story copyright 2001 SkyHawk

For many years now I am trying to write about frybread and the awful mess it has gotten me into with the wanabee Indian women over here in Euro. I suppose Euro wanabee Indian men could be thrown in here, too. The trouble is there are so many damn "true" Indian frybread recipes floating around the world as there are Indians in North America. For sure, never ask more than two women in the same room for their recipe on frybread. It is not theirs, it is "the" recipe! Wanabee Indians, men or women, claim I don't know a thing about frybread. They read a book on the subject and that damn Sioux or damn Navajo knows more than any damn Blackfeet Indian. The wanabees ask me, "Can you name the Indian who invented frybread?" I want to say, "Of course I do. My grandmother." "No, really, I don't." But I know these wanabees could care less, 'cuz they know their answer is the right one no matter what I say. I have broken up with so many European wanabee Indian women over this frybread issue. I suppose the big lesson for me would be to keep my mouth shut and say I don't know a damn thing about no frybread! If I don't know nothing about frybread, what's the use in my being Indian?

I know before there was white people there was frybread. Now, the European wanabee Indians want us poor dumb so called real Indians to acknowledge the fact that frybread should be spelled, "friedbread." The Euro-minds couldn't stand 'Dances with Wolves' being plural when there was only one wolf in the film. So, the title was changed to 'Dances with the Wolf.' Technically, Lt. Dunbar was not really dancing with a wolf. But, what do I know? I am just a really dumb Injun.

Friedbread is not a white man's invention in spite of what a columnist, Indian columnist, esp., says. Remember what Jimi Hendrix said? "Never believe anything you read or see in a newspaper!" Do you think he recorded, 'All Along the Watch tower', by Bobbie 'cuz he was a Jehovah's Witness?

One Oregon snowy winter, the frybread grandmother came by our little one room house , with cardboard covering the two windows we had facing the sunrise and the south. Fortunately, my mother had just finished sweeping the dirt floor. My mother always swept the dirt floor. She worked in the big city of Portland for white people cleaning their homes. Mom always said, "Don't be like white folks, clean your own home. White people are so lazy. Always hiring us Indians to do their own work."

Frybread recipe

Recette de pain frit

We children were so excited to see "Frybread Grandma" come to our house 'cuz she brought us the biggest pieces of frybread a child's eyes could ever imagine. I loved the smell of the frybread wrapped in Frybread Grandma's white pillow case and stuffed inside her big red lumberjack wool winter coat. I don't know how that ol' Grandma did it to this day, keeping that frybread warm, walking across the river's bridge and the rez snow to our little house and the frybread was always warm. Mom said, "Grandma had a special magic and that's what made her frybread taste like the best in the whole wide reservations of the world!"

Mom said, "Before Frybread Grandma was born, a long time before white people came to our mountains and valleys. There was a war between us Umatillas and many other Indian tribes. They came to steal our secret frybread recipe which included corn from the sun. And the secret recipe of sweet flowers and wild roots. Oh, the women of the tribe were willing to die to save this grand secret ancient recipe!! The men thought it was a joke to fight over such a recipe. Until the starvation winter came and almost all the Umatilla's were wiped out. The other tribes were also dying from starvation so the people needed each other. A frybread grandma told the people that the secret was never a secret. For thousands of years we have shared the land where the frybread recipe comes from. Why is it some things now must be secret? Who made this rule of law except some greedy ol' stingy, mean coyote? That is why today every Frybread Grandma can cross the river's bridge and the rez snow and bring poor people warm frybread to a home without fire. I still smell and see those big golden pieces of frybread. The best tasting in the whole wide reservations of the world!!! A little butter and honey. Hmmmmm. No commodity cheese please. Frybread, enit?