"Native Homelands Along the Lewis and Clark Trail" (2006)

Lewis and Clark are and discovery thinking we're discovering this place and we're cataloguing Commerce and were going into land that is ours you know and in fact they're entering a really old tribal world that they really have no idea logical spiritual or physical concept of which to my ancestors wasn't a wilderness at all it was a beloved homeland we as in in people have always been here we as in in people have our own way of life we have our own language we have our own foods and we have our own religion we always say everything has a spirit the grass the flowers the water even even the heels they all have a history if the mountains can talk it would be amazing what they would have to say allow us to give the history of our people the way we want it to be told what'a who balls Bobby dr. Wahby hurt Scott Bakula our cook a evita baccalauréat laser look illegal pocket odds will you call ourselves hit out so back then we called ourselves Madoka which means ourselves we migrated and we discovered there was another tribe of people which was the Mandan people the newer duck as they call themselves powerful people beautiful people they were that's how we got our names they call us MIDI dari MIDI dosh those who cross the water corn was brought to us by a man dad leader you know at the beginning of our time his name is good for a robe and the Mandan taught that it adds a heart of how to garden and shared with them the seeds that they had in the springtime there are always prayers before any gardening was done the seeds were blessed the goose women society were invited to to come and sing and pray in the fall when you pick corn one of the things my mother always said is don't leave any behind ever leave a call behind because in the winter time they get lonesome and your harem cry everything has a spirit not only mankind our people gave token to the water each spring one mother nature's wake-up call key which was the Thunder the first Thunder that we heard we believe that the spirit world was just right here it's still with us and for that reason you know they created these circle of skulls mourners would go out there to the skulls and talk to the skull like person was still there because that was the belief they would bring food drink you know water or something out there to make that person feel like it's being honored or being welcomed we can take a buffalo and use every part of him and still use him for religious purposes at the end the skull of that say that that has a mind and that mind is strong and that's what's going to carry us each day you have these stories about these women carrying large loads of corn and looks like they're slaves and the men walking in front well those men are walking in front to protect if they were carrying the corn and somebody ambushed them you know they'd all be dead but those men were protectors of the village and the families and that corn belonged to those the women of that household they were going to trade the men weren't going to trade they were going to trade and it was the women who owned everything you know they owned the homes they owned the gardens honey tonic cooking except mr. gallego hawk moxie to do that see Miami escape Akane Tendo car yo yo daddy got bass aboard SS Keystone on its de banana style six Guardians Tony Pena cocky I was happy cannot distance up door we moved throughout our our area you know I get a kick out of when they said that we were nomads but we were in a very well-defined area depending on the season moving into higher ground as different roots and berries ripened and followed the Buffalo as they they migrated but in a very defined traditional area and you had the different clans moving where there was good camping grounds where get get out of the wind and cold areas brings were called Mac Cisco and boxy give me Waterton and mr. scoop astonished them beaver bundles were given to us they're the holy war that the Blackfeet engaged in right from the very beginning of contact with euro-americans was over the beaver I'm told there's over a hundred songs that a company they beaver bundle and their power songs they are representative of all of the animals on the earth including the creepy crawly things the insects and a beaver is one of the very few animals who create their own where they build their dams they're become so totally self-sufficient they draw the animals to the beaver dams the insects come the fish come it was a really revered animal they warned people don't trap in our country a lot of the trappers lost their lives because of it somebody once asked me how come you were so warlike and why were other tribes afraid of you and why were the new settlers afraid of you we did what anybody else would doing that was to try and protect our land was over here sir confirm EDA basic Wang sister Madison jihad Ambani no soku Menaka a sua Simba sook knockin Tom Okemah osawa here I got horribad young a Karaka be bison or even a key no Soloway semyonova k damn harmonise a key him becky boo knockin and gotta holla need em around I mean he was also a cyborg yeah I understand my mother's feelings and the love she had for this Lemhi area salmon area as we come up this way in this area she would be so happy that words cat district you know describe her happiness she says it's like coming home to my mother and my father daughter you don't understand this feeling this is like being in peace for myself when I come here it's like you she says when you go home to your father's land this is how I feel Jesus when I come here this is my home this is such a beautiful area you have everything you have the rivers you have the mountains full of deer this was like one of the plentiful hunting grounds and salmon grounds if you look at our whole seasonal trail salmon was one that we always hit and it was mostly where we all gathered a lot of the Shoshone bands would come up to salmon area and we would hunt and it would be a feasting time and a good time they used to fish on the Snake River there's a place where the fish you know that she told me that when they fish were them big sturgeons is to use rabbits for snares and they use when they hook one snag one or whatever and they'll pull them out on horse that's how big they were yeah I've seen pictures and how big they are like a wheel the spirit is still here and we always say a prayer because those spirits here are lonely because we're not here no more and that's why we come back to this areas we visit them and we talk to them Hey Oh Oh Hey Oh essentially certainly sure paging me home Yaman totally someone totally same she at ha - Maya - I ate a dozen con mister a hot thousand con beasts Lou system and there's a hot day another hot hardened me I'm fat so lately now the white man didn't come around from this way first my great grandmother used to say was from Tula from the north she said her folks or her grandparents somebody before her saw big scaly this means the white people come from south Julia from the north when Lewis and Clark first come around most of the people that was the first white man they ever saw the way it's told that they find the Salish and it's not really that way you know my ancestors saw them and watched them and allowed them to enter and they just stopped everything and helped these people that to them were very pitiful you know they were poorly equipped for material belongings you know in traveling goods they had bad horses and they they really needed what my ancestors had it was September when they met and so September is a month of the chokecherry so they would have had all their seasonal food from the summer they would they'd have bitter it and they'd have Camus and they'd have all of their berries harvested by that time and so here you have a pretty abundant diet I had a relative used to talk about it she died in 1960 when she was close to a hundred years old so families and she would say that when Lewis and Clark first got here our people wondered why they had a post player the black man was the bluej that's what they thought because our people they have a ceremony in a middle of wintertime that has a blue jay or impor several blue jays what what kind of a ceremony were they going to perform what were they up to that was their main concern was this one black man they finally communicated with each other and they got to go up and rub their finger on his face and find out that wasn't paint or ashes Yatta Yatta see was cocoon on una batalla tapa nicaya conifer a genious in a hammock or spica a guinea for Iceland chrysella caker people on Whistler SECAM Coquina Canary luckily he was but too hip to steal psychic datas cows cows Thomas Capel do canary be empty to Christmas and Kennedy was Adele Konoha reopen another key at our new name to talk Mimi poop nimiipuu means now that's what we call ourselves this purse it means we the people we call a precious land here there's a gathering place of our old people who who come here to had camp and rest and have a meeting with other tribes also they had horse races here and you know just a gathering with the Salish people there is a lot of interaction between the tribes there's a lot of intermarriage between tribes but historically even though there's some big mountains between us and in the Salish our people traveled over those mountains and there's you know that's that's where the Nez Perce Trail is it's the old trail that goes through here as was what the people that went to or the plains area to trade our kind of food with their kind of food there were all kinds of sacred food that our people lived on for years and years back before any other when a kind of food came to our land and they used a special trail what they call casaya act going to gather food and we call it not to new shocks trail to the Nez Perce and further it goes clear that stick net was the ocean and on the way they what they food they gathered they'd stop and dry it and and bury it and on their way back it take it all up and go back and spend the winter our our New Year is December 20th that's when we recognize that a new year is beginning and for us that's the time that the world turns itself around and everything begins to come to life again that's when the roots start readying themselves themselves to to come out and the very start readying themselves to come out and and we know that the fish are coming back it's the time that we celebrate as the new year the elders teach us that we become sacred because we're out gathering the first foods for the first foods feast and they teach us as we're handling that food to keep ourselves clean spiritually mentally in every way because as we're preparing that food what they tell us is that whatever we're feeling that's what we're giving to the people the beaver we call him with squish is a great monster and when we say monster we say it respectfully because beaver has the ability to change his own world and we we as man we cannot allow ourselves to change our world we have to live with the world but Bieber or what's Bush is monster because he has the ability to change the environment and the story goes is that coyotes piddly I and month 2 were fighting over who's going to be in charge of the fish who's going to be in charge of the water who's going to be in charge of the country and Billy I being our hero because he's so conniving and he's follow he's mysterious and he's missed you that's the way we try to look at ourselves on one side but the ions were supposed to attack each other to fight over the land and the water industry James and efficient and all things and they battle from from the top of the Cascade ranges they come tumbling down and they create the gaps on the valleys that flow from Snohomish and all the way down to Willow Luton the story behind that was is that was bush was finally beat by spilly I but only because of the sisters that resided in within him the sisters that resided within spittle I or three and they're the ones that had the heart and the mind to be able to accomplish things that's Billie I could never do on his own so in a sense when we speak we speak from the heart we pray from our heart we pray for our body and then we pray for our spirit so these are lessons that we learned through our legends and so we share them with our children so that they may be able to share with their children we have oral histories today that go back 10,000 years there is no migration story we were created here we did not cross any language we have our creation story here it would take me three days to tell you that story but we were created here we've always been here when we can go back and say this spot and this spot and this area was used at this time by these people that's what continues for us a way to keep our past a part of our everyday life and all of that history is carried through our traditions and customs and language and religion and our foods so we're reminded every day because of that past because we live it every day they were not nomads they had a purpose in wonder why they moved there was no calendar to tell you this is when you're supposed to do that and they did things according to the season there was a spring run but the other was first going up the river out of him he always hear about pemmican all I had the same thing salmon they took all the moisture out of it and they stored it and that's what they used to her for the winner they moved towards the mountains when it was time for either digging or for hunting and when they moved they always dug into the ground and lined it with three mats and put all their belongings into those storage areas and then they covered them up and marked them so they knew where they were because it couldn't leave it in storage someplace in town there was no such place and then that's where they would winter people have chosen to prepare for the winter they stay in the valleys in the mountains where it is beautiful and have the protection of the valleys in the stream from God Isabel I was like a Buddhist heretics is Turkish consul Clara what's axiom come on school crush every day it's over could our cuddly them Canali Velikovsky go there it is ask us so we the cupboards closed white color but by le pasa I said when we were what we were you about our parish took us down to the river that's what they were dried savile and dried all that that gathered fruit salmon were very important not only as a food crop but we traded salmon and unlike a lot of tribes our food came to us we didn't have to go out and hunt for our food and in this climate with the strongest winds we could preserve our food so we caught more salmon than we could consume and we would preserve it and this is what we were trade I could tell you what a story that the the that my grandmother told and this is a story that's a lesson she said there was a group of people and they were covering several and Durer dry at 7:07 was never wasted they used a whole salmon they fillet two things aside to put it apart the use of backbone drive that has a cup or cut up the salmon head to spread this out of it they still do that and there is size they used to pick out and it's triggered on a string ever and dry it it came winter that are that they were eating did eat it that they're dead they're their food was depleted you know the Guinean list then they saw they got down to the start cooking some of those little little bills and that lady came the one that she threw all hers away you know what she was cutting and they were picking about the well they said don't give her any she doesn't like him so so that was a lesson to learn don't be particular that was the thing ever an April everything has been ready to be harvested up on the hills just a few miles above the Columbia River the first plant to be harvested that we harvest is the balls and plant and we pick it and eat the stem and we eat it just like celery and it is just like celery it's got the string new fiber so we peel that off and then we eat it and that's a very important fiber in the early spring because you've gone all winter eating dried food so you really need fresh vegetables vitamin C vitamin E vitamin A and that's the perfect way to get it covered eat see our crush comic who can take a comic Sheldon psyche monkey agony e CIOs comics he were luminous flux the malooley auger co-hosts be able to covet eat flusche regarding the name chanute you know uh that's specific to that North Shore of look mouth of the Columbia River probably the most significant thing you can see if you come here is saddle mountain that's very strong place for system to monomyth that's a place where you could find power but also it's a place it's one it's thunderbirds home and a place of origin for part of our connect people on very strong strong place and its name is not in Shinagawa then I speak but it's in old Chinook and it's lalala hoof Allah host so when Lewis and Clark were coming down the Columbia River and they wanted to trade or they wanted to approach a village in a friendly way they were always approaching the wrong people they'd pick out someone they thought was the chief well we didn't really have Chiefs here we had councils in which the women sat and also made decisions it was really the women that Lewis and Clark should have been contacting to trade and they didn't chinook women really had over important role in our society and while most of the time men were head men that's actually not entirely true one of our main villages here in fact kumkum Lee the head person that's you know Chris very famous listen Clark's time his mother was the head person there and that's who he inherited that right from the turnip people were canoe people when that tide was getting right they'd go and get in their canoes and go down and go out and get their clams or catch a fish or whatever they wanted to do Lewis and Clark had moccasins they were wearing moccasins they were wearing leather pants and leather shirts leather tunics and they were wet all the time contrast this with the shadow people who were in and out of canoes and they didn't wear moccasins they went barefoot they were cedar because cedar when you pound red cedar bark it becomes very soft and they would weave that into a cape and a skirt for the women when you pound this cedar bark you're actually putting air pockets into the cedar so that not only is it waterproof but the air pockets insulates so it's also warmed and that was a perfect outfit to wear in a wet climate they knew when the fish runs were coming and he knew when they should be here where they should be there you know but all year around there was Auster's oysters and clams and a camp and prepare their fish and their food and he picked the berries and prepare for the winter food they caught those real real fresh fish right out of the ocean and up the bay and right up into those rivers to spawn and they knew where the where the berries grew and they picked the salmon berries you know in the huckleberries and and those different berries that they would get when I was just a young girl my grandmother told me that when they'd go up the rivers looking for the little wild blackberries that they'd look up on the hillsides and if the fire weed was in bloom the blackberries were ripe and that way they could just send the scout ahead to see if the berries were ready when the blooms came out they knew it was time to go gather their wild blackberries we respect this land that we live in if I take something off from the land then I want to put something back so the next person that comes along and lives where I live he can have some of the good things that I had without Indian people it they wouldn't have succeeded but there's no lotting of the humanity of Indian people it's all the heroic you know in endurance and strength and courage and bravery of these other people and the humanity of Indian people it is is it ignored or dismissed or excluded from from the story altogether when when that's the point that's the point

Channel: The Montana Experience: Stories from Big Sky Country

Views: 138,460

Rating: 4.6879196 out of 5

Keywords: Montana, Lewis and Clark, Lewis And Clark Expedition (Event), Hidatsa, Mandan, Sioux, Native American, Indian, Native, homeland, history, Blackfoot Confederacy (Ethnicity), Blackfeet Indian Reservation (US Indian Reservation), blackfeet, Narcisse Blood, Shoshone, Bannock People (Ethnicity), Cayuse, Nez Perce People (Ethnicity), Nez Perce, Walla Walla, Palouse, Wasco, Chinook, Lewis, Clark, Meriwether Lewis, documentary, film

Id: M8SMOQSBDm8

Length: 35min 50sec (2150 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 07 2014