"It's native American awareness Week in Lame Deer, Mont., and time for the Clean Indian Joke Contest. At many schools, the week is a serious occasion; at Chief Dull Knife College, it's a lighthearted celebration with a chili cook-off, art show, tepee-raising competition and a stick-horse race for adults.

The winning joke is from a 12-year-old Northern Cheyenne boy: "Three men are riding in a pickup--two in the cab, one in back. The truck falls into the river. The two men open their doors and swim out but can't find the third man. Finally, he comes up. 'What took you so long?' they ask. 'I couldn't open the tailgate,' he says."

The self-deprecating humor is familiar to the 4,500 residents of this beautiful, barren 450,000-acre (182 hectare) reservation. Irony is almost unavoidable because the realities of life here are grim. According to school officials, nearly half of all families exist below the poverty line. Unemployment runs as high as 85%. Alcohol and drug abuse are appalling.

The bright spot is Chief Dull Knife College, named for a Northern Cheyenne hero and fervent advocate for education. It and 36 other tribal colleges and universities, with a total of about 27,000 students, are a little-known part of American higher education. Like the other colleges, Chief Dull Knife was founded in the 1970s in protest over the curriculums that white institutions offered. "There was no connection with the reality at home," says its president, Richard E. Littlebear. The Indian students often had to endure racial cruelty too. "They called us 'prairie niggers,'" recalls one."

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Postcard from Lame Deer (Time 10/16)