From Deseret News archives:
Fitting in
She spent little time on an Indian reservation because her tribe, the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation, doesn't have one. Her trips to Fort Hall, the Shoshone-Bannock reservation in Idaho, were a curious adventure.
"Going on to a reservation was different. I did dress different. I acted different. I went to the mall to get clothes. I thought it was a totally different world. The girls would look at me like they wanted to beat me up," she said.
At home in Brigham City, "a lot of people thought I was Mexican."
Davis' grandparents, though, made sure she knew something about her culture. Her grandfather often related stories about the Bear River Massacre that decimated the tribe in 1863. Her grandmother taught her beadwork and some Shoshone words.
Now 28 and a mother of 10- and 8-year-old boys, Davis has tried to pass along her heritage. Though the boys aren't much into jingle dancing like she was as a child, they like huvia, the Shoshone word for singing. They perform at various events.
"The language is dying," she said. "That's why we huvia."
Davis works on economic development and cultural/natural resources for the tribe, which owns some acreage in Utah and Idaho. One of its projects is a planned community in northern Utah where Northwestern Shoshones once lived.
Having been reared in a city, Davis isn't sure that would be a place for her. "I think it would be hard," she said. "If I were older and my kids were out of the house ...."
Davis still doesn't get to Fort Hall much. But she and her sons do attend an occasional powwow. They don't face it with trepidation like she did as a child. "They love it, " she said.
E-mail: romboy@desnews.com
