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spirit of the father 23Billy Frank Jr. personal collectionForced to cut his hair, silence his tongue, and learn the American way, WillieFrank Sr. took up the big horn at boarding school and played the “Star-Spangled Banner.” Seated, middle row, fourth from left.At boarding school, Willie Frank even learned about the whites’God and their heaven. “If you die, you go to the great place that’s goteverything,” his teachers told him. The religion never made muchsense to Willie. He already lived in paradise. The mountain fed theriver. The river and the land fed his people. Every year, the salmonreturned, darting upriver to spawn. And Willie was alive. No. Hedidn’t need the whites’ faith. “The Indian, he don’t believe in theGod, white man’s God,” Willie often said. “He believed in the GreatSpirit, that’s what [Indians] called what they believed in, the GreatSpirit, some kind of spirit.”One day Willie’s trousers split from the crotch to the bottom ofthe pant leg. That was the end of St. George’s Industrial School forhim. “I’d go to the seamstress three times and she had no time to sew