#56 - Native Cousin Chronicles: "She's my Mom's, Dad's, Sister-in-Law's, Daughter's Grandson" - Tribal Research Specialist: The Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Shandin Pete (00:00):
well, yeah, man, come in, come in, come in hello,
hello hello, hello, hello,hello, hello, hello, hello.
Can you hear me?
Can you hear me?
Can you hear me?
Can you hear me?
Can you hear me?
Can you hear me?
Hello, hello, hello what noyeah I hear that.

(00:22):
Yeah.
Nope.
Nope, I mean it's faint Hello.
Yeah.
Hello.

Aaron Brien (00:33):
Yeah, skivity, skivity.

No, no, don't do it.

Skivity, skivity.

Don't do it, man

Skivity.

Don't do it.
Not that, anything, but thatword Skivity Skivity is Don't do
it.
Not that, anything, but thatword Skivity is.
Anything but that word.

Skivity.
But is this clear?
As long as you can hear meclear, it doesn't really matter,
right?

Yeah, I mean, it's not great, but it's good.
What do you?

I don't get what you're saying here, odo, it's
yep, yep there you, oh, thereyou are yep, yep, it's working
now you're golden, I'm gonna putsome sweats on

you're not wearing anything.
Thank you, I'm going to go yeahyou better put something on man.

(02:11):
That's weird, that's gettingweird.

No, I had regular jeans on.
Oh, you had pants on.
We went to Billings.
We went to billings, we went.
We went to billings because mytribe is ancient and still gives
me a paper check.
Oh, but I make more.
Fortunately, I make more thanthe bank allows me to do to take

(02:38):
the pictures.

Oh, no, I take the picture yeah, you got like a
half the taking.

Yeah, you got like a thousand dollar deposit limit
on no.
I take the picture of my checkI have to take it.

Yeah, you got like a thousand dollar deposit limit
on that or whatever.

Yeah.
Yeah, that's exactly it.

So we're good.
Then right, it's like the WildWest man, the Wild West.
Oh yeah, you got the MountainDew.
Is that a tall boy?
Mountain Dew, tall boy, tallboy.

Miranda got it for me after I said I didn't want
one gotta keep that blood sugarup in that red zone she knows my
heart.
Hey, do we have Tylenol?

I'm going to spike that, spike that Mountain Dew
with some Tylenol May as well.
You know, got to get.

You got to get it all, right I took a motion
earlier so I don't want todouble up on the modis, you know
, on the IBEs man, you gotta,you guys gotta get a home home
blood sugar test.

You guys all go in for one.
Okay, and just just check itevery now and then, all right
we're living, hey, we're living.
Yeah, yeah, yeah that's true,man I mean you just let me live
dude, you got two kidneys.

You know you got two of them spending fake money
whatever play.
You're up there playing doingthe canada thing, yeah, so just
let me, let me live things areuh, yeah, things are kind of in
a strange way in america.

so yeah, you never know what tomorrow is going to
bring, you know?

are you referring to the attempted assassination
of?

referring to a lot of things in the political
spectrum in America.

Oh, ok, so we haven't recorded in a while.
Yeah, yeah.
It's been a while.
So TikTok, you know, has ruinedmy life Right and the Jojo you
know, ruined my life right andthe jojo you know, jojo siwa
yeah, okay, yeah, what's thedeal?

did you go down the rabbit hole?

oh, I went down the rabbit hole and then.
But the thing that I took awayfrom the jojo siwa thing is when
they ask her excuse me, theyask her who she would have on
her podcast, and it just made methink of us.
I don't know why.
Like she should say us.
No, she said, the way she talksis like this.

(05:34):
So she repeats the question andshe goes dream guests on my
podcast, I don't know why.
So I say that all the time now,when somebody says something.
Yeah, so I'm like dream guestson my podcast and she's like um,

(05:56):
she says let's get crazy.
All right, let's, let's getcrazy with it, or something.
She's like one of my exes, so.
But that's not the funny part.
The funny part is just whenthey ask her who's your dream
guest on your podcast?

and she's like dream guest on my podcast I mean
you're um, I don't, I don't, Idon't quite know what to say
about all that yeah first of all, I don't want you to it's jojo

(06:35):
siwa is it siwa, jojo siwa, andyou started out the.
You started out the recordingby saying skibbity riz, skibbity
, skibbity riz skibbity riz.
Something's up, man,something's up with you.

You've changed since our last recording I got
my, I got my kids a lot and mydaughter's always talking like
that.
You know, skibbity-riz Sigma Alot of Sigma.

What is that supposed to mean?
Anyway, I don't know who knows,I don't know.
I don't even think they knowSigma.

So what's up?
You got a recording for us.

I do.
I want you to listen to this.

All right, let's do it.

Let's get right into the juice I want you to
listen to this recording and Iwant you to remark you know
we're kind of kicking off aseason here, a new season.

We've never really told people this, but it seems
to have worked that way.
Huh, where, yeah, we kind oftake some time off in the summer
, yeah, around the holidays,like it, just so I guess they
kind of are seasons.

Yeah, I'm going to officially call this our third
season and I'm going to I don'tknow, I don't know Celebratory
Anything about it, because I'mjust not about that you know
Well.

The episode is the celebratory thing.
The episode is the celebration.

I don't know if it's going to be a celebration.
We're going to try.
But first of all, I want you tolisten to this man.
Just do it, because I don'tknow.
I want you to tell me, becauseI don't have a date for this,
and I want you to dial in yourknowledge and tell me what date
to the nearest plus or minus 1.5years what date this is.

(08:31):
Okay.
Okay, that's it, here we go.
Now you've got to let me knowif you can hear this.
Here we go, here we go.
Here we go 1991, 1990, 1990well, keep listening, but but

(09:04):
yeah, I mean the song.
I mean, do you still hear thissong today?
You'll hear this song from timeto time, not often anymore.

(09:51):
So by now the avid listener ofour podcast ought to dial in the
genre.

You think they got enough information to dial in
like oh yeah, I think if youlisten to our podcast you're
gonna have quite a bit moreinformation about the
intricacies of music.
Yeah, at least the basics, likepowwow music and stuff yeah
then probably what most nativepeople learn now.
Yeah.

(10:25):
Yeah.

So this song is Clearly, cree, clearly, cree,
clearly.
You could put it in acontemporary category Early yeah
, early contemporary.

Kind of has that Chiniki Lake, kind of Cathedral
Lake yeah.

Cathedral, cathedral, lake, cathedral.
Yeah, kind of a heavier beat,kind of has that chineke lake
kind of cathedral lake, yeah,yeah, yeah, cathedral, cathedral
, cathedral.

yeah, kind of a heavier beat, kind of almost on
the beat chasing you could tellit's like the late 80s, early
90s, because they're still theirbeat is still how like red bull
used to sing when they wouldsing contemporary song yeah
because it wasn't still likeblackstone really took off.
Whitefish juniors yeah, whereis that?

(11:08):
Like bam bam bam, you know,yeah, yeah, yeah, it's still
kind of you could tell.
These are probably like it'slike got a little, it's
contemporary but traditionalinfluence yeah, yeah yeah, well,
this was recorded.
Tell me if I'm wrong.
Well, I don't know.

well, see, I don't know if you're wrong or right,
because I don't have a date forthis particular um tape.
It was recorded at the littleshell, which I'm assuming is, uh
, north dakota, north dakota,but I don't have a date for this
particular.
There was no date on the tape,but I don't have a date for this
particular.
There was no date on the tape,but given that it was on a tape

(11:49):
of a particular age, yeah, Ithink you're like late 80s,
early 90s.

I'm going to say more like late 80s though, but
hard to say, even like WhitefishBay remember they kind of had
that and you know, when it cameto like powwow music.
I was never into that kind ofpowwow music.
Yeah.
It was either.
To me it was either likeMandarie Eagle Whistle Old
Agency or Blackstone SouthernCree.

(12:17):
Yeah, you know.
Yeah, yeah, I was never a bigNorthern Cree fan.
No offense to the Northern Creefolk out there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, theyjammed man.
When you see Northern Cree inperson they're like the loudest
drum group I've ever heard.
Yeah, yeah, I would sayMidnight Express them and Bear
Creek were the loudest groupsI've ever heard.

Oh yeah, they can wail.

Them boys can really wail yeah you ought to
see it.
You ought to see them bring ithome yeah, so I don't, I don't
know.

you know, uh, there's a few of these tapes
I've got with um, there's a fewof these tapes I've got with
that don't have dates and youknow, I don't, I wouldn't, I
don't, I wouldn't really, youknow, and probably the, when
these tapes were recorded I, Iwas just a youngster, so I
wouldn't pay any attention tothe who was singing.

(13:21):
You know what this particularone sound like.

So it's hard to identify me, for me to identify
which group it is I, I mean, Idon't, I just yeah, I don't know
, it just sounds like that era.
Yeah to me.
Yeah, but I will admit, becauseI wasn't that into power music,
I mean because I was like seven, right, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, a lot of that came from,like just checking music out.

(13:46):
That's older, you know, onceyou get into it, you like check
out the old stuff and yeah.
So, like maybe some of these oldschool cats that listen to the,
to the pod here they they mightknow I don't know, oh yeah,
they do.

Walt might know, he would know.

He would know.

Yeah, maybe he'll comment at some point on this oh
, I'm sure he texts you, huh.
Well, I mean yeah.

When's the last time he texted you?
When's the last time Walttexted you?

Oh man, I don't even know.
I have an unlisted number.
I'm not in the phone book soit's hard to get to me.

He started texting me on June 26.
This is what he said.
He said heck, these guys shouldhave told me you was going to
do a visit about Indian movies.
And I said when?
And I said oh, the podcast.
He said yeah, that would havebeen fun.
End of conversation.

(14:43):
July 1st.
July 1st, he texts me, yeah,and he says running brave
medicine river question mark.
I put laugh out loud and hesaid son of the morning star
question mark.
I said no way.
And he said wild indian eagle,last of his tribe, Iceman, Texas

(15:04):
, across the river Rampanui.
Two Indians talking Blackstone.
He said shake my head, man,Nothing.
You're going to have to revokeyour status.
That's what he told me.
But then he finishes it bysaying good, podcast, though.
I said we could do a part two.
And then that was it, and thennothing.

(15:34):
That was july 1st and july 7th,grand avenue, war party.
Shake my head.
I said I.
I said we mentioned war party.

I thought we did, didn't we, we did, yeah, we
talked about war party yeahbinger, binger, montana.

So anyway, so well, so well if you're listening.
We apologize, man, that wedidn't.
We just talked about movies, wereally.
It was off of a list, rememberwe were talking about this list
that pop like palacecom yeahsomething.

Yeah, well, wait now, when was that?
That was um.
You said what?
When did he uh text you that in?

july text me june, june 26 was the first one.
Then the second text was july1st and the last was july 7th.
We were we.

We recorded that and released that in september
of 2023, so he's got a bit of alag man he's got to catch up.

I know for someone who claims, who claims to be a
fan buddy you're behind.

That was number 47 .
We're on 56 today, episode 56.
He's almost almost 10 episodesbehind.
Yeah, come on man.
Hey, that's funny that you said, um, you were seven when you
started listening to.

Uh, you said you were seven when you started
listening to powwow musicBecause, well, my journey
started in 1991 when I bought aBlackstone tape.
Yeah, I tell that story all thetime.
Yeah, but you know, I had heardIndian music probably since I
was my, I was born, but youdon't pay attention and not

(17:07):
saying I even paid attentionafter that 1991.

Yeah, you know well but it was always there you
know, yeah yeah, yeah well, youknow this, um, this number
seven, know, is somewhat magicalin a certain way, and you know
what I'm talking about.
Right, the number seven, yeah,really, because you know the

(17:33):
idea of accountability,especially in relation to future
life and the responsibilitiestherein.
I mean, as Indian people.
You've heard this, you've heardthis that we ought to consider

(17:55):
the seventh generation to come.

Oh, yeah, yeah, I feel like though that took took
off that phrase, took off theseven generations singing yeah.
It seems like it was adopted bya lot of tribes to the point in
which I I'm going to saysomething controversial.
To do it.
I think it was kind of like um.

(18:19):
I think it was like umincorporated into their belief
seat and almost given like anorigin, even though it may have
never been officially talkedabout, but it seems to be a
Lakota thing.
Oh, I hear it more with likeLakota people, but I don't hear

(18:40):
crows talk about it in atraditional sense.
I hear, like you know who Ihear talk about it?
Yeah, like youth speakers, oh,yeah, yeah, yeah, like
counselors, yeah, yeah.
Anyone who has?
An ED.
Academics yeah, just academicsin general.
Academics yeah, I don't.

(19:01):
I don't.
The great Mike Dolson at SayersKootenai College once told me
his theory about the sevengenerations.
Oh really.
He believed it to be more like.
You represent the fourthgeneration.
There's three generationsbefore you, three generations

(19:27):
below you that you actually havea potential connection with.
You'll know your parents, youknow your grandparents and some
of us will know ourgreat-grandparents.
Well, that's three generations.
Yeah, vice versa, that youmight know.
You'll know your kids, you'llknow you, you'll potentially
know your grandchildren and evenyour great-grandchildren.
That that makes sevengenerations.
His, his theory, I don't thinkwas founded in culture, but just
like kind of genetics maybe.

(19:49):
I don't know genealogy okay,but see, I was, I'm on board
like whatever, that's cool.
What, what's your deal?

seven generations well, yeah, you know, I was, uh,
yeah, I was, um, contemplatingthis idea of kinship.
Well, let me step back.
Let me step back, I kind ofbeen on a, um, a bender, if you
will, to try to, to try to tounderstand some of these um, uh,

(20:23):
popularized slogans, you knowyeah and and the constructs
around them.
so I sort of on a bender aboutstewardship, kind of was on a
bender about land.
Back then I got on a bender onturtle Island trying to figure
out where did that come from,and the latest one was the idea

(20:49):
of kinship.
And then, like you said, thisweird thing about the seven
generation and so I kind of wenton just a brief, I sort of
nerded out on it, trying to findthe origins of it.
And you know, you have thehunch, just like you said, that

(21:11):
was my hunch.
I said, well, it's probably,you know, sort of what people
call a pan-indigenous whatever,but I don't know if it was
grounded in anything.
But you know where you find it.
A lot mentioned and I thinkwhere the origin has come from
the iroquois and this thing thatthey call the oh yeah, you're
right yeah, the great law ofpeace yep and the holding home

(21:35):
only in the show d holding.

The show me holding this yeah, yeah holding the
show me?

I yeah holding the show me.
You got to kind of say it likehalf shot yeah that actually
helped that yeah, doesn't it?

yeah, kind of pretend you're a bit shot, yeah
it's been a long time since I'vebeen half shot I'll never,
forget it.

Yeah, but full shot.

Yeah, that was just last night yeah, you know what
people always say that he washalf shot, like I never went
half.

I never went half, I was full bore yeah, if you're
half shot, then you go to amusic festival like a folk
festival.

Yeah, half shot.
What are you doing?

Half shot.
You hang out on the porch withyour bros and play guitar.
Yeah.

What?
Who's half shot?
Who's that?
I want to meet this guy.

Half shot is the guy named Bob who shows up and
flip-flops at your house withsome pale ale you know what
Halfshot Bob can go home, he candrive home legally.

He's not here to make bad decisions with Aaron
Brin.
You know what I mean.
He's not.
I don't need him around.
Oh yeah.
I say that, I say that, but Irecently celebrated my five
years of sobriety.

Way to go, man, way to go.
Did you get a coin?

Yeah, I didn't get a coin.
You know I've never gotten acoin, dang it.
I was in the wrong coin.
You know, I've never gotten acoin, dang it.
I was in the wrong program,Wrong program.
I was in the wrong program.

You got to get your coin, man Anyway.

Anyway Odin and Shoni.

Odin and Shoni, odin and Shoni and I don't know.
So in the writings writings itcited that this was mentioned in
the iroquois great law of peaceI found, um, some writings
about the great law of peacefrom different angles.
Someone even wrote a big oldarticle about the different

(23:58):
versions of the great law ofpeace and I couldn't find it
anywhere.
About seven generations,anywhere in this iroquois great
law piece, at least from atleast that predates, like the
like, uh, you know, the 1980s,where it starts becoming really
popular and in the scholarship,you know.
But what I did find, which isreferenced quite often about

(24:24):
seven generations, is the ideaof kinship you know how you're,
how you're related to someone,and sort of some of the
restrictions related to, I don'tknow, marriage and those kind
of things.

A lot of reference to rules yeah, kinship rules and
avoidances, yeah, and and theworld of anthropology.

But yes, go ahead, continue no, no, there's quite
a bit and related to that,particularly seven and the
seventh and sixth generation, um, quite globally, even quite
globally, referencing that.
So I'm curious from your, um,vast amount of knowledge, what

(25:08):
is, what is your understandingof kinship in terms of, uh,
generational restrictions anddoes it seem, does it seem, to
align with this seven generationor plus or minus?

I guess I've never really taken into account that,
but I do think that kinship interms of native people and then
how people, native people, areresearched, yeah, it's like
looked over a lot, like it's notsomething that people really
consider, take into account,like.
And then I noticed too, and andin the way tribes preserve

(25:45):
culture.
Yeah, there's so much emphasison language, which is that's the
way it should be, but there'sno emphasis on creating an
environment for language andwhere you find where languages
thrive is in ceremonial life andsocial organization.
Where languages thrive is inceremonial life and social
organization.
Kinship in terms ofanthropology is a form of

(26:09):
governance.
It's how people controlthemselves.
There's a lot ofself-governance in it.
So this brings us to the kinshiprules.
Yeah.
For example, among the crow.
You're not allowed a man is notallowed to speak to his
mother-in-law.
Okay.

(26:29):
And a daughter-in-law is notallowed to speak to their
father-in-law.
Wait, say that one again Adaughter is not allowed to speak
to her father-in-law.
Oh, okay, okay is not allowedto speak to her father-in-law.
Oh, okay.
And another thing is like a man, a man's brother-in-law, his

(26:56):
wife's brother, he is notallowed to speak or interact
with the wife's brother's wife.

What Wait?
Say that again A man is notyourself.
Okay.

Let's say Salisha's brother.

Okay, she had a brother.

His wife.
You're not allowed to speak toher.
Oh, okay.
You're not allowed to speak toher.
Oh, okay, you're not allowed tospeak to her, not allowed to
have interactions.
Brother-in-law's wife.
Brother-in-law's wife.
Okay, your wife's brother, yourwife's brother, your
brother-in-law, because you knowhow you can have
brother-in-laws Like yoursister's husband, right?

(27:44):
What is your brother-in-law?
Your?

sister's husband is your brother-in-law, yeah
yeah, okay so, yeah, so yourwife's brother's wife.

So when, when you start looking at these
restrictions and I'm onlyspeaking about the restrictions,
right, yeah, so among the crow,when you look at these
restrictions, yeah, and theseavoidances, you can tell they're
designed for camp life, they'redesigned for people living in
lodges, because what they do isthey really protect marriages.

(28:19):
That's what they're designedfor, right, designed for right.
So where there's a marriedwoman and a married man, there's
rules about them speaking to aman speaking and interacting
with another married woman.
Yeah, and vice versa.
That's where these, all theseinteractions happen yeah it's
interesting because it's hard toplace relevancy in them to

(28:41):
today.
They can be called dated, theycan be called antiquated all
this stuff yeah, and and there'sgood arguments for that.
Right, yeah, but when you lookat the origins of them and
living in camp life, it makessense.
It's a form of governance yeahum, but I also think that to the
average listener, whethertraditional or non-indian, they

(29:05):
might not ever consider kinshipin its authentic form.
So, for example, we get to knoweach other.
People just start calling eachother brother, that's my brother
.
Yeah, that's my relative yeahyou know that's my adopted
whatever yeah but there'sactually rules about how those

(29:26):
things happen because of camplife.
So when somebody is going to beadopted into a family, that's a
family basically saying I'mvouching for this person,
they're now part of our circle,right, but that also means they
have to adopt those rules andstuff and all that.
But anyway, yeah, most peoplestuff and all that, but anyway,
yeah, most people don't knowthat, right.

(29:47):
So they just kind of say, andeven people I would think are
traditional people don't know,yeah, so like with crows, my
mom's brothers, which inAmerican genealogy they're one
generation above me, right?
Yeah.

(30:08):
But they would be my brothers inthe Crow kinship.
My mom's brothers are mybrothers.

Your mom's brothers are your brothers.

Yep, so when I speak about them, even if
they're younger than me, this iswhat I was told even if they're
younger than me, I still referto them as my big brother, biga,
biga, my older brother, my bigbrother, because they're my
mom's brothers.
Now I could still havegenerationally my older brother

(30:42):
right, and it's still calledBiga.
So this can, to the untrainedear, can really confuse people,
but this is still practiced bythe crows.
So, yeah, I have relatives, somy mom has a brother yeah so I

(31:02):
call him my big brother, rightyeah by crow kinship, because we
don't have uncles and aunts andcousins.
We don't.
His kids refer to me.
They always refer to me astheir brother.
Oh, there's my big brother,aaron, here's aaron.
But yeah, that's not true.
They're not.
They're not my siblings in thecrow kinship.

(31:23):
They would be my children.

Hmm.

Because their dad is my brother and your dad's
brothers Are your dad's.

Hmm, Wait, you lost me there.

Your dad's brothers are your dad's.
You call him dad.
Okay, yeah, got it.
So you can't think of so crows.
In a way, the generation ideais, yeah, blurred, because it's
really hard for people, yeah, toget themselves out of the
generational thing.
So, like my mom's generationand then all like her siblings,

(32:03):
all their kids, to kind of theuntrained crow kinship,
everyone's oh, that's all mybrothers and sisters, all my
cousins are my brothers andsisters.
That's not true with the crowokay my mom's brothers are my
big brothers, so that meanstheir kids are my kids.
Uh, it's because you gottaremember that rule your dad's

(32:25):
brothers are your dad's, yourmom's brothers are your brothers
a bit staggered.

In a way you could think well, no, it's not even.
It's not even that, because theyeah, because in like in the
Salish way, that's not the wayit is.
It's your cousins are yourbrother and sister out to the
fourth generation, or so youcall them brother and sister.

But is that based on generation?

Sort of, I guess in a way so like so like, for
example, your mom has sistersright yeah her kids are your
brothers and sisters right yeah,yeah okay.

Would that be the same for your dad?
Yeah you're okay yeah so that'sthe same.
That's the same for the crows.
So now my mom's sisters, theirkids, are my sisters and
brothers, because your mom's mom, your mom's sisters are your
mothers.
Your mom's sisters are yourmothers okay, mom's sisters are

(33:44):
your mothers.

Oh yeah, so then their kids are brother and
sister yep, because in well,wait a minute.

In genetics they would be my half siblings, right
?

yeah, yeah, but going the other way.
Well, on the dad side it'sdifferent, though you're saying
no, my dad.

no, it's not what my dad, my my dad's brothers are
my dad's, so their kids are mybrothers and sisters.
Oh, okay, yeah.
Where it changes is my mom'sbrothers.
Oh, my mom's brothers are mybig brothers.

Okay, so it's gender specific or changes by
gender, kind of.

Here's what I'm telling you, okay, okay, it's
all based on camps, genderspecific or changes by gender.
Kind of, here's what I'mtelling you, okay, okay, it's
all based on camps.
Think of it in camps.
Okay, you live with the crows,live with your mother's camp.

Yeah, okay, that makes sense.

That becomes.
That's the clan ship.
Lineal ship, clan lineal ship.
Yeah, All my clan, everyonewhose mother is a big lodge clan
member.
I'm their brother and sister,so that makes sense.
It's all on your mother's sideyeah so that means that the
generation before me would stillbe my brothers and sisters if

(34:59):
their clan, if their, theirmothers were big lodges.
Yeah.
We're the same clan.
That makes sense.
So my mom's brothers are my bigbrothers, because we would have
the same clan, right?

Yeah.

It makes perfect sense.
Yeah.

We would have the same clan.

Yeah, my mom's brothers are my big brothers.

We need a flowchart for this.

No, we don't.

No, I need a flowchart.

They just need to learn it.
They just need to sit still andlisten.
It's not that complicated.

No, I get it and that makes more sense.
What you're talking about nowwhen you say sort of
camp-oriented, sort of camporiented, because you have to
know that, that certain bit ofinformation about you know who,
when, when people marry, who yougenerally go with the male or
the female.

you got to know that norm and normally a boy is
going to marry outside of hiscamp yeah, yeah so, and if
you're camping with your mom'sfamily, which is your clan
family?
Yeah.
Because you're allmatrilineally from the same clan
.
Yeah.
You're not going to marry thosepeople because they're all your

(36:15):
brothers and sisters.
Yeah, because your clan.
Your mothers are all big lodges, so you go to another camp.
Yeah, oh, big lodges, so you goto another camp.
Yeah, so to them it's secondnature, or it's first nature.
Yeah.
Because they're just theirkinship, Like my.
Well, he'd be my little brother, but he's my nephew, right For

(36:38):
everybody else.
Yeah.
Luella's boy.
His like kinship recall isamazing.
Yeah.
Like.
That's the only way he thinksis Crow kinship he doesn't have
the influence of for one.
He never went.
He was not a church kid.

Right.

So all he ever knew was Crow kinship, that's it.
So when you ask him, you'll sayhow are you related to
so-and-so?
Yeah, ask him they'll say howare you related to so?
And so, yeah, yeah, they alwayscall me their whatever.
And then he'll he'll say that'syou're their dad.
Are you there?
You're there, that's yourfather.
And then he explains it to themand they're like oh, but

(37:18):
because that kinship structureis used by a pocket of people
and it's still common, it's,it's also not used by the
majority of crow people, so theywant to go back to just say, oh
, since we're the samegeneration, that's my brother uh
yeah, so like one of my, one ofmy.

(37:39):
We grew up calling each otherbrother, but he's really not my
brother.
You know, mike, mike don't mixright Like yeah we're the same
age, everything, and but his momand my dad are brother and
sister.
Let's see if you can followthis one.
Ok, remember that rule.

Ok, so wait now OK , mike, mike's dad.

Is your.
Mike's mom.
Mike's dad is your.

No, mike's mom, Mike's mom, okay, and my dad, oh
, and your dad.

Okay.
Are siblings, biologicalsiblings, same mother, same
father?
Okay, so, based on those rulesthat I told you earlier, your
dad's dads, your dad's brothersare your dad's, your mom's
sisters are your mom's and yourmom's brothers are your big

(38:32):
brothers.
Just think of this.
Okay, what, what is?
What is my dad to Mike?

He would be, um, he would be his.
Uh, he'd be his, He'd be his.
I got it.
Wait, no, it's not his dad.
He wouldn't be a dad, he'd bethe other one, and I don't

(39:00):
remember.

His brother.

He'd be his brother.
There we go, okay.

Yes, because his mom, right.
Yeah, mike's mom is my dad'sbrother.
He'd be his brother.
There we go, because his mom,right.
Yeah, mike's mom is my dad'sbrother.
They're a sister, brother andsister right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So Mike's big brother is my dad.
So then what does that makeMike to me?

That's like your I don't know what term is like
your uncle.
It's like your dad, my dad.

It's like your dad, my dad yeah, there is no crow
word for uncle yeah, no crow,word for uncle.
So he's my dad, but we're thesame age yeah and that's where
people get hung up.
They've adopted the europeanidea of seniorities like um age,
age grade yeah, yeah, yeah andtribal people have done this

(39:51):
yeah we'll be like oh, ourelders.
Well, what if that elder is myson?
Yeah do you know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so that even goes with onegeneration above my grandma, my

(40:12):
matrilineal grandmother.
Yeah.
My mom's mom, her brothers.
Yeah.
In the Crow language are calledBigizakia, my old man, big
brothers.

Hmm, hmm.

And again, because they're from the same clan,
their mothers would be biglodges, just like my mother's a
big lodge.
So they're my big brothers.
So that means their kids are mykids and they're way older than
me.

So how far does that go back?
Then Tell it, they become notyour kids, or does that even a
thing?

That's not a thing, it's not a.

Thing.

It can.
It can be limitless in theory.

Sure, okay, that's what I was, that's what I
thought.
It seemed like it would belimitless.
So what about their?
What about their kids?

as kids, those are yeah, they'd be my grandchildren
oh, the grandchildren oh, okay,okay, then it keeps going down
from there great grandchildrenyeah but I've never seen it go
past three because yeah at thatpoint it's gonna circle back to
something else.
That means that connection'sgonna change.

(41:24):
So then you might become theirdad, or their own, or their,
their big brother.
I mean me as a man.
I'm only going to be a son agrandson, a big brother and a
dad.
That's it.
That's it.
That's all you're going to be.
But here's where it gets reallyinteresting For me.

(41:44):
What does the?
We've talked about my dad'sbrothers.
Yeah, we've talked about mymom's brothers.
Yeah, we've talked about mymom's brothers.
Yeah, we talked about my mom'ssisters, but we haven't talked
about who.

Your dad's sisters .

My dad's sisters.
This is where it's interesting.

Okay, I'm ready.

Pro language, you call that Bahia.
Okay, so when they belong, whenit's my dad's sister, ish Bahia
.

I don't know, what that means.

You don't know what it means, but because if you go
to the clans again, I'm a childof my father's clan, so that
means the siblings of myfather's clan are now my clan
mothers and fathers.
So that means my bahia that'sthe Crow word for a clan mother.

(42:43):
Even though it doesn't meanthat we don't know what it means
, it kind of to me sounds likemy abak is possession, like a
thing.
I mean a thing.
Ish is possession, ishpach.
Yeah, I don't know what thatmeans, though,

so that one's confusing.

Yeah, see, that's usually where people get messed
up.

So let's use yourself, so let's say it again,
so your dad's sisters are, saywhat they are again to you.
It's a word that you don't know, ishbahia, but you don't
understand the word Ishbahia.

Yeah, but it has to mean clan mother.
It has to, okay, because everyCrow tribal member Is a member
of two clans your mother's clanand your father's clan.
I'm a clan member, but what youare On your dad's side, no

(43:44):
matter your age, you're called achild of Bagada.
Bagada, yeah, I heard that.
So, yeah, yeah, so I heard that.
So that means so that meansAnybody, anybody whose mother Is
that clan Is your clan motheror clan father.

(44:07):
So if it's a guy, it's yourclan father.
If it's a girl, like my kids,I'm a big lodge, so my kids are
my kids are big lodge kids.
So that means all of my clanbrothers and sisters are their
clan fathers and mothers.
Yeah, so bahia, bahia, becausemy sister luella would be my
kids as Bahia, right.

(44:28):
Yeah.
But me and Lou are the same clan.
That means that they're goingto be she's going to be my kids'
clan mother.

So to me, bahia is .
Well, that makes sense, thenwhy they'd be called the child
of Yep?

Yeah, yep, so they're that.
They're big lodges, big, biglodge kids.
My kids are greasy mouth kids.
I think, um, well, wait aminute, now is salisha, is
salisha, uh, um, whistling water?
or what is she?
uh, I don't know, I'd have toask you I don't know.

I'd have to ask you.
I don't recall, Because in hercase her mother is not crow.

Pig-an, pig-an so they call it Ashk'yamna or
Ash-b'chua, which meanstreacherous lodges.
That's what they are.
So because Salisha, mother isSalish and father is crow, she
would take the two clans of herfather, so she would be a pig.
And right she's a pig, and in awhistling water, I think.

(45:36):
I think she would be.
So that means your kids wouldbe.

Your kids are big ends so this is what I don't get
, so okay, so I get that, whatyou just said but you said
previously that any of yourmother's siblings are what.

Those are your parents my mom's brothers are my
big brothers oh, okay, okay,okay okay okay, all right, give
me a break here.

So the mother's siblings are your siblings.

My mother's brothers.

Mother's brothers are your siblings.
What about?
Your mother's sisters, my mom'sWait a minute my mom's Wait a
minute, wait a minute, wait aminute, wait a minute.
Okay, so your mom's brothersare your brothers, but your
mom's sisters are your moms.

(46:38):
Mm-hmm.
And so your dad's brothers areyour dad and your dad's sisters
are your mothers.
Yeah, but the word isn't mom,Ishbahia doesn't.

So that's why, for me, just doing the investigation
, it has to mean clan mother.

So not necessarily a mother In the sense of your,
your mother's sisters.

No, because if I'm talking to my mom, I would call
her Ikea.
I would say Ikea, ikea, right,yeah, when I go up to my mom's
sister, when I address her, Icall her Ikea.
I don't call my dad's sister.
Okay, I say Well, I mean okayyeah.

So that, so that that kind of makes sense.
But the it's, the it's the sortof the relationship that's
probably Of.

That that makes more sense, right?
Yeah, yeah.
So that brings me to like I gotI'm not gonna say the final
point, but to a major point.
Pro kidship is based off ofrole.
Yeah, how you're supposed totreat each other, right?
Yeah, so if I say, oh, thatperson's my son, but even though
we're the same age people, Ialways say, wow, that's my son.
It has nothing to do with age,it's not an age-age system.

(48:15):
It's just how I'm supposed totreat them my relationship to
them, your role and their role.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So then, what's the role of themother versus the clan mother?

So that's a good question, man.
That's a good question, man.
Yeah, that's a legitimatelyGood question, yeah.
So when I was young, one timemy mom, my dad's sister, she
told me, she One of my cousins,you know there.
Yeah.
Said Get mad at Aaron.
She said that we're little kids, you know.

(48:50):
Yeah.
And she said I can't, and I waslike oh okay, so that always
stuck with me, right, yeah?
And then I thought well, yeah,as I got older, she can't, she
can't discipline me, my dad'ssisters, yeah she's not like a

(49:10):
mother shecan't discipline me, not in that
sense, because the Crow beliefis that what your parents, what
your clan parents, mothers andfathers ask for you, this is a
clan feed, right when you?
Go to a clan feed Will cometrue.
So that means A clan mother Ishbahia Bahia.

(49:33):
Can't do things in anger to you, because what they say For you
Can happen.

Hmm.

So they don't want to lose their temper with you.
So they always would say whenyou go to your dad's sister's
house, you can just walk in, youcan just walk in.
You can go to your dad'ssister's house, you can just
walk in.
You can just walk in.
You can go to the fridge, youcan eat what you want, make a
mess, she'll take care of you.
You know, like her own kidshave to ask or they have to have
chores there, but not at yourdad's sister's house, you don't

(50:06):
have chores there can lay aroundyou can lay around, you can do
what you want.
It's different because your clan, mothers and fathers are in
charge of your spiritual success, your spiritual well-being.
So everything that they wantfor you, they strive for you,
they want you to have goodfortune, good luck.
They make good wishes for you.
Now, on the other hand, your,your mom's sisters those are

(50:30):
your moms and and biologically,they're of the same blood as
your mom.
Yeah, right so yeah, and this iswhy I think back then it was
practiced to marry sisters.
It was common for a crow man tomarry sisters.

(50:51):
Because of that, because theywould all still be the same clan
, they would all still be of thesame clanship.
They would all still be of theBecause their moms are all the
same.

Not the biological sister.

No, they would marry biological sisters.

Really.

Yeah, it was real common to marry sisters.

Interesting.
There must be something to thatword, then that sort of
describes something that you'retalking about for the dad's
sister yeah.
But you don't know and have youinterrogated I don't speak.

I don't speak, crow .

So that'd be a good question to ask, then
someone.

I've asked a lot of people who speak Crow and the
more advanced Crow people.
They'll just say it's your clanmother.
That's all they'll say.

Don't really break down the word or give it a
deeper meaning.
Hmm.
But that's interesting man, andum, but these days you say that
sort of dying off, well kind of,in a way.

I mean the fact, the fact that I know it says
something right, yeah, and likethere there are people who still
practice it, where you hear itmore as like well, of course, in
ceremonies and then in in crowlanguage you hear it, because
they don't say uncle and crow,yeah, yeah say oh, that's your
dad.

(52:20):
Go and talk to your dad whenthey're talking about my dad's.
May he could be his firstcousin, my dad's first cousin,
but because they have the samedad or the same mom, that makes
them siblings, right yeah yeah.
But I've also been.
Here's the funny part, fun fact.
I've been in situations whereI've corrected older men who I

(52:43):
had thought were like no, theywould know these rules I won't
say any names, but my dad hassome first cousins.
Yeah, that used to tease, ortry to talk and tease my ex-wife
.
Yeah.
But these are first cousinsbecause their dads are brothers,

(53:05):
so that makes them brothers,yeah, which would make that
their daughter-in-law.

That's a no-no.

And you can't even look at them.
You can't look at yourdaughter-in-law.
Now you're supposed to sit atthe same table with your
daughter-in-law and they would.
In the Crow language they wouldalways call me but you cut.
They'd say but you cut, thatmeans little brother.
And for years I was always likethat's weird that they call me
that.
And finally one day I did it.

(53:36):
I said you know, I'm not yourlittle brother.
Yeah.
And they'd be like no, no,They'd tell me no, you're my
little brother.
And they'll say because of this, blah, blah, blah, no.

It's wrong.

It's wrong.
It's wrong and I said your dadand my grandfather are brothers.
Yeah, it makes you and my dadbrothers.
And then I'll say that, yeah,you're my father.
And then they'll look back andI'll say, oh yeah, yeah, they're
gonna get mad.
You know, like they kind of getmad and I'm like you're always

(54:15):
like you're not really supposedto tease like your kids.
Really, yeah, not too much, youknow yeah, they would treat me
like that little brother.
And then I'm like I'm not yourlittle brother, yeah yeah, you
could tell it was kind of likethis, like oh shit, moment that
happens, that happens a lot, youknow where and and luella's boy

(54:36):
is like really quick, he'sreally quick with kinship, so
when people are using it wrong,he's like he's right oh no, no,
that's not right.
Yeah, he's right on it.
And like, yeah, it's kind offun to watch, you know, because
I've even seen like traditionalpeople.
They'll be like oh yeah, you'reright.
Like you're right, that's true.

Hmm.

You know, and it's pretty neat, because if you want
to participate in ceremony, youwant to participate in the
social functions of Crow, youhave to follow that social
organization.
Yeah, you know, know who youcan speak to know who you can't.
You got to be really self-aware, because if I have the right to
speak in public, that meanssomebody is going to ask me

(55:18):
Aaron, we want you to talk forus at our family function.
Yeah.
Me as someone who owns the rightto speak to the public.
Yeah, like if my girlfriendcomes up to me and says, aaron,
could you talk for us at our myfamily function, I'm going to
say no because the chance of mesaying one of my mother-in-law's

(55:41):
names are addressing one of mymother-in-law's is likely yeah
no, I won't do it.
Yeah, you should ask somebodyfrom your mother's family,
because there's no restrictionson who he can talk to and
everything at that function Forme.
What if somebody comes up to mewe want to give this blanket to

(56:02):
and they point at mymother-in-law?
I'm like I'm out, I can't donothing.
So you got to be like reallyself-aware.
That also means like okay, well, I got to know who her first
cousins are from her mom, fromher dad's brothers and her mom's
sisters.

(56:22):
Yeah.
And the same rule applies forher mom's mom.
I can't speak to them.
Yeah.
There's the same kinship rulesyeah so you got to know that,
you got to be really self-aware.
That also means that's why,like a lot of crow, traditional
people know families.

(56:43):
They'll say so-and-so's relatedto so-and-so, like this, and
they know everybody because it'sall centered around the
strength of that kinship systemyeah who they can and can't talk
to and who they can tease andcan't tease, right, and so I'm
not allowed to tease mybrother-in-laws that would be

(57:03):
your wife's brothers.
You can't tease them, you can'tmake fun of them, you can't
razz them.
In fact, if they come into yourhome, you're supposed to give
them something.
This is a teaching from the bigdipper, right?
This is a big dipper storywhere the seven brothers were
teasing their brother-in-law.
His name was yellow leggings andthe youngest of the brothers,

(57:26):
his name was cedar between theeyes Told them, why are you
teasing this man?
He's the husband of our sister,dear woman, yeah.
And then he had a pet lionCedar Between the Eyes, juniper
on the forehead, cedar Betweenthe Eyes, kind of say the same.

(57:47):
He had a pet mountain lion.
Some stories it's a bear, buthe, he gives that animal and he
says because I respect what he,what he my, my sister's husband.
And he says this is what he'sgiven her a home and everything.
We don't have to take care ofher because she does or he does,

(58:08):
right, yeah, I respect that somuch.
And he has that pet, like I say, some versions of mountain lion
, some versions of bear, and hegives that pet, to that, to
yellow leggings.
From that it created atradition of especially not

(58:30):
doing that to your, to your, the.
The real strict one is yoursister's husbands, your sister's
husbands, and then your, yourwife's brothers.
Those are like big timers, youknow.
Like you don't mess around withthat stuff don't tease them.

Which, uh, which star was that?

I don't know, which star they said okay, so on the
handle there's a star wherethere's a little star next to it
.
Yeah, and some of theseold-timers, they'll say if you
want to see that star, look inyour peripheral vision, you'll
see it that's I was.

That's what I was guessing is it's.
It's that one with the thesmall star beside it, because
that's a that's common.
A story about that's someonewith a pet.
You know it's a dog.
The dog is sometimes a bear,yeah.
Or when one story it's a wolf.
That's interesting, that's notwhat we're talking about, but

(59:34):
it's a good story, I guess justkinship rules and social
organization in general.

So there's and there's a lot of that with the
crows.
There's a lot, and I think forsome people it can be like
really, if they weren't raisedin it they could be frustrated.
Or also, if you gotta love it,you know, yeah, like you gotta
love that kind of stuff, to wantto do it like I enjoy it.

I enjoy talking about stuff like that with
people and well, there's abenefit to it, you know there's
yeah and that, that's, the,that's, I think I mean
understanding the, the, thedifferent names and the
different restrictions, but on adeeper level there's, there's

(01:00:20):
some sort of purpose for for allof that.
It's not just some weirdcomplicated rule or some reason
why it's like that, reason whyit's like that and what and you
started hinting at it whenyou're talking about at the
beginning.
It's about sort of guides aperson, or provides some sort of
logic on who you can or can'tmarry, in a way, or to protect a

(01:00:41):
marriage, current, existingmarriage but I would say also
even further, just to create a,generate a cooperative
environment, if you will yeahyeah, to keep peace within the
family yep, and that's what itdoes.

Aaron Brien (01:01:00):
So if I follow the rules, like my ex-wife right, we
were together for a long timewe'll get along really well and
I still have a lot of respectfor her brother, right, yeah, by
rules I I wouldn't talk to hiswife yeah yeah but, here's the
crazy part.
So his wife's crow, but she'srelated to me, so on one side,

(01:01:25):
on one side, yeah, on one side.
She was my or he's mybrother-in-law right because he
still says that he's like you.
He's my brother-in-law rightBecause he still says that he's
like you're still mybrother-in-law and.
I was like.
That's good.
That's a sign of respect, right.
Yeah.
It's like no, we're going tokeep that.
That's good, you know I like it.
But if we were to follow thekinship on his wife's side, he

(01:01:52):
would be my son-in-law yeah, soI still gotta respect him.
You know what I mean so it'sstill I still can't well, this
is what the confusing part isabout.

Shandin Pete (01:02:03):
What you said about the whole thing is that in
the past, a man would a personwould often marry a sister.
That doesn't align with whatyou're just saying about the
rules.
It doesn't make sense.

Yeah, it does, no it doesn't.
That a crow man would marry agroup of sisters.

Oh, not their own sister.
Yeah, I know they're sisters,their sisters.

What is that polygyny?
Isn't that maternal?
What is that maternal polygyny?

Like they're full blood.
They have the same mother, samefather.

That was really common.

I don't believe that.
Okay, I don't believe that okayit didn't make sense, though,
from the restrictions why?

I don't know, because they're unmarried.

There's no rules about an unmarried woman so some
of the rules you're talkingabout, about who you can and
can't marry because of thenature of the clan- why can't
they marry the group of sisters?
Wouldn't they be in the sameclan though?

Yeah, the sisters aren't marrying each other.
They're marrying a man from adifferent clan, right?

What are you talking about?

Wait, wait are you thinking I mean?
Do you think I mean like a mancan marry his clan sisters?

No, like a man, like a brother, can marry his
blood sister.

No, that's not what I'm saying.

I'm going to rewind this and I'm going to.

And this is why I think back then it was practice
to marry sisters.
It was common for a crow man tomarry sisters.
Because of that, because theywould all still be the same clan
.
They would all still be of thesame clanship.
They would all still be of thebecause their moms are all the
same clan.
They would all still be of thesame clanship.
They would all still be of theBecause their moms are all the

(01:04:18):
same.
Not the biological sister.
No, they would marry biologicalsisters.
Yeah.
Really.
Yeah, it's real common to marrysisters.
Huh, okay.
Okay, let's clarify that.

Because that's what it sounds like.
Well, let's use an example.
Let's use an example.

Yeah.
Oh God, I'm a descendant, I'm adescendant.
I'm a descendant of a guy namedGoza Head.
Okay, basago, right.
Basago and Crow.
Okay, he was married to PrettyShield.
Okay, he was also married toPretty Shield's sister, medicine
Shell Stanzo.
Okay, those were both his wives, okay, at the same time.

He was married to both of them at the same time.

They were sisters.

That's what I said .
They were sisters A man canmarry.

I said a man can marry sisters.

What you heard was a man can marry his sister.

That's what you said.
No a man can marry his sister.
That's what you said.

No a man can marry sisters.
Okay, all right.
All right, that's well.
I'm glad that's clarifiedbecause I hope someone listens
beyond what you said.
The first because I clarified,I said his blood sister and he
said, yeah, the blood sister.
Oh, oh, not their own sister,did I know?

their sisters.
What is that polygyny?
Isn't that maternal barb?
What is that maternal polygyny?

like they're full blood.
They have the same mother, yeah, same father that was really
common we weren't no I thinkthat mountain dew, that mountain
dew and that motrin along withthe tylenol.

It was, it was.
You don't, don't bring mountaindew into this, um, so I you
said it no, okay, all right inthe in the 50s there was a man
that I'm related to or a womanthat I'm related to her name.
A woman that I'm related to,her name was Frances.
We won't say her last name,okay, because I don't know how
the family would feel about it.

Okay.
Do a pseudonym, do a pseudonym,yeah.

Well, they still got it.
No one's going to research thislady on the Crow Reservation,
but her name was Frances, right,yeah, okay, she had sisters.
One of them sisters' name wasMeredith.
Let's say, okay, this is a realstory.

(01:06:45):
This man, frank his name wasFrank was married to Frances.
Frances died, yeah, soMeredith's brothers got together
.
Yeah, francis died, yeah, soMeredith's brothers got together
, yeah, walked Meredith over toFrank's house, yeah, and said

(01:07:06):
we're going to give you oursister, yeah, which is Francis,
and Meredith were full sisters.
Yeah, yeah, okay.
And she did it and they stayedtogether forever.
They were together for a longtime like until the 80s.
Yeah 35, 40 years.

I'm familiar with that.
Now that I clarified, but theway it came off was not right.

That's the way you heard it?

That's not right, yeah, okay, yeah, no, it's true.
Yeah, that happens.
A lot happened, a lot yeah yeah, many tribes.

That wasn't just a tribe thing that white folk were
doing that too yeah okay, my,my question is as I lived at
flathead for so long, yep, Inever had anyone yeah clearly
show me what salish kinshiplooked like.

Yeah, that's a complicated.
I mean it's not complicated butit's probably been infected with
the Catholic thought, and Ithink that's probably why people
get a bit confused.
So what I know is just whatI've told you and it comes from

(01:08:19):
the language, right so.
But then there's some that's itgets kind of vague because, um,
like the, the complexity ofwhat you're talking about about,
um, uh, mother's brother ormother's sister and then
brother's sister's kids, I meanthose things are very easily

(01:08:41):
described, right, there's a namefor them.
It's the same thing you call abrother and sister.
So any first cousin which isfrom your, what you call it, the
aunt or uncle on either side isbrother and sister in a
particular way.
Then it gets a bit complicatedafter that and it gets beyond
sort of my understanding as faras the language is concerned so

(01:09:05):
would you say that this isn'tpracticed?
this kinship system of thesalish is not practiced no, I
would say no, and I think evenit goes even beyond that.
I think there's a loss ofconsciousness of who you ought
not to marry and who you canmarry, and I've heard this from

(01:09:31):
people saying and it's aCatholic, it's a Catholic, one
of the Catholic laws is that youcan marry your second cousin.

You can have a common great-grandfather In fact
, it's even more encouraged onyour mother's side that you can,
because the Catholic Churchpromotes patrilinealship.

Really.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, that's what the church did yeah.
So that that, that that was.
I think that's one of the oneof the issues that happened
there.
But it's something that youknow, I don't put a whole lot of
time or research into it.
Just I just don't don't do alot into it, but there's
something interesting there thatum needs to be explored more.

(01:10:16):
Um, but yeah, it's unfortunatethat people don't take it
serious enough to know orthey'll just brush off oh,
that's your, that's like yourfifth cousin, you know, and
they're just oh yeah, so what?
who cares?
That that's.
It's got to that point wherepeople don't really know.
I think there's there's athere's sort of a subconscious

(01:10:37):
of who you're related to, maybenot.
Maybe not to to the specific,the specifics within salish
terminology.
It's more like cousin firstcousin, second cousin, but
beyond that, uh, not a lot yeah,so.

so my question is is in terms of the preserving
the language and and providingan environment for language to
thrive, how come I I had neverseen an effort in my 19 years at
flathead, yeah to use socialorganization as a tool to
preserve language and makelanguage relevant?

(01:11:20):
Yeah.
Am I wrong?
No, you're not wrong.

Have you seen it.
No, you're not wrong and wetalked about this before, about
that issue of making languagelearning relevant.
And it's tough to be relevantin a classroom where that's
where it's only taught andthere's probably stronger

(01:11:49):
pockets of use, but strictly ina ceremonial context but,
strictly in a ceremonial context.
Outside of that, it doesn't holda lot of weight, if you will.
So the weight is on pen andpaper in a classroom giving a

(01:12:16):
speech to somebody, to somewhite folk, or uh ceremonial.
But I, you know, I don't know,I know how do you get creative
and make it uh relevant usingkinship.
That's the, that's the trick.
I don't, I don't, I don't knowhow.
I wouldn't know how to do that.
I wouldn't know how you'd haveto really promote it you'd it,
you'd have to have a mediacampaign.

I don't know, has there ever been a course taught
at anywhere on the FlatheadReservation, on just Salish
social organization?
No, no, I know there's a lot ofefforts for coyote stories and
yeah, and counting the 10,that's the greatest the greatest

(01:13:02):
uh, god the greatest languageeffort ever was of getting that
to that number 10.
Um, yeah, yeah.
No, I'm just teasing I didthere's been some headway on
language preservation there.

Yeah, I mean any anything is better than nothing.
Well, for the most part.

But I did.
I did a unit a lot better thanwhat I'm doing.

Yeah, yeah, I did a brief unit in I think it was a
tribal government course onsort of the governmental
structure which sort of leansinto that kinship structure in a
way from the past.

So here's my call to Sean Dean Okay, I want to go
to the Plains AnthropologyConference with you R2.
Okay, washington Statesomething, or the frigging
Salish Conference or something Idon't know.
But I want and I could helpflesh this out with you.

(01:14:09):
But I want you to put togethera presentation, a lecture on
Salish social organization, alecture.
Okay, I'll do it, man, likereally like something you can go
to, like I'd like to see it,like I really would like to see
it, because I've never seen it.
I've never seen anything likethat.
Okay, I've seen the bitterSalish start to adopt basket

(01:14:36):
hats, but I've never seen themtalk about kinship.
And because I feel akin to theSalish people, because I was
there for so long, yeah, I kindof get offended sometimes for
them when I'm like wait, what isthis adopting of?
yeah this kind of coastal thing.

(01:14:56):
Like you guys are plainsindians.
You're up, you're from thesmith and sun rivers yeah in the
muscle cell country.
You guys fought proud planewarriors exactly man like for
real dude, like I get.
I kind of get defensive when Igo to like consultation meetings
too and they're like and likethe flathead will remove

(01:15:17):
themselves from theseconsultations because they like
oh, we're not part, I'm like Ilike freak out, you know.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, and I'm like youguys were out here.
There's so many stories aboutintertribal warfare and camping
together and place names.
There's so much place namestudies that have been done on

(01:15:38):
the plains and there's stillthis perpetuated idea, yeah,
that you somehow are doing nooffense to those tribes.
That's their thing.
But like canoe journeys andwearing basket hats and macaw
drawings and it's like and thoseare cool, I like that art a lot
.
Sometimes I'm like I wish wehad cool Like stuff like that.

Some of my best friends are macaw.

Yeah, some of my best friends are macaw.
Some of my best friends are inmoieties.
That should be assured.
Some of my best friends arepart of.
Are in moieties, a moiety?
You know what I'm talking about?
I think so, like a group ofclans yeah, frey trees, which is

(01:16:25):
a group of clans.
And then when a tribe splitinto two groups, you call that a
moiety.
So you're part of one moietyand then that's kind of the pot,
like potlatch culture, but umyou've been you've been.

You've been busy, man, your mind is going today.

Well, we also haven't had a podcast in like
three months.
Yeah, it's been a while, andthen um, you're in a rip.

I don't want to talk.

I don't want to talk about work, like I don't
want to talk about Section 106.
No no no, I notice competent propeople, culturally competent
pro people are getting lax, lazy, lackadaisical in their kinship
.
To me, I think it's a microcosmof culture in general that

(01:17:15):
there's these allowances given.
I could see it.
To me, I think it's a microcosmof culture in general that
there's we're, there's theseallowances given to be chill,
and I'm like, wait, that's,that's maybe where it starts,
though, and is that something weshould prevent from happening
now, cause I can see it.
I see it in kinship, wherethey're just like, so like even
me, I give into it, like when Isee my cousin, I see my cousin

(01:17:35):
mike, he hey, what's up brother?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, like you'renot, you're not my brother.
So I remind him once in a while.
I always remind him rememberyou're, you're my dad, so your
kids you know, yeah, your kidswere were the same generation,
me and your kids yeah, I'm gonnafigure this out.
Man, I'm taking on thischallenge, yeah I pure for, for

(01:18:01):
consider it a pure salvage,preservation project, like
honestly, like it's somethingthat's not practiced among your
people anymore.
But I feel like there's enoughlanguage, there's enough
knowledge, yeah, and there'senough written history that you
could piece something prettyuseful together to say, hey,
this is actually how we wereorganized yeah camp structure.

(01:18:22):
And, yeah, you, you get that camstructure and you look at it
and you say, okay, well, in thelanguage these are the terms and
then maybe, once you see camstructure, those terms will
start to make more sense to you.
Yeah, and you're like, hey,look at this man yeah, yeah
there's a difference when yousay kenna and yaya yeah so that

(01:18:46):
to me that that's already adistinguishing between two sides
yeah between patrilineal shipand matrilineal ship.
Yeah, there's already adistinction there.
Yeah, so that tells mesomething.
I don't know what it's tellingme, but it's telling me
something, something important,something important.
The term for your, yourfather's mother is different

(01:19:06):
than the, than the term that isyour mother's mother, you know
yeah all man, and that also says, like when you refer to your
grandchild, it's the same term.
So to me those terms they seemto be more like distinguishing

(01:19:28):
relationship, not distinguishingdistance.
Or where you're at on the tree,yeah, distance.
Or yeah, where you're at on thetree, yeah.
So to go back to this conceptof the seven generations, I, I,
I wonder if people in our regionsubscribe to that, because

(01:19:49):
generationally those are blurredyeah, I believe it, man, I
believe it.
I think it's more complex thanwhat um gets put out there in
the world yeah, well, you getthe pedagogy people and they,
they take over terms and theyuse them up and then they

(01:20:10):
sustainability, people, pedagogyI mean those are important
things, don't get me wrong,those are important.

But authenticity, people who say praxis
authenticity ought to trump anyof those things.
Yeah, you talk about praxis.

You're talking praxis you talk about practice.
You better not alan iverson.
You talk about practice.
Remember that, Allen.

Iverson Remember.

Allen Iverson.
Remember Allen Iverson?
He's getting interviewed in apost game and they're like they
said you're being late, youdidn't show up to practice.
And he's like you're talkingabout practice.
I just lost the biggest game ofmy life and you're talking
about practice, or somethinglike that.
I can't remember, so that's whyI said and you're talking about
practice or something like that.

(01:20:58):
I can't remember.
So that's why I said are youtalking about practice?

You got some odd references today, man.

I feel like you're trying to wrap this up.
No, I'm not.

If you're going, if you're on a ripper, keep her
up, man, I'm not, I'm not.
I think it's important, what'syour?

next thought what's your?

next thought Well, all these things are important.
There needs to be aconsiderable thought for each
tribe in this area of kinship.
The social structure of apeople is really what determines

(01:21:58):
a lot of things, especially thevirtues and the norms that tie
into the area I work in, whichis the idea of the generation of
knowledge.
That's uh, that's just superimportant.
But the idea of the, of how itwas, how knowledge is
constructed, um, often, uh, the,the social construct gets sort
of watered down, like there'sbig assumptions about, about it
that people don't consider.
They just want to say, oh yeah,indigenous knowledge,

(01:22:18):
traditional knowledge, withoutunderstanding the complexities
of the thing that you justtalked about.
That's quite complex, you know.

Yeah, and Crow kinship is actually often used
as a teaching tool to show thethree major kinship systems in
the US.
Which is what do they call that?
Eskimo, hawaiian and crow rightis because don't they say that
the us kinship system is basedon the eskimo kinship system?
I don't know, like that I'venever heard that yeah, yeah, um

(01:22:52):
dive into it a little bit.
Oh, ah, I will.
Yeah, so actually, ben, youknow this makes me it a little
bit.
Oh, I will.
Yeah.
So actually, ben you know, thismakes me think a little more
about like.
Okay, my proposed idea to youhow, how were chiefs determined
and what the sailors?
I never, I never, heard peopletalk about this.
Yeah, Like leaders.
What's the Salish word for achief?

(01:23:13):
What does that mean?

oh man yeah, I'm not.
I'm not that advanced money, no, not money almost sounded like
money yeah, I'm not sure, let'ssee.
Yeah, I couldn't.
I'm not, I'm not that advancedto break words down, unless
unless I'd given a chance tokind of look it up a bit.
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know what it means, butthat's the word so how?

what was the?
Was there any prerequisites orwell?

yeah, yeah, we, we chatted about it before, I
think in in somewhere laced inour previous episodes, but yeah,
it was it was generally did wewell, yeah, not, not, it wasn't
a, it wasn't a discussion point,it was probably just just a
quick comment.
But yeah, generally, there was,you know, the.
The chiefs were decided upon bythe, the main, the main people

(01:24:05):
of the tribe.
You know the, the I don't knowwhat they call them in the, I
don't know what you'd call itlike they call the headsman.
You know some of the, theprominent people, yeah, they
decide, they, they I don't knowwhat they say when they mean
vote.
You know, of course, they, youknow they'll decide, but it was
someone who, um, you know,embodied certain virtuous, uh,

(01:24:27):
virtuous ways, you know, butdefinitely they had to be
someone who was, uh, had certainamount of deeds.
You know they proved theirbravery in a certain way, but of
course they had to be otherdeeds.
You know they proved theirbravery in a certain way, but of
course they had to be otherthings.

You know they had to be uh when you say virtuous,
what does that mean?
Well, you know, without,without the influence of the
church, what is because?
What is salish virtue andmorality without the church?
What is that pre-church?

well, yeah, you got it.
You got to be brave man, yougot to be able to, to show
certain amount of bravery in thethings you do, but you had to
be um, you have to have a waywith the words, you have to be
persuasive, but you also had tobe knowledgeable about about
gaslight you have to know how togaslight people.

(01:25:13):
You got got to bepassive-aggressive gaslighter.

Well, the reason I ask is because when you look at
the Crow structure of theranking system, the highest
level is what you call a chief,which just means good man, right
.
But in order to be a chiefchief, you had to have
accomplished four deeds yeahthese four war deeds.
You capture an enemy's weapon,yeah, you capture an enemy's

(01:25:41):
horse.
You touch an enemy withoutkilling them and you lead a
successful war party or whatever, right?
Yeah, that makes you qualified.
You're now in the ranking, yeah, or in the running, but the
final and the most importantcriteria is that people have to

(01:26:01):
want to follow you.
Yeah, you can have the deeds,but if nobody follows you,
you're not a chief.
So it's real democratic in thatsense.
Yeah.

Yeah, there's a that's pretty familiar.
Yeah, yeah, there's a that'spretty familiar, not not those
specifics of like the four deeds, but there's a.
There's a, there's a prettyspecific quote I use quite often
to to demonstrate sort of thatidea of how bravery ties into
that idea of I don't know likepersuasiveness.
You know that meaning peoplewill listen to you.

(01:26:34):
You know persuasiveness, youknow that meaning people will
listen to you.
You know there was a, there wasa, just a quote of some guy
saying you know, I want to, Iwant to, uh, I want to
accomplish a great deed.
He's sort of saying thesethings, you know, and he says
because, uh, to be, to be brave,you have to be listened to, or
uh, or what was it, I don'tremember exactly, you have to be

(01:26:55):
listened to or what was it.
I don't remember exactly, butanyway it was tying the idea of
people listening to you to theidea of you being brave.

So the deed indicated, bravery indicated
that people will then listen toyou in a certain way.
I can see that, yeah.
I wonder though, because youdon't hear much about that from
the crows in terms of bravery inthat same sense, In a
traditional sense.
What they're really into isluck.
Yeah, are you lucky?
Are you lucky?
Did you test yourself againstthe enemy and come out unharmed?

(01:27:30):
Yeah, so the people would seeyou as someone who's fortunate.
So we want people who areleading us, who are lucky that
they can do that, and theultimate form of your luck is to
go into battle, right.
So it just makes me wonder.

(01:27:51):
I've never heard anyone talk inall my years there and I felt
like I participated in theappropriate amount and I was
privy to some pretty coolconversations and knowledge but
never heard anyone talk aboutsocial organization, kinship,
military structure in anyorganized setting.

(01:28:15):
I think it was always just kindof like um snippets here and
there, you know if somebody wasto collect them snippets yeah
and put them into somethingcomprehensive, it would tell you
I think it would show a lot.
Yeah, and I think that's man,it's like I don't want to.
There's a, there's a untappedresource there of teaching,

(01:28:38):
creating the environment forlanguage, you know and culture
to survive, yeah that is void ofthe church.

That is void.
That's a tough one.
Anyway.
The quote is to do good, youmust be listened to, and to be
listened to you you got to bebrave.
But I think you're right aboutthe idea of luck, luck and
bravery.

Maybe that's kind of the same thing.
I think they're synonymous,right like yeah, yeah it almost
seems like that you're willingto take on these tasks that are
dangerous and if you come outunharmed or you come out
successful, yeah.
Yeah, naturally that's a testof bravery, but your bravery is
based on your personal power.
Yeah, yeah.

(01:29:26):
The good fortune that you havefrom what is the things you
possess?
Yeah.
And that people would want tobe around.
It's contagious.
Good fortune is contagious.
Yeah, yeah.
Nobody's going to follow anunlucky leader, you know yeah.

Yeah, right, no, but that's.
I think you're right.
There's a lot of work thatneeds to be done in that area.
There's a lot of work in umcurriculum, you know making well
and I don't lessons, no, but ithas to be tied to something.

Yeah, it's got to be tied to that and I feel, like
, man, that you could blow minds.
You can.
You can.
People can look at you and say,man, you know what you're right
.
We've been doing it wrong.
In that sense, we're notcreating an environment where
language can survive.
What we're doing is we'recreating platforms for language.

(01:30:35):
Yeah.
While we survive.

Yeah.
It's just like making a bunchof parking lots, like real cool
parking lots, but you don'treally have a building that
you're making a parking lot for.

Speaker 2 (01:30:55):
It's just a bunch of cool parking lots.

You know you got it.
You got the one with theboulevard and the nice trees.
You got the one that'soptimized for space.
You got one, that's whatdrained well, and it's situated
in east west, so car don't gettoo hot, but who cares if
there's no?
Like you don't know whereyou're parking, you don't know
what building you're parking infront of, so yeah.
So if language learning wassituated in teaching those kind

(01:31:21):
of things, that seemed to makemore sense right yeah.

And also you preserve a practice, because by
teaching that language in thatenvironment, you actually
encourage the use of that system.
Yeah.

So people will start using it, and then it
would just kind of start to workyeah, I bet it's, it's more,
it's more better, it's morebetter well, there's, there's
attempts, there's attempts, butbut there I think they're,
they're, they're, they're young,because people will try to make
lessons about powwows.
Here's all the vocabulary aboutpowwows and then all the Jingle

(01:32:03):
, dread, and that's cool.
It's a start, but we can getmore complex and hit on the
things that really matter.

And these kinds of language lessons, our language
preservation efforts, arecultural understanding efforts
are they're not designed for theoutsider.
That's the thing, that's notthe audience.
Yeah, the idea of the powerthing, like creating curriculum
for people to understand power,that's the whole, like bridging
the divide thing, right yeahlet's bridge the gap where?

(01:32:37):
but really it's like no, whatwe're trying to do do is
preserve real life culture forreal life people.
You know, yeah, not, and notfor the sake of preserving, but
for them to use it yeah sosocial organization is like a
huge form of that.
Etiquettes.
Yeah, the social norms, you makethem normal, but before you can
do that, they got to know itand they don't know it yeah,

(01:33:00):
yeah I've seen growth atflathead with like coyote
stories where, like nobody knewthem when I would first went
there, nobody my age would haveknown them yeah now you go and
talk to most 22 23 years old.
They all know about the heart,the monster in the heart.
They all know about uh foxjumping over coyote.

(01:33:22):
They all know.
They might not know the thedetails or anything but you can
tell like there was huge effortsin that.
So yeah, it's, it was normalizeda little bit, you know yeah you
even got white kids over theretalking about car it's like, so

(01:33:44):
I think it can be done yeah withsocial organization.
Anyway, I don't want to be thedead horse yeah, I know there's
a lot of dead.
There's a pile of dead horsesthere, because there's a lot of
seen anyone.

There's a pile of dead horses there because
there's a lot of issues withthat gatekeeping of knowledge.
We don't want to, we don't wantto, we don't want those lessons
about that because we don'twant nobody to see it.

But but nobody still want to do it because
there's responsibility thatcomes with it.
Yeah, that's the thing is.
It's like once you know yourkinship and once you know your
social organization yeah there'sa responsibility that comes
with it, because now I know whomy kids are.
Now I know who my clan childrenare.
Now I know who my in-laws are,blah, blah, all that.

(01:34:28):
So there's roles andresponsibilities that come with
all of it.
But once you start teachingpeople like what you're saying
to do, yeah teach the salishpeople they can ship roles and
social it's like.
But if you cast a wide net andyou get, you talk to a thousand
people and five of them startusing it yeah that's five more

(01:34:51):
than they're using it now.

Yeah, yeah, catches on.
Well, I got my assignment.
I'm going to figure this outand I'll have some answers for
you next time, Maybe next nexttime.

Saturday.
I'll be busy with a crowfunction.

Secret, secret crow function.

Secret crow function.
It's so secret, it's so secret.

What do people say ?
Secret gigs?
You got a secret gig, oh yeah.

Yeah, the powwow world, yeah, yeah, oh yeah,
secret gig, yeah I got gigs,secret gigs I got gigs, secret
gigs.
We got gigs and it's always for,like, someone's retiring yeah
someone's retiring, someone'sretiring um a treat, like a
treatment center's graduation umgroundbreaking for a fire fire

(01:35:54):
department for the volunteerfire hall, yeah, or like well,
the ones I never liked was likeyour, when you it's hardcore
like your own people, like whena council wants you to come and
sing like an honor song, you'relike man, I really this is the
group of people we should do itlike real shit for.

(01:36:15):
Yeah, authentic, yeah stuffyeah you know, like up there,
when we when people, I used togo sing with guys and we'd be
like, oh, they want us to singfor at the council meetings
today, and it's like yeah comeon, man, there should be like
some cool stuff.
There's like salish praise songsI've heard a praise song before
like Like a real life Salishpraise song.

(01:36:36):
I heard at a wedding.
Johnny sang a praise song andI'm like why aren't they using
these?
Don't call Johnny to come andsing an honor song.
Say we want you to use yourpraise song for this.
Like the swearing in of the newcouncil right.

(01:36:57):
Yeah.
That's a legitimate time to usesomething like that Legit yeah.
Anyway, I'm sorry I'm going offagain, but we can stop.
Let's end it.

Let's do it.

Shut her down.
Shut her down, bye.

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#56 - Native Cousin Chronicles: "She's my Mom's, Dad's, Sister-in-Law's, Daughter's Grandson"

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#56 - Native Cousin Chronicles: "She's my Mom's, Dad's, Sister-in-Law's, Daughter's Grandson"