Page 88 - 1st Anthology 2011

about one year old their kind of mischievous and I didn’t know where the mother was. It
was just headed straight west and he was just boogying.

My grandchildren gave me a watch and it says Grandpa. They gave it to me and I treasure
things like that. Those are some kinds of sacred things I have. My drum is sacred. Like I
said my cousin gave me my dad’s drum and its forty years old. It has L B on it and it says
Bruce Starlight and Victor Starlight that’s Lucky Starlight. They are brothers, half-
brothers and Lucky gave me that. I gave him tobacco for it. I told him it’s a good thing
you did for me and from my heart I give you tobacco and I put it away I don’t use it. It’s a
gift and its forty years old that drum. I don’t use it I just put it away because it’s sacred.

My nephew from Morley his name is Clint Snow he gave me a buffalo rattle nine years
ago and I use it at Bruce’s sweats. He likes that I use my rattle in there when we sing our
songs. He’s got sacred songs. I have my own song that was given to me and it’s a healing
song that I sing. I have my own songs in the language that I sing.

To walk in a good way and to strive in a very good way that’s what it means when you
translate it. When you translate the language it just like as soon as you translate it, its
empty. You ever notice that and when you say it in our language it means more and when
you translate it, it’s empty. You ever notice that about translations well that’s what I’ve
found out in my life. I treasure the language.

When you say Oki in Blackfoot that means Hello, you say Tansi in Cree and that means
Hello. Up in Dene they said dant’aa and us we say Danit’ada. I asked Bruce and he says
it’s a good word to say because we have to modernize our language. He always says
Danit’ada to me because he’s my cousin. My grandmother taught me how to say good
morning in Stoney, but I don’t know how to say good morning for tomorrow.

That was my late grandfather, he was a quiet man. He was a Holy man, Medicine man.
He’s the one that taught me the language. For instance to pray in the language and never
give it up. When I was small I use to go down there with my parents and he was getting
old. It use to be in his eyes.

He used to say where’s that horse and he’d put me in front of him and we’d go to Two
Crossing by the graveyard. He talk to the horse and he use to scold it in our language and
he’d say you don’t want to work for us. The horse would just shake his head.

He use to teach me how to make bow and arrows. He taught me about the way you peel it
and at night you wrap it and bring inside till it dries on its own by the sun and how to
make the bow. You know the strong willows by the river or the creek, that’s what they use
for arrows. He said it doesn’t matter on what kinds of feathers you find use of them. He
said don’t kill a bird just for the feathers.

Everything is sacred he told me. Every animal, we have has a purpose on this earth. He
told me about dogs, a long time ago he said dogs were our companions and they packed
our animals. They were pack animals like horses, he told me about long time ago and how

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