Page 70 - 1st Anthology 2011

the hunter won’t be able to get anymore game. That’s what they believe. So, everybody
was careful on how they handled the meat and the blood, and everything was used from

the animal, everything. I don’t know if it was a practice here.

We used to eat beavers and muskrats. When I came here people only ate the meat of deer
and elk. They use to eat beavers too long ago. One time Jimmy Meguinis Lands Manager
came to the elders meeting and he said there’s beginning to be too much beavers. Two
summers ago he came to the elders meeting and that’s what he told us. We don’t know
what to do.

My grandma told me they are sacred. Everything is sacred but God put it on the earth so
we can eat it. They are just like the wild animals. Up north they eat beavers here no one
eats them now. I mean since I’ve been here I know nobody eats them. They use to sell the
furs but nobody eats the meat. So it’s true what he said there are a lot of beavers. They are
sacred. He can’t kill them.

We all have to die, one day we are meant to leave this planet earth and years ago I told
you I’ve been here since fifty two. When they have a wake, it was just one night. That was

the practice. So over the years there’s been a practice of two nights, even that Katie said
it’s not a Sarcee practice. So I know most families do that so I don’t know where to draw
the line.

Katie said at a pow wow you don’t have pipes there, you just don’t. That was not the
Sarcee practice. Everything’s kind of changed and people do their own things. I’m scaring
her. That’s what she told me and I observed that too. I’ve been here a long time like I said
I saw the Chief and Council pow wow. They didn’t do that. She said it’s not right doing

that there. You tell them that but so far they haven’t done anything.

The people that have been here longer than me like the lady in there, Bertha, always
telling me they didn’t do that. You tell them she tells me. So that’s another thing that’s
disturbing to me. I think they’re teaching the children the wrong way. Maybe they do that
in other tribes but they didn’t do that at home either. If you have to do it, you have to
separate the events.

I’m not telling you any fantasies. What I know my experiences from being on this reserve
and what I know from Katie. That’s what she told me. She tells us stories. She knows what
it means.

I feel more comfortable when I say Sarcee. It was Sarcee when I came here and I forget

what year it was they changed the name. The name of the tribe to Tsuut’ina. They say the
word Tsuut’ina means something in Tsuut’ina, a large group of people.

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