Ipats Indian Story

This is another story from Lu Penrose Bond that she told to Marji in a recorded interview in 1982.

"I was the only one of eight children who had straight dark hair, brown eyes and olive skin. The only one in my family who did not sunburn. And I was a tomboy. I liked to wear my brother's overalls and go barefooted. Play all the games the boys played. So, my older brother Penny kept saying, "You don't look anything like the rest of us, and I'll tell you why. Cause the indians left you on the doorstep when you were a baby." And I believed him!

"My mother used to call me an Ipats, because when I would play outside in the summertime, I didn't sunburn like the rest of my brothers and sisters, I just got darker skin, and darker and darker, and I tanned beautifully. And my straight dark hair, she would say, "Oh! You look just like a little Ipats!" Well, I didn't know what an Ipats was, so that was alright with me. So, I looked like an Ipats.

"Well, when I was about ten years old, I went on a trip to St. George, Utah with my mother and some other people and we were driving past the Shivwits Indian Reservation and there were the dirtiest little kids playing aground in the dirt. They didn't have a nice playground to play in like we did. or beautiful park or anything. They just had all these old huts. Looked like someone had just taken bunch of boards and hammered them together, and that's the kind of houses they lived in on the reservation. Nothing around but dirt to play in, and a few trees to give a little shade. And my mother said, "Oh! Look at all the little Ipats!" And I was looking all around to see what's an Ipat. I don't know what an Ipats is. There was nothing there but a lot of dirty, little, straight-haired, dark-skinned kids in their dirty overalls, playing in the dirt, and I started to cry, and I cried and cried. And my mother said, "What's the matter?" I was crying so hard I couldn't tell her. Cause until that minute I didn't know that an Ipats was a little Shivwits Indian and they all looked so dirty. I cried every time I thought about it. So I said, "You always called me an Ipats and I never knew what it was before.

Anyway, my brother had convincved me that I didn't belong to the family. I was an indian and none of them were. Well that wasn't true at all, because I have the birth certificate to prove it."