What does it mean to “belong”? And how do we know when we feel it? Chris La Tray, a storyteller and a member of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians, sets out in “Becoming Little Shell” to explore the meanings of belonging in a country where many of the things that once created a sense of belonging — ties to the land, knowing one’s heritage — have been replaced by “history.” La Tray acknowledges that not all Americans feel this loss so acutely. “Much of this seems like ancient history to many people, the ‘olden days’ as we used to call them as kids when we chased each other around with toy pistols and rifles,” he writes.
“The reality is that it’s a living, ongoing history that deeply affects the lives of many people every day.” Even within his own family, La Tray was cut off from his ancestry. His father was Métis and Chippewa, his mother white, but his dad refused any acknowledgment of his heritage.
It wasn’t until 1996 — when the younger La Tray was 29 — at his grandfather’s funeral, the pews packed with Native Americans, that it hit him that he didn’t know what tied him to this community of mourners. La Tray summarizes the years between his grandfather’s death and one particular weekend in October 2013. “Overcoming a Western Legacy,” a talk given by historian Nicholas Vrooman at the Montana Festival of the Book, galvanized La Tray.
Learning about the Little Shell, a landless tribal nation in Montana that includes Euro.