June 10, 2025 • 67 mins
As introduced last week, we’re about to have a very special meeting with Chief Standing Bear of the Osage Nation. The family and I made our way with friend and filmmaker Nicol Ragland to Osage HQ in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. How the Osage survived being marched to these lands by the US government in the 19th century, and ongoing brutality in the 20th, is a scene set in last week’s episode (if you’re not familiar with that back story, it’s worth ducking back to listen to that brief 13 minute episode first).
We pick up the Osage story in the 21st century, where they’re mapping a masterful resurgence including the rare reclamation of land, the powerful realisation of food sovereignty, the innovative return of language, and so much more.
As mentioned in the introductory episode last week, some of you might recognise the Osage Nation from the recent Martin Scorsese film, Killers of the Flower Moon. The Chief’s early reference to their extraordinary Academy Awards live performance relates to that.
Join me with Chief Standing Bear, for a fascinating, frank, fun and generous insight into the Osage Nation, his role, and their resurgence.
Recorded 4 April 2025. (Intro recorded by the Colorado River at camp in Castle Valley, Utah.)
Title slide: The Chief, from the Nation’s website.
See more photos on the episode web page, and for more behind the scenes, become a supporting listener below.
Music:
Stones & Bones, by Owls of the Swamp.
Regeneration, by Amelia Barden.
The RegenNarration playlist, music chosen by guests.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Nicol (00:00):
Hi, how are you?
Jason Hi.
Jason (00:02):
I'm Jason, nicol, nicol, nice to meet you.
Ma'am, olivia, olivia, jason,sir Anthony Anthony.
I'm Jason I'm Chief StandingBear's Chief of Staff.
I just wanted to come welcomeyou real quick.
He's finishing something up andhe should be in here in just a
few minutes.
AJ (00:16):
Thanks a lot.
Jason (00:17):
And you're from, I'm from Oklahoma City.
Nicol (00:19):
We've worked together, yeah, and we're both in
conservation districts for awhile and you said someone's
from Australia.
AJ (00:24):
We're from Australia.
From Australia, what part?
Perth, the west side Perth okay,west side.
Jason (00:29):
I've been to Brisbane twice.
Oh, that's good, I grew upthere yeah once with the Marines
we were up in Showater Baytraining area in the bush.
It's not the greatest so I wastoo tense, but I was also in the
US.
At Ronald Reagan we pulled intoBrisbane for four days.
AJ (00:46):
It was really nice.
There you go Very nice people,very polite people.
Well, right back at you.
This has been our experience inthe States Exactly Great.
Jason (00:54):
Well, welcome.
Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
He's Coming down the hallway,thanks.
AJ (01:01):
As introduced last week, we're about to meet Chief
Standing Bear of the OsageNation.
The family and I made our waywith friend and filmmaker Nicol
Ragland to Osage HQ in Pawhuska,oklahoma.
How the Osage survived beingmarched to these lands by the US
government in the 19th centuryand ongoing brutality in the
(01:22):
20th is a scene set in lastweek's episode.
If you're not familiar withthat backstory, it's worth
ducking back to listen to thatbrief 13-minute episode first.
We pick up the Osage story inthe 21st century, where they're
mapping a masterful resurgence,including the rare reclamation
of land, the powerfulrealisation of food sovereignty,
(01:42):
the innovative return oflanguage, the powerful
realisation of food sovereignty,the innovative return of
language and so much more.
G'day, Anthony James here forThe RegenNarration, your
independent, listener-supportedpodcast exploring how people are
regenerating the systems andstories we live by.
Enormous thanks this week toPhil Garozzo from the Loop
Growers crew back home in Oz fordoubling your subscription
(02:05):
amount.
And in such fraught times forfarmers too.
P hil messaged to say no matterhow tough times are, I can
always find a few dollars amonth for what you bring.
Mate, I want to say to you thatpowers me on big time.
Same to all you paidsubscribers for your support,
especially in these times.
If you can too, please considerjoining Phil and this brilliant
(02:26):
community of supportinglisteners.
Get additional stuff if youlike and help keep the show
going.
Just follow the links in theshow notes.
Thank you.
As mentioned in theintroductory episode last week,
some of you might recognise theOsage Nation from the recent
Martin Scorsese film Killers ofthe Flower Moon.
The Chiefs' early reference totheir extraordinary Academy
(02:47):
Awards appearance relates tothat.
Ok, let's meet Chief StandingBear sharing a couch, for a
fascinating, frank and generousinsight into the Osage Nation,
his role and their resurgence.
Chief Standing Bear (03:02):
Hi, how are ya?
Whoa Raygun?
Hi, I'm Jeff Standing Bear.
AJ (03:06):
Chief.
It's an honour.
Anthony James.
Chief Standing Bear (03:10):
Jeff Standing there.
AJ (03:12):
Chief it's an honour, anthony.
Chief Standing Bear (03:12):
James, hi Anthony, hello, olivia, olivia,
yeshi, yeshi, nice to meet you.
How are you, man?
Good to see you.
How are you, nice to see you?
Good to see you.
You've got a new camera too.
AJ (03:26):
Well, yeah, of course.
Chief Standing Bear (03:26):
We'll have a chair here.
Folks, how do you like our drum?
That's a buffalo.
That's a buffalo high, andOsage made that for us.
Yeah, hit it Harder.
You gotta hit it hard, reallyhard.
So they sing, they all get in acircle and they use big sticks.
(03:51):
It has buckskin around it andyou hit it and they sing songs.
And go on YouTube and look atthe Osage Academy Award singers.
That's Osage.
They were nominated for anAcademy Award and you'll see
them singing.
(04:11):
And it's not this drum, it wasanother drum like it.
AJ (04:15):
So anyway, I'm a drummer too , so I'm old to nobody.
Chief Standing Bear (04:19):
Well, there you go, you like Ginger Baker.
AJ (04:21):
Yeah, the band called the Cream.
Yeah, yeah, he was the best.
Chief Standing Bear (04:25):
Yeah, so what brings you to the USA?
AJ (04:29):
Oh, we're fascinated by how there's so many stories we are
finding and back home inAustralia this is true too right
, this is where the podcaststarted but across the states
it's true too that there's somany stories that don't make the
news, at least not often, ofregeneration, essentially of one
kind or another, whether it belandscape, whether it be
(04:50):
cultural.
And that's how we met, nicoleand I, and that's how,
essentially, you and I haveended up meeting, because I've
learned more about the osagenation as we neared your country
and some of the great workyou're up to, and, essentially,
with the passion for sharingthose stories to show people
there are ways that we canmanage these things.
Chief Standing Bear (05:09):
Well, we have a lot to learn about
Australia too, because when Iwas working in Arkansas, the
state of Arkansas, with a museumcalled the Momentary, which is
related to the Crystal Bridcrystal bridges funded by the
walton family, they had time toopen the momentary with some
(05:37):
ceremonies.
So they asked me to bring aceremonial, to bring a
ceremonial Osage who could blessthem and bless the grounds.
And we got there and they hadalso invited some folks from
(05:59):
Australia Aborigine and so wedid the ceremony and also the
Aborigines did the ceremony andit was fascinating that our
people, the Osage and othershere used cedar as one of the
(06:19):
elements and they burned thatcedar.
There's other things they cando and other things they can
burn, but in this particularceremony they that cedar.
There's other things they cando, but in this particular
ceremony they use cedar and theyuse an eagle wing to bless
members of the family as theycame through and other people.
But the Aborigines were doingthe same thing.
(06:43):
If they weren't using cedar,they were using another plant
and they also were blessing thesame way.
So our people were here and theAborigines were here and the
people were coming through andso I was like, wow, that was
very similar and the prayer thatwas involved was very similar.
(07:06):
We translated it the best Iunderstood them translating it
to us, and then we got to spendsome time with them, away from
this, the big crowds, and I saidwell, tell me something about
your people.
(07:26):
How many of them, how many ofyou are there?
Where do you live?
And what I learned is how naiveI was and how naive others must
be here, because I did not know.
Aborigine is just a term, likeyou would say, native American,
(07:47):
I thought Aborigine was a tribeand it turns out, as you all
know very well, that there areso many tribes and their
languages are different andtheir customs, although they
have come from a common area,common source, they've matured
(08:09):
in different ways, just like us.
And we had a great conversation.
More than one went to dinnerand I learned how similar they
are.
And I learned how similar theyare.
They even had reservations andthey had boarding schools where
(08:34):
their children were taken andtold not to speak the language,
not to do your customs, andexactly like us.
And the next day we kept talkingabout this and I said you know,
this has got to be like theBritish playbook.
Exactly, that was my comment,and you can see a lot of these
(08:58):
same practices from the UnitedStates government at the time
and very recently in fact, andwhen I was being told about the
Aborigine people, they were sosimilar the same practices, the
same methods to attempt to.
They called it assimilationhere and I didn't ask what they
(09:22):
called it there, australia too,yeah, Well, you know, and if you
don't assimilate, then whathappens?
well, it's not a pretty story,um, and we we don't like to
dwell on, on the negative.
There's plenty of that, uh, todwell on that's really
interesting to hear that well,americans need to know that, uh,
(09:43):
that, um, the aborigine peopleof australia are are indigenous
people or tribal people and theythink, like, uh, like we do.
I saw it.
Yeah, that was amazing yeah, Iwonder.
AJ (09:57):
I mean even just hearing you say that you don't.
There's plenty of the negativeand you don't dwell there too
long what vision do you carrythat animates your work, and how
do you keep your spirit healthythrough that?
Chief Standing Bear (10:09):
I was just talking before I came in here
with the person who runs ourchildcare programs we're part of
it and talking about theirplans for the coming year to
consolidate funds for otherservices and how is all that
(10:34):
sorted out?
Are working on budgets, workingon policy interaction with the
federal United States governmenton funding, about the concerns
(10:54):
that they all had about whetherthat funding is going to be
there, be reliable, given thecurrent political situation.
Just one group of funds we'retalking about which they are
concerned about is $3.6 million,which for a small tribe like us
is a lot of money, and there'sother funds.
(11:18):
That group is about $10 millionin funding and they are working
together, working hard and havebeen for months, and I was
getting updated because that'sthe time to do this today and I
told her.
I said you know this is part ofthe job as a chief, where
people think I do this stuff.
(11:40):
When I don't, I say we shouldgo do this stuff, and then you
all get together and decide whatparts of this would be
beneficial to our people andthen you work months and months
and year in and year out tobuild things further than I had
(12:02):
even imagined.
And it's not my vision.
It's my suggestions and thosethat are smart.
Suggestions have to come at theright time at the right place,
and I try to be very aware ofthe circumstances and the timing
(12:23):
where we are, because you don'twant to send people down a path
of frustration and not gettingthings done.
So I have a lot of internaltests that I use Can the project
be done within a time periodthat we can all get behind?
(12:44):
Because our history is one ofdisappointment and appreciation
of the small blessings that weget that are really turns out to
be huge blessings.
Just to be able to recognizethat is a skill that I don't
(13:06):
have alone.
We fortunately have traditionalpeople who can tell us we have
this, we have this ceremony, wehave this belief, we have this,
and so I guess what I'm tellingyou is we rely on each other, we
(13:26):
encourage each other.
My name just happens to be thereas chief, but I can guarantee I
can talk all day about how it'snot me.
It's not me.
It's because if I take thewrong path, the people know they
can talk to me and say I thinkwe're on the wrong path and I've
got to decide whether that'scorrect or not.
The people know they can talkto me and say I think we're on
the wrong path and I've got todecide whether that's correct or
(13:48):
not and engage in debate attimes, especially when it comes
to the children, about ourlanguage programs, about you say
tomato, they say tomato.
If you guys can't figure it outtogether, I'll decide it, even
though you're both betterspeakers than me.
So, uh, you know I gotta dothings like that, which doesn't
(14:10):
make me real popular, but butyou know you gotta keep moving.
So it.
A friend of mine went out to theharvest land.
He's a retired lawyer and theharvest land is where our
greenhouses are and others.
He saw those and he said, chief, this is a remarkable vision.
(14:34):
Well, I told him later thatthis all explained myself when I
said, david, it wasn't a vision, it was panic.
David, it wasn't a vision, itwas panic.
And he looked at me and I saidyou've got to understand.
During the COVID pandemic therewere some federal funds
(14:56):
available, and this is reallythe contradiction for being a
Native American government Onone hand, we don't want to have
the United States government inour business, but on the other
hand, if money comes our way,with all the strings that are
attached, we will decide whetheror not to grab it, and often we
(15:18):
grab it because it's good forour people.
So how do you reconcile thatcontradiction?
That's a lot of what I do.
But during COVID some fundscame down because the economic
impact was strong and so we hadto decide what to do with these
(15:40):
funds and some tribes decided toput them in checks and send
them to people.
That's not working for us, thatdoesn't build our community,
that doesn't protect us at home.
Everybody's I mean I know halfour people are moved off to
other states over the decadesfor a lot of reasons.
So we decided.
We decided and you can say undermy leadership, because it was
(16:03):
true to try to beself-sufficient, because this
pandemic will occur again.
It's been going on for humanhistory the plague of Justinians
, the great plague, the 1918 flupandemic or whatever, and there
(16:23):
will be more.
So how do we insulate ourselvesfrom that disruption and those
fears?
Where there's no meat, there'sno food, which is what happened.
Well, we try to beself-sufficient.
So we directed those funds andmatched what we could with our
(16:44):
own funds, from our smallcasinos and all, and put it
together the harvest land, whichis greenhouses.
We grow our own food.
We have food processing.
Krista (16:56):
Processing as well.
Chief Standing Bear (16:58):
Yeah, and we have food processing out
there.
We also have, 25 miles fromhere, a butcher house, a meat
processing plant where we can do75 or so head of cattle or
bison a month.
And then we have a herd ofbison about 300, some.
(17:22):
That fluctuates of course asthey go into the herd and with
all our different entities, ourdepartments and our small
economic development arm, about2,000 at least.
Well, see, they sell things,but sometimes 2,000 head of
cattle and so cattle, and sothat's that's progress.
(17:43):
So I told david uh, the reasonwe got it done from from day one
and completion of the butcherhouse in 19 months and get all
the united states department ofagriculture permits and all that
stuff and then work with thegreenhouses, that we did was not
(18:05):
so much a vision, it was panicbecause we had no meat, no food.
And when you're feedingchildren at lunch here in our
programs and elders and there'sno food and you're the head of
this, you gotta do something.
(18:28):
I mean you're talking aboutfood.
And then of course we're reallyshort as reliable, clean water
of course it's real third worldhere regularly out of water
sometime for a week or two.
That's ridiculous.
And we're getting internet nowfor the first time, broadband
(18:51):
for the first time.
That's big.
But some of this that's going onin Washington DC is making us
anxious because we are livingthis contradiction the federal
government provides the funds,but that's federal money and
there's conditions upon it.
(19:12):
When you get into that you'vegot to assume those risks.
But once people get involved init they have a tendency to
relax on various levels.
And if you get out there andtalk to our director, secretary
of Development, secretary ofNatural Resources, jan Heyman,
(19:32):
she'll tell you I have beensaying again, this is not a
vision To me.
This is showing a necessitythat what you would see out
there really needs to be treatedas a pilot project.
There's no debt on it.
We're doing our best they areto sustain itself by doing
(19:56):
farmer's markets, makingrelationships which they have to
do with, restaurants, et cetera.
But they've got to start beingmore self-sustaining.
And I've told them we didn'thave anything like this before.
(20:16):
And now our people know we'rehere.
We have 26,000 members.
Our people are scattered, onlyabout 4,000, 5,000 here.
But should there be anotherpandemic?
I tell the people in thoseareas.
And now our people know aboutthat.
Now I'm just trying to dooff-the-cuff mathematics, which
(20:40):
I'm not good at, but trying tofigure out what would be the
demand.
And if I'm in Osage in OklahomaCity, two hours away from here,
and I have a non-Osage wife andnon-Osage children and there's
again no food in the grocerystores, what I'm going to do is
(21:02):
say, hey, don't worry everybody,our Osage tribe, my Osage tribe
and you kids' Osage tribe we'reall going to go up to the Osage
and we'll get boxes of meat,which we can do, and we'll get
whatever vegetables and fruitsthey have going on, which we do,
and we'll be okay.
(21:22):
But I tell my people do yourealize that I've already
counted how many people wouldcome?
And that could be over 5 000people lining up.
Are you ready for that?
Answer is no.
Well, that's why we've got toget out of this complacency
where, okay, we've done thisgreat stuff, but we can't handle
(21:45):
the demand and the othercommunities around us don't do
this as they should.
So how do you motivate peopleto do what I think is a great
program and emulate it andexpand it in some order to feed
ourselves and have healthy food?
(22:07):
How do you do that?
And I'm not doing it and we arenot doing it.
Here's where you get to sharethe blame.
Everybody gets the credit.
We are not doing it.
Krista (22:21):
It's the film I got, and that's good.
Chief Standing Bear (22:23):
That's a good place to stop.
There we go.
That was a good.
The film I got, yeah, andthat's good.
That's a good place to stop.
There we go.
That was a good thought.
I'm so sorry, I don't.
I'm not much, I did way toomuch thinking anyway, but I
really think the proof's in thepudding right, you've got to
make things happen, you know.
AJ (22:43):
And it sounds like that is what's happening.
Chief Standing Bear (22:44):
That's what happens, yeah.
AJ (22:48):
I'm so curious how that method of leadership, if you
like, has also resulted in thisextraordinary reacquisition of
Osage lands.
Oh, we've got lands.
Chief Standing Bear (22:58):
Yeah, we've done all that.
We've got some small casinos.
We have one large casino inTulsa but we have just built.
We have seven now small casinos.
Until just five years ago, oneof them was a double-wide
trailer here in our capital.
So we've expanded from adouble-wide trailer to a
(23:26):
restaurant and some gamingmachines and a hotel here that's
got like 33 rooms, I believe,in a hotel here that's got like
33 rooms, I believe.
And then we have a larger onefurther away that's got 100
rooms.
So these are not gigantic butit fits our ability to pay for
(23:47):
everything and have the moneyfor our educational programs or
health programs.
We basically tax, like alltribes, we tax our gaming
facilities at 100%, right, yeah,and so what we do with these
funds?
(24:08):
In our agreement with the UnitedStates and somewhat to the
state of Oklahoma, we committhis to the people through
health programs.
There's a new clinic beingbuilt, for example.
If you go downtown here youcame in from the west just keep
(24:33):
going down through the east justabout three blocks and you'll
see the clinic we're going toopen in July.
Every Osage that can getinvolved in an education
certified or accrediteduniversity or college we can pay
up to $14,000 a year in theirtuition and books.
(24:54):
We also have a career techprogram where we will pay for
that and also give them a smallstipend monthly.
Then we have Medicaresupplements that we pay for our
people if you have Medicare,which is a federal program for
(25:15):
the elderly, and then we haveburial assistance at $8,000 to
help with the defray the cost ofa funeral and burial.
And those are the big threeprograms that we have and after
we fund those we get into.
Oh well, how do we match what'sleft over from our casinos with
(25:38):
the federal monies or privatefunds that we seek and to put
into our program budgets likethe Indian Child Welfare Act is
a federal act that allows tribes.
I think it's some federal moneybut not much.
But it allows the tribalnations.
I've got to get away fromtribes, tribal nations, because
(26:00):
we are nations, we're politicalentities and we've been here
since before the states, youknow.
So how do we take these fundsand fund a program like Indian
Child Welfare where in 1978 anda little after that, the laws
(26:40):
allows the tribes to intervenein a case where an Indian child
is subject to removal from thehome for whatever reason that a
state says so, be it drugs,arrest, broken home, or usually
they're all bad situations, myexperience.
But instead of having thosechildren put up for adoption,
(27:02):
which was the case prior to the70s, one-third the record will
tell you of all Native Americanchildren were being put out for
adoption.
Yeah, australia too, going backto that.
Well, that law allows us topick up, and this is mostly in
fact.
I had a meeting earlier thismorning about that.
(27:22):
How do we increase funding andget more people and travel money
to go to the different countiesjust in Oklahoma and tell the
court we're here under federallaw and Oklahoma law.
Now we can provide a fosterhome, which is an extended
family member.
We can provide a report to thecourt and we will work with the
(27:46):
state social workers.
We can do this with you, witheverybody, for the benefit and
the best interest of the child,as they say, and get those
children in safe environmentswith the goal of reuniting the
family.
And there's all thesemethodologies that apply to that
(28:10):
crazy complex world of tryingto rescue our children and our
families before it's present fortomorrow, and so that costs
money and we have to pay forthat.
So what we do is we take after,we do our.
This is just associated.
Other tribes do it differently.
After we pay for ourscholarship programs, after we
(28:34):
pay for our health card,everybody gets a $500 to be
increased later in the healthcard.
Our elders have a Medicaresupplement.
How do we take care of that?
That's one program.
Burial assistance All thosethings cost millions of dollars.
So after we do that, what'sleft over from the gaming
(28:54):
operations?
We use that to match federaland private funds, and so
there's the amount of money.
Now, what's our budgets?
What do our budgets look like?
What's the request going to benow to my legislature 12 people.
What are they going toappropriate from these funds to
(29:16):
satisfy that budget?
Which means, at my level here,we've got to cut that budget
before it's submitted.
Quite a bit often becausepeople say, well, in order to do
what we need to do, it needs tobe this or that, and I have to
make the call that it's notgoing to be this or that, it's
going to be much smaller, and sopeople have emotions about that
(29:42):
, and that's normal.
But you've got to be able towithstand that criticism and say
, for the greater good of ourpeople, this is what I determine
, and if you can't handle it,you have to collect somebody
else.
Yeah, yeah.
So that's, that's the.
I think I just summed up theentire being being what I do,
and it's it's the minuscule tothe, the big picture stuff, both
(30:06):
, and yeah you gotta have goodpeople yeah, and you to let room
for art and music dance.
We're really big on that.
You've got to have that, orit's all mundane and it's all
sterile.
You've got to say, okay, well,some of this money that's left
(30:29):
over we've got to commit to thepuppet show.
Or on their own.
Our people get these giantpuppets, you know, they're more
than life-size and they get in,like the chinese puppet things,
and they get in and they tellour creation story and other
stories.
Or our dance maker, where wehave actual classical ballet
(30:49):
school.
That's a private school here intown and we fund it through
donations and or whatever, ourmuseum.
We have a museum.
We want to expand.
But one thing we've I'velearned is you've got to have
(31:11):
that ability to express yourselfin artistic form, even video,
yeah, or it's just, we're justhere and that's not.
It's great to be here, it'sgreat to have survived, but
we've got to express ourselves.
But we got to express ourselves, yeah, that's.
(31:38):
That's.
The big deal to me right now ishow do we do that in a way that
continues things, that makespeople happy?
because, damn it, there's toomuch depression, yeah, there's
too much negativity and it'scontagious yeah you know, you
know just art can, can destroythat and rebuild the world in my
opinion.
AJ (31:52):
Really.
Chief Standing Bear (31:53):
Yeah, you believe that, I really believe
it.
Of course, my dad was an artistand I used to sit there while
he was an oil painter.
He died very young to me, hewas 44.
So you know, I can still smellthe paints.
Yeah, wow.
But you know, it's just whatyou're exposed to.
(32:16):
So my brother and I wereexposed to fencing where we used
the Italian foil or the Frenchfoil or the saber, and we did
that as 14, 15-year-olds becauseI was raised in Tulsa and they
had these opportunities.
But here what we're trying todo is recreate best we can and
(32:40):
we can't really just transplantcommunities and say, well, here
it is, you've got to be patient,you've got to let people
develop their own way and then,one thing our people have done.
next to that new clinic you'llsee an outdoor health trail with
exercise machines all the waythrough and it's rather large,
(33:04):
over a mile, and in walkingareas and you'll see all the
outdoor health equipment.
And then we have pickleballcourts and basketball courts,
and we just did this this lastyear, really, yeah, wow.
And so people are participating, not just Native or Osages, but
(33:27):
our community, community and soum.
So we found little places wherewe can't change the, the
activities, get healthier.
I didn't do that.
That was a group of of thoseages that said let's go do that.
They came up here, chief, wewant to do this.
(33:49):
I will it 100%.
That's a lot of what I do.
AJ (33:53):
Yeah, I hear you.
It's a refrain I hear oftenthrough the podcast, actually
with people in leadershippositions where things are
sprouting.
I really cottoned on to yourwords before, at the start,
where you said, beyond what youcould even envision, oh yeah, if
you create the conditions.
I'm curious.
Yeah, that's right.
There's so much happening atthe same time as a result of
(34:16):
that process.
And I'm curious when you talkabout the paradoxical role that
you play as chief in terms ofdealing with the United States
political structures.
We don't have an Air.
Force you always have toremember that.
Chief Standing Bear (34:31):
That helps in time for these little
decisions.
You have to say, well, we'vegot to do this, do that, and
then you have to mind yourselfyour limitations I think about
the big land acquisition thatyou put into trust oh yeah,
you've read about that yeah, andyou put it into trust with the
(34:51):
united states government?
yes, because that perfectexample.
Yeah, exactly the reason we putit into the title where it says
United States of America intrust for the Osage Nation,
because under federal law inthis country, you have to fall
into the treaty relationship andthe federal relationship to not
(35:17):
be subject to state taxation,state regulation, state control.
And so, even though you'reunder the federal system we are
used to that, we understand that, and the states historically
have been much more hostile thanthe federal relations.
(35:39):
They both have their problems.
Our sovereignty, as they sayand I try to teach my people
here at this staff levelsovereignty is something that
all governments have and allpeople have.
(36:00):
But you know how it manifestsitself, is what we struggle with
and what we believe in, and forus, well, it turned out to be
expressed with the 43,000 acresin trust.
It turns out to be expressedwith the 43,000 acres in trust.
It turns out to manifest itselfwith our language programs for
(36:22):
our children.
It manifests itself in ourexisting and our strength and
our culture, but it is, I guess,theoretically, and this is
Western world training I've had.
I was a lawyer for many yearsand I did a lot of work for a
lot of tribes.
I look at it and, as someothers have said better than me,
(36:46):
that sovereignty consists of aninternal sovereignty and an
external sovereignty and anexternal sovereignty.
And one thing I'm working onthis morning is the relationship
between the state and us, asOsage and other tribes, on
(37:07):
taxation of tobacco products andable to issue our own license
tags and use of the stateturnpike system.
All have their own differencesand similarities and on the
turnpike, for example, ourpeople are using it without a
(37:31):
pike pass, they call it, and theturnpike authority is an
instrumentality of the state.
They want their money and so wehave said, well, it's true, our
people use that, let's work outan agreement.
And they said, okay, well,here's an agreement.
And our lawyers come back andsay, well, here's a modified
(37:51):
from that.
This is different.
And I got involved and I go go.
Why are you all talking in youragreements about sovereignty?
This is nothing aboutsovereignty, this is a business
deal.
Can't you give us a fleet right?
Can't we start looking at it?
Because anytime you throwsovereignty out there and you
only see this in the externalrelations with the uh, other
(38:17):
tribes, counties, cities,federal government, when you
start throwing sovereignty inthere.
That's dangerous Because oncesovereignty is tied up in an
event that doesn't have to bequalified as a sovereign event,
it could be a businesstransaction Like just give us a
(38:40):
fleet rate, you know, like wewere a trucking company, and
then let's negotiate thearrearage, but let's find out,
how did you determine thatarrearage, you know?
So that's where we are on thatissue the smoke shops and our
individual smoke shop owners, etcetera.
That's got its own world.
(39:00):
And then we have the licensetag general issue.
And those are all where thestate and the nation have to act
as sovereigns and have todetermine how much of that
external sovereignty will weconcede, how much will you
(39:25):
concede in order to enforce anagreement with each other and
for how long.
And it's dangerous If you'renot careful and you end up in
court.
The court can be hostile and wehave experienced that where some
(39:45):
of the tribes in Oklahoma.
They have large, re-recognized,reaffirmed reservations in
legal theory and on paper andnow they have to supply the law
enforcement and they're gettingdeeper and deeper into that.
The Osage had a case in theyear 2010 where they put that
(40:09):
sovereignty out there and lost.
So our reservation and whereour jurisdiction, our authority
to govern, occurs, is extremelylimited within these lands.
Where we're sitting now isfederal land in trust for the
(40:33):
Osage Nation, and it has beensince this spot here.
It was in 1906, and prior tothat it's 1872, when we finally
were removed into Oklahoma fromour previous journeys, survivors
of war.
So you've just got tounderstand these elements and
(40:54):
how they behave, and nobody cando it alone.
You've got to count on divineintervention a lot, really.
Yeah, uh, yeah.
This this is like yeah, I meanyou can't.
You can't figure this stuff out.
I don't care who you are, butyou've got to recognize certain
(41:18):
commonality in concept andconversation to even get to an
agreement.
Like you know, I meanrudimentary we agreed this is a
table, right?
Well, where'd that come from?
You know?
I mean, I've got photos here onthe wall.
I'll show you.
My family back in the 20s wereeating.
(41:40):
They didn't eat on tables, theysat on the ground.
I've got photographs here.
They did that stuff.
One of my cousins she's olderthan me when we were little she
was always so mad because someof these old folks would use
their hands to eat on everythingand she went to a private
(42:00):
school, julia, and she was like,oh, our people are so crude and
you know she was prim andproper, but we've been doing
that thousands of years now.
I use a fork and knife and allthat.
But you understand that I loveair conditioning, especially in
(42:22):
this heat, and I like easy waterand electricity.
But, as the old folks, the oldIndians, used to tell me, why do
you want to be like we were andour parents and grandparents?
We didn't have air conditioning, we didn't have penicillin, we
didn't have this, this, this.
(42:44):
You know what are you doing?
I said, well, I guess it justsounds cool to be an Indian.
He said, well, we are Indians.
And you know, I'm telling,telling you, it's a hard, hard
world.
So that's, that's that.
Gotta take that view too.
Yeah, yeah.
So I owe to count yourblessings.
(43:05):
I guess that's the moral of thestory yeah, I'm so curious on so
many levels with how younavigate that if the situation
is upon you, you know likeyou're in a stream, you want to
get in the water and watch asmall river and you see a stream
within a stream like over hereyou can go, over here.
You can usually do that.
That's where the fish are, youknow.
Run a little different.
(43:26):
You can feel the difference inthe pressure right.
Oh yeah, yeah, you can go.
Oh okay, I don't want to getover there, I'll be swept away.
Same thing, you just go aheadand go well.
Krista (43:38):
I can't get over here.
Chief Standing Bear (43:38):
I need some 300-pound guys to come in here
and do their thing.
That's what I do.
I just try to figure out whatthe hell's going on here.
I always ask my staff where arewe today?
I don't know, but if they tellme where we are and they're real
patient with me, they say well,we're over here, Chief, and we
(44:01):
need to be over there.
And they know how I think aboutchasing.
Futility is something I willnot tolerate.
If we're making progress, nomatter how difficult it is,
reinforce that, get behind it,move forward, but I will cut
(44:25):
bait and leave in a heartbeat ifit's not going anywhere.
AJ (44:27):
Is there something that's changed for you?
Where are you guys with thecurrent administration at a
federal level?
Chief Standing Bear (44:35):
Well, we have to rely on ourselves first,
and I was talking to some of mystaff another group this
morning.
I can't believe it's only beenabout 12 weeks since President
Trump was elected.
We have really good relationswith our legislators here, our
(44:55):
federal legislators, our twosenators and our members of the
Congress.
Are they Republicans?
Yes, we have really goodrelationships with some of the
people within the federalgovernment.
One of them called me thismorning and said I'm going to
(45:20):
need to review my ethics letterregarding Osage because he was
one of our attorneys for 11years, so we'll sit down and
work that out.
He's high up in the Departmentof Interior.
He's high up in the Departmentof Interior, selected to be
there.
So we have people we know, butin the meantime, you can't just
(45:44):
rely on that because they cancome in and do what they want.
The defense is self-sufficiency,economic self-sufficiency, and
when we say the federalgovernment, everybody agrees on
political self-determination,then what you have to do is get
behind that and you've got tomean it and say we will defend
(46:04):
it.
And what are you talking aboutnow?
We're talking about our way oflife and we're talking about
territory, because in order todo any of this sovereignty,
external and internal.
You've got to have yourterritory that you're talking
about.
This is us as a people, this isour language, we still have it,
we're rebuilding it and this isour territory.
(46:26):
So, even though we walk intothe contradiction of in trust
for the Osage, you've got tounderstand what that means.
In trust, there's an obligationin the United States to
recognize certain treaties,certain other actions.
But you don't want to rely onthat because then, if you get in
front of the judges, the judgesmay say, well, that used to be
(46:50):
the rule, so you can't takeanything for granted.
The only defense isself-sufficiency.
So I mean, that is it.
Otherwise, people should not besurprised if the federal
government comes in and sayswell, we're going to do what we
did in Alaska.
We're going to createcorporations, tribal
(47:14):
corporations, and you can haveyour tribal entities as
governments, but all yourresources are being transferred
to corporate entities.
That's one idea that's stillcirculating in Washington DC to,
as they say, get out of theIndian business.
Where's the exit ramp?
Now, that's a because under no,here's the exit ramp.
(47:36):
You know, that's a becauseunder under the law at spring
court of the United Statesdecisions, there is a lot of
unilateral authority from theUnited States Congress and
President called plenary power.
It's like a one-way streetalmost to unilaterally modify
(48:02):
the treaties and otherarrangements because it's in the
national interest of the UnitedStates, and I've watched that
since I was a young lawyer.
I saw this happen in court manydecades ago in the Japanese
internment cases.
I don't know if you knew this,but American citizens that were
(48:25):
of Japanese descent were placedin camps.
AJ (48:33):
Yeah, Australia too.
Chief Standing Bear (48:34):
Yeah, their property was confiscated.
Well, how are they going to becompensated?
Well, you look at all that, yousay, well, it wasn't wrong, it
was in the national interest atthe time.
And so when you dig into thatline of thinking and you look at
reasoning and action and youlook at other activities of the
(48:57):
Native Americans, what we have,you can see, or I can see at
least.
If it's determined to be in thenational interest, anything is
possible.
So my advice is to be ready andwe've got to expand our.
So I said, our butcher house,our harvest land.
(49:19):
Look at these as pilot projects.
Let's become self-sufficient,otherwise we are internally weak
in our sovereignty.
We're internally weak, whichmakes us weak when we try to
expand or protect ourselvesexternally.
That's how I see it and that'show I act.
(49:42):
We are really at risk right now.
The world is changing and wecould be collateral damage, not
even targeted as being part ofthe thing.
It's just like my child caredirector said Secretary of Child
Care and all that she says wegot this $10 million, we're
(50:04):
trying to consolidate, make itmore flexible, but we can't
really say it's going to bethere in three or four months,
because we don't know whatWashington DC is going to do,
and it's not just on us.
It's not just on us, it's justthe larger program.
It's like our broadband.
If it's cut at a national level, we would be like our solar
(50:32):
power project was cut.
It wasn't directed at us, it wasdirected nationwide at funding
a program cutting all theserenewable energy programs.
We had a solar power projectdown in Hominy, near the, where
(50:56):
the butcher house is, and it wascaught up in that and they
clawed back.
They said they called it,clawed back the money it already
had been appropriated by theUnited States Congress.
It's there.
It was sitting along with othergovernments not just tribal,
(51:16):
but other governments inaccounts.
I think it was Citibank, I'mnot sure which bank it was, but
it was already there and we werejust one of many.
And when they cut that out,clawed it back.
End of solar project, end ofcontracts, end of aspirations of
(51:37):
using that solar power.
Just done.
That happened a couple monthsago.
So we've got we have like otherprojects that we've got to keep
an eye on if it happens andthey claw it back.
There's not a whole lot you cando.
So what you got to do is lookfor alternatives.
The only alternative it makessense to me is self-sufficiency,
but damn, that's hard.
(51:58):
Yeah, I mean, of course, right,yeah, so I don't have an answer
.
AJ (52:03):
I just try to keep moving forward yeah, is it important in
that context to I know there'san osage news outlet to have to
have your own media, your yourown means of stories?
Chief Standing Bear (52:18):
uh, not biased, that would be great but,
human biases are natural andand it expresses itself in our,
in our media, because, uh,that's just the way it is and
and I just don't see how we canfund regularly a larger Osage
(52:38):
News that had more staff andmore ability to not go to the
story.
That will get people to look atstuff.
AJ (52:49):
Yeah the clickbait, yeah the quick look.
Chief Standing Bear (52:52):
And I think they're better than they used
to be.
But we also need alternativemedia besides just one.
How do you do that?
Otherwise, it's not becausethey're part of the government.
In fact, we have separated themfrom the government and we fund
them, no strings attached.
(53:13):
But you've got to be aware andI know some of them are that the
money comes from ourlegislature, 12 members, and
that is not always a unifiedgroup and, in my view, some of
them, and some of them, as wedo- me are not always in a rose
garden.
Krista (53:32):
Yeah.
Chief Standing Bear (53:34):
So we need alternative methods of messaging
, which is where our people,again the younger people, are
coming together and creatingkeyboards on our iPhones and
computers in our language,really, and starting to
(54:01):
communicate with each other moreand more in our language.
And let's see, I can show you.
Yeah, they have these.
Let's see, how do you do that?
AJ (54:14):
Now you really tweaked the uh curiosity.
Chief Standing Bear (54:16):
The young fella yeah let's see, I go maybe
here, turn it there here.
Oh, there it is.
You see, that little worldthing, that little.
Yeah, see that, yeah, okay, seethese english words yeah watch
this.
Oh okay, that was great, yeah,okay, see these English words.
(54:36):
Yeah, watch this.
Oh okay, that was great, yeah,osage keyboard yeah.
Wow, see that.
AJ (54:40):
Wow, what do you know?
That's why they used to get theSpanish keyboard on the app as
well.
Chief Standing Bear (54:45):
Oh.
AJ (54:45):
Yeah, you can do it with Osage.
Chief Standing Bear (54:47):
So here's our language.
So I've seen some 16-year-oldstexting each other from
different communities.
See, isn't that great.
So that's the solution reallyIs go ahead and have us
communicate with each other thisway and use technology, and
that way you don't have to worryabout underfunding the OCS News
(55:08):
.
We need to keep it funded.
But we've got to havealternatives, and this is what
I'm talking about.
I don't mean alternativenewspapers.
I mean alternative methods ofcommunication methods
communication right with you.
AJ (55:20):
There it is.
That's pretty cool.
I can see an osage podcastalready.
Chief Standing Bear (55:24):
Well, they've got some really yeah.
Yeah, that's so good, I'm sosorry to interrupt.
Krista (55:30):
So we should, we should, kind of wrap it up.
Chief Standing Bear (55:32):
All right, see, jan, I think it okay, good
point ask Craig Walker, who'syour right hand down there,
about the well plugging?
I thought about this thismorning.
I almost called you about it,but I figured I'd see you.
The well plugging project.
We have tens of thousands ofabandoned wells and many of them
(55:55):
are orphaned, which means noone knows who owns them because
they're all 1920s and so forth.
Craig is the administratorunder Jan of another federal
grant to plug these orphanedwells which are leaking.
But the amount of?
We have a lot of hope that thiswill continue.
(56:19):
I think you'll find thatinteresting that we are doing
the well plugging even thoughwe're not getting hardly any
money from oil production or gasproduction.
That's mostly gone really yeah.
So what they've left us is tensof thousands of abandoned wells.
(56:39):
So when we bought that43,000-acre ranch and put it
into trust, one of the delays toput it in trust is the federal
government said well, we can'ttake it in trust, it's going to
be under our name, united Statesof America.
In trust, that meansenvironmental laws can come on
to us and force us to clean up.
(57:00):
And my response was well, ithappened under your watch during
the 1920s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s.
You allowed all this to happen,and now we want to put it in
federal trust.
Get out of the state ofoklahoma's breach.
Um, you've got to, uh, workwith us on this.
AJ (57:20):
So yeah, it was somehow acceptable then, and yeah, right
, right.
Chief Standing Bear (57:24):
So now actually some we have some of
that reaction in a positive way,allowing us to clean up, okay,
some of this huge environmentaldamage.
That's all through.
This is a million and a halfacres.
About half of that has well.
They can tell you better abouthow much damage and what they're
(57:45):
doing.
But they are plugging tens ofthousands of wells but sometimes
one of these wells can costover $100,000.
That's the worst case scenario,over $100,000.
That's the worst case scenario.
But the bonds that were postedunder the leases through almost
to now was $5,000.
If you want to do an oil andgas lease, you go.
(58:06):
Okay, I'll post a bondaccording to federal regulations
, $5,000.
If I pull out, my bond will payfor the cleanup.
That normally doesn't cover it.
But just go ahead and ask Janabout it if Craig's not there
about the well-plugging program,because that again it shows
that crazy contradiction ofrelations between the federal
(58:30):
government and the tribes andindustry.
It's just nuts.
It's really fascinating.
It's really fascinating.
Keeps it interesting.
AJ (58:40):
I'm wondering, Nicole, do we have time?
I'm wondering, Chief, youmentioned the photos of your.
Do we have time?
Chief Standing Bear (58:49):
as a way of closing, to go through some of
those Just right down the hall.
It's right here so well.
This is interesting.
Look at this culture clash.
This is my great uncle, freddieLookout Jr, and his wife.
Look at these guys See thisculture clash.
(59:09):
They didn't speak a word inEnglish.
I guarantee you they'redressing like that.
And this one of the Osages hadall that money.
Yeah, under the 1920s money,yeah, wow, look at that.
But here's the family.
These are all in my drawer.
One of our employees madecopies, so I just donated them
to look at that see that'sfamily, family lunch.
(59:35):
When are we talking?
AJ (59:37):
1920s heres as well, yeah, yeah yeah, here's another one, I
wonder, late 1920s yeah, Iwonder, how much else do you
carry that sense of yourancestors in what you do and how
has it shaped what you do?
Chief Standing Bear (59:52):
oh, no, no, the language carries the
culture, and so our young peopleare the success.
They'll see me in the grocerystore and talk to me in Osage
and I'll say yeah, yeah, sure,and I'm kind of like God, what
did he say?
But the fact is one thing we'velearned as we try to we're
(01:00:16):
rebuilding our language is theculture is embedded in it.
So you see certain words andstuff and we're all familiar
enough, because that generationis my grandparents' generation.
So we heard it and we knew someof the words and we know some
of the words.
But as we get further andfurther into it, we have a lot
(01:00:37):
of resources, a lot ofrecordings.
Krista (01:00:40):
We have a lot of written .
Chief Standing Bear (01:00:42):
It was written in like a Greek kind of
a lettering, but it depends onhow they recorded it.
We're very fortunate to have agood record.
AJ (01:00:53):
Good.
Chief Standing Bear (01:00:54):
Yeah.
AJ (01:00:55):
I wonder, just to close, chief, how you keep the
positivity and the humor thatyou do in the face of the
challenges oh, I see people likekrista here and she's positive.
Chief Standing Bear (01:01:08):
Yeah, yeah, I'm not kidding you, it's, it's
, that's.
How do you keep positive aroundhere with all the roadblocks
and up and down and everythingelse you just got?
What do you think, krista?
This is chris.
Is chris krista, fulkerson, hikrista, I'm anthony.
AJ (01:01:23):
Yeah, I'm really genuinely curious, like if you're the
source of positivity for thisman.
Chief Standing Bear (01:01:28):
Yeah, where do you source it?
Where you get that?
I'm mr skeptic.
Go ahead, she knows.
Krista (01:01:34):
I think that you come in every day and meet everybody
with great intentions and youthink positively and you have a
good work-life balance, and Ithink that it's very important
to be able to go into a room andtell yourself that everyone is
a big fan of yours, no matterwhat, and that's how you get
(01:01:54):
through the day.
Chief Standing Bear (01:01:55):
Well, I couldn't get away with that.
Everybody does it their own way, because when I walk into a
room I know some of these peopleare not a big fan of mine well,
you know it that's why I telleveryone just yeah you know, it.
I mean, you're human and youknow she's a lot more positive,
she's younger, she's the future.
Go get them.
AJ (01:02:13):
But even when you know it, you just hold that for yourself.
Krista (01:02:18):
Because, basically, the decisions you make during the
day are best for the nation andyou know it.
And as long as I can get up inthe morning, brush my teeth and
know I've done the best I canand my intentions are always
great and best for everyone,that's all you can do, god See
that's it, that's the magic.
AJ (01:02:33):
Thank you, good to meet.
You have a positive day.
Krista (01:02:38):
All right.
AJ (01:02:39):
It's been a great privilege.
Krista (01:02:41):
Sure have fun.
Thanks for speaking with me.
AJ (01:02:43):
So appreciate it.
Good to have you.
Yeah, I know you're so busy sowe appreciate it.
Chief Standing Bear (01:02:48):
Well, everybody's hiding out because
they won't want me to come seethem.
So much, Shut the door.
There's the chief, Okay thankyou yeah.
I really appreciate the talk.
Sure thanks a lot.
It means a great deal.
AJ (01:02:59):
Yeah, I'm glad you're doing what you're doing, thank you.
Chief Standing Bear (01:03:01):
Likewise, that's really cool.
Yeah, yeah.
So you met Jason Zahn.
Yeah, he's the chief of staffBeen to Australia.
He tells us, yeah, he was inthe Navy, yeah, and then the
other guy in there is his deputywas in the Marine Corps.
I was not in the service, butit's good to have these there.
He is, these military guys Ijudge.
AJ (01:03:20):
They expect.
Chief Standing Bear (01:03:22):
Like Jason was on an aircraft carrier, he
expects the aircraft to landwhen they're supposed to safely.
AJ (01:03:32):
That's right.
I like to expect that.
Well, that's good.
Chief Standing Bear (01:03:36):
But if you want somebody to jump out of a
tree and defend you, you need aMarine.
It's good to have all basescovered.
Yeah, oh, I got some others too.
So yeah, yeah.
AJ (01:03:48):
But hey, given we've got a moment of Coleslot here, you
mentioned Kareem before, soyou're clearly a rock and roll
fan.
I before, so you're clearly arock and roll fan.
I love music great, because Iclose every podcast talking
about music.
What?
What's been your favorite songor favorite album or anything
over the years that has jumpedout?
Chief Standing Bear (01:04:04):
wow um what was my favorite as a kid even a
formative time.
The formative time, um gosh, Idon't know.
Jimmy hendrix was big on when Iwas, uh, when I would.
What changed my?
What I was listening to, uh,was jimmy hendrix really.
AJ (01:04:24):
Yeah, I mean, I was uh young and I went, wow we visited a
place near nashville, umjefferson street, where he lived
for a while, and he credits hisplaying to what he learned in
that scene at the time well,you're talking about the
formative years, that's whatthat?
Chief Standing Bear (01:04:40):
for me it was pretty pretty away, because
before that I was listening tojan and dean and the beach boys
and cool too and before andbefore that I was listening to
my mitch rider and the detroitwheels good Golly, miss Molly.
And then, about the same time,I had the 45 of Nancy Sinatra.
(01:05:02):
These Boots Are Made ForWalking.
Well, I went from there, theBeach Boys to Jimi Hendrix, and
that was quite a leap.
And the Cream, yeah, and BlindFaith, and yeah, just the whole
thing.
AJ (01:05:22):
It's a roll call.
I'm glad I asked alright.
Thanks again, that was ChiefStanding Bear of the Osage
Nation and some of the team.
Some pics and links on thewebsite and more for paid
subscribers soon, with greatthanks for making all this
possible.
Join us, get additional stuffand help keep the show going by
(01:05:45):
heading to the website or theshow notes and following the
prompts.
Thank you.
Next up we meet with Dr JannHayman, the Nation's Secretary
of Natural Resources, foranother fascinating conversation
about what all this means onthe ground, through her lens and
her musical hand too.
The music you're hearing now isRegeneration by Amelia Barden.
(01:06:07):
My name's Anthony James.
Thanks for listening.
(01:06:47):
Thanks, Jason, you're welcome.
Real pleasure, pleasure meetingyou.
You're a listener to MitchRyder of the Detroit Wheels.
Chief Standing Bear (01:06:52):
You're a listener, Mitch Ryder of the
Detroit Wheels.
Jason (01:06:56):
No, I'm more of a.
I grew up on Kiss and TedNugent and Foreigner.
AJ (01:07:02):
Yeah, I'm your era, and then high school I was glam hair
band.
Jason (01:07:06):
Yes.
AJ (01:07:07):
More at Motley Crue.
That's what I was doing.
That's when I learned to playdrums to this stuff.
Oh, and then I grew up intogrunge of the 90s.
Jason (01:07:18):
So Pearl Jam and got mad because they killed glam bands
100%.
I don't like grunge bands.
Chief Standing Bear (01:07:25):
I'm still mad I saw David Grohl in Tulsa.
Remember when he had a bandcalled Queens of the Stone.
Age yeah, they were good thatwas about as close to stardom as
I saw that was really cool.
Hi, how are you?
Jason Hi.
Jason (00:02):
I'm Jason, nicol, nicol, nice to meet you.
Ma'am, olivia, olivia, jason,sir Anthony Anthony.
I'm Jason I'm Chief StandingBear's Chief of Staff.
I just wanted to come welcomeyou real quick.
He's finishing something up andhe should be in here in just a
few minutes.
AJ (00:16):
Thanks a lot.
Jason (00:17):
And you're from, I'm from Oklahoma City.
Nicol (00:19):
We've worked together, yeah, and we're both in
conservation districts for awhile and you said someone's
from Australia.
AJ (00:24):
We're from Australia.
From Australia, what part?
Perth, the west side Perth okay,west side.
Jason (00:29):
I've been to Brisbane twice.
Oh, that's good, I grew upthere yeah once with the Marines
we were up in Showater Baytraining area in the bush.
It's not the greatest so I wastoo tense, but I was also in the
US.
At Ronald Reagan we pulled intoBrisbane for four days.
AJ (00:46):
It was really nice.
There you go Very nice people,very polite people.
Well, right back at you.
This has been our experience inthe States Exactly Great.
Jason (00:54):
Well, welcome.
Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
He's Coming down the hallway,thanks.
AJ (01:01):
As introduced last week, we're about to meet Chief
Standing Bear of the OsageNation.
The family and I made our waywith friend and filmmaker Nicol
Ragland to Osage HQ in Pawhuska,oklahoma.
How the Osage survived beingmarched to these lands by the US
government in the 19th centuryand ongoing brutality in the
(01:22):
20th is a scene set in lastweek's episode.
If you're not familiar withthat backstory, it's worth
ducking back to listen to thatbrief 13-minute episode first.
We pick up the Osage story inthe 21st century, where they're
mapping a masterful resurgence,including the rare reclamation
of land, the powerfulrealisation of food sovereignty,
(01:42):
the innovative return oflanguage, the powerful
realisation of food sovereignty,the innovative return of
language and so much more.
G'day, Anthony James here forThe RegenNarration, your
independent, listener-supportedpodcast exploring how people are
regenerating the systems andstories we live by.
Enormous thanks this week toPhil Garozzo from the Loop
Growers crew back home in Oz fordoubling your subscription
(02:05):
amount.
And in such fraught times forfarmers too.
P hil messaged to say no matterhow tough times are, I can
always find a few dollars amonth for what you bring.
Mate, I want to say to you thatpowers me on big time.
Same to all you paidsubscribers for your support,
especially in these times.
If you can too, please considerjoining Phil and this brilliant
(02:26):
community of supportinglisteners.
Get additional stuff if youlike and help keep the show
going.
Just follow the links in theshow notes.
Thank you.
As mentioned in theintroductory episode last week,
some of you might recognise theOsage Nation from the recent
Martin Scorsese film Killers ofthe Flower Moon.
The Chiefs' early reference totheir extraordinary Academy
(02:47):
Awards appearance relates tothat.
Ok, let's meet Chief StandingBear sharing a couch, for a
fascinating, frank and generousinsight into the Osage Nation,
his role and their resurgence.
Chief Standing Bear (03:02):
Hi, how are ya?
Whoa Raygun?
Hi, I'm Jeff Standing Bear.
AJ (03:06):
Chief.
It's an honour.
Anthony James.
Chief Standing Bear (03:10):
Jeff Standing there.
AJ (03:12):
Chief it's an honour, anthony.
Chief Standing Bear (03:12):
James, hi Anthony, hello, olivia, olivia,
yeshi, yeshi, nice to meet you.
How are you, man?
Good to see you.
How are you, nice to see you?
Good to see you.
You've got a new camera too.
AJ (03:26):
Well, yeah, of course.
Chief Standing Bear (03:26):
We'll have a chair here.
Folks, how do you like our drum?
That's a buffalo.
That's a buffalo high, andOsage made that for us.
Yeah, hit it Harder.
You gotta hit it hard, reallyhard.
So they sing, they all get in acircle and they use big sticks.
(03:51):
It has buckskin around it andyou hit it and they sing songs.
And go on YouTube and look atthe Osage Academy Award singers.
That's Osage.
They were nominated for anAcademy Award and you'll see
them singing.
(04:11):
And it's not this drum, it wasanother drum like it.
AJ (04:15):
So anyway, I'm a drummer too , so I'm old to nobody.
Chief Standing Bear (04:19):
Well, there you go, you like Ginger Baker.
AJ (04:21):
Yeah, the band called the Cream.
Yeah, yeah, he was the best.
Chief Standing Bear (04:25):
Yeah, so what brings you to the USA?
AJ (04:29):
Oh, we're fascinated by how there's so many stories we are
finding and back home inAustralia this is true too right
, this is where the podcaststarted but across the states
it's true too that there's somany stories that don't make the
news, at least not often, ofregeneration, essentially of one
kind or another, whether it belandscape, whether it be
(04:50):
cultural.
And that's how we met, nicoleand I, and that's how,
essentially, you and I haveended up meeting, because I've
learned more about the osagenation as we neared your country
and some of the great workyou're up to, and, essentially,
with the passion for sharingthose stories to show people
there are ways that we canmanage these things.
Chief Standing Bear (05:09):
Well, we have a lot to learn about
Australia too, because when Iwas working in Arkansas, the
state of Arkansas, with a museumcalled the Momentary, which is
related to the Crystal Bridcrystal bridges funded by the
walton family, they had time toopen the momentary with some
(05:37):
ceremonies.
So they asked me to bring aceremonial, to bring a
ceremonial Osage who could blessthem and bless the grounds.
And we got there and they hadalso invited some folks from
(05:59):
Australia Aborigine and so wedid the ceremony and also the
Aborigines did the ceremony andit was fascinating that our
people, the Osage and othershere used cedar as one of the
(06:19):
elements and they burned thatcedar.
There's other things they cando and other things they can
burn, but in this particularceremony they that cedar.
There's other things they cando, but in this particular
ceremony they use cedar and theyuse an eagle wing to bless
members of the family as theycame through and other people.
But the Aborigines were doingthe same thing.
(06:43):
If they weren't using cedar,they were using another plant
and they also were blessing thesame way.
So our people were here and theAborigines were here and the
people were coming through andso I was like, wow, that was
very similar and the prayer thatwas involved was very similar.
(07:06):
We translated it the best Iunderstood them translating it
to us, and then we got to spendsome time with them, away from
this, the big crowds, and I saidwell, tell me something about
your people.
(07:26):
How many of them, how many ofyou are there?
Where do you live?
And what I learned is how naiveI was and how naive others must
be here, because I did not know.
Aborigine is just a term, likeyou would say, native American,
(07:47):
I thought Aborigine was a tribeand it turns out, as you all
know very well, that there areso many tribes and their
languages are different andtheir customs, although they
have come from a common area,common source, they've matured
(08:09):
in different ways, just like us.
And we had a great conversation.
More than one went to dinnerand I learned how similar they
are.
And I learned how similar theyare.
They even had reservations andthey had boarding schools where
(08:34):
their children were taken andtold not to speak the language,
not to do your customs, andexactly like us.
And the next day we kept talkingabout this and I said you know,
this has got to be like theBritish playbook.
Exactly, that was my comment,and you can see a lot of these
(08:58):
same practices from the UnitedStates government at the time
and very recently in fact, andwhen I was being told about the
Aborigine people, they were sosimilar the same practices, the
same methods to attempt to.
They called it assimilationhere and I didn't ask what they
(09:22):
called it there, australia too,yeah, Well, you know, and if you
don't assimilate, then whathappens?
well, it's not a pretty story,um, and we we don't like to
dwell on, on the negative.
There's plenty of that, uh, todwell on that's really
interesting to hear that well,americans need to know that, uh,
(09:43):
that, um, the aborigine peopleof australia are are indigenous
people or tribal people and theythink, like, uh, like we do.
I saw it.
Yeah, that was amazing yeah, Iwonder.
AJ (09:57):
I mean even just hearing you say that you don't.
There's plenty of the negativeand you don't dwell there too
long what vision do you carrythat animates your work, and how
do you keep your spirit healthythrough that?
Chief Standing Bear (10:09):
I was just talking before I came in here
with the person who runs ourchildcare programs we're part of
it and talking about theirplans for the coming year to
consolidate funds for otherservices and how is all that
(10:34):
sorted out?
Are working on budgets, workingon policy interaction with the
federal United States governmenton funding, about the concerns
(10:54):
that they all had about whetherthat funding is going to be
there, be reliable, given thecurrent political situation.
Just one group of funds we'retalking about which they are
concerned about is $3.6 million,which for a small tribe like us
is a lot of money, and there'sother funds.
(11:18):
That group is about $10 millionin funding and they are working
together, working hard and havebeen for months, and I was
getting updated because that'sthe time to do this today and I
told her.
I said you know this is part ofthe job as a chief, where
people think I do this stuff.
(11:40):
When I don't, I say we shouldgo do this stuff, and then you
all get together and decide whatparts of this would be
beneficial to our people andthen you work months and months
and year in and year out tobuild things further than I had
(12:02):
even imagined.
And it's not my vision.
It's my suggestions and thosethat are smart.
Suggestions have to come at theright time at the right place,
and I try to be very aware ofthe circumstances and the timing
(12:23):
where we are, because you don'twant to send people down a path
of frustration and not gettingthings done.
So I have a lot of internaltests that I use Can the project
be done within a time periodthat we can all get behind?
(12:44):
Because our history is one ofdisappointment and appreciation
of the small blessings that weget that are really turns out to
be huge blessings.
Just to be able to recognizethat is a skill that I don't
(13:06):
have alone.
We fortunately have traditionalpeople who can tell us we have
this, we have this ceremony, wehave this belief, we have this,
and so I guess what I'm tellingyou is we rely on each other, we
(13:26):
encourage each other.
My name just happens to be thereas chief, but I can guarantee I
can talk all day about how it'snot me.
It's not me.
It's because if I take thewrong path, the people know they
can talk to me and say I thinkwe're on the wrong path and I've
got to decide whether that'scorrect or not.
The people know they can talkto me and say I think we're on
the wrong path and I've got todecide whether that's correct or
(13:48):
not and engage in debate attimes, especially when it comes
to the children, about ourlanguage programs, about you say
tomato, they say tomato.
If you guys can't figure it outtogether, I'll decide it, even
though you're both betterspeakers than me.
So, uh, you know I gotta dothings like that, which doesn't
(14:10):
make me real popular, but butyou know you gotta keep moving.
So it.
A friend of mine went out to theharvest land.
He's a retired lawyer and theharvest land is where our
greenhouses are and others.
He saw those and he said, chief, this is a remarkable vision.
(14:34):
Well, I told him later thatthis all explained myself when I
said, david, it wasn't a vision, it was panic.
David, it wasn't a vision, itwas panic.
And he looked at me and I saidyou've got to understand.
During the COVID pandemic therewere some federal funds
(14:56):
available, and this is reallythe contradiction for being a
Native American government Onone hand, we don't want to have
the United States government inour business, but on the other
hand, if money comes our way,with all the strings that are
attached, we will decide whetheror not to grab it, and often we
(15:18):
grab it because it's good forour people.
So how do you reconcile thatcontradiction?
That's a lot of what I do.
But during COVID some fundscame down because the economic
impact was strong and so we hadto decide what to do with these
(15:40):
funds and some tribes decided toput them in checks and send
them to people.
That's not working for us, thatdoesn't build our community,
that doesn't protect us at home.
Everybody's I mean I know halfour people are moved off to
other states over the decadesfor a lot of reasons.
So we decided.
We decided and you can say undermy leadership, because it was
(16:03):
true to try to beself-sufficient, because this
pandemic will occur again.
It's been going on for humanhistory the plague of Justinians
, the great plague, the 1918 flupandemic or whatever, and there
(16:23):
will be more.
So how do we insulate ourselvesfrom that disruption and those
fears?
Where there's no meat, there'sno food, which is what happened.
Well, we try to beself-sufficient.
So we directed those funds andmatched what we could with our
(16:44):
own funds, from our smallcasinos and all, and put it
together the harvest land, whichis greenhouses.
We grow our own food.
We have food processing.
Krista (16:56):
Processing as well.
Chief Standing Bear (16:58):
Yeah, and we have food processing out
there.
We also have, 25 miles fromhere, a butcher house, a meat
processing plant where we can do75 or so head of cattle or
bison a month.
And then we have a herd ofbison about 300, some.
(17:22):
That fluctuates of course asthey go into the herd and with
all our different entities, ourdepartments and our small
economic development arm, about2,000 at least.
Well, see, they sell things,but sometimes 2,000 head of
cattle and so cattle, and sothat's that's progress.
(17:43):
So I told david uh, the reasonwe got it done from from day one
and completion of the butcherhouse in 19 months and get all
the united states department ofagriculture permits and all that
stuff and then work with thegreenhouses, that we did was not
(18:05):
so much a vision, it was panicbecause we had no meat, no food.
And when you're feedingchildren at lunch here in our
programs and elders and there'sno food and you're the head of
this, you gotta do something.
(18:28):
I mean you're talking aboutfood.
And then of course we're reallyshort as reliable, clean water
of course it's real third worldhere regularly out of water
sometime for a week or two.
That's ridiculous.
And we're getting internet nowfor the first time, broadband
(18:51):
for the first time.
That's big.
But some of this that's going onin Washington DC is making us
anxious because we are livingthis contradiction the federal
government provides the funds,but that's federal money and
there's conditions upon it.
(19:12):
When you get into that you'vegot to assume those risks.
But once people get involved init they have a tendency to
relax on various levels.
And if you get out there andtalk to our director, secretary
of Development, secretary ofNatural Resources, jan Heyman,
(19:32):
she'll tell you I have beensaying again, this is not a
vision To me.
This is showing a necessitythat what you would see out
there really needs to be treatedas a pilot project.
There's no debt on it.
We're doing our best they areto sustain itself by doing
(19:56):
farmer's markets, makingrelationships which they have to
do with, restaurants, et cetera.
But they've got to start beingmore self-sustaining.
And I've told them we didn'thave anything like this before.
(20:16):
And now our people know we'rehere.
We have 26,000 members.
Our people are scattered, onlyabout 4,000, 5,000 here.
But should there be anotherpandemic?
I tell the people in thoseareas.
And now our people know aboutthat.
Now I'm just trying to dooff-the-cuff mathematics, which
(20:40):
I'm not good at, but trying tofigure out what would be the
demand.
And if I'm in Osage in OklahomaCity, two hours away from here,
and I have a non-Osage wife andnon-Osage children and there's
again no food in the grocerystores, what I'm going to do is
(21:02):
say, hey, don't worry everybody,our Osage tribe, my Osage tribe
and you kids' Osage tribe we'reall going to go up to the Osage
and we'll get boxes of meat,which we can do, and we'll get
whatever vegetables and fruitsthey have going on, which we do,
and we'll be okay.
(21:22):
But I tell my people do yourealize that I've already
counted how many people wouldcome?
And that could be over 5 000people lining up.
Are you ready for that?
Answer is no.
Well, that's why we've got toget out of this complacency
where, okay, we've done thisgreat stuff, but we can't handle
(21:45):
the demand and the othercommunities around us don't do
this as they should.
So how do you motivate peopleto do what I think is a great
program and emulate it andexpand it in some order to feed
ourselves and have healthy food?
(22:07):
How do you do that?
And I'm not doing it and we arenot doing it.
Here's where you get to sharethe blame.
Everybody gets the credit.
We are not doing it.
Krista (22:21):
It's the film I got, and that's good.
Chief Standing Bear (22:23):
That's a good place to stop.
There we go.
That was a good.
The film I got, yeah, andthat's good.
That's a good place to stop.
There we go.
That was a good thought.
I'm so sorry, I don't.
I'm not much, I did way toomuch thinking anyway, but I
really think the proof's in thepudding right, you've got to
make things happen, you know.
AJ (22:43):
And it sounds like that is what's happening.
Chief Standing Bear (22:44):
That's what happens, yeah.
AJ (22:48):
I'm so curious how that method of leadership, if you
like, has also resulted in thisextraordinary reacquisition of
Osage lands.
Oh, we've got lands.
Chief Standing Bear (22:58):
Yeah, we've done all that.
We've got some small casinos.
We have one large casino inTulsa but we have just built.
We have seven now small casinos.
Until just five years ago, oneof them was a double-wide
trailer here in our capital.
So we've expanded from adouble-wide trailer to a
(23:26):
restaurant and some gamingmachines and a hotel here that's
got like 33 rooms, I believe,in a hotel here that's got like
33 rooms, I believe.
And then we have a larger onefurther away that's got 100
rooms.
So these are not gigantic butit fits our ability to pay for
(23:47):
everything and have the moneyfor our educational programs or
health programs.
We basically tax, like alltribes, we tax our gaming
facilities at 100%, right, yeah,and so what we do with these
funds?
(24:08):
In our agreement with the UnitedStates and somewhat to the
state of Oklahoma, we committhis to the people through
health programs.
There's a new clinic beingbuilt, for example.
If you go downtown here youcame in from the west just keep
(24:33):
going down through the east justabout three blocks and you'll
see the clinic we're going toopen in July.
Every Osage that can getinvolved in an education
certified or accrediteduniversity or college we can pay
up to $14,000 a year in theirtuition and books.
(24:54):
We also have a career techprogram where we will pay for
that and also give them a smallstipend monthly.
Then we have Medicaresupplements that we pay for our
people if you have Medicare,which is a federal program for
(25:15):
the elderly, and then we haveburial assistance at $8,000 to
help with the defray the cost ofa funeral and burial.
And those are the big threeprograms that we have and after
we fund those we get into.
Oh well, how do we match what'sleft over from our casinos with
(25:38):
the federal monies or privatefunds that we seek and to put
into our program budgets likethe Indian Child Welfare Act is
a federal act that allows tribes.
I think it's some federal moneybut not much.
But it allows the tribalnations.
I've got to get away fromtribes, tribal nations, because
(26:00):
we are nations, we're politicalentities and we've been here
since before the states, youknow.
So how do we take these fundsand fund a program like Indian
Child Welfare where in 1978 anda little after that, the laws
(26:40):
allows the tribes to intervenein a case where an Indian child
is subject to removal from thehome for whatever reason that a
state says so, be it drugs,arrest, broken home, or usually
they're all bad situations, myexperience.
But instead of having thosechildren put up for adoption,
(27:02):
which was the case prior to the70s, one-third the record will
tell you of all Native Americanchildren were being put out for
adoption.
Yeah, australia too, going backto that.
Well, that law allows us topick up, and this is mostly in
fact.
I had a meeting earlier thismorning about that.
(27:22):
How do we increase funding andget more people and travel money
to go to the different countiesjust in Oklahoma and tell the
court we're here under federallaw and Oklahoma law.
Now we can provide a fosterhome, which is an extended
family member.
We can provide a report to thecourt and we will work with the
(27:46):
state social workers.
We can do this with you, witheverybody, for the benefit and
the best interest of the child,as they say, and get those
children in safe environmentswith the goal of reuniting the
family.
And there's all thesemethodologies that apply to that
(28:10):
crazy complex world of tryingto rescue our children and our
families before it's present fortomorrow, and so that costs
money and we have to pay forthat.
So what we do is we take after,we do our.
This is just associated.
Other tribes do it differently.
After we pay for ourscholarship programs, after we
(28:34):
pay for our health card,everybody gets a $500 to be
increased later in the healthcard.
Our elders have a Medicaresupplement.
How do we take care of that?
That's one program.
Burial assistance All thosethings cost millions of dollars.
So after we do that, what'sleft over from the gaming
(28:54):
operations?
We use that to match federaland private funds, and so
there's the amount of money.
Now, what's our budgets?
What do our budgets look like?
What's the request going to benow to my legislature 12 people.
What are they going toappropriate from these funds to
(29:16):
satisfy that budget?
Which means, at my level here,we've got to cut that budget
before it's submitted.
Quite a bit often becausepeople say, well, in order to do
what we need to do, it needs tobe this or that, and I have to
make the call that it's notgoing to be this or that, it's
going to be much smaller, and sopeople have emotions about that
(29:42):
, and that's normal.
But you've got to be able towithstand that criticism and say
, for the greater good of ourpeople, this is what I determine
, and if you can't handle it,you have to collect somebody
else.
Yeah, yeah.
So that's, that's the.
I think I just summed up theentire being being what I do,
and it's it's the minuscule tothe, the big picture stuff, both
(30:06):
, and yeah you gotta have goodpeople yeah, and you to let room
for art and music dance.
We're really big on that.
You've got to have that, orit's all mundane and it's all
sterile.
You've got to say, okay, well,some of this money that's left
(30:29):
over we've got to commit to thepuppet show.
Or on their own.
Our people get these giantpuppets, you know, they're more
than life-size and they get in,like the chinese puppet things,
and they get in and they tellour creation story and other
stories.
Or our dance maker, where wehave actual classical ballet
(30:49):
school.
That's a private school here intown and we fund it through
donations and or whatever, ourmuseum.
We have a museum.
We want to expand.
But one thing we've I'velearned is you've got to have
(31:11):
that ability to express yourselfin artistic form, even video,
yeah, or it's just, we're justhere and that's not.
It's great to be here, it'sgreat to have survived, but
we've got to express ourselves.
But we got to express ourselves, yeah, that's.
(31:38):
That's.
The big deal to me right now ishow do we do that in a way that
continues things, that makespeople happy?
because, damn it, there's toomuch depression, yeah, there's
too much negativity and it'scontagious yeah you know, you
know just art can, can destroythat and rebuild the world in my
opinion.
AJ (31:52):
Really.
Chief Standing Bear (31:53):
Yeah, you believe that, I really believe
it.
Of course, my dad was an artistand I used to sit there while
he was an oil painter.
He died very young to me, hewas 44.
So you know, I can still smellthe paints.
Yeah, wow.
But you know, it's just whatyou're exposed to.
(32:16):
So my brother and I wereexposed to fencing where we used
the Italian foil or the Frenchfoil or the saber, and we did
that as 14, 15-year-olds becauseI was raised in Tulsa and they
had these opportunities.
But here what we're trying todo is recreate best we can and
(32:40):
we can't really just transplantcommunities and say, well, here
it is, you've got to be patient,you've got to let people
develop their own way and then,one thing our people have done.
next to that new clinic you'llsee an outdoor health trail with
exercise machines all the waythrough and it's rather large,
(33:04):
over a mile, and in walkingareas and you'll see all the
outdoor health equipment.
And then we have pickleballcourts and basketball courts,
and we just did this this lastyear, really, yeah, wow.
And so people are participating, not just Native or Osages, but
(33:27):
our community, community and soum.
So we found little places wherewe can't change the, the
activities, get healthier.
I didn't do that.
That was a group of of thoseages that said let's go do that.
They came up here, chief, wewant to do this.
(33:49):
I will it 100%.
That's a lot of what I do.
AJ (33:53):
Yeah, I hear you.
It's a refrain I hear oftenthrough the podcast, actually
with people in leadershippositions where things are
sprouting.
I really cottoned on to yourwords before, at the start,
where you said, beyond what youcould even envision, oh yeah, if
you create the conditions.
I'm curious.
Yeah, that's right.
There's so much happening atthe same time as a result of
(34:16):
that process.
And I'm curious when you talkabout the paradoxical role that
you play as chief in terms ofdealing with the United States
political structures.
We don't have an Air.
Force you always have toremember that.
Chief Standing Bear (34:31):
That helps in time for these little
decisions.
You have to say, well, we'vegot to do this, do that, and
then you have to mind yourselfyour limitations I think about
the big land acquisition thatyou put into trust oh yeah,
you've read about that yeah, andyou put it into trust with the
(34:51):
united states government?
yes, because that perfectexample.
Yeah, exactly the reason we putit into the title where it says
United States of America intrust for the Osage Nation,
because under federal law inthis country, you have to fall
into the treaty relationship andthe federal relationship to not
(35:17):
be subject to state taxation,state regulation, state control.
And so, even though you'reunder the federal system we are
used to that, we understand that, and the states historically
have been much more hostile thanthe federal relations.
(35:39):
They both have their problems.
Our sovereignty, as they sayand I try to teach my people
here at this staff levelsovereignty is something that
all governments have and allpeople have.
(36:00):
But you know how it manifestsitself, is what we struggle with
and what we believe in, and forus, well, it turned out to be
expressed with the 43,000 acresin trust.
It turns out to be expressedwith the 43,000 acres in trust.
It turns out to manifest itselfwith our language programs for
(36:22):
our children.
It manifests itself in ourexisting and our strength and
our culture, but it is, I guess,theoretically, and this is
Western world training I've had.
I was a lawyer for many yearsand I did a lot of work for a
lot of tribes.
I look at it and, as someothers have said better than me,
(36:46):
that sovereignty consists of aninternal sovereignty and an
external sovereignty and anexternal sovereignty.
And one thing I'm working onthis morning is the relationship
between the state and us, asOsage and other tribes, on
(37:07):
taxation of tobacco products andable to issue our own license
tags and use of the stateturnpike system.
All have their own differencesand similarities and on the
turnpike, for example, ourpeople are using it without a
(37:31):
pike pass, they call it, and theturnpike authority is an
instrumentality of the state.
They want their money and so wehave said, well, it's true, our
people use that, let's work outan agreement.
And they said, okay, well,here's an agreement.
And our lawyers come back andsay, well, here's a modified
(37:51):
from that.
This is different.
And I got involved and I go go.
Why are you all talking in youragreements about sovereignty?
This is nothing aboutsovereignty, this is a business
deal.
Can't you give us a fleet right?
Can't we start looking at it?
Because anytime you throwsovereignty out there and you
only see this in the externalrelations with the uh, other
(38:17):
tribes, counties, cities,federal government, when you
start throwing sovereignty inthere.
That's dangerous Because oncesovereignty is tied up in an
event that doesn't have to bequalified as a sovereign event,
it could be a businesstransaction Like just give us a
(38:40):
fleet rate, you know, like wewere a trucking company, and
then let's negotiate thearrearage, but let's find out,
how did you determine thatarrearage, you know?
So that's where we are on thatissue the smoke shops and our
individual smoke shop owners, etcetera.
That's got its own world.
(39:00):
And then we have the licensetag general issue.
And those are all where thestate and the nation have to act
as sovereigns and have todetermine how much of that
external sovereignty will weconcede, how much will you
(39:25):
concede in order to enforce anagreement with each other and
for how long.
And it's dangerous If you'renot careful and you end up in
court.
The court can be hostile and wehave experienced that where some
(39:45):
of the tribes in Oklahoma.
They have large, re-recognized,reaffirmed reservations in
legal theory and on paper andnow they have to supply the law
enforcement and they're gettingdeeper and deeper into that.
The Osage had a case in theyear 2010 where they put that
(40:09):
sovereignty out there and lost.
So our reservation and whereour jurisdiction, our authority
to govern, occurs, is extremelylimited within these lands.
Where we're sitting now isfederal land in trust for the
(40:33):
Osage Nation, and it has beensince this spot here.
It was in 1906, and prior tothat it's 1872, when we finally
were removed into Oklahoma fromour previous journeys, survivors
of war.
So you've just got tounderstand these elements and
(40:54):
how they behave, and nobody cando it alone.
You've got to count on divineintervention a lot, really.
Yeah, uh, yeah.
This this is like yeah, I meanyou can't.
You can't figure this stuff out.
I don't care who you are, butyou've got to recognize certain
(41:18):
commonality in concept andconversation to even get to an
agreement.
Like you know, I meanrudimentary we agreed this is a
table, right?
Well, where'd that come from?
You know?
I mean, I've got photos here onthe wall.
I'll show you.
My family back in the 20s wereeating.
(41:40):
They didn't eat on tables, theysat on the ground.
I've got photographs here.
They did that stuff.
One of my cousins she's olderthan me when we were little she
was always so mad because someof these old folks would use
their hands to eat on everythingand she went to a private
(42:00):
school, julia, and she was like,oh, our people are so crude and
you know she was prim andproper, but we've been doing
that thousands of years now.
I use a fork and knife and allthat.
But you understand that I loveair conditioning, especially in
(42:22):
this heat, and I like easy waterand electricity.
But, as the old folks, the oldIndians, used to tell me, why do
you want to be like we were andour parents and grandparents?
We didn't have air conditioning, we didn't have penicillin, we
didn't have this, this, this.
(42:44):
You know what are you doing?
I said, well, I guess it justsounds cool to be an Indian.
He said, well, we are Indians.
And you know, I'm telling,telling you, it's a hard, hard
world.
So that's, that's that.
Gotta take that view too.
Yeah, yeah.
So I owe to count yourblessings.
(43:05):
I guess that's the moral of thestory yeah, I'm so curious on so
many levels with how younavigate that if the situation
is upon you, you know likeyou're in a stream, you want to
get in the water and watch asmall river and you see a stream
within a stream like over hereyou can go, over here.
You can usually do that.
That's where the fish are, youknow.
Run a little different.
(43:26):
You can feel the difference inthe pressure right.
Oh yeah, yeah, you can go.
Oh okay, I don't want to getover there, I'll be swept away.
Same thing, you just go aheadand go well.
Krista (43:38):
I can't get over here.
Chief Standing Bear (43:38):
I need some 300-pound guys to come in here
and do their thing.
That's what I do.
I just try to figure out whatthe hell's going on here.
I always ask my staff where arewe today?
I don't know, but if they tellme where we are and they're real
patient with me, they say well,we're over here, Chief, and we
(44:01):
need to be over there.
And they know how I think aboutchasing.
Futility is something I willnot tolerate.
If we're making progress, nomatter how difficult it is,
reinforce that, get behind it,move forward, but I will cut
(44:25):
bait and leave in a heartbeat ifit's not going anywhere.
AJ (44:27):
Is there something that's changed for you?
Where are you guys with thecurrent administration at a
federal level?
Chief Standing Bear (44:35):
Well, we have to rely on ourselves first,
and I was talking to some of mystaff another group this
morning.
I can't believe it's only beenabout 12 weeks since President
Trump was elected.
We have really good relationswith our legislators here, our
(44:55):
federal legislators, our twosenators and our members of the
Congress.
Are they Republicans?
Yes, we have really goodrelationships with some of the
people within the federalgovernment.
One of them called me thismorning and said I'm going to
(45:20):
need to review my ethics letterregarding Osage because he was
one of our attorneys for 11years, so we'll sit down and
work that out.
He's high up in the Departmentof Interior.
He's high up in the Departmentof Interior, selected to be
there.
So we have people we know, butin the meantime, you can't just
(45:44):
rely on that because they cancome in and do what they want.
The defense is self-sufficiency,economic self-sufficiency, and
when we say the federalgovernment, everybody agrees on
political self-determination,then what you have to do is get
behind that and you've got tomean it and say we will defend
(46:04):
it.
And what are you talking aboutnow?
We're talking about our way oflife and we're talking about
territory, because in order todo any of this sovereignty,
external and internal.
You've got to have yourterritory that you're talking
about.
This is us as a people, this isour language, we still have it,
we're rebuilding it and this isour territory.
(46:26):
So, even though we walk intothe contradiction of in trust
for the Osage, you've got tounderstand what that means.
In trust, there's an obligationin the United States to
recognize certain treaties,certain other actions.
But you don't want to rely onthat because then, if you get in
front of the judges, the judgesmay say, well, that used to be
(46:50):
the rule, so you can't takeanything for granted.
The only defense isself-sufficiency.
So I mean, that is it.
Otherwise, people should not besurprised if the federal
government comes in and sayswell, we're going to do what we
did in Alaska.
We're going to createcorporations, tribal
(47:14):
corporations, and you can haveyour tribal entities as
governments, but all yourresources are being transferred
to corporate entities.
That's one idea that's stillcirculating in Washington DC to,
as they say, get out of theIndian business.
Where's the exit ramp?
Now, that's a because under no,here's the exit ramp.
(47:36):
You know, that's a becauseunder under the law at spring
court of the United Statesdecisions, there is a lot of
unilateral authority from theUnited States Congress and
President called plenary power.
It's like a one-way streetalmost to unilaterally modify
(48:02):
the treaties and otherarrangements because it's in the
national interest of the UnitedStates, and I've watched that
since I was a young lawyer.
I saw this happen in court manydecades ago in the Japanese
internment cases.
I don't know if you knew this,but American citizens that were
(48:25):
of Japanese descent were placedin camps.
AJ (48:33):
Yeah, Australia too.
Chief Standing Bear (48:34):
Yeah, their property was confiscated.
Well, how are they going to becompensated?
Well, you look at all that, yousay, well, it wasn't wrong, it
was in the national interest atthe time.
And so when you dig into thatline of thinking and you look at
reasoning and action and youlook at other activities of the
(48:57):
Native Americans, what we have,you can see, or I can see at
least.
If it's determined to be in thenational interest, anything is
possible.
So my advice is to be ready andwe've got to expand our.
So I said, our butcher house,our harvest land.
(49:19):
Look at these as pilot projects.
Let's become self-sufficient,otherwise we are internally weak
in our sovereignty.
We're internally weak, whichmakes us weak when we try to
expand or protect ourselvesexternally.
That's how I see it and that'show I act.
(49:42):
We are really at risk right now.
The world is changing and wecould be collateral damage, not
even targeted as being part ofthe thing.
It's just like my child caredirector said Secretary of Child
Care and all that she says wegot this $10 million, we're
(50:04):
trying to consolidate, make itmore flexible, but we can't
really say it's going to bethere in three or four months,
because we don't know whatWashington DC is going to do,
and it's not just on us.
It's not just on us, it's justthe larger program.
It's like our broadband.
If it's cut at a national level, we would be like our solar
(50:32):
power project was cut.
It wasn't directed at us, it wasdirected nationwide at funding
a program cutting all theserenewable energy programs.
We had a solar power projectdown in Hominy, near the, where
(50:56):
the butcher house is, and it wascaught up in that and they
clawed back.
They said they called it,clawed back the money it already
had been appropriated by theUnited States Congress.
It's there.
It was sitting along with othergovernments not just tribal,
(51:16):
but other governments inaccounts.
I think it was Citibank, I'mnot sure which bank it was, but
it was already there and we werejust one of many.
And when they cut that out,clawed it back.
End of solar project, end ofcontracts, end of aspirations of
(51:37):
using that solar power.
Just done.
That happened a couple monthsago.
So we've got we have like otherprojects that we've got to keep
an eye on if it happens andthey claw it back.
There's not a whole lot you cando.
So what you got to do is lookfor alternatives.
The only alternative it makessense to me is self-sufficiency,
but damn, that's hard.
(51:58):
Yeah, I mean, of course, right,yeah, so I don't have an answer
.
AJ (52:03):
I just try to keep moving forward yeah, is it important in
that context to I know there'san osage news outlet to have to
have your own media, your yourown means of stories?
Chief Standing Bear (52:18):
uh, not biased, that would be great but,
human biases are natural andand it expresses itself in our,
in our media, because, uh,that's just the way it is and
and I just don't see how we canfund regularly a larger Osage
(52:38):
News that had more staff andmore ability to not go to the
story.
That will get people to look atstuff.
AJ (52:49):
Yeah the clickbait, yeah the quick look.
Chief Standing Bear (52:52):
And I think they're better than they used
to be.
But we also need alternativemedia besides just one.
How do you do that?
Otherwise, it's not becausethey're part of the government.
In fact, we have separated themfrom the government and we fund
them, no strings attached.
(53:13):
But you've got to be aware andI know some of them are that the
money comes from ourlegislature, 12 members, and
that is not always a unifiedgroup and, in my view, some of
them, and some of them, as wedo- me are not always in a rose
garden.
Krista (53:32):
Yeah.
Chief Standing Bear (53:34):
So we need alternative methods of messaging
, which is where our people,again the younger people, are
coming together and creatingkeyboards on our iPhones and
computers in our language,really, and starting to
(54:01):
communicate with each other moreand more in our language.
And let's see, I can show you.
Yeah, they have these.
Let's see, how do you do that?
AJ (54:14):
Now you really tweaked the uh curiosity.
Chief Standing Bear (54:16):
The young fella yeah let's see, I go maybe
here, turn it there here.
Oh, there it is.
You see, that little worldthing, that little.
Yeah, see that, yeah, okay, seethese english words yeah watch
this.
Oh okay, that was great, yeah,okay, see these English words.
(54:36):
Yeah, watch this.
Oh okay, that was great, yeah,osage keyboard yeah.
Wow, see that.
AJ (54:40):
Wow, what do you know?
That's why they used to get theSpanish keyboard on the app as
well.
Chief Standing Bear (54:45):
Oh.
AJ (54:45):
Yeah, you can do it with Osage.
Chief Standing Bear (54:47):
So here's our language.
So I've seen some 16-year-oldstexting each other from
different communities.
See, isn't that great.
So that's the solution reallyIs go ahead and have us
communicate with each other thisway and use technology, and
that way you don't have to worryabout underfunding the OCS News
(55:08):
.
We need to keep it funded.
But we've got to havealternatives, and this is what
I'm talking about.
I don't mean alternativenewspapers.
I mean alternative methods ofcommunication methods
communication right with you.
AJ (55:20):
There it is.
That's pretty cool.
I can see an osage podcastalready.
Chief Standing Bear (55:24):
Well, they've got some really yeah.
Yeah, that's so good, I'm sosorry to interrupt.
Krista (55:30):
So we should, we should, kind of wrap it up.
Chief Standing Bear (55:32):
All right, see, jan, I think it okay, good
point ask Craig Walker, who'syour right hand down there,
about the well plugging?
I thought about this thismorning.
I almost called you about it,but I figured I'd see you.
The well plugging project.
We have tens of thousands ofabandoned wells and many of them
(55:55):
are orphaned, which means noone knows who owns them because
they're all 1920s and so forth.
Craig is the administratorunder Jan of another federal
grant to plug these orphanedwells which are leaking.
But the amount of?
We have a lot of hope that thiswill continue.
(56:19):
I think you'll find thatinteresting that we are doing
the well plugging even thoughwe're not getting hardly any
money from oil production or gasproduction.
That's mostly gone really yeah.
So what they've left us is tensof thousands of abandoned wells.
(56:39):
So when we bought that43,000-acre ranch and put it
into trust, one of the delays toput it in trust is the federal
government said well, we can'ttake it in trust, it's going to
be under our name, united Statesof America.
In trust, that meansenvironmental laws can come on
to us and force us to clean up.
(57:00):
And my response was well, ithappened under your watch during
the 1920s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s.
You allowed all this to happen,and now we want to put it in
federal trust.
Get out of the state ofoklahoma's breach.
Um, you've got to, uh, workwith us on this.
AJ (57:20):
So yeah, it was somehow acceptable then, and yeah, right
, right.
Chief Standing Bear (57:24):
So now actually some we have some of
that reaction in a positive way,allowing us to clean up, okay,
some of this huge environmentaldamage.
That's all through.
This is a million and a halfacres.
About half of that has well.
They can tell you better abouthow much damage and what they're
(57:45):
doing.
But they are plugging tens ofthousands of wells but sometimes
one of these wells can costover $100,000.
That's the worst case scenario,over $100,000.
That's the worst case scenario.
But the bonds that were postedunder the leases through almost
to now was $5,000.
If you want to do an oil andgas lease, you go.
(58:06):
Okay, I'll post a bondaccording to federal regulations
, $5,000.
If I pull out, my bond will payfor the cleanup.
That normally doesn't cover it.
But just go ahead and ask Janabout it if Craig's not there
about the well-plugging program,because that again it shows
that crazy contradiction ofrelations between the federal
(58:30):
government and the tribes andindustry.
It's just nuts.
It's really fascinating.
It's really fascinating.
Keeps it interesting.
AJ (58:40):
I'm wondering, Nicole, do we have time?
I'm wondering, Chief, youmentioned the photos of your.
Do we have time?
Chief Standing Bear (58:49):
as a way of closing, to go through some of
those Just right down the hall.
It's right here so well.
This is interesting.
Look at this culture clash.
This is my great uncle, freddieLookout Jr, and his wife.
Look at these guys See thisculture clash.
(59:09):
They didn't speak a word inEnglish.
I guarantee you they'redressing like that.
And this one of the Osages hadall that money.
Yeah, under the 1920s money,yeah, wow, look at that.
But here's the family.
These are all in my drawer.
One of our employees madecopies, so I just donated them
to look at that see that'sfamily, family lunch.
(59:35):
When are we talking?
AJ (59:37):
1920s heres as well, yeah, yeah yeah, here's another one, I
wonder, late 1920s yeah, Iwonder, how much else do you
carry that sense of yourancestors in what you do and how
has it shaped what you do?
Chief Standing Bear (59:52):
oh, no, no, the language carries the
culture, and so our young peopleare the success.
They'll see me in the grocerystore and talk to me in Osage
and I'll say yeah, yeah, sure,and I'm kind of like God, what
did he say?
But the fact is one thing we'velearned as we try to we're
(01:00:16):
rebuilding our language is theculture is embedded in it.
So you see certain words andstuff and we're all familiar
enough, because that generationis my grandparents' generation.
So we heard it and we knew someof the words and we know some
of the words.
But as we get further andfurther into it, we have a lot
(01:00:37):
of resources, a lot ofrecordings.
Krista (01:00:40):
We have a lot of written .
Chief Standing Bear (01:00:42):
It was written in like a Greek kind of
a lettering, but it depends onhow they recorded it.
We're very fortunate to have agood record.
AJ (01:00:53):
Good.
Chief Standing Bear (01:00:54):
Yeah.
AJ (01:00:55):
I wonder, just to close, chief, how you keep the
positivity and the humor thatyou do in the face of the
challenges oh, I see people likekrista here and she's positive.
Chief Standing Bear (01:01:08):
Yeah, yeah, I'm not kidding you, it's, it's
, that's.
How do you keep positive aroundhere with all the roadblocks
and up and down and everythingelse you just got?
What do you think, krista?
This is chris.
Is chris krista, fulkerson, hikrista, I'm anthony.
AJ (01:01:23):
Yeah, I'm really genuinely curious, like if you're the
source of positivity for thisman.
Chief Standing Bear (01:01:28):
Yeah, where do you source it?
Where you get that?
I'm mr skeptic.
Go ahead, she knows.
Krista (01:01:34):
I think that you come in every day and meet everybody
with great intentions and youthink positively and you have a
good work-life balance, and Ithink that it's very important
to be able to go into a room andtell yourself that everyone is
a big fan of yours, no matterwhat, and that's how you get
(01:01:54):
through the day.
Chief Standing Bear (01:01:55):
Well, I couldn't get away with that.
Everybody does it their own way, because when I walk into a
room I know some of these peopleare not a big fan of mine well,
you know it that's why I telleveryone just yeah you know, it.
I mean, you're human and youknow she's a lot more positive,
she's younger, she's the future.
Go get them.
AJ (01:02:13):
But even when you know it, you just hold that for yourself.
Krista (01:02:18):
Because, basically, the decisions you make during the
day are best for the nation andyou know it.
And as long as I can get up inthe morning, brush my teeth and
know I've done the best I canand my intentions are always
great and best for everyone,that's all you can do, god See
that's it, that's the magic.
AJ (01:02:33):
Thank you, good to meet.
You have a positive day.
Krista (01:02:38):
All right.
AJ (01:02:39):
It's been a great privilege.
Krista (01:02:41):
Sure have fun.
Thanks for speaking with me.
AJ (01:02:43):
So appreciate it.
Good to have you.
Yeah, I know you're so busy sowe appreciate it.
Chief Standing Bear (01:02:48):
Well, everybody's hiding out because
they won't want me to come seethem.
So much, Shut the door.
There's the chief, Okay thankyou yeah.
I really appreciate the talk.
Sure thanks a lot.
It means a great deal.
AJ (01:02:59):
Yeah, I'm glad you're doing what you're doing, thank you.
Chief Standing Bear (01:03:01):
Likewise, that's really cool.
Yeah, yeah.
So you met Jason Zahn.
Yeah, he's the chief of staffBeen to Australia.
He tells us, yeah, he was inthe Navy, yeah, and then the
other guy in there is his deputywas in the Marine Corps.
I was not in the service, butit's good to have these there.
He is, these military guys Ijudge.
AJ (01:03:20):
They expect.
Chief Standing Bear (01:03:22):
Like Jason was on an aircraft carrier, he
expects the aircraft to landwhen they're supposed to safely.
AJ (01:03:32):
That's right.
I like to expect that.
Well, that's good.
Chief Standing Bear (01:03:36):
But if you want somebody to jump out of a
tree and defend you, you need aMarine.
It's good to have all basescovered.
Yeah, oh, I got some others too.
So yeah, yeah.
AJ (01:03:48):
But hey, given we've got a moment of Coleslot here, you
mentioned Kareem before, soyou're clearly a rock and roll
fan.
I before, so you're clearly arock and roll fan.
I love music great, because Iclose every podcast talking
about music.
What?
What's been your favorite songor favorite album or anything
over the years that has jumpedout?
Chief Standing Bear (01:04:04):
wow um what was my favorite as a kid even a
formative time.
The formative time, um gosh, Idon't know.
Jimmy hendrix was big on when Iwas, uh, when I would.
What changed my?
What I was listening to, uh,was jimmy hendrix really.
AJ (01:04:24):
Yeah, I mean, I was uh young and I went, wow we visited a
place near nashville, umjefferson street, where he lived
for a while, and he credits hisplaying to what he learned in
that scene at the time well,you're talking about the
formative years, that's whatthat?
Chief Standing Bear (01:04:40):
for me it was pretty pretty away, because
before that I was listening tojan and dean and the beach boys
and cool too and before andbefore that I was listening to
my mitch rider and the detroitwheels good Golly, miss Molly.
And then, about the same time,I had the 45 of Nancy Sinatra.
(01:05:02):
These Boots Are Made ForWalking.
Well, I went from there, theBeach Boys to Jimi Hendrix, and
that was quite a leap.
And the Cream, yeah, and BlindFaith, and yeah, just the whole
thing.
AJ (01:05:22):
It's a roll call.
I'm glad I asked alright.
Thanks again, that was ChiefStanding Bear of the Osage
Nation and some of the team.
Some pics and links on thewebsite and more for paid
subscribers soon, with greatthanks for making all this
possible.
Join us, get additional stuffand help keep the show going by
(01:05:45):
heading to the website or theshow notes and following the
prompts.
Thank you.
Next up we meet with Dr JannHayman, the Nation's Secretary
of Natural Resources, foranother fascinating conversation
about what all this means onthe ground, through her lens and
her musical hand too.
The music you're hearing now isRegeneration by Amelia Barden.
(01:06:07):
My name's Anthony James.
Thanks for listening.
(01:06:47):
Thanks, Jason, you're welcome.
Real pleasure, pleasure meetingyou.
You're a listener to MitchRyder of the Detroit Wheels.
Chief Standing Bear (01:06:52):
You're a listener, Mitch Ryder of the
Detroit Wheels.
Jason (01:06:56):
No, I'm more of a.
I grew up on Kiss and TedNugent and Foreigner.
AJ (01:07:02):
Yeah, I'm your era, and then high school I was glam hair
band.
Jason (01:07:06):
Yes.
AJ (01:07:07):
More at Motley Crue.
That's what I was doing.
That's when I learned to playdrums to this stuff.
Oh, and then I grew up intogrunge of the 90s.
Jason (01:07:18):
So Pearl Jam and got mad because they killed glam bands
100%.
I don't like grunge bands.
Chief Standing Bear (01:07:25):
I'm still mad I saw David Grohl in Tulsa.
Remember when he had a bandcalled Queens of the Stone.
Age yeah, they were good thatwas about as close to stardom as
I saw that was really cool.
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