Scott says she called the FBI herself when Cocchia started selling bottled water called Cherokee Rain. But Scott says she didn't have the energy to pursue the documentation that agents said they would need, so nothing was done.
Cocchia says she was selling the water for an Indian-owned business based in Kansas City, Missouri, that was trying to expand to Texas and Oklahoma. She says the water was a good idea, but the company couldn't compete with Ozarka's cheap prices.
Deron Neblett
Deron Neblett
Lauren Silverbird says Cocchia's heart isn't Indian.
Related Content
More About
Scott says the Indian community has become divided between people who support Cocchia and people trying to corral her. She says angry Indians have threatened to sue Cocchia but have never filed charges because they don't have the money or they don't want to air grievances outside the Indian community.
What Houston Indians need, Scott says, is a pan-Indian leader who can bridge the gap between warring tribes and bring everyone together. "Carroll saw a void and moved to fill it -- no one moved to stop her, or knew how to stop her," Scott says. "She's got good ideas and she has no fear of approaching anyone. Those are really strong qualities if they're accountable and responsible."
Strife occurs within urban Indian communities across the country, says Jonathan Hook, a Ph.D. in Indian Studies from the University of Houston and president of the San Antonio-based American Indian Resource Center.
"People tend to forget we're made up of 500 different nations so there are a lot of different agendas," Hook says.
When Indians from different parts of the country, with contradicting cultural traditions and beliefs, are lumped together, they often fight, he says.
"It's like having all the Baptists in the same room and having them all agree," Scott says.
A large problem within urban Indian communities, Hook says, is that people have discarded traditional Indian communal philosophies, instead employing capitalist mind-sets.
"There are people today who have adopted a white mentality who say, 'What's in it for me?' And that's been destructive," Hook says. "There are people who don't care about the ethics or morality of issues -- which is a very un-Indian perspective."
The ad hoc committee formed to investigate Cocchia has disbanded. Members fought among themselves and couldn't continue working together. Jay and Lauren Silverbird asked Swimmer-McLemore to move out of their house.
The ad hoc committee was also striving to form an American Indian heritage center. But work on that project was suspended in late November; members say Swimmer-McLemore was trying to take too much credit and have too much power -- then he stopped holding meetings.
"He's about as bad as Carroll is," Lauren Silverbird says. "He's got good intentions, but he's still a lost soul, too. I can't endorse either one of them. I'm thoroughly disgusted with these people."
Sitting in Kenny & Ziggy's eating a plate of pickles and chicken salad, Cocchia looks like she's about to cry. Her eyes are glassy, but she says she doesn't have any tears left. She says she gets her "butt kicked" all the time and that people say mean, nasty things about her because they want to overthrow her and take control of the chamber. "I started this thing from nothing," she says. "You're gonna have people trying to hurt you, because they want to be a part of it."
She says she doesn't understand why Swimmer-McLemore is "throwing dirt" and slandering her. "All of the things that he's saying we've proven were wrong," she says. As for his accusation that she embezzled money from Wordcrafters, she says her son accidentally took the group's ATM card, thinking it was the one for her account, and withdrew $50, which she immediately replaced. "Everyone was happy," she says.
Cocchia says she feels like someone is attacking her child. "It hurts," she says. "I didn't do anything to deserve this." Cocchia agrees the Indian community is divided and not working together. Her membership isn't what it could be, she says, because Indians by nature aren't trusting. "Indians are great for sitting back and watching," she says. "Indians are always that way. They sit back and they watch. They don't have a whole lot of reason to trust."
She, too, thinks the community needs a leader everyone can trust and respect. And she doesn't think she's the one. "I don't believe a woman could," she says. "It has to be male. Everyone will like him and trust him."
She says her final fight is to get the Native American community center up and running. "When this community center goes through, I'm just going to leave town," she says. Or maybe she'll just leave when she finishes the proposal, she says.
She talks about the legend of the White Buffalo Calf Woman, the iridescent Indian spirit who appeared 2,000 years before Columbus when the Sioux were starving and fighting among themselves. The woman came to the village bringing prosperity and peace. She taught Indians to smoke peace pipes and to solve problems with words, not arrows. She said if they practiced what she taught, there would be peace and harmony and she would return. Which is what Houston Indians need, Cocchia says.
Cocchia's waiting for the white buffalo woman to come. She knows she isn't that woman.
