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We did a book study with Standing Rock High School teachers and you know of course like a lot of our schools most of the teachers are non-native in the book that we chose to do a book stated with was called everything you want to know about Indians but was afraid to ask I highly recommend that yes so we use that we did a book study and that came up the teachers wanted to know more and they didn’t realize they didn’t realize how this all came about with the reservation and why there’s such an issue with jurisdiction you know well who has jurisdiction here on the land you know and how that impacts them as teachers you know and their students so that was that was a part good part of that book was he talked about the Dawes Act and talked about fractionated shares and how that all happened so but I and then we were able to bring him in so he was able to come in and talk to the teachers and they could ask him questions but that is a good book he covers a lot of what you’re talking about right here he covers a lot of that the sense of humor and can non-native one of the questions and there was can non-native get indian names and it depends you know some tribes are pretty strict about it and other tribes are not you know and so he answers some of those questions you’ve read it i haven’t read it cover to cover that I go in and I look at specific questions when I’m trying to figure something out yeah we saw him speak at Indian at summit in South Dakota’s were there oh yeah he’s very good he also talked to the high school students and he talked to the white show and worked with white shield so we were able to bring him in to talk to both school systems which was excellent and you know I can’t blame you can’t blame the teachers for not knowing and where do they have resources who can they ask without offending somebody I know at one of our professional development was standing rock high school teachers one of the questions came up was um what is a sweat where do you go to you know one of the non-indian teachers spoke up and she said this is going to be stupid this is stupid question but if I want to participate in the sweat where do I go who do I see do they put a poster out does this sweat tonight you know and of course those are that our community members at Standing Rock kind of laughed and took what they said no you just need to ask you know and you can ask what good how so you can ask different ones but they don’t know and they want to know you know so we can’t fault teachers for not knowing when they haven’t been taught you know and so I think just overall one of the things like the hope and I pray is that this document will become a part of our preparation programs for statewide teachers so education standards and practices need to put some teeth into it and say yes we’re going to expect that in order for our programs to be approved that a little part of it shows that they’re implementing this document in their teacher preparation programs

And I think you know this may be the time to talk about how important I think that what you’re doing with this native Essentials of learning is so valuable to not just non-native kids but to Native kids as well because even though some of us you know in my generation grew up hearing those stories there are so many of the younger generation that have never heard those stories and so it’s very important I think that they really truly discover who they are and we go back to the saying that you don’t know where you’re going until you know where you came from and for many of our kids um they don’t know where they came from and they have no one to tell them that and uh it’s just becoming harder and harder for them to grasp the idea that you know I’m I’m chipa or I’m Mitch or you know any part of the culture because it has been so far removed from the day the way of life of today and so it is very important I commend you on your work that you’re doing with this project and I can’t wait until you know teachers have access to it and can actually use it in the classroom and be able to teach students whether they be native or non-native about the cultures of the reservations in North Dakota

Hmm my first indian name was uh joaquin hotel gave it to me by my dad and i have a story behind that there’s always a story behind something and then my second indian name is give it to me after a sundance my sundance leader he said i’m changing my way of changing my road now walking a different road so i got a name spotted feathers so i got two indian names and later i was given a song i had my own song and some people have their own songs and i was lucky to get mine i really actually didn’t start school until i was about six one day we was playing along the creek and my dad decided it’s time for us to go to school soon he took us to school i couldn’t speak a word of english uh we fortunately we had some other people that knew how to speak english and everything so they kind of interpreted we kind of used them as interpreters you might say for the ones that couldn’t speak english because we grew up talking indian all the time soon but that was one of my biggest regret is i never taught my kids how to talk indian my brother and my and myself were raised by our grandparents andrea ireland and things they taught us i still keep them and trying to teach my nieces and my nephews the way of life the indian life when they’re gonna someone my dad was gonna put our me and my brothers and sisters in there one by one he said that he was going to put us at boarding school he said the sisters well he said in the indians he said kana that means when you break and train a horse so my grandma got mad she said with almost they’re not horses she got mad i was telling one of these people one time this guy had this doctor degree and i said you know i there’s two education messages said washi too and that’s good we all got it we need that in today’s world but there’s a dakota way too you know the language you know the language that’s good and you know if you go to ceremonies or sweat and if you’re a sun dancer you’re a pipe carrier if you’re a healer if you’re a singer and if you know the medicines uh the herbs all that kind of stuff history i said uh if he went to university i said and told him what you know he said you’d be the only one that knows what you know at that university and then the future world when somebody knows just know something up here do they give them all kinds of uh initials behind their name i said you go tell me i said maybe they’ll give you the voice behind yours i thought this is getting serious and i really need to talk to somebody and so i went and found one of our spiritual leaders and took tobacco and i said i have a very serious question and i said it’s going to make a difference in my life and i said i want you to guide me and i said i do these ceremonies i go to ceremony then i go to church on sunday and practice the catholic way and then i have a name i’ve got my name and ceremony my children have names my grandchildren have names i take them to ceremony i said am i doing something wrong and the spiritual leader said there is no wrong way to pray and she told me she said to her they’re going to be saying forgive me forgive me i did all the things i did wrong but it’s going to be too late she said so grandson from this day on you should be praying as you go on and he prayed and he fasted and he prayed and he fasted and he prayed and he fasted and he prayed and he fasted and while he was there he heard this bird talking with him and telling him look at me look at me he looked up there and he seen this bird in the nest and told them i have been listening to your prayer and listening to you asking for help for your people i’m honoring your request and i’m going to help your people now but you will have to respect the gift that you are given from me and i’ll continue to help your people so the bird showed gave the nest and said here is the nest here is the sweat lodge this is what you will go in when you go into the sweat lodge and i am also going to give you my legs with those legs you will use them to guide the grandfathers into the into the pit in the sweat and you will also use my legs to make music and you will also use these same legs for corrections in the lodge and with my tail that i give to you will use that tail to sprinkle on the grandfathers so we either use sweetgrass or we take grass long pieces of grass and we’ll tie it with the grass and we’ll use that as a sprinkler while we’re in the sweat so that’s the instructions that were given and that was from the thunderbird that gave us the sweat lodge so you know we’re very thankful you know for that gift that we have received and we do still follow those instructions there was a lesson from my grandma she in indian of course she said in the future when you grow up when you’re a young man she said you see an orphan child someplace you go up to him and take his hand and say you a teacher come to my house so that’s what i was doing that until my wife passed away here and uh i mentioned we had to go down to the jail and be bringing kids home from jail while the mars in there that’s what they call an orphan or by their nature so that was everything my grandma did and said every day was a lesson in 1825 there was a treaty between the dakota and the ojibwe people and it happened in the area around devil’s lake to pembina in that area we were sharing hunting territory but we were getting into a lot of conflicts we were killing each other families were being hurt children were getting killed and so our leaders in all their wisdom got together and they did signed a treaty and it’s the terms of that treaty i think that are the most interesting in that treaty to stop the killing they agreed that their most prized possession was their children and so to stop the fighting they exchanged children and on my mother’s side my family name is juanes and if you tell that to an ojibwe speaker they’ll say where did you get a name like that and i always say it’s a long story but bonas means little sue boy so one day uh his wife took him to the clinic and uh so he’s hard hearing too so he went in there and planning his francis and he got up looked to his wife’s doctor said no just him so he went in there just talking to him checked him over everything he did everything physical he’s a friend says i don’t can’t see what’s wrong with you he said nothing wrong and so he said a little work won’t it won’t kill you he said okay he said it’s been kind of heavyset or something he came out and he’s his wife yesterday the doctor said if i do a little work it’s going to kill me you could hardly hear and then we used to get punished when he uh talked our language we had a lot of chipboard going to school there and he was a telling us sister he could speak in india they line us up jesus had they used to make their own soap little square bottles of squares rapid remember that they wrap it once soap everything their hair your face your clothes they made it right there they had lye and straw and then so when they cut us talking dakota they break into four parts we each get a quarter we have to eat it we eat that soap in about 20 minutes later teasing that’s what he called around my husband that i didn’t meet yet that i would meet within that week he was on the hill where crazy horse had his son dance and he was fasting up there and he was on his last day and he spoken and his language and he said i have done everything that you have asked me to do now i’m going to ask you for something i want you to give me a partner that’s equal to me i won’t mind when i have to go on trips and when i have things to do so the ojibwe spirits lakota spirits brought my words and his prayer together and we ended up meeting and you know to be a little humorous um i remember when i heard him speak for the first time and this was in detroit lakes minnesota i walked in we were a little late walking in my sister and i and he happened to be talking and i was just thinking to myself you know i have to have a piece of that the cancer had to be like a lump so it she didn’t it didn’t sound like she did internal cancers it was like if you had a cancer someplace on your body and he said from what i understand there was two processes one of them she made a poultice and she would put this on that on that cancer and it would be like fire it was like burning the person’s body and then when the po when the cancer died then she had another poultice and she put the poultice on that cancer and she when it when it took hold she would take it off and the cancer looked like a spider he said it had long tentacles and it would just lift it right off i was telling that story in grand forks one time and it hit the newspaper and i got a call from roger jourdain he was a chairman at red lake at the time he said carol do you speak the language i said no he said do you know the word for cancer in ojibwe and i said no he said the word for cancer is the same word as spider so i came in there and i in the indian i said you’re going crazy over money i said how come you didn’t say nothing and she said sit down and tell me something she said you know people that use bad medicine she said they you they can make you sick she said they put it in their mouth on their tongue and they come and argue that if you sit there with your mouth closed then it won’t go in but if you open your mouth and argue back then that bad medicine comes in and makes you sick but if you sit there with your mouth closed it’s got no place to go so that person it came back in them that’s why i didn’t say nothing so there again that was another lesson like i said every day with my uh the way the way my name was explained was uh well okay we charge there any chapters you’re going to be a helper of people and i’m just not trying to try to do that now you know too many uh of the dancers uh beautiful flower need rig was perfection but only the elders of the tribe knew and would notice her beadwork which always had one misplaced bead a different size a different color within her bedroom people won’t notice that they just did it because they’re so good and then she always did this on purpose because she was taught and learned one of our dakota spiritual beliefs that we are never perfect but to strive to be and there is only one who is perfect when he is wakantanka god so these things that we have to do so we get ready though for winter like oh they used to have a big garden all the garden stuff and put them in real towers or either in the house you have a little um i don’t know what you call them their little showers and then put them in there for the winter too because there’s no fridge in them days when my grandfather was so we learned how to make what’s not cherries and we dry meat we help our grandmother and then the tripe from the cow the stomach that’s what we help clean and then we my grandmothers teach us how to they want to play but we have to learn these things so i’m glad that they taught us all this and then they should go on but nobody does all those things everything now since it’s all this ebt and all these things are coming on they want the fresh pizzas and cold meat they don’t think about how they’re going to survive the next day because if that runs out then they have nothing to eat and then they don’t they don’t know how to put a garden in but uh being there for them i teach them you should just do it around your house get a little shovel do this but you know these are the things we need to teach the younger generation i used to tell stories in the evenings my aunties tell me a story about a dozen times i don’t care i just sit there listening my uncles i know what you’re going to say and you know i just know when they start just patience gently learn patience respect and just listen you don’t say oh i heard that before i don’t do that just listen so i heard that’s how they teach us repetitiveness they tell you these stories over and over so we won’t forget so you

Our population of teachers for tribal schools is going to continue to be predomitly female and it will be predomitly non-native we know that it’s that way for all e ethnic groups Across the Nation you know and uh for whatever reason but um we’re just we will Empower them more if we’re able to give them more tools to work with you know and that just doesn’t happen on one class right and it just doesn’t happen with um you know it has to be a thread that is in everything you know so

I just want to say again you know that I believe that what you’re doing is very important um I’m not sure how many other states you know are following this uh particular action but I think that it is very important that is it is done within our state I think that it’s you know people think that all Native Americans all Indians are the same they think that all tribes are the same but we’re not we’re all different we’re all unique we all have a different uh perspective on all of the issues that you have brought forth here today uh we all have different strengths we all have different weaknesses and we’re like any other community but we’re a community within a community and uh so it’s very important that even if like I said even if uh I know what I think I need to know about my tribe I don’t know what the other tribes are all about and what their perspective is on each one of those areas and so even from that perspective it gives people a chance to be able to learn about other cultures and that is important too because we if we’re going to respect other people then we need to know about them and how they live and what they think and how they feel and what’s important to them