American Indians make do without the creature comforts - telephones, cars, indoor plumbing - that the rest of the nation largely takes for granted, according to a new Census Bureau report.
The lack of amenities is an indication of the poverty on many reservations rather than an adherence to traditional living, as some might want to believe."There are many traditional people who would like to have plumbing, who would like to have heat and who would like to pick up the phone and dial `911' instead of traversing a muddy wash to get help," says Valerie Taliman, spokes-woman for the Navajo Nation, the largest U.S. tribe.
Tradition is held in spiritual ways and in customs or language, she says, not necessarily in sewage disposal or indoor plumbing.
More than half of Indians on reservations don't have phones in their homes, the Census Bureau says in a report to be released Monday, although nationwide, that's true for just 5 percent of all households.
Three Arizona reservations are at the top of the list for the highest number of homes without telephones, with the San Carlos Indian Reservation in the lead - nearly 84 percent.
More urgent is the number of American Indian homes without adequate plumbing, including indoors, such as flush toilets and hot and cold piped-in water.
Nationally, 20 percent of reservation households have inadequate facilities, while less than 1 percent of the nation as a whole has the same problem. Not since the 1950s has the nation's rate of inadequate plumbing facilities been as high as the 1990 American Indian rate, the statistics indicate.
On the positive side, the Pascua Yaqui Reservation in Arizona has the best record of any large reservation of homes connected to public water systems, 100 percent, and just 1.1 percent of its population lacks complete plumbing. In addition, more than 60 percent of houses on the reservation are considered new.
In contrast, the Navajo and Hopi reservations have the highest numbers nationally of American Indian homes without adequate plumbing, 44.3 percent and 30.6 percent, respectively. Just 9 percent of Hopis and 18.4 percent of Navajos live in new homes, the census figures say.
Taliman says the reasons for the poor living conditions are "multifaceted." But chief among the problems, she says, is that the federal system has never adequately compensated American Indians for giving up their lands, despite treaties guaranteeing such compensation.