08 Dr Twyla Baker Clanship Systems

We rely a lot upon the female line to define who we are and the father’s line is we also give a lot of deference in respect to the father’s line because you are a child of your father’s clan and they’re the ones that take care of you kind of on a spiritual side and they also have the right to discipline you and things like that so you have to give them a lot of difference and you’re always acknowledging them publicly when you’re like well if you’re doing like a feed or if you’re doing like giveaways and things like that you always acknowledge your dad’s clan your clan father’s your client aunts that’s what you call them so in that culture that life way the clan kinship system is very much so still alive and very muscle practice on MHA nation and it it helps to define your life all throughout your life from birth all the way to the grave we still practice things like our mortuary custom which is affiliated with their client kinship system a clan father or a clan aunt will be the one who buries you and to be asked to do that type of thing is a big honor that’s a it’s a it’s a big honor and you’re technically you’re not supposed to say no you’re not supposed to decline when somebody comes to you because they’re grieving and they’re asking for their relatives to come and take care of this person who needs to be sent to the other side so I’ve always loved that part about our life ways and our customs and the fact that it’s so very gentle it’s a very compassionate custom we I always thought that we and not being like a social scientist or anything like that but I think we do that as a means of taking care of the ones who are grieving because you go and you ask your grandfather’s family and the clans father’s family is the one who comes does all the cooking does the arrangements make sure the space is made for like the week and things like that and also the what we call a senior pallbearers the one who stays with the person who’s passed on throughout the night and like I said it’s like a it’s a big honor to do that and it takes and it removes the pressure of all of that from the grieving immediate family and I’ve always thought that’s just so loving that’s a very loving custom even and it is hard and difficult of time as like loss would be it’s it’s indicative of how very close we were as people we were very reliant on upon each other and our family relationships to take care of each other like I’m sure you’ve heard that though there’s no cousins amongst our families there’s no aunts or uncles you just have additional moms and dads and for your cousins you have more brothers and sisters you know I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing yeah but it’s definitely a fun thing I mean I remember just went growing up like in Mandarin and looking forward to going to Mandarin because I knew I was gonna see all my cousins and we were gonna go be running outside on sliding down the hill that’s behind my grandma’s house on garbage bags and cardboard boxes and things like that in the middle of summer and I’m just down the grass and stuff like that so it’s it’s kids your cousins or your first friends really so my family is a large family I come on the Baker side at least my dad had several siblings his dad had two wives one older and then she passed and then my grandma Blanche who was a young bear so which is also another huge family that’s a huge and they’re a singing family so that kind of got passed down through the generations and my dad was one of the original members of the Mandarin singers which is a very well-known singing group in powwow circles and then on my mother’s side she is a Mason but on her mom’s side she’s a Smith which is another enormous family it’s an enormous family on Fort Berthold so and they’re also a singing family they’re there her brother and her cousin stay there they’re pretty well-known singers and all the sons and nephews and stuff so it’s been a few generations now that they’ve all been kind of affiliated with powwow and things like that then there’s also ranchers there’s there’s cowboys there’s um of course we’re all Indians but that it just runs the gamut as to what everybody was affiliated with how we know each other and how we’re tied together you know so we were talking about basketball earlier and how a lot of people know each other through basketball and Baker’s a name that’s affiliated with best look basketball too so I mean this is just all the circles that exists at least in Indian country and I think that’s how we get to know each other on the various reservations as well I mean through powwow through ceremony through you know all of these different things that were where all these different circles that were part of so it starts to become this enormous family and that’s how you kind of start to introduce yourself even you know you start like even when I met mr.Bullen um I somehow he knew Tanya my friend Tanya who I play basketball with and you know that’s me so then you get that little you know like oh yes well we know each other you know we know each other and that even happens in the travels that I’ve had professionally like people will ask me because I get to go to all different parts of Indian country and I lived in the Pacific Northwest for a while and my roommate was Ned’s person she would take me down to Lewiston or to the communities down there and whenever I’d meet new people they’d say well who’s your mom and dad now and this is how you kind of build that relationship and maybe they know that maybe they don’t or and but quite often there was a lot of times where I would just be caught off guard because somebody from way far away would say hey do you know this Baker who’s in powwow and I’d say yes that’s my cousin so instant relationship formed and I love that about Indian country that we try to find ways to relate to each other and we try to find ways to make relatives make relatives with each other so yeah