Nimosôminan Asini: Grandfather/Elder Vern Harper - Cree - Life, Foster Homes & Prayer

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] the area I like to talk about though event for today is the torrential downpour schools with the combination of the foster homes as though in a third is one step through the residential school arrests unless we're scooped up and put in foster homes and the foster homes and in the residential school the whole purpose of both of them both of them was to be further east lake character cultural reference and it allowed people could argue its did the most damage while they both did but in many ways I would say in the residential schools I was in the foster home system in the foster home system was actually when the ones were going to the reservation schools they had each other you know the cousins brothers family but the ones of us that went into the foster homes we had no one no one no family and the whole purpose of that was that yeah I get angry when I think about it because like I could have been raised by my uncles and aunts and the Children's Aid and the Quran said that my family on the reserves are unfit to uncles and that you're unfit to race and that wasn't true if they were to raise me and my brother but they put us in the foster home and the foster homes were they they took us in not because there was any love for us they took us in for money it took us into money they were making money about us and that's shown Heiser making money off of the government and so and we were put in foster homes that were basically they just took us because they didn't pay to most of them were racists or people and that's the kind of environment where in and hope my foster mother was was to take the Indian other and she did to my I might win and two other brothers she but she couldn't do it to me I resist that and and I didn't believe the lies they said they said my family didn't want me you I never I never believed and so when I came back from Korea I went looking for my family I found them as change my life yeah and I found out that it was all lies that the church never met and see that churches are a part of that responsibility of the damage that's done survey of people you I remember five years old I had lived with my mother in recent her and five years old I talked tree I was living in recent hurt and I could talk tree and when she died in a way and then when I went into foster home I never heard creative gentleness so I went looking through my relatives so of course I lost the language when I was in the foster home that was speaking creek the when I went into foster one of my foster mother made me and my twin eat soul and with no hot voice he invited spike Cree she hit us with a stick that kind of stuff so my brother's lost the language and they she but she believed they believed the lies that were torturing their people didn't want us least I felt it wasn't true the whole thing dee feather in us for us to take everything away from us you know Greek a lot of suffering I've been healing from that all my life to recover from the damage was done but I type I told them that I'm I'm gonna live to a hungry and I'd say that story about and people would say what you want to look to a hundred I said I want to look because I've ever seen my wife did most beautiful Indian woman that I want to make sure no one gets hurt it also gives me that motivation to take care of myself and to be there you a lot of our people are trying to fit in this system my signal why we wasting time to be like them what we need to do is take care of ourselves keeper culture we need to help people on the reserves game plan and we need to educate our young ones but also culturally to having a white man's education to get good job they're going to have to do that they're gonna have to have a good education but they also need to have our native education and our native education is is that is it's a culture that's what I do such ceremonies and everything and it can be done must be done you I'm here today to give thanks and honor the spirits of my ancestors and to come and pray my spiritual name and the blessing given to me is a sin increased sometimes that he say us any meaning rock meaning stolen and in stone is I like being called stone and my belief is solid as a stone solid as a rock my belief in my culture my people my ancestors my nation and the great mystery someday I'll go into it but now I'm here to pay to make put my tobacco down and give thanks for all the blessings that are given to me and it's gonna help me to tomorrow I'd be helping this in my my granddaughter's home to the spirit world I give thanks for being in my life for that short time you yeah drinking mother's blood and I really I've got to learn to understand that water is the blood of mother earth and without it she can't survive him without it weekend this is called an English they called dreamers rock it's the most sacred rock for digital a nation chip away people thousands of years young warriors with spiritual men would come in fast up here and they fast on the top there's a and your bodies have made a place and the and that people's for a while they forgot about this place and wasn't looked after now the people are trying to take care of it look after it and that's our responsibility as native people we take care of Mother Earth and other Earth's would take care of us and this is part of mother and she you know it's done her job we need to do our job we have a beautiful culture just recently my people lessons another code to make the rain up in here yeah Toby you so this is very special and thankful to be able to sit up under a rock and they give thanks for the ones who helped me climb up here [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] everyone's motions no Cossack spirits of our ancestors ask you to take our sacred thoughts or seek refers to that great energy sources would call it a great mystery we pray for people good health long life prosperity and peace we ask blessings Ford elders and elderly we pray for the ones and hospitals in the prisons or sick we pray for the little people may they always be safe spirits of our ancestors we ask you again to take our sacred thoughts or sake refers to that great energy source we call the Great Spirit and we pray for the people long life prosperity and peace we pray for the elders create for the precious little people may they always be safe be glad because because we watch I hate all our relations with our custom [Music] you

Channel: Jaguar Bird

Views: 861

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: yt:quality=high, 720p, HD, indigenous, elder, man, teacher, holy, medicine man, cree, spiritual, Nimosôminan, Asini, stone, dreamer's, rock

Id: mMBL1Q4Yigc

Length: 19min 14sec (1154 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 17 2018