Otoe-Missouria Archives - Lewis & Clark Research Database

Tent of Many Voices: 08270401F

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 00:36:07 +0000

I’ve been sick lately so I have to have the oxygen with me that didn’t stop me from coming to be with you when I heard that my armor partner Stan was here Stella it made me doubly happy to be here tonight I wish that the artch world and every other world would know the talent the spirit the nobility of the people who are pleas for pictured in these slides which we will show you like so many other wonderful wonderful things of the reservation are hidden in the hearts and the minds and in the hands and the skills of people these photos also lay hidden for many years and it was my good fortune to be the one who not only found them but was on hand to show them to a young man from AOS data center I wish John hman was here tonight to accept my thanks but the other laborers qu people with him from arrol data center are here without their skill without their dedication these riches would still be deep in Mystery in about 1888 one of our men father Ambrose madingley by the way his name was ok was that Stan his name says what he was like PES he was sharp he was alert he was killed he was diligent and above all he was persistent he heard that there was such a thing as photographs being made he learned how to make these photographs and slowly slowly over about 25 years he captured The Marvelous faces of the deed people all the way from Standing Rock to Yankton he was up and down the river he had a small dark room and Studio at San I knew father Ambrose but I didn’t didn’t know all the things he could do I knew him when he was old and talking he was still sharp still sharp he spoke the Dakota language perfectly and he was one of my teachers at this point I’d like to tell you a story about my first teacher though my first teacher they had sent me to Rome in 193 37 to get two degrees in those days they didn’t say now try hard work hard we hope you get those degrees they said you will get two degrees you will get a doctorate in theology you’ll get a master’s degree in scripture you will get your degrees so tell your folks that you’re going to be leaving it might not be back for 8 years those were in the days folks when there was no Oceanic flights of airplanes those were the day days of playing boats my dad was not Catholic I’ve often wondered lately what my dad was but he was a generous generous generous man whatever was good for his kids he was behind it a th% but I watched my dad he did something very remarkable the day that I left we didn’t have a car so he hired two taxis so that the kids could in and they were jumping up and down as children do of course by death that my boy Comm here he took me alone back into the house mom was nursing a baby out in the car and he made me kneel down and here I am the one who’s going to be a Catholic priest you know and dad was saying to me kneel down my boy kneel down in front of you and my dad gave me a blessing I’m still walking in the power of that blessing so to you Elders to any of you don’t ever ever ever that any of your children or grandchildren who off into a way of life without giving them your blessing they need that to know that they have come from a family that is sacred a family that is generous a family that is loyal let them feel that well anyway I went to Rome I hardly ever say this but I’m going to say it and please take it in the right way now I was 1937 I’m no teacher but they wanted me to be a teacher so listen now thanks be to God for I’ll tell you why because I got a note from the American Embassy get out of here get back home get back home in a hurry water is coming so I arrived back in Indiana St Min Abby Monastery in late Jan January early February in those days there was not ENT there was not you know break up of school during the winter so they took one look at me and said my God you’re no good around here why don’t you go out to the deoras to Crow Creek it’s calving time well I didn’t know what that meant but it sound like C stuff so I said sure I’ll go I’ll go so I arrived on the old train used to go through Chamberlain here in middle of March of 39 and I’ve been here since thanks be to God folks that I did not get those degrees I would have missed you I would have missed St I would have missed everybody whom I know and love well the priest then was father Finton remember father Finton Stella father Finton and then father mother Justin two they said GE you must be smart eh I said sure they said there’s a bunch of men down at cro down at the Fort Thompson studying the Bible why don’t you go down there and help them learn now here I’m 23 years old now say at that time so in my dumbness when you’re 23 years old you don’t know much do you so I walked down there you know swaging a little bit because I smart you know D but smart and I sit in this little tiny one room log house maybe 12 by 12 there eight or 10 men sitting there their Dusty faces melting into the L walls two lights letic of course two kerosene lamps burning in the corner and here I am a 23y old go guy laying God on me my elders I broke the first rule of Dakota politeness by by a junior like me standing up and daring to talk to my seniors but they’re polite to see these Elders are they’re polite they don’t want to show you up they don’t want to unveil your ignorance they don’t want to expose you so they kept their heads down and I thought they were asleep you know how old people listen when their heads are down there listening intently so I said to myself gist L listen G wi when I come back next week I’m going to have to talk slow use little sentences and words repeat so next week I come back same way I’m laying God on them once more and here they are I knew I wasn’t going over too good see ES one bony leg over the other he was there knocking the ashes off his bulm cigarette like as if he was saying oh God help this side there was Mr Clen W did KN now these are people whom I learn to love see because they were polite to me I said Mr wounded me see he was like the Deacon if you needed anything in church Mr W took care of it a wedding a funeral a baptism anything at all it was like a deacon little mind I thought he’d stand up there listen this boy knows everything look listen listen listen but no slowly slowly he turned away from me away from me Mr nice warm face looked up at me the dark brown eyes looked at me and he searched me and he found my weakness he said one word folks one word I wish that in your life somebody some event some person some word would touch you and lift you out of the r that you’re in and that one word and changed my life right there he was my first teacher see I’m the product of a father who was very strict in his religion about a block and a half from church there were 11 kids in the house we had to two families had to move together on account of hard times you know how that was 11 kids I’m the oldest so Mom would make us all do our chores and Saturday morning now you’re going to go to confession I said her mom I didn’t do nothing think of something think of something or think of something so I had to go I told more stories to that priest anyway whenever she talked about God it was Lord Master King and judge whatever you do God will see you he was always the the boogeyman I went to Seminary us to same word Lord Master King judge when I went to Rome those Italians were better they weren’t quite they still said Lord Master King judge so I kind of grew up with that idea that God was fearful scary until Mr wed he liberated me that’s the only word I can think of to describe what he did he looked at me very slowly slowly and said father don’t you know that God is nice nice mom never told me that and they never told me that they never said that in Rong God is nice wow we were in a cabin down or house down near where uh big ban is now as I came out of the river bottom up on top it was March clear sky no moon just Stars I stopped the car I got out and I looked up if he’s nice I’m going to pray ech of a lot different from now on he’s not going to throw me out of the house for every darn little thing that I do that’s wrong he’s going to say oh my god there goes that father’s stand again I’ll have to go down and clean up after one more time it’s nice I wish you would remember that word I don’t care if you’re older than me I’m 88 years old but I don’t care what you say or do remember that word and take it from Mr CL wounded me he knows but he knew what he’s talking about so from that minute on I did two more things I began to respect the elders see I have that disease that young people have of not respecting those who are older well that broke that disease out of the inner Hur and I learned the next thing is to shut up and listen listen listen it’s only when you listen that you hear God talking to you in the wind in the rain and the trees and the seasons and the Animals listen you see why I so Happ happy that we have these photos I know the place where that photo was taken it was estan it’s the old own post office it was blown down later by um tornado so I now I’d like to I don’t want to keep you here very on I’m so full of this see I can go on and on I want to give you four words take the one I said listen the next one is whenever we pray whenever we address the people in Dakota we call them weu wouldn’t it be wonderful if this in this world everybody would call each other relative the Jews and the Arabs wouldn’t be fighting the Irish of North and South Ireland where my folks come from wouldn’t be fighting here in South Dakota we would be listening to each other an I think I think so when when Dakota people talk seriously every word is sacred so they mean that word okay I have a relationship with you the strongest force in all of creation the strongest force in all creation is that which keeps things in Balance we call it the power of attraction or what’s the other word I can’t think it right now see I’m so fast I forget to say one things are drawn to each other whatever that is among humans say tell me out somebody say the word falls down falls down what do you call that gravity gravity gra thank you gravity everything has touches the gravity that’s why the the the universe mooves so gracefully and these men from USGS United States Geological Service they’re are the ones who watch that and who from it get a message of we’re all related we’re all related in our personal language maybe we say we’re in love with each other we should be don’t you think be better than be at war with each other I think so that word meop is one I hope that we never never forget in Thea language I wrote down a couple more them up well the next one respect if I listen if I listen sooner or later I’m going to discover beautiful things in you if I listen if I put you down I want hear nothing you know young people who taught me that they used to go to both in Stan and in and one time there I was so young then so I was dumb anyway anyway this one kid he was a good basketball really good his dad or mother never came to watch him ATT TR cu the other fathers and used to come watch the boys and so one day I said to him beef I said why don’t you invite your dad to come up and watch you he started to cry he said I ain’t got no Dad she in Christmas you see I touched a a sore spot with that P if I would have listened enough I might have heard that before that he had go that I would have heard it was bad beef tooto is in my mind all the time we made up afterwards I mean he I don’t think he ever was took it as an insult but it hurt him of course so folks listen if somebody say say bad about somebody listen there’s a good side to it too next is is I’m you I’m going to skip through these now hurry this time of the year I’m asked there sever always several Dakota Boys who come to me to help they want me to help them in their H it’s not not the old way you know it’s not the old way we help it in our own modern way I have two who will come again next Wednesday we get only two this I know amadia means this that you go out to where the only you and the Creator are there and you’re listening you’re listening to the Creator don’t ever abandon that great ceremony because without the one the Creator without the almighty without one our higher power we can’t do nothing you can’t even make one grass grow and the Creator makes a 100 million of them grow every day so don’t think that this organization or any other organization can ever have a blossom to it without every time calling on the Creator to make it grow I learned this by going to many tribal meetings and we always stop or start with a prayer don’t lose that memory another word is thei it means you’re my cousin that’s closer than being a relative I had two tahashi in my lifetime both died rather young and Sergeant no one say the other man’s name I know he doesn’t want me to say it Andy Sergeant was one maybe we’re all together friends Bobby touch he followed me up to for to those those men meant a lot to me because they we were just at that young age where we needed somebody to help us and find him because I know you have things to do I want to give you one more word it’s a very important word it’s the M of our Monastery I’m a it’s the the M of you but use it the word is w w means this when things work together when your motor runs well things are working just right it just hums along nothing knocks there’s no knocking so let me go through those words again please AB keep the Creator always in your meetings always in your heart respect everybody there’s always something sacred in everybody because the Creator put it there we related even some of us are tahashi to each other there’s always that unity and then from all of that will come for here now let’s go through these let me just think okay our police I respect men like them who put their Li their lives on the line go ahead I this this unfortunately somebody wanted to paint this color slide and kind of destroy the natural color of these headdresses and these men here’s an old MAA we look at the face of that lady that Grandma these are noble people and that’s what I say these are hidden I wish we could see these Elders again what’s okay next okay drifting Goose one of the great leaders years and years ago glad we have this picture it it was hidden but it came out excuse me just the bottom CIA I I don’t know what that means what it say CIA see oh I don’t I’ll have to look that and find okay next these are non-indian people who were at the high school the the hospital and what else oh the B office I want to show that that’s the picnic place we all went to right now Big Ben dam is at that site Noble person in i a noble face okay young couple how proud they look how marvelous they are I wish that I could have found these photos 25 years ago 50 years ago then there’ be still be living someone who say oh I know who that is but those names are lost just the personality is over oh here’s this is on their way wedding day and Maza on their wedding day I didn’t know whether they threw rice in those days or I don’t know this name this D’s name is Shields he was a medicine man I knew his family I knew his son rather and the other family but is and this is in the days when it was when it was a criminal to pray in the indan way we had to hide some of that so the police would catch up to open there’s another one I’m sorry was painted was supposed to be adding to the beauty of the picture but I think that little guy would look better if we could see his face see some of these last plates were broken and these gentlemen over here we want to thank them again they’re the ones who could put the glass back together and recreate recreate the picture this makes me say then let’s keep this in mind let’s work together on these things we have here trial leaders trial prayer leaders government officials elected officials and maybe I represent that part of our society that talks about the Creator and R so I i’ I’ll add my let’s work together not priest over here government over here tribe over here we belong with each other let me talk at okay look at the nobility in that face a sistant one of the men up there saw this he was one of the ones who who started the college Mr Joe Williams thank joh Mr Joe Williams he wants us to try to enlarge this picture and put it up in the college corridors so that the young women can see this person as a kind of an image of what they like to be two Tri young ladies huh how much around their waist is it 20 in I don’t know here’s the fman I think I’m not sure see father Ambrose around Stan there are people moving in and out and so they would come to his studio and uh most of his pictures had to be taken outside because those cameras were very slow and so the the light was not good inside hard and if it was they’d have to burn gunpowder to flash like that so most of the pictures you’ll see are outside big tobacco I don’t know much about this gentleman I don’t know where he’s from maybe somebody will know I don’t know man’s wife I think you can you see in the back up there the American flag see that was the window to the post office and inside the flag was turned so it’s backwards as you look at it now but that that lady with her old grandson maybe against the post office this is uh at can’t oh yeah what’s it say there Greenwood Greenwood down Greenwood Greenwood was once his great busing place too but then the traffic was moved there used to be a company of black soldiers in on an island in the middle of the Missouri when they were dis abandoned many of them stayed and lived and married in the area around well here somewhere so here’s one of them is very flashy Pony here’s a homesteader’s house this gentleman I was told it was a Harrison from Brook but I I was just told with one piece of evidence so I’m not sure that he is Harrison family one of the girls near the school sit down the bead work can you look at that isn’t that remarkable the Artistry that was evident in those folks in those days too I I don’t know what that maybe you gentleman over here from did you research that what that what that is that a presidential citation or is that is that a presidential give that button that he has anybody know see we need to talk to each other and find out what those deorations were about I mean Tribal Police see somebody might from govern might have given him an award at some time it doesn’t show here but this cut off a little bit but this is how the camera lens moved out about 1 second because in his hand looks like he has six fingers because in that second is one finger moved just a tiny bit and this shows how difficult it was to get a good good picture in those days here’s one that a girl shows up on our publicity by the way these photos have been to Washington DC these folks over here wanted me to take to go to Washington DC to show the DC people about this so but with this oxygen I said I’ll go but I need two people to go with me one to push my wheelchair and the other one to car the auction they said we’ll take you they knew I’m pretty mouy so they we’ll take you we got up there in the CATE office building great big room filled with people but most of them had to stand it wasn’t room so I’m all ready to talk so this lady who’s I guess our guest Master up there she came over said H Reverend we’re glad to see you and we’re happy that the pictures are here we had nice chance to view them all and so I suppose you’ll give a little introduction to them I said ma’am I’m used to talking let me give my own introduction I can introduce my life as I go along I said but tell me how long should I talk to you thing she said well it’s evening people are tired I would suggest 10 or 15 10 or 15 minutes man I came 1,000 miles out I would just talk I said I’m used to watching crowds if they get tiresome I’m I quit that’s all well she said not too long I said no I won’t be too long so I kept watching her she was giggling over there and clapping her hands and she was really enjoying she was one of those who had to stand up so after an hour I turned to gentleman he said this buch more okay so that girl was part of our publicity zuya with josua I think that word zuya is an old old Dakota word we I never hear much I hear a k joh but you don’t hear the word zya is that right that’s an old word I think Z man that’s taken down also by the Big Bam picnic what she wants to can you see it can you see okay okay well we’ll have to show okay we going that next one okay there’s another painted one we’re coming to the coast of ped one this I think is one of the earliest photos of a Sund death and I think it was taken out of shine River way to the West I think than two d h that’s at shine River Cherry Creek a Cherry Creek yeah there’s the church over there that’s the place is still there Cherry Creek that’s one of our Catholic Student congresses in those days there were hundreds of of tepes in Catholic St and from that year what’s that say 19 1903 can you that year I can’t see 1903 1903 yeah congresses were big in those days okay this is the last man this man looks like in a JY way from I may be wrong you know but he has the features of the person done live now at CH River but really struggled well thank you folks if there’s anybody questions anybody i’ be glad to answer but thank you I know you’re you’re listening to a lot of stuff today so I’m very glad that I was invited here or remember the words I gave you if you can let’s work together not not any one of us can do it all we can we can as brothers and sisters we can do a lot thank you much well Peter H upia oi we you thank all of you

The post Tent of Many Voices: 08270401F appeared first on Lewis & Clark Research Database.

Tent of Many Voices: 06140603

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 00:36:05 +0000

and the Buffalo sent you in there and it’s really um soft and flexible when they take it out of buffo so they would just take it peel it off in strands and literally make sewing threads they could make um they use it in thicker quantities to lash tools together would they let it dry first or would they they pull it off as when it’s still wet it still wet or you hopefully soak this and get it soft enough again to okay but we haven’t tried that I’ve tried about everything else but I haven’t tried that one yet so it was used for a variety wind was coming from West so they weren’t able to use the sail too often but uh that would be another way to propel it now there’s a rope up there in the front too they would use that rope to pull that would be the have to walk on the shore there wasn’t much of a Shore there actually I left in the now the Missouri River was not very back then so they were able to do it most places like that but this boat was very very heavy and it was loaded with about 15 so imagine trying to pull something like that up they had about 20 22 guys out there and P on that Ro so to many people walk up the M what they were doing that’s what they do they were walking up carrying their possessions behind on the boat pretty pretty tough guys back there like that it’s just like what yeah canas is it’s like this roof that’s um it’s thin and it looks kind of stringy almost it looks like a radish yeah it almost looks like a radish or some people call it know to yeah yeah that the same thing wild carrot is not the same as K but it looks yeah and so they would tradition of her upbringing within the N Pur tribe and some of her experiences growing up so please welcome Mary tble good afternoon sight with a sighting vein once you got that thing lined up exactly the way you want it to go and again you’re going to have it up on the tripod or up on the shakeup staff and then you’re going to sight through the siding vein and in the sighting veins there are holes and then there’s slits below that so once you’ve got it kind of rough figured out with the holes then you slide your eye down and you line it up with the split and then you get that much better direction as you go along so this team had to move a lot slower yep L and Clark didn’t measure their way all the way across the continent with this kind of accuracy and what what we like to say is that the the public land surveyors are following in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark as they’ve gone across the continent now we’ve got Lewis and or we’ve got the public land surveyors the general land office surveyors another name for the same thing kind of filling in the rest of the map L Clark just taken that one route across the continent where now we’re going to say we want to measure out the rest of it and the reason for all of this is to fulfill what Thomas Jefferson had in mind and that is to get as he put it the yman farmer out on the left you have a rough idea how far off Clark were with their rough maps and then fin did miles miles the final map which um gets published in I believe it’s 1814 with the the first set of journals um that yeah that map has been compared with a modern map so it comes out to be about 40 Mi off now you know part of that is the accuracy of the the width of the line I mean a line on a map of that scale you know could be you know 40 Mi wide all by itself so but they’re incredibly accurate and it it really comes from two places one is um this is a replica of Captain Captain Clark’s Compass the one he carried with him we we know it because it’s one of the few pieces that actually survived the ls and Clark um Voyage as they came back to St Louis in 1806 all their equipment that they had left became Surplus government property it was auctioned off oh God but the compass Clark’s Compass was his own personal Compass so he kept that compass and it’s now the original was now expected to get back it’s phenomenal isn’t it in fact that one poster we have we have one at pompy’s Pillar the uh the one at the top there oh yes and it shows a a photo of his uh where he his name nice that’s where leis and three others come out over Lim High Pass they were an advanced part looking for the way across a disappointing day though row after row of mountains yeah yeah okay on the well that in this corner we get from the Mand Indians one of the 12 varieties that they perpetuate from the old store of genetic seed stocks and it’s kind they Grind from formul so you can grind it back and forth just like that you got to work in the kitchen more here you I a Volcan CRA kind of a b fish it has to be we covered this didn’t open quite a while you got one in the shirt origal tail this is a relatively large here check out the in the Joby this is about 300 lb jly bear this is over a th000 so quite a bit of difference does the weight correspond directly to like how tall they stand oh yeah how much mass they did like that what is it Boon and Crocket scale right do they measure the height of them set no it’s this this print that’s rting one does kind of the same things that I are you an archaeologist for the PM then h no story okay there is there are jobs for his history majors not very many I have a degree in history so yeah for 6 years I I was a teacher before that so I I used my degree obviously but you know this is him when he was one of that that party of of four men who first entered Idaho uh with me my blanket is kind of buried underneath my stuff over there he would have had a blanket along also but uh so it’s was like just like a little mini Expedition they took off from the main group kind of thing yes yep set out on foot cuz the bullets were going so slow at that time so he was the guy who carried the provisions that me he was the cook and so he would have had a h sack you know he had 2 lbs of flour about the same of of meal I don’t think he had necessarily any of this stuff but it’s just kind of interesting I just wanted to have it on display anyway is it’s like the hard yeah that time they were calling it biscuit but it’s the same thing it’s whole wheight flour butter and water mix it up roll it out and then bake it and that stuff will keep for a long long time it’s about 14 months old that’s a loaf of sugar oh and what do you do you you shave it off you can shave it off or they have little you pinch some off like that yeah and it has a lot of molasses in it so it’s really much better for you than just plain white sugar and that’s how tea used to come that’s black tea oh wow it’s okay oh sure where do you get this now there’s a company several companies online that sell reenactor supplies all stuff so then what you do is just cut off a piece too sure you can scrape some off or you can cut off a piece and it’s it’s proc it’s chopped very finely so it’s almost more of a powder than it is a leaf and at that time they were issuing a 69 caliber must that’s the big one that’s the big musket ball yes they all handmade so they could be interchangeable no these weren’t these were made by by by Factory it’s called the 1795 contract model it actually was just a copy of a musket that was made in France about 30 years that’s what I mean cuz the French one could take like they could take all the they move the moving Parts on any rifle and change out with another one and like so they did that so like for the core so they all had you know rifle B they could just kind of how it yes and they did have one good gunsmith along them and he had to get Innova a few times to repair guns but he was able to and and so they carried a cartridge box rather than just you know a Powder Horn with with a separate pouch of of balls oh so they have like yeah and you know I don’t know what these look like but a friend of mine made up some cartridges for me it’s just each cartridge was paper and it had just enough powder to to Prim the pan to pour the rest down the barrel and then the ball went down the barrel um that was enough for one round okay so you have to get out your Powder Horn and dump it out you just the end of right right but but here’s the quandry okay now I’m ready to reload but what do I do so this this gives me to a rule that the Army had at that time regulation if you wanted to be in the Army you had to have at least two teeth and they had to be opposite each other you see where I’m headed yeah and then you pour some on that and then you pour the dress down there right Tamp it in with the ram rod and then you’re ready to to shoot around if you were if you were really good you should be able to get off four rounds a minute one every 15 seconds uh and they also had a bayonet though in case uh 15 seconds uh wasn’t enough time that’s the biggest chipmunk I’ve ever seen that’s a big chipmunk you want lunch yeah they were having a hard time you got sear running now I did I proba I didn’t I know I didn’t hit you with anything they would send out Hunters along the shoreline and they could range out in front of the core as they were moving up shootting animals and hang them up and they would actually come along and together and they were only moving 5 to 6 M an hour I mean 5 to 6 miles a day and on the way back they couldn’t do it because they were averaging up to 70 m a day on the way back they got into the current the way they so they couldn’t put Hunters out cuz they run off and leaving down stream so to speak mhm so they actually had to stop three or 4 days at a time send Hunters out and bring in the food and and eat a couple of days jerk the meat and then they get back in the canoes and off up but they were they were not doing too well on the way back that’s whenever Captain uh Lewis got shot is actually one of the hunting trips by the beach of those and we still use these today so they would have put their PL here wouldt soaked put it all in she pressed it together and kept it nice and tight until the plants dried out and when they dried out they had a perfect specimen of the plant that they looked at remember you kids Uncle Ryan got you one of those you have that little plant press with piece of wood terrible uh back side right there on the this is the back away from that’s the back side because uh wood never I that backbody told anything my uncle always told yeah pretty old bottom around mixure of mercury you know the stuff in thermometers that goes up and down to tell you the temperature and jalop which is a plant root and it’s held together with breadcrumbs as a binding agor and if you’re given one of Dr Rush’s pills you’d have to hurry to the bathroom because in less than 10 minutes you’d be cleared out to the extent that just liquid’s coming out also to make you go to the bathroom they have salt peter and if they’re out of salt peter they could give you gunpowder because salt Peter’s one of the ingredients in gunpowder what is that what’s that sponge thing well it’s just a sponge for cleaning wounds now do you have sponges at home yeah Is this different yeah how’s it different because it’s all at holes has like holes what are the sponges like that you have at home they’re like they’re rough they have holes in them they like and they’re Square you see what you have are artificial sponges that they make out of plastics this is a real sponge it used to live at the bottom of the sea little microbes and bacteria would swim by and get caught up in all the nooks and crannies and it would eat them this used to be a living animal this doesn’t have any eyes you ever see an animal without eyes you have what um and I hauled this out and it was overcast and I said to the students what can I do with oh you make a fire I one of it’s overcat it’s it’s easier to get a flashlamp oh oh good good good now from North Dakota you get to say Chic now this woman had a child and think things really didn’t change a whole lot in child they put light cord on it yeah changed a lot in the grass there huh in the grass in the grass that’s my coffee cup oh coffee my coffee funny looking coffee cup isn’t it then I can put it on my belt here and I got my coffee cup handy when next time I want made out of a some kind of out of a buffalo horn buffalo horn this what is that blue what’s that blue stuff what do you think that blue stuff is huh what do you think yeah if I took if I wanted to make a nice long straight Str line see I would take this string and I would lay it on there like that listen listen like that hang on the end of itang on right on the end of it hold it hang on hang on real tight hold down here hold it down there you see real tight my truck is is wet you see the line e

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Tent of Many Voices: 05220402F

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 00:35:59 +0000

welome hey Walky bucks Victory song dancers go and dancing place heyyyy he right this time we’re going to post those colors up caring American flag is PFC William Clark US Army National Guard from oen Missouri Round of Applause ladies and genten next up head man dancer all the way from Tomo Wisconsin Mr Bobby bird Ho Chunk Nation our head lady all the way from maren Illinois representing Kwa Panka and Southern Cheyenne Tanya black Al Moore Round of Applause man keeping everything straight out there and helping me out from uh lame deer Montana Northern Cheyenne Mr Ruben littlehead big round of applause next up is our host Southern drum all the way from Kansas City or Kansas City Missouri Mr Max Neer Red Hawk singers keep things rolling along is our Northern drum all the way from Milwaukee Wisconsin the Young Milwaukee Bucks and our visiting drum all the way from Kansas is Wazi Chachi big round of applause to these guys ladies and gentlemen and I am your announcer I’m going to be keeping things running as smoothly as possible of Northern or poo from St Lis Missouri my name is Mr John White analou all right we’re going to go directly into in tribal dancers this time inter tribal going over to wzi Chachi take it away boys where way h oh guys so to go I God w all the great counil here at porage the Sue and touch briefly on some of the issues subsequent to that anyway get started here in just a second okay well William Clark was born in 1770 in uh Virginia in Caroline County right next to Thomas Jefferson his mentor’s home county of Al uh albamar County he was the ninth of 10 children there were uh uh no infant mortality in the Clark family which is when you think about it nothing short of miraculous at that point in time so he must to come from prettyy good stock he was uh no stranger to military life he grew up in a military family all five of his older brothers served as officers in the revolution his brother Jonathan was served as a colonel in the Virginia line was decorated by President Washington brother George the Hannibal of the West George Rogers Clark conquered for the us all of the territory west of the Appalachia captured casc Cahokia and marched on vinin uh the heroic march on vinin where caught um the hair buyer nestled snug in his winter quarters never dreamed that anyone would attempt such a feat but old George waited the swamps of Indiana and uh sent General Hamilton off to Virginia and chains in 1784 urged by brother George the Clark family migrated to the Falls of the Ohio and it was there the little William found a perfect setting for what was to lie in store for him growing up on the frontier he could sharpen his skills as a Frontiersman Woodsman a hunter and he became an excellent Marksman but there were a lot of other things to learn out on the frontier aided by their British allies the Native Americans were fiercely opposed to giving up their homelands and their home hunting grounds and by the summer of 1788 troubles between them the migrating settlers the Western movement into the Ohio Valley and the Native Americans erupted in fullscale war the Ohio Valley became known as the Dark and Bloody Grounds Clark joined the the uh militia the Kentucky militia and was serving in the IA at the time of St Clair’s terrible defeat the worst defeat in the history of American Military campaigns with the Native Americans with over 900 casualties over 600 men killed and fortunately we’re not it’s unclear why he was not with Sinclair’s forces but fortunately he was not or perhaps I wouldn’t be sitting here today telling you about this anyway uh young William became acutely aware Ware of the conflict The Clash of cultures between Western Civilization moving West and the Native Americans wanting to protect their homelands William served at the Battle of Fallen Timbers he led a rifle company there and shortly thereafter after the Treaty of Greenville a young enen joined his Elite rifle company his name was Maryweather Lewis and of course as we all know a a historic friendship was born and it would uh some years later of course lead to the Lewis and Clark expedition I’m going to in the interest of cutting this a little short I have a a knack of going off on a tangent things I like to talk about and I could be here all day if I do during the course of the Lewis and Clark expedition uh at the mouth of the bad River in the summer of’ 04 there was a conflict between the tan Sue and the core of Discovery uh we come to know it as the great misunderstanding and during this confrontation captain Clark on one occasion was confronted by Tans Su principal Chief black Buffalo and one of his main Chiefs the partisan after having Council during the day they were preparing to leave Shore and go back to the keelboat on one of the perau and the partisans men did not want to let loose of the bowon and heated words were exchanged and Captain Clark drew his sword and all the men stood ready and it could have gotten real ugly uh if one person made the wrong move it could have erupted into a wh scale battle but fortunately black Buffalo eased the tension took the bowel rope from the soldiers as they were known and handed it back to the Bowman things quieted down the next few days things seemed to go well the Tetons appeared to be friendly and they were hospitable but at the morning kbo prepared to leave things turned a little sour again and once again it was the partisans men who said in so many words that they weren’t going to allow the explorers to proceed up the river that they would have to pay more tribute the captains stood fast they were not going to be intimidated they held their ground and Captain Clark went forward and he took the port fire that’s the slow burning fuse they used to touch the cannon off he took the port fire from the Canon ear and he stepped alongside inside the cannon and in his journals he says I spoke so as to touch his pride and once again was a situation where the KBT being up against the bank of overhanging Bank of the Missouri the Tetons with B strong weapons drawn having decided advantage over the core of Discovery one wrong move on either side that set things off and the core of Discovery in all probability would have discovered eternity but fortunately once again it was black Buffalo that decided that it wasn’t worth Bloodshed and he defused the situation and allowed the explorers to continue on in the post Expedition years you know we tend to think we think of the Lewis and Clark expedition in terms of William Clark uh it’s like it’s almost like one word Lewis and Clark but actually in I think in the final analysis when we think of William Clark’s career in the service of his country which spanned another 30 years after the Expedition till his death in 1838 I think as more and more information becomes available just recently there’s two books that hit the streets in the last two weeks Lanny Jones’s book and uh Bill Foley both bios on William Clark both with a little different perspective but a lot of uh new insight if you will on his post Expedition career and I think as as we learn more and more about William Clark the Lewis and Clark expedition as as magic and as heroic as it was and as wonderful a story as it is in terms of how it impacted American history and western expansion and in particular how it impacted our dealings with the Native Americans it will stand in the shadow of Clark’s post expeditionary career for 30 years he served as the chief Federal Officer on the frontier in 1813 he was appointed Governor uh well he started out in charge of of Indian Affairs and Brigadier General of the militia in 18 13 he was he was appointed governor and served as all three officers in the war of 182 erupted William Clark was much involved in uh the defense of St Louis and the west and the settlers on the Western frontier he knew through his Trade Network his network of of fur Traders uh being himself involved with the formation of the Missouri Fur Company and much involved with the the highways of the time if you will the fur trade links the waterways up the Missouri the Mississippi and the tributaries he had a pretty good handle on what was going on and he knew that the British influence was uh in his mind what was encouraging the Indians to raid the settlers and propose it it presented a risk to St Louis they reached a point where the people in St Louis feared for their lives there was uh a gentleman on the upper Missouri excuse me on the Upper Mississippi Clark’s Alter Ego if you will redhaired no less by the name of Robert Dixon who Clark saw as the single bigest cause of the problem in terms of the British influence on the Native Americans and he had a stronghold on uh the socks and the fox and other Native American tribes he was located in the area 500 miles up the up the Mississippi of at pory Shu or Prairie Des Shan excuse me and Clark thought that all things considered that the best tactic would be to raise a militia build some gunboats and send uh armed boats and Men up to Mississippi to try to defuse Mr Dixon and take control of Cy Shu and he did coincidentally when he got there uh Dixon was off somewhere else and there was a skeleton Force there and it there really was no battle at all and they built a fort and assumed that they were taking control well they they made some wrong assumptions because shortly after they got back to St Louis a force of 650 British and their Indian allies arrived back at poru and promptly took it back so Clark once again uh found himself in a difficult position in 18 um was it 1814 when the Treaty of gent was finally signed and pred pred President Madison took over President Madison issues issues orders to his chief officer out on the frontier to meet with the Indians treat with them in the interest of peace and the treaty was the Clark’s orders were were to negotiate with the tribes to bring the tribes together and negotiate for peace this was not about uh Indian Removal or uh negotiations for land but rather just to quiet things down on the frontier okay and it’s interesting I wanted to share something with you it’s interesting that in the in the Missouri Gazette Clark published a proclamation consistent with the president orders in the Missouri cazette Gazette it was printed having been appointed Commissioners with full power to conclude a treaty of peace with those tribes or nations or Indians residing upon the missu and its Waters and where at which the United States at the time of the of the ratification of the late treaty with Great Britain we have concurred to hold treaty at the Village of Port Portage duu on the 6th of July next of which we have notified the Indians and invited them to attend and deriving precaution from a most unjustifiable attack that was made upon a party of Indians in 1812 on their way to the Council of Cahokia to which they had been invited we do most urgently enjoying it on our fellow citizens of the Missouri and Illinois territories to abstain from from any and every act injures to the Indians now invited or that might be calculated to prevent a successful issue to the negotiations okay in other words he’s issuing a proclamation telling all the citizens don’t mess with the Indians leave them alone they’re coming here at our request we’re going to try to make p peace okay in the same issue of the Missouri Gazette there is a much much lener article about a recent occurrence with the Missouri Rangers falling under Clark’s supervision as Brigadier General of the militia where a group of Native Americans attacked the Rangers and it talks about uh the battle that ensued and men being skilled killed and one man arriving back with a tomahawk in his head and he later died and of course people that read this are going to see this as one more case of Indian atrocities so here we have Clark right in the middle of this this conflict issuing a proclamation telling the citizens that we’re going to negotiate for peace and try to uh make peace agreements with the Native Americans while at the same time they’re hearing about in more Indian raids and more problems with Indians killing the white Intruders of course these articles always failed to mention that all of these battles occurred on the Indians own home ground okay in this same same time frame the people of s leis were crying for revenge and the Missouri Gazette again published uh an outcry he says let the north as well as the South be Jackson ised and the popular political position if you will was one of Vengeance what we need is not negotiations for peace not treaties what we need is more militia more army more guns and uh get them out way so Clark finds himself in a very complex situation once again I got to get back on on track here as the council at Portage to sue began on the 10th of July a group of Sue ironically including none other than black Buffalo and the partisan Clark’s old adversaries from the upper Missouri in o four the same among the Sue were some of the Tetons the same group of Indians that Clark had declared in his journals in ’06 the viest misre of the Missouri and that something would have to be done about them or our trade up to Missouri would never be secured well ironically these same Warriors steep forward when they arrived in this area and told the Commissioners that they were not like other Native Americans that took their gifts and their presents in their blankets and hid them away in their tepes and turned their back on the whites they said put something sharp in our hands that we may help ourselves and by so doing help you so it seems that this is another testimonial to the fact that Lewis and Clark failed ethnology one 1 and greatly misjudged the Tian suo the treaty here the council and the treaty signed here at porage to Su became a a pivotal Point not only for William Clark and his career but for Western uh expansion in in general even though the treaties here were signed in the interest of peace and it wasn’t about uh land removal giving away their Native American lands it’s it set a precedence it set it’s it set a procedure if you will for future negotiations and the treaties that would follow would be for the most part dramatically different and William Clark found himself uh the old proverbial uh between a rock and a hard spot he he realized that uh this this tidal wave of Western Migration was coming down the Ohio Valley people were spilling across the Mississippi by the thousands the population of the Missouri of the Missouri territories went from uh in the course from 18 14 to 1820 from 25,000 people and scattered around the entire territory to 65,000 people and William Clark recognized being acutely aware of what have transpired in the Ohio Valley he recognized that there was really only two alternatives for the Native Americans you can sugarcoat it you can try and spin it one way or another you can look at it from a 2004 perspective and talk about what should have could have but if we stand in his shoes back in 1815 and for the rest of his career and think in terms of what he should have done he really only had two Alternatives the Native Americans only had two Alternatives they could either negotiate for removal and relocation or as the government in their documents I have a number of their original documents and they they like to title them immigration of the Indians well immigration of the Indians meant we’re going to negotiate unfair treaties and kick them off their homelands so what was the alternative the alternative was what transpired in the Ohio Valley for the most part and that would be bloody conflicts and perhaps Annihilation and William Clark was Duty bound to make Indian reloc happened and he did he did a very good job of it and one of the reasons perhaps he was so effective at negotiating treaties and uh facilitating Indian relocation because it really served two purposes okay it Ser it served to satisfy the political pressure of the day the Jacksonian beliefs were coming into uh being politically correct if you will and again to to not sugarcoat it it was get the Indians out of the way we don’t care what happens to them we don’t care where they go we just don’t want them killing our settlers stealing our cattle etc etc but for Clark for Clark carrying his Jeffersonian beliefs keeping in mind that he is a product of Virginia Gentry his mentor Thomas Jefferson is on record with his beliefs that the Native Americans and Jefferson very clear about this that the Native Americans were equal to the to the white people in every way they were just lower in The evolutionary process they had not been afforded the opportunity to escalate to the point where the white people were but yet Jefferson made it very clear that he felt they had all the potential to do so they just needed to be given the opportunity and Jefferson along with William Clark saw that opportunity in the form of the factory system and a simulation that is to set up a chain of trading poster factories as they called as they were called would wean the Indians from the Native from the their dependence on the British and the trader the um British Traders fur Traders coming down from Canada and give them everything they needed make the things they needed and wanted more readily available from the US of a so that they would align themselves with the us and not with the British and at at the same time it would facilitate their ultimate ass simulation into Jefferson’s agrarian society for men like Jefferson and William Clark they didn’t think in terms of of will the Indians be assimilated it was the it was the only way they knew how to think it was only a case of when would they be assimilated not if but when so when we when we look at at William Clark’s career and we look at how effective he was at negotiating Indian Indian Removal we also need to be reminded that he he was an advocate of the factory system which about Midway through his career fell out of favor because it was contradictory to other American ideas like free enterprise and instead of the US factories getting all the opportunities with the Native Americans the free Traders would like to have those opportunities things haven’t changed was a lot of a lot about money but in any case Clark never changed in terms of those kind of beliefs and he became very frustrated over his situation in in 1825 he wrote a letter to his old friend Thomas Jefferson and rather than paraphrase it I’d like to I’d like to share what he wrote and I’ll read in part in my present situation of superintendent of Indian Affairs it would afford me pleasure to be enabl to the condition of these unfortunate people placed under my charge knowing as I do their wretchedness and their rapid decline it is to be lamented that the deplorable situation of the Indians do not receive more of the human feelings nation and yesterday the stone the historic marker that we unveiled at the 100-year rededication of Clark’s Memorial on one side of that stone is engraved it is to be lamented that the deplorable situation of the Indians does nation I think for William the the conflict the contradictions that he had to deal with must have been ex extremely frustrating and of course as history records uh unfortunately it would be many many decades in fact things probably got much worse before they got better um in fact they definitely got worse before they got better and we still have a long ways to go and as a memory member of the discovery Expedition few of my brothers are here today uh we we have a charter we have a charter that we often discuss and we make sure that new members recognize how we feel and in no uncertain terms what our message is that we intend to carry up the Missouri and across the country for the bicentennial and that message is that it’s way past time to hear the rest of the story it’s time to go forward with open minds and Open Hearts and encourage the Native Americans to tell not only their side of the Lewis and Clark Story which we’re very excited about and interested in hearing but it goes way way beyond that you know the the the bicentennial celebration can serve as a catalyst to he not only their side of the Lewis and Clark expedition but their side of a very dark chapter in our American history the period from the post Expedition days through most of the 19th century and having said that I don’t want to cast gloom and doom over what’s coming but I see that rather as a ray of sunshine the Gloom and is already there we just for the most part generally don’t like to talk about it especially in our educational system but the ray of sunshine is that the dialogue starts the healing process and if we start to talk about it and if we can talk openly about the bad side of our American history okay that dialogue and that healing process is going to bring us closer together and events just like this and many other events over the course of the next few years you know can help generate a legacy for the bicentennial uh a legacy that says we came closer together as an American family I hope we all can help make that happen I’d like to I would like to suggest that uh I’ll be here till the last dog is hung if you have any questions you’d like to discuss anyone wants to serve up something for discussion be it lwis and Clark or the meaning of life or whatever uh we’ll try to entertain it thank sir an there are um a number of ancestors here in the St Louis area not too many Clarks with Clark with the name but Clark descendants nonetheless I live in Dearborn Michigan near Detroit my first cousin Charlie lives here Charlie G Clark who is a member of our Corp also shares portraying the role of his ancestor on occasions especially here in St Charles or St Charles area but then the clan is kind of scattered from sea to shining sea at this point anybody got anything they want to kick around or question I would just like to say one thing I didn’t get to give Bud a proper welcome but we are very um honored to have him here in por tou he is patony Bud Clark the great great great grandson of the William Clark and he uh called he was excited about us having a powwow here and he was very interested in uh being involved in in Portage and as a resident of Portage T I am Debbie La um we are very very honored to have him here and I’m glad that everybody made it here to uh hear this wonderful talk that he gave today thank you okay so if anybody else has any questions yeah if you have any thoughts share them with us Now’s the Time to kick them around sure I think uh I don’t know I think that seems to be kind of typical you know you’re preoccupied with a lot of other things later in life I maybe it comes with wisdom you start thinking that it’s important to learn more about things that are important to your ancestry and you know to hey to our American Heritage and how things came together especially in terms of western expansion where did the par come from the United States frer on a Hunting Expedition and a tour of the West took a shine to Jean bapti number three kind of took him under his wing and encouraged him to come back to Europe with and he did so he went and lived in Europe for a number of years he spoke four languages fluently he must have been a very intelligent guy I have a hard time with one and uh uh led a very colorful life he came back to the United States um served as a uh a guide for a time with wagon trains hunting parties Etc uh went West was in California for a time and in a civil position out there and died on his way to the Montana Goldfield so his story is a very colorful story but I’d like to comment on his uh on his influence on the Lewis and expedition one of the journal Let’s uh let’s let’s use our imagination here for a minute try to it’s kind of it’s it’s kind of a matter of record that the core of Discovery came together as a family I mean they started out as a rat tag bunch of rowdies at Camp du where drinking and fighting was routine and Court Marshal and I mean these weren’t West Point grads and alter boys these were a bunch of Frontier routings and Soldiers on the frontier you know that wasn’t a promising career you know the the the guy you wanted your daughter to bring home for dinner was not a private in the Army on the Western frontier okay these these were often times guys that were there cuz they were on the run or undesirables in other ways although Lewis and Clark had a I’m sorry having an astute uh well being astute judges of character were were able to sorted out and by the time they headed up to Missouri for the most part they had a pretty tight-knit group but by the time they left Fort Mandan it evolved to more than that not just a tight-knit welld disciplined military group but they were coming together as a family group okay and when we read in the journals about the winter they spent at Fort CLA we know that it was wet and miserable almost all the time they saw the sun 6 days and the months that they were there the fleas were so bad that you could hardly sleep at night and there really wasn’t much going on there in a in a positive way in terms terms of Shoring up morale what they were really looking forward to was getting the heck out of there okay and poor elk was about all they had to eat they had literally walked out of all their clothing their clothing made from Skins would rot because of the weather so it wasn’t it wasn’t a fun place to be now let’s think in terms of on your worst day you just got a speeding ticket on the way back from making a charitable donation and just as you pulled away from the curb to get headed home again you had a flat tire and then you turned on the radio and your stock just dropped another 25% and you walk through the door wishing you owned a dog so you could kick it you know and unbeknownst to me to you your grand kids have come to visit and here comes a little 2-year-old or a one-year-old toddling across the kitchen floor and what happens to your miserable day think of what the presence of that mother and child had to mean to the core of Discovery okay think about that littlest Explorer and the role that he played and you can’t go to Molton and pick that out of the journals but if you look between the lines it it’s there and you can imagine how how that little guy shored up the morale of the men and lifted their spirits and certainly morale and the the the spiritual well-being of the core of Discovery is as much important to the ultimate success of the mission as probably any other single Factor that’s something I feel very strongly about personally much is said about husband what influence did he have on you know sharino gets a bad WAP because uh writers have taken uh editorial Liberties to out of context talk about what a buffoon he was at the helm that he almost sunk the pero on more than one occasion and uh on another occasion he’s he struck Chicago WEA and out of context they’ve painted sharbono as you know not such a good guy but I would argue that Syria student of Lewis and Clark recognizes that sharino was there for a reason he was there as an interpreter he was contracted to go with the explorers and serve as an interpreter they also enjoyed his fine cooking okay he wasn’t there because of his expertise as a waterman he was probably the worst Waterman on the planet okay and not to not to defend him for striking Sago WEA but to put it in context you need to look at that standing in Clark or Lewis moccasins in 1805 and put it in context you know not that it would ever be a good thing to do but it probably didn’t have the same stigma that it has from a 2004 perspective although Clark did chastise him for it that’s also in the journal okay you know since we’re on this track let me share something with you that again was interwoven into my talk but lessly omitted when when Lewis and Clark left when they left Tucson sharbono and uh Sago WEA and the little guy with the Hada or the mandans as Clark said in his journals Clark was really preoccupied with the order of business of the day keep in mind now these guys they are anxious to get home they are hitting sometimes as much as 70 miles a day down Missouri they were not anxious to spend a whole lot of time at the mandad okay however the captains were were very anxious to have some of the head Chiefs to have representatives from the hadat of the mandam the Rika come down the Missouri and go to was Washington to meet President Jefferson and they finally persuaded Shah uh the big white from the mandans to join them so in the mid in the midst of making arrangements for Shah and his family Clark is preoccupied with all the things that are going on and and the his journal entry for that day notes that he had asked sharbono and Chicago weia to take the little guy with him to St Louis and see that he was educated and that they had declined saying that perhaps after he was weaned they would send him down well two days later on down the river William Clark not the soldier not the Explorer not the courageous leader of the core of Discovery but William Clark the man just as much a human being as any one of us you know is tearing his heart out that family we talked about that evolved a big piece of it has just been torn away from him okay and it’s killing him and he’s he’s he’s wishing he would have been more assertive he’s wishing he could have persuaded sharino you know to come with him or at least let him take boy so he writes a letter and sends it back up River and when the first uh versions of the journals were published this letter was unknown it was unknown until it was found among what we refer to as the vor’s collection where most of the Missouri Historical Society Clark artifacts came from in that same stash of Clark stuff they found a letter and I’ll read it to you again I won’t paraphrase it I’ll read it to you literally in part and he sealed it and made sure that no one but sharino got a hold of you have been a long time it’s addressed to sharino you have been a long time with me and have conducted yourself in such a manner as to gain my friendship your woman who accompanied you that long dangerous and fatiguing route to the Pacific Ocean in back deserved a greater reward for her attention and services on that route than we had in our power to give her at the Mand Dan app as to your little son my boy pom fancy you well know my fondness for him and my anxiety to take and raise him as my own child I once more tell you if you will bring your son baptized to me I will educate him and treat him as my own child and he goes on to outline a number of alternatives for sharino he’ll set him up in business he’ll give him horses if he wants to go visit his relatives in Montreal uh if he wants to set get set up in the fur trade business it’ll set him up with say a parole load of goods uh whatever it takes just come and bring boy and he closes the letter wishing you and your family great success s c k s and with anxious expectations of seeing my little dancing boy Baptist I shall remain your friend William Clark clearly William Clark is deeply deeply in love with that little guy okay there is no question about it it is representative of how he felt about his family and how close family ties were and how much they meant to William Clark even in his in his complex and difficult life this in the post Expedition and a further testimonial to that will be found in Jim holberg’s book dear brother where you’re seeing the personal side of William Clark as opposed to any rights within the constraints of either military protocol or political and government guidelines if you will knowing it’s going to be read by whoever I think it’s a uh uh Heritage uh that was passed along to his children and through his children it’s it’s it’s a legacy that carried on and again I say that because there are a number of testimonials and family letters we’re in later years in fact uh a case in point one I was just reading the other day where it’s rather obscure and little known second-born son William Preston Clark in a period in Clark’s life that’s that’s uh rather obscure not a lot known about the last few years of his life when he made his last trip East to visit friends and family and William Preston Clark writes home to his brother George Rogers Clark my great great-grandfather and he says talks about their father’s he p is doing much better they call him P always the reference in the family letter sister to P say p’s Health oh my goodness it’s Clark hello sweetie I didn’t know you were coming here you say hi say hi wa wait minute minute minut anyway William Preston writes to brother George and he says PA’s health is much improved since we left Louisville and he goes on talking about his health and well-being and then discusses their plans to go on and visit New York and Boston and West Point and a few other points uh the closing of the letter is really neat because it shows that that William Clark uh in his last years had still not lost his sense of humor and not lost his his intimate relationship with his family William Preston closes the letter to the ARA pa pa says you should look out for future times and then he illustrates a riddle and he says figure how did he say it he says figure allegory if you can or understand this allegory if you can and he wrote his father’s message in the form of a riddle with little illustrations I showed it to a few guys in Camp the other night cuz I brought it with me and we still haven’t figured it out but uh I wish I had it with me you guys could help me but anyway it’s um what I’m driving at is there even in William Clark’s last years there is that there’s that close family bond how old was it he was 68 in that day and age that that was very old yeah that was an elderly gentleman William Clark buried four of his seven children he had he lived with a lot of personal tragedy his Angel Julia died young his second wife Harriet kenerly Radford Clark died on Christmas morning he buried all of his nine siblings yet he always seemed to have the strength and the perseverance to drive on there’s there’s no indication not to my knowledge at least although he was of course deeply saddened that he spent great lengths of time you know wallowing in misery if you will for lack of a better way of saying but rather that although he had you know it’s a matter of record that he had a very strong family bond uh in the face of tremendous personal sadness he was able to drive on I guess it indicative of his strength character anybody have any other thoughts they’d like to entertain no Greg you look like you got something on the tip of your tongue oh no no how is that why don’t you stay stand behind behind we would like to have this like you to have this thank you H Discovery Expedition that’s it that’s a winner a thank you a thank you guys I appreciate that bud hang on to that gu I will I’ll put it away than you guys I see you guys around here helping that’s cool I really last number is exactly yeah I uh I’ll be able to do different uh some of the larger maybe the Signature Events I’ll be able to fly in with the park service and be in ATT 10 to many voices and it just kind of depends on my work schedule at home too but uh uh the group

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Tent of Many Voices: 05220401F

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 00:35:58 +0000

like 125 yeah it’s pretty fast give me a chance to change my angle too so if we go slow that should be good okay that sounds good it’s great it’s going good yeah that’s cool yeah it’s pretty fast come back here when it’s more don’t work I there’s probably to little faster spe in for oh okay all go so up hey excuse me they’re artists from Kansas City Missouri and they are the on that put together the signs out along the highway so we’ll visit with them how’s that sounding sounds good okay how’s your background noise is that tolerable it’s tolerable it is you’re definitely overpowering it okay good all right get rid of your product you want to do it in dark glasses or light okay is the Tacko T should I jump why don’t you take that off um should we just have them kind of talking with each other and trade the microphone back and forth microphone exactly um we want it like here are you going to ask questions I will at least right there maybe a little bit closer like this yeah that’s perect really where you have to keep it okay um you got a two shot here or a three right now right now I got a three shot okay um are you rolling I’m rolling okay that’s a good thing to do okay we’re here with Matt the hamers if I pronounced that right Matt the hamers and K and McCoy They’re artists from Kansas City Missouri and we just found one of their art projects out on County Road B I think it is on our way into pter sou tell me a little bit about the project uh if you can talk to me about the inspiration for this particular one well it was a couple months in the making uh and we went through a variety of ideas and spaces um visiting a couple of different reservations um speaking with people about how do they want their voice to be represented ladies and gentlemen and CLK you can blame it on me we got some dancers we got stuck we got a phone call way about 15es down the road told they going be here 130 we’re going to have grand entry going to impact 13 dancers people involved give you a little extra time I know a lot of you had a hard time finding this place adult age would call these take off on when I started living here you remember those signs absolutely absolutely what if anything did that have play there’s I contact unfortunately I mess up again you must make three one of the ideas of having but we didn’t know what they say and um only about 10 days ago in the voes listen to Alan pink and Bobby con I wrote the text came out with and said IDE made anybody with circle Tri there decision of the power must make Grand ENT we’re going to put this on hold for another half hour big sh back and for we or thought we work their nature area they have a beautiful new nature area we also about working with the sound Native American languages and it turned out that that is an idea that for us to sit down and tell a story your hisory he would just tell me a story but we learned that for gentem welcome toell so with their history it is questions they don’t just tell a story they need to have lead time to with the elders that this would be an appropriate story this one would not and we really didn’t have enough we went back to the idea F shave style signs and when we heard I heard Alan speaking I began to understand a lot said there was a a lot of background a lot of deep background going to visit with tribes with the sh with the the Poria gentl you know we’ve both had a lot of back off a little biters hold on second call about so it couldn’t have come minut deep well research and I might not have understood that what Allan and Bobby were saying you know I couldn’t have edited it said these are key issues these are crucial if I hadn’t had a lot of time to learn from a lot of people that as well have any of uh the people that inspired these seen seen the exhibit yet seen the inst um well John White analou who’s officiating here at the pow and was on the crossing border Symposium panel said during the panel that he loved them that he thought they were provocative and very important so that couldn’t have made me more great um what else would you like to visit about General thoughts maybe about why you know what we think of it yeah let’s maybe talk about some of the text yeah or just I mean I have my own sense of you know we’ve been talking about our own sense of how people would approach these or what how want appro okay um I’m just going to hand off the microphone to them and let them freelance up a little bit you have to kind of keep it talk the and you got a memorized I take it the 25 signs no we’ll probably have to prompt each other no there’s the by right well I think in general uh one of the things when we were coming up with this idea that I was thinking about we were thinking about is just the idea of how roadside signs catch people’s attention and no matter what you’re focused in on while you’re driving you can’t help but notice a sign and you can’t help but react to it subconsciously on some level and so the idea that we put questions out there that are kind of open-ended and make people um think even if it’s just for a second think about what that means to them and really you can take the questions either way you can you can talk about them in terms of dominant culture U uh in terms of the United States and the history behind that but you can also talk about in terms of the history of the American Indians and how um it it it takes on both sides so it makes you think about something that maybe you usually don’t think about kind of a recontextualization of culture yeah and I also just want to emphasize how um Matt and I have worked together bouncing off of each other during the all the projects we’ve worked on and um and this project is definitely that same way if we look at the text the first one says celebrate commemorate that was a big question early on in the commemoration of the lisis and Clark my centennial who is celebrating who is commemorating what do those things mean for most American American Indians it was the beginning of the end and it’s not a happy time or or something to celebrate so we wanted to bring that up to people that are just coming to this event to people that may not have been in on that discussion but who certainly understand what those words mean the next set who discovered who that’s also that’s a really interesting question I mean we’re on land right now that that was once kapoo land this wasn’t just an empty space questions of language is culture language is language culture um those are brought up and as soon as you read that and then you read I think next is who names places and do place names tell stories and then you look up and you see the water tower at page T and you think what does page t mean that’s a French name it contains an Indian name it’s about a story this place is on a little spit of land between the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers and it’s a place where people portaged their canoes a long time ago Indian tribes early white people you cut off I don’t know 22 35 miles if page across here um just thinking about um also things that we’ve learned about how history is recorded how it’s recorded in the landscape how certain um John White anope was talking this morning about Devil’s Tower it’s a place in the landscape that tells a story that means something it’s a it’s a way of recording history so we ask in the sign boards um oral Traditions written Traditions how many ways can history be recorded um and and so we want people to start to honor other Traditions other than our own tradition as well as kind of one of the other things that seems to still be a u a factor in today’s world is the issue of land land ownership and uh one man’s Wilderness is another one’s Wilderness is another’s backyard and the idea that uh American Indians think of themselves as stewards of the land and land is owned communally it’s it’s it’s not necessarily Theirs to own it’s it’s uh something that they respect and are reverent toward in terms of nature uh and our concept of land of course is different uh the Jeffersonian grid and the idea that land gets broken down and everybody has their portion so two different perspectives you know which one’s more valid than the other are they both valid um if kind of those are some of the questions that we hope people might think about even if it’s just for a minute or two yeah that’s a good way end okay thank you thank you here with us folks he’s going to read these signs us um can I can can I get the microphone so we don’t get the um can we can we do this I want to do it without the microphone and the photo is there any way to is this directional or how about sideways and I could have him hold that so I don’t have the clip on I can go pretty close you know from here on up we can do it that way I have a question may I tape as well can you uh let’s be Clos just start reading just start reading things and we’ll move the mic as she needs if you want you can stand with your sign here and you can have the mic there and I’ll still get them in the closeup I’m sorry yeah okay celebrate commemorate who discovered whom is one’s Wilderness another’s backyard what is Wilderness what is civilization is culture language is a language culture who names places do place names tell stories how many ways can history be recorded written Traditions oral Traditions is everything you read true okay let’s let’s do it again let’s slow it down the microphone too cuz you have to hold the mic down okay I have to hold the microphone up it won’t work down that far but about a foot way we could probably do it this one do looking at the in between I think right there that should be able to get the money remember the question mark thing yeah slow it down yeah in between yeah you can slow down the pace and more time between signs okay right celebrate that’s a question started over okay celebrate celebrate close enough the question celebrate I don’t know celebrate commemorate who discovered whom is one’s civilization is culture language his language culture who names places who place names tell stories how many ways can history be recorded written Traditions oral Traditions is everything you read true okay um do you want to do one looking at the camera now getting any familiar with little bit you know what we’ll do I’ll if you lose one I’ll just repeat it to you and you just feed it back into the camera okay okay when you’re ready why don’t you just say them and then you re them and then I’ll re cut that out that’s fine okay celebrate celebrate commemorate commemorate who who discovered discovered whom whom is one’s Wilderness is one’s Wilderness another’s backyard another’s backyard what is what is Wilderness Wilderness what is what is civilization civilization is culture language is culture language is language culture is language culture who names who names places places do place names do place names tell stories tell stories how many ways how many ways can history can history be recorded be recorded written Traditions written Traditions oral Traditions oral Traditions is everything is everything you read you read true true what do you think I think that’s good that’s a good time and that should work okay are you rolling yes we’re rolling okay celebrate celebrate commemorate commemorate who who discovered discovered whom whom is one’s Wilderness is one’s Wilderness another’s backyard another’s backyard what is what is Wilderness Wilderness what is what is civilization civilization is culture language is culture language is language culture is language culture who names who names places places do place names do place names tell stories tell stories how many ways how many ways can history can history be recorded be true cool I like those you can start at any okay uh my name is Jeff Olson I’m the public information officer for the lisis and Clark National Historic Trail and this is Clint Brown he’s a grov on Indian from Harlem Montana and we’ve been out in Portage to Su Missoura for the past couple of days for the signature event here and on our way up yesterday we drove by some signs that we we saw on the side of the road and it’s an art project Bicentennial art project and the artists are Matt deamer and Karen mcoy both of Kansas City and Missouri I I was just struck by the by the signs and by the by the words on the signs they’re things that I’ve been thinking about in the last four or five years because of the bison and I know that you you know you and I have had conversations about what what kind of a message are we going to work on what kind of a message are we going to try and carry that’s not about Lewis and Clark it’s not just about science or Discovery or things like that what what what was your first thought when when you saw those signs yesterday when I’ve seen all the signs along the road there’s one that stuck out in particular and it’s still in my mind and uh the question was who discovered whom to me I believe that uh that is the thing that we are celebrating as Native Americans or commemorating I I should put it we as Native Americans have been here for years and years and years uh the idea of loose and Clark coming through our homeland is something that I should I think should be discussed more you know we and we’ve also talked about celebrate commemorate and those two years two those two words and and what do they mean and and words that should they be used but you know you and I have talked about those words before and we’ both SLI we both said celebrate but I have a you know I think commemorate is the is the appropriate term but there are still some things to celebrate no matter who you are exactly what is there for the groans or for you and your family to celebrate in this place well I believe the celebration part of of the the Lewis and Clark Trail is that it is our turn as Native Americans to tell our story this time around we as Native Americans will have a chance to tell our story as opposed to what we’ve all heard or read maybe in the his out of the history book uh which I’m sure the majority of that has been written by non non-native you’ve probably done whole 15 or 20 programs in the ten many voices so far since the F Centennial began where are people with wanting to know about the American Indian story that’s a really good question uh when I first started the uh uh presentations in the 10 of mini voices I had no idea what to expect after the first one I realized that people in the United States who live side by side Native Americans know very very little about it why do you think that’s so I believe it’s we’ve all kind of been trained to believe what we have in our history books as elementary students going through school even on the reservations we got a very very small part of the Native American during the ls and Clark trip when in fact if it wasn’t for the Native Americans I don’t believe the Lan FL trip would have made it as far as it did can you think of a specific instance I know you’ve read the journals and you’ve been to a lot of other leou and cl presentations tell me a couple of instances where you think American Indian Health was critical was a could have been a a watershed or a turning point for the exavation well right off the bat as far as the uh Lewis and Clark group that traveled North or traveled West their group was a military group uh I’m sure that turned off a lot of Native Americans that they ran into but one of the plus things that for the Lewis and Clark group itself for the core too was having a female aboard and York to the Native Americans York the color of his skin represented a God to the Native Americans I truly believe that a lot of Native Americans that they encountered or they might not have encountered who watched them travel by on the river let them go because of that female and York I was just going to ask you what does a female and a small child mean on something like that a female and a small child would represent that they weren’t a hunting party they weren’t a war party the female and a child would represent that these Travelers are traveling as a family what else what else struck Us in this uh struck you in these uh I like this one though is one’s will backyard there were two signs um pretty early on in the in the uh installment installation Karen help me installation installation there were two signs that popped into my head pretty quickly when we saw him in that installation out on the highway there one of the signs said is one’s Wilderness and the next sign said another’s backyard so the the question is is one’s Wilderness another’s backyard what what does that mean oh that to me means that when the Lou Park Trail when they left West when the cor two left West from here and started into what they thought was a Wilderness when in fact they were traveling into a very very uh lived in land uh the there was a uming amount of people that they never ever seen they simply traveled along the waterways when in fact the land was inhabited by many people is there so so we’re talking that uh civilization is civilization and civilization even if another group of people say it’s Wilderness how about Wilderness out in the uh in the on the Western Plains was it all civilized land that where people lived or are there were there places or are there places uh in the west that that tribe still consider to be Wilderness yes there is the uh the tribes that were in the area specific specifically in the Northern Plains and Along the Rockies the tribes that lived in that areas were simply hunters and gatherers and they moved about the countryside throughout the year to find the best spots for instance maybe to uh pick berries or hunt meat or find wood for the winner so there was parts of the Wilderness where even the Native Americans basically left alone as soon as the uh The Core 2 came through and the the N or the uh the white people moved West all of those Wilder wildernesses were soon doubled up by people looking for beautiful places to live Beautiful Homes when in fact the Native American people they too believe those as beautiful places but they respected them so much that they would not Venture into them as much as maybe the white people did after the uh 4 two you you talk about the respect that the Indians had for these places that’s a that’s a word with a lot of different meanings but what what did respect mean in in that instance where there’s a place out there that we’re respect and we’re not going to go there why I guess why about respect that well there could have been several different reasons one of the reasons that uh right off the top of my head would have been it might have been a uh ceremonial grounds there might have been certain certain types of uh uh resources that the Native American people might have gotten from that certain area and they and then would respect that area for what Mother Earth had to offer there uh just besides the idea of ceremonial of burial grounds but there was a lot of things that the Native American people used from Mother Earth and those areas to them were they were they were sacred areas I take it though that sacred doesn’t mean that you that they never went there there were there were uses what what uh brief periods of time or how would you describe that sure there would be more than one tribe who would venture to one certain area of the uh uh for instance Wilderness there would be different tribes who would travel all to the same place maybe to get one piece of Pipe Stone and I’m talking several different tribes Waring tribes there might have been certain areas where they would go to get certain shells certain types of clay How would how would Waring tribes deal with going to the same place without Waring on one another or did those things happen the the respect for the resources that Mother Earth had to offer would be put in front of uh all of the Waring uh the Waring thoughts that maybe the uh the Young Warriors would have their their Elders would have taught them to respect no matter who was there that Mother Earth let us use these resources whether there was your Waring tribe there or an Allied tribe they would respect it so much as to let them finish what they were doing and then move in here any other you want to comment on or how many ways can history be recorded okay let’s see let’s let’s go into this uh what did you lead into this uh something else uh was funny was sad was all right um how many ways can history be recorded uh when I first started out here on the uh uh tent of many voices as a presenter one of the things that I was told by the uh the Indian liaison with the National Park Service was to look for misconception within the Lewis and Clark Journal well I sat down and I I come through the journals again and uh within the uh maybe the first three pages of the journals I found several misconceptions um I always asked the idea how many ways can it be recorded how many ways can the Native American people let the non-native crowd know about our way of life I believe this is one of the the the stepping tools right here that with the trail of Ls and Clark that the Native Americans need to use it is our chance to tell them about our history and see myself with the arena director the veteran is going to help us out here that’s dinner High w we go all right dancers last call start making your way to the east side of the Arena dancers start making your side yourselves over that east side of the Arena this time start lining up Eagle staff carrier we need you up front cing that stop in there once again registration is now closed registration is now closed getting ready for Grand entry you must make three of three grand entries oh you dancers start making your way over there start lining up get a high sign from my Arena director that c Dr grand inry song coming back over to Milwaukee Bucks flag song out to that Center drum from Memorial song to wach or who back to the milwauke Bucks Victory s back to the Bucks photography okay all right dancers this is it we’re going Grand entry at this time everybody I’d like you to please stand up all you participants so respect for these uh Eagle staff and the slag coming in at this time ladies and Gentlemen please remain standing if you are able to until this is over with this is a proper protocol that we do out of respect yeah for the United States flag and our Eagle staff so I tell you to sit down please remain standing you can give me the high sign all right Max you ready Grand entry song Gentlemen remove your hats got an eagle feather on it I’m you on the I know what sing that song now man head lady the royalty bringing in that eagle staff this time Logan men’s traditional men’s traditional by that is our flag bear and next is our powow princesses our visiting royalty Mar powow and visi royalty is our head man and head lady dancer bringing in the dancers at this time first UPA now traditional dancers stand stand next step is our one grass Dancer by in and out this time our two bustle dancers our men’s fancy dance men fancy dancea now it this time is our ladies dancers F dancers or traditional ladies dancers all women’s categor no team yet no te Junior women jingle women’s fancy boys team boys traditional team boys traditional and straight women’s jingle bu jingle and is our Junior categor excuse me FY Shaner very of our ladies coming in fancy Shaw dancers comes in our Junior categor Team categories for young menal dancer young man straight follow directly behind traditional grass dancer danc on by our boys f little boys fancy dancer little girls are R it out this time Girls Doll sha dancers hey if you remain standing ladies and gentlemen we’re going to have our flag song this is the same as it’s all right to clap too it’s the same is a national anthem for Indian people if you a standing at this time send over to the Milwaukee Bucks he hey y all right this time gentlemen you come up here and post those colors for me all right we’re going to go to Memorial song please stay ATT at this time Memorial song going to that Center drum un the

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Tent of Many Voices: M03310602TMB

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well good morning ladies and gentlemen I’d like to welcome you to the core Discovery 2 this is a mobile outdoor exhibit sponsored by the national park Serv service and other sponsors that you are you just have to take my my word for it that they’re on this black panel right here I would like to welcome you that this is a commemoration of the bicentennial of the lwis and Clark original core of Discovery and we are doing by land what Lewis and Clark did by water which is to travel out to the Pacific coast and back to Missouri so 1806 200 years ago LS and Clark and the Expedition were on their way back to St Louis Missouri and so are we and along the way we’re stopping at different towns that have requested us to come to the community and Grand Ron has graciously welcomed us with our open arms so we’re very thankful to your kindness this morning we have a wonderful treat for you Mr Tony far is with the United States forest service and he is going to talk to you about Lewis and Clark and what they missed in Oregon a little bit about Tony he’s an archaeologist with the US Forest Service he has been presenting Louis and Clark for three years now and teaching in Oregon Washington and Idaho school with the help of several grants so without further Ado please welcome Tony far hello hello how you doing good to see you thanks for coming down you guys all right can you hear me in the back hello Mike hello Mike is it on how are you we’ got a lot to talk about and we’re have a precious short time don’t we all right well lwis and Clark were on quite an adventure 28 months how do you pack for an 8,000 Mii camping trip there’s lots of things you can talk about with these guys well I’m going to talk about about today is what happened to them while while they were in Oregon they had problems in Oregon this gentleman says they hated Oregon they had some unfortunate experiences in Oran we’re going to talk about that today it’ll be a good thing to discuss okay we’ll jump right into it are you ready all right on this table I have some of the replica artifacts and some old things also which the core Discovery would have had with them course they making a lot of maps they got big coins they were trading to the tribes with which doesn’t work don’t worry and over here trade goods they might have been settling down with in the lodge of one of the Chiefs to make some trade to try to make food or the things they needed they were pretty much out of supplies when they got to Oregon weren’t they okay well what happened is they were coming into Oregon a lot of interesting things they had been through some very hard times hadn’t they coming into Oregon they came through over the Rocky Mountains what happened they had to eat their horses they ate dogs they ate their shoes they ate their candles they pretty much were starving things were not going well were they they had planned to go from their first Winter’s camp at Fort Mandan all the way to the Pacific coast and clear back to St Louis in that same summer they had no idea how difficult it was going to be and they staggered out of those mountains realized they weren’t going to get to the Pacific and all the way back because they had taken way too much time to come through the mountains 144 milesi of very difficult travel was Hardo for sure they ran of food most their supplies they were and they were sick and exhausted they were just about starving of course they came down into Oregon the npers had taken care of them fed them brought them back to their health a little bit they began to eat dog with the npers again except for Clark and Sakia of course would never eat dog because she’s shoson and they believe they were descended from wolves so it’ be like being a cannibal right so she couldn’t eat dog right at all but the men were starting to feel better they built their canoes they shot down the rivers now these guys had had quite a bit of difficulty on their trip hadn’t they they’d come all the way over through the plains they thought they understood the tribes they had their medals Thomas Jefferson of course the great president who sent them on this journey our only genius President we will ever suffer in this country in my opinion had a great vision and he sent these people off to try to look for Nations of Indian tribes established peace through trade with the Indian tribes and set up a nice trading Network for the United States and he called that his vision was to establish an Empire of Liberty across this country an interesting idea Jefferson his idea of an Empire of Liberty was to have small little communities little farming based communities which related to each other and traded with each other and not have a strong centralized government he’d be very surprised today with where this country has gone I’m sure of that so he thought these guys would be have fun they were well prepared Merryweather Lewis of course had prepared for three years with Jefferson a year and a half a very intensive study how to take records William Clark was brought along to kind of lead the men do the map making he was a collector of people of course Lewis was kind of a a loner wasn’t he and he had days which didn’t go very well and if he had those blue days and when it gets cloudy like in an Oregon winter sometimes doesn’t go too well Lewis had trouble in Oregon that’s for sure all right they’re coming down the river in their canoes they’re headed down towards the ocean don’t know how far it’s going to be they reach the place where the great trading fairs have just ended at the DS Oregon the Columbia River was not damned the great George ug has written a good book now called when the river ran wild it’s a great book he’s an elder from Warm Springs he talks about before the Columbia River was damned all the Rapids and all the salmon that went through those Rapids and how available they were to the Indian people the great trading fair that begins in the spring late spring early summer and goes through the summertime in the Dallas Oregon sometimes swelled to 30,000 Indian people for a couple months at a time that fair had just ended when lisis and Clark came down the river William Clark noticed however in one of the Villages at Nik Lish he noticed in his estimation over 10,000 lbs of salmon dried pounded up prepared in baskets and ready for trade we estimate now over 1 million pounds of salmon a year was processed from what is now the Dows to Cascade Locks about 20 mi of the Columbia River just for trade alone quite an industry that’s significant a million pounds of salmon a year for trade well where was it being traded some went East over the nesp country a lot of it though came down the Columbia River now Clark was familiar with Indian people he had grown up out on the frontier with his older brothers in the Indian Wars back East he knew a little bit about how to deal with the Indian folks Lewis had trouble dealing with people in general he was a loner absolutely the size of group this he would probably go the other way talking to this group but William Clark and sit down and talk to you well Clark thought as we come down the river let’s make careful notice of the tribes they started keeping their records Clark was in charge of mapping of course we know that as well right he he was the great map maker have some of the replicas of his Maps up here and he was outstanding map maker they came down the river when they got to the first Narrows where the Columbia River narrowed down to 50 yards across from a mile and a half wide and the whole river boiled through that narrows and was a cauldron of swirling water and the Indians have been out there fishing when salmon were running it became difficult passage the Indians didn’t run their canoes down that part of the river either we had 50 chinuk speaking Indian Villages from that part of the river to Dallas all the way to the ocean it was an alliance of villages relating to each other through Commerce rather than conflict this is a significant Point here the first Traders came out and said we have Indians out here and their relations as people out in the Northwest revolve around trade and commerce rather than around conflict and raiding as all the tribes had been coming across to this point whole different associations of peoples different rules completely are men were not familiar with those rules now these rules have been in place in a long for a long time these chinuk speaking Indian Villages and they had such a Reliance on trade they had a trade based communication where the chinuk chook chook trading jargon was a language of trade that went from the Dows all the way the Pacific Ocean and up the coast that headman for that whole empire was referred to later on as a king king K kamaly of the chanuk proper he was a rich man he was in charge of the Indian money that came down this is the Indian money the dtia shells very very rare this was the medium of exchange along the Columbia River I mean you could trade your canoe right that would be good also and food and dogs but the dtia shells were the standard money 40 of them of the small ones would be worth a canoe maybe three horses a few slaves couple hundred lounds of salmon the big ones much more rare 20 of these strung up would be worth a lot you could trade I think there are accounts of 20 of the large Denia shells exchanged for up to four rifles and rifles were very very rare at that time well com Kaley had his village out on the Pacific Ocean the great Chief himself the trade of this money came through him these shells are not located in Oregon naturally they come from Canada he had great canoes and his people went out in the Pacific Ocean and went in the cold rough ocean waters all the way to Canada and they traded for the Indian money up there and brought it back he was the central Banker for this entire trading system all the way on the Columbia River no wonder they called him a king and he was a clever man rather than having his alliances and his relationships with the neighboring tribes through force and conflict he did it through trade and relationships he had a large family had many wives his children would marry into the head men of other nations it all became a matter of family and relationships very interesting world so LS and Clark arrive in this they don’t know how this works at all they’re used to doing their peace Parleys showing the chief his new father you’ve been a chief for a thousand years aren’t you glad to have a new father right you know your people have been here for thousands it didn’t always work out too well but they had the they had their pattern worked out that didn’t work very well once they got here the real disappointment was as they came down the Columbia River and remember now LS and Clark had been surprised visitors and a real curiosity to the tribes in the Rocky Mountains because they hadn’t seen white people before they hadn’t seen Clark slave York the big black man that was with them and they became quite a sideshow the largest Sideshow to travel through native North America but when they got to the Columbia River and got to the Dallas they were no longer unique there had been trade going on for a number of years for 15 14 and 1/2 years ships had had already been coming from Boston and a whole Year’s journey and anchoring off the coast of Oregon atoria at B Baker Bay and trading for 6 months at a time with the Indians they wanted the otter skins because those otter skins when taken to China were worth a fortune so people were leaving Boston with trade goods for the tribes knives tobacco axes glass beads the blue beads were the chief beads the Tha beads that the tribes in the Northwest one of the most William Clark had told Lewis that when they left Lewis didn’t believe him so they’re out of blue beads by the time they got to Oregon they missed a great opportunity had they had another barrel of blue beads they would have been fairly wealthy they were pretty well gone of course later people were mixing the blue beads up with the Indian money and was coming brother exciting wasn’t it is that nice I like these are not too old these blue ones some of these are old this is a string of 270 year old Dutch trade beads so they’ve been around for a while some of these old beads these tomahawks were very good trade items it’s actually a pipe yes they had 55 of these when they left those are pretty nice those were hot items now they’re coming down the river what do they see they see trade goods they see iron kettles they see Indians with old guns that are worn out they see Indian women with Sailors names tattooed on their arms James Bowman they see Indian children with red hair there’s been quite a bit of trade going on for a long time they’re no longer this the the great curiosity that they had been plus the tribes have seen black Sailors before so York is not even a great curiosity either okay they get to those Narrows let’s get back to where the difficulty of going shooting down the Narrows on the Columbia they have to go there the Indians don’t run their canoes down there they set their canoes up if you’re coming down from above they Park their canoes walk around the horrible Rapids rent other canoes or family Arrangements you borrow a canoe and you head on down the river now there’s been trade going on for thousands and thousands thousands of years and here are the rules of the trade this is something that Louis and Clark really should have known they didn’t know it and it caused them a great deal of trouble if I and with my friends and my family and my most revered trading partners we have what we call a balanced trading agreement or balanced reciprocity you can come into my house and borrow whatever you want because you know I trust you and you leave the appropriate goods behind very informal now more distant kin and not so familiar trading partners have a more generalized trading agreement generalized reciprocity it’s set up by the headman and at each time we’re going to have our trade you can’t come into my house and take things but your headman your Chief and my head man or a headwoman my chief or chief this will determine what the goods are and we put it’s pretty friendly now here’s somebody who comes in sometimes and takes my kids away and sells them as slaves from way far away right he’s not part of the Inner Circle our Arrangement is much different that is called a negative reciprocity or a negative trading agreement so if he comes and take something from me what’s my obligation I got to get even don’t I and that’s been going on for thousands and thousands of years in fact if I don’t come and make it right it’s a shame on my ancestors all right so we’ve got these wat laa tribes people controlling these Rapids they are a pretty tough bunch of folks they’re the rivermen who live on the river the rules are when you come to the watala you have to pay them a toll to go through their part of the river that’s the rules right if you don’t do that you don’t know the rules and Lewis and Clark they’re a military outfit aren’t they they got their guns they March around they’re pretty sure of themselves so when they get to this point and the Indians start coming up and looking at the goods they have and maybe pocketing something saying well I I need to have that and this is the rule tools of exchange for coming through their reaction was not very positive and Lewis and Clark forced their way through pushed their way through bullied their way through so then what do they have to do if you break the rules someone has taken something from you in effect by not following the rules and taking Passage through your area you have to under the rules take something back don’t you that’s what happened so so Lewis in particular characterized Indian people the chinookan people as thieves not knowing that what they were doing was just following the rules that have been play in place for thousands and thousands of years the Indians looked a lot different they were shorter they had their heads foreheads sloped and flattened here’s William Clark’s drawings that he made of the flattening of the chunuk heads the women had evolved to a place of prominence in trade things were much different very much different the weather was bad wasn’t it they get all the way down to the coast they’re pinned down they’ve got a bad attitude a bad feeling for the Indian peoples because they think they’re all thieves they speak a strange language they look different Indian women when they get made up to go out you know they put fish oil on them you know and they have a different different uh way making themselves up the weather pins them down and what they get depressed they’re start feeling pretty bad quickly what else are they missing they’re missing salt of course right they’ got to have some salt but the main thing they missed as they came down was they missed their boat Jefferson had told them when you get there look out on the Pacific Ocean for the trading ships that are there and Jefferson had given them a letter of credit kind of like a blank credit card that they had with them signed by the president saying if these gentlemen present this to you give them what they need and I’ll make good so they were hoping to get out here and find a trading ship still there but what had happened they had missed the boat they were about a month too late they were hung up in the mountains coming through it was very difficult travel they lost another 3 weeks on Merryweather Lewis’s experimental boat which didn’t work it sank and he was totally embarrassed and chagrined I think the men held that against him so they got all the way out here and they’re they arrive in the Pacific Ocean in November the mouth of the Columbia River that’s when the worst storms of the Year hit that’s why the sailing ships have already gone where are they they’re already in Hawaii right good resting up with their whole shipload of sea otter Furs and maybe some beaver furs resting up before they go to China trade those Furs for gold silver Jade porcelain spices silk and go home and increase their family fortune 300 times so they those guys were long gone right what are they going to do they’re going to have a boat they need a they don’t have a fort they have to find a place to live don’t they while they’re here that’ll be good so they’re going to build a fort they think when out on the coast somewhere the weather’s so bad they’re thinking this is not a good idea so they had they plan to head back up the river go up the river and build a fort near Mount Hood maybe 100 miles up where it’s drier but some Clatsop people come and tell them on the other side of the river from Washington over in the Oregon swamp lands there’s a lot of elk now these guys are on the first Atkins diet they’ve been eating 10 pounds of raw meat a day for a year and a half haven’t they and they don’t they do not appreciate the richness and tremendous diversity of the cultures in the Pacific Northwest salmon is one of the greatest foods you could ever have these guys don’t ever appreciate the salmon you can only have this kind of an alliance of peoples 50 villages in a friendly trade Alliance when you have tremendous resource a avilability this was one of the richest places in the world agriculture never developed here like in most of the rest of the world why they didn’t need it the area was full of wonderful Bounty a bounty of food wouldn’t that be something that kind of interdependence of trade when you have that much salmon coming up your river system gives you stab ility amongst groups it it does that’s what that’s what they had they really had a version of what Thomas Jefferson had thought they should seek was that Empire of Liberty equality tradeability it can only come in a resourcer area so there’s trade for food tools religious purposes medicines it’s all here but rather than take the time to get to know the Indian people that were here the chinuk world since they were kind of repulsed by the activity which they interpreted as thev theft and the physical appearance in the language the man moved across the river to hunt the elk and withdrew in built Fort classup and spent the winter pretty alone they missed out on so much previous winter they stayed at in the plains of North Dakota at Fort Manda lived as a part of the Indian trade and the world that was going on and learned a lot but by isolating themselves although they did have time to catch up on their homework and Clark of course did his great map making determined they were had come 4,123 miles he’s like 40 miles off this incredible map maker and Lewis caught up on his writing and his measurements and his scientific documentation they really did not interact with the Indian people out here nearly to the degree they had been all the way across why do you think they were felt so bad you know it was it was the weather but part of it is I think they were the first tourists in Oregon they had exceeded their Authority when they crossed the Rocky Mountains they outside the Louisiana Purchase weren’t they weren’t they so they really had no official standing out here I think they might have known that a little bit and they were a little bit leery of their position though they were careful they ran out of salt they needed some salt they sent some guys out to get to make salt that’s a story everybody knows about they they boiled sea water made 2 and 1/2 bushels of salt Lewis was craving salt Clark could do without it pretty much they go to see a whale that’s kind of exciting right but they missed getting the whale meat because what they were too late to get there their their timing is so off when they come to Oregon they miss the big trading fair when they come it down the river they miss the boat don’t they they’re too late to catch their ships to get resupplied to send people home perhaps they get to the whale too late they hear about a little bit late although it’s interesting sakaja so I say her name insists on going and by way at 4:00 I’m giving a presentation on sakaja all 18 names that I found for her it’ll be it’ll be interesting she decides she needs to go see the whale they go see this 105t whale of course they take great records of it they don’t have much to trade these guys started out with a whole ship a big barge keelboat of trading Goods they’re down to two handkerchiefs of trade goods at this time some buttons they’ve got a couple of coats they can trade they’ve got some fish hooks and some sewing needles basically they managed to trade with the K the tilamook or the kiluk people for enough whale blubber to bring that over so that gets them through part of the winter Lewis writes well it reminds him of pork when you cook the whale blubber now of course shano the French Trader who is the owner not the husband he wins her in a game or purchases her of sakaja is their cook he’s the company cook he doesn’t really have that much to cook most they kill 153 elk with in the Oregon winter the Indians see them as depleting the resources is taking way too much food away for the amount of people that there are there very wasteful they weren’t recycling they’re very wasteful right the Indians pretty much stay away C commy doesn’t come to visit them and because Lis in particular doesn’t feel comfortable with the chinuk people he orders them all barred from the gates of Fort clat up but Sundown every night now so how the Indians what do the chinuk think about these folks first of all these guys are lost aren’t they they’ve come down the river for the first time somebody’s come they’re called Boston Americans were called Boston to the chinuk when I talk to the chinuk people today they still call me Boston you’re either King George from England or a Boston from the United States to the chinuk those are the first group of Boston that ever came down the river that was kind of interesting they were broke actually they had no trade goods left they were pretty dirty their clothes were rotting off by the time they got here their Oak skins were falling off in the rain their uniforms were long gone months ago they were in pretty bad shape the Indians here were very very clean the chinuk people were in the water all the time it’s part of their religion their ceremonies to cleanse themselves extremely clean these guys were probably not that clean you think these were mountain men from Tennessee and Kentucky in fact historians say that at this time in American history fewer than one in 10 Americans took more than one bath a year so it was kind of a different looking group so they they’re lost they’re broke they’re kind of smelly they’re not all that clean and now when they’re all kicked out of the fort every night at dark what they’re rude so no wonder the Indians don’t come to them in great numbers and embrace them and have all the parties that they had the first winner the first winner what Pierre cruzat the wild Frenchman played his fiddle every night there was big parties he never plays his fiddle the whole winter out of the four months they’re here 120 days plus REM it’s raining all but 10 or 12 days it was a winter like January was this year wasn’t it this is the little ice age you guys can look that up from 1700 through the Civil War the Northern Hemisphere got quite colder than it is now glaciers Advanced that’s why when they came to the Rocky Mountains there was snow and August it was a cold old time well they managed to get through the winter they’ve eaten all the oak they can find they traded for a few Roots best they can the men are sick had they lived with a chinook and taken sweat baths and gone on their lodges they wouldn’t have cramped up and become so sick many of the men have real bad muscle cramps from working in the rain and the cold they just want to go home one of their canoes gets lost in the ocean in the storm another one is damaged they’re preparing to leave and head back up the river they only have an a trade good to trade for one canoe there’s still one canoe short Lewis gives the order we’re going to take a canoe now Jefferson has told these guys when they’re out here treat the Indian peoples honorably we want to end up with a whole nation of trade across this country it’ll be good so act respectfully do the right thing you know a month earlier six elk were left out in the woods being brought back to the Fort now the rules in the west are which these guys don’t seem to understand don’t know the rules that causes some trouble when meat is left out after dark what it’s fair game why it yeah because exactly wolves will get it so so if anybody leaves meat out after dark it’s there for the taking so the Clatsop chinuk people took that meat Lewis called him on it and said listen you thieves they’re just following the rules but he called them thieves again well they say okay we’ll bring you six dogs and that made Louis very happy because he lik to eat dogs and so that did Square the relationship at that time but even though that did happen Lewis when they need the extra canoe says because they took our six elk we left out there last month we’re going to take one of their canoes so he so while the captains are thanking cabay or k we call him cabay today who was the clat up chunuk head person of the of the clat up chunuk people on the Oregon coast thanking him for being a pretty good host and he had fed them a little bit brought them some roots and he was provided the most contact that they did have was very limited while they’re doing that and giving him a piece of paper giving him Fort clat for his own personal Retreat to have as a chief which is kind of nice they’re stealing his canoe they have men taking his canoe so here we have Indian view these guys show up as poppers basically they’re kind kind of rude and kind of dirty and really not that interesting and they leave they leave as the thieves and head back up the river very interesting and it’s uh that they were sent out by Jefferson to look for an Empire of Liberty or to set up relationships where he could help establish one where we could have local localized trade localized stability they came over the Rocky Mountains where what men were men and horses were horses and there was a lot of Buffalo hunts and it was just great and Grand everything was that it should be as it should be they came over down into this world of salmon people and they probably were in as close to an Empire of Liberty as existed at that time anywhere and did not recognize it for what it was at all and left disillusioned and left which with such poor reports of the Indian people here if somebody hadn’t been here to see what was going on you would think people really weren’t worth talking to they were just thieves and Scouts although they did notice their canoes they were Amazed by their canoes the wonderful Cedar hats they had and some of the details of their physical characteristics the money was interesting you know they like the money they really had a chance had they spent the time with the Indian people here to get to know them that winter go with Comm Kaley and his people and find out what their ceremonies were like you imagine William Clark if he’d have been with the King C caly and gone in one of those 60 foot hia freighter news up into Canada on a trading Mission what the reports would have been then just would have had the way to connect with the people it would have been a whole different time wouldn’t it so they headed up the river and guess what their timing was still off had they waited another three or four weeks like they had originally planned they would have come up the river during the salmon Harvest there would have been a bountiful trade going on and the Indians there would have been definitely ready to host them feed them and have a what the enormous party which would have been they that’s what they were looking for well they were too early so they came down the river too late they went up the river too early they missed so instead of coming into celebrations they found people who were starving and not doing very well and they went back through the Dallas area and what happened they forced their way through again right coming back now if I forc my way through once that’s bad enough isn’t it if I do it a second time what that’s really on you right Indians were taking more Goods they took Lewis’s dog SE man the big Newland dog Lewis by this time you know he’s kind of depressed anyway wasn’t he we knew he had problems with with uh fits of melancholy Jefferson called he became blue Lewis has become a dangerous man Clark is now in charge of the Expedition when they leave Oregon Clark is a leader of men his whole life he’s a collector of people he loves the interaction Lewis threatens to burn down Indian Villages threatens to punch Indians out roughs them up and Clark steps forward starts doctoring the Indian people with the medicines that they have clearing up some of the eye ailments they have with the laments they have that the Corb Discovery is carrying with them and it’s a good thing he does that because that buys them just enough Goodwill along with their great Superior Hunters George duard couter the fields brother some of the great hunters that are along and they’re able because the people are so hungry they’re able to trade them for some fresh elk meat and just barely get through and head up where they’re going home aren’t they finally all right any questions what do we have here I got five minutes for questions anybody yes questions I have a microphone I’ll come around and everyone can hear your question does anyone have any questions you’ve got one shelves where do these Shel okay he wants to know about the shelves they’re off of vanc Island these are little creatures this is the top of the shell the animal lives out at the bottom they live down 70 ft deep in the dark Pacific ocean waters how’ they harvest these they didn’t have scuba gear a few washed ashore they had a long set of broom handles that interlocked they would stand up on the ocean in their canoes take a a broom head which was carved out of uwood branches into a little head Cedar slats around the edges which when closed up would cause the broom head to pinch these little critters off the bottom of the ocean they had a cedar plank with a hole cut in it that fit down over that broom head two large stones on the side they would get down to the bottom and they would plunge 70 ft down that broom head into the sand beds where these little critters were the weights of those two rocks on the sides would slide that cedar plank down over that broom head close up those bristles and pull them up to the surface what an amazing technology was here without any metal and so they traded them all the way down what was the extent of the trade good question these trade items were found all the way over the Missouri country Indian people had a tremendous trade going on we had uh we find turquoise beads in the Columbia River from the southwest there’s abalone shell from Southern California up here and these trade goods went all the way clear Down Under the Mississippi River and The Naz people who were traded with the Aztec through the Caribbean Ocean knew of these trade goods tremendous trade goods good questions anybody else oh there you go did they have did they ever see any wolves did they see wolves they even ate a wolf while they were in Oregon yes there were wolves everywhere there were Bears they ate over a thousand elk on their trip they ate a couple of wolves a couple of eagles they ate a few coyotes lots of they maybe 30 Bears this guys this is original meat diet weren’t they if it wouldn’t have been for sakaj wayo along they probably would have had trouble without they didn’t have the vegetables but she was able to recognize some of the roots and foods which was very very good for them kept them from getting sick okay you guys can walk by these tables on your way out don’t linger if you want to look at this stuff don’t linger too long cuz other people can see it and we got another presenter coming up our next is going to be coming up on the hour hand

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Tent of Many Voices: 03310604TMB

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 00:35:57 +0000

gentlemen and I would love to welcome you to the core of Discovery 2 we are commemorating the b the original L discovery that happened from 1803 to 1806 and true to Lewis and Clark in 1806 whenever they were making their Hasty return to St Louis Missouri as our we so by September of this year we’ll be back in St Louis Grand Ron is the second venue on our tra travels back to Missouri and we have been welcomed with open arms here and we’re very thankful for the grand Ron community and so without further Ado I would like to introduce Mr Bob Tom and he is going to be speaking about powwow and other cultural members or cultural Gatherings and he is a member of the confederated tribes of grand run so please welcome Bob Tom thank you glad to see you here today out and about have you been in the casino okay good thank you for that uh I’m 68 years old I’m a member of the confederated tribes of grand Ron my tribal affiliations are the Shasta the clth river the Rogue River and the umca from the east side of the Coast Range and Ashland area my mother’s That’s My Father’s Side my mother’s side is along the lower Rogue River and the sixth River rer and I’m a descendant of the maany band of the tuty from The Rue River so those are my tribal affiliations and both my mother’s tribe and my father’s tribe were relocated to the reservations here at Grand Ro and in salet uh but I’m really from Southern Oregon I’ve been an MC for about 35 years and so they the people that are putting this on ask me if I would come and talk about pwow how many here have been to powwow before okay and uh so they asked me to talk about them about powwow and I can talk about other cultural events but powow in itself will take up probably all of our time and as an MC a lot of times I get to sit up or stand up on a Podium like this and watch the paow arena and in my 35 years it’s been a wonderful experience seeing uh the grand entries of the pow off and the different styles of dance and the people that come and the audience and the vendors uh and the people that are working the floor so it’s been a wonderful uh experience for me and it’s one that I look forward to all the time I’m going to MC a power at Porton State University in May and I AMC AA of Southern Oregon University uh are um down in Ashland and also cow paa way up there at South R Falls it’s about 45 miles east of their Casino way back up there in the mountain by an ancient uh fishing site of the Cow Creek Band of the unfa so uh this is uh paow is the way of life you see some of our family it’s the family of poow is a big family you see some of our family the vendors in there and even the ones that are making fried bread in the food they’re all part of our paow family along with the drummers and the dancers and so a poow is sort of a modern name when I was really young uh that asked if you were going to the war dance uh it’s what they used to call powow you going to go to the war dance this weekend sure you know and uh powow are the war dances uh there are many things uh they’re spiritual and they have powow for a lot of reasons like we all sign treaties with the US government so a lot of tribes have a powow on their treaty days when the treaties were signed uh they have veterans powow to honor veterans we have a veteran powow here in July and if any of you uh men or women here are veterans I invite you to our paa we honor all veterans Indian and non-indian uh we have veterans from uh other countries that come and so it’s the time that we take for one weekend last year we had 255 veterans come in with our uh Grand entry the first day and we had 34 World War II V come and so it’s uh it it really makes us feel good because our dancers uh all come there to honor veterans and for our drums to be able to sing for veterans you know from World War II On Up is a real honor and it’s the way they’re supposed to treat their drum and it’s why they became drummers and singers we have uh gourd dancing and round dancing so we have a lot of kind of powow and Gatherings uh they have uh we have two kind of powwows they’re called traditional and competition powwows and a traditional powow there’s no contest and everybody just comes to dance but they have exhibitions of each style of dress we have uh several main styles of dancing we have tradition traditional men and women we have grass dancers they got Fringe on their outfit and they started back in the Wisconsin area and out in the plains and uh when the people would gather together for different from different directions and we’re going to meet these grass dancers would go out and mat down the grass Prairie and Matt it all down real flat so everybody else could come out and dance and so they have a real unique foot movement how they matted that grass down so the other people could uh come out and dance we have jingle dress and they have little cones in there I think I saw somebody selling some jingle dress cones uh I’ve heard two stories about how those were created uh one was was this man had a dream and in the dream he saw this saw this dress and this outfit and this they have about seven different foot movements that they use nowadays they only use about three of them but they used to have seven different kind of foot movements that they would use for Jingle dress and he saw this in his dream and uh so he told these four ladies and they made the outfits and came out and started dancing in that jingle dress style the other Story I Heard was these ladies were on a reservation where they had a extreme alcohol problem on their reservation and they tried to think of ways that they might make a statement and deal with that and so they decided themselves to become sober and they decided they were going to put one of those Jingles on a dress every day they were sober and they got to 365 Jingles on that dress they came out and started dancing before the people and told them how these 60 365 Jingles got on this dress and that they dance sober clean and sober from there on uh those Jingles uh were once made out of calat Lids some of you ladies know what Calment Lids are and also later on started using snooze slids they were smaller easier to turn so so those are a couple of them uh they have a fast and fancy double bustle they’re two bustle men wear and they dance real fast and fancy they have uh a fat and fancy Shaw dancer women in the this is the newest dance in our cous uh the Double bustle is a real old style of dance for men and they really go fast there’s a northern style and a southern style and they really go fast and our young ladies were watching them and it looked like so much fun they wanted to dance fast and fancy but they did uh they didn’t have permission and they didn’t have an outfit so some young ladies start putting on men’s outfits and going out and dancing with the men well I’ve heard that a couple of them won a men’s contest so they say that that’s why the Men start coming up with this fast and fancy Shaw dance and they allowed this to be a new dance and they have a a bright Shaw and they have totally color coordinated outfits and in the men’s fast and fancy and in the women’s fast and fancy you will see every color of the rainbow and every color that existed since from the rainbow they’re just beautiful outfits and they dance and these are young girls because they dance uh fast and fancy I can remember in the ‘ 50s in early 60s at Delta Park poow up in Portland who has there’s been a poow there for many many years where some of the ladies were dancing in the men’s fast and fancy because they didn’t have the bat B and Shaw B so that’s one of the newest dances we have um round Buel men put bustles on their arms and at one time they were made of just that one longest feather in a pheasant and the pheasant tail is one really long feather they would make their bustles from just that one feather they also used to use uh Magpie mag pie feathers in their round bule and they have a style of dance it’s kind of like a prairie chicken they kind of look like that prairie chicken when they dance and uh that’s around bustle um so at a powow they have if it’s a contest powow each one of those styles of dress go out with other people that have that style of dress and they compete and in nowadays in Indian Powerhouse you might if you win first you might win anywhere from $4,000 to $200 and the committee will have first they’ll usually pay first second and third sometimes they’ll pay first second third fourth and 5th but they will have a contest for 6 to 12 13 to 18 and then 19 to 50 and then 50 to 60 and then maybe our 65 or maybe 65 and over this is for men and women both so you can see if they when there’s a contest po like that that committee has to have4 to $500,000 along with paying drummers and then feeding people and doing other uh taking care of some of the other CA so powwow over the years has not only been something where we can gather together and be with each other and dance and sing meet new people have a good time but it’s also become a big part of a lot of tribal business casinos put on big p the the confederated tribes of grand R put on a big powow the third weekend in August and they bring in some of the top drums in the world from Canada and around the United States and those top drums from the United States in Canada attract some of the top dancers from Canada because if you’re a dancer and you and there’s this one drum that is just the best drum in the world you want to go out there and you want to dance because it’s a contest between the drum and the dancer the dancer has to keep be with the drum they have to start when the drum starts and they have to quit when the drum stops so drums are always trying to trick them and stop it early or putting a little tail on it and taking it a little longer so it’s always a contest between the drummers and the dancers uh our dancers uh a lot of these young it’s a like it’s a family affair and you’ll see kids in their diapers yet with outfits on and then you’ll see grandmas and grandpas you’ll see people out there 80 years old dancing and all of the ages in between and a lot of families will travel the whole summer from paow to poow and getting in contest that’s their summer they not only have fun but then if they win they they kind of pay their way but you you can see some of our young people they Aspire To Be A Champion dancer and it takes a lot of work you not only have to make your outfit you have to upkeep it because there’s a lot of wear and te on outfits out there when you’re dancing and when you’re packing and unpacking putting on taking off so there’s constant upkeep for your outfit and it’s got to look good if you’re in a contest so here’s these young people that Aspire To Be A Champion dancer and in our Indian World we’re happy when our young people do because in our tribes there’s a certain percent that go to college certain percent go to get jobs and work there some play basketball some play softball not everybody dances and not everybody can be a champion dancer and so when we see some of our young people take on the hard work the TR conditioning the practice and uh to become a champion dancer it makes it makes all of us proud but at the same time that powow Circle because we hold powow like on the dirt and the grass we hope powow in uh tribes have powow grounds Arbors we have powow at conventions I’ve danced and been an m see in in the fanciest Ballroom in the hotel even had mirrors on the ceiling I don’t know if the rooms did I wasn’t I didn’t stay there but this is fancy place in a hotel and so we have pouts a lot of different places in gymnasiums in high schools and colleges and so um there’s Urban powwows there’s rural powow there’s powow way up in the mountain like I said at calri in Ashland and Phoenix there’s powow in downtown Portland there’s powow and we have powow a lot of different places one thing that I appreciate most of all about our Indian way of life because powow and when we gather is a big part of our Indian way of life you can’t read your you don’t see a lot of misbehavior at a paow people that are in a pawow circle bring their family up to know what the protocols are and how to behave and how to be respectful and so uh it’s a nice place to be in if uh hopefully some of you that went raised your hand hopefully you got treated well at the powow or felt okay about being there because at a powow we we appreciate people coming and if there one time that we can kind of give them a little visual about what one part of our life is I live in Kaiser and I go to a powow at least once every month out of the 12 months of the year and I MC probably 15 or 16 pows year so it’s part of my it’s part of my life I live in Kaiser I’ve been retired about 9 years and I Golf and spoil my grandkids those are my main jobs but I go to a powow and when I go to this powow I’m surrounded by 90% Indians I’m there and then there’s Indians at the drums there’s Indians dancing there’s Indian selling there Indian walking around and that sort of reinforces me kind of kind of uh makes me feel good strengthens me muscles me up and then till the next power and I’m surrounded by all of this family that I have these vendors and all of these all of these people that I’ve met over these 35 years I’ve seen them dance and quit dancing and seen their kids dance and their grandkids but one thing I like about the pow out most of all now all of you have had kids and you send them to school you guys all had kids sent them to public schools and at sometimes during your kids’ life in the school you were concerned about how healthy that place was how safe that place was how they were treated if they were treated like they were like or if they were treated like they were disliked or if they were good or they weren’t good people looked at them that way the powow circle is one of the safest and the best learning environments I’ve ever been a part of we Bless The Dance Arena wherever we dance I don’t care if it’s in a hotel or or where we bless that Arena and so when people come out to that Arena they’re in a safe learning environment any of you could go out there dress just like you are and dance around and hop and jump and have a good time and a few people might smile but no one’s going to run you off the floor no one’s going to yell you know cat call and yell at you and you’ll see little kids following a traditional d answerer or they’ll be following a grass dancer they see somebody and they see the way they dance and they they like it so they follow a older dancer so they can kind of start learning you’ll see kids with half an outfit on you’ll see people with full outfits on it doesn’t matter if you don’t have to be good and that goes for the drums too there’s a lot of drummer I’ve been drumming for 35 years and I’m not a good drummer or singer but I love it and if I don’t do it every so often I start missing it I need to I need to sit down and drun for the people and so everything about that Circle the drummers and the dancers it’s a safe learning environment you can come out and I’ve always appreciated that people if somebody does act up that we have what we call Arena directors or whip men if you’re on a reservation you may have a whip man and they have a whip and they can use it and they can run your kids off and they can do all kind of things on a reservation if it’s not on the reservation they usually have just what they call Arena director somebody that has charge of the floor the arena directors I’ve worked with I’ve always appreciated and there could be some young person that was sort of acting up simply because they didn’t know they didn’t know the protocols you’d never see that person chew them out and shake their finger at them right there on the Dance Floor they’d wait till the song was over and the next song started and then they you you’d see them way over there out of the way talking to that young person talking about how they were behaving and how they weren’t supposed to behave that way and so it would it’s it’s that kind of thing you don’t ever want to uh tell somebody they’re doing something bad you want to always encourage them to continue uh dancing so we have uh a powow and there’s a committee uh and they do a lot of work I’ve been mcing for 35 years and I’ve never been on a pout committee and I’m never going to be on a Fout committee those guys work so hard and I’ve gone to powow after powow and I get there half an hour before the powow starts and they’re pulling their hair out and they’ve been arguing and something wasn’t ready and we’re not ready and so and so didn’t do this and they’re just in a frazzle and but I’ve never been to a bad P I tell him just relax we got drums here we got dancers here you got food you got vendors you know don’t worry you know it’s going to be fine but they do they do a tremendous amount of work uh and they uh really try to make everything good for the people that come the drummers the dancers the audience everybody uh a lot of times tribes support tribes put $100,000 into their uh powow committees and the reason they do that is because it brings a lot of visitors so they so they can be with us on our reservation so they can be with us for a day or two days uh at grandr and at settes they both have wonderful camping places you got a trailer pull it over set it up visit you know and and so they know that people come and they want to make sure that people are treated right and given uh a good experience about our uh committees do a lot of fundraising they sell things they have food sales and uh they have Raffles they sell tickets uh and a lot of times at contest a family will sponsor a contest they’ll put up $500 for first place traditional uh they may be honoring somebody in their family so you have uh sponsors and when you go to AO all of those vendors pay some money to the committee and they may also have to donate something to the raffle uh as part of uh fundraising I don’t have a watch so somebody can tell me what time it is 2:30 okay at a poow as an Indian person and all of the and all of the other people I know that live the Pawa way a paow is many things if if you come to a poow you may enjoy walking around all of the vendors and looking at what they have you may enjoy some of the food fried bread and Huckleberry Jam it’s good you know uh you may enjoy the dance you may enjoy the singing uh just people watching there’s a pow out serves a lot of purposes there ceremonies that go on at Power House when our people gather together when we have our drums when we have dancers traditional dancers when we have spiritual people when we have equip men and Arena directors those that’s the only time that some things can be done if you honor somebody in our Indian world you honor them before the people in public so when you have a big Gathering like a pow out then that’s a good time to honor somebody because you get up and you talk about that person and you say why you’re honoring that person maybe you were sick and they came and cut firewood for you maybe they helped you when your car broke down and you lived with them for a month all kinds of reasons people will honor somebody but it’s done in a public way like at of powow and I’ve always found that to be good because you all live in a community and you don’t know everything about everybody in your community you may see somebody all the time but they may have done some really great things and you’re not even aware of it so all of a sudden here at a powow they get up and they give this man this woman something and they talk about the good things that they did and it gives you a different a different look gives you a different perception of that person you never knew that person did things like that so doing things in a public way is something that’s good for our community good for young people to hear how people help each other so there’s ceremonies that only are good to do at a powow in front of the people um there’s name giving uh my Indian name is in felin comes from a treaty signer of the maany band of the tuty who signed a treaty In 1855 at lower Oak flat uh just uh 500 yd up to where it runs into the Road River uh Nam givings happen in a long House gathering or at a powow gathering so you have those those kind of important things feathers hit the ground they have ceremonies to pick up uh those feathers after they after they fell uh Indian people use lots of parts animals in their powow in their outfits the drum is made out from an animal hide and many parts of our Indian outfits uh they have roaches and those are uh from the beaver and there’s the little white part that’s a deer tail uh they use the bones traditional dancers have what we call Eagle whistles it’s made from the wing bone of an eagle that they make this whistle uh you’ll see men and women wear otter and mink around their braids and uh you take like the otter how many have ever watched uh otter play in the in the creek or in the river with their young they slide down these little mud slides and go splashing into the water there’ll be little RI uh uh the Water be real shallow and ripples and here these mom and dads rolling down the down the creek of the river with their little ones just having a ball so the women the men they put on these otter hies around their grave because they know some of the traits of the animals the deer the bear the elk the deer you know they they they wear deer hoods around their ankles to make sound when they’re dancing they use Bells but they use elf and deer hoves to make a sound those things haven’t changed our old people understood our relationship here on Earth and in almost all Indian prayers you’ll hear people acknowledge our creator and our responsibility to to use and to protect all the things the Creator’s given to us and spirit quests a lot of people go and they they’re looking how they can be tied to a certain animal and what they’re trying to do is tie themselves to a trait of that animal like the otter to be playful to be a good mother to be a good father or to a bear to be ferocious Brave dear agile all of these animals have some traits that are very valuable for us to know about but Indian people would look at and they would commit themselves to being to living a life and having that trait and so on our out today you can go to a powow and there may be dancers out there that have something one part of their outfit that may be 200 years old pass down from generation to generation there may be some new outfits but there’ll be many many parts of animals in our outfits and and they’re there because of the traits of those animals but it’s also a commitment from us to be a certain way to be strong to be good to be a good parent so uh these outfits are and you know people call them outfits I call them outfits and regalia you know and we never call our costumes because costumes are more like in plues where you’re pretending to to be be something else you know so we don’t call them costumes cuz we’re not pretending to be something else when we’re in our outfits and when we’re dancing and those uh and that keeping that keeping the drum bead when I was young I used to kind of dance to My Own Drum I guess I wasn’t in Dr I wasn’t in beat with the drum I was out there having fun and dancing hard but I wasn’t always in beat with the drum and I would young I didn’t see we didn’t have competition P I didn’t see it was all that important you know my dad told me you keep in drink with that drum because that drum had a power and those drums were created for us a lot of people don’t know it but the drum beats of Indian people I mentioned all those kind of dancers they all have their own drum beat for their style of dress so we have a lot of different drum beads and our songs in this world there’s no other people that have our kind of drum beats and our kinds of songs and we’ve been sing singing these songs Forever we get new songs and people talk singers will tell you that they didn’t compose those they grabbed them those songs are out there somebody looks for a song lives a certain way that song’s out there and they just grab it they don’t take credit for creating that song Or composing that song they just were able to grab it bring it for the people because you dance for the people you drum and sing for the people and uh so I got five minutes and I guess uh you know outside of uh I didn’t talk about all of the other Indian Gatherings that the cultural Gatherings and uh trading and they’re just you know it’s if you want to gather some Indian people you know cook a a big dinner and they’ll all be there you know and we eat together and we gather for a lot of different reasons spiritual uh so I just talked about uh mostly powow today but you know a lot of our fam started at powow a lot of marriages started at powow we got a lot of intertribal marriages in my two tribes I’m related to almost everybody in my two tribes you know I always had my brothers and sisters and my aunties and uncles telling me who my cousins were you know and I guess when I got down to fifth cousins I didn’t have to worry anymore but that age never matched you know so uh this inner marriage is a good thing you meet at pow you meet people from other reservations and we and we continue to keep a bloodline uh of Indian people because in a small tribe uh that’s not always easy to do so it’s another purpose of uh of our pal are there any question and you know I really enjoyed uh being here with you today I know I talked real fast but I guess I would just say when you say power out that is a way of life and you can’t talk about a way of life life in an hour you can’t because it’s it takes a lot longer there’s so many parts of it but I just wanted to tell you my dad told me to keep beat with the drum with my feet because those drums and those songs were created for us and that they have power and the only way you’re going to get that power is to H hit your feet on the floor the same time the drum beads that’s the only way that that power gets from the drum to you and gets to your heart is if you keep the same beat as a drum so after that I did everything I could to keep beat with that drum because I want those things that come from the drum to come to me where it should be so P are fun they’re spiritual they’re important and they’re for everybody and you can get something if you come there sad sometime to a PO out hopefully you sit there and watch some little kids dancing and start feeling good and watch some bunch of family having fun uh over there eating spam and commodity cheese whatever you know you’ll have you’ll feel better you know so uh you know powow uh are for everybody you know and we enjoy them I certainly invite you to uh the two po outs from my family the second week in August is selet on Government Hill it’s a Friday Saturday and Sunday pout and at Grand Ron here is a third week in August uh they’re both great PS so I don’t know if you got time for questions or if you if any of you have any questions I can bring the microphone around so everyone can hear I should have brought a hand drum we have one another part of powow is 49ers after the big powow and all the drums pick up and everybody leaves there’s young adults that will go way away from the powow ground out in the field and they’ll sing these 49er songs old young people teenagers and a long time ago the old people let him do that there could be some drinking going on but the old people if they were over there singing cuz they Circle dance social dance and they sing these crazy songs and have a good time but the old people said well if they’re over there at least they’re not in their cars driving around you know endangering themselves they’re right over there where we can hear them but 49ers they s uh sad songs about girls and broken hearts and you know real funny real funny songs I should have brought a hand drum I would have sum a couple 49 songs for you made you cry so if no one has any other questions and please give Bob Tom a welcome Applause and at 3:00 we’re going to have the Coyote Creek drum group come in here no matter where you are around here you’re going to hear them and know when to come back so listen up

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Tent of Many Voices: 11210602F

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 00:35:55 +0000

the journals of Lewis and Clark notebooks loose sheets of paper in the lie and I’m talking about the whole of the party not just the two c 90% are the American philosophical Society in Philadelphia the next largest call is at the Missouri Historical Society in St Lou and after that then you get a bit of piece here and there new liary Newberry library in Chicago Illinois the Miss uh Wisconsin State Historical Society in madis so you have a few pieces around then if you want to include Botanical specimens and Maps it even gets more complicated so the whole Corpus of leis and cl materials Maps journals Botanical specimens and other artifacts are fairly voluminous and you may have seen that the Missouri Historical Society mounted an exhibition of many of the artifacts and it was a beautiful thing and very complicated and involved so uh it’s hard to just say a set number of journals a set number of maps of Botanical specimens because there’s always some ambiguity there thank you again oh well we’ll still do something here in a second but um I just want to say you know I I’ve heard Gary talk and a number of times as all of you have I even eded did some of his videos but um I’m always and I I I think you’ll agree with me the ability he has to paint a picture to help us visualize as well as to challenge us to think in different ways about the exposition it’s just phenomenal really thank you guys and we hope that um you and F will continue to be friends of mouth of the plat and in order to do so we hope that you will find pleasure in wearing these right all right thanks for coming uh we hope that you’ll come for our Christmas event it’s going to be here and uh the bar will be open there’ll be plenty of Christmas Che e

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Tent of Many Voices: M08160505TED

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 00:35:53 +0000

voices which is part of the traveling Lewis and Clark exhibit we are the only National Park that travels around the trail so thank you very much for inviting us to your community uh many of you have uh seen uh other presentations here so I’ll keep the introduction short but we also have a keelboat and we also have an exhibit tent and in the exhibit tent if you would like to take a 37 minute audio tour uh that’s a really wonderful audio tour if you want something shorter there are also long and short scripts and uh this tend of many voices allows different people to come in and share different perspectives on what happened on the Expedition and today we have um Miss Carolyn uh Gilman she’s going to be talking about the gifts of the Shoni and she’s from the M um Missouri Historical Society so let’s give a warm welcome to miss Gilman thank you thank you is my mic on can you hear me okay great great um I was the curator of the uh National Lewis and Clark Bicentennial exhibition that was organized by the Missouri Historical Society um it is currently in Denver and it’s going to be moving to Portland in November and then it will be closing at um the Smithsonian institution in Washington DC in 2006 um it’s it’s the um exhibit that uh brings together as many of the original artifacts as we could possibly track down during seven years of research um so my job during the seven years that we were planning the exhibit was to um investigate all the objects that Lewis and Clark either brought with them or that they saw along the trail or that they collected and brought back from their Journey so my perspective is from the perspective of um uh three-dimensional objects material things and that’s really what I want to talk talk about today and how those can um uh reveal new things about a very um familiar story now when you read about the 19 days that the um the core of Discovery spent with the Shoni Indians in August of um 1805 it sounds like one continual exchange of gifts um gifts were really the the kind of universal translators between the two groups they were like social solvents that dissolved the cultural boundaries the now this really isn’t a very surprising fact because in Indian nations all across this country gifts were essential to all diplomatic encounters they were part of a a set of elaborate and formal Customs that had evolved in N native North America to br bried the multitude of languages and the multitude of tribal divisions tribes used symbolic objects like wamp belts and pipes and um tomahawks in order to um communicate political Alliance and Military uh opposition to each other these gifts carried not only um messages They Carried moral obligations as well to accept a gift without reciprocating was dishonorable and so they um uh to offer a gift was to offer an invitation to opening a lasting Mutual relationship accepting some gifts meant taking on obligations that could be legitimately enforced by insult or by arms other obligations were so grave um that Supernatural Powers could be relied on to um uh punish people who um transgressed and didn’t live up to their obligations now gifts between individuals could create what anthropologists call a fictive kinship now uh today we still have fictive kinship relationships if you think about it a little you can probably uh name a few um there’s obviously adoption is a fictive kinship we still use today but the most important one we honor today is marriage and just think of all the um the the debates that are going on today about the definition and the nature of marriage and you will see how um how very charged emotionally and culturally charged these fictive kinship relationships can be now Indian tribes had far more fictive relationships than we do um there were father son relationships there were brother brother relationships there were Grand grandmother granddaughter relationships and all of these had were no less grave and meaningful than husband wife relationships and They Carried with them similar obligations and prohibitions Gifts were essential um to establish these relationships and so in this context the presentation of a gift was um meant to express deep feelings of respect and benevolence and Brotherhood gifts also played a role in uh acquiring knowledge young people were taught to present a respected teacher with a gift in exchange for being taught something even if the teacher was related to them so a girl who wanted to for instance know how to make a pot or weave a mat would give her mother a gift in order to be taught this skill young men who wanted to get songs um to help them in war or in hunting would give older men gifts for that privilege and these gifts taught students to to Value the knowledge that was given given to them but they also respect they expressed respect not just for the teacher but for the sacred sources of all knowledge in in a way the gifts were given to the spirits who had revealed the knowledge to human beings and the teacher was only an intermediary gifts also had an important role in establishing rank and power uh now in euroamerican societies um the accumulation of wealth was a symbolic sign of power the highest ranks were also the richest and and wealth was given respect it was exact opposite in Indian Society uh people achieved Power by showing generosity to their relations and to their allies early European Travelers often commented on the fact that the Indian chiefs tended to be the poorest people in the village uh because they were obliged to give away all they owned but what such observers didn’t understand was that those gifts came back to the leaders in the form of respect and loyalty and Allegiance now when Europeans encountered the native people of America they learned to adapt to gifting Customs but often they interpreted them differently than the Indians did they assigned their own symbolic meanings to the objects and to the acts of exchange so in a given interaction between Native Americans and Euro Americans we often find two different interpretations of what’s going on I think that that’s precisely what’s going on during the time that the core of Discovery spent with the Shon what I’d like to do today is to show you some of the specific gifts that were exchanged and to encourage you to think about their meanings for both sides now first I need to make a disclaimer um there were no Shoni accounts of this encounter until years later when some fur Traders and missionaries interviewed shoson people about what they remembered so I cannot speak for um for the Shoni um all I can do is to repeat what some modern-day Shoni people have told me and make analogies from other tribes that I’ve worked with and I do want to acknowledge the help of several people uh Rosina George Rosemary deini snookums hona Reba tan Roseanne Abramson and Diane yup now I hope you can see this this um uh slide that’s on the screen um the name of the painting is making presents to snake Indians uh it shows a gift exchange between a euroamerican Trader and some shony people that took place in 1837 and it was sketched by Alfred Jacob Miller who was the first major artist to portray the Shoni now you probably all know about the events that led up to Merryweather Lewis finding himself in a similar situation 200 years ago very near the spot where we are today Lewis and the rest of the core of Discovery were desperately searching for the Shoni Indians for two reasons first of all they needed horses in order to carry their tons of baggage and Equipment across the Continental Divide to what they assumed would be the navigable headwaters of the Columbia River second they needed to ask directions actually they needed that a whole lot more than they realized because the navigable headwaters of the Columbia River were nowhere nearby so Lewis and three companions went out ahead of the rest to find the Shoni inexplicably leaving their translator Saka jaia behind them so their first um sight of a Shoni man mounted on a horse presented them with a dilemma between the four of them Lewis Lewis’s group possessed EX L one word of Shoni and it didn’t mean what they thought it did so how were they going to communicate with this very suspicious person when they didn’t know his language well in this crisis Lewis Hit Upon A an an ingenious solution he had to improvise so what he decided to use was use do was use a symbolic object and what he used was a blanket now this was this is not the exact blanket he used obviously but it’s probably very much like it he got his blankets at the Philadelphia Arsenal and this type which is called a rose blanket was standard military issue in 1803 uh this particular one probably dates to about uh the 1790s now this is how Lewis told the story I discovered an Indian on horseback about 2 miles distant coming down the plane toward us un loosing my blanket from my pack I made the signal of friendship which is by holding the mantle or robe in your hands at two corners and then throwing it up in the air higher than the head bringing it to the Earth as if in the act of spreading it this signal of the robe has arisen from a custom amongst all those nations of spreading a robe or skin for their guests now you’ll notice that Lewis is very certain that he knows the meaning of this blanket gesture he’s using despite this the very next thing he writes is this signal had not the desired effect he suddenly turned his horse about gave him the whip leaped to the creek and disappeared and with him vanished all my hopes of obtaining horses so we have to ask ourselves what went wrong well when you look into it you find that blankets did in fact convey many meanings many messages in Indian Society but sometimes those messages were no more translatable than uh language was what I did was I put together a little quiz to see if we can do any better than Lewis did um in about 1905 an Omaha man demonstrated the robe language of his tribe for an anthropologist and she took photographs now this is the first of the photographs now if you saw this man I hope you can see him um if you saw this man what uh message do you think he’s trying to convey by the way he’s wearing his robe what mood or um State of Mind do you think that he is um he’s trying to uh inform you of anybody any guesses humility humility is that what you said okay nonaggression non-aggression yeah hiding a weapon hiding a weapon okay so there is there’s hidden aggression there so so some of you would be suspicious of this guy and um others of you would trust him okay what the man said is that this shows a hesitant State of Mind to an Indian audience to an Omaha audience um this man is showing that he hasn’t yet decided how to act he’s arranged his blanket so that people can see he hasn’t um decided what he wants to do okay here’s another one any guesses about this guy why would you react to him confid say confident he’s confident okay anybody else leer a leader he’s a leader okay you’re getting this one much better okay what this um shows is an orator who’s about to um address his people with an admonition or a warning and he’s wrapped his blanket in a Stern and formal way to show them that there’s um there’s a an admonition coming okay this is the hard one I would never know how to interpret this and if you saw this what would you think anybody he’s sick okay submission submission that’s interesting if I I saw this I would think um mortification or shame what this really shows is anger a man is hiding his face so that everyone will know that he is angry but he hasn’t lost his cool in public um just think of how dangerous it would be to misinterpret the body language of somebody who is expressing anger this way um Louis and Clark often talk about how Indian men are go away mortified or shamefaced after they’ rebuked them and I can’t help wondering if this wasn’t what they were seeing well now we don’t we can’t be sure what the sight of Lewis flapping his blanket meant to that shony man but we can be reasonably certain that it didn’t mean to him what Lewis thought it meant now Lewis’s next attempt to communicate was more successful this time he wrote we had not continued our route more than a mile when we were so fortunate as to meet three Fe female Savages they appeared much alarmed but seated themselves on the ground holding down their heads as if reconciled to die to reassure them Lewis tried the universal language of gifts he said I took the elderly woman by the hand and raised her up I gave these women some beads a few moccasins some peer looking glasses and a little paint I now painted their Tawny cheeks with some Vermilion which with this nation is emblematic of peace well this time his choice of gifts was absolutely perfect elsewhere he called these items Trifles but they had far different meanings to the Shoni for instance take the Vermilion which may have been carried in a Leather Pouch like this now Vermilion is a Mercury based pigment that was imported from China was very cheap for Traders to stock but to the Shoni it mimicked red ochre which is a rare and valuable colored herb that had sacred connotations to them on the plains uh women colored the parts in their hair red in order to show that um they um had passed through the Buffalo ceremony and they were protected by that animal’s power so for Lewis to anoint the women with Vermilion was very much like a blessing now the beads he gave them must have looked very much like these these particular beads were found in mitu tanka which is the Mandan Village across from Fort Mandan where they spent the winter of 180405 and they date from the exact time that Lewis and Clark were there now the Shon used beads like these for embroidery but when they um crossed the mountains to trade with the Columbia Valley tribes they entered a trade zone where blue and white beads were actually used as currency they were just like money and so these were as good as cash um it was as if Lewis had showered these women with gold now the mirrors he gave them caused quite a sensation years later when the shoson were interviewed about their memories of the visit it wasn’t Lewis or Clark they remembered it was the mirrors a man named pharaoh who is probably a child at that time um said they gave us things like solid water which were sometimes brilliant as the sun and which sometimes showed our own faces nothing could equal our wonder and Delight in Pharaoh’s story The Med meeting with Lewis and Clark literally gave the Shon a new way of viewing themselves well it was lucky that Lewis had um selected his gifts well because he soon needed the women’s good um Goodwill before they’d gone two miles he wrote they met a party of about 60 Warriors mounted on excellent horses who came in nearly full speed armed Capa for Action well this was a pretty risky moment any slip could have result resulted in disaster once more Lewis chose to communicate using a piece of cloth but this time he chose a piece of cloth that had great symbolic resonance in his own culture and this is what he chose a flag now there’s a lot of debate about the exact style of flag that Lewis and Clark had with them and the simple answer is nobody knows if anybody tells you they know they don’t um they almost certainly had different style of flag um for flying in different occasions there’s one style for their fort one style for the keelboat and a different style for presenting to Indian nations with whom they wanted to establish an alliance this one um this flag which is at Chicago historical society was probably a Indian presentation flag and it dates to about 1808 so I I would guess this is very close to the style that Lewis gave to cam this is how Lewis described what happened next when they arrived I Advanced toward them with the flag the women informed them whom we were who we were and exultingly showed the presence which had been given them the principal Chief cwe made a short speech to the Warriors I gave him the flag which I informed him was an emblem of Peace among white men and now that it had been received by him it was to be respected as the bond of Union between us well now Lewis is being a little bit disingenuous here first since they had no translator cwe no more understood his explanation of the flag than he had understood cwe’s speech second his explanation leaves a lot out the flag was first and foremost a symbol of the National Unity of the United States the 15 stripes in the bunting field um symbolize the 15 states and the Canton had the Great Seal of the nation it was a tangible object that embody the concepts of national pride and sovereignty here on the westernmost border of the Louisiana purchas raising this flag symbolized the United States claim to rule the shoson population and to own their land to accept it was to accept United States Alliance but also United States sovereignty you can’t help wondering if kiawe would have touched this dangerous gift if Lewis had fully explained what it meant well we don’t know what cwe thought of the flag but it’s very interesting to speculate the presentation of a piece of cloth a robe as a diplomatic gift would have not seemed strange to him uh many tribes practiced this in fact um Lewis and Clark themselves had been given a gorgeously painted robe as a diplomatic gift by the Teton the previous year this is such a robe thought to have been brought back to Philadelphia by Lewis and Clark this gift robe like the flag had hidden messages the paintings on it portray the military prowess and Imperial power of the tribe that gave it to the Explorers messages meant to warn and intimidate as well as to impress their new allies this is a Shoni version of the same thing uh from a later date uh this robe made of deer skins portrays the war record of wasaki the chief of the Wind River Shoni who was actually born in the bitteroot valley not far from here um only the year before Lewis and Clark arrived now cawe was familiar with war robes and may well have assumed that the flag had similar messages as it did but there is one detail that might have struck him with particular Force look again at the Canton of the flag here the flag maker has portrayed a symbolic animal kind of the totemic spirit of the United States it’s an eagle grasping arrows in one claw and lightning bolts in the other now no design could have been chosen better to communicate with the um uh the tribes of Western North America in Native North America the eagle was a powerful spirit being associated with the thunderstorm and War thunderstorm as in the lightning and War as in the arrows men who could evoke Eagle power to assist them in battle were the most feared Warriors in the west claiming Eagle power was something no one would do unless they um unless they really possessed it was far too dangerous so when Lewis gave the chief a cloth portraying an eagle there was really only one way kamwe could interpret it a later visitor among the Dakota put it this way the United States emblem of the eagle with outstretched claws holding arrows and the lightning is regarded by the Dakota as an appeal on our part to the Thunderbird and statements to the contrary are usually interpreted as white men’s lies to deceive the Indians and to guard the power now the next object that the that was used in the Diplomatic exchange between the shoson and the core was just as resonant with meaning but now the symbolism was mostly on the Shoni side and Lewis understood only a portion of it let me read you what he says they introduced us to an old leather Lodge had which had been prepared for our reception here we were Seated on green boughs and the skins of antelopes the chief next began a long ceremony of the pipe he lit his pipe at the fire kindled in this little magic circle and uttered a speech of several minutes in length at the conclusion of which he pointed the stem to the four cardinal points of the heavens First beginning at the East and ending with the north he repeated the same ceremony three times after which he pointed the stem first to the heavens then to the center of the magic circle smoked himself and held the pipe until I took as many as I thought proper now what Lewis didn’t know was the meaning behind these these motions that he recorded in such photographic detail tale kiawe was not giving a speech he was uttering a prayer or an invocation to virtually all tribes between the Mississippi and the Rockies pipes were sacramental vessels they were conduits of communication with natural Powers pipe ceremonies were rituals of social communion which um adopted Outsiders into the very heart of tribal culture the smoke was a visible prayer that called called upon the powers to witness The Binding of those who smoked together George sword a Lota born about 1847 explained the spirit and the smoke will Soo the spirits of all who thus smoke together and all will be as friends and all think alike it is like when the Christians take communion what is done in its presence is Solemn and binding this is Lewis’s sketch of C’s pipe it’s the most ancient style of pipe in North America called a straight pipe and pipes were usually um regarded as living things now there was also a bit of etiquette related to the moccasins um Lewis learned that he had to take off his moccasins in order to show respect to the pipe um these are not Shoni moccasins but they exactly match Lewis’s description of Shoni moccasins they’re um soft sold soft sold with um one seam along the outer edge now cit’s people would normally have um showered their guests with gifts since that was customary but at the moment when Lewis encountered them they were in Desperate circumstances only weeks before they had been attacked by the black feet whom they called pockies they had had to flee leaving all their belongings behind to be looted by their enemies now they were refugees and had almost nothing nothing to give and yet Lewis records how they presented the uh last remnants of food that they possessed to the young guests in order to make them feel welcome the most poignant story about Shoni gifting was told by Clark a week or so later when he was leading a party down the Salmon River Clark came across an isolated family that knew nothing about the arrival of these visitors when they were surprised by a large party of armed men the desperate barents quote offered everything they possessed which was very little to us the first offer of theirs were Elk’s tusks from around their children’s necks now to appreciate this you have to know that elk teeth were emblems of endurance and parents gave them to their children in order to express hope that they would bring long life so the Shoni parents were offering Clark the gift of long lives that they had given to their children in order to appease him these elk teeth are probably Shoni but they date from a a later period now in better circumstances the Shoni were well-to-do people who had the resources of both the Plains and the mountains at their disposal Lewis spent the next few days recording in his journal their styles of clothing arms horse gear and tools among the things that he um saw were Roots folded in as many parchment hides of Buffalo by parchment what he meant was par flesh like this container which is painted in a typical Shoni style a parf flesh was like a suitcase that they used to transport their many belongings when it was hung on a horse um the long fringes on this par flesh would swish elegantly to and fro but LS had come for horses um and he needed to persuade the Shoni to accompany him back across the Continental aide um to the headquarters of the Missouri where the rest of the expedition was laboring Upstream with all their equipment this was not very easily done rumors had been circulating that he and his men quote were in League with the pakis and had come on in order to decoy them into an ambuscade so what he promised them gifts he told them that white men would come with an abundance of guns and every other article necessary to their defense Comfort while the mounted men who set out with Lewis to meet the rest of the Expedition were still weary and suspicious and as they neared the headquarters of the Missouri the Warriors began to criticize kamade for leading them into danger and even the chief himself began to suspect a trap So In This Moment of uncertainty kamit made a decision to test Lewis’s character by giving him what may have been the most valuable thing kamama we possessed it was a gift that um expressed both Brotherhood and caution at the same time after receiving it only the most dishonorable man would have betrayed him Lewis said the chief with much ceremony put Tippets about our necks such as they themselves wore I readily perceived that this was to disguise us now there are no surviving examples of Shoni Tippets from this this period a tippet by the way is a mantle it’s just something you wear around your neck fortunately in 1833 Carl bodmer painted a black feet man wearing a very similar garment um Lewis described it as the most elegant piece of Indian dress I ever saw it was made from strips cut from the back fur of two or more otter and decorated with uh what LS called the shells of the Pearl Oyster you can see all the shells on the on the tipet on that this man is wearing uh but when this this one is fringed with um horse hair or human hair um but Camille weights had a fringe of 140 whole man skins formed into rolls now I’m not certain about the significance of the tippet among the Shoni but among neighboring tribes in the 1780s an otter skin mantle was a civil Chief’s insignum of office whoever wore it was either the chief or or deputized to act for the chief so we can assume that its meaning to Kamia waight was as profound as its value here is Lewis wearing it now we can be quite sure that Lewis valued this gift as highly as it deserved all the way to the Pacific and all the way back he carried it in his baggage when he got back to Philadelphia he wore it while the artist um St Memon painted his portrait Lewis then gave it to Charles Wilson peele’s museum in Philadelphia where it was mounted on a wax likeness of Lewis to preserve for all time the moment when he had received the gift now Lewis had nothing of comparable value to give to CIT in return but he did have something of comparable symbolism and this was it he wrote I put my cocked hat with feather on the chief now an officer’s hat called a shapo bra was also an insignum of office of command just like the otter skin mantle was it signified the rank that Lewis had attained and the respect his men were bound to Accord him his right to wear it showed his achievements and his dignity Lewis’s hat was probably decorated um right about here with a cade now the Cade probably had a silver eagle at the center as this one does if you squint really hard you might be able to see it the cockade was a a fabric Sunburst emblem it’s a little bit reminiscent of the feather circle design on plain’s Indian buffalo robes the Eagle at its Center showed which nation Lewis belonged to symbolized by the eagle it showed the fact that he commanded an infantry unit which was symbol by symbolized by the Eagle’s color and his rank symbolized by the metal the silver metal that the eagle was Eagle was made from the feather that Lewis mentions uh fitted into a socket that was behind the cockade his feather looked something like this although the color of Lewis’s feather was different this is an artillery plume Lewis was Lewis’s was an infantry plume now the fact that Lewis gave his hat and feather to the chief suggests that he might have understood that camit was not just giving away a piece of clothing he was giving Lewis part of his identity his honor to wear another person’s clothing is an intimate act that connects people on a deeply physical level but clothing also conveys explicit messages about its owner and this is a point on which cwe’s culture and Lewis’s agree in particular a soldier’s clothing revealed who A man was and what he had accomplished for example take the feather now Lewis wore a feather to show his Rank and unit plain’s Indian men also wore feathers that formed a complicated Ro code of Martial honor among the Lota any man who had fought in battle could wear an eagle feather suspended from his hair clothing or implements killing or striking an enemy earned the right to wear it fastened upright to his hair a wound in battle earned an upright eagle feather col red one like this which is notched on the sides indicated that the man had done Deeds of desperate daring in the presence of an enemy and it was worn dangling from the for loock or from the ear now this Feather by the way is from The Collection that includes the peel Museum artifacts uh lwis and Clark gave several Eagle Tail Feathers used in ornamental and warlike dresses to the museum and this could very well be one of them it’s from the peab museum today now another symbol of heroism that Lewis and Clark collected was this stunning necklace of bear claw it it’s the one that was recently found in the store rooms of the Peabody Museum where it had been misc cataloged and so lost for about a hundred years um they just found it in December of 2003 now we don’t know what tribe it belonged to but Lewis’s main description of bearclaw necklaces came among the Shon he wrote that they were worn only by quote Warriors or such as esteem themselves brave men it is esteemed by them an act of equal celebrity The Killing one of these bear or an enemy leis also described the Shoni war shirt which he called a commodious and decent garment now we have no shirts that we can positively identify as Shoni from this period but this shirt is the closest I’ve been able to come come by it matches is Lewis’s description perfectly and it was collected by a cousin of the explorer Alexander McKenzie in the 1790s probably in this area now the paintings on it gave its uh owners War honors um from it we learned that this this fearsome man counted coup on two armed enemies and killed 34 people with his spear The Fringe on the uh shirt is human hair symbolizing enemy scalps although often the hair was given by friends and supporters to represent the man’s responsibility to his kin it would have been worn with leggings like this painted with horizontal stripes symbolizing vanquished enemies Lewis and Clark collected a pair of leggings that must have looked very much like this now euroamerican men also went into battle dressed in regalia that symbolized their deeds and status this is a reproduction of the captain’s uniform for the first US infantry um such as Lewis would have worn now it’s full of symbols of rank unit nationality and Heritage the epet the gor the shoulder belt plate the sash the sword however there’s a significant difference from the Indian War regalia this was a uniform that is it was designed to make the Warriors of an army look uni form more all the same it didn’t advertise their individual Deeds so much as obliterate their differences their clothing shows the fact that when Europeans fought they acted not as individual Warriors but as a coordinated group following orders now the exchange of clothing between Lewis and cawe was a critical moment at establishing trust between the core and the Shoni symbolically L and Kamia wa had done more than wear each other’s garments they had exchanged identities this fact was confirmed later when Camille we gave away his name to his visitor Lewis seems to have sensed the profundity of the chief’s gesture he described himself in his shoson regalia and commented I wanted no further addition to make me a complete Indian in appearance The Men followed my example and we were soon completely metamorphosed listen to his Lang language here he is acknowledging a transformation in this moment he truly feels metamorphosed into a complete Indian now I think that in this moment Lewis really crossed a cultural divide and it’s very difficult to come come back from across a divide like that unchanged a weak immersed in Shoni world had left Lewis feeling uncertain of who he was or ought to be on his um 31st birthday 7 days after the first meeting he looked inward questioning his life he wrote I reflected that I had as yet done very little but little indeed to further the happiness of the human race I resolved in future to live for mankind as I have here to for lived for myself now when Clark arrived with the rest of the Expedition there was celebration all around zaka jaia and Kamia wa were um reunited food was now plentiful and more gifts changed hands Clark wrote that camir waight welcomed him into a council and immediately tied to my hair six small pieces of shells resembling Pearl which is highly valued by these people he was probably referring to Abalone show these Abalone ornaments were given by Lewis and Clark to the American philosophical society and they could be the very ones that kamit gave to Clark this shows the perhaps the most useful gift that the the Shon gave to Lewis and Clark information this is Clark’s root map showing fortunate camp where the meeting happened now the expedition’s last gift to kamwa was as loaded with meaning as their first one had been Lewis wrote we gave him a medal of the small size with the likeness of Mr Jefferson the president of the United States in relief on one side and clasped hands with a pipe and Tomahawk on the other we made them sensible of their dependence on the will of our government for every species of merchandise as well as for their defense and comfort and apprised them of the strength of our government and its friendly disposition toward them all of these messages were embodied in the metal now how Saka jaia translated Lewis’s speech we don’t know if she was tactful she left out words like dependence in a way the whole episode had been one long exchange of mirrors each party looked at the other and what they saw was their own faces reflected back in a new way sometimes their view was distorted by preconceptions but sometimes the participants saw themselves in a new light and this is really the gift that strangers can always give to us to see our own actions and our beliefs outlined in stark contrast against the background of another culture it was the most important gift that cam weight gave to Lewis and fortunately it’s a gift that we can still continue to give to one another thank you is there time for questions yes if anybody has any questions uh just raise your hand and I’ll be around with the microphone you can ask Carolyn do we know where she would have sakaia would have collected the IR tales that she gave to Captain Clark at the Christmas at um Fort classup no I’m afraid I have no idea um there’s a variety of places that you can speculate she got them but we we just don’t know another beautiful example of gift giving that was that was um according to um Euro American custom we give gifts on Christmas and and Saka jaia was was conforming to to um the customs of the people she was among any other questions okay oh are all these gifts now in the Smithsonian Institute or will be no um the Smithsonian has only one uh in their permanent collection they have only one object related to Lewis and Clark all the rest of these have come from other institutions and they’re not going to go to the Smithsonian um if those museums have anything to say about it um it there were over um 60 institutions that loaned artifacts to our exhibition because the collection of Lewis and Clark has gotten just extremely scattered um uh and there’s I have another hourlong lecture that I give on why that is and um how they got scattered and where they are today um but just take it from me there in at least 60 60 institutions all across the country yeah how come uh there Statue of Saka Jia was placed in the Rotunda of the of the C capital of the building oh we we we heard about that in the previous in the previous lecture will you hear them um uh I I gather I didn’t know about it but I gather that it was at the instigation of the Mandan Heda tribe and um I I would like to defend the Mandan Hada um uh I mean in the previous lecture we we we heard about them um in fact they um they do not claim that Saka jaia was Mandan orh Hada um that is there is an oral tradition among the Mandan that that is true but um the the modern-day people Tex Hall um the chair tribal chair and um Amy mset who is their RAB tourism coordinator um and does Saka jaia um impersonations they don’t claim themselves that she was hia uh they they acknowledge that she was Shoni but um uh they want to honor her and they um they persuaded the um uh every state gets two two um statues in the in the capital and North Dakota elected to make one of their two statues sakaa that’s how that came about okay well let’s give another round of applause to Carolyn Gilman coming up at 5 o’ we have blackoot um culture and music with Jack Gladstone so please stay around for that and in the meantime you’re free to visit our other exhibit

The post Tent of Many Voices: M08160505TED appeared first on Lewis & Clark Research Database.

Tent of Many Voices: M08160501TED

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 00:35:50 +0000

e good afternoon welcome to the traveling Lewis and Clark exhibit we are the only National Park in the entire country that is a traveling exhibit so we’re very honored to uh be in your community and to have you come to our tent of many voices I’d also like to tell you some other things you can do besides seeing presentations which are held every hour on the hour we have a keelboat a child-size keelboat which is very interesting you can uh get an example of how Lewis and Clark went up the Missouri in that we also have an exhibit tent which we’ll tell you the story of Lewis and Clark we have scripts and if you’d like to we have a 37 minute audio tour which is really good the pictures in there are just incredible um what we have uh today um right now is we have a speaker um Richard Stallings he is a former congressman and he’s going to be talking about uh Chief tendoy the unsung hero uh Richard Stallings is a um now A city councilman and he teaches at Idaho State he teaches Idaho politics and politicians so let’s give a warm welcome to Richard Stallings thank you very much it’s it’s it’s great to be here I just telling the folks it’s been a long time since I’ve been in salmon and I just so pleased with with the uh Center here and the and the tremendous tribute that’s being paid to uh sakaia and to the limai shonis because this is this is truly an important place in this nation’s history because had it not been for this group of Indians the Lewis and Clark expedition probably would have had to turn back or would have perhaps not have survived and so this Valley this group of inhabitants that resided here essentially were were pivotal in the success of that great event so I’m deeply honored to be here and to participate in this I’m a great fan of the Lewis and Clark Expedition have read on it uh have followed some of the trails and uh uh just think it’s it’s it’s such a great story in fact when I see our efforts into space I I think that today’s efforts sort of pale by comparison with what the Lewis and Clark expedition were about now one other item of business we have a number of members of the uh salmon Rotary Club that are here and uh I’m I’m again I I I appreciate that because I belong to the Centennial Rotary Club in Pocatello and now I’m going to claim this as one of my makeup meetings so thank you very much for that well they’ve asked me to talk on tendoy uh as we drove up we went through the little village of tendoy U one of the really incredible Native American leaders he’s been compared with some of the really great people of all time his greatness is somewhat in dispute because to some he sort of sold out to the whites to others he was so very very instrumental in in keeping his tribe intact and surviving through some very very difficult times so let me just talk a little bit about his life and then towards the end we can we can raise some questions and and let’s you sort of help me with some kind of evaluation as to uh tendo’s greatness first of all he was a very very fine warrior in fact he was recognized by some mountain men as one of the greatest warriors they had ever known his whole purposes during his chiefship was to maintain peace with the whites to uh get along with them to make sure that uh all problems were resolved with the white Community he was determined against some very very heavy odds to keep his tribe here in this Valley there was great pressure from the United States government to move the limh high band to uh Fort Hall down near Pocatello he resisted that in fact he when the tribe eventually went in the first part of the 1900s tendoy had passed away he he did not want to leave this Valley and and you don’t have to spend much time here to understand why and finally he was a kin he was a relative to Sakia and as we talk a little B about his life I I’ll try to tie in this together and and we can bring the Notions of uh his relationships with with Sakia and her extended family uh into Focus well tendoy was born along the boisei river in about 1834 his his name was kentaki Yak at the time or or his family was kentaki Yak his father was a banic his mother was from the sheeper tribes as a boy he was given the name of an Yuen uh uh tendo t n d o i p an tendo and that comes from his eating habits he seemed like you know as you boil meat the blood is drawn out and and it comes to the surface and and forms in sort of a gel well he really liked that broth that was sort of his favorite and that’s what uh an tendo means he who likes broth it was then shortened by the white man to just tendoy and it’s spelled two different ways t n d o y or t n d oi as as two words as a young man he joins his father who was a war chief under snag now during one of these Hunts uh his father uh was killed in a battle with the black feet and as a result uh tendoy now takes over his father’s role as one of the sub Chiefs under snag in fact as I mentioned before his his fighting ability was was rather significant a noted Frontiersman Lewis mallat said and I quote tendoy was the bravest Indian I ever saw his exploits were renowned he acquired distinction in battles with Flathead Crow and Sue and was endowed with an intellect far superior to that of any other member of his tribe tendo was a big man husky man he was taller than the average Shoni he was straight as an arrow with a fine physique he was of light complexion and had a well-shaped brow a Roman nose and large dark eyes he impressed people with his bigness of character as well as his bigness with stature during his lifetime tendo will take three wives in 1857 he marries Kora these by the way the three wives are all sisters so it made it a little easier uh 1857 he marries Kora of which they have seven children one dies in infancy uh 11 years later he marries the younger sister Laura in which they have four children which two die in infancy and then Sarah and we’re not sure of the date of his marriage with Sarah but they have five children one dies in infancy and two dies uh as young children now to tie them into sakaj jia’s family um kamwa was Chief when Lewis and Clark arrived the name kamwa is essentially means not inclined to go and it is believed that he was given that name because of his relu to cross over the Continental Divide uh at at Lewis’s request in search of Clark if you remember in the story uh kamwa was was afraid that this was some kind of trap that perhaps this was a blackoot or some kind of uh trap in which they’d get him away from the village and and kill him and so he was not inclined to go uh as a result not sure if this is the origin of the name but that’s sort of the expectation uh after the Lis had CL Expedition leave uh Kam continues to to lead the tribe until he was killed in a Indian battle with the black feed on the bloody dick Creek uh battle over in Montana and about sometime between 1855 because In 1855 the Mormons send an expedition into this Valley and when the Mormon uh missionaries and and Pioneers settle around limhi uh snag is the chief and so we know that the power has been transferred I mean with with kami’s death snag now becomes the chief snag is the uh son of remember Saka jaa’s brother Kam they had another brother and snag is the son of of the other brother uh this other brother is not mentioned in the Lewis and Clark expedition because he apparently was not in the area of the time uh but as a result now snag becomes the chief and uh he gets along very very well with the Mormon in fact the relationship between he and the Mormon settlers is is really first class um snag name comes from similar battle when Kam was killed snag apparently hides behind a big stump to avoid the bullets from the from the black feet and hence the name snag is is attached to him uh it kept him alive but uh I’m not sure the name was was necessarily a blessing or not for the 3 years the Mormons settled in this Valley between 55 and and 1855 and 58 snag and and the tribe snag and the Mormons uh get along very well in fact when briam young travels to this Valley in 57 visits with the tribe uh is is deeply impressed with Chief snag and encourages Mormon settlers to take Indian wives to try to increase the relationship between the the tribes and and and the the church the next year however Mormons are pulled out of the valley and as a parting gift they give Chief snag thousand bushels of wheat which is was really a significant gift snag and a number of the tribal leaders then weep at the Mormons leaving and he is uh uh but the good news I guess is that’s the Mormons go snag and the limhi tribe pretty well have the ballet them themselves for the next several years until the early 60s when gold is discovered well in 1863 snag and some of his sub chiefs were riding down grasshopper Creek which is over on the Montana side saw this nice Cool Spring it’s it’s it’s a hot summer day so he decides to take a bath gets undressed gets into the water and splashing around when this white guy comes by gentleman by the name of buck Stinson he rides into the group sees snag in the water pulls out his gun and shoot shots him kills Chief snag uh shoots at some of the other tribe members takes a couple of shots at tendoy who was with them but now it’s just a subchief well snag is killed because of this the uh Buck Stenson brags that he had just killed the chief for no other purpose to add another notch on his gun well snag as he was dying requests that tendoy be made chief he had some more aggressive sub Chiefs but he thought tendoy was the best man for the job and so now tendoy becomes is elected chief of the tribe before he dies snag says I’m going to have you selected Chief but I want you to promise me something I want you to promise that you will do everything in your power to maintain peaceful relations with the white Community because by this time he had discovered some gold in this Valley and the white Community was growing rather substantially tendo agree says I will do what I can now you’ve got to understand the tribe was very very outraged at the murder of their Chief I mean snag was deeply loved and respected by the tribal members and and they are ready to go on the war path tendoy intervenes says we’re not going to do that and he avoids Bloodshed now the day after he becomes Chief I almost need my glasses here because there want to read the the these circumstances of this event the day after he is it’s like the chief he dresses in his finest regalia rides his War Pony into banic Montana He stopped in front of the General Store I remember he’s surrounded by a number of his sub Chiefs it looks like a pretty ferocious group he he stops in front of the General Store and waits for some of the leading Town’s people to gather he then called their attention to the ruthless manner in which they had killed his uncle and of the sorrow of the tribe of what regard what they regarded as a calamity he called their attention to the fact that holding the position of Warchief under his uncle he had protected them and all white people within the reach from assault from hostile Indian tribes he told them that he had come to inquire of them now why they had killed his uncle did it mean that they had declared war against the Indians who had been their friends if so he accepted the challenge with deep regret as he much preferred to be friendly with the white Community he was a assured by the better class of minors that the past service and friendship were appreciated and that killing of their Chief was the act of a few desperate gamblers who unfortunately had found their way into camp and that they deplored the act the interview was protracted for some time when tendoy withdrew to the camp of the Indians who were determined to avenge the death of their Chief tendoy addressed them addressed his followers with an able speech after cond condoning with them of their loss they had sustained he called their attention and this is really the significant part he called their attention to what the war with the whites meant and what the results would inevitably be now as a as a followup to that the next year Buck Stinson and his ally Henry plumber who was sort of a guy that was both a Marshall and a bad guy were uh C taken prisoner by a group of Vigilantes and subsequently hung so the Indians found some relief in the fact the white whites had taken care of these guys Now understand this this whole territory was part of the idowa territory and to get any kind of law enforcement over here was from from Boise or from Leon actually where the capital was was virtually impossible and so the Vigilantes was really the only way they could go and the Vigilantes took care of of Mr Stimson well from 63 to 1875 tendoy builds the tribe from groups of sheep eaters Shoni and bancks the high point the tribe numbers about five 100 originally knowed as tendo band they decided that wasn’t politically correct that wasn’t wise to be tendo band and so they take the name of the river that they’re situated on and that was the limhi so they became known as the limh high band of shonis in 1866 gold was discovered and of course the the whites pour in tendoy understands that only by cooperating with whites could the tribe survive and in fact throughout their history this tribe has boasted that not one of them had ever shed the blood of a white man they had never shed the blood of a white man in September 24th of 1868 tendo signs a treaty with Virginia City which provided the tra of land for reservation here in the valley unfortunately the US government failed to ratify it in Fall of 1871 tendoy learns that a band of bancks from Fort Hall had attacked and had captured a Mule Train 47 animals and wounded a white man and I quote when tendoy learned of the incident he went in search of the Wounded white man and His companion and plac them under his protection then Gathering his Warriors about him he rode to the banic camp and demanded the return of the stolen horses and mules the bancks denounced the chief as a traitor and threatened to fight him tendoy thereupon called upon all the bancks who were friendly to the whites join him as a consequence a large group of under the subchief major Jim AB banic joined with the limh high and forcibly retook the stolen animals tendoy returned the stock and the white man to boisey where the governor of Idaho presented him with a flag and some supplies as a reward for his faithfulness to the cause of peace from this point on that there is attempt to move the tendo down to Fort Hall outside of Pocatello for variety reasons the government felt that uh it was too costly to to maintain the tribe off the reservation the panics were going through some internal problems of their own their death of their Chief targi had had created a bancy and the in the chief ship the son of targi was also targi but he was only about 16 or 17 and so he was not really suited to run the tribe and so the agents decided here’s a way to get tendoy down there to take over the tribe that would make everybody happy we’ll get him out of the limh High Valley tendoy refuses in 74 the Indian commission sent an agent to H her with with orders to move the tribe this brings into a play a prominent settler in this Valley a man by the name of uh George shup known as Colonel shup in the valley because of he he was one of the few people that had some military experience and Sh ran between Idaho and Montana a variety of trading Goods he was a very substantial citizen in this Valley and in fact was recognized Statewide as a a great man of great leadership shup eventually became appointed governor of the state of Idaho and then when Idaho became a state in 1890 shup was the first elected governor of the state of Idaho and then shortly after that he was appointed one of the senators of Idaho and so during this time of of of territorial status shu and tendoy become very very good friends when the government tries to move tendoy and the band down to Fort Hull shup intervenes and as a prominent salmon Valley resident he uh writes the territorial delegate a main man by the name of Jim Holly Jim Haley excuse me Haley Idaho is named after him and uh Haley’s a little surpris because most communities they didn’t want the Indians around most communities were more than happy to see the Indians go Haley gets a letter from shup saying leave tendoy alone we like him here in the valley he’s been very very significant to us we need to keep him here Haley writes back had I known the white settlers in the limh high were so anxious to have the Indians remain I could have had the appropriation different but knowing that the people of northern Idaho and the people of Southern Idaho were anxious to have the Indians in their part of the country placed on the reservation and kept there I took it for granted that the people of the limh High Valley would like to have had the IND moved from that from there to the Fort Hall reservation in this it seems from your letter that I had been mistaken you must certainly have a better set of endings in your country than we have in our country or we would have been anxious to be rid of them so Haley was a little surprised by this Valley’s reaction to the tribe and and and how what kind of friendships they had finally in in February of 1875 the limh high Indian Reservation was established here in this Valley uh by the presidential order of ulyses Grants and the significance of this was that the government spent about $50,000 a year keeping the the tribe going and and boosting the tribe which was significant in this Valley in terms of Economic Development because the tribe would spend the agents would spend the Indians would spend most of their money here in the valley well the real test between the tribe and the valley came first of all in in 1877 these are the Indian Wars 1877 18 78 and 79 there are three different Indian Wars that will really test the relationships here the first Indian war was the NZ Pierce many of you are familiar with Chief Joseph Joseph was up in the wall of a valley in Washington he had been in conflict with the whites in there the tribe had been given some land and the whites had moved in and and and some blood had been shed and so Chief Joseph and his sub Chiefs are the government tries to force them on a reservation they refused to go and for the next several months Chief Joseph leads his band of of NES Pierce essentially on a war party but but bringing the entire tribe across Idaho and in the fall actually in in June of 1877 this they they they begin their March they arrive or the beginning groups start coming into this Valley in August of 1877 the valley is very very concerned because even in in in tendo’s tribe there are a number of people that believe this should be where they make the stand they’ve been pushed around and abused by the white population and many of his tribal members are suggesting they help the NES Pierce and in fact a couple of the NES Pier sub Chiefs Looking Glass particularly comes to tendoy and asks for help wants them to help and and the people in the valley know that if this is a sizable force and that this Valley could be just ravished by by Indian Wars if if they’re not careful tendo’s reaction is to tell Looking Glass to take his people and to move through the valley they don’t want to any part of them and he will then assign about 40 of his Warriors to work with shup now who’s become Colonel shup in the local militia to try to defend us and and there are some pretty tense moments between the NES Pierce and some of the settlers here a quote from the local paper said during all this time of stress tendoy stood Faithfully by the whites he was busy with intertribal disputes and some of his own tribe members he was besought by the Waring tribe to join them it was a trying time for him but T tendoy held his forces intact he stood between the settlers and the Waring tribe and he counseled with Colonel Shu he was ready to help defend the settlers he was indeed a friend in need then he goes on to conclude with this statement I think he’s probably pretty accurate without his Allegiance and diplomacy the entire salmon in limh high valleys would have been laid waste and their H inhabitants put to the tomahawk so tendoy essentially saves the Valley from from a bloody bloody war the next year as you know that that Chief Joseph n Pier’s cross they go through the ellone country get up into Montana where a military force from uh the dtas come over and intercept them only they they were trying to get to Canada but only a few made it most of them were then captured and Chief Joseph makes his final statement I will fight no more forever and it becomes the title of a a book of that fact uh great Chieftain but uh just didn’t have the technology and had too many uh women and children and and invalids with him that to really make a the kind of fight out of that he normally would have the next year are the banic wars now this becomes even more critical because as you remember Chief uh tendoy has a number of bancks in his tribe the banic war breaks out when the white man encroached out on the cus Prairie the cus Prairie had been a major food source for a number of tribes in the area is they would go out and dig the cus rout and the tribe would would go out to this country and in four years now there it’s somewhat blamed on on government bureaucrats because when the cus when when the Treaty of Fort Bridger was signed um the cus Prairie was spelled k ansas and so they thought well that’s the Kansas Prairie and no one knew in Idaho the Kansas Prairie was and it’s because was spelled wrong but uh so the whites start moving out on this C Camas Prairie and when the tribe goes over there to gather food and they would do it at the same time of the year the bancks from Fort Hall with the shones and and the tribe from this Valley would go over to the Camas Prairie to gather chroots they found not only the whites that settled but they had pigs out there rooting around digging up these chroots and the bancks just went nuts they said this is this is outrageous you have just violated all the tenants of our treaty how can we trust you on anything and so War breaks out the bics uh start engaging in violence they they kill a number of people tendoy sees what’s happening moves his tribe out of the way cajoles threatens convinces his tribe to come with him and they move back to this country make it very clear that they’re not part of this battle and uh the violence between the banic and the white is is is very very stuff General Howard the one armed General from from the Civil War is the one that Chas chases down uh Joseph now gets engaged in this in this battle defeats the bancks and again puts them on her brings them back to the reservation uh badly subdued the third war was the Sheep eater War the following year again there’s not much involvement on tendoy in this part but he does have some sheepers in his tribe and again he keeps them out of the war he just spends all of his energy keeping these folks not engaged in in in battle and and and safe from from the Whits because he recognizes he has a small tribe four or 500 people they do not have any of the kinds of equipments that are available he sees the Power of the United States government and he recognizes that if you fight these people you’re going to lose you’re going to lose and so his goal was mainly survival of his tribe now the next series of events in in his experience is with the railroad Utah Northern Railroad starts coming out of out of uh actually the Brigham City area in in 1876 they start building the the railroad from Ogden to Brigham City up the Canyon from brigam City to Logan and then from Logan to Franklin Idaho Franklin becomes the first stop of the railroad in Idaho company’s about to go bankrupt so in 78 the company’s reorganized and B begins extending into Idaho now remember this is when the banic wars were fought this creates a great deal of fear not only among the owners of the railroad but also among the workers here to the rescue comes chief dantoy uh he camps in some of the areas he protects the railroad uh he protects workers and a quote uh quote from this time says many and many a Time Chief chandoo saved the Utah northern from being destroyed by other Indian tribes when his son wice tendoy dies there’s an obituary notice that states and I quote there never would have been the town of pogell except for the work of Chief dendo in helping the whites through that part of the country and aiding them while so many Indian tribes were hostile so the the whole Southern Idaho was was under tendo’s protection in fact ta tendoy camps one whole summer in Beaver Canya averting many attacks and always keeping the background although the workers who were building the line knew that there was some Force protecting them so the the success of the railroad is is granted to tendoy in 1880 he is invited to go to Washington the government wanted to close many of the smaller reservations they invited tendo to Washington to sign the treaty in May of 1880 he is he signs the treaty that seeds all of this land that the tribe had here in the valley uh to the government nine years later the government approves it but the catch to this was it did not take effect until a majority of adult males in the tribe agreed remember this signed in 1889 the adult Mills don’t agree to that till about 196 so for the next 15 years is the tribal still lay stay in this Valley while uh the government is trying to get them out because of his efforts Senator SH now goes to the government and proposes tendoy be given a pension he pushes legislation in 1892 that tendoy receive a pension from the government of $30 a month house always being cheaper than the Senate reduced it by 15 and pendo now has given a a pension of $15 a month well the last years of his life there’s a certain conf he gets in constant squabbles with the Indian agents they resent him he’s way too powerful for the Indian agents uh they don’t like the fact that they can order the tribe to do something and then tendoy can counterman it and the tribe’s going to follow tendoy for example the government wanted Chief dendo to send his kids to school uh he wouldn’t do it he didn’t like to do that uh he wanted the kids to go out and hunt and enjoy life as he had government will lock up the agents will lock Indians that are breaking the laws T will go release them from the jails one of the issues was the lack of response to Christianity in a conversation about Christ This is a quote from the uh one of the Indian agents of the time tendo says and I quote me no Savvy Christ white man Heap smart Indians no see their idea is a happy Hunting Ground where all Indians will go and their real God is their stomach however is less attention was given their body and more to their souls they would be better off so for tendo’s so-called lack of understanding was really really bright but the fact that they wouldn’t accept Christianity upsets the Indian agents they don’t like that they want these they sort of had the idea that the tribe should be sort of white people uh and and and ignore their own traditions and Trends the inan agent was unhappy because the tribe lacked interest in farming they say again a quote much depends on their Chief in whom they have implicit Fai faith and has to extend of farming on this reservation his influence is seldom used for the upbuilding of these people all efforts to of the agent are consequently greatly counteracted so he’s got a a contest here with the with the uh with the tribe it is clear to my mind that these Indians will never be a progressive people and that now this really bothers me but this was the mentality of the late 19th century it is clear to my mind that these Indians will never be a progressive people until their tribal religions and customs which are firmly held intact by the chief are broken so the idea is just is to destroy the tradition destroy the religion and and make again sort of whites out of them for as long as the Indians recognize his authority confi confide and rely on him and follow his leadership they will never exercise the individual thought and action necessary to become successful Farmers I mean that that is just absurd how ignorant these people were of of inan traditions then he goes on to conclude their success or fa failure then in a great measure risks on the supremacy of the agent or of the chief in other words who’s running the show if it’s the agent we can we can make these people into white folks if it’s the chief then he will he will continue to have them live with their own Traditions way they finally break the indan resistance in all of these issues is by withholding food when the Indi would go to the post for for supplies if if they were not behaving as the agent expected them to behave they wouldn’t get their food supplies they would be cut off and finally hunger forces the tribe to comply finally the government uh forces the tribe to move to Fort Hall in 19 the chief is is asked essentially directed by the government to convince his tribe to vote to remove themselves to Fort Hall in line with the treaty that tendo had signed tendo gives a very persuasive speech the the the community the male vote Community votes the REM removal eventually takes place in 1909 now the tribe felt they were misled they were lied to probably were deceived tendoy does not make the move but because I mentioned earlier he dies May 9th 197 ten tendoy and his son uh tup pompe black hair were riding in the Hills above the reservation with the white man Joseph Jeff well Jeff had brought along the sizable supply of liquor and the group gets very very drunk while returning tendoy falls off his horse into one of the streams the son is too drunk to recognize his father’s distress or his problem and and continues on down expecting his father to pull himself out the river get back on the horse and come down it doesn’t happen next morning they sent out a search party they found that tendoy had got out of the river but had died on the bank his death causes a great deal of sorrow in the limh High Valley in commenting upon his the life history of tendoy and this is a quote from the again in the newspaper in in com commenting upon the life history of tendoy we can Overlook his imperfections because his heart was right he had all the virtues of the Indian race but few of the vices of the white race if we were to compare his mode of life to that of the cultured white man he would be found wanting but as a member of an untutored race we must conclude to him a place among the heroes of the ages since the Advent of the whites in the salmon Valley he was always been their staunch friend even when it he was importuned by the members of his race to make war when his Services were required for the protecting of the settlers of the valley he was never found wanting tendoy had his faults but who hasn’t but he talked straight from any standpoint Teno tendoy was a grand old man with a strong personality and an indominable will his influence over his tribe was always for good now there’s a number of conclusions you draw from this gentlemen first of all I know of no other indan tribe in the nation and I not do not have an extensive knowledge all the tribes in the nation but I know of no other chief that had the longevity of this guy remember he takes over the tribe sometime around 1858 and he dies in 197 that’s nearly 50 years as a chief uh it just was very very unusual as I said his his record is somewhat in dispute to many of in the communities I mean in this community he was conceived as one of the really great guys uh a monument to him here in the valley town named after him he was really conceived as as one of the truly great among some of the Indians on the other hand among the Native Americans he is conceived by many as as an apple red on the outside but really A white guy that did everything he could to to keep his tribe alive so I think you have to ask the question by whose standard is he great in my opinion he was great because he he fought for the survival of his tribe he s fought for the survival of his way of life and for this Valley that he loves so dearly and I think that uh by any standard as time progresses he’s going to be one of the truly great tribe Chieftain again there’s not a lot written on tendoy but I think that this man’s life Warren’s great study because he is truly uh a man who intervened in opportunities that were awkward for him but uh the whole Community benefited from it as a result uh he was he was deeply loved when his when he passes his tribe is is devastated and again I don’t know if they ever did come up with a chief to follow this kind of lead because tendo was a hard act to follow well as a Carl Professor I am always geared to speak 50 minutes and so I’m rather than do that let me stop at this point and see if there’s some questions or some comments or please respond to this idea of greatness I I just think that tendoy has a has a merits they said in the in this local newspaper here he could comp with great people of all ages and I I strong believer in that if if you raise your hand I’ll come around with the microphone you can speak into that most accounts say that uh he died of blunt force trauma to the Head he was found that way uh I choose to believe that the whole uh story that you related of the drinking and falling off the horse that was all a pretense uh the man was actually murdered that’s what I absolutely believe and there is good evidence to to to substantiate that that is not I mean that is an an issue that many people subscribe that that we’re not sure exactly who was behind it whether it was his son that tried to do it or what the uh motive was but uh there’s ample evidence uh that uh would would suggest that that he was killed that way now the official report was he fell off the horse and that’s where you get the blunt force trauma I not sure I disagree with your lady at the back there how do you know if it was his son that was trying to kill him maybe it was the white guy that did it exactly it could be went and got him drunk uh thank you for pointing out my uh assumption that may have not the things that I’ve read was that the sun was the nearest to him that uh if if the sun the sun saw him go off the horse and had he wanted to he could have intervened at that point white guy went to jail Jeff was was arrested and and prison for a short time for providing alcohol for the Indians which was illegal at the time but again we don’t know which one was responsible I again I I misspoke when I said it’s assumed that the sun did that black ha other questions or observations please Jeff was just a look the question she asked was who was Jeffrey she’s a local Rancher here that apparently had a pretty good relationship with the tribe and uh because tendoy had no fear I mean remember he’s a very old man at this point he has no fear of of getting on the horse and riding up into the High Country with this guy so he was apparently a friend uh probably had done some business with him over the years and uh we don’t have any you know not a lot written on the guy does anyone besides me find it rather incredulous to say the least that this great country was founded on the principle of religious freedom and yet when they would not conform to the Christian religion food was withheld and they were abused and misused and everything possible for that reason isn’t that incredible it is it is embarrassing I mean you read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and it says you know you have your right of Freedom or religion but at that point we have a very narrow concept of what Freedom religion means and and to these people since it wasn’t Christian it probably wasn’t true religion and I find that just appalling that they would treat these people that way that yeah it’s just it’s disgusting and and I think we but I think if you look at the whole history of our dealing with the Native Americans it’s it’s embarrassing we we talk about honor and nobility and and yet we did not treat these people with the kind of respect that we would any other people thank you yeah exactly right yes I enjoyed your presentation very much but in studying the Lewis and Clark Trail and everything else uh don’t you find it it’s rather disappointing that our government still subscribes to the same policies that the Indian agents did back then and that as a country still haven’t learned to live from our mistakes the past as a historian I find that very troubling that that we’ve had 200 years or more of of of poor policy dealing with these folks and we still I mean you look if you want as a former political type if you want to see an agency that’s Rife with corruption it’s the Bureau of Indian Affairs I mean they have got probably the longest history of of I shouldn’t get too harsh because I I find it really sad because no one really watches them and most of the community says well it’s just in it it’s no big deal and I find that just appalling that that somehow this group of people are are set aside and not given the kind of attention respect they deserve our federal government is still doing that today absolutely government is still doing that today you’re right you’re right other questions anybody else well listen let me let me conclude with with comment you don’t have to spend much time in this Valley to understand why tendo want to stay this has got to be one of the most pristine beautiful places on Earth uh and I can understand why some of the folks in this Valley resisted this Saia Center because in many ways Idaho is one of the best kept secrets in the nation that uh as long as people don’t know you’re not going to have a lot of these crazy Outsiders come in here and create problems but folks this is a secret that’s going to get out it’s going to get out you got to make sure that it’s get out to the right way and and so I just I’m just so pleased with what’s taking place here and the and the beauty of the area and and this saage Center and to think that 200 years ago that Lewis and Clark expedition came across here and ran into this band of of shonis and were brokenhearted because they looked to the west and thought they would see the down slope into the Pacific they saw about 10 more ranges of mountains and thought God we’re not going to make it this is this is deadly but what a great Expedition what a great event and and to the park service thank you for doing this great service for the Valley and to the people of salmon and Lim High County thank you for helping Host this because the community is really better off and to to get this secret out thank you stay pretty close to time okay ladies and gentlemen that was um Richard Stallings on Chief tendoy the unsung hero coming up next at 1:00 we have beaten Trail remnants of historic tread along the trail by Steve Wright of the Bureau of Land Management and in the meantime if you’d like to go see our kbo or go see our exhibit tent uh feel free to do that and um come back for the 1:00 show so thank you very much

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Tent of Many Voices: 05150404T

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 00:35:49 +0000

welcome everyone to the core of Discovery 2 and the tent of many voices for those of you who are not familiar with our project core of Discovery 2 is a traveling exhibit We are following the same time frame and path as Len clart did 200 years ago we will be visiting communities along the Lou and cl tra within our exhibit we have many things to offer over here is our exhibit 10 where you can take a 35 minute audio tour we have our kbo and in the far grass area we pay tribute to the Native American nations that Louis and C encountered along their Journey with our TV and and table set up also today another bonus is that we have the international tribal gam Society with us that’s people from various Nations T teaching about uh different traditional Native American games so that’s a good time over there as well just a few things to remind people of there’s no videotaping allowed in the tent of many voices so please put vide tapes away photography is okay today we have a special presentation and I’m honored to announce uh Amy Mosen he was a man manaza um member of the three affiliated tribes of North North Dakota she’s a national scholar interpretor and consultant on the life and legends of saga she’s been invited to the nation’s capital on four occasions to honor and celebrate cago in 2001 Amy accepted the mer military citation from President Bill Clinton which conferred the status of the honorary Sergeant on Chicago in 2002 Amy was presented with the National Guard bureau’s Indian award for her work with national Leon park by sentennial in 2003 she was requested at uh Monell’s Foundation she paid tribute to Sago waya at the commencement of the national leis and park B Centennial commission at the home of President Thomas Jefferson in Virginia Amy has been interviewed for numerous local National and international television and radio programs as well as her National publications related to her works with L and Clark Chicago waya and the Manda and Hada cultures she was featured as a host of North Dakota’s Prairie Public excuse me Lewis and Clark Pathways she was the principal Native American adviser for the National Geographics leis and Clark IMX film Journey great journey West and she was one of the only three nationally recognized Scholars interviewed by the National Geographic magazine for her feature story on Chicago Amy is a graduate of Minot State University and the University of North Dakota she lives um on the little Missouri river in North Dakota Badlands and resides with her family in twin bees and New Town North Dakota let’s welcome thank you it’s so good to be here with you all this afternoon and I would particularly like to welcome all of the people descended from the tribes that Mary will leis and William Clark encountered on their journey through all of our homelands especially the Kiku and the Shi and the people who were dominant in this area when Lis and Clark Trav this part of the world my name is the queen of the that is what Mya family calls me we are descended from a The Village on the south of the KN River and what is now the state of North Dakota we live about 1 hour north of the bmar or of the capital in bmar North Dakota today we lived in three Earth LOD Villages when Mary and William Clark provided in our homelands in October of 1804 we had neighbors down the river the Mandan and the Mandan lived on each side of the Missouri River one m on the west side one on the east side and Mary with Lewis and William Clark in the Northwest core of Discovery buil their winter quarters about halfway between those two mandam Villages I have relatives in that mandam both of those Mand Villages and my M relatives called me the o to the mar Lewis and William Clark embarked from here knowing that they were going to spend the winter with the man in North Dakota of course there was on North Dakota at the time but Mary and William Clark ascended up this River in the fall knowing that they were going to come to this place called North Dakota and knowing that they were going to spend the most severe months of the year in what is now North Dakota they would be there from October of 1804 until April of 1805 and you might find it very diff diffult to believe but Maryweather leis M Clark came to that part of the country at that time of the year on purpose it wasn’t an accident and I often wonder why now people probably wonder why would L come to that part of the world well we in Thea Village always said we think they came to that part of the country because of those menam women I think some people were laughing that that wasn’t intended to be funny but the man women were agriculturalists you know you hear so much about Thomas Jefferson’s Vision to this place called the Louisiana Territory he wanted Mary Lewis and William Clark to venture out into this land that had been purchased by the United States he wanted them to settle this land or to open it up for settlement he wanted this land to be F and his ultimate goal was that this part of the world would be the center of international trade but when you look back at the Mandan women they had been farming the land for hundreds of years hundreds of years before Mary with Lewis William Clark or Thomas Jefferson were even born the tribes on the Northern CLS were already engaged in international trade they were trading with the British from Canada they were trading with the French from Canada they were training with the French that were traveling up and down the Missouri River and they were engaged in trade with other nations the Lota the ARA the Ain the crow the tribes from what is now T and when Mary with leis arrived in our Villages our our our our Earth Liv villages we lived in permanent homes we lived in permanent log homes they were and when Maryweather and William Clark arrived in our Villages they would find islands that had been traded into our Villages some things directly other things indirectly but items that have originated from as far south as the of Mexico from as far east as the Great Lakes from as far north as what is now Northern Canada and from as far West as the Pacific Northwest this dentalium shell cave did not originate on Northern PLS it came from the northwest coast and when Mary with Lewis and William Park arrived in our Villages it was items like this that they would find but it wasn’t the material things and it wasn’t all of the Agricultural things that Mary withis and William Clark intended to obtain and acquired from us when they came to our Villages it was the information that was coming into our Villages from the West information about the people information about the land the rivers The Falls the animals in particular when they thought about the people they learned about all the people that LE and Clark would Lewis and Clark learned about all the people that they would encounter when they left our Villages the man down villages and Trav to the west of things that Mary W Lewis and William Clark probably found rather surprising is that the population of the m and villages in those five Villages combined exceeded the population of St Louis the population of our combined manad Anda Villages 200 years ago exceeded the population of Washington City the the population of our Villages was about the same as the number of people that gathered on January 18th 2003 on the lawn of Thomas Jefferson’s home out there in Montello on that cold Saturday morning and watch the kickoff of the 200 anniversary of the ls Park Expedition 4,500 people we have the largest agricultural Community anywhere on the west side of the Mississippi River we were already living what people today call Jefferson dreaming but I I didn’t really want to talk so much about me and my Village I want to talk about a woman who lived in our village a woman who today is the most celebrated woman in all of American History she came to our village when she was about 12 years old and and by the time Maryweather Lewis and William Clark arrived in our Villages this young woman s was already married to one of the French F traders who had become a permanent inhabitant of our village you probably don’t see this a lot in the journals but Mary with Lewis and William Clark probably don’t give enough credit to all of those French men that were living along the Missouri River with native tribes trading with them for many many years before par ever came up the river when they were in South Dakota and Southern South Dakota there were French men living among the Su and through them Lis and Clark were able to communicate when they traveled to the northern part of the river there were Frenchmen living among the Lakota there Lis and Clark to those French men were able to communicate with the tribes when they arrived in the mang Villages they found Gren Stone a French man who for many years had been married to M woman he would become their Mand interpreter and help Mary with Lewis communicate with the Manan leaders black cat on the east side of the river and white KY on the west side of the river between October and April and as they traveled up the villages they would meet to Shar another French man who had come down from Canada who was now living in our villages married to two young Shon women now what were sh women doing in our village they were capes 200 years ago that’s what we did we went to war and one of the things that we did was take captives but our captives were not made into slaves our captives were absorbed by our tribes because you see by 200 years ago the population of our people was already declining to the point that we were all related and to bring people in from other tribes to marry to our tribes because you can’t marry your relatives the younger Sant sho’s wife sagia was expecting her first child and this little boy was born on February 11th in 1805 about 5:00 in the afternoon they were now living at for and but you know this little boy was not given his mother had grown into Womanhood in this Village she had been adopted into a clan she had been given a name but this little boy was not given a name his mother was a Shon woman but this little boy was not given a Shon name this little boy was named after his French Canadian grandfather who was still living in Montreal Canada and he was called John bapti Sho and when this little boy was 55 days old he joined his mother a young Indian woman in her late teens and he joined his father a French Canadian fur Trader in his late 30s they joined Mary with Lewis and William Clark in their early 30s and they embarked on one of the most incredible Journeys ever undertaken by any American that time a journey that would forever change the landscape of this entire nation and why would they take this young woman Mary M Lewis and William Clark were so meticulous and seeking out only the right men for this Expedition they wanted men who were strong and Hardy and not afraid that they might not return anytime from this journey they wanted men who were single who did not have wives or children that they would be afraid to leave at home they did not want the sons of gentlemen that were not accustomed to difficult work so why on Earth would they take a teenage woman who had just given birth to a baby boy s was taken on this Expedition not as a guide but how many times have we seen her poting the West in every image that you see sagia is pointing West or leading the W SOA was taken on this Expedition and her purpose was to serve as an interpreter because while Mary with the ls and William Clark were in our village they learned from the hza the hza who traveled regularly to the West as far as the Continental Divide to fight against our enemies because 200 years ago that is what we did and our enemy at the time was tribe living out far to the south and west of what is now Montana the black people were also our enemy The Crow were our allies so was taken to serve as an interpreter because while Mary and William clker were at our Villages you know that they they learned that they would be Crossing these very treacherous mountains and if they did not have horses there is no way that they were going to get across those mountains before winter they needed to get horses from the Shon and they learned from the Manan Warriors who regularly travel to the West that the Shon had some of the finest forces of any tribe anywhere out there on the PLS and they were told if you’re able to obtain those horses that is the only way you will get yourself your men and all of your supplies over those mountains and that was the reason s went on this journey was to serve As an interpreter and this is incredible they left Fort M on April 7th of 1805 they traveled all across the entire state of Montana how many of you have been to Montana how many of you know how long it takes to get across Montana and that’s driving on the interstate with radial tires think about their Journey it took them from April of 1805 until August months to get across Montana but that’s not the interesting part of this what’s very interesting is that during that entire journey across all of those all of that land they did not encounter one single Indian don’t you ever wonder why it was probably because this young woman was traveling with them and by having cigara and this young child traving freely among them it was very obvious that this was not a war party this didn’t appear to be a military Expedition they were traveling through Indian country and it wasn’t until August that Mary little and William Clark finally arrived in Shon country and sag was brought in to interpret in the Shon language to assist Mary with Lewis and William Clark in obtaining those horses and why they her they needed her because to not Char yes he was an interpreter but he only spoke the souen languages he didn’t know anything about the languages that you would encounter once you got halfway across Montana all the languages all the way up the River from here North all the way into Mandan cow a c country are all Su when you get beyond the mountains the languages differ they’re as different as Chinese and Russian to not sharpen all would no longer be serving As an interpreter they needed surviv and how did they communicate when they sat down and they talked to that young leader Cy wa sh leader they spoke first from Mary Lewis in English to leish and he would ask him to ask this young leader if we are able to obtain horses from him and leish a French man would speak then in French to T Sho who did not speak read or write English and then in Kaza tant Charo who understood how to speak SE languages he would speak in hiza to Saga who had been living for 5 years among the hi she spoke and understood our language and he would tell his young wife you need to ask this young man your brother for was he was speaking in a suen language and then in turn to turn to her brother and they would speak in and as Tekken language completely different not a single word was the same as ours and she would ask him if they were able to acire horses and so this long chain of communication would go back and forth from sh and language back TOA a suan language back to French and then to English and they would pull back and forth how many horses do they need and then the message would go back the other way and then they would ask well what are they willing to trade for these horses we would like to have guns and then the message would go back and forth we were not giving any guns to any of the tribes at this time and the message went back and forth and they were with the Shon for 2 weeks and by the end of October or by the end of August they got their horses and before they left that in August Mary Lewis was so pleased with the assistance of s that he gave a red coat to just not sharo and he asked him to trade it for a horse to make certain that his young wife and child had a good horse that would take her and a few meager GS over those mountains and yes it’s true s left she continued on that Journey to the West Coast and they back in what is now North Dakota in August of 1806 during this time many things happened William CL became very very fond of sagia and this little boy because the sharo family traveled very closely with William Clark in that white hero William Clark saw this little boy John Baptist Charo grow up from the day he was born until he was 19 months old and it wasn’t just williiam Clark think about hardship and people say things like this woman imagine her courage and her determination because she went on this long extraordinary Journey thousands of miles she was Ill to the point that she almost died and all that time she was caring for this young child John Baptist who by now William Clark was Finly referring to as pompe my little dancing boy when he grew very fond of this little boy and on August 17th in 1806 when it came time to say goodbye to the Charo family William CLK wanted very much for his little boy to come back with him to St Louis he offered to not sharpen all many things he said he would give him a place to live he would give him land he said he wanted to take the young boy back to St Louis and educate him and raised him as his own son but this little boy was only 19 months old and sag and her husband decided that he was too young and they said when he’s older we will bring him to St Louis and we would be honored and pleased to have you educate him and by then you can imagine what they thought of William CLK he was a true leader and in this Expedition he he proved to be a true leader he watched out for sag many many times and then William Clark left and he embarked on the J and just as they were heading into what is now South Dakota William Clark wrote a letter back to cassant Charo to this man who did not read her right and in the letter a very long letter you can still read it today on August 20th 1806 William Clark must have realized the silence in that boat this little boy was no longer toling around or hanging over the side of the boat or wandering off into the trees probably chasing after that big black dog this little boy was not there and the Silence of the little boy’s absence must have been almost and he wrote a letter back up the river and he said to tant Charo to bring your son to St Louis and bring your wife with you so she can care for him until you arrive and when you arrive in St Louis I will provide you with land I will provide you with a home I will provide you with livestock if you want to serve as an interpreter I can if you wish to travel back to Montreal to visit your relatives I will care for your family until you return and he sent that letter up the river with one of the traders that were traveling up the Missouri to our Villages and I don’t know God be ever read that letter I I know she didn’t read it she did not read her right but I don’t know if anyone ever read that to her but I know that somehow she did get that message because s and her husband Cho and that little boy did make their way down the river in October of 1809 and in December of 1809 their son John Baptist chardo now 4 and2 years old was baptized near the Mississippi River by a j priest at a place called the old Cathedral his baptismal record is currently on exhibit Theiss and his Godfather was none other than August shelto the founder of St Louis and he would begin his education then under William Clark or under the guidance of William Clark and by the time he was a young man he was speaking six different languages he would serve as a scout and a guide and an interpreter up and down the Missouri River he would be a scout to General Steven Cary in the Mexican Wars he would travel to Europe and 6 years at M M time a castle 6 years as a guest in the Royal household he would travel West during the Gold Rush he would traveled North into Oregon and in 1866 at the age of 61 as he was traveling back out onto the plains he came down with pneumonia he died and he was buried at station in the Jordan Valley near present oreg his rededicated just a couple of years ago and his mother there’s so little that we know about her with absolute certainty but there are many things that we do know about her we do know that s has become the most celebrated woman in all of American history and when you travel across this country not only on the L Park Trail but throughout many many places you find more rivers and land mountaintops pars streams songs poems women’s organizations girls organiz girl scout organizations schools websites license plates statues named and in memory of This Woman’s honor Her Image is on the golden dollar coin this woman was a teenager she was Indian woman there are many tribes today who claim s there are many tribes today who claim descendancy to her the Shi the hza the Kami there are oral histories about this woman among the Lakota the N Pur the crow the M the black beast I am not a descendant of but I am a descendant of the village that she left in the fall 1804 and returned to in the summer of 1806 my relatives my relatives spoke witha my relatives walked to the garden with sagia they were there when John bti was born and my relatives have many stories about sagia they all end with this s was a young girl when she came to our village but she was a young woman when she left and in the spring when the ice broke up on the Missouri River we knew that she would be leaving we knew where she was going she was going back to her Homeland she was going back to her birth child which is showing our enemies and we never knew if we would ever see her again but we do know that when she left our Villages that spring she took something with her that we had given her it was something sacred it was something very very powerful it was her very own something that she would carry with her not only to the end of her life but into eternity would become part of her immortality it was her name we are the from the night Villages and we call her her thank you very much um the K the K tribe are going to come up and we’re going to do we’re going to open the up for questions and answers right now but before we do that or before I start taking questions I want to invite you tomorrow to a panel at 12:00 I’m going to moderate a panel at noon tomorrow if you’re able to be here that would be wonderful we have three of the most U knowledgeable um probably recognized National sism part Scholars from Indian Country speaking tomorrow and uh we have Roberta Conor who is from the illa um she’s from the confederated tribes of the Umatilla she’s with works with me on the National Council of listic Cl by sentennial and the circle of tribal advisers we will have um Alan P from the ners tribe the NES we I I shortened my program today because I I have some friends here that I met that I want to include in part of this program um I thought it would be more appropriate to do that elen P from the nesp tribe will tell you interesting things because the nesp tribes are the only tribe that welcome Le and Clark into their Village three times not just two like some of us but three times and we also have a very um very dis distinguished guest I think and I’m very honored and I’d like to introduce him and I want him to stand up he is the only true descendant of Cameo and chief tendo he is the only descendant of Shaga that we have here this our today and I would like my friend BR AR from the L High sh in the back of the please stand up right and and be recognized thank you for being here so please come back tomorrow and hear what we have to say um singers I have a chair um we’re going to introduce you here in just a bit let’s have a couple of questions here anyone lots of questions about have so be presentations weekend you know where she died or where she is buried I think most most Scholars and most historians and I believe most of the sh and most of us with the tribe anakota and South Dakota believe that she died in 1812 after giving birth to a little girl in the fall probably around August and 3 months later having developed the fever and complications following child birth she died at fortanel on the west side of Missi river near the borders of nor sou did children John bti was in Germany for six years and he it’s beli that he had a child in Germany um that died in infancy we don’t know about any descendants I don’t know any end that John Baptist had here in back in this country I don’t know a wife he had um Rod might have a different story tomorrow but I don’t I’m not aware of any descendants from John Baptist or theep who was any other questions one more at the beginning you were talking about your an you um part of our much of our is written down um I guess I guess it’s kind of fortunate that the m and were permanent and I think with our tries having been permanent for so long in one place it it wasn’t as difficult to trace all of our heritage back but I think if you as Native American person here today to tell you who all their ancestors are from that many many many generations they can tell you who they are my mother’s name is white juneberries her name is Sal young bear M her father’s name was Frank young bear Frank young Bear’s father’s name was young beara um his mother’s name was um or his father name was long arm and long arm’s mother was yellow um what was it it was yellow woman yellow woman was her name and yellow woman lived in to get out of the village I also I mean we can retrace our ancestry back to um our relatives who survived the 1837 small and I think that there were journals kept there were journals from 1738 on and those were the first time our history was being recorded in writing and much of those the 178 journals of course were all written in fren by lover who was in our homeland and in many other places so since that time our history has been recorded so we can find much information already recorded and recovered and also through oral history so it’s a combination of both what I want to do now we encountered many many cultures and you are going to encounter many many Native American cultures as you travel along the par trail and I think about how sag was young she was a teenager and it must have been an extraordinary experience for her to to meet and experience so many different cultures and I think for so many of us who have been working with L by sentenal for this long one of the greatest rewards is is to me only the Planters in the SCH par by Centennial but to meet the Native American descendants of all those people that leis and Fark encountered when they travel into throughout our homelands that has been the greatest joy for me the people that are here the Homeland tribes here in Illinois are the shauni and we just met the shauni nation last July great picture my friend from the Shi nation has done an incredible job working with Tom Wonder and Dale Chapman bringing the shie back you throughout the rest of this Vice sentennial you will see so many tribes coming back to their homelands and this morning we were in St Charles for that event and the flag song was was sung by the whistling wi singers of the kikoo tribe of Kansas who were removed after the L Park Expedition and it’s such an honor for me to meet the people from The Kiko tribe and they I’m I’m getting the rest of my time to the k because this is their Homeland this is not my homeland and I would like John Thomas um a leer of the kiko tribal Business Council is going to introduce the drum group and I want to tell you again that I am so pleased to see all of you here it’s an honor to meet you and it’s an honor to be able to meet so many new friends and learn about your culture too thank you so much good

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