Living and Dying in PRYOR, MONTANA
In Pryor, Montana, life moves at the pace of a subtle breeze grazing atop blades of grass in a field. The stillness of an afternoon can feel calm and tranquil, while also inviting goosebumps on the back of your neck, as if ghosts have seized the movement surrounding you.
Unfortunately, ghosts and spirits of life lost are in more abundance on Crow Reservation, the Native American land that Pryor sits amongst. Out of all reservations in the Unites States of America, Crow Reservation is the sixth poorest, with a 30% poverty rate, along with a 27% poverty rate in Pryor specifically.
Homes with no running water or electricity, broken down cars lining the streets, and boarded up homes due to drug raids of old meth labs obviously tell the story of trauma and systemic hardship passed down from generations before.
But what most people don’t see is an epidemic of kidnapping and murder that plagues indigenous women on native land, often unseen and unreported in the national media. Indigenous women face the highest rates of violence per capita out of any other race, by being sexually assaulted, stalked and preyed upon by non-Natives.
Nearly 84% of all indigenous women experience violence in their lifetime, and are 4 times more likely to be sexually assaulted, and on some reservations are 10 times more likely to be murdered.
Sadly, families are frequently left wondering about their missing loved ones for years, often without acknowledgment from law enforcement or national data reporting.
All of these photos were taken in Pryor, Montana in the August of 2019, on a 10 day stay where I focused on getting to know the Crow people, talking and listening to their stories, and hoping to shed light on the truths of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) that most of America knowingly or unknowingly turns a blind eye toward.
During my time in Pryor, and Crow Reservation as a whole, there were a few conversations I had, that I’ll remember for the rest of my life. Some that I’ve struggled to share, because I’ve found power in keeping special moments close and between only those that experience them.
But one of these conversations in particular was an elder Crow Tribe member explaining to me her fear of spring time. I thought it was odd, to me the spring means flowers, sunshine, and an escape from a grueling winter.
But in this reality so far removed from my life in New York Cit — not only physically but in a variety of ways — every year she feared the spring because of warmer weather.
“When the snow melts, that’s when bodies are found.”
This is the reality that Indigenous Women live with.
The full gallery of Pryor, Montana is below.
