Page 86 - 1st Anthology 2011

I’m teaching my wife Tsuut’ina and we have a song “I give you my heart” and in the
fourteen years we’ve been together I wrote it. Some day’s when she feels down or tired I
bring out the drum, she likes that. For my grandchildren I play songs and they just dance
to it, like my granddaughter she just dances to them. I told her make sure your home on
time and make her moccasins because she wants to dance at the Tsuut’ina celebration.

I went to the celebration yesterday, which is good because I helped my uncle with the
pipe. It was important for me because I was his helper because he’s older than me.
Arthur, that’s Reggie’s brother. He lost a daughter too about three months ago.

I got him a card and gave him tobacco on that day when I was there. Before I went to the
graveyard I went to the buffalo paddock and prayed there because, I was told, whatever
I’m told in my heart I listen to it. I listen to my heart and do whatever it tells me to do. I
put a cigarette out. I broke it up right by the buffaloes.

I don’t know too much about Bullhead. What I heard was that he wasn’t from here they
said, he was from the States. He got scouts to find the reserve but he was a kind hearted
man. He taught the people to be good to one and other, but yet he was a warrior. He
fought for the Nation and our race. Bullhead found the reserve. Calgary use to be our
land, we use to call it Gusts’ists’i it means elbow. They call the bundle the Beaver Bundle
and that’s sacred and I found out in the years to come that they only bring it out when
the thunder comes. That’s when you open it. The peace pipe is the Bible for us, the native
people. We have it like a Bible and we have to hold on to it.

It’s for the Beaver People. We are Dene but we are Beaver People of our own. The Sarcee’s
are Beaver People, and that’s what I’ve learned in life. That we’re a unique race of our own
like we originate from the Cree’s, Blackfoot’s and Stoney but we’re originally from
Athabasca. As far as I know we migrated from as far as Arizona and went to Athabasca.

Everybody use to talk the sign language and the way you shook hands back then is they
reach all the way up the elbow and that’s how you knew you were brothers. They treated
each other with respect, the tribes. There are a lot of stories between the Stoney’s and
Sarcee’s. There’s this story that the Stoney’s raided Sarcee long time ago. One night they
raided for a bunch of horses and took them back to Morley. The next day the Medicine
Man saw all the horses and two horses had big ears and here they were mules. They didn’t
know what they were. The Medicine Man told them that’s bad medicine. He told them to
take the mules back to Sarcee.

So they had to bring them back. They didn’t know they were good work horses. That’s a
story of its own by its self. They raided and stole horses and found two mules well they
call them jackasses. They are good work animals and the Sarcee’s knew how to use them,
but the Stoney’s didn’t know anything about it.

We used to be told old stories and we used to camp at Blue Berry Hill. We used to go up
there and pick blueberries and there was something called a bear berry you can’t find it
anymore and certain berries. They also use to pick their medicines for ceremonies.

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