Honoring Tradition to Support Tribal Health [RWJF.org]

My tribe sees life within the frame of seven generations: The current generation is shaped by the experience of people three generations before and tasked with setting the course for three generations to come.

That’s why I summoned the stamina needed to paddle a canoe for eight days last summer in a tradition that binds our generations. I joined thousands of men, women, teens and children from my tribe—Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribe—as well as our neighbors from the Chinook Indian Nation, to paddle together in a dugout canoe for 200 miles. It was an annual journey with deep roots in our culture and history. I learned what it really means to pull together. You get into a rhythm with your team, and you move forward.

That’s what we’re trying to do for our community’s health, too.

Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribe is small, fewer than 400 members. Less than a quarter of us live on our reservation in southwestern Washington. And about 25 years ago we weren’t even sure our tribe had a future. From 1988 to 1992, nearly half our pregnancies ended in miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, stillbirth or the death of the baby within a year of birth. State and federal epidemiologists who studied the problem found no single cause, other than the glaring lack of health care access.