The virtue of hope

Ididn’t know any better. I don’t think anybody did. As a child, one of the neighborhood games was “cowboys and Indians.” Stores sold costume kits and plastic figurines to support this game. In the late 1970s, I had the opportunity to live in Devils Lake, North Dakota. I read in a tourist brochure that the name of the town and the lake came from an old Native American legend about two hunting parties on the opposite shores of the lake. One was Sioux and the other Chippewa. Both disobeyed the American Indian laws for war and in the middle of the night, both silently set out on the lake to attack the other. Because of the evil in their hearts, a great storm appeared with giant waves and drowned all of them. Thus, devil’s lake. I asked a tribal elder about the story. He laughed and said: “White man’s legend.” He told me that the Native American name for the lake meant that because of the high alkaline content, it was not good for drinking. I was just beginning to see one of the many hidden tragedies between “cowboys and Indians.”