Tent of Many Voices: 05160401F

getting ready to look at some Native American Games traditional games and we're going to have 10 here I take us around and show us some of these some of these games here okay we're going to do this for the camera but this is the lip pole um it's also an Alaskan um game the adults I the adults do it and the children do it I still see it documented on television nowaday were you able to pick that up don't P it don't it don't P it it's a lot of endurance and don't engag in when they're ready they will start because it's too much pain to say wait wait go so you guys are ready go ahead and hook it up it's a lip endurance you start go see the fingers connected into the lip by one side and then come on get it they can't even reach over here all do that look the same one sorry go for it going the other way hurt okay I that go all right okay and the one who can't handle it usually gives up first but you can see the pain look at the pain on the fish out way that's a lip I got a volunteer Thomas how the twins come on oh it's right you already did that all right okay I'm going turn this over to you the ring do on why don't why don't you just tell us your name while you're nice and close uh my name's Ken Bruno I'm little sh Tribal member from Montana um we came down with 10 of us uh four teachers and six students I have my six students here and we've been partaking in the games down here for the Lou Park B Centennial and uh it's an honor to be here and uh all the games and stuff and the things that we do uh it's with respect to the tribes and the peoples that they came from and uh we take and harvest our equipment pray over all of our um games and stuff prior to harvest before we Harvest so it's all spiritual way doing things here well thanks Ken and I guess we can get somebody to show us some of these other games that we have set up around here um if you guys want to just start we'll just direct you all the way through our course yeah that'd be great all right that would be great okay since I'm the one Mike you going stand kind to close to me and then and um I'll introduce you over here let's uh take a walk ah play a game of make the Buffalo well now come back here a second yes all right because I got a mic on me just to get your name and things so if you say it so we got it all documented in my language it says uh I said hello greetings and uh my name is White Horse and uh we're here in Illinois was corrected on the S I was here is Illinois I'm from the black feet reservation and with a delegation from Montana there's 10 of us and we're all kind of inner tribal we're here to deliver a children's traditional game and uh like I say uh our games are made out of Willow they're made out of rock Birch buck skin many other things and these games are to develop a child's characteristic and through this characteristic and as an overseer as a mocker or an elder I look for these characteristics in these children and I try to develop those characteristics through their play and uh today we we're here to demonstrate those games to the people that are here on the uh grounds here we came in on Thursday and uh today probably this afternoon we'll be flying back to Montana and uh it was a real kind of Adventure since been out here because most of us few our students have never even been on the plane and uh I guess it was uh well we got lost a few times and uh we've been trying to see some of the uh culture within the area and it's been pretty hard but uh it's really been a really enjoyable time since we've been here and uh right now just asking the kids to play this one game make the Buffalo Run in this game it's it's before we even had the horse and the horse when we acquired the horse in the 1750s we uh acquired it from the chish from Idaho the black feed acquired the uh gun from the cre in Canada and before that we used the bow and arrow the Lance and uh right now we're trying to revive these games and uh like I say the games bring out characteristics and a lot of our kids are starting to arise to this and uh uh the games consist of field games individual games and uh I have to say this uh in Montana we we have uh it's a kind of a universal games the sish cutney play a game called shinny and the black feet play the game shiny but the techniques are are different but similar and it's uh it's a game of strength and it's to develop the kid it's supposed to toughen them up uh toughen them up and getting preparation and right now I want to go ahead and demonstrate this game make the Buffalo Run and the game starts uh at before we acquired the horse we used the Buffalo jumps and we used these uh Carin of rocks and they were in like a V and there was a child this child was called a buffalo Runner because uh sometimes this child became a martyr because the Buffalo ran at like probably 40 m hour and probably overcame this kid but there was a point at the uh at the end of the Buffalo Jump in which a child would jump in his hole or under the eve of this cliff and the Buffalo would Stampede and soon as we had enough uh kill of the Buffalo we divert the uh the uh the herd at an angle of adver them to another side of the cliff but at the bottom of the cliff some of these Buffalo would go over and a lot of them were not killed and what they did is they kept them inside this cell called it pishan and they would come in with their lances and finish the kill but the Buffalo M uh was a very uh important animal in our uh lifestyle it provided tools the the lodge coverings uh the meat and uh a lot of other aspects that I I have to think about and and like I say uh this game I'd like to demonstrate it and what it is is that a child will take a marker and uh they use one breath and it was very important that the child would wave their hand and only that scream as loud as they can and in doing so as the mocker or the referee or whever the judge I'd have to listen to this as soon as they ran out of breath they set their mark on the uh on the ground to signify then a child would be challenged and say I can beat that marker so at this time I'd like to go ahead and uh demonstrate that would that' be all right that' be great thank you all right I need some uh Challengers I want some Challengers I want to make the Buffalo Run all right R you ready I want some action from you now I want I want to hear your voice I want to see some some motion and you'll start the mark Some Mo all right at this time you ready make the Buffalo Run ch sure all right don't let him get away with that I know you can do this all right you ready ready make the Buffalo R right that right there now this uh is a game of stamina endurance all right ready it make the Buffalo Run he said to Mark did you set the mark he did challinger challinger Step Up Challenger that guy in yellow Challengers all right see how it's done I've seen some kids large small and I always see to see those uh kids at talk in school go the furthest you got to do great all right you ready D make the Buffalo r oh you still has the work Challenger Challenger any more challengs I got a marker here young man I want to see how got that stamina can you endure this one breath one breath and I want to see some AC want to scare those Buffalo Challenger Challenger bring it in Bring ining Go go let's go who's the winner Winer I give recognition to this young man in his uh performance and his endurance and stamina and why I do this is I'm recognizing right now the reason I do that it brings attention to him he did real good not just one of the games that we we play and we trying to bring this this our culture back and it's very important at this time and place in our time on our reservation and a lot of rap and a lot of aod stuff coming in and we have students coming in with uh gang ISM and it doesn't belong in our tribe and we're trying to develop this this character again and revive it like our language well how about a few of your other games White Horse before you guys have to depart on us today well we have a few games called shiny and uh like I say I I play blackbeat style and my sticks I run from my any where from 2 ft to 2 and 1/2 and the reason they're so short is that I want the young people to use their body and and these kind of gains are to strengthen and toughen up our kids and uh to get pushed or shoved uh you just kind of Shake It Off and get back into the game but it's to toughen them up for something more more probably in the future to maybe defend or to enhance their people but the these are some of the games I have another one called double ball and that I have over here on the table can I show you this let's take a look this is what we call Double ball sticks and they're just Willow sticks and I painted them red and black and to play this you carry the the double ball up like this if you get it too far it slides if it gets too low it'll slide off huh right now uh we'll go ahead and demonstrate this so you George you want to play sure let's play we'll play uh kind of like keep away this isn't the uh original game we usually play with what you call uh gold poost and the gold post are just similar to what we look like in football two ends like so you put them in the v like that Crouch up the V to go over that's one point but to wrap it around that's two points and and uh this uh game has no boundaries and it as it has as many players that have sticks that can play this this is I kind of improvise because young children I I use this it's a buck skin bag with sand and HSE hair in it the originals are rawh hide with rocks in them and these go a lot further and uh so I kind of improvise for the little ones at this time and we'll just play a game of uh keep away huh well red against black all right and to play this to play this well just there's you can use your hands no feet stick only and you can flick it out good one George throw me overhead whoa so there's two ways of picking this up when it's on the ground you just come like that and you go to the outside you may use your body try to take the ball away from me that's how they check me and take the ball away from me then it goes on go ahead boys demonstrate this I need a block out there get it block bring it back bring back what the do are doing right now they're just playing a game of keep away you can either flick the double ball out or do it overhand this is a plain engin uh game I usually go with two basic colors just red and black it's easy to tell when you talk about the goal post about how high would you generally make the go I usually go about eye level oh say six 6t about how long I would say 6t there to wide great George is out of the shoot the game is played like tribes and uh to start the game maybe I can demonstrate that how it actually starts I just time I need two chiefs h two chiefs you're a young man I want you to cross your sticks black you get behind your Chief Red get behind your Chief start the game cross your sticks and what you'll do is I'll will throw this like so and it's up to them to get it back to their people the red would go this way and the black would go this way as soon you can click it back to your people my people to start the game we start in the middle of the field we have our two Travel Leaders and their people right behind them you play it flick it back to your people you go forward that's great they kind of improvised on that shiny go right and again you called the shiny oh this is double ball I'll show you shinny now Shin stick bring it in all right grab a shiny stick boys these are shinys sticks and they're real crude and I wanted impressed upon the people that they're very easy to uh make and uh different tribes have different styles but we'll play Black feed style black feed style is that you have two two hands on the stick and you stay low and I'll get a shiny ball right here this is what you call a shiny ball buck skin feelings in it and we try to put horse hair and so forth in it what I do is that uh right way to uh to play some offense and defense and for example if I had the ball here I try to ski this young man out and it's a lot of bumping and pushing to get it the thing is you are to sweep it it's not like golf it's not like golf but just to sweep it see if I can read here all right let play a short game we have some Golds here red on this side black on this side Captain right here well I'm going to ask I have three commands here I'm going to say come up here George right here guys I have an even start here what I'm going to do is I say should need one I want you to have two hands on your stick and stay low it's very important you have two hands on the stick sh need two you don't move CH three I will throw the ball over there I can throw it here it depends on where I want to throw it so at this time keep your stick slow two hands on the stick at all times all right remember you may use your body you may use your body to block out you're ready shiny one shiny two shiny stre plant keep it on the ground keep it shitty on the ground use that body no feet no feet there's no B in this game there's no lines there's no lines in this game no feet George come on buddy here and this guy this game could be played on a field as 10 miles to 100 yards but we just kind of play 100 yard since we have football fields makes a lot of sense to me yes this is a game to make you tough getting position on a ball score all right KN to the middle one more one more hey George how we up all right just really time just time all right you guys ready shiny one Shin two shiny three fighting for a position winners right here winners winners right here I want to give recognition to you you guys are the Champs shinny I want to give a recognition yeah what I did is I bring attention to them just like I give to all my winners usually I I I carry a staff and at this time when I on the plane I was unable to bring some of my gold even my staff that I use so at this time you boys take a breather you guys played the good game but I'll show you another game that's very Universal in our um pling indant here game Geor a good game this is what we call a ringing stick and uh this game is very Universal I've seen uh the Spanish people in Mexico they play with a what do you call a cup with a ball I've seen the uh Koreans play it similar with a like a stick but it's all a smaller scale this game is to help the child develop his Focus or her Focus but also patience to play this black feet we play it a style of three five or seven but we'll play a a small short game you yeah you've been practicing I have all right this is how you lay it flat on the ground I don't want you out here because it'll come at you like so if it's behind it'll take off on you so we play it flat keep that little Tork on the string and to pop it up now that's one oh I'm lipping it right uhoh oh now it's your turn see hey hey very good you played the game well thank you I'll show you one more if you have time is that possible like this is this is what we call a wheel and dart it's made out of Willow paint personalized it a little bit these leather is your handle and this plays on the little bit more put it little cuz these Willows kind of dry uh get dry and this kind of used as weight the feather is used as a streamer in the Dynamics makes it's real strange how it plays on the dark what I'll do is I'll roll this uh what do you call Wheel and it's usually played with a log and I said that's a boundary log it say all look as far as the log and it's up to the boys to use two different techniques either kneeling like so or standing up like so boys you line up for me the all right George you want to help me yeah all right show me your Technique boys represents a rabbit small creature might be a time when you're really en dire of food and you were able to uh provide for yourself or your somebody in your family or your family at this time you oh this is mine do it again one more time everybody ready all right you guys are playing the good game try to guard it make sure it sticks if it happens to go all the way through like so there was no point to give it all right all right right in front of R all right young man young man I like that it's a good character you're not scared very good ready I have some other darts over there you come on all right we ready ready here we oh no good it didn't stick I'm sorry all right I'm going to slow this down this is a three three-legged rabbit it's it's a little bit slower reled rabbit three-legged rabbit all right it's played a good game how about a turtle all right three-legged Turtle dag it down all right one more time One More Time come on come on to the make rabbit there George Ron you're going to have to get back up make it fair got a lame rabbit a little are you ready here we go that was a four-legged rabbit was well my colleagues have a lot of other games that they uh can show we show you all right we're ready too thank you thank you White Horse thank you I'm glad you played the good game thanks go over here and join Ken here for a couple minutes I'm in in in Alaska in you tribe played a game called Spear of whale what we do is uh we tie a bone they usually used a seal or whalebone they hung it from a tree about waist high um this particular uh bone we numbered it one two points to one side one point having a smaller and a twoo with two the objective of this game is to take your Spear and put it through the ring that's in the bone first to do so wins in some cases or else it's done on a point scale uh we'll just do it first too um the game is offense and defense and for dexterity it learns you to um be better at uh spearing or whatever you have um the defensive strategy is you don't want your opponent to get their spear in the to the Bone hole and at the same time being defense you ain't going to get to win the game unless you're offensively played so these guys will go ahead and start first you take and measure your spear from your bone and you do not move your you stay that far from it you don't come any closer and I will start this game you guys ready here we go there a defensive plan going on over there on that side there's a hang up take advantage of it take advantage of it take it get the point there oh it's free defense offense oh no one's going to win if they keep grabbing his stick the object is to get the spear in the bone and you can see try this it's a little harder and of looks utilizing the tree BS is kind of cheap if you ask me bring it on out here take advantage of it oh you can't move take it off yeah just go offens you guys just offense let's spe the whale if you try it you'll find out it's a little more tactic and a little more skill than uh what you can imagine they do have different size Targets this is another one that they use this is just a triangle some of these are made of wood some of them are made of bark what's the game spear the whale Alaskan in Indian tribe and we do do these games out of respect for the people and traditions um and everything is uh sacredly prayed before harvesting and everything so done in a and skirt away it's done a couple ways first we will do the ring toss and then we'll do the arrows uh you can see we have children's bows here um these are used for target practice a lot of the natives the mandin tribe Indians they actually shot arrows up into the air um and see how many they can get up in the Airborne before the first one strikes back to Earth um they've been known to do eight air ARS the first before the first one hits the ground so it's a it's a real challenge um a lot of them shoot arrows up in the air and catch it when it comes back down the further up you shoot it and if you catch it the more better you were and it's a good coordinating thing um what you're seeing here that the the Young Bucks are demonstrating what happen to your rings got ring toss over there these are Arrow you know that arrows who's arrows huh Arrow somebody's messed up today too much good food at the vi Centennial challenge this is Arrow casting um Target being a stick with a fork top the object of this game is to Cast Your Arrow from a certain marked spot and have the arrow Mount the stick as such you get no points unless it is touching the steak you there's two Targets set up and we'll have a actual demonstration here it's a lot of skill different natives have different styles of uh arrow games uh poy and uh mandin and Apaches um played a lot of this arrow flet and we got a winner over there good Perfection another arrow game is who can throw the arrow the Fest another game we play it is marked with a scam and yell stick there you go what you do is you keep good old strong Arrow good strong Arrow yeah the object of this game is to throw your arrow as far as you possibly can and then you mark it where it stops with your uh your uh stick which wasn't a very good throw too much food for our today and his uh his partner should outdo him very easily done good job and preparing and making their arrows cling um this game is done uh need one for can you see that one um the Fletching stick this would be a regular Arrow however we modified this for games this part of it is called a Fletching The Feathered part the object of this game is the first player cast The Arrow out and then the second player casts where the last last Arrow went trying to put the Fletching across the arrow the third Arrow would be shot towards the last arrow shot if this was laid there then they'd be no good and he'd throw his arrow and if he could cover it he'd get all the arrows and a lot of times there' be 20 30 arrows down there and then that that guy win a lot of arrows so we'll actually watch this demonstration before before usually 10 20 10 12 ft a distance and you can see it looks easy but when you attt it it's a lot harder notice the distance now they they're cheesing each other somebody's going to oh there's a wind so he gets all of the arrows and he's got very few but he still has one as long as you got one you can keep going and that's the art of Fletching another game we use tossing is ring toss and we'll take that field next ready for ring toss okay a lot of tries played toss and ring um it's similar today's uh um Horseshoes and we'll go hit that field next however we do got a bow and arrow Target here so can you whip out your ball here and take a shot at this while you're here the object of this game and arrows were marked at different distances they've been they were hung from trees as you see here with h various different targets different endings a lot of natives use colored beads to signify their uh their colors of their Nation we don't have big arrows because we built them for uh the children to play with did that go through the small ring not a big ring okay and points are like uh this would be a bull's eye and this would be a point along with our ground arrows where if you Arrow or a spear Chucky you could actually throw this and have a spear going through it but that's a little arrow thing that we also do okay ring toss next game we have here is ring toss um we do use a couple Vari of rings my other one's gone object to this let's use that pH is to cast your ring and get it around your steak um this is either done by the first two rings and the distance marked would be a lot harder yeah that work down okay and go ahead and start casting your arrows or your rings here you go using these too hi that's cheating try these Rings oh he's good this is rain toss uh depending on the age of people you can move them closer or if they're very skilled you can move them further apart there is another way to play this besides using a a stick in IND doors we take and we can throw a loop within a loop that's another way of doing it which is just as indoor it's easier for indoors or you got ground that you can't put a St okay good job and uh you want I could teing my shop down over there we could hit that table and kind of walk through that stuff well let's do that Ken and then uh we'll let you guys get going cuz I know you guys have to pack up and okay hit the trail here you want to pack it up please use string if you need to tie your stuff together this is your bag walk around to the front of table a stomach she's got signs I don't know how see here uh we set up a display of uh Native American uh games and stuff um we got a lot of different variations of hand games I picked this up on the Missouri River in Montana there below uh rainbow Dam I figured a little child would use it as a toy knife so I just kind of kept that it's kind of my only little prize today's toy knife today's dice Native American dice these were two points each so that would be uh two four points and then once you get them all it' be six points they don't have a four point or a six Point unless it's four four of a kind is four points Two of a Kind is two points if you got three it wouldn't count for some reason this is a game of memory an elder would stand behind a child and a child would visually see this the distance between the Rocks the the way and the direction that the paintings on the Rock were faced and it was done through timing they' take these and memorize them they ga them up take them to an area and put them back down and put them exactly the same way they have memory of them then an elder would come over and check if it was off a little bit You' disqualified the closest you can get to being memorized if it was a memory game we have different dice games that we utilize variations there regular old stick game um these they use these C bones and they'd hide them you'd have to guess where the red one was or the plain one be hidden you know if shaking going on there's a blackbeat children's game that got a lot of stick games we have actual stick game tapes from uh different tribes in Montana another game we probably all familiar with is uh gun with stones it's hide the rock you remember when you was young used to guess what hand it was in very simple game to remember some of our balls are made of buck skin a lot of times inside the buck skin we had corn Tusk we'd wrap it and tied it and make it as round as possible and wrap it in buck skin or we took the shavings off our stick shaved it off collected it and we put it together in a ball and then we twine it up and then we cover it with buck skin that was another variation in the hand hand games Okay um this shuttle clock which we didn't get a play um is done with one person or five people it's a make Indian tribe the object is I can bounce this six times um this is a shuttle coock and this is a battle door it's now version of pink pong so what the game kind of originated from shuttle um and the wa this came out of make Indians out of Washington and uh like again I say all these games and stuff we do introduce with respect to the people and their tribes um I make a challenge I can hit this 10 times in a row and then someone would challenge to beat it so then they'd come and partake that's the game of shuttle C he did bring the stick this is a boy's toy it's called B you you uh native tribes in the country use it you can hear the wind how it and young boys would get together you get 10 20 of them making this noise and it was very exciting but it was a way for the young children to have something to do besides fish and Hunt another game is Buzz got to take a ring here I've tooken a piece of beef jerky which I had to um um utilize cuz I didn't have a flat piece of wood from my last go around but again you just wind it up I'm going to fake this buzz you wind it up tight you'll feel it tighten on your fingers and then you pull it part gets a buzz feel to it um you could use a larger um um utilize cuz I didn't have a flat piece of wood from my last go around but again you just wind it up I'm going to fake just pull it apart gets a buzz feel to it um you could use the larger a lot of people use bones and stuff um bark can be used and be jerky can be used no doubt and another variation of that particular one uh zonies use corn darts these are targets that they use kind of like our darts today they had a bullseye and you got points scored the different colors the beads could have been representing different points and the colors of beads represents tribes is this one here and it could been different points and a bullseye the POU had feather darts and targets you can see the variations they were also mounted on arrows entirely the whole Arrow so and then again the Tusk the corn and then these were again used for our balls and stuff um a variety of equipment we use we made of a a lot of different type materials the bow and arrow You' seen a demonstration of that um this one's been through the meal again they're painted up and different tribes have different paintings on them these are our running scream sticks as you seen with the full run these are also good marking sticks I went ahead and I'm using um Driftwood now and you can see it's a better art and smooth less splinters and stuff and these are counters for a variation of games instead of just getting one points you'd use these as certain amount of them to use how we kept count games this was a Fletching game as you recall MH okay um this is a racket I believe he introduced racket to you earlier um in the early 1700s the Ottawa Indians in Michigan uh played this game the chicka used two rackets when they play it um in the early 1700s in on a PT in Michigan the Ottawa Indians were playing a game of this there were 30 40 of them to start the game after a few minutes there was a hundred of them after a half hour there were 3 400 of them once there was enough of them playing the game and the soldiers of the PT just watching this innocent game the natives attacked them that particular year they took nine ports in one year so it wasn't only a game it was like a war tactic so a lot of history in uh r then you see ring the pin again two variations with the steak and then the ring this is also made out of Willow I made these last year and you can see it still got green to it but they are dry now okay and then again our shinny sticks just to let you know here a Montana Indian tribe the little shell excepted this blanket for our traditional games that we play um with our our people this was brought to us from the um the uh confederated Salish and Cy tribe who received it from the blackbeat people I believe who received it from a tribe from Canada we pay a lot of respect to blanket and uh the game pieces when we get done in 2005 I believe we will hand this blanket over to the next tribe and we will add a game piece to it and this will go through the country how who knows how long hopefully um when my child is older and stuff it'll come back around and she can actually come show me and my beautiful daughter Latina Bruno Great Falls she goes to Great Falls High um she's I'm a real proud father of her she has a presidential award for achievements and stuff in 2000 from Bill Clinton who was a great president and she makes me very proud and I'm glad she's traveling with me I have my other Cadre over here like to introduce CH she is a resident of the Rocky Boy agency and uh she goes she's home schooled in great balls and uh glad to have her down here in Illinois sharing this experience with us and she brings a great deal of stuff with us we have here the three blackre boys who are great balls four four black four five oh five black feet right here right there that's five black feet these boys are uh great ball school with us they are part of our Indian club um from over there we got Dale we got David and Ronnie um we're proud to have them along with us they've been working and helping us with our schools for quite a while they do get involved with us and they were chosen to be here because because of their uh involvement with the games and they're uh wanting to be be a part of it very proud for this individual right here all all of us very proud of him and his son who's been a great access to this travel glad to have you with us too also not last but not least not but La not last last but not least we we have the um a guy from bnap reservation in Mont an ghost Ventura G Gran um he brings his games along with us and uh his experience and stuff he's been probably with us the longest of all of us and we're very proud to be working with him and I'm learning from him also with all our Cadre and uh we appreciate you coming down and uh taking the opportunity to let us show you and present us what we brought here from Montana and our research and stuff well thanks can and uh we appreciate everything showing us around I hope I hope