Page 73 - 1st Anthology 2011

grade four because she failed me in grade three. So, I went to school for seven years, day
school to grade six.

I spoke Tsuut’ina fluently and they thought we were talking about her. We weren’t, we
were just kids trying to speak the language and keep it. They tried to brain wash us and
told us we couldn’t speak the language and we had to speak English.

They even forced us to wear glasses even though we weren’t suppose to. She couldn’t help
me spell, to this day I can’t spell properly. I can read properly but there are just some
words I get mixed up, but I can still understand quite a bit.

We couldn’t enjoy ourselves in day school. When I asked the teacher to help me spell she
was too busy with someone else. She even hit me on the head with her high heel. She was
mean towards me I don’t know for what reason and I think I’m not the only one she
picked on. There was quite a few of us.

I read a lot of books about our history. We originally came from Athabasca, and then we
migrated to Sarcee. It was called the Sarcee reserve. Bullhead was the founder of our
reserve and I remember the Chiefs, and I can remember as far back as my uncle Jim
Starlight. He’s name was Chagudi he was Bruce Starlight’s dad and I remember that.

My dad Willy Little Bear always worked and my mom taught me the language and that’s
how I learned about the traditional ways. Boys would do certain amount of things like
work and men weren’t allowed to do dishes and stuff like that, that was a woman’s job.
The men’s job was to look after horses, the live stock. I was taught to work since I was old
enough to walk, to haul wood, to haul water. I had my chores cut out for me I had to do
my chores before I could have any kind of play time.

I always had to start the fire and get the water. We used to have a water well quite a ways
from the house. I hauled water and I had trap lines. I had a trap line for rabbits. We lived
on wild meat and rabbits, in those days there was no welfare. The family all worked
together as a family like my grandparents, my uncles. When the wild game was killed,
they bought it home we shared it among the family and like flour and stuff like that.

I had my own dog, my own horse, my dog’s name was Buddy and horse was named
Nickel. My dad trained my horse to where he was just so tamed that they tried to use for a
bucking horse. All it did was run around. Everybody laughed because my dad was a horse
whisperer. He knew how to talk to horses.

I have an idea of how to do it because I have two pups that I’m raising. They are only four
months old and I try to teach them about things. Like how to do things, and I protect
them from the coyotes.

Our knowledge of our reserve we have to go back and teach it. Also about the good things
in life. You don’t have to rich to be happy but you have to be humble, and that’s a hard
thing for a man and woman to be humble. It’s the only way to live. I was taught to pray

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