Page 75 - 1st Anthology 2011

have to teach in life, to work together as a family. It’s important. That’s about all I can say,
that everyone has their own version of life but that’s my version. We have to enjoy life.

You always got to have the right amount of food. You got to have vegetables and fruit and
meat, and even fish. You know you got to have your calories but to a certain extent that’s
what we got to realize these things.

Only God makes that choice. We don’t. It’s up to the individual themselves on how they
want to live their life and you can’t tell people how to live, it’s up to them. Like other
people, I try to teach my grandchildren about facts of life. Teach them and that’s all I can
do teach them but yet they have to learn it on their own. You need to give them that
space to learn the environment. A lot of my grandchildren play hockey and baseball. All
sports and that’s good.

There were a lot of diseases. I lost one cousin. He was supposed to get a new liver but he
died from it, Bedford Littlelight. I went to school with him. There’s still some my age,
there’s Charlie Crowchild, Carl Big Plume and Steven Runner. There’s only a few of us left
around my age. There’s a gap in the elder’s from sixty five. All of sudden it dropped down
to sixty one or sixty two like that, a lot of them are gone to the next world.

I remember it seems like all of a sudden when television was introduced the language
went. All of a sudden we were all speaking English instead of our language. The
households, you go to certain homes and they can speak the language. You have to marry
out to bring new families. There was three hundred that came to Sarcee from what I
remember. We were all related so we had to marry out to have kids. That’s the way I was
raised. I married but I’ve been divorced since 1980.

I still speak Tsuut’ina like I pray. I was taught by my grandfather to always pray in
Tsuut’ina and talk Tsuut’ina is what he told me. Well he told me in the language like him.
He hardly spoke any English. Don’t give it up. They will try separating you from your life
and try to teach you English ways. You’ll always be what you are Dina-tii. He said that
means native. He said we are all Dina-tii here, Tsuut’ina. That’s what he told me. He said
to always speak the language and don’t never give it up he always spoke to me in
Tsuut’ina. To this day I always pray in my language.

I went to church, Anglican that’s where I was baptized and I went to Anglican Church. I
was forced to go to church, like my parents forced me. My dad always used to tell me to
keep still tɬagusida. It seems that God was an English way of talking. To us he’s the
Creator, well to me English is God. To us Nato means our Father, our Heavenly Father.
He’s the one that looks after us. I was taught to believe in the old ways, but to pray for the
good ways. Regardless of whom you are what race you are, you pray for them even if they
don’t know you.

I worked at the Seven Chief’s Sportsplex for two years. I enjoyed working because we had
a variety of work and we’re our own bosses. We were taught what to do. Once I learned it
I just did my work.

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