#66 - When the Ceremony Goes Viral: Who Gets to Comment? - Tribal Research Specialist: The Podcast

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Aaron Brien (00:01):
I look like the fat guy. Look like a fat guy. I need
a different shirt. This is notgood.
That was

shandin pete (00:17):
like when you when you reach up for something, you
know how the the skin kind ofstretches in the underarm kind
of looks like a little bat wing?

Yeah? Dude, it's not good. You

you're getting that. I mean, no, I'm not saying
I'm not that. I'm not not there,but a guy just don't get the
same kind of exercise as as oncewas.

Yeah, once were

I, once was, I won't know how to say it.
Man, no, no, come on.

Remember that movie?

Yeah, I do remember it.
We had to do another, anotherepisode on native cinema, nah.
I think we covered them all.
Let's say some new ones. Haven'tseen any new native cinema, have

(01:53):
you

that TV well, that TV show, which one north of
North?

Oh yeah, north.
I didn't. I hadn't even, Ihaven't even, I think maybe
solution might have watched itonce or twice.
I don't remember.

I got stung by a bee yesterday.

Oh, to get some special powers. I

didn't get no bee powers. I You don't feel like

the urge to eat honey. Hey, man did. Was there
someone when you was a kid onthe crow res or, like, not
someone, but some place whereyou could buy, like, just honey.

(03:08):
Oh, the hooterites, they set upa stand and they sold honey.

I think I remember people buying hooter right,
honey, but I don't know wherethey bought it. I think they're
buying it from launch grass IgA,what

used to be this little, the white, this little,
this little,

that's what it was, huh?

What do you remember it?

There's a B guy.
What was his name? Lafleur.
Lafleur.
Peter Lafleur, like the hockeyplayer.

Anyway, there was this little honey stand in
Arlene. And when I was a kid, ayoung kid, my mom and dad begin
beginning of the beginning ofthe summer, would go and buy all
his kids a little, excuse me,those little bears, you know,

(04:03):
yeah, but each one, each one ofus would get a bear of honey,
and we could just go to town onit. Yeah. I don't know if that
was like a generational thing,but I ain't I remember kids a
thing of honey.

I remember honey being a more prevalent thing
than it is now, but I don't,yeah, I just remember people. I
do remember my mom trying tocure us of allergies. You're my
brother of allergies with honey.

Yeah, maybe that's what it was all about.

I don't know. It didn't actually work, though.

No, think it did.
Yeah. Interesting?

Yeah, I was

trying to get a song ready, but
I didn't. I failed,just looking for something,
right? Now, yeah, I gotman, oh, actually, not. I want
to show you this song. It's areal good one. It's a real good
one. Let me see. How can I playit?

(05:19):
I got it on my phone. Good song.
I know how to play it.
Give me a second here, I'm goingto go to our YouTube page, and
I'm going to encourage all ourlisteners to go to our YouTube
page and dive in to the hoursand hours of old Indian music

(05:50):
from two different archivalWhat do you call archival
bodies? Bodies of archive?

What do you call it,

archival repositories. There it is. The
archival repositories of tribalresearch specialists is vast,
and one should partake in it.
Can almost say, I'm just kind ofstalling for time. Okay, I heard
this song on hearing it, man, itjust it stood out to me. I'm

(06:25):
going to share this sound withyou. I'm going to share this
song. Song. Share this song.
Yeah, can you see that?
Can you see that?

Yeah, I could see it, Yeah, here we Go. Hey. I

yeah, Oh,

what's like an old chicken

dance song or an old grass dance song you
start getting into it. Here.

(09:18):
I thought it was a good littlesong. Man, no, of course, that
took me a long time to catch itfor some reason. Of course, I'm

(09:40):
not in singing shape as I usedto be. You know, hard songs,
hard to catch them, especiallythe ones that are a bit off, off
the normal menu, you know,agree to disagree. Agree.

Disagree what's going on, yeah.

So if anybody's out there that knows the origin
of that song, I'd like to knowlike to know more, yeah, so I
recently returned from yourhomelands, deep in the heart of

(10:27):
what is now known as crowcountry. Have you heard that
term? Or people say that whenthey say so called, so called
Canada, so called Montana. Youheard that before, right? Yeah,
kind of like a bit of a protestof the nature the name of a

(10:49):
certain place. Wonder if anybodyhas ever said I was in so called
crow country, like, some rurallike, who was there before?
Like, way, way back in time,probably, shoshones. Maybe,
probably, yeah, yeah. Maybe,like, a real scorn Shoshone

(11:11):
shows up and she has to do aland acknowledgement,

so called country.
Yeah.

That's that's out of hand, but no, so I was there
and had a pretty good time, butnot there. Was my time there.
Well, not my time, but beingthere my scene, and witnessed in

(11:49):
the age old controversy. Whatwas that? Oh, yeah. Wouldn't you
like to know that thiscontroversy is widespread across
Indian country. Are you waitingfor my diatribe on this first I
want to see if you can figureout what I'm talking about. And

(12:11):
this would be like 20 Questions.
And so that's the question. Igave you, an answer widespread
across Indian country, and it isany ceremonialism or celebratory
event is not immune to thisinternal there's the next clue,

(12:34):
this internal controversy, andit's probably been, I guess,
more more prevalent in the lastthree to four decades due to the
advent ofmedia technology or ways to

(12:54):
capture and record. He got it.
He got it

recording or filming or photographing, like
ceremonies. Yeah, are thingsthat are considered sacred.

Oh, yes, you're sharp today, Man Boy, I'm on it.
You put your, you put your bigboy shirt on your What was you
in earlier jammies? That's yourjammy shirt.

I was in like a cut off shirt. It was actually
Amanda shirt, but, um,where people like, cut off,
like, so, oh yeah, I had, like,a really long day.
We bought some hay, and Iunloaded it at my dad's place,

(13:53):
80 small square bells. God,dang, I stacked my dad helped
me. But we stacked them, and itkind of started, it was like
raining, so it was like, realhumid, like it was a slight
rain. That's what I was tryingto be, you know, yeah. And so it
made me, like, real humid, yeah.
So when I got back, I got out ofthose clothes that I just

(14:17):
grabbed a shirt, but we got themfrom the same place. I think
they're the same size too,right? Yeah, but they say ani
Nakota College on them. SeanChandler gave them to us, the
president of the college there,and we were visiting one time,
and he's like, Oh, I got shirtsfor you.

So nice, yeah, so.

But then when I seen myself in the screen, I was
like, we're not doing this.

Not gonna happen.
Yeah, did that? Did the balesget wet?

Well, the ones that were. On the top got wet. So
when I, when I stacked them, Ijust put those to the side, I'm
gonna let them dry out, and Iput about three, four inches of
space between each bale while Istack so Eric can get through a
little bit. Yeah,

pro level, no, of course, you had your dad Hawking
over you, so he's telling youwhat to do, right?

Oh, no, no. He came out. I was about 20 bells in. He
came out. So he climbed on thetrailer, and he was handing him
to me. So I gave him the benefitof gravity, as I respect my
father,

yeah, yeah.

And I didn't stack them very high, because case I
got to move around, because I'mgonna check on them tomorrow see
if they're damp, then I gottatake that top row off, you know,

yeah, yeah. So, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So there's some this, thiscontroversy of recording or
documenting things is, I thinkis only a controversy because of
that word that you said, thisidea of sacred, right? Sacred

(16:10):
things. And I'm curious why,when and where did the idea of
like, like, the idea that, ifsomething is documented on a
pen, paper, media of some sort,why that infringes on the

(16:34):
sacredness of that thing.
Because this is everywhere, man,and we even talked about it,
remember, we talked about it inone episode, a guy from that
tribe made sketches of someceremonial doings, you know,
just he just, that's what hedid. Then those got into the
hands of someone, or he soldthem because he was hard up for

(16:57):
cash, and that was created acontroversy among the people
there aboutsacred things being recorded.
So, from, so you, you, you'reimmersed in, in the field of of
this in a particular way. What'sthe deal? Man, what's the

(17:20):
history about it? Do you know?

Well, I don't, I don't know the history from the
tribal point of view. You know,like, you hear it all the time,
where people are like, you can'ttake pictures of that. It's
sacred. Yeah. I mean, but whenyou think about tribes, they've

(17:45):
been allowing some sort ofrecording, whether it's just
writing or whatever, for awhile. Yeah, and it's no secret
that tribes who have lostculture too that has benefited
from those things.

Oh, yeah, but

I think it's kind of an a weird thing too, because
what I notice, what my problemwith it is, is whether somebody
is given permission to recordsomething you would consider
sacred or not, is actually noneof my business, right? And I
think that's, that's the issuethat I have with it, is when

(18:28):
people who are not even part ofit, yeah, feel like, feel the
need to comment, whether it's onsomeone's Instagram or Tiktok or
whatever, and they'll say, well,they shouldn't be putting them
there, and I'm like, well,that's that's not for me to say,
like, I have no control and noright over anybody's ceremonial

(18:50):
doings other than things that ii either own that way of doing
it, or I'm a sponsor ofsomething, or I'm not gonna,
like, Tell somebody they can't,I don't know. I don't know if
they can, right, no. Like,right, right. Also, the other
issue, I think, is to is toassume that we fully understand

(19:11):
what sacred means, yeah, and,and, like, how to how everything
is, like, encompassed in that. Idon't know if we fully
understand. I guess I, I, I'm,I'm comfortable enough to say
like revering something, orcaring for something, holding

(19:32):
something sacred, and justhaving simple forms of respect,
all might kind of be differentin some way, yeah. So I about a
week few days ago, I sent you atick tock of this guy who filmed
the inside of a Sundance lodgeafter the ceremony was over. And

(19:54):
really, he was just kind oflike, man, awesome, right?
Whatever. Yeah. I didn't seeanything wrong with it, and then
he just got blew up in thecomments, like, yeah. Like,
slaughtered, slaughtered him andand his his response to one of
them was like, I do what I want.
I don't care. It's funny to me,because it's like, man, most

(20:18):
people are going to take what hesaid as like, arrogance, right?
They're going to say, yeah, hehas no respect. Nobody's going
to comment on the people thatfeel the need to tell that man
what's right or wrong in histribe. Yeah, I think that's more
arrogant than him commentingback or whatever, so, right? But

(20:40):
I, I don't know the origins ofwhy we say you can't photograph.
I mean, I do think there'ssimple forms of respect, like
cameras can be a disturbance anda distraction, yeah, but, like,
I do think that somethingthere's levels to, like, quote,

(21:06):
unquote, sacredness, I guess

you think so.
Like, yeah,

well, yeah. Like, I've seen, I've seen people
freak out over a drum gettingwhistled at a powwow the same
way as, like, I don't know, man,like, yeah, like, the parade
dance, yeah, that you were partof the big crow. It's a huge

(21:36):
crow ceremony. There's all kindsof people recording. In fact,
they streamed it on Pow wows.comYeah, and they, there was a lot
of, I'm sure there was a lot ofdiscussion about whether it
should be something like thatshould be,

yeah, streamed and,

yeah, I think that comes more with the people that
putting it on, and their comfortlevel with things and and like,
yeah, really understanding whatit is. I don't. I actually
didn't even notice them. We weresinging. I sang for it. You were

(22:21):
the drum. They call it thecaptive. So, yeah, at any point,
did you ever I'd never evennoticed them. No,

I didn't. I didn't either. I didn't know between
the

heat and between the heat and having to figure
out songs and stuff. It justseemed like the focus was
somewhere else. So, yeah, Ididn't see anything wrong with
it. And, and in some ways, I'veI liked it because I ended up
watching that video a coupletimes after. You know, it's kind
of nice to sit there and watchit. And, yeah, I mean, I don't

(22:56):
know, so years ago, and I can'tremember who told me this. I
actually believe the name thatcomes to mind, and I don't know
if this is because I seen him ona live stream, but it's Tommy
Christians, but it was aroundthe time 2004 2005 Yeah, when I

(23:20):
heard this, which was the time Imet Tommy, and we're visiting
with him, but I heard that theGhost Dance was photographed,
and they published thosepictures in the newspaper, and
it was because of thosepublished

(23:40):
pictures in the story of thisIndian uprising that it spooked
the non native people, whicheventually led to, like
the Wounded Knee massacre andall that stuff. So there was
kind of this fear ofphotographing and having it get
out there. Also our religions,our our ceremonies, ways of

(24:05):
worship were outlawed, and solike, you couldn't, like, get
them out there. Like youcouldn't say, Hey, don't take no
pictures. We don't want itgetting out because for whatever
reasons or so. Yeah, I don'tthink we've always had Sun
dances and medicine dances andstuff way out in the middle of

(24:27):
nowhere. I think they were kindof close to camps and
communities. I think that was aresult of the laws. So that
means also the hush hush of ithas to be impacted by those
laws. Yeah, so I think aftertwo, three generations, when
you're when you're like that,you your protection of these

(24:53):
things and your opinions can bemisguided. Yeah? I don't know,
though, what do you think? No,

I agree. I agree.
I think there's, there's got tobe, like you said, there's got
to be levels ofof this idea of sacredness that
would would govern, like the theprocedure or the, I don't know,
the access to to this, to thisthing, this thing deemed sacred.

(25:27):
Access to it to certain degrees,right? So you mentioned this
parade dance. It's the whole,the whole camp, isn't there's
there's not well to a degree.
There's not limited access tokeep people out, right? If

(25:48):
there's Non, non natives, noncrows, if they're there, they're
they can witness it and see it.
There's no announcement saying,Don't record this. You shouldn't
record this. It's a publicaffair,

I mean, and that's who it's for. It's for the camp.
So if you're part of the campand you're part of there, that's
that's just for. There have beenyears where they said they
didn't want anyone filming it.
But I also think that comes fromthe time when cameras were,
like, two feet long and a hugedistraction. And yeah, now you

(26:24):
snap a picture with your phoneor your loved ones. And yeah,
yeah, I but I do think, andI do think there's a difference,
yeah, even in the parade danceversus, like,
the Sun Dance, there's a bigdifference, or the medicine

(26:47):
dance, yeah, pray dance, thereis a social element to certain
ceremonies, yeah. And some arehush hush and like, and I, and I
think that has more to do withlike, there's, there's public
ceremonies, there's privateones, yeah,

yeah, there's like, yeah,

that has to do more with, like, what they're doing,
what their job is. So it mightbe two, just two or three
people, but if your ceremony isto bless the entirety of the
camp, yeah, everyone can really,is a participant on some level,
you know, yeah,

has to be by default, I suppose. So, yeah, so
in that particular way. I mean,I don't think anyone would say
that, that that that ceremonialprocess. I don't think anybody
would say that's not sacred,right?

I would, yeah. I mean, think not. But people on
Tiktok do all the time. Theyfeel like they need to. They
feel like they need to. Like,why is me personally, and you've
been there, like, when it's ait's a it's a nice Pow Wow. Your
drum groups jamming, and you getwhistled. It's like, fun. It
Like It's a lot of fun. And,yeah, I don't care who you are

(28:11):
or how traditional you are, hownot traditional, untraditional,
you are, when your drum groupgets whistled, it's pretty
exciting. It does change the

mood, sure. Yeah, yeah, it does.

I never thought at any point was it like, so sacred
that, yeah, you, you couldn'ttake picture. I've enjoyed
watching videos of drum groupssinging and they're getting
whistled. Because I've beenthere and I've, I've sat there,
yeah, it's like, it's kind offun to see it, and it's like,
because I know that feeling,yeah. I also think that if it's

(28:46):
so revered and so sacred, thenit's, it's places not in power,
yeah,

yeah, yeah. If you're the person who's offended
by that. There's a bigger issue,I guess, yeah, but then again,
you know, I think people havethe right to to consider that, I
guess, in their own way.

I think so. I think people have the right to sit and
discuss things and haveconversations about, like,
things like that. I don't thinkpeople have the right to tell
somebody from another tribe whatthey're doing is wrong. Yeah, I
don't. I don't think we, we as apeople, just because non native
people are greater America doesit doesn't mean it belongs with

(29:38):
us. You know, like we don't.
It's not my job to commentpublicly for sure on what the
shoshones are doing. Are thearapahos. Yeah, it's not my job.
Now. I could sit here and talkwith my partner and or talk with
you, and we can discuss thingsand have cool conversations,
yeah, like all night, and Idon't think there's anything

(29:58):
wrong with. App, no, I think wecould even have debates, and
people can argue, but thosethings are down for like, I just
think it's crazy. So one time, Iposted a video of a warrior's
homecoming. They called theShoshone dance. Yeah, in fact,
I'll read you the comment. It'son my Tiktok. Yeah. This
ceremony is for warriors to tellwar deeds. And somebody

(30:24):
commented on my on my video it,we call it the telly, the large
telling of deeds dance. It'ssimilar to the Salish scalp
dance. And this person said,crows adopt too many ceremonies,

(30:47):
too much ceremonial use of othertribes. They really have no
traditions, just adoption. Thisperson just commented on my
video, wow. Like, what? First ofall, that's just the nickname.

(31:08):
We call it the Shoshone dancebecause it was made popular by a
chief named red bear who foughtagainst the Shoshone. Yeah. But
the dance is called the largetelling of deed dance, and as
far as I know, it's completelyCrow, yeah, it's not a borrowed
ceremony, and it's one of theoldest ceremonies we have, but
it's designed for the public.

(31:32):
Yeah, it's for the public. It'sfor everyone. Witness come and
look, yeah, they're going totell more deeds, which we
believe are blessings, you know,given to us. So, like, I would
never do that, like, I wouldn'tcomment on somebody's video. And
like, you can be like, Yeah,this ain't even yours. You guys

(31:52):
are like, how do I know that?
You know?

Yeah, that's crazy. It's

no lie that we have ceremonies that are adopted from
other tribes. But how thosethose ceremonies, I wouldn't say
maybe adopted is the wrong word.
They were given to us, yeah, asgifts, yeah. So that's very
different, you know, yeah. Andwe, in turn, have given
ceremonies to other people, toother tribes,

yeah? So

I feel like when people comment on things like
that, scolding people aboutespecially outside of their own
people, that's like, usuallypeople with superficial
knowledge, you know,

oh yeah, that, yeah, that's, one of the
problems, right there, is Yeah,unless you're unless you're an
expert and a practitioner of ofthat tribe, then maybe I'd have
just shut up. Yeah.

And then I also think it's like, there's plenty
of other videos you can commenton, yeah. Comment on, yeah. On
my video of a ceremony thatbelongs to the crows. I'm crow.
It's in Crow Agency, yeah. Like,

yeah, now, now, now, if it was, like,
constructed in a different way,like, like, asking about it,
like, is this was, is this anadopted ceremony? You know,
there's a respectful way toprovide comment on something,
yeah.

And that's probably not usually a comment on a
video. That's probably a messagethat yeah might yeah and, and
from the time I very first goton social media to now, I have
gotten comments like that, likeour questions, like, Hey, I'm
curious. I seen your video. I'mjust curious, like, what is this
or what's this for? Or, Yeah, isit normal for you guys to record

(33:54):
things like that? Yeah, theother thing I feel it's crazy
that people have so there's,there's a few ceremonies where
crow women wear war bonnets,yeah, and they're, again, public
ceremonies. So people will postthem. And so when I, when I look
through the comments, I seepeople from other nations like

(34:17):
commenting to me, like, that'snot right, women shouldn't wear.
And I'm like, again, like, why?
How I would not do that? I wouldnot comment yeah on somebody
else's thing, you know? Like,yeah, like that. I don't know. I
mean, I've talked a lot of smacktoo, so I'm probably,

so this is the Yeah.
I mean, agree that if you'regonna, if you're gonna make
comment, make it respectful, andif you're expert, even if you're
an expert and a practitioner, Imean, that's a whole different
story.

You, I would just tell people not to comment.
Don't make if you really have aquestion, message that person
and ask the question, don'tcomment, because all you're
doing is creating chaos. BecauseI think there's people that do
it for the sake of argument.
They do it for the sake of theirown insecurities and and, and I
think it's coming from peoplewho don't have a decent

(35:23):
understanding of even their ownceremonial life as so that, how
would they even know aboutanother people? You know, I know
there's tribes even in Montanathat they film everything, and
there's even things I thought,Well, that seems interesting,
but that's exactly what I did. Ithought to myself and said, Oh,

(35:44):
that's interesting. I probablywouldn't do that, but I'm never,
I would never go up to anotherperson who owned the right to
that ceremony or might be incharge of it, and I'd be like,
you probably shouldn't do this.
You know? It takes away thesacredness. What do I know
about?

You know, anyway, what were you gonna say? Oh,
yeah. So, so this is this. So,this is my curiosity.
So, What? What? Whathappened? So, so it says that
there's a level of sacrednessthat's somewhat individual, that
governs how you you ought tonegotiate, how you publicly or
privately, practice that, thatthing that you deem sacred, that

(36:34):
that's a no brainer, right?
That's that seems like one levelwhen it starts to get into where
the participation becomes morethan one person and then that, I
mean, that's another level. ButI think another level would be
where this thing that is deemedsacred is like it has, it has

(37:00):
elements that are somewhatcommon across different tribal
groups. Like, for example, theSun Dance and the sweat lodge,
those like, there's, there wouldbe common elements in a way,
across different tribes andthen, and it seems like, it
seems like that's where peoplefeel like they have the right to

(37:22):
sort of cross the boundary andsay, Oh yeah, you you shouldn't
take a picture that sweat house,or you shouldn't be taking
pictures you getting ready to dothat, even though they're not of
that particular person's tribalgroup, because they have a
familiarity with that process,some people feel like they have

(37:47):
an authority in a certain way toinsert their, their their
comment in that that seems likethat's, I don't know. Again,
there would be multiple levelsto that too, because some of
those, some of those thingsmight be very private to one
person and not so private toanother. And it was like, I

(38:09):
don't know who did you know thisperson? Grant bull tale. You
know who that

is, right? Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Oh man, yeah.
Anyway, he said something thatsort of gets at this, this idea
exactly what you're saying. Hesaid, I don't, I don't want to
call it say, I don't want tocall it a sacred site, because
your idea of something sacredand my idea of something sacred
are a little bit different. Andeven if you have, I mean,

(38:40):
that's, that was his quote, youknow. So even if there's this,
that that little tiny bit ofdifference that seems like a
dangerous ground for someone toinsert their idea onto someone
else in that particular instanceabout the sweat house, because
I've seen things, I've seenthings, and I look and I said,
Man, I yeah, like you just saidI wouldn't do that, but to put

(39:02):
yourself out there and to make acomment and throw shade on
somebody for that is that'spretty golly,

you know, I know, and I and me personally, I I
feel like I have to have backingwith everything I do. So yeah,
I'm going to type a comment inbefore I type the comment. I've
even done this as I'm typing acomment, and then I'll delete
the then I'll just get rid ofit, but I don't even post it. I

(39:35):
think, what? What rebuttals cancome to me from this? What?
Yeah, what can like, people say,and then, then what happens is,
I ultimately don't want to dealwith it, yeah. I'm like, Well,
I'm not even passionate aboutthis enough to even deal with
the response. So it's like,whatever. I'm not gonna
comment. Yeah, yeah. Andso I don't think people think
about that. They just are like,Oh, my. God, they're filming a

(39:59):
whistle. They're filming someoneat Hinkley, pow wow. And
they're, they're using thewhistle on yellow hammer. You
know, that's a ceremony. Andit's like, is it though? Like,
is it, is it? Is it a ceremonyin the same sense that your

(40:22):
picture is going to affect whatis going on, and when you really
think about it, that's a prettyarrogant view of the world.
Those cameras can disrupt whatwhat's going on. Grant, yeah, of
course, not everything needs acamera in front of it. And I'm
not advocating for that. WhatI'm advocating for is like, for

(40:44):
everyone to, like, really learnthose levels in their own
people. And know, yeah, and knowthe roots of things you you know
when to make comment, whencomments appropriate, yeah. And
you know when to shut up. Andjust, just because you have an
opinion doesn't mean anyoneneeds to even hear it. Yeah, I
mean, granted, I've, I'vecreated a platform for myself to

(41:09):
give my opinion, but so so Icould also shut up. But there's
a lot of things I don't say andbut there's a lot of things you
and I have talked about thathave never been on the podcast
because I just don't think it'sdesigned. That particular
conversation may have not beendesigned for the that, you know,

(41:30):
yeah, this is different. It'slike, I'm sure there's even been
people who said they share toomuch on the podcast.

Oh, yeah, yeah.
I've heard that from some folkslike, Oh, is that you should be
talking should you be talkingabout that? And I'm like, I
don't know. No. I mean, yeah, ofcourse, because I did, but I
don't know. I don't know. Idon't get the I don't get the

(42:02):
Okay, so, so some people thinkthat, like white people are
going to steal it. White peopleare going to steal that. Yeah,
and we talked about this. Youremember? I remember you
mentioned something about thewhite people sweating up at
Mount Shasta. Who cares? Whocares? It ain't affecting I

(42:28):
mean, I don't think it'saffecting us, those who do,
those who practice that here.

I do think that there's people out there that
it's their sole purpose topolice white people's
bastardization of our, of ourit's, I don't think it's mine.
Everything's situational, right?
If I ran across somebody, yeah,and they were doing that, and I
felt the need to correct them, Imight, I might, I don't know,
but yeah, I'm I, and I know Iwon't, because I lived on

(43:01):
another person's reservation foralmost 20 years, and I never did
it there. Yeah, and I was, Ifeel like I was pretty
privileged that I got to see andparticipate in a lot of things,
and in some ways, unfortunately,that I've participated in
probably more than a lot oftribal members from there for

(43:23):
various reasons. Yeah, but I'venever saw that as ammunition to
throw at other people, or, Ohyeah, to think I had any right
to tell somebody what they'redoing is wrong or right.

Yeah, that's the thing. That's the thing with the
ego of people, you know, it goesa bit, it goes a bit crazy when
you get you arm yourself alittle with a little bit of
knowledge, and then you thinkthat applies to many more
things. I remember when I was ayoung, a young man about 18. I

(44:03):
remember saying this to myself,I'm like, Man, I know. I know. I
know a lot about a lot ofthings. I remember telling
myself that you know becauseyou're 18, you're young, you're
just learning some new things,and then you get this little ego
in your head that you knoweverything. And I remember
telling myself that, and I thinksome people are subjected to

(44:26):
that when they start gaining abit of knowledge about, you
know, and mostly it's surfaceknowledge, things you know. It's
not practitioner practitionersknowledge, you know, they read
some of the archival material,or maybe they, you know,
learning a few things here andthere, but I think it's like
repeated. It needs to berepeated and practiced. And

(44:48):
when, when you do those thingsamong people, that's where you
start getting a check on that,that ego that you know
everything, and you had thisright to, to expand that and
police that among. Other people,

yeah, yeah.
But it's also like, yeah,thinking you have the it's also
thinking you have a

grasp, oh yeah, oh yeah.

Like, we're all just trying to learn. And like,
I don't, I feel like I've put alot of time into understanding
my people, but also justunderstanding the state of
native people, yeah, put a moretime than most, because not only

(45:34):
is it a hobby, it's myprofession, it's Yeah. And so if
I've put that much time intosomething and I still feel like
I have a lot to learn. I don't,I don't fully understand, yeah,
things, how is the casualperson, you know, not to sound
arrogant, but how is the casualperson gonna like be able to so

(45:56):
I just, I don't know why peoplejust can't be cool when it comes
to that stuff. Just be cool,like, that person's doing that
thing, you know, like, like,

yeah,

I don't know.
Anyway,

yeah, I don't know either. Oh, I don't know, man,
but I hear this argument a lot,and it's, um, it's somewhat
true, you know, like when somewhen someone disagrees with
something being recorded, filmedor or documented in some way.
People say, well, our some ofour old people willingly

(46:30):
recorded these things, willinglygave this information and
documented it in a certain way.
And a lot of that's true. I knowthere's, there's some, some some
audio I have of one of the oneof those anthropologists on the
res here, actually recording abunch of songs inside the sweat
house. Stuck a recorder inthere, and they did it on

(46:55):
request from the some of some ofsome of my relatives and some of
the older people at that timewho were, you know,
knowledgeable of all thesethings. They just said, Yeah,
let's record it. You know, theywere, they were interested in
documenting, I suppose. I don'tknow what their motivation was,
but they just did it. You know,they didn't care. Well, I don't,

(47:16):
I wouldn't say they didn't care,but that happened?

Yeah, I think so you ever even just like, go on
YouTube and like, type in, likea church service, like a
Pentecostal church service?
Yeah, I think there's likelevels to things, right? So I
don't think see anything wrongwith filming a church service.
But I've always felt like whenpeople record, if anyone knows
anything about the Pentecostalchurch, there's a, there's a

(47:44):
thing called being slain, wherethey like, fall on the ground,
right? Yeah, lay hands on me.
Fall. Yeah. I do think that'snot for the public, right? And I
wouldn't even say I don't evenbelieve in that. I mean, I'm not
a practitioner in that thing. Idon't participate, but I have

(48:05):
enough respect to be like, I'mnot gonna film that and post it
and like, yeah, you know, yeah,yeah, I don't know. It just
seems different than just achurch service. It seems like
something deeply personal, yeah?
And plus, I think it can for thepeople in the video, because
they fall maybe that can beembarrassing, you know, like, if

(48:27):
they saw it, like, Oh man, lookat that. I wish, yeah, look at
my shirt comes up, you know, orwhatever. So, like, there's just
things that aren't foreverybody, you know, yeah, yeah.
Like, one time I went to aSundance and they recorded
people going into the Sundanceat the beginning. Yeah. I didn't
see anything wrong with that.

(48:49):
But then once they started doingtheir thing at the very
beginning, then yeah, I thought,well, maybe this part you don't
need to record. You know what Imean? Yeah, that was just a good
feeling. I didn't tell anybodythat. I just kind of thought,
yeah, yeah, everybody's got acamera. Everybody's got a
different perspective of whatthose things are. And I don't

(49:12):
know how you would police all ofit.

I know, yeah, that's like these rock concerts
today versus the rock concert ofthe 90s, you know? I remember
going to a Metallica concert,and they were frisking
everybody. You had to pull yourshirt up and spin around, and
they patted you down, makingsure you didn't have a recorder

(49:37):
on you, so you weren't recordingthe concert, you know, but
nowadays that's impossible toeven do.

It's impossible.
It's impossible.

So, what's this?
So what? What's the deal withthis? You know about the the the
this Native American belief thata photograph. Yeah, it's going
to steal your soul.

I don't know. I always made fun of this, because
I would hear this, and peoplewould be like, or even, don't
take a picture of that, becauseit'll it takes the sacredness
away. Or, and I'm like, look atthat. Look at look at that. The
Europeans came over here andfought us for 400 years? Yeah,
and tried everything fromboarding schools to warfare to

(50:27):
sickness and and religion,attacking religion and attacking
our kinships. And turns out theonly thing they had to do was
take pictures that we were like.
That was it. That's all they hadto do. That was our kryptonite,
stole everybody's soul, to takeall of our sacredness away, just
take pictures. And that was it.

(50:50):
That's all then we just crumble.
We just totally crumble.

Yeah, why did those Why did those priests do
all that work? You know, to work

that hard. They just take a picture. Well, I'll
take a picture of you. I'llsteal your soul, and then I'll
give your soul to to Jesus orwhatever. Yeah, so we don't even
have to get you to convert.
We'll just steal your soul.
We'll do and then you're good.
But I just, I don't, I knowthat's crazy. I think the more

(51:20):
you learn, the more you knowwhen not to do those things and
when, when it's permissible.

Yeah, I think your church example is, yeah, your
church example is a real goodone, right? So you show up to a
church. I mean, right off,right, right. Then you like, you
don't ever go to church ornothing. But just like going
into the church, you think,well, maybe, maybe I shouldn't
record this. You could, I was,why would you anyway? You know,

(51:52):
I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go withmy friend to church, and I'm
gonna record the whole thing.
What for? You know, I guess,yeah,

just some things are private. I mean, I don't
think it has anythingnecessarily to do with like,
holiness are the sacrednessmeter, are stealing souls. I
just think some things areprivate. Like I I've always
thought it was weird when peoplefilm childbirth. Oh yeah, yeah.
It's not because I'm afraid ofchildbirth are, I think it takes

(52:21):
away the souls of anybody. Ijust think sometimes things are
private. Yeah, all right. It'slike, all right. Now, nothing
wrong with as soon as the baby'sborn and taking pictures of the
baby and on. That's neverbothered me.

But that's the same with like. That's the same
with, like, funerals too. Like,I get that same sort of feeling
that, yeah, maybe shouldn't takea picture of the person in the
casket, you know, yeah?

But some people do, yeah, one time, one time, one
time, my grandpa died, so he's,he's got relatives from Fort
burst. So, yeah, when he died,this was back in 2001 right? So
he passed away, had his funeral,his relatives from Fort bursald

(53:13):
came. I, I, I saw them takingpictures, right? Yeah. And I I
even then I was 17 years oldwhen he died, and I remember
thinking to myself, Oh, that'sweird. They're taking pictures.
But I didn't go up to them andsay, That's weird, you guys are
taking pictures. So and if therewas any time I would have done

(53:37):
that, would have been thenunmedicated hyper Aaron, but
they mailed them to my grandma,and I remember, I remember her
opening the letter, and therewas those pictures of my
grandfather in a casket, and Iwatched her, like, relive this

(54:01):
moment of putting her husband of50 years in the ground. And I
was like, What was that for? Whywould they, you know, it wasn't
fun. It wasn't a fun moment, youknow, yeah, and so we relived it
again, and then it just kind of,it wasn't good, you know, in

(54:21):
that instance, I don't know whatthe goal

is to Yeah, yeah.

I don't either. I think intention has a lot to do
with it. Purpose, like, what areyou using the stuff for? It has
a lot, a lot to do with it.
GRANT blue tail himself. Filmed,had a tobacco adoption ceremony.
Filmed, yeah, had had it filmed,and there it caused some
division. But even then, thesewere practitioners of this

(54:48):
belief. Instead of them, yeah,going public and making
comments, they just didn'tparticipate. Yeah, and, and I
think there's nothing wrong withthat. Yeah, it's your own
comfortable. They weren'tcomfortable with it, so they
didn't participate. They didn'ttell grant he couldn't do it.
They didn't say because theythey respected the fact that

(55:10):
grant is in charge, yeah, and soas it should be, right, as it
should be,

as it should be.
Yeah, Idon't know. I don't know. It's,
it's not that confusing if youif you have a deep understanding
of ceremonial things you know,because you can apply what you
know of your own way, sort of toother people's ways. And the
first sort of, the first, Iguess, rule of that would be,

(55:46):
you ain't got no right, youknow, telling people how they
can and can't do things outsideof your own understanding.

Yeah, yeah. Now somebody comes to me and says,
Aaron, I want to know we justdid this thing. And in your
opinion, did we do it, right?
Was there anything we need todo? And, yeah, yeah. I mean,
yeah, I'll share my opinion. Butthat's very different, like
being at home or, you know,

yeah, very different, very different.
And I think the second thing is,just with the new the new age of
recording devices, you know, Ithink that the controversy or
the disagreement of thosethings, I think, I think that's

(56:42):
okay. I think people ought tohave discussion about that
thing, so long as it's sort ofin internal, you know, like if,
if people have had a problemwith the recording of a parade
dance or whatever that isuniquely crowed and Crow, people
ought to be discussing that, notanybody outside.

(57:03):
Yeah, it's weigh in on it.
Yeah, shouldn't weigh in onthat.

I don't even know why people think their opinion
is gonna matter to us.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's sort of like, I sort oflike the like. And we talked
about it before the whole thingwith, you know, these, this in
the past, these overlappingterritories, and then people are
starting to infringe on otherpeople's creation stories,
saying, Oh, your creation storydoesn't say that. Or you

(57:36):
migrated from here or there. Andthat's like, that doesn't seem
if, if a person is of a I guessI shouldn't even say that, but
if you understand the nature ofyour own ceremonial ways, you
know where your limits are tothrow your weight outside of

(57:56):
your own area. And generally,that's never, it's generally
never,

well, yeah, and with the amount of culture loss
that we're experiencing, like Idon't have time to give opinions
on whether I think someone's I'mnot going to go out of my way to
comment on someone's post aboutthey film A yaki corn dance or
deer dance, you know, it's like,I, I, I mean, it's not that I

(58:28):
don't care. It's like, man, likewe're barely getting by, you
know, really? And I think, yeah,crows, we sit in a very
privileged position when itcomes to our culture, like,
we're very fortunate to have alot left, but even I am fully
aware like, how close we are tolosing things, you know, like

(58:50):
we're very close, and so I thinkpeople should just focus on that
and not get so worked up. And,man, they like, I'll see these
comments, and I'll be, I'll kindof follow them, yeah, and I'm
like, holy smokes. They're like,really worked up. Like, I don't

(59:12):
know, like, and I'll be watchingthose power lives. I like, we
like to watch them because it'slike, it's, I'm learning it's
some of the best backgroundnoise, you know. And then all of
a sudden, it'll stop. I'll lookat the screen. It'll say
ceremony, and progress.
Oh, really, yeah,yeah. And I'm like,

like, I'll talk like, the Go, go silent, yeah,
the camera,

the camera, and it just a big it says in letters
and text on the screen, ceremonyin progress. And then I think,
man, I've been to a lot of powwows, man. And I thought, what
exactly could be happening thatwe can't see it?

Yeah, yeah. Like, what? Yeah.

It one time I was at a. I was in stand off. It was
either Browning or standoff, butthey were doing a war bonnet
transfer, and the drum game Iwas singing for, they picked a
handful of them to sing for thisceremony, yeah. And they the

(01:00:17):
guys were like, come on, Aaron,sing with us. So I was like,
alright, and they were filmingit. And there was some
discussion, I could it was,there was murmurs,
hot murmur, yeah.
They were like, Oh, should theybe filming this? Blah, blah.
Anyway, they did the ceremony.
At the end, the guy who ran theceremony announced, like, we I

(01:00:38):
want them filming it. I wantpeople filming these things.
Yeah. People need to see thesethings. Yeah. Share, share what
you filmed with your kids.
Share. And he was like, goingoff. He was like, talking for a
long time, yeah, and, and he, hesaid, so don't, don't think it's

(01:01:02):
disrespectful. Yeah, yeah. Andhe made a good point. Actually,
I'm, I'm think re living this. Iforgot about it till we were
talking. He even said it'sprobably better than anything
else you're watching.

shandin pete (01:01:21):
Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron Brien (01:01:23):
So I thought, well, yeah, that's a good point, you
know, yeah, oh, I know where itwas at.
It was a war bonnet transfer atNorthern quest Casino. So there
was, like a conference, and Iwas in, oh, okay. Was invited to
sing like a flag song, an honorsong. So and they were doing

(01:01:46):
this honoring for the latechairman, Carl Van. It was like
some sort of tribal leadersthing, yeah, well, at that
conference, a Blackfootcontingency transferred a war
bonnet, like a ceremony there,yeah, at the conference, yeah.
And then a group, a Blackfeetgroup, and myself, and kind of

(01:02:08):
them sing, you know,

yeah, that's a, that's a, that's a
good that's good point, becausethere's so there's a, there's a
connection, there's a connectionthere, between what would be
considered sacred and those who,who are, who can, who can
witness that to, I guess, verifyor vouch that thing is indeed

(01:02:33):
sacred, right? Unless you'retalking about rarely, really
very individual, individualpractices. But even then, you
know, you confer with someone.
But largely, a lot of thesethings are public, semi public
events, depending on the thing.
But all those people are therebecause they're they are witness

(01:02:58):
in important Yeah, and thewitness is important, so why not
cast it out worldwide, man, andyou're getting the global
audience of witnesses that wouldalmost make it the sacredness
and the power of it greater,right?

I would think so.

I mean, in a way, because then you can get lot of
comment from from near and far,from people.

Yeah, would you rather have a group of Native
people sitting around discussingsomeone posting a semi sacred
ceremony on Facebook or YouTube,as opposed to discussing some
reserves fighting outside of agas station,

yeah, right, but again, there's a limit to that,
because some things

are there is a limit. But again, there's a
limit to everything, right? Solimit like, yeah, we we could
record me and Miranda runningaround the house and having fun,
but we're not going to record anargument. Yeah, you know what I
mean, I'm not going to record medisciplining my kids or getting
mad at my kids for somethingthey've done wrong, or

(01:04:17):
correcting them for something,you know, like, I'm not going to
record that, because noteverything is for the public. I
think it's, it's it's not amatter of something being sacred
or something being unsacred. Ithas just to do with more what's
public, what's for the public.
Yeah, and what I'm seeing onsocial media is a lot of these
ceremonies are things they'resaying you shouldn't record they

(01:04:39):
don't understand themthemselves, because a lot of
those are designed for thepublic, yeah, like with a war
bonnet transfer that's forpeople to witness. So now we all
are aware that person owns theright to that thing, and that's
a big deal in some tribes, it'sa big deal. On the public knows,
you know,

yeah, yeah, even like people who whistle. I mean,
of course, that whistling of thedrum is a modern thing, but
it's, it's serving, it's servinga contemporary purpose, because
they, they do it for a specificreason, and if given
opportunity, they talk about whythey did that. That makes it, I
think it makes it even moresignificant, you know, yeah,

(01:05:25):
because somebody gave me thisand told me to do this, and they
why did this for this particularreason?

Yeah, I don't think there's anything wrong with
that, and I don't think there'sanything wrong with people
filming that. And I think inthat instance, you're right,
like it it can actually evenhelp it, you know? Yeah, yeah. I
don't know all these people thatare commenting about how things
are sacred, and don't they allhave Edward Curtis for photos in

(01:05:53):
their house? You know? They all,they they've, they've all
watched, they watch thunderheart and, like, they all watch
documentaries about Indians. Andit's, it's so it's weird to me.
It's like, well, I don't know,man, yeah, I think, I think it's
just, well, I

think it's good.
And I think it's good in oneway, so long as, like, I said,
it's internal, you know, oh ohyeah, yeah. Like, there's this
new there was this, there's thisnew thing out where, where back
home, people are wanting, orthey proposed a new flag design

for Oh yeah. CSI, I remember when those first, those
discussions were first kind of,yeah. Well, I even remember
seeing some of those firstdesigns for that?

Yeah, there's, there's, there was, there's a
new one proposed out. It justcame out the other day, and it
caused this huge explosion ofcomment, you know, of course,
and some people like it. Mostpeople don't, but that's like an
internal thing, you know. And Idon't think there's one person
who's, you know, somebody fromNorth Carolina weighing in on

(01:07:03):
what that design and what thatought to look like this, it's
just not, not appropriate.

I want to comment, yeah,

yeah. I don't know anyway, that's what I wanted to
talk about,

yeah, I like it, but I also think like there's no
right answer, yeah, yeah. I justthink people need native. Native
people in North America need torealize we're not Americans. Our
culture is different. Yeah, thisneed to comment and voice

(01:07:44):
opinion, and this idea of it isvery American. Yeah, we're
taught to respect people andtheir beliefs, and it's not my
place, and it shouldn't be theirplace to think they should
correct somebody and thatparticular instance and those
discussions, if anything shouldbe not filmed and not
photographed and put out therein the public it's your comment.

(01:08:07):
Those things should be thosethings just like the thing
you're arguing about. Discussioncan can be in some level, sacred
without sounding cheesy, butthose things should be done
privately. Shut your mouth,yeah, just go to work. Yeah.

Got a problem. If you got a problem, make the
problem with that person, notwith or

don't, or just don't.
Just turn to your wife, turn toyour boyfriend, turn to your
whoever you're sitting next to,and just be like, Man, that's
crazy that they filmed that Iwouldn't do that, and then
change the channel or go to adifferent video. Like, all

(01:08:53):
right, let's be done now.

Okay, that's good. So
levels of sacredness, that'sinteresting one. I'm gonna I'm
gonna look into that more, but Ithink we talked about it a bit
here, and it's prettyinteresting. But yeah, must be
done.
Man, yeah, you're tired.

I am tired. We're

gonna be done. So you can put that muscle shirt
back on. Go to bed,

Right on, man, okay, all right, thanks for
recording this fine episode withme,

and it is a fine one. Yeah, you

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