An English-speaking North American doesn't get too much of a chance to experience drastically different cultures while traveling in North America. So when that traveler goes through an Indian Rez, it can be seen as a long-overdue chance to experience a different culture. New Mexico has quite a few Native American reservations.
There are people -- usually from blue counties on the coast or Europe -- who think there is something chic about the Rez, with all the art and handicrafts. I am not so taken in. I expect theft, homelessness, and destitute, pitiful dogs.
So there are at least two ways to see Reservations. My purpose here is not to decide which viewpoint is the correct one, but rather, to use the tension between these two viewpoints to have a more interesting travel experience.
An uncollared dog was walking around the parking lot. The nearby highway was quite busy. A bicyclist like me cannot be blamed for instantly thinking of the dog being squished by a car. I called the dog over to me and put some dog food on the ground. He seemed to enjoy the food and let me pet him. He was a friendly, good-looking, youngish dog who should have gotten adopted pretty easily at an animal shelter.
Then I slipped a collar over his head. He instantly went ballistic. He jumped high in the air and tried to shake the collar off. And wailed.
While two police officers and I tried to decide what to do with him, he bit through the 1" wide nylon collar, and escaped. All I could say was, "The next time I will have a steel slip collar." The officer shrugged and shook my hand.
The dog offended my paleface sensibilities by not showing proper gratitude. But who knows, maybe the dog liked his lifestyle as it was. I felt like the Whitman missionaries of Walla Walla, WA back in the early days of the Oregon Trail. Missionaries could sincerely want to help the Indian tribes with medicine, agriculture, literacy, religion, Guilt and Sin, measles, and smallpox. And then they got massacred.
It is something to think about. Maybe the dog was right and I was wrong.
Comments