Contemporary Connections: "Tracks" and the Diamond Pipeline

Fight against Diamond pipeline expands

The above link discusses the Diamond pipeline that will run from Cushing, Oklahoma to West Memphis, Tennessee. Along the way, the pipeline will be "crossing several sensitive waterbodies" that provide water to Native American communities. The article describes the dangers of this project, pointing out that one of the companies constructing it has a "history of major spills" and that the area in question has been frequently subject to earthquakes. According to Mekasi Horinek, a river near the White Eagle Ponca headquarters in Oklahoma has already been subject to eight "major fish kills" in the past few years. The pipeline will also cross the Trail of Tears, along which hundreds of Native Americans are buried in unmarked graves that will be desecrated by the pipeline's construction. No tribal officers were consulted by any companies behind the project before it was approved.

The circumstances of this project provide new insight into the prevailing significance of the Chippewa's loss of land in Tracks. Horinek describes how authorities lie to him and the other victims of water contamination in his area. "[They] always tell us they can’t pinpoint where the contamination is coming from," he says. Non-Natives are attempting to keep the Ponca Nation in ignorance, just as non-Natives in Tracks constantly take advantage of the Chippewa people who, for the most part, don't understand the contracts they are signing. Even Father Damien tries to reel Nanapush into working for the government, not expecting the old man to see the "snare" in his suggestion. Disrespect for meaningful Native land is also a common theme between the article and the book. It is against federal law not to consult tribal leaders in cases such as the Diamond pipeline construction, says Ashley McCray, but no one behind the project felt it necessary to abide by that law, and they accordingly disregard the deep disrespect of disturbing Native graves along the Trail of Tears. The characters in Tracks face a similar problem when they are forced to either pay an "impossible" price or lose the Pillager burial site. "Pillager land was not ordinary land to buy and sell," says Nanapush, but he knows the whites forcing them into this position would not understand. Obviously, this kind of misunderstanding continues today. The fact that early-twentieth-century events as described in Tracks are still so relevant a hundred years later truly brings to light the unchanging treatment of Native Americans and their land. Realizing this parallel may allow us to read more closely and come to a deeper understanding of white-Native relationships both in the past and in the present.