Treaty Shirts. Gerald Vizenor

The second night of his new reign he changed the official name of the White Foxy Casino to the Coy Care Casino, a new services institution of the National Sectors and Trust Endorsements.

      Casino sovereignty was recognized more than sixty years ago, and most reservation casinos near urban areas became wealthy. The money, hundreds of millions of dollars, was actually a crafty switch or transfer of wealth from the losers to natives and casino managers, an ironic hand over of a mea culpa culture, considered regret money at the time. That huge transfer of wealth from ordinary citizens, mostly the elderly, and chronic gamers, was terminated overnight with the congressional abrogation of the treaties. The White Foxy Casino was a minor contender in the huge transfer of wealth to native casinos.

      The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act meant to protect and monitor native casinos, but the basic notion was curious, even mistaken, that gambling was a traditional practice of native cultures. Rightly, games of chance were common, and enhanced with music, cultural teases, and ceremonies, but that communal pleasure does not directly relate to slot machines, and the avarice of casinos.

      The White Foxy Casino was terminated by plenary power along with the treaty reservation and constitution, and the contingent legislation provided a rescue conversion of casinos to corporate contract ventures that would serve native and other citizens in sectors of endorsements. The original management company of the casino continued as the federal contract agency to carry out the new sector endorsement programs.

      Straightaway natives nicknamed the security sentries the Peace Hookers. Godtwit and the Peace Hookers became the subject of the most exotic trickster stories, a natural respite from the ironies of rendition and sector politics. The elders were eager to share wider and more mature stories about the early nicknames of nasty federal agents. The niinag mangindibe, or dick head, the big head penis stories, were the most popular that first autumn of sector dominance. The Peace Hookers were monster dick heads in the new trickster stories.

      Godtwit Moon was obviously despised, and feared, mocked, shunned, and sidestepped, but seldom teased because the native tease was truly a communal gesture of tentative and uncertain compassion. The tradition fascists and native toadies praised the heavy management style of the sector governor, the whims of gentle rage, and every sensible native citizen was evasive and renounced the very presence of the new sector poseurs.

      The National Sectors and Trust Endorsements at White Earth converted the White Foxy Casino Hotel to the Coy Care Resident Hotel for native elders and disabled citizens, and the convention conference rooms became a medical services center. Many elder residents were relocated from nearby cities to the Coy Care Casino.

      The social security and federal disability payments to some elders, the gamers and residents, were deposited directly to an account in the Coy Care Casino Bank. Godtwit was president, of course, of the new sector bank. Many native elders were very pleased to live in the hotel residence, eat at the three casino restaurants, and easily walk or motor in a chair to the slot machines. The standard gaming rules were revised to eliminate actual money and citizens were issued electronic tags with casino credit.

      The native players received monthly credit points that could be won or lost at the slot machines, poker, blackjack, and other games. Clearly almost every player was expected to lose, but the automatic credits regulated the debt of elder players, and those who lost their monthly credits were obligated to work at the casino or resident hotel, and others on road crews or at sector institutions to restore the credits. Every sector native was required to work for endorsements and to restore with hourly labor the total monthly debts on Coy Casino Credit Tags.

      Most natives who feared Godtwit and the Peace Hookers were cautious and only conspired to partake in cynical gossip, as cautious as they were about the taunt and curse of shamans, and reckoned at times with the whisperers and scandalmongers. That combination of nasty gossip and shamanic torments had chased away many federal agents and pompous poseurs in the past, but the new sector governor and management, shadows of the national debt, and severe economic decline would never be absolved with testy rumors. The sector haters and native exiles, however, were resolute about the removal of the rendition governor.

      The Shaman Crease, a notorious and covert circle of native healers and tent shakers created and vigilantly distributed the magical Waaban Blue Union, untraceable narcotic concoctions, and at the same time practiced natural and traditional herbal remedies. The healers invited the exiles, several other dancers, and the showy sector governor to an ecstatic overnight dance and spectacular light show at the Boy Scout Camp at Many Point Lake.

      The seven exiles wore Treaty Shirts that mysterious and unpredictable night, the same stained shirts that we wore at the ratification of the constitution, the sector revision of the reservation, and notice of our banishment. Treaty Shirts embodied our spirit, sweat, and loyalty to the constitution, and we wore the shirts unwashed at every convention and convocation in the past twenty years.

      Godtwit Moon was distracted by our presence at the dance, of course, and tried to disguise his worries that we were there to curse him in our Treaty Shirts, but suddenly he smiled, turned his head to the side, and waved his hands to show compassion, surely a cynical gesture of Rendition de Gentillesse, the new politics of compassion.

      Savage Love tied blue treaty bandanas around the necks of the mongrels of irony, and yet we worried that the governor might execute another ban of mongrels at the dance. The five mongrels smiled at the sector governor, a much wiser ironic and totemic version of rendition. The mongrels were designated healers in blue bandanas.

      White Favor was a whistler, not a moaner, a whistler with a clear pitch, and that night he whistled several times at Godtwit and the two Peace Hookers who were invited to the dance at Many Point Lake.

      The Debwe Heart Dance, an ecstatic native cavort of truth, was slightly revised that night to deceive the hefty autocrat who could hardly walk through the casino twice without turning slightly blue with worry and heart fatigue. The drumbeats and heart bounces were slowed, and a new cast of songs and stories were simulated and shortened in his honor, only the most common names of nature, white pine, cedar, sumac, waxwing, beaver, porcupine, and water moccasins. The governor was cornered in a circle of tricky shamans who chanted these common names with a clever curse and poetic simplicity.

      Savage Love taunted the governor with stories about the extraordinary rendition of words, the gentle words of death, and the ecstasy of nothing, absolutely nothing, not a single thing, and she encouraged him to inhale a hefty mound of blue luminous powder served on a short cedar stave. Godtwit sniffed and reached for Savage Love, but she ducked and moved between the trees.

      The Specter Drones circled the red pine and were seduced by the holoscenes of historical figures over the lake. Waasese projected three images of Distinguished Eagle Scouts, Gerald Ford, president, Neil Armstrong, astronaut, and Steven Spielberg, movie director, in honor of the Many Point Boy Scout Camp, and Christopher Columbus, Samuel de Champlain, Cotton Mather, Andrew Jackson, Chief Joseph, Geronimo, Babe Ruth, Hillary Clinton, Vladimir Putin, and the waxy laser crucifixion of Jesus Christ slowly vanished in a wave on the lake.

      The Peace Hookers and other sector security agents were amused but not distracted by the laser shows. The agents, however, were scared away from the truth dance by nasty packs of feral mongrels.

      Godtwit Moon inhaled the narcotic and promptly lost his practiced rendition poses. He became belligerent, smoky faced, and shouted two mundane heart dance versions of truth, “slot machines and fast sex,” and “hate cats, hate dirty pets,” and then he danced in the red pines near the shoreline of Many Point Lake. The poseur circled in the dark, sniffed the last trace of blue shine on his finger, and hallucinated the presence of native women, naked natives in magical flight. Wild Rice howled at the poseur and nosed his swollen gray ankles. His heart was weakened by subdued rage, and his crotch was stained with urine.

      White Favor whistled a lively tune, and with other moans and bays the mongrels created a magical chorus in the red pine that night. Mutiny turned and brushed her lacy ginger tail on the thick thighs of the governor.

      Packs of feral mongrels circled the heart dancers and growled at the treeline, an escape distance. The bright eyes of the mongrels flashed in the red pine, ten, twenty or more