Page 52 - 1st Anthology 2011

Big Belly, my father-in-law George Runner that’s his dad. He was a very powerful
medicine man. I mean to what extent I really don’t know. The thing he had did, I really
don’t know what he accomplished. Like within the reserve, because it was a little further
back than my time. I think it will have to deal with my dad’s era. I see pictures, we have
pictures. Like that’s on my wife’s side and she is related to him. It’s funny because on my
side I’m related to Two Guns and my wife is related to Big Belly.

As for the Chiefs the only one I can think of is Jim Starlight. Which is my uncle. He was
married to my aunt Mary Jane. He was a very fair-minded person. I didn’t dabble too
much on politics but the things that they done is the result you see today on the reserve
that they worked up to, financially and all these things. The good thing about them that
they knew their language and the people that they worked with knew their language.
That’s how come they got so far.

Today I don’t think there are many that knows the language that’s in our leadership. They
know here and there, but they don’t know that much. That’s what is really lacking. You
have to know your language coming from everything. You have to understand and you
have to be with your people. Be amongst them, not away from them. You have to mingle
with them, ask them what they want, what they need, and what’s the problem.

That’s how these old people used to be, and they visited each other. Then when the
phone came, they started phoning each other. When big meetings were going on they
would talk to each other sitting there talking in Tsuut’ina, and the people around them
don’t know what they’re talking about. Thinking it’s a good thing. Right in front of the
people they’re dealing with.

They never decided anything right on that day. Just give them couple days, I have to do it
right now, they can’t decide right there. There’s some times that they made some bad
decisions. He died in 1966, and I was way up in Sundre on a trunk line working going
north we got the call that he just passed away. Okay goodbye, we put down our power
saws and told the guys where we were going and everybody went home. We started from
our reserve moving north. It was a shock and I was surprised. I figured he would live for
another twenty years. He just left us suddenly. I respected him because he was my uncle. I
respected him a lot.

As for Gordon Crowchild, he was good. He was trying to follow in his dad’s footsteps. He
tried his best. You can’t step in anyone else’s footsteps or you can’t duplicate it. I think he
was the last one that stayed with the people. He kind of lost his objective of where he was
going to go, what his goal was. There was no goal or nothing or what he was trying to
work up to. Things like that I think the reserve suffers their own consequences. That’s all
I can remember.

The advice I can give to you children, is to be proud to be an Indian. I know Indian
doesn’t suit us. Some people call us aboriginals. When I hear that I kind of feel like I’m an

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