More than a Statue- Who the Heck is Charlie Russell?!

If you walk down National Statutory Hall in Washington DC you will probably see a variety of statues you may or may not recognize.  Each state gets two statues and there are many you might recognize from your eight grade history class.  There are founding fathers and former presidents.  But as you wonder down the hall, the mid-west and western states' representatives become harder and harder to recognize.  You might catch yourself wondering out-loud "who is William Edgar Borah?" or even, "who the heck is Charles Marion Russell?"
I can't say much about the latter, but let me tell you, if you live in or travel through Montana, Charles Marion Russell should be part of your experience.  As a tourist, you might notice how often the name Russell appears on streets, buildings and organizations.  Montana has great pride in him and for good reason! Russell is arguably the greatest painter of the American West....Ever!  His style is accurate and informative but in a very artistic way.

He portrayed the West and specifically Montana as it was, because he saw and experienced it as it was.  In an era that portrayed Native Americans with a specific and often inaccurate slant,  Russell displayed a very intimate knowledge of real native culture.  Why?  Because he actually lived with the Bloods (a tribe of natives in North Central Montana) for a time!  He showed the rise and fall of the cattle boom as it was too, because he was there working as a cowboy when it happened.  In fact, his famous painting Waiting for a Chinook portrayed the fall of the cattle boom in a way few were willing to admit at the time.  Even today, many Westerns show an abundance of pasture, seemingly endless cattle and a great life for anyone who can ride a horse and swing a rope.  But the reality was that the 1886 -87 winter put an end to the romanticized cowboy because more than half the cows in Montana died that winter.   After that it was less cows and more sheep.

Even down to the specific details of cowboy gear and native regalia, Russell understood and accurately depicted Montana.  Each painting and sculpture he finished told a story or recalled a cultural nuance.  A quick sampling of his paintings will give you a more accurate feel for the True Montana of the 19th Century than most history books will.  If you've never heard of him, check him out and allow yourself to be drawn into a very different, but very real Montana from the past!

Bull Fight Training and Escaping From Buffalo

I glanced back, hoping I was imagining things, but no, that thousand pound buffalo cow really was chasing me and I was a long ways from my four-wheeler in an open field.  My heart seemed to throb like a drum circle at a pow-wow.  But somewhere in the back of my mind I knew what I had to do.

You see, I had trained my whole life for this moment.  I guess you could say Montana ranch kids are trained to be bull-fighters.  Not the quintessential Spanish Matador, with his sombrero and red cape (or whatever you call it) though I'm sure they are amazing.  No, I mean the guy on the ground during the bull riding at a rodeo.  Not the funny one who jumps in the barrel when the bull riding starts, but the one who actually distracts the bull while the rider gets to the fence.  These "clowns" are real athletes.  There is a high degree of danger, a high degree of athleticism and a high degree of necessary knowledge on how bulls act.

I never thought about it til recently but lots of ranch kids have great training for this profession.  I remember at a farily young age (9 or 10), my Dad telling me how to escape from an angry first calve heifer who is "trying to eat your lunch".  He said that four legged animals can't turn as fast as humans (two legs) can.  So as a human you must run toward a fence and when your four legged foe is pretty close, you must sharply turn or cut one direction. Then with your pursuer off your immediate tail, you must beat it for the fence.  We had one heifer during that time who was especially viscous: "number 71" (so named because of her ear tag).  She chased pretty much everyone but me during that time and was probably made into hamburger after her calf was weened.  I was chased by another heifer and had just enough speed to get to the fence before she caught up with me without using the "quick cut" trick.

But I did use, or try to use that wisdom a few years later.  I was in college and back at the ranch for Christmas break.  We needed to doctor a large cow and so we had roped her and tipped her over so we could give her a shot of penicillin.  It had been quite an ordeal and she was not happy but seemed subdued and reluctant to get up.  I had pulled the ropes off her and thought I might try to motivate her by rubbing the flat part of her forehead with my hand.  It worked I guess, because she sprang to her feet and began to chase me.  I remembered my Dad's words of wisdom and prepared for my sharp cut.  At the precise moment when I made the cut, I tripped over a frozen cow pie and sprawled in the direction I had turned.  Fortunately I was just enough off the path of the cow that she didn't try to hit me on the ground and simply jumped over my feet.

It was this exact memory that was running through my mind as a ran for my life from a very defensive buffalo cow a couple years later.  The only difference was I was out in the middle of an open field a good hundred yards from the four-wheeler and I was all alone on a ranch on the remote Montana high-line.  The adrenaline coursed through my veins as she gained on me (buffalo can out-run a horse for the first hundred yards).  But somehow in the back of my head I knew that all I had to do was make that cut right before she got to me.  This would not end the chase though, as I was not close enough to the four-wheeler to sprint after just one escape.  To my great relief it was a bluff charge and after she closed within ten feet she stopped and snorted, almost as if to let me know what she was capable if she so desired.  Later that same buffalo cow chased someone on a four-wheeler with her horns locked on the rear bumper and vehicle floored for over a hundred yards.  She also rammed a truck with passengers in the bed, so I am glad my incident occurred before she matured into a full fledged man-eater.

Montana really is a wild place in a lot of respects.  More people are killed in national parks by moose than any other animals and we have an abundance of them.  Buffalo chase people and beef cows, especially during calving season see humans as a major threat. So weather you've lived in Montana your whole life or you're simply visiting, remember: if you're being chased by a four-legged creature, let them get close, make a sharp cut and try not to trip over anything while you do it.

Montana's Diversity and Radicals: Janette Rankin to the Freeman

While the geographical diversity might be obvious from the moment you enter Montana (the flat prairie of Eastern Montana contrasting with the stunning Mountains in the West), the diversity within Montanans might not be so obvious.  For one thing most Montanans are white.  You can’t really say a place is ethnically diverse because there are Norwegians, Irish and Italians all living on the same block.  Obviously there are some non-white people groups within Montana but the percentage compared to other states is pretty low.  No, what I am talking about is political diversity. 

Montana has always been and still is a place of radical political views.  Janette Rankin may have started the tradition when she voted against World War I along with seven others in the US House of Representatives (and this was before women had the right to vote nationally).  Then she solidified her place in history, by becoming the only member of US Congress to vote against World War II.  You must admit that took true conviction!

On the other side of the political spectrum, somewhere to the right of constitutionalism and the left of pure anarchism, many Montanans prefer not to interact with the government at all.  There are a growing number of “off-the-gridders” who, correctly or incorrectly, are often associated with the nationally famous Freemen Militia.  These folks try to live as far away from the US Government’s reach as possible and apparently the rural areas of Montana are a great place to do that. 

Montanans are also prone to making outrageous political statements.  Whether it’s a county commissioner telling a group of Native Americans to plant their sacred tree somewhere else because he doesn't want a bunch of “drunk Indians” in his county, or the governor using a hot branding iron to veto (by fire) the opposing party’s bill on the steps of the capital, Montanans have no problem expressing their opinions in extreme and socially unacceptable ways. 

Ideas have consequences and I don’t want to make light of the consequences of some of the above ideas.  Extreme ideas lead to destruction and genocides, but they also lead to declarations of independence and successful overthrows (violent and non-violent) of tyrannical rulers.  I, for one, am very glad I live in a state where people say what they think and don’t pussy-foot-around when it comes to standing up for their beliefs!