Page 51 - 1st Anthology 2011

went in and we finished the tipi because we were all tired and I was lying on the ground.
The grass was kind of wet, I was looking up at the tipi. I was thinking to myself, how in
the world do people long ago master to put a tipi together? How to interlock everything.

This guy, the one I was talking about, that was taking pictures. He stuck his head in and
took a picture of me. I was sleeping. I turned around and said what do you want. He said I
want to ask you a couple questions. So come in I told him. He sat there beside me. He
started talking about religion. He said can you tell me in simple words how I can go back
and tell somebody, it’s been bugging me he said, he asked do you pray to God? I said yes.
He said which God? There’s only one God I told him and I couldn’t get it through his
head.

So I told him to come here and lay down beside me. I was laying down on an old carpet. I
said you look up. He said what am I looking at. I said look at the tipi. You see where all
the four tipi poles are tied together. He said yeah, I said you see where it’s all wrapped up
with raw hide. Now look around it. You see all the tipi poles are interlocked all the way
around. Now the question you asked me, do I pray to God, and I said yes.

Notice that rope coming down and it’s anchored in the ground so the tipi won’t blow
away. So this is me, the rope is the prayer going up to God. It’s right in the middle. You
notice all these poles, every pole that’s a different religion. You know where they end up,
they join up there. So next time that person is asking you, every tipi pole is a different
religion. When you pray to God looking at this rope it goes to the centre with all your tipi
poles. That’s the best I can explain it to you.

He looked up and said now I understand. Now you go and tell who ever is bugging you.
He came back two days later. He gave me a lots of photos of all the different stuff he took
pictures of the tipi. He said I have nothing to give you but I’ll give these to you. I said
okay, and we will put them away because I was looking for it the other day. We have so
much stuff and I can’t remember where I left them. I’m trying to remember that guy’s
name, that’s what I’m trying to remember.

I mean it’s good because it refreshes your memory and it happens. What ever happened
in the past it’s good to record. Hopefully it’ll help a lot of people in the future because
were not going to stay at 1700 people all the time. I have so many nephews and nieces, it’s
hard to keep track of them. I’m trying to remember but its very embarrassing like who’s
your mom and dad.

Long ago it wasn’t like that because we were all together all the time. Now we spread out
very thin. We don’t know what the other guys are doing. We would probably meet them
every couple of months or maybe a year that you might run into them or something. All
you know they might have children, or grandchildren that I don’t even know about. Some
of them separating from each other, some of them leaving each other, making new
families that you don’t know about. Well there’s a very big challenge.

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