A Talk with Sitting Bull's Great Great Grandson

good morning i'm jeremy johnston the managing editor of the papers William F Cody and on behalf of the buffalo bill historical center I want to welcome you to today's presentation we have a very special treat with us today here with the Ernie Lapointe he's quite a quite a speaker and he promised and I hear about two three o'clock in the afternoon and then I I do realize that a number of you are on tight schedules with tour buses if you do need to leave all I ask is that you be careful with the doors back there they tend to slam shut very loud so if you could just as you leave make sure you close the door gently behind you thank you I now want to introduce Chris Dixon Chris is an associate editor with the papers of William F Cody and he traveled all the way from Glasgow Scotland just introduced Ernie so Chris half the lycée tales are true I did travel from Glasgow Scotland but I traveled from Glasgow Scotland in June and I've been based here in the buffalo bill historical centre and for the lasts seven weeks but I am here to introduce our nilla point and it's a great honor to introduce early it's been a privilege and having him here in Cody to speak and over the last three years and in each occasion and I have had the pleasure and the honor of introducing him to a group here in buffalo bill historical centre Emily is the last surviving great-grandson of Tatanka Otaki setting bow he is a decorated Vietnam vet he runs his own charitable educational foundation called the sitting Bill Family Foundation he and has written a book which contains the oral history of Sitting Bull's family he has a produced two DVDs in which he is actually recounting some of the oral history of setting bills family and he's got a new DVD that will be coming out later this year called Sitting Bull's voice which is about the work that he has been doing to ensure that his great-grandfather is properly remembered and that his great-grandfather's commit and to wala quwata the lakota way of life and is passed on to future generations sitting bill as I'm sure a number of you are aware had a connection to Buffalo Bill's Wild West many of you may not be aware that Ernie's family had additional connections to Buffalo Bill's Wild West and yesterday Ernie and Sonia his wife is with him this morning what helping us to fill in some of the details for those connections Oliver Lapointe who was the who would be Annie's uncle he was the son of Emmys grandfather's first wife Sonya who's the genealogist as nodding I got that right and we've located in our collections a number of photographs and you know some of them there's a very very famous photograph of a group of Lakota people on a tram in Manchester England when they were there with the Wild West in 1903 and someone has written on the photograph that we have grandma LaPointe's traveling sure so we always think of it as Buffalo Bill's Wild West but from now on I'm going to think of it as grandma LaPointe's traveling Sean and so I just wanted to say that but the work that we are doing in the papers of William F Cody and to try to recover all of the documentary record about Cody his immediate connections his walk and both in his early life and when he was out here on the plains then later when he became a performer and later still when he became a developer and an investor in this part of the West in particular is something that we really value the sort of partnerships that we can develop people like Sonia and Anthony who can help us to fill in some of the gaps in this information but we really value the support that we have here and both directly from buffalo bill historical center and indirectly from a lot of supporters and investors and donors who make Oliver what compares impossible so we would like to thank you all this morning for your support for this event for your support for the peoples of William F Cody and and if any of you would like any information about our project we have a website called the archive.org and some of my colleagues at the end of the presentation will be passing out and some information on bookmarks about our website if you'd like to find out more about our work and if you're not yet financially supporting us if you would like to financially support our work even in the smallest way that would be absolutely and most most welcome so thank you for coming this morning I want to just by way of introduction to to Emily I want to say just a few words one of the things that we've recovered through our work is a copy of the 1885 program and that's just a scan of one page from the 1885 program that's the page that's about setting bill from the 1885 program and I'd like to give this to Ellie and Sonja as a in recognition of their visit here this morning but I'd like to read a few words from that program about katayaki just by way of introduction and welcome you know a lot of people from our background Europeans and Americans struggle to understand Indian societies and I'd like to mention four Lakota expressions that would be used about a leader all of whom all of which would used about Cudahy on okay we chachalaca which we tend to think of as medicine man Atlanta which is we call us of Warchief two other terms walk each other and blow Tujunga which were used as terms of honor for leaders and in using those four terms a about Don Quixote our key setting bill Lakota people were recognizing him as a great man when I read this 1885 program knowing that many of the people who worked with the world West where Lakota speakers I recognized the qualities that Lakota people associated with their great leaders like setting bill in some of the remarks that were made in this program remember this was only ten years less than 10 years after Little Bighorn and many people were identifying the Sioux and the Cheyenne and these people that had fought out here as a savages and bloodthirsty hostiles and modern US that's not the way that Buffalo Bills world west brought about setting bill they said and I'll just briefly quote this as a means of then introducing any to you Tatanka Sitting Bull a hookah Papa Sue was born on the Missouri River in 1830 in early life he was noted as a hunter and warrior and in early middle age he gained prestige as a medicine man the Sioux order of priesthood and a counselor by shrewdness diplomacy and force of character he gained a lasting influence among his people and became by common consent the consulting head of his nation and with those watts probably written by John M Bach in 1885 I would like to introduce to you can you see a Anila point sitting Bills last surviving leg ransom thank you I appreciate humbled by the invitation oh I've had years third time I guess I said something that touched these guys so they invited me back couple times but but actually in actuality nobody knows the truth about Chris I do he's actually from Australia who came by the way of Ireland who lives in Scotland and speaks with the English accent not too Australian so that's the truth about but anyhow I always tell people when when I come to presentation like this if they really are truthfully wanting to know the truth about my grandfather in my culture and how they do that is they offer me some tobacco and well actually the tobacco is not for me to smoke Western ceremonial presentation to my ancestors and I ask for their permission to speak on their behalf and you know most of the time when I do this they always say okay I better tell the truthful you know you better not be adding or taking away so Chris offered me some tobacco so I I have to be honest and truthful and one of the the truth that's never been revealed or told really to anyone while my great-grandfather is first and foremost overall anything he was as a person and she was a Sun dancer and he did this from a young age to all the time of his murder and in honor to him at these presentations I will always like to honor him for what he did for our people so we still exist today and that's to honor him with a Sundance song and you know Lakota culture we always believe that everything happens in force so always you know I've always asked this I'm this question too even native drummers cannot you know to be sitting at a drummer even spiritual people I would love during odd they got this drunk and all that and I would ask them who starts the song its powers or ceremonies and actually I always get the answer oh it's the head singer or the lead singer or whatever I tell my beg to differ with you it's this right here this is the first guy who starts to sing it and to our culture this is a living entity because it has comes from a hide one of our four-legged brothers and then the second one to start is this one and also it is it comes from made from materials of our green growing things our relatives in our four legged brothers are made out of this and then the singer but then that's only three so then I have to invite my wife to come help me with this you know so that makes it four so if you'll come up help me with this song Oh Oh now as a Christmas referring to my grandfather was travelling would sit on a crowd Cody you know that is uh you know he did only one tour with him and I didn't really realize that my my father side but they did tours with with Cody - while during this when I went to Germany while back we were in Dresden and I went to a Beck Book Festival in Leipzig Germany in while we were in dry a Dresden you know this was an East Bloc you know back for a long time and there was a individual there he had all his this documents and newspaper clippings everything of the Cody show what I was there and the person he's talking about was on and all over in Lapointe was his name he had yet photographs in you know I have to always be the one to remind my wife things I forgot to do that so she left all this stuff at home so I have a hard job but anyhow you know the truth of things that I have to talk about and about my great-grandfather they're usually stuff that is already in neither my DVDs or my book so what's and then another thing that i wanna i want to clarify was chris also is i am the closest living male decided to save on great-grandson but we have a whole shitload of descendants I have children I have nieces nephews grandchildren great-grandchildren you know they're they're out here though they're scattered across the country you know my sons they're addicted to Apache women so they're hung out in Mexico I got a daughter she lives in Texas then I got some grandchildren who live in Washington Oregon so you know behind normal mom I know every you know descendant from me that bond and we have all this documentation that proves our descendents er lineal descendants II - technically you're talking and the irony of all this is most people don't realize that we are people especially the Lakota people we were the most documented people in this country ever since when you know the European Americans came into our area here that kept reference even these mountain men and trappers they had little notes they wrote in which religiously relative visited they wrote the name of the occasionally touching little is liran and some of the noted people that were within a camp so you know we have a we have a real you know if you do the family tree you have a good genealogist kids it has the patience to to follow the name once you get past a certain point going backwards you have one name that you can follow and the irony and the bad thing about this is how the other US census takers or whatever they really miss miss interpret our names of our ancestors so during the time of my great-grandfather's there were five Sitting Bull's but you don't know if they were all Sitting Bull like my great-grandfather's name was Todd Tonka yo doc you taught Kunta is a buffalo bull yo ducky is he starts to sit down he hasn't said um he's not sitting so his name was a buffalo bull who sits down not City yet you know so this is in a Lakota language everything is really precise and to the point or in English II always have many different meanings off of this so when when they said this and you know in his pictographs he always has a delight involved the feather you know while he didn't do the picture as his uncle or his brother did and because I was showing a buffalo was trying to sit down he hadn't said yet he's not sitting you can still see his legs are still up but he's out of angle and that means he's starting to sit down and I guess when when the translations happen instead of reading a buffalo bull sits down the his closet Sitting Bull and that kind of is a generic name term for for my great-grandfather and the same way was I always tell people you know there's a there's a there's an Oglala his name was young man afraid of resources and everybody says guys afraid a resource that's not what his name means as me his name means we ChaCha with Josh at Iza Tasha coqui coqui papi what that means is because the Oglala is used to you know do little skirmishes of the pawnees and wasps and these ponies know maha's when they see this horse that fear the rider that's what that his name is not that the writers afraid of resource it's the people who they recognize this horse and they fear the writer it's what that name means but when the translations come along they they just kind of butchered it so my goal in Sitting Bull Family Foundation and I perhaps a nonprofit organization is is to try to re-educate but the people come there to understand that our peoples language at the beginning I only had 300 words and about that described the whole everything so you can you can imagine how how simple it was when you're sitting on a conversation when you say something it was didn't speak much but a lot of wait you didn't sit there and you didn't talk for two hours you know I mean I was I just got good at that at the beginning my wife is all doing this so I quit I quit doing that but you know these are things that that needs to be rebrov to the forefront to share with the people that like Chris said you know as you came that we were not bloodthirsty savages or killers or the rape the women in order or just wanting the murdered people we didn't do none of this we were just protecting our homeland and our way of life the wool Lakota this was what we were trying to do and I had a person tell me how he rode and I have to talk to him he ceremonials me a few times he said my great-grandfather hated away he never did hate nobody you know if your Sundancer which I am I mean not before it became a son as I had hate I had enormous hate they also both so intense that that I just couldn't live with myself I hated the Vietnamese people for what happened no not my over there but I turned myself around 180 degrees because I realized that what was the purpose of me hating these guys I mean we didn't have no business in Vietnam in the first place yeah but you know the irony is I go to the wall in Washington I remember the names of my friends there that didn't make it home but always take it to heart that I pray for them every morning and every night that they're doing well in the spirit world but maybe their teachers you know because the ones that I knew that died they had a very powerful visions of how to change the world we used to do this in a bunker talking about the future and they never made it home maybe the Creator needed to use them in a spirit world you know to create peace there and even leave arrested up to us to try to try to do something about it so so when I became a Sundance I understood that hate is a powerful emotion that can destroy you and another one is fear you know that's one concept I never had you know really feared anything you know I mean I always shopped sometimes it's something but I never feared anybody or anything because but on the other hand I understand fear when somebody hears something you can hurt somebody and that's not the way my great grandmother would want me to me so I tried to explain these things in my own way of trying to do it was words and with examples but I have a long journey to go on this and I tried to try to be I guess you might say I try to be productive in what I say and you know what one thing that that I had a man just asked me you know it's about my family tree my bloodline and in 2007 the Smithsonian Institution had a lotta hair that was taken off my braids grandfather's body when he was murdered in 1890 by the co-surgeon Depot and his leggings and a pair of leggings on me took them off his body after he was dead and for souvenirs for himself and in 1896 he donated these items to the Smithsonian and under what they called it a new law that came out called nag but a Native American graves repatriation Protection Act the any government funded organization across the country has to return human remains Winery objects of religious items either back to the descendants or to the tribes so the Smithsonian had these hair in the leggings and they started first with the guys he had any children or grandchildren descended so then they went to the military an army you want to touch it no because he was an army so now the turn around you started looking for descendants and of all things with Maryborough up in North Dakota you know the kind of adversary to our tribe no but he knew about me how he knew about me is another question I don't know but he told the Smithsonian to contact me so they did and he asked me I told him I said yeah some great grandson has got three sisters who are great granddaughters nieces lon do you have any documentation I said yes I do so he came next was the house I mean I don't know he was had a private plane or something yeah you wouldn't know so we sat down we invited my friend had a camera there he filmed the whole meeting we presented him showed him all the documentation that we had the traveler moments the birth certificate or death certificates you name it we had it all here you know the winner comes and we hadn't created nothing we just had the paperwork in my wife has been working on creating this family tree at that time and so he took all these documentation to make sure that there was nobody left out or well you know and then we had had a ceremony called honk eiope which is a making of relatives and it holds a lot of weight amongst the Lakota people and he thought this had something to do with it but it's not really uh a blood chart and ascendency John it's just between two individuals back here who took each other's relatives but that doesn't mean their children and grandchildren are that it's just these two did disappear all you do see recognize them as your ancestors did this and you hold respect for each other so they had no no clout in in lineal bloody sentences so he went through this I mean 2003 2007 and in the process of doing this this ancient DNA specialist from Copenhagen Denmark is nimble - Eska Weller slim he came he wanted to do DNA on the hair and my sisters and I because in Europe they had that found a a genome he calls it all males have this certain coding in him that it has onto the children grandchildren male and female and and in u.s. used the mitochondrial DNA come from the female well this is you know he's explaining it to me so I told me happy come to the ceremony to ask and he he's a scientist educated man you ask somebody is has education like that day he looked at me and I said but he was he was cool he said okay he wasn't coming in so I asked her repatriation of his anthropologist Smithsonian to come be part of the ceremony I said you know so what she did I says you know what my great grandmothers acknowledge you know these guys really are educated guys you know they they don't understand spirituality you're gonna walk into my world now justifying how how I live so they came and I adapters I have to let that slide there because they're all my Sitting Bull's voice documentary is going to come out in October to see they talk about how what their experiences are but anyhow they allowed him to take three inches of the hair so he's the Smithsonian I mean the hair looked just like it was just cut off today it was real nice and I asked bit like I said how did you guys do this he said we put a some kind preservation on there she said to keep it from you know routing or whatever or they did the color was sidelined and cyanide is what keeps the hair from from deteriorating and he swears up none they didn't do that but the testers at Copenhagen because they're going through this process of China trying to take the DNA I'm quoting out of the hair and it's a slow process because I don't want to destroy what's what small DNA that still left some of this because a lot of the Sun I destroyed the DNA he said and he only has this much hair so he's got a significant amount but not he what he wants to do is he wants to solidify this coat so that that there's no way that anybody can claim they're related without this coat they had the guy had the same exact quote he he said this code is three billion to one and he said mitochondrial is three hundred fifty thousand to one so he says there's a big difference between this code that variant that developed and now so but waiting for this in for him to get it more solidified so that when we go public with it that nobody can come and see how I'm related and and I know every Danielle descendant living today I know where they are I know who they are I know their names and I had contacted them and I have told them to come forward and let's sit down you can from our what we've done in our DNA it's in the front of the book I said extend your your lineage you know so so far one or two of them came forward in I don't know what they done you know the non generations are too lazy and now you have to do it for them almost yeah I had to go with my head and with my boot I guess but all that booze at moccasin I don't want to hurt my toes I told them this yeah I see now but anyhow it ever be yammering because he only gave me an hour here so I'd like to know what if you you know if you have any questions about anything but my grandfather your wife stand up I can do that but I have to use what are these here did you hear me not okay but okay any more questions but actually that we have is a moral history in which is passed out all these days so all these stories are difficult to recall because this is this is the difference between languages our oral history is an accurate accounts of the person television and then you have another one Italian assume Atlanta the telekinetic when the points okay and then this is this is the most important values of my culture but at the point ran into soon flat it really has became simplified I speak but they they should never tell me anything about the cloud but now we're all Maddie's these are my do these documentaries with Norma Cameron and I had a hard time of the book because it's forestry and I said once you write something put it on writing like this it becomes history it's not it's not portable anymore and what you ask gradually so I haven't taken to a ceremony as experienced as a securities did only this is society's now is that you not understand click here's that this Creator you and how is it was most important these years to this that's how either in my boys and then you try to tell your oral history with a lot of humor that's how you keep the audience to do that say something I thought my mother didn't always love to listen to she's a curator should tell something to series like an issue say something funny and often wondered I said what was imagined by the Austrian after your computer you can working on a document and you have until the pages decide to save itself yellow saved by the statement is scores in the Hydra the same way with prison flaps apart and then you're ready for the next information and then every time you release this information megabytes so this is it this is up or this piece is carried out but actually I'm trying to cooperate in many bases a teller as best as I can English men have a little so either way and then my occupation they're talking about the Nerds appearances dr. Surrey the reason I say this was asked our office here at Coney my friends filming and so he asked I told my sister I love Janice before in salvaging I always asked him to use my golden force my voice answers questions Hey yes did you have anything to do with translation on that I was it was a it was a the worst leader charge was the language teacher so in a new did you listen to Kevin yeah looks like he decided we got we face because he he was taught I was beloved with a female way of where the male dialect recruited you know like I say actually like see I see change I said I love my above a woman she leaves a yellow up so there's a you know difference between a million eyes and males talking females I was just curious how much time did you physically grandpa every day well I know I know what you mean by mommy I do i do my ceremony's in the morning in the evening join a team every day and I asked for guidance you know and sometimes not a great novelist all spiritual guy said that guide me no tell me but at the times when he appears to me what why does he appears to win why I'm trying to picture him in my mind and so I know and I give me an example sometimes when up here I was in Monroe Michigan I think it was a cerebral thank someone this year that's total tonnage and trust me and they have ospa combined how there were presentations we did and was a movie theater had a stage like this and so there are always lights shining on universe been 500 people and I saw a movie theater and I was up there and started to him talk and I heard some people talk behind me besides I was holding the microphone anthem oh there's nobody I'd like this way is nobody there and I just kind of felt the presence of so many people next to me are those talking and after I got through in the table cell phone from a book signing some there are new to system ad she dropped about 60 years old I guess she come out she shakes my hand she says I bought your book already she said last time you were kind of my mom now she said I just can't dalish into your talk she says she said what I'm a psychic medium she says your honor see things she said you know she says I really appreciate your great grandfather and your mother when you both know besides you she said you see them how she said just you look that amazing yeah I live over there she said they stood there she says and she told me she said when you got earlier talk she says you did look anxious but they went into the wall into into the screen orphanage with Miss Raine so I said I know they used too much because they've got me here must be again I just don't see you I sometimes feel her presence factors that your well I think I don't think he really realized there's a there's a story in my book and in my DVDs and also in my new one that I really think may make the sense of what's happening now is he had it with his first Sundance he had a vision and as a young man he's walking across his field and he had secured a man or a voice crying for help so he went to investigate and he found this wolf laying or with some arrows inside and he was weak he's dying and he looked at the young boy he says can you help me so he wouldn't eat removed the arrows out of there the wolf and he dressed the wound for him and he nurtured him and nursed him back to health and he stayed with him until the wolf we get up now walking wolf starts a walk waiting he went a couple of ten feet away and turn around I looked back at my grandfather and said he said for boys is for helping you for helping me this way the nations will know you're just by your name and he'd read and he thought you know it's going to be the native tribes I didn't realized it's going to be around the world you know people doing but just by his name so and then and then how he was he was a son dancer he cared for the people even after the Battle of the Little Bighorn he prayed for customers and his men who died there so this is the kind of compassion he for human race and all living things I mean you got to see my new DVD because it expends a lot of these things you're talking asking you know and then it's again return my wife nice of what I'm talking about that all he's a son Kyson for all living things yes with your children and grandchildren in different parts of the United States are you able still to keep up the tradition and the language what's that that part is kind of difficult because my three of my children there have their mothers from Texas use Alabama clearly India and she didn't teach them anything I didn't I didn't get a teaching I think so they they know some of hacci words from their wives you know but that's it and it's really hard because the the interest in the language is not there but you know you have to you have to start a meal and you have to start talking to them and that's I learned it you know it no book and nothing just listened to my father and my brothers and everybody they talk to each other in Lakota you notice all does my first language just like I'm talking English they talk like what they do together all the time even though we couldn't you know it was outlawed by the governor couldn't speak I wake up I only did so that's that's how we learned in but in sitting your family foundation will try and bring that back the language yes well right now it's it really hasn't wherever you haven't established my which my thing my plan yet because I'm so busy doing this other stuff you know and my board members delvis I was asking for suggestions now look at me I think I don't know maybe it's because it's under my great-grandfather's name that they don't want to say none I see it's you're part of this group my senior input help me get this thing going and what we want to do is actually is in actuality is we want to build that one get some acreage somewhere not like from the Black Hills somewhere and set up teepees and I got elders who's going to come and be storytellers and I need craftsmen meet work makers guys who can tell them guys you know that do certain things and share with them people who come there to go through there you know the young people there's going to be a there's going to be a task in their life what do you have to balance two worlds the world out here in the world over here and it's going to be a difficult transition because yeah you have your your practical education thing over here which teaches you the past and my culture teaches you about tomorrow what are we going to do and so many people used my great-grandfather's words and they don't understand the words he said we must let us put our minds together and I'll stop there and explain what I mean by there you know you sit in a circle and I think Michael I in the back room there he was at 1:00 yesterday at the he went to a conference it's a meeting and you have all these people sit in a circle and everybody is trying to implement their idea this is the way it's got and he ignored what else is what that to me my understanding of putting our minds together is let's see if it doesn't it was sit in a circle and everybody has an input I have my input and we got to formulate using all these inputs and how to create something for tomorrow but for the future generations or the generations there to understand and not only just talk about it but to experience delivered by example this is the so you can't you can't create something that's impossible you have to create something that you yourself can do to show and to understand that this is the goals of tomorrow but on the other hand you have the school over here that teaches you about the past you know and another thing was education is you have a school teacher in the front and 40 students and the school teacher is teaching these 40 students out of a book that's written by some individual and you're using that book to teach 40 kids how to be like him in his book or in a Lakota culture you have 40 elders teaching one child how to discover his golden is telling in life how to be lee is so this is the difference between the future in the past you know because you're trying to garner a awakening in a child to understand his position how he's going to help the future and you know instead oh and nobody campaigns for political office you know we don't have politics but you know we have we touched on Sandman council members all they do is by example people see them and number one thing go and sit around vision is recognizing our women because in a ricotta culture the women was a backbone of our site where we were a society that turned to and looked at our women for advice I mean not in front of public but in tens or you know behind the scenes because I hate to say it but we men are really all we have as Eagles and all we have is you know yeah we have nothing you know except you know get mad and punch each other in the nose well two women can sit down and negotiate terms in a peaceful manner subtle arguments or issues without punching each other in the nose and you know Lakota society they never sat in Council they don't have to they can sit in the shade over there enjoy your sitting around the council but the men who are chosen to be that council they have to have at least a little bit of a wisdom of a woman to be able to make the right decisions without anger without negotiations but on the other hand you proved yourself as a as a provider for the camp and protector but also you have to understand the wisdom of the woman you never argued with them he never looked them in the eyes because in our culture to say if you look your mother or your grandmother in the eyes she can put you at a point where you could lie so if you don't look them in the eyes you're telling the truth the truth comes out of me then and if you look at somebody any eyes and say oh you know this is always learned this when I was in military looking in your eyes and you're looking at this kinda iron and and he asks you a question and you always I catch it many times tell something that is not true and in the end you have to face the consequences of your lie you know so but if I'm not looking at somebody in the face especially my wife and I don't like to look for any eyes I'm trying to say some because you know she might make me look the way she looks at me on my lies I don't want to do that yeah yeah yes well I don't know if it did or not but I really relied on my intuition you know what what she calls an intuition which is your what people call your gut feeding or whatever and most naked guys that I knew in Vietnam that all came back no was it I was walking point you know I don't know why maybe they thought we had mysticism about us or something I don't know but all they did was they made us hone our senses a lot better than anybody else our sense of smell feel inside here but I was just like anybody else you know I was there and but you know every dad got up next alone if it happens it happens I don't fear you know I should die the day it's a good day to die yes society well I I don't I don't let it bring me down that's what you mean I ever since I was a kid you know I was always subjected to go to church you know the government said we had to go to church every Sunday when I lived on the reservation and as a child when I was five year old kid you got there they're pushing under this religion and I you know it turned me on turn me away from it and at home at night my mother told me the stories along a great-grandmother in my culture and was more interesting again I guess in a way it's in the blood or it's in a gene or something and I have nothing against religion but I don't like to be forced to do something that I don't want to do and this is you know that's what Christianity was doing to us as native people we're trying to take away our our warlock or if ours is in the religion is a way of life and our way of life is to me is more acceptable in Who I am than in Christianity you know where yelling I don't want to say anything I don't like talk about religion or politics because it brings feelings tomate you know that you shouldn't say so I'm just telling you my way it's not a religion it's a way of life and you know I'm sorry I didn't answer your question about this but I don't want to like I say I want to get into a discussion about religion but well I'm an unfeasibly my culture that's what I'm doing in and again within Native communities there's some that that would bite me over religion you know because they're assimilated to Christianity and they called what my ceremony is a song I did is a pagan religion or something you know but it doesn't I don't let it bring me down because I still believe in my culture and I live my culture so this is you know we can we can coincide with each other if they will accept and understand who I am cuz I understand who they are culture I think your pins either they used look what the language comment as code talkers select enamels but the Navajos are more recognized you know as there's a quote on this but the last one I think passed away last year the last living Lakota Dakota his name was Clarence wolf dead it was a Miss Irish but he always talked in here he always spoke Lakota I mean he said they had just like the Navajos didn't symbols you know that they identified what they're saying you know they identified a turtle is a tank or something you know or you know things like this like what the language you talk to each other and he said if we went look bit longer he said the Germans probably would have figured out you know what we're saying because the language is really close to us no I haven't that is left up to the consciousness of people you know who's doing this you know it's really a dump you'll struggle like they say because most people don't understand what we hold sacred you know and all land is sacred the whole earth is sacred to us I saw what the people not just areas the whole area and what you do to it you can have to face the consequences in the future this is what sitting well founded Foundation has has a part calm environment when you teach it want to share with it with the people how we live with the environment we didn't destroy I had them look in balance with it yes right that's environmental signal Family Foundation and so we're doing and we're trying to again is it's a big fight between the the guys who have these pieces of paper a bunch of dead presidents and Ben Franklin honor in their their idea is more powerful than the aspect of spirituality yes I joined the army 1966 and I didn't really listen why don't you go to Vietnam I had to find out you know what I was walking around carrying his gun for you I mean and the way it was it was a learning experience for me you know so I could use it I catch now as a tool to understand to share with people about what war is and I realized that there's got to be a valid different answer to war there's got to be a way to settle disagreements issue out a gun in war you know I mean in the old days yeah my wife laughs I mean you got two guys that Haiti don't like each other because I fighting over a woman and then the war started you know it's never two women fighting over a guys I was I went through it one last question okay appreciate thank you again to all of you for coming this morning thank you for your attention to to an knee and and thank you very much for for the questions if anyone would like and a copy of Emily's book or one of the DVDs and they'll be on sale upstairs in the museum selection store just to your right hand side as you go out through there and the main foyer area and and they will be there to turn to sign copies of the book or the DVDs for anyone who would like them st. until be there in the next few minutes so below my yellow and thank

Channel: Buffalo Bill Center of the West

Views: 588,214

Rating: 4.8394294 out of 5

Keywords: Sitting, Bull, Great, Grandson, Ernie, Lapointe, Lakota, Sioux, Lakota People (Ethnicity)

Id: c8E1UquRde4

Length: 63min 17sec (3797 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 12 2012