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SASSpeedis
Ink Nash wanikshaash(my name is) Sayyep um Ah-toot-wy Stacey Speedis. I am a young Native woman who is from the Yakama Indian Nation in the lower valley of Yakima, Washington. I am a person who has...view moreInk Nash wanikshaash(my name is) Sayyep um Ah-toot-wy Stacey Speedis. I am a young Native woman who is from the Yakama Indian Nation in the lower valley of Yakima, Washington. I am a person who has stumbled and fell many times on the rough trail of life. I am someone of many people who were raised with alcohol around them that drown out the traditions of the culture of the 14 different tribes that make up the Yakama Nation. It was very difficult for me to finish school because I had to go to three different high schools just to end up graduating where I started due to a horse riding accident that I was in where two- horses rolled on top of me. My best grades in school were in English, which made me a very gifted writer. It took me awhile of many years to find that out because I had a coma to come out of. I also have a portfolio of artwork because I have been drawing ever since I could hold a pencil, and had to switch from my right hand to my left hand due to a whole right-side paralysis. I have started this writing when I was going to college down in Sant Fe, New Mexico at the Institute of American Indian Arts 1996-97. I have had many controversies in my life I had to get through. I am a single mother of two- children who are very close to me; they mean the world to me. We were staying in a homeless- housing because it is too hard for us to stay with family; my children do not like staying with them because they are treated too roughly. Now we are staying at the same housing, the landlord has just changed to a different company. I was also raised without a mother and father. I had a father when we were real young, but he did really hurtful things to my older brother and sister, and I.
Would you have the time to read one chapter in my life? Thats how my life seems, like one big book. I have a disability, but I dont let that get me down. I am a struggling artist who has many talents, and trying to get my business going called, Horse Trails Have No Ends, because to me they have no ends. My children and I are also traditional dancers on the pow-wow trail. We go to longhouse every Sunday so that we can worship Taman wixla (Jesus). The main thing that I want for them to know is our creator, because I had to piece together who our maker was almost all my life because I never had a mother or father to turn to so I could ask questions. I had a poem I wrote about a guy I was with and how I was treated published in the Yakama Nation Review, and I also had another writing published in the Yakama Nation Review also on how my kids and I were treated by the whip-woman of Celilo, Oregon. It was a scary thing to do, but writing is one of the best ways I have to express myself, drawing also. What I am going to write really happened in my lifetime, I hope that you can understand it.
ROUND-UP RAGE
I was getting to the age where my grandma was being able to let me travel with my auntie, uncle and crazy cousins to rodeos where I could watch the rodeo, but most of all I loved to ride around the grounds with other riders. I had some times in my younger life in which I held the title of being queen for pow-wows, but now at the age of 16 my auntie decided to make me a candidate for queen at a local rodeo in White Swan called Treaty Day where I learned how to be a better speaker by selling my tickets. A rodeo in which my grandma began to trust us kids on riding our horses to from her house about 20 miles away. I got 2nd princess on the first year I ran in 1991, so I traveled to rodeos and represented my title. I loved to ride my horse T.J. who was 16 hands high, and what I really liked was that he was a thoroughbred in the grand entries because Id love to run. I ran for the same title in June of 1992, and got 1st princess. I figured if I ran again for the same title next year I might get queen. I began the summer of 1992 traveling to rodeos again representing my title of 1st princess.
September was finally here, the Ellensburg Rodeo was just getting over. That rodeo is a PBR, but what I like about it is that before the grand entry on the hillside Natives would come down dressed in regalia. It is basically my whole family that comes down the hill. We had to start back in school in which I was going to be in 11th grade. I started and went to school almost the first two-weeks because we had one more rodeo to go to; the Pendleton Round-Up September 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th 1992. Our family also had 4 tee-pees to set up in the Indian- village. We had to go the weekend before the round-up to set them up; we had to get there early in the morning so we could get the best poles. I was all excited to be going to the round-up because I have family over there from my late mother who was Umatilla. My mothers sister and her son keep in good contact with us. My grandfather on my mothers side we knew well because we used to see him a lot when we were small.
We moved into the round-up the day before so we could get our three-horses in the pens. My auntie bought one of her horses, and my grandma sent two of her horses; my horse TJ, and a 16 hand-high Grulla- horse that is quarter horse, and thoroughbred. That horses name is Starbuck, and that kind of horse has always been my grandmas favorite because he is mouse- colored. I liked him because he is fast. He is a horse that was mainly used for parades because he is so pretty.
The first day was finally here; September 16th, 1992. We had to be in the Grand Entry dressed up in our regalia to parade around the track on horseback; it was very nice. After the grand entry I had to hurry up and get changed because the Squaw- Race was the 3rd event in the rodeo; the Squaw Race is a race really meant for the women in ribbon shirts. I had my blue Wranglers on with a black ribbon shirt and boots, with my hair drawn back in a ponytail. Of course, I had on my Justin Boots, with sunglasses over my eyes to protect them from flying dirt.
I decided to race my grandmas Starbuck to give TJ a little break in his stall by the other horses; I planned on racing him the next day. My insides were getting excited because I was going to race; a rumbling of my tummy sent shocks all over my stomach to below my shoulders. I took Starbuck to the warm-up pen shaped like an oval that was right beside the track, under the bleachers. As we were warming our horses up I thought, I have always been the one to push alcohol away from me because it is so deeply embedded in my family. Alcohol will be pushed on me sooner or later, so after the race on the first day I might as well go out to the beer garden and have a drink to help celebrate the first day of the Pendleton Round-Up. There were six- other women at the warm- up pen before I got there. It was Indian Summer with the sweat starting to build on the inner- thighs of my pants because I was riding my horse bareback. As we went around the pen, you could see the hatred in the others eyes under the glare of sunglasses. Our horses were getting hyper because they knew it was racing that we warming them up for; they would rear up here and there making a cloud of high-dust that sometimes blurred our vision.
We were waiting for the track-director to come back to the pen to get us. After the roping we heard the announcer say that we were going to get ready for the Squaw Race! The crowd in all the bleachers go crazy hollering as the track-director comes back to get us; the butterflies in my stomach were jumping up and down doing somersaults as he comes back to get us. My shoulder muscles were all tensing up with excitement handling the reins of Starbuck who was like dagger ready to strike.view less