Tent of Many Voices: 09220603

covery 2 and the T many voices real quickly I just want to tell you a little bit about us we are a traveling exhibit that's been on the road since 2003 we're sponsored by many different federal agencies which you can see on the banner right in front of you here um we are managed by the National Park Service and in 2003 we did What's called the Eastern Legacy States they started in monello Virginia and starting in 2004 we actually hit the Lewis and Clark Trail we took two years to make our way way West to the Pacific Ocean like Lewis and Clark and their uh gang of explorers 200 years ago and this is our final year and our final destination is right here we've worked our way back from the ocean to St Louis and this will actually be the final stop for core of Discovery too you are here in the T of many voices and the T of many voices is exactly that it's a place for people of many different backgrounds to come and share their experiences talk to you about Lewis and Clark's and the subsequent impact of the Expedition so what I'd like to do now is welcome our next presenter Mr Keith bear he's from North Dakota he's going to play a little music for us he's going to talk to us about his culture as well today please help me welcome to the tenam Min voices Keith barar kicha Ola good couldn't do oh yeah hello okay you guys are mostly English speakers that helps a lot right but I greet you first in my mother's language the Mandan people we are born into our mother's side of the family we're matrilineal people on my mother's side I my name is oh Mash this means a bright light that waves in the north sky English my name is Northern Lights as you know Northern Lights is only a reflection so as you see me standing here telling these stories playing these songs dressed as I am I am a reflection of my family I'm a reflection of my Clans I'm a reflection of my people I'm a reflection of North Dakota and when I go overseas I'm a reflection of many of you also because they call me a Native American but when my grandfather when I were younger my grandfather was still walking this Earth and they were bringing new grass called Kentucky grass in North Dakota and he said this wasn't native and people were talking about native grass is native things I said gaka I said what what's native grass he says like buffalo grass and fox tail these things that grow here like the Buffalo and the eagle that are born here the trees and the butterflies that are born here if you're born here said then you're a native of this land so I ask you my friends where were you born if you were born here in this country you're as much a Native American as I am see it's not the color of our skin it's a Birthright it's something we should be very fortunate and lucky that we are born here in this land because my my people began here some of your people came from a far away Place some of our relatives on the East welcomed them in their little wooden boat but today that little wooden boat is made out of Iron and Steel and sails rivers and seas it's made out of tin and flies to the sky it might even be aluminum foil flying around the Moon it might even be an inner tube still bringing pilgrims to this land and it's up to you and I the new Native Americans to greet these people and when we greet each other we greet each other with that where I come from I have an adopted daughter and my brother and sister here and so as soon as I saw them I greeted them I have many friends around here when we see each other we greet each other with hugs I have a new friend and I greeted her with a hug too but we spoke over the phone so we have a connection you see at home when we think of someone that we is dear to us and we think about them we send them a prayer we care for them we say that the metalark brings that song in the morning so when we hear a metalark we think someone is thinking about praying for us and so we say our prayer and we offer our words back to that metal Arch and maybe he'll take them back to those people that we are thinking of and so I'd like to begin the program with a song that I call the metalark song e d you see these fluts are made out of trees Limbs and branches sometimes a piece of a door this particular flute would came from a an old farmhouse in North Dakota the cedar closet the house was built and it was damaged after the family had moved out and it was falling apart I went in there and I was looking around This Old House to see what I could see and I saw this front piece hanging on the top of the door and the backside was hanging down the side of the door and I took those two pieces and I put them together it's that aromatic Cedar smells really good and so when we play these songs when when they they open up doors in our minds in our hearts when you hear the songs you should Express Yourself we go through a lot of doors in our lives we open a lot of doors we can close a lot of doors but we as a people we hardly ever had doors Even in our Tepe we had a flap in our Earth Lodges of the Mandan people we had a buffalo hide or something we didn't have a solid door there so when we open those doors we welcome everybody and we we welcomed Lewis and Clark 200 years ago as they came up that River because we'd heard about them coming we heard that there were men coming they make a lot of noise and they did shooting their little cannons and making guns go off and they they wanted to be known who they were but we had heard about them through the Indian Telegraph Mox and Telegraph told us who they were before they ever got there this song is a song that I want you to just think for just a moment I don't know how good it's going to be with this traffic here but this is something we have to deal with so I'd like to offer you this song that I called Spirit Journey um this this has a very soft voice I'm afraid I can't use this one this this time but these are like people these fluts very much like human beings because each one of us has a voice all of these fluts that I make I use my hands to measure and so when I take the wood like this one was a fence post from a friend of mine up in Seattle Washington and he was going to throw it away and I said hey can I have that so he mailed it to me and I gave him one back and I sold two and I still have one said I got two more at the house yet I could sell too but see one man's trash is another man's treasure you know and it's not the outside that makes all the difference the first one I created out of a flute my three-year-old grandson brought her to me he was dragging it across my living room rug I'm like oh grandson gee thank you go get some cookies from Grandma you know and I was going to throw that that ugly fence post away but when I looked at it you know a few days later we have to remember that our children are still closer to God than we are they can remember things and see things that we don't I saw an old ugly fence post with bird poop on the top and cracks on there and holes in it and you know what coyotes do on the bottom of fence post you know and so I was going to throw it out but I stopped for just one moment I looked at that and I thought my grandson brought me this maybe I should look in here because he didn't see the outside he looked within and so I cut that bottom part where the coyotes walk I threw that away first then I took off the top where the birds sit and then I took off the outside I need a good solid piece of wood to make a flute and so as I began to carve that to take that apart I cut it in half and then I use my hands and my fingers to do the measuring and as I was working on this I thought this is a lot like us as human beings you see sometimes we have scars too on the outside just like that fence post did it had been repaired you could see several holes that were there it had scars from where the wire rubbed on it where the horses and the cows fed and rubbed some of those fence posts they fell down because they were weak within themselves but some of them like this fence post did his job every day in the wind in the Rain the snow the hot sun maybe he wanted to be a boat and carry people down a river maybe he wanted to be a table to feed people maybe he wanted to be a weapon a bow or Arrow to feed people protect families but he was chosen he was chosen to be a fence post to protect that that grain from the horses and the cows to protect those horses and cows from those people on the highway every day he did his job when he got old they were going to throw him away but one little boy did not look at the outside he looked inside and so then I made that flute as I made this one out of another fence post I remembered my grandson and so we must remember that our elders have some of the best stories some of the things that we have experienced in our lives we need to pass on to our grandchildren because our ways the grandparents took care of those children and long ago when those people came from far and wide we lived on on the Missouri River for a very long time and we were the Commerce Center of America other tribes came to us from the mountains and the deserts and they came from the North and the South the East and the West they brought things we didn't have in North Dakota and they would trade with our Farmers for those goods and that medicine they'd also bring their sons and daughters to help them as they travel to help push the horses and cook and prepare the food and so when they got there with their tall skinny boys you ever see pictures of them Prairie guys they got high cheekbones you know those guys got rib bones sticking out too knobby knees well that's how you would look too if you spent all your Winters on that Prairie in a little mobile home called the Tepe shivering off your fat in those cold Winters you see we're condominium people we have Earth lodges and it was nice and warm in those Earth lodges and so they wanted to be a part of our family and so those young men would come over and they'd visit and they'd bring a gift for everybody in the lodge from the dog outside to the youngest the women the children the boys the girls the elders everybody received a gift and that young woman would let him sit on Furs that she had prepared and give him food that she had grown and they would talk all the family would try to know who this young man is because I want some young man who's going to protect my daughter feed my daughter take care of her I want a daughter who can feed my son and I can and take care of that young man that she's with in a good woman way and so these things are all done and at the end of the evening that young man will go out and he would take a flute and he would stand off to the side and some time ago a young man loved the woman so much that he said all through the night I have dreamed of you and all through the night you have been my dream I woke this morning and I sat upon the hill and I waited for you to bring sunlight into the day as I sat here I twisted sweet grass with the flowers that grow when you stepped from your Lodge and you stepped upon the Earth the Sun began to shine the birds began to sing the butterflies began to dance and my heart began to pound as you walked towards me I wanted to say good things to you but my mind became a cloud my tongue was so thick I couldn't move it when you looked into my eyes I became lost I looked at the Earth and I raised my hand with that bracelet and you took this from me and as you walk past I said there goes the light of my life there goes the source of my desire there goes the woman of my dreams and all through through the night I shall dream of you again e for e excuse me our children are most important to us and as we raise our children we raise them by giving them a lot of times to our grandfathers grandmothers as we go out and work the men go out and hunt the women would take care of the gardens and they would take care of those lodges those lodges that we had were as high as this and as round as this whole place round and the women built those not the men all those horses that a man got in war they belong to that woman so if you are good to that woman you could have two or three or four wives see but if you weren't good to them they could get rid of you too see I would talk to the first wife and say this one is not getting along and they would say yeah we need to have her removed and so the man would break the stick and throw it out say someone can have her now and if her husband was on the other side of the camp if this young man grabbed her or her his dad grabbed her that would be his woman now she didn't have time to make it over there but then if that man displeases the women too and they had enough sons and brothers to take care of them they would take his things and set them outside the lodge and he can't even go back in that Lodge now see she gets all of that stuff that's even better than California huh they only get half but if they're good to one another then they will have children and those children are sacred to us as I said and so when my wife was pregnant I took one of my fluts and I raised it over my daughter's belly over my mother's her her mother's belly I said my baby I said give me a song and she gave me a beautiful song in a couple of days when she was about 3 months old laying on the bed I put this over my child again and I said my baby you gave me a song Now give me some words and so my daughter her name is Christina May her Indian name is new earthw woman but I call her my bug she's my honey bug she's my stink bug sometimes she really does bug me but that's my child and so this is the song that I made for her when she was just a baby and it sounds like this bug is sleeping bug is sleeping grandma moon is smiling bug is sleeping bug is sleeping all the stars are shining when the sun comes and the stars all run away that's when my bug will be dancing my heart will be singing all day bug is sleeping bug is sleeping grandma moon is smiling bug is sleeping bug is sleeping all the stars are shining when the sun comes out and the stars all run away that's when my bug will be dancing my heart will be singing all day that's when my bug will be dancing my heart will be singing all day we teach our children many things by what we say and what we do and so we use a lot of our stories and our stories include all the animals all the people see at one time we could all speak the same language and there was a time when coyote he got up one morning and he was pretty hungry and he wanted to get something to eat so he was going across the Prairies and kyot he saw a rabbit so he chased that rabbit this way and that way and he was going back and forth he finally caught that rabbit but it was hot like this down here and that you ever have fur in your mouth oh that's a terrible so he had that rabbit fur in his mouth now he wants to drink of water so he goes down to the favorite water hole but when he looks in there there's another coyot and he's got a rabbit too he said hey what are you doing he said hey what are you doing he said are you making fun of me are you making fun of me I'm not afraid of you I'm not afraid of you either I'll fight you he said I'll fight you and so he jumped in there and he was going to beat up that other coyote but he Splash he went right in that water and that rabbit got away boy was he lucky huh who was that coyote hollering at he was hollering at himself you see just like coyotes we can be Our Own Worst Enemy sometimes and so we have to be careful what we do and what we say because coyote is still hungry now and so he's walking along like geez I had that rabbit I should have just oh I should have just ate him man but oh I'm still hungry he hears dancing on the other side he hears chickens singing on the other side up on the Prairies we have prairie chickens in the spring you ever see prairie chickens dance those young men stick their big red chest out there they and those girls put their feathers way back and say cool cool and they're all looking and dancing at each other and he said oh I'd like to have one of those he said that would be really good what can I do he said he grabbed a flute and he started walking that way I got an idea he said and so he sang the song like that he would see um and all the prairie chickens heard him they said that's a beautiful song brother can you share that with us we can dance to that song ah you guys are just trying to steal my songs he said you better back away from me he said this is a special song but brother we we could share that song with you we we'll share with you he said well if you stay back don't get too close I don't trust you Birds you're always trying to steal things from me but Kyle was the one I was trying to steal from everybody else and so the birds made a big circle and he said now this is the words to that song so I need your help okay here's here's the word say Saga o all right now it kind of sounds like this ready say you guys are pitiful for Cherry chicken I tell you now see TR chicks they like to dance they like to sing now I need you to sing loud okay ready a little bit louder what if there was somebody down there by them other tents we want them to come over here and join the dance so you know how it is when you holler at somebody you pick your head up they ah not bad all right what if your friend was like a little bit farther down the by the stairs and you know how it is when he's way over there you got to close your eyes and really holler right we got a lot of noise up here to compete with so come on pray trick is ready and while all those prairie chickens had their eyes closed he went bunk bunk bunk and he threw this one in the bag bo bo bo and he threw that one in the bag and one chicken opened her eyes said hey my friends run he's taking our lives run run run and all the chickens they ran away but that old coyote he took some grass and some sticks and he weaved a bag and he put all them prairie chickens in there and he put it over his shoulder and he was walking home singing that song Oak you know what he was singing I'm going to eat chicken tonight so if somebody tells you to close your eyes somebody know you shouldn't Trust ask you to do something you better keep your eyes open and that's the coyote story okay um as we work together okay how much time I got then oh great great back up some hear see you said I was taught how to make flutes by one of my relatives who no longer walks to Earth one year later he now walks in the other side he passed away so I'm very fortunate that I have this gift when I first received one and when I watched as a young boy I would watch my uncles take flutes and people would request them in the summer in the spring for special occasions to play a song for them and so they were I would look at them to Grandpa Uncle can I no no no these are medicine you can't play with these are medicine the spirit of the Soul he said so there's some other ones but these are medicine flutes he said so I always admired those things when I was working in the oil field over in Wyoming I saw a young man from Oklahoma take a pocket knife and a stick and I watched him make a flute but I didn't know what he was making I said hey brother you making a pipe he said no no this is a flute I said hey you should let me have that he said oh no I'm I'm going to sell this to the museum I said brother I don't wish you any bad luck luck but I hope it don't work out for you I want that flute I said wow few days later he came and said yeah your wish came true he said he's kind of angry with me so I made him an offer I said how much were you going to sell that for and I offered him that money and then I offered him more money and some more money he said no he said so I brought over to his hotel room a a blanket a star quilt and I laid it on that hotel room floor all the feathers and the shells and the teeth and Claws that I had collected over the years I laid on that blanket because these are men who have given their lives to the people these eagle feathers the plumes are the women and children who give us strength and warmth those Claws and those teeth are weapons that they use to protect and provide for their families those shells even those are water beings and so I respected them and I put them on that blanket not on that dirty hotel room floor I said brother to brother man to man inding to inding I said this is the best I have to offer if you see something here that you like take that but when you're done I said I would like to have that flute so he sat there for a while and I had to kind of do the businessman thing you know I gave him some cans of encouragement and soon he kind of got that way you know but he went over and he took six black tips which are very valuable two golden an all feather and some two shells and he took that blanket and he shook it all my things went flying and I was going to be mad at him with but when he turned around that flute was laying on the floor and I looked at him and he said you said I could have whatever I want and I like this blanket too he said so I couldn't complain could I but I was very honored and happy to have that flute and I carried it and I show it to everybody hey check this out they said hey nice pipe let's smoke a bowl I said no it's not like that it's a flute it's music well play me a song I don't know how but it sure looks nice H you see I went up on the hill and I changed my life because I wasn't proud of who I was and I didn't want my children to see me like that so I made a choice and I gave up that time and I put three days and four nights upon the hill when I came back my life was changed and I lifted that flute and in the first few weeks over the first week that I had it I'd never played one before and I tried not too good is that but if you blow on it it's going to scream at you but if you listen it will sing to you and I began to listen to the flute and the first song that came to me speaks of a warrior who is very powerful men bigger than me run from him women I've seen screaming and running from him but I have seen children in their innocence Reach Out And Touch This Warrior he could hurt me even kill me but if we look inside there's good medicine that helps all of us and so I want to give you this very first song that I learned how to play I'm going to play it in my mother's language Mandan first is speak slow and pretty then I'm going speak in in herat a little bit faster and then I'm going to share in the language that we share today English maybe you've heard the story maybe you know the song and maybe you have some of his medicine at your home today but this is the very first song I taught myself how to play in a sound like this e e you guys know that story you know that song how many of you men have been cleaning in the yard or barn or something oh look out scared you didn't it how big are you how big is that spider ah don't laugh women I've seen you dance yeah but how many of you children how many of us as children have reached out and touched those spiders with our finger very bravely maybe with a a piece of grass or a stick did you know that we can take those spiders and look inside of them and some of them have medicine for children as their bones grow and stretch and their bodies ache we mix it with a few things and it's better than Tylenol for the woman in the time of the moon when they have the cramps and things they take the another spider take part of him mix it with a few things it takes away that that cramping and that pain and we as Elders have arthritis btis we take another spider mix it with a few things and that's arthritis medicine from a spider how many of us have a dream catcher at home spider medicine see so we still have that and that has a beautiful song with all the sign language right you guys understand sign language you ever see sign language what is this yeah walking what's this riding a horse how about this all right how about uh how about one of these snake fish River yeah how about like this bird butterfly yeah how about this ah field goal touchdown don't you guys watch sports I said we still have sign language you guys are kind of going a little too far back there I tell you what but if it wasn't for our women that we were born into the clan if it wasn't for the woman who gives us life if it wasn't for those that we love and respect we would not be here today and soag she lived among our people she was taken from her family and brought to our home given to one of our Chiefs Chief Bullseye who's my clan relative so I have a little claim to her as an adopted Auntie you see when those men came up there at River we heard the story about them coming there was a man with hair like a fox and skin like Buffalo milk you could almost see through it you ever notice those red heads are like that huh yeah and then they had a man who was part Buffalo he was black he had hair like a buffalo and strong like a buffalo we crapped him and we thought he's painted on there but that's how he was and so we gave him women we made him one of our relatives what a great honor to have him and some of those young men in that Journey as they came up they were half white and half black and half white and half Indian and we thought the whole crew kind of half off you know who would dare go into enemy territory very brave young men but you see some of those boys that were half Indian were some of our relatives because some of our relatives already traded with them they were living down here some of them had relatives they were living up there so we invited them to our homes it was good to see relatives that's not written in the book is it and so these things we want to remember you see without that woman who gave life to those young men this country would have never been open without the mother of Thomas Jefferson that decision would have never been made without the woman we are nothing and so I made this song for my wife and This song is called I'm coming home and it sounds like I'm I'm playing it on a flute my daughter made when she was 9 years old how old are you huh eight eight 11 well you guys can make flutes how old are you see my my she was five when she made her first one her sister was only three when she made her first one you see if you take your time and you spend time with your children they can do beautiful things and so this is a song my daughter made this when she was 9 years old she's 17 now and she plays lots of instruments and I can't read music but I've had the opportunity and the honor to play with the St Louis Orchestra and the national Symphony and record the St Paul chamber orchestra I can't read a note I can hear so I've had a great honor but then you go to those Symphony people and you take away their paper some of them can't play so we're even but this is a song that I made for my wife and it sounds like this e for I'm coming home when I get there I hope that you be waiting for me honey when I get home we'll be singing we'll be dancing we'll make love all night long wa when I get home we'll be singing we'll be dancing we'll make don't you know that I you oh my woman don't you know that I love you e I want to thank you all very much for coming out and enjoying this beautiful occasion that we have on this wonderful day that God has given us as we go I want you to remember that you are as much a native as I am if you were born in this land you are a Native American and we need to respect one another as a people as a country and as a nation because we as natives that lived here first we welcomed all those that came to our Shores that little wooden boat that brought some of your ancestors it never did sink like I said now it's Iron and Steel and tin and tin foil as you leave here and you meet someone else look at the outside and remember are we any different how many legs do you have the same as IE how many arms do you have the same as a black man how many eyes do you have the same as an Asian how many hearts do you have the same as Mother Earth and all of our relatives that walk that crawl that swim that fly we too have one heart and so we need to learn how to walk in Harmony and live in harmony anybody can point but we still have people coming from far and wide to this great country to have the things that we have and enjoy today so when you see someone different remember their different called times and teach them by opening your hand and welcome them and teach them how to walk in Harmony and so this is the last song I want to give you and I want to thank you very much for taking time out of your life and thank you children for bringing your parents and your grandparents here that was very kind of you to do that it's good to see my daughter my brother it's good to see my my new friends my old friends and so I want to say ma from the man of people the r people of North Dakota thank you very much and may we all walk in harmony e for oh for thank you thank you anybody have any question thank you very much thank you thank you very much anybody have any questions I have a microphone if anyone has any questions please please raise your hand we do have time for a couple of questions and I'll bring the microphone to you I make it easy how do you learn how to make one how did I learn how does anyone learn how can I learn um give me a call come and visit the best ways to come and visit we can sit and I I'll show you how to hand carve them and then uh at the end of that if you want to mass produce them I can show you how to do that too but um I I I much prefer hand carving the flutes it takes about a week to learn and I give you the stories and songs and so there's a process to it anybody else have a question you have a business card this lady would like to know if you have a business card a business card no pockets but um we can talk if you got a pen and paper yes excuse me tell us about the last flute that you played um this flute was given to me by um Lee Johnson he's a magazine editor of a a flute players magazine um I'd only seen one before I have one that I traded for in the bitot valley I call this my shotgun and uh when I play this I think of two men's or men singing at a drum and so when I received this one it took me about a year to get my first song I couldn't bring that third flute in I could play two and I could play two but then one day we were at drum practice and uh we we were singing my daughter and my granddaughters came up the stairs and in the stairwell I heard them singing and so I said go down there and do that again and so when they stood in the stairwell you know how that has that Echo there I heard this and so now when I play this flute I play the men sing on the top I start with one singer as we always do at the drum the men join in and then we add the women the women sing behind so when I play this song uh I think of the women in the third voice and so I have about five songs now and I've had this for six years um so it's kind of difficult to to to make a song for this but uh it is very very pretty I really like this too thank you any other questions Maas thank you very much for coming oh there got time for one more question how long have you been doing this now with this oh sometimes this long and sometimes that long how how long have you been playing the flute um I I taught myself in 1994 '92 and in '94 I had my first recording and I've been nominated for Grammy and wami and got to be in some movies and all because of a little piece of wood so you know if you think you can't sing if you think you can't play I didn't think I could either you just got to listen you know and and thank the Godfather grandfather creator for the gift and I do that every day thank you very much how about another hand for Mr Keith Bearer it's always a pleasure to have Keith here in the Ten of many voices I'd also like to encourage everyone to come back for our next program at the top of the hour 1:00 Ed Shirley is going to present Beaver bison and Bears so please come back and join us for that program as well thank you folks