EAST MISSOULA Many people know an abbreviated history of Native people, a story of death, land loss and oppression.

Fewer people know the story of Native American resiliency, the healing strength of families and the power of Native spirituality.

These messages were delivered during the "Breaking the Cycle of Violence Restoring the Circle of Care," conference that ended Saturday at Walla Walla College.

"Our people have had their backs against the wall many times in this country," said Iris Pretty Paint, co-director of the University of Montana's Office of Research and Development. They've experienced Sept. 11, 2001, over and over again, she said.

"9-11 was not shocking to us," said Pretty Paint, who watched a nation mourn. "A lot of us people said, 'Ohnow they have a little understanding of what our people went through.'"

Natives fought for the homeland but eventually, war and the colonizers'sdiseases would reduce the Native population in North America by 90 percent at the start of the 20th Century. "We died and it was painful," Gyda Swaney, a UM assistant professor of psychology, told conference participants.

Today, Native communities, families and individuals are still recovering from the losses. The few who survived were forced to give up the very things that had sustained them for centuries, including sacred objects such as powerful medicine bundles. When it seemed nothing more could be done to wipe them out, the survivors' children were stripped away and sent to boarding schools.

Still, Natives didn't disappear, although many turned to alcohol to numb the pain, said Swaney.

Songs and languages survived to lift their hearts, said Pretty Paint.

Conference organizers Leon Stewart and Emily Salois, brought Native people and non-Native service providers together to remind both groups about the resiliency often accompanied with humor that has kept indigenous people strong even under the most painful circumstances.

The speakers' messages came across loud and clear to participants who arrived from throughout western Montana to be a part of a conference where prayer and song long held traditional aspects of Native spirituality were used to bring everyone into a positive frame of mind.

"The process of participating is a cultural experience," said Amie Thurber, director of the National Coalition Building Institute. "It's just as important of the content."

Loraine Bond, Boy's and Girl's Club program manager in Missoula, was affected by the stories of heartbreak, resiliency and humor. "It made me cry. It made me laugh," she said. "I've heard the history before but this time it was personalized."

Bond said she attended the conference because she is seeing more and more Native kids join the Boy's and Girl's Club.

"It's given me a different perspective on how brave someone is to walk into a white culture service provider and say, 'Give my son a big brother.'"

A number of Native families are seeking positive influences in their children's lives even as their communities are washed by violence and crime. In Canada, a 16-year old First Nations boy has a 70 percent chance of being sent to prison, at least once by the age of 25.

"What are we doing to help our kids?" said Crystal LaPlant of the Blackfeet Juvenile Justice Program. "There has to be something better for our children. I'm tired of seeing the hurt in the kids' faces. You see it all over."

Maylinn Smith, UM Native American Law Clinic director, reminded people that half the Native population in Montana is under the age of 20.

Conference speaker Andy Chelsea of Alkali Lake, British Columbia, has become an international role model for Native resiliency. Even so, he remains aware of forces that work against tribal communities. He told his audience that wrongs were still being committed against indigenous people. More than 500 Native women in Canada have disappeared in a 20-year period, while police have done little to figure out what happened to them, according to the Native Women's Association of Canada.

Chelsea said Canadian and U.S. national leaders acknowledged past and continual wrongdoing in September when they voted against passage of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Chelsea and his wife, Phyllis, were invited to Montana to share their film and story about how the couple helped 95 percent of their Shuswap community achieve sobriety.

Kim Markuson of Missoula cried when she saw the Chelsea film, "The Honour Of All," because it reminded her of the effects of alcohol in her own life. She's sober now. Still, she is reminded about the deaths of her mother, father and brother, who all died premature deaths. At different points in their lives, alcohol dominated them.

"It just makes me mad at how alcohol and drugs have torn our communities and families apart," said Markuson. "We've healed a lot of people, but there's a lot of healing that needs to be done."

She said people could start by letting go of grudges. "As a community, we need to forgive each other. I've learned to forgive. That's the way I live my life."

While participants were allowed to recognized painful pasts, conference organizers encouraged everyone to create a plan of action as to how they could bring more people into healing.

Each person was asked what they would do personally, in their community and their organization, to break the cycle of violence.

"When you're in the community, you're giving, giving, giving," said Sharon Beauchamp, a Missoula resident. "This (conference) is to renew my own commitment to sobriety. It always renews my hope to make change as an individual, like the Chelseas did. Fort Peck, here I come. If they can do it, other tribes can do it."

Joe Pablo, a mental health therapist, has seen the damage done by alcohol, drugs and domestic violence. "I try to help people get hold of the thought they can make a change and own their problems, instead of pushing them away. When you own it, you take control."

Pretty Paint reminded participants that Native American people were like basketballs and rubber bands. A basketball held under water will bounce up when given a chance. Or a rubber band stretched wide will regain it original shape, even if stretched to the point of breaking, she said.

"The minute the government takes their hand away, we go back to what's normal to us," she said.

Salois said it was important people understand where Native people have come from, and equally important to remember their strengths as they move forward.

"My hope is, even if it's only one person, that they will go home and say, 'I can make a change like Phyllis Chelsea did in my community.'"