA) legislation you are seeing people being able to regain items that were originally their communities. Now these items are in active circles of ceremony and so they are considered alive with the spirit. You are seeing community members attend these events, and you see these things in the school system and the college.
Dr. Rides At The Door: I agree, there is an increased visibility. For example, in sports you see students wearing headdresses or ribbon skirts before games. I saw in Browning on the Blackfeet Reservation here in Montana, that the girls were wearing beaded headbands before their games. It is great to see. I’d like to speak to a slightly different, but related topic. Can you share with us some ways that you have seen educational growth in your community?
Dr. Bird: We are seeing different types of educational growth. When you think about the trajectory of education, we went from missionary schools to boarding schools to day schools to public schools to now we are having tribal colleges and now even immersion schools that are solely in the Blackfeet language. When we think about that trajectory we think about the sovereignty in education.
We are on a trajectory of not just accepting public education, but we want to develop an education that is specific to Blackfeet which is Tribal-centered education for our students. We want to be the people who are developing the curriculum and the pedagogy and how school systems are designed so that students who are going there are inherently learning who they are as a student but also as a Tribal person.
Blackfeet Community College is a great example of that because we have Pikuni Studies and so we have a degree in Blackfeet Studies and students learn our history, our culture and are in contact with our elders. We have events like All Chiefs Day. We have the Days of the Pikuni, The Bear River Massacre. There is this continuum that even if you aren’t in the classroom and a part of the community there are still learning opportunities.
Dr. Rides At The Door: So, even if you aren’t enrolled in the college, you are still learning what is happening more broadly. And there’s a connection with education or learning, and healing. I think everyone in the community, every agency, every entity has their own piece of the healing that they are contributing to. It is hard getting everyone together and thinking about what we could be doing more collaboratively and intentionally to heal as a community. What do you think is needed for cross collaboration among everyone in the community for community wide healing?
Dr. Bird: There was one program that we were invited to at Blackfeet Community College where they pulled everyone together that had anything to do with wellness, education, and support. Part of it was identifying the gaps. When you say intentionally, I think it is partly an assessment of what the community currently offers and where people can collaborate to offer an additional service, and also identifying the gaps. The profound gaps that we don’t have resources for that we can strategically plan to fill those gaps. One of the things that comes to mind is in the development of a youth center in Browning. Having a place for kids to come together in community and having support and something positive. It probably does start with everyone coming together and then doing an assessment to determine the needs and resources and what can be developed.
Dr. Rides At The Door: What would inspire people to want to come together to be part of a community healing effort like that?
Dr. Bird: When you think about our cultural values, our cultural values are about our community. We are about taking care of one another, especially the elders and the youth. Between the elders and the youth there are people like us who are able-bodied and able to support elders and youth. I think focusing our efforts on elders and youth is really important.
Dr. Rides At The Door: When you talk about a community wide effort people can sometimes feel like its just another thing on my to do list, another thing on top of so much that they are already doing. People are feeling a bit overwhelmed, not just all there is to do, but some of the internal conflicts that can arise. It’s a great effort to overcome lateral oppression and still work together for the broader vision. How do you think about the different kinds of healing that need to happen?
Dr. Bird: One of the things I was thinking about was how we have conventional medicine which is so separated and specialized. It makes people go to school to learn about that area. I think about holistic medicine, that is integrative, and learning how the mind and body work together and all these systems are connected. Our western medicine is focused on treatment of symptoms with medicine or surgery.
But when you are looking at holistic medicine it's about getting to the root cause, and this has me think about historical trauma. We have treatments for trauma whether it's through social services, counseling, or medication. When we are looking at historical trauma and cultural loss, and the antidote to that, to me you could get all the counseling, but if you are looking specifically at historical trauma, it was a loss of identity and self. We need to look at restoring that identity and systems. So, from that perspective, I think it is culture, language, community. Restoration and reclamation. But, how we get there has to be in a sensitive way, and we have to make it accessible. We have to reduce the institutional and personal barriers. And, there’s a way to help people to not feel shame or blame towards themselves for not knowing these things. They blame themselves even when it was a hundred years of systematic erasure.
Dr. Rides At The Door: Right, like if historical trauma didn’t happen, we would all readily know our language and culture.
Dr. Bird: They hold a burden they shouldn’t hold. And because of that burden they hold you can’t just say, “join this”. It is doing a lot to facilitate it to make sure it’s safe, accessible, and welcoming to engage in. If we are looking at historical trauma, we are looking at reclamation. And if we are looking at reclamation then we are looking at teaching it in a way that honors people’s safety.
Dr. Rides At The Door: Yes. For example, given the high unemployment rate, why can’t we pay people to learn the language. It could be healing in a lot more ways than just economic. This conversation is about continuing to inspire change to happen and think about ways this is already happening. What I am taking away from this conversation is that it is really about a way of being in the world so much so that our systems have to follow that. Of changing the question from not how systems can change but how do we want to live with each other in community.
Dr. Bird: Another thing that inspires change is knowing what you want our kids, our community, our staff to know and perpetuate. That starts with you, with you changing, because if you want to pass down stories, you have to learn them. If you want your kids to be part of ceremony, you have to go. If you want them to learn the language, you have to help teach them. It is the responsibility we have to the youth. We have to learn it. It puts us in this place of responsibility that I never really felt until I was the leader of our Tribal college and it forced me to change so that I could make that more accessible. We have to learn to transmit knowledge and it forces us to be a learner and a doer.
Dr. Rides At The Door: Right. It’s everyone asking themselves what can I do to contribute to the community? How am I living my life? Despite struggles that may set us back. Maybe we don’t live up to our own expectations sometimes, but maybe most of the time throughout our life, when we can, we do all we can.
Dr. Bird: It comes back to your way of being and when you think about Indigenous education, you might have content and pedagogy but it comes back to your way of being. How we welcome one another. How we talk to each other. How we try to be role models for each other. How we give resources to one another. We all are in different professions and sometimes it can feel like the daily grind of going to meetings and doing all the things. Outside of your profession you think about in your family, how you are contributing to community wellness? How are you with your family? Your extended family? Are you going to community events? It goes back to how you are being in the world.
Karla Bird, Ed.D is a member of the Amskapi Piikani Nation (Blackfeet). She has graduated with a doctoral degree in Educational Leadership, with an emphasis in Higher Education at the University of Montana. She also received an M.A. in Counselor Education, as well as a B.A. in Psychology with a Research Emphasis/ Minor in Native American Studies. The topic of her doctoral dissertation was on educational persistence among American Indian graduate students. This research orientation was used to view students as sources of strength and resiliency, with tools and assets that help them persist and reach success in academe. Dr. Bird has served in various assets of education and most recently has served as the President of Blackfeet Community College.
Dr. Maegan Rides At The Door is an enrolled member of the Assiniboine-Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Reservation and a descendant of the Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma. She has served as the National Native Children’s Trauma Center’s Director since 2015. Maegan utilizes her knowledge in culturally trauma responsive care to provide training and technical assistance with a wide variety of systems of care including but not limited to schools, child welfare, juvenile justice, and healthcare. She has been central to the design and implementation of trauma-responsive systems of care with tribal, private, federal, and state partners; the implementation of cross-system youth suicide prevention programming; and the expansion of child advocacy centers’ capacity to meet the needs of tribal communities.
