Thomas Jefferson Archives - Lewis & Clark Research Database

Pierre Chouteau to Thomas Jefferson, November 19, 1804

admin — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 18:47:43 +0000

English Translation

Sir, Captain Lewis on his visit engaged the chief of the [Iowa, Baxoje] tribe to come here, more chiefs of this tribe came a few days ago and after the promise that Captain Lewis made them, so that the Sioux tribe would go see you in the federal Cite, these chiefs demanded that I guide them. I observed them as they need your orders before everything and I promised to ask you. I satisfied with this promise in this way that the counsel I gave them and the expectations that they have conceived that they are worthy of your benevolence. The [Sauk, oθaakiiwaki] have also asked that two or three of their chiefs be on the same voyage: If you judge this necessary, Sir, I will execute your orders with precision and I think that they will result in the best effects of such a voyage. These Chiefs of tribes, who are all considerable, pass down to their descendants immense strengths that have been seen in the United States and beyond evidence of this physical superiority that will be very be very easy to maintain in dependence and subordination. They return home like the [Osages, Wazhazhe] persuaded that their genuine interest is to always maintain their peace with the United States. The [Odawa, Adaawe] asked me to remind you, Sir, the promise that you made them to build a mill in the home of the [Osages, Wazhazhe], and they asked me to write to you, I am informed of the price that this structure could cost, an opening committed to being delivered entirely finished for the sum of $1200. I believe that it is not possible to obtain a lesser price seeing the remoteness of the location and the difficulty of transporting the necessary materials for this structure. In my last I had the honor to write you that my brother is going to the Federal city as the representative of the inhabitants of this district, but a bit of Gout forced him to renounce his journey. Enclosed is an overview of the savage population of this district. I have the honor to be, with profound respect Sir, Your very humble and very obedient servant. Pierre Chouteau Enclosure

Original French Text

St. Louis le 19 nobr. 1804 Monsieur Le Capitaine Lewis a son passage avoit engagé les chef de la Tribus Ayoua a venir ici, plusieurs chefs de cette Tribus y sont venus il y a peu de Jours et d’Après la promesse que le Capne Lewis leur avoit fait, ainsi qu’a la Tribus Sioux d’aller vous voir a federal Cité, ces chefs m’ont demandés a ce que Je les y Conduisent. Je leurs ai observé qu’il faloit vos ordres avant tout et Je leurs ay promis de vous les demander, Je les ai renvoyé satisfait de cette promesse ainsi que des Conseils que Je leurs ai donné & des esperances qu’ils doivent Concevoir sils se rendoient digne de votre bienveillance; les sakias ont egalement demandés a ce que deux ou Trois de leurs chefs soyent du même voyage: Si vous Jugez la chose necessaire, Monsieur, J’executerai vos ordres avec exactitude et Je pense qu’il resulteroit les meilleurs effets d un pareils Voyage, Ces chefs de tribus, qui Toutes sont Considerables, Transmetteroient a leurs descendants les forces immense qui auroient vu dans les Etats Unis et d après l evidence de cete Superiotée phisique il seroit bien plus facile après de les maintenir dans la dependance et dans la subordination, ils retourneroient chez eux Comme les Ozages bien Persuadés que leur veritable interêt est de se maintenir Toujours en paix avec les Etats Unis. Les cheveux, ma prié vous rappeller Monsieur la promesse que vous lui avez fait de faire faire un moulin chez les Ozages, il ma bien prié de vous l’ecrire. Je me suis informé du Prix que pourroit coûter cette batisse, un ouvrier s’engageroit a le livrer entierement fini pour La somme de 1200$. Je crois qu’il ne seroit Pas Possible dobtenir un moindre prix vu l’eloignement des lieux et les difficultés du transports des choses nécessaire pour cette batisse. Dans ma precedente J’avais l’honneur de vous marquer que mon frere se rendoit a federal Cité comme Representant des habitants de ce District, mais un accez de Goutte la forcé de renoncer a ce voyage; Cy Joint un apperçu de la population sauvage de ce District. J’ay l’honneur dêtre avec un profond respect Monsieur, Votre très heumble et trés obeissant serviteur Pre. Chouteau

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Pierre Chouteau to Thomas Jefferson, July 20, 1805

admin — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 18:47:42 +0000

English Translation

Sir, Captain Lewis has sent by his barge returning from high on the Missouri, some magpies, a pheasant, and a prairie dog with two trunks that followed their instructions that they must be sent to you. I sent them down to New Orleans and addressed them to Governor Clayborn. I believe that this journey is the best sure that the animals will arrive sage and sound in the Federal city. Captain Lewis sent 45 savages from nations from the high Missouri to be sent to the seat of the government but the warm season is too unfavorable for traveling for the savages accustomed to cold countries, as they expressed in the talks that I held with them, Governor Harrison and I have judged it more prudent and absolutely necessary to put back the journey to autumn and to gather at the same time the [Sauk, oθaakiiwaki] and Fox [Meskwaki, Meshkwahkihaki] already requested by the government. As a consequence, several of these savages have returned to their nations and I will make a party of Sioux leave who are presently here because the closest village of their nation is established on the Mocus river where they will return at the end of next September to assemble with different chiefs of other nations and with [Sauk, oθaakiiwaki] and Fox [Meskwaki, Meshkwahkihaki] already requested by the government that I am ready to bring to the Federal city. I have the honor to be with the greatest respect Sir your very humble and very obedient servant. Pierre Chouteau

Original French Text

St. Louis [on or before 20 July] Monsieur Mr Le Capn Lewis ayant envoyé par sa barge revenue dernierement du haut Missoury, des Pies, un faisan, et un chien de prairye avec deux Malles qui suivant ses instructions doivent vous etre envoyés, Je les ai fait descendre à la Nouvelle Orleans et les ai addressé à Mr Le gouverneur Clayborn, J’ai cru que cette Voye etoit La plus sure pour que ces animaux arrivent sain et sauf à Federal city. Mr Le capn Lewis a envoyé quarante-cinq Sauvages des nations du haut du Missoury pour etre envoyé au siege du gouvernement mais la saison des chaleurs etant trop defavorable pour faire voyager des sauvages accoutumés aux païs froids, comme eux mêmes l’ont exprimé dans les conseils que j’ai tenu avec eux, Mr Le gouverneur harrison et moi avons jugé plus à propos et même de necessité absolue de remettre ce voyage à L’automne et de reunir en même tems Les sackias et Renards deja demandés par le gouvernement. En consequence plusieurs de ces Sauvages sont retournés dans leurs nations et je vais faire partir un parti de sioux actuellement ici pour le plus proche village de leur nation etabli sur La rivière des Mocus d’ou ils reviendront à la fin de Septembre prochain pour se reunir aux differens chefs des autres Nations et aux sakias et Renards deja demandés par le gouvernement que je serai pret a conduire a Federal city. J’ai L’honneur d’etre avec Le plus profond respect Monsieur Votre trés humble et très obeissant serviteur Pre. Chouteau

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Pierre Chouteau to Thomas Jefferson, December 1, 1805

admin — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 18:47:42 +0000

English Translation

Sir, The [Osage, Wazhazhe] chiefs who arrives last in St. Louis gave me indirect news of Captain Lewis. At the time that they departed their nation they saw two Indians of the [Otoe, Jiwére] nation who were going to St. Louis and were afraid of continuing their route by the unfortunate blow that was struck on the [Osages, Wazhazhe]. These [Otoes, Jiwére] reported that they had accompanied Captain Lewis to just a short distance from the sea to the South when they arrived at an establishment of whites where Captain Lewis procured some horses that they needed to continue their route. I desire and I hope good news is confirmed by next spring. Governor Wilkinson has no doubt informed you that I returned to him a commission of captain that was sent to me by a Panismahas chief to whom it was granted by the Governor of New Mexico. This step and several others of which we were only informed by hearsay are the plans by which the Spanish government seeks to become close with the Nations of Missouri. Be convinced, Sir, that I will do I in my power to entice the Indian Nations and attach them to the American government in all the respects. The United States can only withdraw the largest advantages from an intimate liaison and frequent communication with the Missouri and Mississippi Nations. Believe, sit, the I am doing all that is in my power to respond to the confidence that it pleased you to honor me with. I have the honor to be with the most profound respect Sir Your very humble and very obedient servant. Pierre Chouteau

Original French Text

St Louis Le 1er Decembre 1805. Monsieur Les chefs osages qui sont arrivés dernierement a St Louis m’ont donné des Nouvelles indirectes de Mr. Le Capn Lewis au moment de leur depart de leur nation ils ont vu deux Indiens de la Nation otto qui venoient a St Louis et qui ont craint de Continuer Leur route par le coup malheureux qui venoit d’être frappé sur les osages, ces ottos rapportent qu’ils ont accompagné le Capitaine Lewis jusqu’a peu de distance de la mer du Sud qu’ils sont arrivés a un etablissement de blancs où le Capn Lewis s’est procuré des chevaux dont il avoit besoin pour continuer sa route, Je desire et j’espere que ces heureuses nouvelles seront Confirmées au printems prochain. Monsr. le Gouverneur Wilkinson vous a sans doute informé que je lui ai remis une commission de capitaine qui m’a été envoyée par un chef Panis auquel elle avoit été accordée par le Gouverneur du Nouveau Mexique, Cette demarche et plusieurs autres dont nous ne sommes informés que par oui dires sont des preuves que le Gouvernement Espagnol cherche a se lier intimement avec les Nations du Missoury, soyez persuadé Monsieur, que je ferai tout ce qui sera en mon pouvoir pour attirer les Nations indiennes et les attacher au gouvernement americain sous tous les rapports Les Etats Onis ne peuvent que retirer les plus grands avantages d’une Liaison intime et d’une Communication frequente avec les Nations du Missoury et du Mississipy, Croyez, Monsieur, que je ferai toujours tout ce qui sera en mon pouvoir pour repondre a la confiance dont il Vous a plu de m’honorer. J’ai l’honneur d’etre avec le plus profond respect Monsieur Votre très humble et tres obeissant serviteur. Pre. Chouteau

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Auguste Chouteau to Thomas Jefferson, November 20, 1804

admin — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 18:47:42 +0000

English Translation

Sir, Captain Lewis, during the stay he had here before departing for Missouri, charged me with sending you some notes relating to the savage nations, and the trade that they do in Louisiana and to whom this district is sensitive. As I occupied myself with this important work, I was named by the people of the district of Louisiana to present their petition to congress; a mission I accepted with joy, hoping they It would offer me the occasion to make your acquaintance and assure you of my devotion. So, I have suspended my work, preferring to respond in person to the questions that Mr. Lewis left me via writing. However, after five days of travel, I was stopped by the sweat and forced to return to my home. I cannot express to you, sir, the extent of my sorrow at this setback, which prevented me from responding to the trust of my principals and at the same time satisfy the desires of Captain Lewis; but to remedy this as soon as possible, I sent to Mr. J. Wm. Eppes, following the advice of Mr. Harrison our governor, the petition of our inhabitants begging him to wish to be the advocate of our cause and to help with his council Mr. Eligius Fromentin who is like me a representative of the people of the District of Louisianna: I shall pick up my work again with ardor, to send it to you as promptly as possible; but as it will demand much thought and time, I believed it necessary, at this time, to send you some notes, which may interest you, although they do not entirely respond to Captain Lewis’ questions. As for news that is certain, I learned that Captain Lewis arrived without any accident 850 miles from the mouth of the Missouri around the 19th of August, as the savages received him perfectly well; and I presume that he will pass the winter season with the Mandanes, about 1300 miles from here. If I have the pleasure to see you, my intention will be to recommend to you the inhabitants of Louisianna as submitted and loyal citizens but who need encouragement and for you to inspire for them the state that they deserve. I dare to flatter myself that you will not find what I have done here by writing wrong. I intend to do so if I have the honor to see you. My supporters and I, Sir, we are infinitely jealous to earn your esteem, and have decided to do everything to earn it. If I can be happy enough to be useful to you in anything whatsoever, I beg you to state it without reserve, to the one who has the honor to be with the sentiments of most profound respect Sir. Your Very humble & very obedient servant, Auguste Chouteau

Original French Text

St. Louis Le 20. Novembre 1804 Monsieur Monsr. le capitaine Lewis dans le séjour qu’il a fait ici avant son depart pour le Missoury, m’avoit chargé de vous envoyer des notes relatives aux nations sauvages, et au commerce qui se fait dans la Louisiane, et dont ce district est susceptible; Comme Je m’occupois de ce travail conséquent, J’ai été nommé par les habitans du District de la Louisiane, pour présenter au Congres leur petition; Mission que j’ai accepté avec joie, espérant qu’elle me fourniroit l’occasion de faire votre connoissance, et de vous assurer de mon entier dévouement. J’ai alors suspendu mon travail, préferant répondre de vive voix, aux questions que Mr Lewis m’a laissées par écrit. Mais après cinq jours de route, J’ai été arreté par la goutte, et forcé de revenir chez moi. Je ne puis vous exprimer, Monsieur, combien Je suis peiné de ce contretems, qui m’empêche de répondre à la confiance de mes cometans et en même temps de satisfaire aux desirs du Cape. Lewis; mais pour y remedier autant que possible, J’envoye à Mr. J. Wm. Eppes d’après le conseil de Mr Harrison notre gouverneur, la petition de nos habitans, en le priant de vouloir bien être l’avocat de notre cause, et d’aider de ses conseils Mr Eligius Fromentin, qui est comme moi réprésentans des habitans du District de la Louisiane: Je vais reprendre avec ardeur, mon travail, pour vous l’envoyer le plus promptement possible; mais comme il exige beaucoup de reflexions et de temps, Je crois devoir par cette occasion, vous envoyer quelques notes, qui pourront vous intéresser, quoiqu’elles ne repondent point entierement aux questions du Capitaine Lewis. Par des nouvelles certaines, J’ai appris que le Cape. Lewis étoit arrivé sans aucun accident a Huit cent cinquante mille de l’ambouchure du Missoury a l’époque du 19. d’aoust dernier, que les sauvages l’avoyent parfaitement reçus; et Je presume qu’il passera la saison de L’hivers chez les Mandanes, à environ 1300 Miles d’ici. Si J’avois eu le bonheur de vous voir, mon intention étoit de vous recommander les habitans de la Louisiane comme des Citoyens soumis et fidels, mais qui ont besoin d’encouragement, et de vous inspirer pour eux, l’état qu’ils meritent. J’ose me flatter que vous ne trouverez pas mauvais, que Je fasse par ecrit, ce que Je conptois faire si J’avois eu L’honneur de vous voir. Mes cometans et moi, Monsieur, nous sommes infiniment jaloux de meriter votre estime, et sommes décidés à faire tout pour l’obtenir Si J’étois assez heureux pour pouvoir vous être utile en quelque chose que ce soit, Je vous prie de disposer sans réserve, de celui que a L’honneur d’etre avec les sentiments du respect le plus profond Monsieur Votre Très humble & très obeissant serviteur. Augte. Chouteau

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Lewis and Clark and the Route to the Pacific

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 01:27:42 +0000

Allen provides a seminal analysis of the geographic knowledge and misconceptions that shaped the Lewis and Clark Expedition from conception through execution. The article traces the evolution of European and American understanding of trans-Mississippi geography, focusing on the persistent myth of a short, easy portage between navigable tributaries of the Missouri and Columbia Rivers. Allen demonstrates how this “passage through the garden” concept, rooted in Renaissance-era geographic theory and reinforced by speculative 18th-century cartography, fundamentally shaped Jefferson’s instructions and Lewis’s expectations. The article examines how the expedition’s actual discoveries — the vast, mountainous barrier of the Rockies, the absence of an easy water route, the complexity of the Columbia River system — systematically dismantled these optimistic assumptions. Allen argues that understanding this “geography of the imagination” is essential for interpreting the expedition’s decisions, frustrations, and ultimate achievement in crossing a continent far more formidable than anyone had anticipated.

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Thomas Jefferson and the Changing West

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 01:27:42 +0000

Ronda examines Thomas Jefferson’s complex and evolving vision for the trans-Mississippi West, tracing how the Lewis and Clark Expedition both realized and undermined the president’s expectations. The article explores Jefferson’s pre-expedition assumptions — the passage through the continent by water, the orderly integration of Native peoples into American agriculture, and the potential for a continental commercial empire — and how the expedition’s findings challenged each of these ideas. Ronda demonstrates that the West Lewis and Clark actually encountered — vast, arid, mountainous, and populated by powerful and autonomous Native nations — bore little resemblance to Jefferson’s imagined landscape of navigable rivers and cooperative indigenous populations. The article argues that Jefferson’s response to the expedition’s reports was selective, embracing information that supported his vision while downplaying evidence that contradicted it, a pattern that would shape American western policy for decades.

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Jefferson’s Instructions to Meriwether Lewis

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 01:27:40 +0000

Jackson provides a close reading and contextual analysis of Thomas Jefferson’s June 20, 1803 letter of instructions to Meriwether Lewis, one of the most important documents in the history of American exploration. The article examines each section of Jefferson’s instructions — the geographic objectives, diplomatic goals with Native nations, scientific observations required, and commercial intelligence to be gathered — and situates them within the broader context of Jefferson’s continental vision and the recent Louisiana Purchase. Jackson demonstrates how Jefferson’s instructions reflected the intellectual currents of the Enlightenment, the practical concerns of a nation seeking to control its western territory, and the president’s personal scientific curiosity. The article also traces the evolution of the instructions through multiple drafts, showing how Jefferson incorporated suggestions from members of the American Philosophical Society and other advisors.

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Tent of Many Voices: 11220502TMB

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 00:36:08 +0000

good afternoon ladies and gentlemen welcome to the ten voices in the qu Discovery 2 tell you guys a little bit about us if you haven’t joined us before we are a traveling exhibit we’ve been traveling the trail since January of 2003 when we started out at oneill at Thomas Jefferson’s home made our way Westward to the Pacific Ocean and next year we’ll be doing the return trip back to St Louis we’ll open up March 13th in St Helen’s Oregon um as well U we call this the T voices because we bring in people from all over the country to do programs for us to tell ly Clark Story as long with the Native American story as well the over 50 different tribes they met along the way today we have with us Doug durur who’s from the University of Washington and he’s going to be talking about the classup and the halum living on the land so please welcome Doug hello and thank you very much for showing up today uh as was said my name is dou dur and I’m a researcher with the University of Washington I work with tribes all over the West um trying to document things like traditional environmental knowledge and uh historical knowledge knowledge tied to particular places on the landscape and I do this through the University of Washington through other connections working directly with American Indian tribes around the western part of North America uh through the University of Washington through the University of Victoria where I’m at professor as well of the University uh Victoria uh School of Environmental Studies and the classic theum though from here of uh the people who lived here are particular interest um because this is home to me here this is where I’m from and uh the part of my family where we have a written record they wash a Shore here in the 1840s and develop connections with the tribes living here uh they wash a Shore and actually take up homesteads here in Seaside just as ston from the large Village that was out here and so we had these long connections going back and so those con connections continue today and uh we know though that these these people who are here clap flip primarily but also the nalum or Northern tum people who were up here some of the time sh know people from up North they were here for a very very long period of time they learned a lot about how to live in this place and there’s been a lot that we have learned we being people from the outside being my family being researchers had learned from these families uh about how to live here and how to live here well and so over the years the class of people the people who lived here in Seaside have been scattered in a number of different directions and today we have people who class of food went North some of them went up across the river and those people ultimately became hard of of what we now now know as the chinuk nation or the qual nation further north and we had people who got scattered to the South as settlers came through and started to move into the area we ended up going south and some of those people became part of what became the CET tribe the grand Ron tribe and the class of nalen people who are a mixture of people from different communities up in down the coast and so the class of people today have scattered the people who lived here the descendants of the people who lived here have scattered and yet they’re still around in fact I’d like to ask if there’s anybody here who’s a descendant of class of Chinook people anybody interesting first talk I’ve given in a while but we haven’t had a few of those folks here there are a lot of them around and even though we tend to think about these people having disappeared this is what you hear in all the textbooks the truth is they survived and they adapted they married into other tribes but they also married into the white families coming in from the outside and they became a seamless part of the community and today ironically when I do the numbers I see that the uh the number of people living today who are descended from the communities right here in the seaside is is larger than the number of people who is here who were here when Louis and Clark were here they have more living descendants today that doesn’t mean that the the class of people are all uh living exactly as they did 200 years ago but they haven’t disappeared theyve become part of a much more complex sort of social fabric like there and so I’ve had the the uh privilege of working with a lot of their their elders and working a lot with the written materials things that their grandparents and great grandparents told people who were passing through the area and so it’s on the basis of that information that I talk today uh about the history of this very immediate area here and this way of life that has in some ways been swept away even if the people themselves carry on today but I think it’s very important if you leave here to to know that at very least these people haven’t disappeared it isn’t an extinct people like you’re reading all the textbooks we really have descendants all over some living here in Seaside some still practicing certain parts of their cultural tradition but that being said I’m going to talk a lot about people as they lived in the past I’m not going to talk so so much about how modern day Classics drive around in SUVs and go to the grocery store and do things there though that’s what they do but instead talk a little bit about just how these people liveed here on the land we know that there were several large villages right here in the Seaside area right along the title Flats right along where the estuaries are and the people of this area fundamentally were people of that Estuary and in uary is a place where we have the fresh water come down and mix into the ocean and you get water that’s a little bit salt a little bit fresh all mixed together and you get all kinds of things happening there that’s where the salmon first come in and where you can catch the salmon that’s where the clams are all the different clams of plats of people here survived on are all found there in that Estuary a lot of other fish that you don’t hear as much about the flounder they had distinctive ways of catching flounder right out here you got out in the mechanic Estuary in the mouth there you can see all that those shallow areas and the flounder used to be thick there and the some people can still remember seeing their grandmothers go out and catch those fish by coming up and jumping on them you can actually get them because they’re nice flat fish and so you can catch them under your feet and you can hold them until you can reach down to the SN one and so there were all kinds of things like that to be found there the roots that grow in the tide flat almost everything that grows in the tide flat had some traditional use and unfortunately this time of the year there isn’t a lot of those things out out there there aren’t those things out there to see on the landscape I try to gather plants to show you and most of the plants I wanted to show you have turned around and washed away because it’s the wrong time of the year um and what this means too is that even though Lewis and Clark were here at this time of the year observing things very carefully they missed a lot because they were only here for a narrow period of time which is ordinarily a very wet rainy period of time I’ll have to take my word for that and so all the things they needed really were clustered around that Estuary we have this the SLO Edge grows on the SLO right on one those title Flats also called the basket sge people use this to make basketry and The Roots can be used for that but also these pieces can be stripped and woven together and turned into nice mats and that kind of thing so part of why I’m standing down here is so if anybody’s interested you can hand these things around so you can get a feel for them slle Edge that’s right or basket sge carrots of nuta for those who are taking notes it’s a uh a plant that grows all over we have a couple of types of SES that grow in side plats and the roots of these to this day there are some tribal Elders who still take care of these plants they go into there and they churn up the soil around where these plants grow they pull out only the roots they need and then they turn up the soil some more all around the perimeter what that does is it allows those roots to expand without a lot of friction without hitting rocks without hitting solid dirt and what that does is make nice long long roots and those roots are the best ones to use for making baskets and so there’s a lot of that kind of knowledge that still persists today the tops can also be madeit into various things too but uh there’s that management of the land really is tied to taking care of those roots making sure that those work a lot of food plants can be found there in the tide Flats as well one that I can’t show you here but which is all over is a plant that the Halen people at least we know I don’t know what it was called in classa but the Halen people called it Yeta and it’s a root that uh comes up has a flower kind of like a buttercup and you’ll see it out in the tie flass here if you know how to cook the roots and this is about the right time to gather it tastes just like a sweet potato and it was one of the primary starch foods that was going to offset all that sand and clams and everything else that people laid here very important plant and when you go out at the right time of the year and you look out over those tide Flats it’s like it’s like you’re in your SUV driving to the grocery store it’s everything you need out there you have all the plants to eat all the plants to make your baskets all the plants you need to do med medicinal work all those things out there on the tide flaps and there on the tide flaps too people traditionally fished around here and up and down this Coast we have some hint of what the how that worked there’s one Elder I’ve had the opportunity to work with Joe scoval who’s who was one of the last people raised in the community that was sometimes called squat town hobsonville down on Northern T Bay and uh some of his ancestors came from the village here in Seaside but by the time that the 20th century rolled around a lot of them were moving north and south and these people went South down to till Bay and that family has stories about how the hereditary Chiefs in that Community would take care of the fish as they would come up through those tide Flats they had strong beliefs that these fish were sensient beings like ourselves willing to make the decision to come up and and to give their life so that we might live here and so they didn’t want to disturb that they didn’t want to offend the fish by catching too many fish by using the fish wastefully and so the hereditary Chiefs would walk up and down the long Shoreline as people were fishing and they would regulate that they would tell people when they were going to set in the Nets they had they were going to they would tell people when they would stop fishing when they would pull those Nets out when they would stop fishing because they knew that they had reached a point where they could take care of their own needs for food they could take care of their needs for trade but they weren’t going to take much more than that because they knew that if they did that according to their Traditions the fish would choose not to come back not so much because you would overe exploit them which is how our modern day resource managers might try to explain that same thing but because the fish had felt violated by that that has overstepped our balance that out that gone outside of our relationship that we have with those fish and we know that probably over a very long period of time these people had the opportunity to witness cause and effect they saw the people a couple Villages down catch too many fish the fish don’t come back much after you keep pulling out too many fish year after year after year and those fish don’t come back and you learn that and that becomes part of your oral tradition part of your stories that you then pass on to your children and to your grandchildren to make sure that they’re okay to make sure that not only do you maintain that relationship but to make sure that your family survives that they have food to eat in Generations ahead so it’s important that that knowledge gets passed along Within These traditions and in fact doing the work I do up and down the coast has been amazing for me to encounter a few I worked with a few Elders who were raised very traditionally raised by families where they didn’t speak English raised by families that intentionally went out of their way to not teach the children things about the outside world and uh I I’ve sat there with Elders who who are just from a little ways up the coast speaking in broken English about how their great grandparents taught them that there were certain things to do with the fish one of the things I do in addition to working with tribes as I help with salmon habitat restoration work and we know that we can take very good care of those streams we can stop all the fishing we can make those the water quality just perfect get everything right and still sometimes the fish don’t come back now one of the reasons the fish don’t come back is because if the stream has lost all of its salmon there are no sandon carcasses in the water to feed the little bugs and if there are no little bugs there’s nothing to feed the fish it’s a very interesting thing salmon leave here they’re little tiny fish like this they swim out in the ocean they come back like this so they’re feeding on things out there in the water shrimp and little fish and all of that stuff that they accumulate in their bodies comes back up with them and it comes into these streams and they spawn and they die and their bodies are used to feed all the little things in the Stream we found that hundreds of different species depend on those carcasses for their survival and one of the species that depends on those carcasses for their survival are the young salmon themselves because they eat the bugs that eat their own their own family and so we have now gotten to the point of sem habitat restoration where we take carcasses from places like uh Seafood operations take those carcasses and put them in the water and the fish start to come back because there’s something that you’re getting the nutrients kickstarted within that system and so it’s fascinating me to work with tribal Elders who say to me and again great grandparents born in the mid 19th century who never heard anything about this modern science they will tell their grandchildren we’ve been told that we have to put the carcasses back in the water we do that because the fish need that so they can come back their physical body becomes part of the body of the Next Generation if we don’t do that the fish won’t be able to come back and if you don’t do that they’ll be offended and they will refuse to come back and that’s interesting because this is Cutting Edge science I’m talking about with this fish carage stuff and here we have confirmation of voice coming in from the 19th century to tell us how to do it right and for me that’s exciting because I can take that back to these resource specialist water day scientists and say look what the tribal Elders are telling us they’re telling us we have to do these certain things in relation to the fish and most people who come from a natural resource background think that we’re going to tell them well you have to chant certain words and spin in circles three times that’s not the kind of knowledge that’s coming down to me from these people it’s very practical knowledge it’s how do you keep your family living how do you survive how do you keep your children alive how do you keep your grandchildren alive so that’s the kind of knowledge that gets passed down through these oral Traditions it’s a form of scientific knowledge but it’s being passed down in a society where you don’t have writing so you teach children these things at the very early age and teach them how to navigate those things and to survive also down here around the uh well I’ll double back to that point a little bit I think that that’s an important point in terms of how to navigate and how to survive but I it should move up now from the title Flats move up a little bit higher the edge of the title flats that area between the ocean and the big forests back here and we know that the people right here in this area class of people T people Cho people all took care of the land in various ways and one of those ways was to burn the plants out from along the edge of that contact point between the forest and the tide flats and we know that the areas around the perimeters of the big Villages as you went further out those areas were full of good berry picking areas areas where people took care of those berry patches and made sure that those things grow well a lot of the berries that you find around here will do okay they will survive if they’re down under the forest canopy but they’re not going to thrive they’re not going to uh put on many berries they’re not going to really do uh put out enough berries you can actually feed your own family and so what we see here is that there’s a tradition of burning the edges of the forest going out and starting those fires and clearing back those edges a little bit and so we have stories from the elders passed down about all around the edges of what is now Seaside as you go around back along the edges of the hills sort of in that area between the the tidle flats and back in the trees all that area being excellent very picking at one time that was an excellent place to go buy a house I guess a lot of suburban yards there now bar picking areas are kind of few and far between but those areas were very very important and there’s still places around today where you can go and see evidence of that if you walk across the land here in Eola Park there’s some some little areas where you’ll still see berries growing and it seems strange cuz the forest should be covering it but it’s not Forest is back a little ways now the forest is moving in slowly taking over those areas now because nobody’s taking care of that land but you can still find those places nion Mountain you go a little further south in oswal West State Park South of us here as you drive through that area if you’re heading south along the highway 101 you look back on the south side that Hill slope still doesn’t have many treats on it trees are moving in fast because nobody’s burning it anymore but that whole hill slope used to be burned and there are excellent places there still to go pick thimbleberries and things like that because people took care of those places for years and years and years and years knowing that those plants would come back up also in those areas where some some plants like Camas I wanted to show you one of those but you know there’s one of these plants that was said to be among the most important in the diets of all the people along the North Coast it’s a plant that’s very pretty it has a blue flower that comes up in the springtime and it’s so pretty in fact the gardeners buy it now have both catalogs right there with their tulips and they put those in their yard and those blue flowers come up and they they’re spectacular they come up for just a little while and they go to seed and drop back down and the bulb is edible and if you can bake that you know how to do that right it’s very sweet very tasty and a lot of the elders around turn of the previous Century reported the Anthropologist coming through that the cus was their most important one of their most important plants right up there with that YCO rout I was telling you about on the tide Flats had also this plant grew right along the edges sort of wet margins where people were burning to take care of it and why I have all this buildup to tell you about this great ch plan just because I can’t find you any to show you anymore because they were taking care of it and nobody’s out there anymore taking care of it nobody’s burning those places to keep the forest back and the places where it was growing have also been built over and today canas is an extremely rare plant on this part of the coast it’s it is rare enough that people say from The Nature Conservancy other organizations that take care of rare plants be kind of excited when they see it around here it’s a plant that’s been rapidly disappearing in and yet 100 years ago Elders were saying they remember remember it was a staple plant they knew all about how to dig it where you could go get it fields that used to be full of it early explorers coming through here describe these Meadows and blue flowers in the springtime that were spectacular and without people taking care of those places without burning back the forest vegetation along the edges and people coming in building over the tops of those places bringing in livestock early on pigs love camet that get in they boot up for those C bulbs they dig up the ground and they heat up big patches and in fact in some parts of the the Northwest settlers coming in and reoccupying those C patches actually started off Wars there are fairly significant battles that took place in eastern Oregon when tribes Chas plots that they taken care of for Generation after generation were being uh occupied by people coming in with livestock for the for the outsider they would see those things they’ say what a great Meadow it’s a nice natural spot I’ll set my set my animals Lo not realizing what kind of investment of Labor and personal energy and all those things that went into that particular piece of land that looks so nice it looks like a nice natural Meadow H the WAP the WAP that’s a good question the WAP doesn’t really grow down here on the coast it grows a few of them grow here on the coast but the big WAP grounds were further up the Columbia River the WAP is a fascinating plant and even though it’s not from this area I’ll go ahead and tell you a little bit about it because it’s so close that’s right and it was available in large quantities to trade from just up River the real Central core of WAP Gathering along this entire Coast is the Zone from about Portland to Long View what some people call wapo Valley historically that’s another plant that’s becoming increasingly rare although here and there on his is like savi’s Island outside of Portland you still see WAP growing in some of these natural little SES and WAP it’s actually um Chinese food you have uh little white things um waterest is it relative of that uh Sagittarius they’re both the same no but they’re both the same genus and so if you want an idea of what that’s like it’s kind of people call it the Indian potato around here sometimes but it’s the same it’s the same basic size little round bull blet that grows in Wetland areas uh up on the Columbia in fact it grows it likes a very specific kind of wetland area which is a real interesting thing it’s one of the things the science books I was talking about estuaries here were the salt water all mixes and textbooks never talk with you much about intertitle freshwater wedings but that’s that’s in fact what the wapo really likes cuz the Columbia River it hits that incoming tide and what happens is you get salt water in the mouth of the Columbia River but the further up you go you no longer get much salt water but what you get is the tide still affecting the river level so the river all the way up into Portland is going up and down and up and down with the tide even though there’s no salt water that gets that far up and so the WAP is sort of uniquely suited for that kind of environment where you have the water levels going up and down and up and down it’s actually a plant that can grow right in the water so you have to Buble it in the mud and then a long stem coming up in the leaves and a pretty little white flower up on the top and those were gathered by the chinookan people from just a little bit up River and Classics down here had families up there they had kinship ties to the people all the way up the river and trade ties and everything else and so they traded things down here that they had for wapo from just up the river they were they were slightly different people but they spoke more or less the same language and uh they had these kinds of connections and so people down here for example would have things they would gather whale oil was an important commodity and seal meat and seal oil things you can get down here along the Waterfront they also me very good canoes down here sometimes those are traded further up River and they would trade those for a variety of different things and WAP would be one of those things they could get also for that matter some of the people from down here here seem to have had uh kind of de facto plant Gathering rights up River because of those Family Ties and so they you actually hear stories clear into the late 19th century of people jumping in canoes from all the communities along the coast and going up the columia both to fish salmon at some of the falls all the way up to uh Bonville solo area but also Gathering wa as that came back down through and so it wasn’t a plant that really grow grew much here here but it was one that was close enough and they had access to so it was a very important part of the trading economy here and those car pick up on that um it’s also a very good plant to store so most of the plants that Louis and cl are talking about they’re not actually seeing people out Gathering much of this stuff because it’s the winter time it’s not the time to gather berries it’s not the time to gather most of these plants but they are seeing those plants coming through and those WAP are being traded all up and down the river all through the winter time taking care of people so okay right it can be propagated here yeah it does well in we setting so you can put it if you have a pond in your yard you can get some going a nice muddy base if if the water isn’t too stagnant you need a little bit of flushing and then I’ll go further back up into the mountains and come back down for a while and then we can open up for more more questions here these are good questions but taking things up further into the mountains some of the big mountains unfortunately we can’t see it here but if you were to just walk out anywhere Seaside look up you can see these big mountains all around here we have CLE mountain and we have Sugarloaf Mountain and we have onion Peak and we have Angora Peak these are all these this Ridge of mountains about 3,000 ft high at the tops going more or less from Northeast to Southwest terminating hitting the ocean where the a mountain is and the tops of those Peaks are high enough that everything’s a little bit different up there and we know that while I’m talking about the people of this part of the world spending a lot of time down along the tide flat spending a lot of time around these estuaries certain times of the year summer being a good time to do this people Tre further up into the mountains and up there you have plants that you just don’t find down here in fact there are some plants that are endemic to the tops of those Peaks right up here you don’t find them anywhere else on Earth because they’re completely isolated from other mountain ranges all around this area so they become completely isolated but people would go up there and gather plants for medicines they would gather a certain kind of grass be grass that’s especially tough and sharp very good for making real rigorous baskets real tough ones also people would use that for making designs on bask B because it takes D well so you can dye at a certain color and do all the ornate basket work and up on these ridges along the Coast Range here people also went up and um well gathered onions onion Peak is called onion Peak because of the fact that the whole side of that thing it’s all private Timberland on the way up there so it’s hard to go look at this but you stand at the base of some of these Baltic outc crops that go up 500 ft above your head and it’s real rough and each little pocket on the side of that rock has a little bit of dirt and each little bit of dirt has an onion going out the side of it it’s a pretty cool spot and people would go up there to gather large quantities of these onions which are can be eaten just like our own onions the top meat like green onions little bulb can be used like a wet and so that was being gathered up there but also there were hunting areas up there elk hunting areas and uh we even have stories about people going out and hunting the ridgetops kind of like you hear about the Buffalo further east people would actually flush those elk off the tops of the cliffs chase them places where they knew they would have to go around some Corner around another rock and then oh there’s a blind corner there that goes off the edge of the cliff and people knew where those things were and they would chase the elk over the edge some of those Cliffs are actually high enough it’s hard for me to imagine hard for me to imagine picking up the elk at the bottom but that was done and also up the tops of those mountains you have a lot of different places that were being visited for ritual purposes as well a lot of other important places like that a lot of stories tied to each one of those Peaks and so all of that was part of this continuous process of using the land year after year going in these Cycles going to these different places and taking care of different areas as people move around and so each part of these Journeys that people would take across the landscape cumulatively provided them with all the things they needed all the food they need all the medicine for the clothing they needed and so forth and so I may actually um cut things a little bit short here I do want to get into to questions and I also see the executor showing up but um I should say though as a closing though that this all this knowledge I’m talking about I guess it’s it’s interesting people talk with me about these kinds of tribal traditions and are they relevant today and I I they often seem to think that this is kind of antiquated stuff it’s something out of the distant past but like I’m suggesting there are a lot of things can be learned from this sort of knowledge we’re looking at uh ways of taking care of the fish we have stories about simple things that seem fairly basic to us and yet they tell you how to uh how to take care of your family I was mentioning the importance of of not overe exploiting the fish because of not not just the sort of big cosmological concern about the fish but because of the Practical necessity you need those fish to come back you need to maintain that kind of relationship with those fish in order to keep yourself fed we also have stories about uh for example tsunamis here there’s a story about um about a tsunami takes place down near Indian Beach or uh ecola Point down south towards can Eola Park that area about a tsunami coming in and there’s a the place called the baskets there a lot of lot of rocks that look like overturned baskets if you look out there from Nia point in Nia State Park and the stories describe people seeing all of the the water is sweeping out and we know now having seen what’s taking place with tsunami is happening around the world we know that the water sweeps out first when a tsunami is going to happen that’s the dip before the crest comes and so the water starts to drop and drop and drop and drop and you hear this story all over the world actually because there are different times in history where people see that happen and they don’t know what that means and they get really excited because you can go out in places you’ve never gone on to before and so there’s a story from who knows how far back I assume it describes a real event a real tsunami because it’s so accurate but they describe that water starting to fall going down and down and down and down and the people in the communities down in that area we know there are several Villages down near can Beach get excited about that and they tell their young women look their muscles all over the Rocks it’s a great time for Gathering because look at all those places can get to that you never were able to get to before and all the young women go out into the rocks and start Gathering and all of a sudden we see that wave come up and it sweeps up and we know this has happened many times before on this Coast because we find the sand we find the drift logs sometimes a mile or two Inland and that wave comes in and it takes them all and in the story then only a few people survive they go up up high and survive and when they come back down they stand on the beach and and they cry for the young people who have been lost they cry for all those people and if any of you know Canon Beach you know that one of the things that’s always in the tourist brochures is as you walk over the sand it makes this squeaking sound as you walk and people talked about that is the crying Sands of Canon Beach and in this story they explain that they say those are the crying Sands that’s the sound of those people crying for the people that were lost out there in that tsunami and when you tell stories like that to young people you don’t need to drill them on what to do in the event of a tsunami when you tell young people stories like that you don’t have to worry about them getting excited and running out to check out what’s going on down there because they have this powerful lesson and not only do they have this powerful lesson but every time they walk up the beach they’re thinking about that lesson they’re hearing that sound in that sand they’re being reminded of that story you’ve told them and that’s pretty powerful because it teaches people how what to do and how to survive and we know that because these tsunamis do happen every 3 500 years in this stretch of Coastline there are times when you actually have to worry about that when suddenly after maybe a whole generation hasn’t seen it that water starts to drop back and I tell you that now I tell you this story coming back from who knows how many generations of of class ofum of people you see that water dropping keep that in mind and get get to High Ground so that knowledge is passed down in that way the knowledge has passed down in other ways and one of the things when you go to boy scout camp they teach you around this part of the world you can always eat the blueberries find a blueberry out in the wood is almost always edible white berries you don’t usually want to mess with those and in fact in the oral traditions of the tribes right here they talk about the white berries as being the berries dead people dead people who died eat those white berries that’s their food so you don’t mess with that and then as your Todd in Boy Scout camp those red berries you kind of have to know your berries some red berries are good some red berries are very good some red berries are poisonous or at least when makeing very sick and here too the elders came up with a way of dealing with this he tells stories about Helo around here the wild woman kind of like zonaa North uh if you know that name like a Bigfoot character but a woman sharp teeth sticks mos in her hair extremely strong extremely strong and dangerous and liable to even eat children and there stories say those berries are hello berries all the berries that are red out in the forest she thinks are hers and so you never eat those berries in the forest if you’re out in the forest walking around you don’t just pop one of those in your mouth the only place where it’s safe to eat a red berry is if you take all your berries and go back home with the rest of your family inside your inside your long house that’s the safe place to eat those berries because otherwise she’s out there in the woods she’ll see you eat her berries and she’ll get upset and she’ll come after you but what does that do effectively that makes sure that every time that little kids are out in the woods Gathering red berries they don’t just start eating them randomly out in the woods they bring it all home where their parents are where their grandparents are to watch what they’re eating to make sure it’s okay so a lot of these stories too you go through and read stories in in collections of tribal tales and it’s like well that’s what’s this crazy stuff about some wild woman who likes to eat children and thinks the red berries are hers that’s that’s crazy but the more you look at this stuff the more you understand what actually out there on the ground the real hazards to children out there on the landscape that’s where this stuff is coming from and a lot of that stuff is pretty sophisticated it reflects the fact that people spent generation after generation figuring out how this stuff works and then how do you tell children something about that or how do you explain to your community about that in a way that’s going to stay with them that’s going to remind them that’s going to keep them safe for generations to come and looking after those those children and grandchildren and so I think that there is a lot that we can still learn from this oral tradition and not just the tribal people although for them it is an important part of their Heritage but I think that this oral tradition you know the class of people when Louis and Clark came here we know that they were very good at sharing they took good care of their guests they kept an eye on Louis and Clark they made sure they had food coming and going and and uh they did the same for a lot of families they did for my family they did it for all the different explorers coming through early on you know and I find today the elders who are still Tred tied into these Traditions are happy to see the rest of us paying attention to them because it’s we all live here now we all still we live in this place we share this landscape with the people who lived here for Generation after generation after generation in a way those mountains we see around us that walk in front of us those are the things we share with those past Generations as well as concern about our children concern about our grandchildren those fundamental human things and the point of view of these Elders is you now have to live on this land you now have to take care of this land too you have to take care of your children and grandchildren and so we can all gain things from this we can all be inheritors of this oral tradition reflecting generation after generation and experimentation having on the land having to deal with the consequences if you over harvest the fish if you eat the wrong Berry if you run out and the tsunami is coming in and now we are all inheritors of that and stories have been passed on to me verbally they came to my ears now they come out of my mouth to your ears they’re all part of your knowledge as well so you all have that tradition as part of your knowledge too and so the old tradition continues and just as I said the classic people aren’t extinct they have descendence all over so too their oral tradition is carry on but in ways they probably could never have imagined so anyway I open it up for questions I heard that did everybody else he was asking is there a time when youth are trained uh to tell stories and the truth is that storytelling is is a fundamental focal point of social life within the traditional way and that especially at this time of the year as we get into the winter and again it’s hard for me to help you envision this because we’re having W winter or we’re not having winter weather we’re having weather that’s kind of like our Springtime but ordinarily we have and we will probably in a couple of days in fact if you stick around we’ll have wind blowing wind often howling out of the South as these fronts come in off the ocean rain falling horizontally it’s a very good time to go indoors and tell stories and for this reason actually one of the sets of stories I didn’t even really get into today but it’s very important in terms of this kind of teaching I’m talking about is a whole series of stories among the tribes about south wind who is in fact their trickster character uh like coyote further east or Raven further north south wind is here all the time in the winter blowing making your house rattle making the smoke back up and bow into your home and so you can’t forget about south wind south wind is everywhere and south wind is the one in the stories who creates a lot of the land forms out there on the ground and teaches people about how to live and how not to live and he’ll steal somebody’s fish for example and then run down the beach ways and fall asleep because he so full he has to sort of sleep it off and he’ll wake up incased in rock and he’ll have to break his way out of that rock calling upon the the generosity of various people who just about had it with him and it’s a long negotiation process to get chipped out of that rock so there those rocks are at the mouth of t m Bay and every time somebody goes in and out of that bay they’re reminded of that story you don’t take somebody’s food like that without permission you don’t take things that people and if you do you’re going to spend a lot of time negotiating yourself out of a pit or out of a chunk of rock to come to the surface so that knowledge is all there on the landscape but the South Winds would be blowing all winter long while these stories are being told so a lot of this knowledge is being discussed being passed along around the fires in the winter time and in fact in this part of the world more so than in some other tribes I’ve worked with some tribes stories are told and then children learn those stories just by hearing them over and over again here there was so much of a premium placed on passing down the information very accurately that they would actually drill children sometimes in learning these stories line by line so that they would they would learn learn them wrot so that the next story teller would know those stories just perfectly and for that reason it’s really interesting because I can go back to old archival accounts somebody interviewing One Elder in 1900 another Elder in 1930 and you can almost get the exact same wording boom boom boom boom boom and it’s that kind of cultural knowledge we don’t do that so much in our society with stories we do that with songs we can say oh what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh but we don’t teach children to sing well you know it’s really great to jump in a sleigh and ride down through the snow with a horse one his best kind of fun you get that kind of Rhythm to it and and those things stick in your head and so that’s the way that those things are being passed on to the children but it’s really from from infancy on they’re being exposed to these stories and then some stories being told out on the landscape when the landscape feature is there that story is tied to that landscape feature but an interesting thing one last thing I should mention about the south wind stories is that there there was a belief that you shouldn’t talk about south wind you shouldn’t retell the south wind cycle out of season because you’d be inviting Misfortune you in fact would cause it to go back to wintertime because that’s a wintertime story so you start telling South Wind Stories the wind may go south on and you’ll be uh having to puddle indoors again because that’s that’s the time so many questions here question how long does the uh did the waves stay out in a tsunami before they come in how did they have enough time to go out there and and Fiddle around shelves you we don’t have a geologist or do we have a geologist in the crowd it’s a few minutes few minutes not very long and it depends on the the size of the wave and the variety of things but it’s a few minutes I heard from an earlier presentation the importance of the cedar tree that’s right and I was wondering if there’s any Traditions you can share in terms of relationship with the either Force management Cedar well that’s that’s a good point I brought along some cedar I brought along several pieces of trees people thought I was going to give like a wreath making demonstration or something but all hand this these are two pieces of Cedar uh gather actually gathered right in the middle of an area that I know was in a halem cedar Gathering area at one time the cedar trees there there’s so much there I could do a whole separate talk to on the cedar trees because cedar trees were the source of the wood for the houses the canoes the bark can be peeled off and if you pound it just right and soften it up the fibers come loose and it’s almost like cotton you can weed things with it uh you can weave baskets and hats and all sorts of things The Greenery has medicinal uses and so almost everything uh that a person might hope for in terms of material culture in terms of those items you want to make for your living are found in a cedar tree and there were a lot of different relationships with those cedar trees that are worth mentioning I’ll just T touch on a couple here again just like fish the traditional world view is that these these cedar trees are they they give themselves willingly so that we may have those things and so people didn’t kill cedar tree unless they absolutely had to and so for example around here people would take planks off the sides of the trees without killing a whole tree or they take cedar bark off the side of the tree that’s actually possible you can come up to these cedar trees and up in British Columbia I’ll still find places where people still have done this recently enough you can find the scars on the side of the tree you can come up to the side of the tree put in some wedges hit them up and it has such a long straight Rin that starts to split off the tree a little bit and because these people had a lot a lot a lot of patience I guess you say the tree sways back and forth and over time that splits a little bit and then maybe come back the next day and boom notos wedges up a little bit more and that tream keeps doing that until finally pop they take off that whole plank cedar bark is the same way you’re going to make clothing out of it you only take what you need off of one side of the tree and over time that cedar bark closes up the tree heals that up it takes a long time that that can be done and if people were taking these things there actually certain things you apologies you make to this gear streak saying you know I’m sorry I’m doing this to you but I really need this for my family and we’ll do this respectfully and we’ll still takeing care of and take that stuff home I should also say that the the cedar trees for the canoes and other Woods where you really needed good strong wood people would often go way up into the interior it’s another use of the mountains I didn’t mention even though there were cedar trees down here people often went way in Inland because the cedar trees growing on the real Rocky higher elevation areas they had to struggle they grow slower because it’s colder rockier and what that means when it grows slower is that the Rings are tighter less growth each year less build up new wood and so from a if you’re a canoe Builder that’s a good thing because that means you have really tight grain wood very strong wood and so people would actually go way in the interior and chop these trees down I work with one Elder up north who still remembers doing this with his grandfather where they went clear up a mountain and they knocked over the tree and then it hangs up on the brush and they chop the brush and it takes about a day and then the tree slides halfway down the hill you go down the hill and they set have another base camp they clear the brush there out of the way Push It Rock it and pretty soon it slides the rest of the way down to the water front and then they can start working on cano takes two or three days to get that log down to the water and then they floated down the river down to the village where they work on so that wood was the premium stuff and there were stories that children would be taught again about these plants which I won’t even get into but there are stories about the cedar trees at different times and the spruce trees and all the other trees when they’re still speaking being asked actually by that same Wild Woman character you know uh she has gotten her face tattooed and she wants to ask them what what they think of it of course she’s pretty horrific looking anyway and now she’s got her face tattooed and she asks each of the trees in turn what do you think of my new tattoos and henlock tree which I don’t have here has the bad sense to tell her what he really thinks and she says in the future your wood is going to be totally useless when winds blow you fall right over nobody will make medicine out of you you’re not good for much of anything but cedar tree has t cedar tree knows what to say he says I think you look great this is always the right answer isn’t it he says I think you look great with that those tattoos and she says very good and you’re going to have strong wood in the time to come when people people are here this is before people arrive people will make canoes out of you they’ll make medicine out of your out of your Greenery they’ll make clothing out of your bar and you’ll be honored by all these people who will show you this kind of respect and so same thing happens with Spruce this tree is everywhere around here Spruce very Pokey I’ll hand these around Spruce also has a good sense to say fairly positive think Spruce is not given as many attributes as Cedar but Spruce it’s a great tree and a lot of the uses are medicinal pitch very important medicine uh spruce trees in some cases people go and put ceremonial regelia in the branches because it’s a powerful tree and you want those things out of the mundang world off the dirt off the ground and in some cases people even bury people up in trees up in the branches of these spruce trees with broad lateral branches sticking out and they laid those canoes or boxes right in the arms of that tree to take care of them so that’s very Poky by the way I warn you that a lot of the native names for this plant up and down the coast translate to the plant that really really really hurts when you grab onto it so as this goes around before War that’s why I’ve stripped the stems for you this will be our last question okay can you give us a glimpse of what it was like for families living in the long house seasonally how it would change yeah the the long houses around here they varied in size a lot there was the winter long house where the larger families gathered together and those were all made out of these big cedar planks they were often big open rooms some of the really big ones were as big as this the interior of this tent and you’d have extended families in them often two or three fires in a row down the middle some kind of large broad bench structure around the perimeter which served as sleeping platforms and often there were places to store things underneath that over the top of that and so forth and then there were rooms often partitioned off with small poles and uh woven Maps made out of various grasses even sometimes these guys and so you have whole extended families there in the winter time you it’s sort of a combined residential space and storage space because there’s so much it it’s not the time of year when you’re Gathering food it’s the time you’re living off the stored Provisions so there were boxes all over often big what they call bent wood boxes made out of sear planks that will be taken off the tree heat it up and then bent so that you take a single Plank and you bend it and you bend it until you get a box and then you put the top and bottom on and you get a nice wooden box and people will be living off out of the food or off the food in those boxes and those boxes would be decked out on those platforms and under those platforms and above those platforms around where people were gathered and so in the winter time people were living off of those telling the stories around the fires and holding winter ceremonials often when the biggest homes which happen to be the homes of the more powerful families um we’re hosting potash kind of events where they’re exchanging goods thank you and uh and also um sham shamanistic uh work where they’re going through and bringing in shamanist new healing work and that kind of thing in the winter and there as we get into the springtime people begin to mobilize they go to fishing places and plank Gathering areas and so there fewer people there at the at the larger houses but then you have temporary encampments smaller houses um there are temporary encampments like this that used to be all over the place and you can still see where some of them are as you walk over the landscape um and some of those were they look like shle simple shed structures often like the size of a garden shed sometimes where you have a family just sleeping for a couple of nights uh doing some fishing doing some plant Gathering maybe a simple shed slope like this rather than like this and um and they would move around between different locations where they had fishing stations and so forth and then people moving up into the interior as well sometimes in the hottest days of summer people sleeping out with kind of mat coverings again those woven mats being used over pole Frame Works way of the Interior fishing stations and so forth in the big Villages though at that time people would still be there um sometimes people would pop the boards off the roof so you got better areation and uh sometimes if people are going to go for a major fishing junket they might even pull some of the boards off and take them with them to go lean up to make the walls of the other structure they’re going to live in so they’d actually pick up those boards takes a lot of work to get one of those sear blanks off of a tree so you don’t just have you know a bunch of them here A bunch of them there a bunch of them here you sometimes have to take some with you to to go where you want to go and so in those different places you’d have smaller groups of family and then in the larger house you’d have a few people still hanging out usually elderly children those kinds of things Sing close to home and then as you get into the winter time then everybody begins to regroup and sometimes people who haven’t seen each other for quite a while for weeks or months would regroup and those extended families are back together in a larger village where they spend the year rest of the year say we’re out of time we should be questions for Mario stick

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Tent of Many Voices: 06040507

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

for well good afternoon everyone and welcome to the tent of mini voices T many voices is part of the core of Discovery 2 traveling Lewis and Clark exhibit this exhibit has been on the road since 2003 started at monello Thomas Jefferson’s home it’s been traveling along the Lis and Clark Trail and we traveling through 2006 through the return journey and what we do is at each venue at each stop along the way is when we set up our tenam mini voices we bring in a wide variety of presenters speakers to give us a little taste of the history and the culture of the L and Clark expedition and what we’re going to hear about this afternoon is something that’s often overlooked on the L and Clark expedition we’re going to talk about the some of the importance of trade beads we’re going to hear from Steve McCracken about the whistling Hawks trade bead collection Steve mcra McCracken has been described as a modernday mountain man his hobbies and interests led to his business whistling Hawks in 1989 whistling Hawks is the trade name given given to him by a black feet Onida Indian while on a Vision Quest Steve is an accomplished silver smith as well as a trade bead expert he’s been working and researching uh working on and researching trade bead since 1989 he draws on many different references and research to formulate dates names and history of old trade beads the word bead is derived from the Old English word Badu meaning prayer and Steve has requested that his collection is not to be photographed so we would certainly appreciate your cooperation and please give a warm tenam many voices welcome to Steve McCracken in his whistling Hawks trade bead collection thank you I’m going to start out today with just a short introductory history to the beads and then uh proceed into the beads of Lewis and Clark when we look here I we’ve put a list together and before Christ in uh wrong one in in 10,000 45 and to 720 glass beads were made in China because the reason I pointing that out as Le and Clark had beads from China and from Venice and then in 300 to 400 uh ad the Roman Empire had a vast Market of uh industry in in the trade be error then in 585 benice founded by the Lum Lombards then the records indicate window glass was ordered from Venice glass beads believed to have been made in Bohemia then the German Peddlers were prohibited from carrying more than 10 layers worth of glass rods for making glass beads uh the glass furnaces in Venice were ordered to be moved to the island of Morano and that was just off the city of benis because they were afraid that if the factories started on fire that they would burn down the whole city then as we proceed there were strict rules enacted about taking information from outside Venice and they they enacted the death penalty was imposed in 1526 the first leak of glass secrets from Venice were went went to factories in Paris the process of the wound lamp work beads was invented in benice in 1528 in 1731 the W bead process consumed 800 lb of oil daily in benice in 1740 the Bohemians export export set up permanent warehouses in All Imports and Inland cities of Europe and then in the 17 uh 64 and 46 they produced more than 2,228 th000 lbs of beads that was before the 1800s all this was done so as we start back in the history of beads the earliest beads would have been the fossilized bone here this bone bead here is fossilized this is Ivory and shell these were some of the earliest beads known to man The Quill work which is well known in our areas by the Native American culture in that here’s shells that were found on the Columbia River uh they were found with several other artifacts this comb and and the bone beat or bone pick there is fossilized we talked about the Roman Empire there for a minute this here the reason I’m showing you this is because you see the blue glass here and the ibeads they the blue glass was really common and they they had it before Christ I don’t know where my speakers are okay uh these are Islamic and these were folded over but these were wound so even before Christ they knew how to make the wound beads this bead here here is from China it’s a molded faceted bead this was done before Christ This is a Waring States type bead it’s the I the I beads were were made for to ward off evil looking at you so the people in all different cultures wore ibeads from before Christ and after Christ and uh so you’re going to see these the ibeads in a lot of different collections here that were made in Venice and all over Europe along along with being made in China and they had the ability to make these molded beads before Christ and I have that bead in my collection these beads here are from a Afghanistan that’s jet that’s coal and that’s fiance those were all made in Europe too there the first beads that were being made were the Bubble Glass so you see the the gentleman here he’s making the bubble he’s making a a large bubble and they would they would stretch that out and then make many bubble beads from that piece of glass here he’s they took the rods home and they’re making glass bubble beads right there at the kitchen table here’s a bet the Bellows underneath the table this lady’s over here she’s measuring the beads they use oil lamps like this plus there’s their old measuring tool here’s your bubble glass beads which are very rare and hard to find because they were so thin that they broke and uh we we just don’t find many of them out in the world today the next beads that were made were the cane beads and your Russian faceted beads the molded ones they were pulled through a mold and then they were hand faceted here’s Bubble Glass that’s faceted with the Russian faceted there’s some that’s not as you see here the the blue is a dominant color here’s samples of Russian faceted beads in different colors they uh they Ed several different things to make the the color of these beads green took copper and the blue took cobalt blue and the red beads uh they took gold to make as they mixed with the silica here’s your deep cobalt blue that’s most sought after this is the oldest strand of faceted beads I have as you can see here they’re not fasted very much this strand also White Russians and red this bead here was a noev cadz bead Columbus actually brought those with him when he came and they were used in the ships as bases so when Columbus and actually I have books that date back to Captain Cook when Captain Cook came they brought beads with him too and they were in barrels that were used as Banes in the ships so as they at ate their food and and supplies they could move the barrels of beads around and balance the ship out so that’s why they came with Columbus and and all the early explorers the next bead that was made real common is the cane bead the seven layer Chevron then they made the sixth layer and then on the far right you see the four layer Chevron the reason they started they started out with the the seven layer was because that was what the venetians learned to make in the 1500s and that was the hardest bead to make because each process they had to pull that cane of glass through a mold then on the six layers were easier to make and the four layers got made the process faster because as the years went on the demand for the beads was more and more here’s some pictures of of them working in the old factories in Venice uh they work very close to the furnaces the fires were large it took a lot of wood so they used the podach from the wood to to help make the beads so they didn’t have to mine potash when they were making beads in Venice because they used wood in the furnaces I was telling you about the Bubble Glass and then they went on to making the cane re the way they made the cane as you can see on the far right the young man joining his Rod to the other man with the bubble then they run in opposite directions and they with with the glass being hot and it would stretch up to sometimes up to 300 feet long then they would take it and the guy would break it into bundles 3 or 4T long and then they would take it back in the process and pull it through the mold cuz to make the Chevron it has the 12 teeth on it right there to make that pattern they had to pull it through the mold each time and as you look at a Chevron when you look up close here The Collection you’ll be able to see that each time when they pulled that bead through the mold before they broke those canes to make the individual beads the top one here is the Russian faceted there’s the noev cadz these are all cane beads and then some of these were tumbled and feted you’ll see here this is a picture out of Germany they’re actually being pedal and water was dripping down here in his bucket onto that stone he’s fast hand fasting beads these are two other styles of the same thing but these were these were set at and pedal with their feet the fastet the beads in the early days here’s a closeup of the Russian facet and and the star pattern I’m talking about here the blue gleen glass is the rarest on the on the center of them and this one here actually has nine layers in it if you look close to it here’s a red layer uh seven layer Chevron uh the red core is is not common mostly it was Green Glass like this one here the other thing you can see here is they made mistakes even though they were Master artists what they did they still ended up with bubbles in the glass these are smaller uh collection there of uh smaller Chevrons and you can see the different patterns and then when they ground the sides down how you can see the edge of the the different colors laying underneath here’s this shows you real good we call this a a Chevron salami because they cut it at an angle so you can see each layer was pulled through the mold there and the last layer was not then it would have been this like this is a cane a piece of cane out of a Venice Warehouse they found them in the corner they had uh bundles of canes in in warehouses over there in Venice and they broke them up into about 6 in long and uh shipped them out and sold them all over the world but the red Chevron is very rare and hard to come by so so is the green there’s a green Chev seven layer Chevron with the blue Center there’s a large seven layer and other other examples there this one here is broken so you can see inside different patterns that it’s not just done on the outside edge of the bead it’s the full length of the bead and a lot of people think that these beads were painted on none of these beads are painted on they’re all solid glass and this one here you can see where there’s a crease in that bead that bead was still hot when they laid a rod across it and put that crease in it in the 1500s and they went to the six layer of Chevron there’s a good example of that and the four layer here this one was probably a five layer Chevron but the women like the red on the outside of the bead so they would grind the beads down so the red would show so we call this a woman Chevron the Yellow Jacket five layer Chevron and the black Chevron there these are really rare to come by now and we get to the the beads of Lewis and Clark and that’s that’s a real uh subject that a lot of people argue about because we have a hard time proving the exact history and science of the beads that they had with them and this list we put together here me and a few of my historical friends here you’ve got white WAM and the 5 lbs of glass beads mostly small uh 20 lbs of red glass beads assorted 5 lbs of yellow or orange beads assorted two cards of beads three lbs of beads 73 Bunches of beads 8 and2 lbs of red beads this whole list mostly talks about different color of beads and when Lewis took off on the trip he knew that the blue bead was the most valued and sought after bead for the Native Americans when he when he left before he left but yet he ordered this list of beads so that’s why uh and these were actually Indian presence people are really misund understand that these were bought to be Indian presents they were to be given to the Native Americans these would have been beads that would could have been with Louis and Clark we talked about orange and yellow your Reds the blues these are cane beads then uh we’ll move on to some of these are wound beads in here that’s the next process the wound bead they work real close to the furnace right there and and grabbed the glass and pulled it out and wound it around a rod these beads right here Lewis requested in the letters of Donald Jackson’s he requested the cheap blue beads from China paying less than 13d in Europe for them so Lewis actually requested these beads from China when you look into the documentation of the letters of Lewis and Clark it shows that he asked for those beads from China and they’re all wound this one here I’m showing you the wound process up close where you can see it the wound pattern in it those beads were all made one at a time they weren’t made like the cane beads the wound beads were made one at a time here we’re showing the Bellows the the furnace right there in front of them the vent up above and guess who sitting around the table working at night do making the beads it’s the women here we have a mixture of wound beads with uh a few cane beads in it so you can tell the P beads are cut off straight and then some of them they would take back and put dots in them these yellow Arts here were wound they were made in the 1600s also these are I beads that we’re referencing to there with uh the Roman Empire beads the the ibeads have lasted since the beginning of time here’s a sample of more ibeads of rare colors that are hard to come by these were all made one at a time also this Str here is the best strand I’ve ever had in 15 years and it has blue and pink dots on the white eyes that’s the rarest strand I’ve had of the ibeads and then you have the red I bead and and these names are the original names that were brought with the beads when they were shipped over here because the Crow Nation down where I live in in Montana they call the I beads Crow Beads no matter if they’re black red or white or they call them Crow beads and that’s that’s not Soul uh the these are actually ibeads and I’ll show you CR beads here as we proceed these are Medicine Man ibeads and here’s your black ibeads this strand here I tell everyone this was a a beginning artist because when when he started making the ibeads he wasn’t sure if they were to be black or white and what color dots were supposed to be on them but when we really look at the master artwork that those people did in Europe they really had a fine art and they knew what they were doing we talked about making the cane beads and how they cut them the old way was to break them off like that on an edge or they made like a paper cutting device and then we talk about the the the round beads and the pony beads they were hot pinched beads they were the the pony beads were the size of about an apple seed and that that that size is what LS and Clark would have had with them them but they’re hot pinched beads so they would have been that Rod would have been hot and they would have pinched them off and you’ll see up close here that what I’m talking about when I the hot pinched beads here’s a fine example of these are two wound beads that should have been done individually and they stuck together and then here’s two other examples of where the beads had dirt in them and popped out these are good beads except they were made that way originally and that one there to be formed here’s a closeup of the cobalt blue bead that I feel is the chief bead even though there’s other opinions out there that I’ll talk about here and the sky blue Padre which is the most common and then they made white ones too also there in China you look here now and we can do it real nice with this machine because these were made in Venice and they actually have bigger holes than the ones from China and they’re more uniform there this strand here is bodmer blue they would not have had that with them because bodmer that blue didn’t come out until he was out here painting In 1832 me we can go back I want see look at those there from China how they’re they’re strung and then look at the Venetian ones that shows you a good example of the difference in the product then we talked about the way that they measured the beads was in fathoms these two strands I actually have laying down here on the table and and a fathom was 6 ft when Louis and Clark started out I’m sure that the the big guy on the on the trip he would give them six feet of beads because they were giv them to him by the fathom but as we all know by the end of the trip his six his fathom of beads probably was getting a little short because the beads that he had the red ones and the yellow ones and all that color they didn’t do him any good out there in on the west coast because they were already getting these blue beads here were coming down from Alaska through Canada and and the natives on the west coast already had the cobalt blue beads and that’s what they they actually sought were after here’s the wound bead the doughnut here’s uh the Doan are the large ones and these are Padres here there’s your wound bead there then we talk about mock garnets and when they were made and who they were made by in the 1800 exactly 1800s the Bohemians started making molded beads and that’s this one here is a fine example to show you how that glass was poured in there and it feathered out in the mold these are ducks blood and these are doans and the yellow wouldn’t have been until after 1800s normally this strand here is Dutch donuts and you can see how they’re wound F they were wound fast the reason I kept this strand is because that’s actually seaweed graded together so that strand actually came from Venice over here and was left on that you can see it down here also this is what happens to beads that are dug up is the soil eats at them and uh as we all know in the archaeological world and that we don’t dig up any areas uh they’ve they’ve dug up beads overseas and that and that’s okay but not here in the United States because we don’t dig up the graves in that actually some of these beads were traded in Africa the same exact beads that were traded here and in Africa they measured their wealth by how many beads they had and instead of burying their beads with their dead they may have buried their beads because it was it was their wealth it was their livelihood and that’s why we we get a lot of beads that were traded in the fur trade over here are being found in Africa and other other countries you know and Alaska also they’re still being traded in Alaska today these are common beads that would have been with Lewis and Clark the cobalt blue right there with that $7 million collection that’s coming out of St Louis we’re calling those the chief beads those would have been like gold to the Native Americans these white beads right here the pony beads would have been like silver and the greatest thing in between the white bead and the blue bead was tobacco those were the three biggest things that they wanted on the from the the white people the Native Americans wanted the the blue beads and the white beads in tobacco Here’s Your Greens that would have been common then there’s your greasy yellows like I say a lot of the yellows weren’t made until after the 1800s so they could have had these these with them and you got white beads in there one of the biggest things about the old beads also is you’ll see strands down here that are on string they that’s they were on cotton string that’s what they were shipped over on and some of them that are restrung on elant grass some of them came out of Africa some of them actually came from Europe on grass then we get into the wound beads with the trail designs and these here were done one at a time these these are French cross and we call these Trail beads this is a bumblebee that’s because it it represents the body of the Bumblebee this is a snake bead that’s found on many of the invoices and people are wondering what the snake bead is and it’s actually that trail bead right there because if you put a bunch of those together it actually looks like a snake skin I’ve had a lot of historians come to me and and ask me what’s the snake bead on those invoid es and they’re looking back on the invoices from the 1800s forwards and that’s what they’re looking looking at that’s the bead they’re looking for and I have a strand down here with some on it after the during the trail beads they made the feather designs here’s your Red Feather which is very common these are not there’s black feather beads and cobalt blue here’s showing you the different bead artists the earlier ones actually made finer lines this one here is a worn out bead and these show thicker lines on them they actually made the swirl bead at the same time they all date to the 1700s these are French Ambassador beads there’s a lot of people like to come up with names for different beads and why did they name it that was it named after a French Ambassador or not we have no written proof that that was true no documentation this one here when you hold the light up to it you can see that it’s green on the inside instead of black like the other one here’s another ibad Trail bead designed mixed together cobalt blue and these are fancy lampor beads these we call Cal Lupe uh like the Hudson Bay white hearts and florals we kind of categorized several different beads in that same area because of the White Center and the yellow Center these are Trail beads and these are Dutch dels and it’s because of the the blue and the white that it’s called a Del but these were all done in Venice we talk about skunk beads this is the true actual skunk bead and they were made cobalt blue and black and you can see the skunk tail right there these are actually called skunk tail beads in the beginning some of them were done fancier than others and some of them were plainer and you’ll see examples of these down here also the L and Clark bead that is a big controversy uh is story and friends of mine we we’ve tossed this around back and forth and Peter Francis who’s gone now uh him and me had several emails back and forth and talked about the loose and Clark bead and just like all the beads that I’ve showed you before here they were made in the 1700s that LS and Clark bead was started being made in the 1740s and and were quit being made in the 1850s and if you look at this one here you can see there’s mostly white on that band that goes around it that would be the earliest one and then as they went along they got better with their designs but that Twisted cane became a candy cane in the Louis and Clark bead and that one there would have been closer to 1850s these are fancier Lewis and Clarks because they’ve got the different color in the in the white and that but we cannot prove there is documentation from Wyoming but I would not use that as documentation for the truth because all the archaeological digs and that we can’t prove that LS and Clark had these beads with them French Ambassador bead there it’s a large bead with a nice design or French yeah this is French Ambassador the other one was arabes I made a mistake there uh these are kind of similar to the Le and art then here’s your fancier ey beads elongated beads then we got the gold Florine beads that’s what these are called and these are similar to the Lewis and Clark but what this is is this is brass inlaid or sometimes copper and that was inlaid in the bead while it was hot and there’s different sizes and shapes of those beads also then we talk about the raised florals these were done actually in the 1700s some with the white Hearts some not uh the earlier beads that I showed you with the trails on them they were raised little rods of raised glass like you see here and they were paddled into the bead these were not and that’s why they’re called raised floral beads fancy raised floral and these tend to be the more expensive ones then we talked about the the molded beads these are the type of molds they would have used they’re just like the gun mold the for molden bullets they could do four at a time or six at a time sometimes one at a time uh they were just as hard to make as as the wound beads and that because they still had to heat the glass to C certain temperature and pour it into the mold and plus have a rod in the for the holes we talk about the mock garnets that they had with them the Bohemians started making these pressed beads in 1800s and right here would have been your mock garnet they’re about the size of the pony beads There’s real garnets there and that’s the mock garnets here that I have enlarged there these were done one at a time and when you look at them down here you’ll actually see that the color of them is like a mock Garnet the red white heart though has several different colors so that shows you the variation in those also we talked about the Press beads these are corn barley corn beads these were pressed Lewis and Clark had them with them and these are Crow beads there’s more press beads these are podr uh you can see the the lines in them the molds these were pressed uh faceted beads these are actually cumba beads for the African trade you can see the seam though in those easier and you can see in that picture here’s your melon beads that are pressed here’s your Manhattan Bead that bead has been said that that uh uh a gentleman bought Manhattan with $27 worth of beads that’s a bead they’re referring to but there’s no truth to that story here’s a pend piece there that is actually made out of slate and that piece was found in North Dakota and that’s the exact shape of the glass beads that the Mandan Indians were making when Lis and Clark wintered with them over over in North Dakota they were taking the blue beads and smashing them up and making them into a pendant just like that so that that dates back before the the glass beads ever got here this is an iroy bag it has the Russian facet beads here with the pony beads here’s some Hudson Bay crosses uh with pressed beads with the the signatures on these and some of these have the Hudson Bay symbol on them they were made in Canada they were in a museum there and they were sold out of museum uh some of these were done by Richard Chuck shank I actually have one on that was made by him here’s your Hudson Bay Metals a big brooch that has uh several hearts cut out of it another brooch from that time period that would have been Indian gifts the the the big item that I told you about between between the the the blue and the white beads is the tobacco and this this is a snuff box made out of buffalo horn and that dates back to the 1800s this pipe case here is out of wood the the man would have carried their pipes in a case like that so they wouldn’t end up broken like this long one here uh this one actually dates back to 1775 in Civil War time as the pipe got plugged up with uh uh our favorite nicotine they would break the end of the pipe off and make it smaller in the pubs they would start out with a long pipe like that and they would come in and and grab the pipe and use it over and over and they’d break it off as it filled up with nicotine here’s my list of references start out with the voyage to Paradise exploring in the wake of Captain Cook beads of Lewis and or before Lewis and Clark 16th century glass beads the letters of Lis and Clark expedition by Don Jackson world of shipwrecks a bead Premiere a history of beads all these combined is what I come up that we use to come up with this presentation this here is actually a buffalo bone knife and that was uh a kids toy now here we go with blue beads the blue pony beads what if Lewis had more of them Indian presence became the clothing for the core of of Discovery to survive and they were not given as gifts like I said some Native Americans rep these beads represented the spirit world and when the classics proved great hegers and trade when why did the captains take that as an insult tobacco and blue beads they do prefer to everything December 20th 1805 Lewis wrote I Bartered my Al skins old irons and two canoes for beads one of the canoes for which they had given us but little had I cut up for fuel April 20th 1806 so on the way back they knew the blue beads were so valuable that they actually traded canoes and got blue beads back from the Indians to trade on their way home and as we end here uh everything we need to survive is out there on the Prairie will we ever understand what’s there and we are products of the fur trade whether people want to admit it or not we are products of the fur trade and always remember that the ground is an open book to those who can read the writing and understand it and that’s all I have for now for my presentation up here but I’ve brought beads along here and I’ll field questions for any of you and you’re welcome to touch these beads and that but like I asked at the beginning you don’t take pictures other than the park personnel because I’m actually being paid by the park service okay so is there any questions if you have any questions please raise your hand I’ll bring the microphone around to you so everybody can hear your question we’ll be up here and you can handle the beads and ask questions up here also if you want any questions all right well let’s give Steve e

The post Tent of Many Voices: 06040507 appeared first on Lewis & Clark Research Database.

Clint Brown

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

good afternoon ladies and gentlemen welcome to the ten many voices in the core Discovery 2 just tell you a little about us we are traveling exhibit we’ve been traveling since January of 2003 we started off at monachella at Thomas Jefferson’s house and we’re going on to the ocean and back just like Louis and Clark did 200 years ago we’ll finish up in October of 2006 in St Louis and uh that’s what we’ve been doing for the past 2 and a half years and the next person coming has probably been with us since the very beginning um his name is Clint Brown he is grovont and he does live on the grovont reservation here in Montana he’s going to be talking about their history and culture along with his wife Wanda and they also have with them today their three-year-old son Clint Jr so I’m going to hand this over to Clint anybody understand that that’d be cool if he did I introduced myself in my my first language my grovont language my ceremonial name is wasbe aot which means bar robe in in my grovont language uh I’m an enrolled member of the grovont tribe and the fort balp Indian Reservation here in the state of Montana up on The High Line Highway 2 um Grant is a French word for big belly kind of fits me some of my partners but not all of us have big bellies the way we got that name is uh when our people met uh a French Trapper up in the Saskatchewan area they were uh trapping along the the South Saskatchewan River the the these French fur Trappers were and they ran into our people we call ourselves the Anin which means the white clay that’s what we call ourselves when we when we address each other but we met this Trapper a long time ago he had no idea what I was saying and I could not understand him so the only way we could communicate at that time was through sign language and where we stayed at that time on the south saskatchwan Rivers was by the waterfalls The Falls there’s a huge uh set of falls on the south sukatan river and our sign language at that time for Falls which meant waterfalls to us in Sign Language this French f rapper with a pen or some ink and a paper he wrote down hey we met some big bellied Indians today we’ll call them the grovont and that’s how we got our name that’s that is our government name so to speak is is grovont and we call ourselves the white clay uh I’m here today to explain to you folks a little bit about the north central plain’s Native American way of life the Indian people when LS and Clark came through the Missouri River and and they uh they kind of came through our hometown our hom ground I’m going to explain to you folks a little bit about the way our people lived a little bit about some of the things that I’m wearing I’ve chosen to wear my dance regalia everything that I have on is something that my ancestors would have wore at one time probably during the Lewis and Clark area before and after I’m sure it’s a great way to explain each and every part it goes into a little bit of history and a little bit of of our our Legends and our our beliefs I also I’m very fortunate today I have my wife to come here with me usually I have my daughter come and she dances with me my daughter is now at starting high school so that kind of got put on the back burner H but I brought my wife today and she does all of the bead work I thought it would be excellent to bring her along and kind of explain to you the different stitches I guess there’s different ways of putting them beads upon the fabric and uh we’re going to have her explain that a little bit later on and uh and show maybe show you how to do some of that first of all what I’m wearing on the top of my hat is what we call uh a roach this right here is a roach and it’s made out of porcupine hair um in the winter time the porcupines have really long guard hair and this is what we we make a roach out of our ancestors would have used this for a type of camouflage back long ago when the grass was tall where we came from along with all of the fringes that you see it would help us kind of blend into our surroundings they would use turkey beards horse hair and of course porcupine hair and this is It’s called a roach the men would wear it inside that roach I have two eagle feathers these two eagle feathers represent my grandmother’s one on my mother’s side and one on my father’s side I believe that every time I put these two feathers on that I too would carry that same wisdom that the makushi carry or the old ladies we all know how grandma knows when we’re doing wrong and we’re doing right and Grandma pretty much knows everything but I believe that when I put these two feathers on I carry that same wisdom that them two ladies carry my father my father’s side and my mother’s side the way I hold my roach on is I have a braid coming straight out of the top straight out of the top of my head and there’s a hole in the bottom of this roach I run that s uh braid up through there and then I poke the stick through that braid and I call it a scalp block that’s how I hold my hold my hat on so to speak I don’t know if you’ve ever been on the Eastern front of the Rocky Mountains but we get some pretty good wind over there and I’ve never lost my hat yet so but that’s that’s the headgear there’s another headgear that our men would wor wear this right here is a War Bonnet it’s made out of eagle feather this was something that our leaders our uh spiritual leaders our our probably some of our most we would say our most respected people would wear their bonnets this way or wear their feathers this way I wear the two feathers on top of my head that represent my grandmothers the men that would wear their feathers this way were probably the most respected people in those camps those were the men that uh had all of the knowledge and the wisdom that we would look up to or that we would yearn to uh to learn eagle fethers Native Americans are the only one who can legally possess eagle feathers we’re the only ones in the whole United States who can legally possess these eagle feathers even as Native Americans as Indians I have to earn the right to carry these eagle feathers I have to prove to my grandparents my uncles my grandfathers my father I have to prove to them that I will take care of them in a manner that is is is uh that they that they I guess they wish me to we treat these like one of our brothers each one of these eagle feathers we also have to do a good deed to earn them just because I’m a Native American doesn’t mean that I could have an eagle feather for each feather that I have I have to earn the earn it these Four Feathers were given to me for going to college and uh getting my Bachelor’s degree my family believed that I had done good things for my family my people by going away to school so the four years that I was gone they gave me an eagle feather for each year now as a I guess it would be a warrior or uh a a just an everyday common man this is where I would carry my eagle feathers all of the Good Deeds that I had done I would carry them on a staff or a stick something similar to this the men who are our leaders this is where they would carry their eagle feathers they would put theirs on their head and wear them around the camp so if you walked into camp and you’ve seen a gentleman carrying a stick a staff and it had no eagle feathers on it and you seen a gentleman standing next to him with about 8 10 12 eagle feathers on it that gentleman with eagle feathers on it would be the person that you would want to talk to because that would be the person who has probably a little higher ranking in the social status and then if this person with eagle feather is on his staff was standing next to one of these gentlemen with a War Bonnet on that would be the person you would want to speak to we have to earn these feathers we treat them like a family member they’re very respected to us uh we take really good care of them people always uh you might see at a pow out if their feathers ever dropped on the ground we have a ceremony to pick that up it’s it’s it’s a a retreat ceremony it would be like during the battle we would go and get our wounded and bring it back that is the way we would treat a fallen eagle feather now below my my hat and my my roach I guess so to speak is one of the most important things to our our Indian people and that’s our hair we believe a hair is our hair is a direct link to Mother Earth we believe that is what we are made of that sand and that that dirt is the same thing that our hair is made of that kind of go goes along with the fact that uh when the men would go and scalp if you took that man’s hair you took his soul this braid right here was one of the most important braids probably for the enemies of the the Northern Plains Indians this braid right here is what the young a braid that the young men would wear when they were going to battle and this right here was the only way you could tell if them young men were going to battle this braid right here I would put in my hair before I left my camp for my enemy if I believed that my enemy was so good that he could overtake me in battle I would fix my hair for him meaning I would hang a braid in my face and he could grab that braid with one hand make one slice and take that hair my soul then or my my spirit then belonged to that man at the same time at e and at day I was challenging that man to come and get my hair when we brush our hair we never take it and we never throw it away we never cut our hair on a full moon once we’ve been married we never let another woman touch our hair meaning I’ve never been to a a a a beauty salon and had that somebody else wash your hair and make you fall asleep you know once I once I became came married that never happened nobody no other female will ever touch my hair I guess one of the things that uh you know when you when you brush your hair and you get a little bit of hair in your brush my grandmother gave me a little bag I take that hair and I put it in that little bag and when I’m someplace where I feel really good someplace where I feel comfortable some place where I feel at home and it doesn’t necessarily have to be on the reservation it’s someplace where I feel good maybe I’m fishing or hunting I’ll take that hair out of that little bag and I’ll put it back in Mother Earth cuz that’s where I come from and I believe that hair belongs to Mother Earth and nobody else it is my sole belonging my sole wish to never let anybody else take my hair or touch it that’s why Indians are really they’re really um superstitious about our hair even our race horses or our rope horses I grew up on a ranch I grew up Team Roping and roping calves bulldog and I’ve done all of that I’ve tagged calves my dad had some uh horses that he used to race now and then at the crow Fair some of them other Indians they’d go over and try to pull hair out of them horses tails you know try to use medicine on each other we believe that we believe that if if uh my wife always teases me I don’t know if this is true or not she never told me she said I have a piece of your hair You’ll Never Leave Me thought whoa but we believe that way that that’s one of our beliefs our our our one of our things that we base our our life around so the hair is very important you could tell if a person was married by the way they wore their hair if it was braided or unbraided you could tell if a person was unmarried you could tell if a person was looking for a mate you could tell if a person was mourning if they had lost a loved one you could tell if a person was just coming out of a ceremony meaning uh maybe the young ladies the young uh females they’re unable to touch the eagle feathers until they’ve had their first moon or their first menstrual cycle and there’s a ceremony for that they cut their hair a certain way now besides the the I guess um what a person would wear for headgear and the type of hair we have colors that belong to certain tribes long ago it’s not so much today but long ago where I my people lived the grovont people the the white clay people where we lived we could go outside of our lodges and make the colors red and black real easy by the by the plants that grew there farther east from us the Asino people the nakota Lakota and Dakota people they could go outside their lodges and they make the color yellow and blue real easy so it was kind of a geographical thing the colors that you would see on on a a regalia or a person’s moccasins or in their shirts or or their their bead work or their quill work without ever talking to them you would know which basically where they came from Simply by the color that they would use in their dye and the color that they would might use in their bead work or or that type of thing the cins would use a blue and a yellow growant would use the uh black and the red the crow people they live south of the muscle shell on the Yellowstone River there’s a a a MTH that grows only in that Yellowstone River that makes a pink a mauve and a yellow and those are the colors that the show The Crow people would put on their their regalia so we could tell each other apart simply by our colors it’d be like if this side of the room was all wearing green and this side of the room was all wearing black I might think these were uh Green Bay Packer fans and these might be Raiders fans so without ever opening our mouth and talking and of course our languages are different we would know who that person was what his rank was what his social standing was what tribe he belonged to what was going on in his life meaning by which way he wore his hair without ever opening your mouth or talking to that person all of that could be relayed by what you’d wear what you would have on the way you wore your hair now within the colors we’ have certain designs that would belong to certain families we would call him Clan system some of you might have heard that the term Clan Clan is a family system it’s a group of people that did their ceremonies together they named their children together they raised each other’s children if we had a camp of a thousand lodges inside them lodges there may be six or seven maybe up to 10 people would live in one Lodge long ago so of course if we went to move and we had a th000 lodges and may say 10 people in there that’d be 10,000 people of course the natural resources couldn’t sustain a movement of a group that large so we’d break down into smaller groups Clans family systems we might move in a group of 10 or 20 lodges it would make it much easier for us to find berries to find firewood to travel in smaller groups than it was to travel in the larger groups that’s what we call a clan system or a family system each Clan system or family system would have a certain design this design right here belonged to my clan the Bear Lodge Clan and so um once again without ever opening our our mouths there was a lot could be told by what we were wearing and and uh the colors and the way we wear our hair this right here is a breastplate the men would wear it for a type of of uh armor before the guns came we fought with sticks and stones and this was kind of a way to help protect our chest the men would wear chokers they would trade hides they would trade uh horses they would trade weapons for one little shell the shell is something that they would put on their neck and it was there to help protect their neck during battle all of this was something that they would wear probably they would have worn before the the firearms made it to our people uh on my back I have what I call a bu a bustle is an arrangement of eagle feathers uh once again there was different tribes would arrang their eagle feathers different ways a good example is the Battle of the Little Big Horn there was approximately six or seven different tribes there some were friendly some were not in the the late light of the uh of the end of the day or the early morning the smoke and the fog if you could look in front of you and see these people moving you might not be able to distinguish the colors or the design but you could see that outline of that bustle that arrangement of feathers would let you know hey this man belonged to this certain tribe the style that I have on belonged to the Sue tribe or or the cabin or the Su people and it’s a large we call it a men’s Northern traditional today and it’s the round bustle design on that bustle we have you’ll see some of them feathers have these white dots we call them a hail Stone right here those dots that you see on that bustle they represent that my family had sponsored a ceremony for a whole year or for the whole ceremony for instance for instance my family had sponsored a Sundance and that’s a four-year commitment those little white dots on them eagle feathers represent that they represent that my family fed they helped uh shelter all of the people that came to the Sundance for four years in a row we provided them with food shelter water a lot of times gas money to help get there and back that’s what that little white dot represents that little white dot that you see on that inside row of feathers I wear very proudly because it says that my family had sponsored that ceremony for them four years now on the end of them feathers we have horse hair just like the end of these feathers we have horse hair hanging out of the end horse hair to us uh our once the horses came to our people it represented longevity before that our people simply carried everything on our backs or we carried them on dogs by the way our people didn’t eat dogs cuz if we ate dogs then I carried everything that don’t make much sense to me once the horses came we could put our lodges and all of our furnishings and belongings on that horse and it would travel on and on forever and ever it represented longevity so for each Good Deed that was done to earn this eagle feather for each good thing that had I had done for my family for my people I put horse hair on the end of it I believe that that good deed that I had done will go on forever and ever with that horse hair hanging out of the end it represents longevity that way and we believe that okay I am going to I I like to dance so I’m going to dance one for you guys I’m going to dance one song and then I’m going have my wife stand up and explain a little bit about the bead work uh some of the different stitches this song that I’m going to dance to is what we call a stooping song and it’s a a duck and dive song and this song uh is something that came from the npers people this is a stooping song and this story you could that’s good I’ll stay right here this song came from a a gentleman I’m not sure what the gentleman’s name was but it was told to people uh before the the Treaty of 1855 that a stooping song represented the calvary that came above a large surrounding or a large Gathering of nesper people and this Calvary pulled up on this Ridge up above this camp and they fired their cannons off and you will hear during this song as this song is going along all of a sudden it’s got a boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom there’s two to each little interval we call it a duck and a dive or a stooping when the men are dancing and you hear that downbeat it’s like we’re ducking that cannon fire and there’s two to each one and we always tease each other about getting shot cuz if you’re dancing along and you don’t duck then we say you got shot but as I’m dancing to this song each time that stick hits the drum as he dancer my feet have to hit the ground that’s why I got these loud bells on before it was see this guy right here this park ranger he made me wear them before because I kept sneaking up on him and stealing his lunch can’t sneak up on him no more but it’s the men would put these bells on their ankles to challenge that drum when that stick hits that drum my feet have to hit the ground when that drum stops I too have to stop and the style of dance that I’m dancing the men’s Northern traditional I also tell a story while I’m keeping in time with that drum during the stooping song I’m telling a story of how I’ve gone and picked up my Fallen brother and I had carried him home I had gone and picked up my Fallen neighbor and carried him home there’s four push-ups to this song so I’ll pick up four people I’ll will think of four four people that I have in my family that have been in a service I have a couple of uncles that I lost in Vietnam I have a uh uh my one of my dad’s real close friends that we lost in Korea those are the type of people that I think of when I do these these uh this is a military style song It’s a song that the only the men would dance to and it’s called a stooping or a ducking di here we are ready to go Midnight Express the contest is on all he where all right I’m getting too old for this I’d like to have my wife introduce herself hi my name is Wanda Brown and I’m enrolled at the Fort bellut reservation I’m an enrolled as cabin my husband is an enrolled grov on and our children are enrolled to cins um I’m here to talk a little bit about the bead work and uh the different styles I think the first thing people need to realize is bead work is actually an uh art form you just don’t jump into bead work and start beating um I learned this from my mother and she learned this from her mother uh there are many different styles of bead work there’s a flat s or flat we also have a Peyote Stitch which is a round Stitch uh like Clinton has the geometric designs it’s more grov on and these are also his colors this uh flat is also this is my daughter’s and it’s more of the cinin colors we also have called The Lazy stitch on the outside of these is a lazy Stitch and I’ll explain all of these to you uh first of all when when you’re beating and I brought some examples to show you I started this this um work for my husband when I got hurt last fall so this is a long process um you don’t go inch by inch you go millimeter by millimeter when you’re working on this so when if if you get a j chance to come up and look I this is unfinished work and you can look at the back of it to see how each Stitch is going we lay beads out in a straight line and every two to three beads we come back through the f Fabric and and uh tack it down okay and another form of bead work is the Brits um you’re also welcome to come up here and look at them this also has our seal on it as does Clint’s uh vest has a seal on it no uh there we also have earrings that will match it uh this actually this bead work was done by Clint himself he made this for our son you come up and look at that it’s got a form of flat Stitch and lazy stitch on it what I didn’t mention was the lazy Stitch um on the outside instead of going flat in one line like these we go over we go five beads through the fabric back up five more beads down through the fabric back up on a peot stitch which is these you go round in a circle you start in one Circle and you continually move up making a design these are interchangeable you could take the uh different handles on these fans and you could match them up and interchange them they’re actually what they are is uh this piece is a 3 and 1/2 inch choke out of a 12 gauge shotgun yeah for certain they uh this little piece right here bolts out of the top of that shotgun choke and the bottom piece you can get them in lengths and what my wife does is she’ll cover it in leather I guess or fabric and she’ll pee Stitch around it and then I do the Feather work on these fans my wife has done all of the bead work this vest that I’m wearing tell them about this vest how long it took couple years uh Clint’s vest took approximately two years a vest of this size would run a vest of this vest of this size would run approximately two three $4,000 easy um Clinton’s hold bead work set if we were to if I were to sell the set that I’m starting on now we could easily run into $10,000 to purchase a set like this what we’re going to do is something a little different than what we usually do we usually you might see people talking about this bead work we’ve got it set out here we didn’t bring anything that we wouldn’t want you to touch other than our eagle feathers we would ask that you might be real gentle with those and respect those for what they are but what we wanted to do was open it up we’ve got plenty of time left we’d like to ask you guys if you’re interested to come forward handle this take a look at some of her bead work her stitches her knots if that’s something that you were interested in we could tell you about it till we’re blue in the face but if you come up and have a look at it while it’s in progress it might make a little bit more sense to you uh so if any right now if anybody’s got any questions we have a a mic uh if you folks would like maybe we’ll just open it up for you folks to come on up have a look for those of you that want to if any of you have any questions raise your hand we do have a mic mik I can bring it around so Clint and everyone else can hear you hi I want to ask where where first of all the gro Ventra uh are located where was your traditional territory and where is your reservation our reservation right now is in North Central Montana which is where uh up by H uh we’re I think I’m about 431 miles from home from where I live right now uh we’re about 50 mil about 40 some miles south of the Canadian border and about 2 miles north of the Missouri River our reservation runs between the milk and the Missouri River right in North Central Montana right on Highway 2 and our our traditional home ground long ago was farther east and up in the uh Saskatchewan area so we’re we’re actually pushed farther south I I come and do talks with them I come and do lectures with them as often as I can uh like I said um my dad owns cattle he’s getting about 70 some years old and so that he’s kind of slowing down and I’m I’m getting kind of bumped into that a little more than I really wanted to but you know how that goes we just finished hanging by the way hey the headdress you know we’re so used to seeing that in movies and what have you is it what tribe or is that typical or where does that come from it’s typical of the Northern Plains people you know uh there’s one thing I didn’t explain and it’s a war paint huh anybody hear the term war paint there’s no such thing as or paint there never was the paint that the men would be wearing is something that they would earn for completing all of our Ceremonies for instance uh just like our teachers today they have to go to school they got to learn certain ways to pass information on to our children and US same thing long ago we would have to learn our ceremonies the best places to find these certain items as each as we completed each ceremony and one once we finished all of our ceremonies as an adult male we then were called a teacher or a painter we were then given paint and what that paint would represent is if there was a young man or a young male that had no male figures a young boy had no male figures in his life he could go to any one of them people with paint on and that man would show him how to fish how to take care of his horse how to hunt paint was something that you were given once you you completed all your ceremonies granted some of the men did put it on their face when they go into battle but that wasn’t the idea there’s no such thing as war paint that paint that them men would wear would be they would be proud to wear it because they have completed all their ceremonies they were a bigger and a stronger man because of so we have one more C the the headdress is very similar to that as well it it was only the the leaders like I said before you know like in the movies you see um all these men with paint on they’re all wearing warb Bonet first of all we got too many CH you know all of these people and they were all yipping you know making this this noise that noise uh you know like woo woo woo woo like that that was something only the females did so unless they were one of them funny ones you know I I don’t know but that there’s a lot of things that Hollywood and and even I as a little boy used to run around and do that and my grandmother please don’t do that only the females would do it and they would do it when they were calling their relatives good question very good question we have one question back here Clinton uh the voices that accompany the drum beat uh do they have does that have significance good question some of the uh some of the songs like that one we just heard it had it had words in it those words were sung by a cre a Creed drum from Canada uh I I’m not exactly sure what they say but when that that same song is sung in in the the cineo people those words and they say grandpa I have come for you in the first pushup Uncle I have come for you dad I have come for you and brother I have come for you and what that that’s a retreat song and those words will they they say it’s our songs are one little bitty songs hang over four times and each one has a different saying in that one some of them are kind of like chants you know um we have uh a song that my little boy this little three-year-old he sings in the morning and it’s our coming Day song in the morning him and I sing this when we wake upy hey hey hey and to our people that’s a coming Day song we thank the crater for a chance to use something else that nobody nobody in this I get something every morning that nobody in this room gets nobody the Pope the president at the same time you folks all get that exact same thing we get a chance to use a day that nobody else has ever been in we get a chance to use a day that nobody else has ever roed or made better what we do to that with that day is up to each and every one of them thank you good our enrollment at this time is approximately 6,000 enrolled members we live on a reservation with two tribes the cabin and the groon there’s approximately 10,000 enrolled members on the reservation total about 6,000 are a cine I mean a grovont and about 4,000 are a cine of which approxim imately about 3,500 live on the reservation so roughly half of our enrolled members do live on the reservation a few years back our grovont language was falling to the Wayside we now have a community college on our reservation we’ve got some great uh I guess some some longevity programs that have been put in place this gentleman right here Mr Daryl Martin not too long ago was our president of our community council at home at Fort balet he’s from the same reservation I’m from and his gentleman like this who had put things in place uh to help preserve our culture and our language we now as a speaker I go into the elementary school and teach our language to the second third and fourth graders hour and a half each morning and each afternoon we teach that in our 2-year Community College so we are language is coming back long ago the very first born was given to the grandparents and you then learn your language your culture and your way I’m the the oldest in our family I lived with my grandmother as a little boy I learned a lot about our culture and our ways I learned how to speak grovont but guess what I learned the female dialect huh I grew up talking like a woman and now my uncles and everybody they would you know they would have to straighten me out but still I learned a lot of our ceremonies and our songs it it I may have learned it in the female dialect but it wasn’t hard to transfer it over to the male dialect so I I I’m very fortunate that way that I I did learn some of that you know a lot of our our young kids go through their whole lives and don’t even know that they’re uh White Clay people they go through their whole life thinking they’re groon you know I mean that’s a government name that was given to us no um he asked a good question about uh problem between the different tribes and marriages long ago um we used to always teach tease each other as Indians that was tease us grovont of being big bellies I said there’s a reason for that in the winter months when all of you Indians are sitting along the river you could see all your ribs us growant are just full we’re good Hunters that’s why I tell them long ago we used to uh the crow people would come up to our country and they would steal women and take women home so that they wouldn’t interbreed they wouldn’t intermar once that Crow woman or once that grovont woman left the grovont people and became she then on any rolls no matter what she was full blood Crow she then belonged to the crow people our people used to uh take cre women there was a lot of I guess stealing of of females long ago and it’s kind of funny you know because uh the females used to do everything they would put up The Lodges they’ take them down they tan hides they would teach the children they’d make our clothing they did a lot of work I used to ask my grandmother why was it why did the females do everything and she’d say grandson we wanted it done right the first I want to tell you a little quick story about our people there’s a gentleman named his name was red whip EA he was a leader of one of our Clans one of our family systems in the early 1800s before um before the reservations were formed our reservation was formed in the late 1800s probably the mid 1800s early 1800s the government used to come and they would bring wagon loads of things to our people and it was a way to get our people to concentrate in one area they would get um four or five Clans together they’d four or five family groups together and they would trade with them maybe once a month once every two months these wagons would come through and all of these Clans these Indians they would meet there that was kind of the way they formed our reservations too that’s how they’d say well this group was from right here this is where they would meet the wagon so that would be their Homeland it’s Nikita he he would with these this certain group once a month maybe once every two months he would take his people there he showed up there one time and there was no no wagons to trade with nobody there he found a little uh a square kind of a suitcase or a leather leather box a leather suitcase metal frame and had leather in it he camped there that where that suitcase was is that same place where he would meet the the government each and every time certain time of the Moon he would meet them there there was no government there there was no wagons no trade they would trade for glass metal uh clothing sometimes Firearms whiskey they got there and there was nothing so they camped there was just that little box they camped two nights nothing third night third day he he woke it’s he called all of the people to come up he opened that box and had hundreds and hundreds of little square pieces of wool he took them pieces and he handed them out to the elderly ladies first then to the mothers with children then to the old men then to the fathers each one of those little pieces were infected with small poox our people at one time stories say they were up to 10,000 Plus or more they dwindled down to less than 2 or 3,000 in about 700 days so when I leave home and I have uncles and I have my clan uncles and I have my ceremonial uncles who say why are you going to Al and Clark thing and talking about our people don’t you know what happened to our people that was the beginning of the end to our people this may be true but there’s nobody in this tent myself included who could change anything about that there’s nothing I can do to change that the reason why I’m going is so that I could tell people just like you folks about my way of life about some of the things that we believe in the way that we dress in our beliefs that I could come and tell you firsthand I personally and truly believe that what the park service is doing for us Indian people is a a great thing it’s a chance for us to come and tell you guys about our way of life firsthand as opposed to that little piece that you might read in a history book or you might see in the paper or or something on the Internet I I have people at home will say you should not be doing that but I look at it from an educational point of view and every chance I get I lecture all over I was actually I’m a licensed drug and alcohol counselor at home that’s that was my life before I started doing lectures I work in the school I teach our language I look at it from a purely an educational point of view it’s a chance for us to come and tell you guys about us I know we only get a short amount of time but I’m going to pretty much guarantee you that most of you folks will leave here knowing something a little bit more about the people in this area these areas that you didn’t know when you came here I want to thank each and every one of you for coming hej H hey thank you Clint and Wanda for coming folks our next program will be our last PR of the day it’ll be at 6 o’cl and it’s called Lewis and Clark

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