Julie Cajune & Jennifer Finley – “Bad Indians” | S7 E03
“What I want all of my work to do is expand the definition of who Indians think they can be and how they think they can be in the world and their space for all of that -- all of the things that we can dream of.”
Activists Jennifer Finley and Julie Cajune, members of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribe in Montana, are willing to risk being called Bad Indians for the sake of this liberating vision. In fact, the two longtime friends and creative collaborators named their latest play, a series of conversations between two older women –not unlike them– Bad Indians, playfully preempting any backlash to the characters’ stories of tragedy, injustice, humor, “failed romances, violent harassment and the criticism of others” in their community. Their earlier collaborations include Heart of the Bitterroot, a collection of Salish and Pend d’Oreille women’s stories available on CD and the one-woman show, Belief that Julie performed in New York two years ago. Julie is also a celebrated educator who was pivotal in introducing indigenous history and stories to Montana schools’ curriculum. (See Season 5 Episode 5 for more about Julie.) Jennifer is a gifted poet (“My Hands Have Vertigo”) and just completed a novel, “He Was Beautiful.” Not only did we have a chance to talk with Julie and Jennifer, but they graced us with a performance of an excerpt of Bad Indians. Tune in, sit back and enjoy the show.
Music for this episode is from Scottish flautist Gary Stroutsos “Night Chants”. Gary also performed the music for Julie’s 2019 production of “Belief.” We also offer a short clip from the Women Warriors Song, a protest song created and performed by Salish women in memory of the thousands of missing and murdered indigenous women in the U.S. Northwest and Canada.
+ TRANSCRIPT
Joanne and Idelisse: Welcome to Two Old Bitches. I'm Idelisse Malave and I'm Joanne Sandler. And we're Two Old Bitches! We're interviewing our women friends and women who could be our friends. Listen, as they share stories about how they reinvent themselves.
Julie: One thing that I want to thank Jennifer for is that she encourages me to be brave and to be bold and to sometime, sometimes we need somebody like that.
Idelisse: That was Julie Cajune, one of the creators of Bad Indians, which we'll tell you more about, talking about one of her dearest friends and co-creator of Bad Indians, Jennifer Finley. And I think, Joanne, it's fair to say that, Jennifer, and from what we heard in our conversation, would say the same thing about Julie, that Julie said about her.
Joanne: Yeah. I mean, one of the things I love about this episode is that they are such good friends and they're so appreciative of each other, what they bring to and for each other and the creative collaborations that they have, which are many.
Idelisse: And that love and appreciation of the friendship itself, right. Is so evident.
So Bad Indians, Bad Indians is a two woman, basically, there are a few other characters in it, show about two older women friends, not unlike Julie and Jennifer, indigenous women, and a whole series of conversations is they talk about their art and their careers and ...
Joanne: the men in their lives and sex. And I love the way they talk about how it's about the struggle to juggle.
Idelisse: Yes. Yes, that is truly fabulous. But in addition to Bad Indians, they have been collaborating for a long time. Their first, I think official collaboration was a collection of stories of Salish, and I'm not going to say this correctly, but Pend d’Oreille indigenous women's stories called Heart of the Bitteroot.
After that, they did playwriting with kids. They collaborated on a play about a famous treaty between the United States and (inaudible) I mean so many different things.
Joanne: And I met Julie, when you, you already knew Julie, because you worked with her through work you were doing, but she was in New York to do her one woman show Belief, which Jennifer also co-wrote with her?
Idelisse: Yes, Jennifer is listed was, she may be the prime author, or they are listed as coauthors, but they worked on it together and it was a wonderful show.
I did get to see it. And Jennifer, in addition to her many collaborations with Julie, is a gifted poet. She has a book that I love the title, My Hands Have Vertigo, right. Um, and she's completing a novel now, Julie is a long-time educator. Um, and she, in fact, years ago was one of the people who advocated for and then ended up heading up a project to introduce indigenous voices and stories into the Montana school curriculum and beyond it's quite an amazing project.
Joanne: So let's hear from Julie.
Julie: The first thing I wanted to do was something about women because Indian women are even more absent from the narrative of history, you know, then, uh, you know, women from other walks of life and other ethnicities. So because when people came and interviewed, you know, ethnographies, anthropologists, people looking for information, interviewed men, almost all men.
And so I started looking for historic narratives of women and I found honestly threads. So I found this picture of Kuilix, um, who was a Pend d’Oreille woman. She was a warrior and there, the Jesuits were traveling around with these treaty negotiators and, and her image in battle was drawn several times. And so the first thing I learned about her was this image.
And so then I started asking elders if they knew about her and then I discovered writing about her. So there, there were these old journals that had narratives about how well, of course it was, uh, an American man who is appearing, comparing her to Joan of Arc. She is like, you know, this, you know, willing to sacrifice herself in battle.
And, but, so I I thought, you know, if you write a book, that's just historic fact about these women. Cause I was thinking, I found so many remarkable women that I thought if I just put down the facts of their life, it doesn't make... it's interesting to me as a historian, but I was really wanting to get these stories out to young women.
Really into women in general. And so I actually approached Jennifer and I think, Jennifer was that our first collaboration?
Jennifer: Yes, I, yeah, I think it was.
Julie: Yeah. So, so I asked her, I said, hey, I have these, you know, bits and pieces and facts of women's lives. Do you think you could write something for them about them?
That would be interesting? And, you know, because she's a poet, you know, she writes poetry. It was a little bit, I think, out of what she normally does as far as her writing, but she was very gracious and agreed to try to do it. And she said, well, give me, you know, your research and then Jennifer, tell him what you did.
Jennifer: So when I have really important writing projects, I always pray about it. And so I really prayed about this project and what popped into my mind was to tell the story as if I was each of these women. And this project, that, that particular project really means a lot to me because there's stories about strong women from my tribe.
But also I was a young mother then, and I was in a really dysfunctional marriage that I hadn't admitted to myself at the time. And I was working full time and I three little kids. And so, I mean, I was just like personally really overwhelmed. And you know, when I look back on that time in my life and working on that project, I really think that as an artist, as a mother, I think about how our spirits are still able to create something beautiful, even in times of chaos. And so I am really proud of the work that I did on that project for, you know, for lots of different reasons, but, you know, it's, it's also, they're pieces of history that I had not been connected to before. And I think we're so disconnected from beautiful pieces of ourselves. And you know, one of the huge buzzwords in our community right now is historical trauma, which I think is absolutely real that I know I inherited trauma in my bloodline, but I also think I inherited immense beauty and strength and fortitude. And resilience and magic.
And those kinds of stories of these women connect us to those pieces of ourselves that we all inherit from our ancestors in one way or another.
Idelisse: When was this?
Julie: Oh my gosh. That was, I think in 2005.
Idelisse: And the project had a name or came to have name. Which is?
Julie: "Heart of the Bitteroot"
Idelisse: And Jennifer, would you say that it was more than stringing facts from that Julie had gathered, this was an act of imagination.
Jennifer: It felt more like channeling. I felt like I was channeling some piece of these women and I really had to think about and pray about what motivated them and why they, and how they would feel. And, you know, and I thought about Kuilix, which translates into red dress, and how she would feel killing people and what would motivate her to do that.
And so she was this very fierce warrior. And if she was in a battle, men would run away because any battle that she was in, she always won. And so I thought about what would motivate me to kill someone. And it was a really disturbing place to take my mind to. And I, and I just thought that her love for her people, that she loved them so fiercely that she would do anything to protect them.
Joanne: So Ide, that was the first of many collaborations between Julie and Jennifer. And then Julie asked Jennifer to write a play about an unjust 19th century treaty that created the Flathead reservation, where Julie lives today. And between us pretty much ending her tribes and seasonally migratory way of life.
As we said before, there were so many collaborations between them, including Belief, which she performed in New York in 2018. And that she talked about with us in season five, episode five...who want to listen. And they worked closely together, breaking the stories for the script with Jennifer doing much of the writing, except for one section that Jennifer asked Julie to write.
Julie: The last part of that to be written was the part about losing belief that she asked me to write about, and that was really hard to do. And that, that's the end of act one where I talk about what happens to you when you lose belief. Because I believe we enter the world with this capacity, you know, of wonder and belief in magic and love and connection and trust and possibility.
You know, if you remember being a little kid and how the world was open to you, you know, and anything was possible. I remember feeling that way, you know, riding my horse or riding my bike.
Idelisse: Those many collaboration's that we just heard about regarding the work that Julie and Jennifer did together over these many years tended to focus on traditional indigenous women's stories, historic events, but then a few years ago they decided to get more personal and they began work on a play that's called Bad Indians.
And we wanted to know what is that about?
Jennifer: So it's about a lot of things, but I think it's about the friendship between these two older women. I mean, our age. Uh, how they step into their power in different ways and how they face injustice in their community and do their work and have their friendship, and also how they try to have a love life.
And it's very. The saddest parts of this are based on our real, based on our real sad love lives. Um.
Idelisse: ...your love lives, I'm sure, had happy moments too.
Jennifer: It's really also, I think a piece of activistism. And a lot of pieces in the player are things that we would like to see happen in our community. And I think there's, I think words are really powerful and using art and using words, you can call things into existence.
And I think, I hope that this piece, this is a piece of art that calls into existence healing for our community and a greater space for women to tell their truth. And so we just kind of started talking about, you know, I don't think we intended to write a play, but we started just talking about our, you know, we were always talking about our lives and our love lives and whatever is going on with us.
And then just things that store, you know, we always tell each other stories that make us laugh. Julie and I laugh together a lot. And you know, I don't know, one of us said there should be a play and, and I, and we actually decided to like, why not? Let's actually make it into a play. And I think we, um, like spend a weekend doing the first draft of it.
And, uh, you know, we've since added on. And I don't know, maybe we'll add on more at another point, but I, it's just a story of, yeah, it's a story of these two women stepping into their power and becoming stronger. And, um, you know, at the same time navigating their way through, you know, having dysfunctional relationships and I'm still trying to do good work in their community and be good people.
Idelisse: Is the play cast as a conversation or a series of conversations between the two of you or your characters?
Julie: Yes, it is. And there are the other characters come in through a phenomena that may be unique to Indian communities. And that is that people have scanners that pick up the tribal police ban. And so, you know, like I, I'm not going to name the person that calls me frequently.
And she's like, I just heard from so-and-so, who's got the scanner that, you know, someone was picked up for this. And so, so the tribal police come in on the scanner, but outside of that, yeah, it's a conversation between the two women Josephine and Elizabeth.
Jennifer: Two mature women, not women who are in their twenties or in their thirties, but women who've been around the block, women who've had other life experiences and who still find it in themselves to care about the world and care about their community and care about taking a chance on finding love. And, and, you know, one thing I've definitely realized as I've gotten older is, you know, you don't have things figured out.
And most people don't and we're still in the process of improving ourselves and learning things at all ages. And I've certainly learned a lot at this point in my life.
Joanne: Yeah, work in progress, right? That's the eternal state.
Idelisse: And living fully, there are some folks who, as they get older, it's like they're putting parts of themselves away or something and perhaps not living as fully.
And I like to think that living with a little bit of abandon in the good sense of that word of, of taking risks and being willing to dare and be a little bold is such a good thing.
Joanne: So are you going to, are you going to read?
Julie: We are!
Joanne: That would be so wonderful.
Julie: We selected, um, part of act one to read that word. Okay. Elizabeth, you can start. Bad Indians part of act one.
Do you remember the first time mom reported Miller to the tribal cops? They took her away for disturbing the peace. She spent the night in tribal jail and Miller broke my arm when the cops left, I must've been eight or nine. He never worked and spent all mom's money. For what? For him, look what she got.
All she wanted was for someone to love her. I loved her. I needed her. It wasn't enough. Why is it that a woman can be loved by her family and her friends? That if she isn't loved by a man, then she feels empty? Because
Jennifer: we always measure ourselves by the attention of a man. I mean, come on, we're taught to believe our worth and our value depends on what men think of us.
Julie: I don't regret the lovers I've had. I love it when a man openly desires me and thinks I'm beautiful. I enjoy it when I have it, but I'm not willing to do anything to get it. My mom paid with her life for nothing but a man crumb.
Fuck man crumbs. We deserve real man.
Jennifer: Amen. Sister.
Julie: My life has been all work, nothing but work. I haven't had a date since I broke up with Larry Dink five years ago. My social life consists of nothing but soft porn letters from Sam, my old classmate from Catholic school. I was a day student, but he had to live there. God only knows what happened to him. He's been in and out of the state mental hospital his whole life.
When he first started sending the letters, I wrote returned to sender on them and sent them back. So he stopped putting the return address on them. When am I going to meet a real man? Who's also an Indian? Elizabeth, let's make a list of how to meet an Indian man. You write down your ideas and I'll write down mine.
Here's a notepad.
Jennifer: Thanks.
Julie: Okay. Here's what I've got. Tribal conferences, lots of men there! Senior citizen lunches, diabetes support groups, the tribal health waiting room. Waits by a really cool four wheel drive truck. Go to bingo. Hey, we can start playing Keno at the Gray Wolf casino.
Jennifer: Okay. Um, tribal college poetry reading tour, teaching poetry workshops to inmates.
Waits, I thought of that one too. Yeah. High school basketball tournaments, even though I hate basketball. Um, headstart powwow.
Julie: Single dads.
Jennifer: Yeah. Indian rodeo and cooking at firefighting camps. Julie: Oh, that is a great one.
Jennifer: Well, let's start with getting back in shape.
Julie: Hey, would you like to start walking for half an hour a day? That would make us feel better.
Let's plan a really nice memorial and a giveaway for your mom.
Jennifer: I would love that. I need to feel strong doing something good in my mom's name would mean a lot to me and my kids. It's been hell explaining all of this to them. They can't understand why Miller wasn't punished for murdering their grandmother.
Julie: I bet. Hey, let's have an honoring women powwow right here in Dixon. There's never been a powwow here. Oh, I always wanted to be a powwow emcee. I've been waiting for a man to do the right thing and I'm still waiting. I'm tired of waiting, forget that! We can throw our own powwow.
Jennifer: That's a great idea. I've I've never organized a powwow, but why can't we? You and I will be the first female powwow emcees.
Julie: I'm so excited! We'll raise money to pay the drummers and sponsor a kickass giveaway. We'll give every woman a Pendleton blanket, a Pendleton purse or something else to make her feel important and special.
Hey, do you want a sandwich?
Jennifer: Yes. Thank you.
Julie: Male cop from scanner. I have a complaint from some white folks at Twin Lakes who say they're being harassed by two Indian guys. They say one guy is wearing a man thong and appears to have what may be some sort of sex toy. Oh, what's going on. Turn it up, Elizabeth. It's the Dink brothers, Barry and Larry. They are shaking down white people for their tribal recreation permits. Barry is wearing a man thong. Oh my gosh. He's got a tattoo on each butt cheek. One is a dream catcher and the other one says pure poetry. Oh God. I wish I hadn't seen that! He does not have a sex toy.
It's a portable blender for his organic smoothies. Larry Dink is wearing nothing, but jean cutoffs. The white folks do not have tribal recreation permits. I had to ask them to leave. They were pissed off, but they left. I guess a Dink brothers got their way.
Jennifer: Doesn't Barry spell his name, B E R R Y? Is that like his Indian name?
Julie: Barry's name is spelled B E R R Y. But no, it's not his Indian name. His mom wasn't a good speller. Larry's name is spelled L E R R Y too.
Jennifer: Is Larry still a dog catcher? Do those guys still live in Arlee on Findlay Creek?
Julie: Larry's still a dog catcher. And there are still neighbors in Arlee. Hey, dog catching is a noble profession.
You know, Indians had dogs before horses.
Jennifer: Okay. Keep telling yourself whatever you want to about that. How long were you two to, how long were you two together?
Julie: Three years. And at first he loved my independence and the fact that I had my own thoughts. After he got with me, he hated all those things about me. I still love that guy even where he wears those yellow sat in hot pants around the house.
Jennifer: Are you kidding me? Okay. Tell me if you think this is weird. Barry Dink called me a few weeks ago and invited me to a concert. I couldn't go, but even if I could have, I don't really know him that well, I thought it was strange.
Julie: Well, he must like you because he's asking you out on a date.
Jennifer: A date? I don't think so. Isn't he gay?
Julie: He is definitely not gay. As his former neighbor, I can tell you, Barry is not gay.
Jennifer: He must be insane. If you wants to date me, he sent me flowers a few times. I thought he was just being polite. I thought he had some flowers that were going to go bad from his floral shop and he decided to give them away rather than letting them go to waste.
Elizabeth,
Julie: men are not polite he's attracted to you.
Jennifer: That's impossible. I'm so overweight. Who would want me? My ex-husband most certainly didn't want me. I haven't been with a man in two years. I can't even imagine a man being interested in me.
Julie: Oh, come on. You would be surprised.
Jennifer: Well, I got to go. Thanks for the sandwich.
I'm so excited about sponsoring a women's powwow. Let's start walking tomorrow.
Julie: Okay. See you in the morning. Hey, don't get discouraged. You never know what's around the corner and the back one.
Joanne: Tell us about the title, Bad Indians.
Jennifer: Julie. Do you want to explain that?
Julie: Yeah, because there's a, there's a part, so one of the things that Jennifer and I have talked about a lot, um, when we visit is, the lateral oppression in our community, you know? And so how there's a constant judgment going on, you know, that, that one of the legacies, you know, of people being oppressed and marginalized is that people do that to each other.
And that happens here a lot where you're judged, you know, who's a real Indian, who's a big Indian, who's a cultural person, you know, and what family do you come from? And so there's a lot of that goes on. That's that's really disruptive and negative in...one of the things, you know, talking about women being powwow, MCs, you know, if we actually did this, oh my gosh, there would be so much, that would be a lot of, a lot of hell raised over it.
Jennifer: One thing I think about the title of our play, Bad Indians, you know, one thing I feel like I've never been the kind of Indian that people want me to be, or expect me to be. I'm only myself and that I don't have to do anything to be Indian. I just am. I am an Indian. Everything I do is Indian because I'm an Indian and, um, I don't have to do anything other than be myself and, uh, and that's what I want all of my work to do is expand the definition of who Indians think they can be and how they think they can be in the world. And there's space for all of that. All of the things that we can be and dream of.
Joanne: So before ending our conversation with Jennifer and Julie, we asked them if there was anything they wanted to add, and we were really thrilled to hear them affirm and reaffirm the power of their collaboration, the meaning of their friendship with each other, and the way that they inspire and challenge each other to go beyond their comfort zones, which I think resonates a lot with us, right, Ide?
Idelisse: Oh, it does, it does. And I think it resonates with so many of the women that we've had conversations with over the years for Two Old Bitches, the, the texture and depth of women's friendships and the centrality of those friendships to beautiful things.
Jennifer: Thank you for having us on here and for making space for two Indian women to talk about storytelling and friendship, and I think friendship and connection is what's going to save us. Um, having somebody who can see you for who you are, is transformative and really powerful. And I think Julie and I give that to each other because there's a lot of things that I think, and that I have to say that Julie gets, and that is something I am eternally grateful for.
Idelisse: Julie, what about you, what would you add, if anything?
Julie: Well, I would add that one thing that I have gotten from my friendship with Jennifer, and she used to be my neighbor, and we ended up, well, she did work with me on the history project. And so we did some traveling together. We've been to Hawaii together and, uh, collaborated with indigenous scholars for three summers in a row.
But one thing that I want to thank Jennifer for is that she encourages me to be brave. And to be bold. And to sometime, sometimes we need somebody like that because we're not always that, but we try to kind of egg each other on, sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't. She's really been a gift in my life in many ways.
And for that, and I have done things that I normally wouldn't have tried because of her encouragement and, um, you know, and in her confidence that that I could do something. Um, sometimes we live lose that and we need someone else to remind us. And she's been a really good friend that way. So thank you, Jennifer.
You know, Jennifer's writing has always been really brave. You know, some people write beautiful and safely. I think Jennifer is very brave and I think this is brave work to talk about. You know, it's hard to talk about the realities of your community without repercussions and, and I've had people remark, you know, that just believed that they thought it was brave to just do that.
And I thought, wow. You know, wait until they hear Bad Indians!
Idelisse: So at this point, we really do want to make an old bitch pitch for Bad Indians. We want someone who's listening to this out there to go, oh, this has got to be produced, more people actually need to hear these conversations, this work of art and we'll help in one way or another to mount the show, or even as a start to mount a stage reading would be great.
So if you have access to those kinds of resources, um, please get in touch and we'll get you in touch with Julie and Jennifer.
Joanne: And speaking of getting in touch, there's nothing that we love more than getting reader emails or reader response on our (inaudible).
Idelisse: ...(inaudible) sinners.
Joanne: Oh, you're so right. Well anyway, kick me back to the 20th century.
Yeah, that's right. Listener response, and listener feedback on our social media. Um, remember, how could you forget, that you can find Two Old Bitches on almost any platform you do your streaming on.
Idelisse: And please when you're on that platform, make sure you follow us, you subscribe to Two Old Bitches on the platform.
Joanne: Don't forget also, we launched a blog, the Two Old Bitches blog on Medium. So we'd love for you to subscribe to that, to read our blog.
Idelisse: And there you will be a reader!
Joanne: Finally, finally, yes, um, write to us, you can just hit the contact button on our website and join us as you do every time you tune into Two Old Bitches in giving thanks to the TOB team, Katharine in Brooklyn and Loubna in Morocco, who we love working with. And thank every day.
Idelisse: And I hope, I want to thank my good friend, Joanne for our friendship. And I encourage all of you to reach out to at least one good friend and, and acknowledge the importance of that relationship to you in your
Joanne: Idelisse, you have the best ideas. See you next time.
