Tent of Many Voices: 09230606

welcome to the ten mini voices and the core Discovery 2 I'd like to give you a little bit of history on us and how coming to St Louis really is the culmination of something spectacular the core Discovery to is the bicentennial commemoration of the Lewis and Clark expedition it's a bunch of big words to say 200 years ago Lewis and Clark and the members of the Expedition left the East Coast came to St Louis in 180 4 they left St Louis to find an all water route to the Pacific Ocean and then in 1806 they made their Hasty return what took him almost a year and a half to get to the get to the Pacific Ocean took them just about six months to return and so we've been on this six-month Journey since about late February early March of this year where we too started on the Pacific Ocean and have been making our Trek back to St Louis and so we've been going by land where Lewis and Clark went by water we've been visiting different American Indian reservations and Nations we've interacted with dozens of communities and this weekend is the finale this is where this traveling National Park the only one of its kind reaches its conclusion and so this is our final presentation today in the Ten of many voices and I would like to tell you that the tent of many voices is exactly what it's named for this tent has has allowed several different historians reenactors musicians lawyers American Indian Nation members all walks of life have come through to include dogs have come through this tenam many voices to tell about some aspect of the Lewis and Clark expedition and so our final for our final presentation this afternoon you're going to have a fantastic treat Matt he is going to give you some music and history of the Mandan Nation he's a fantastic flute player so please Welcome Matt shann Andor for e well um thank you for coming out here today my my final performance here in the the tent of many voices um as she said my name is Matt shanor and I'm a enrolled member from the fort birth old um community and reservation um my ancestry goes back to the mandans and hadat of people um coming out of the Missouri Valley area in North Dakota and I also have a descendant of the Onida tribe from Wisconsin that's kind of where the shannondorf shann andoa in that song that we all know shann andoa but um today though I've come here to to play a little bit of the flute music as well as talk to you a little bit about the Mand Dan some stories that um I was told from my grandmother growing up and um before we get started here though talking about the Mandan College give you a little bit of background on it though the mandans were Lewis and Clark met them when they went up the Missouri River in 1804 and just before about 20 year time period before Lewis and Clark came up the river the mandans were actually living south of where um Lewis and Clark met them and this area of the Missouri River was a a very large area of the Missouri River where the Mandan lived and they numbered in the thousands there was almost 15,000 man den living in this area just up to about the 1780s and so these are massive communities that lived in this area and that's kind of the the history that I I speak about is that time period just before LS and Clark came up the river here and um there's a there's a village that we have up there a state park in North Dakota called The honestl Village and it's a Mandan Village site and there we tell the story of the Mandan people and I've been telling that story for a number of years and I'll relate back to that a little bit later here but um the Manan culture though nothing was ever written down and so with that everything was passed on orally oral Traditions oral stories oral histories the language passed on and so with that it's a key part of the mandang culture and the tradition of many Native cultures that their history be passed on orally to the upcoming generations and I think that's such an important part to learn from all these stories and cultures that have come together for the Lewis and Clark Journey here um the stories multiple Stories being told about Lewis and Clark as they travel all the way to the Pacific coast and came back through this area those same stories we can learn from they have been passed on for multiple Generations but there is a set of stories though that I want to begin with and these are called creation stories and and in the Mandan culture the the there's there stories that talk about how everything came to be the the river the trees the sky the birds the people themselves in NOA how they became how they came to be where they were those were all considered creation stories and and the flute itself also has a creation story and that story talks about how this instrument this this sound how it became part of the Mandan culture here so I want to begin with that story here for you today but this story though it starts out with a warrior and he set it out he set out to find U food for his family this this strong Warrior was tracking the game along the the river banked areas and in North Dakota we have large forested areas of cottonwood trees these really tall trees that that grow and this Warrior was down in this wooded area along the river and he was tracking the game and while this Warrior this young Warrior he got turned around in this forest and he really didn't know which way he wanted to get out and and Nightfall was coming too so it became dark so this Warrior beded down for the night and this Warrior he laid beside one of these massive cottonwood trees and he he listened to all the night sounds that you hear the the owls The Crickets the wind blowing blowing through the leaves of these trees and it was a very calming sound listening to all these night sounds as they came together well there was a sound that came about that this Warrior had never heard before it was a Eerie ghostly sound that blew through these leaves but that Warrior he listened to that sound as it blew through this forest and that Warrior fell asleep listening to that sound well in a dream this Warrior had he saw a red-headed woodpecker and this bird told this Warrior follow me follow me follow me so that Warrior when he woke the next morning he gathered up all his belongings and started to find his way out of this wooded area as this Warrior was moving through this this Forest along the river he spotted that woodpecker perched in the trees in front of him and he stared at that bird that bird stared back at that Warrior and slowly that Warrior dropped everything that he had as he stared that stared at bird well that woodpecker flew off the branch and that that Warrior followed him as fast as he could through the forest and this woodpecker LED this Warrior out to an open Prairie and standing alone was this cedar tree and as this Warrior approached this tree it was he noticed it was very old and the top branches begun to die off and as he got closer he realized that there was light glistening through these these branches on the top of this tree that woodpecker had pecked holes in all those top branches of that tree well that Warrior as he stood there list or looking at this tree a gust of wind blew across the Prairie and he made that same sound he had heard the night before so that Warrior he climbed the tree took a branch off and went back to his village and there he sat for many days and he he fiddled with this branch and trying to make that sound he had heard he became frustrated with it so the the warrior left the village he went up to a hill topped area overlooking the river and there he cried for a vision on how to make that sound that he' heard well on the fourth night of his journey there this this woodpecker again came to this war and he changed into the the form of a man it was the creator and in this man's hands he held a cedar branch and with bone tools this man showed that Warrior how to make his first flute play his first song well when that man left that Warrior went out to find that tree again and he in the shade of that tree he took a branch from that tree and with bone tools he carved his very first flute and learned his first song and dedicated that song to that woodpecker that bird that had inspired him to to to learn this music and to find out more about this sound that he' heard well when that Warrior had learned his song he went back to his village he gathered everyone into the plaza of this Village and he stood up in front of them all and this was very brave for this Warrior to do because in the Mandan traditions and and many of the the native Traditions you don't you didn't speak up to your elders you always listen to your elders because they always had something wise to tell you a story to tell you but this Warrior this young Warrior had a story to tell the people of his village and so he sat everyone down and he stood up and he told them the story about the Woodpecker told them the story about the flute he showed them his flute that he had made and he played his song for them the so that Warrior he played the song for the people of the village and they were all stunned as this sound echoed through the Village area and this Warrior he stood up and kind of walked away because his crowd was quiet and this Warrior started to make his way away from the crowd an elder gentleman stood up and congratulated this warrior with praise on this new sound he had brought to the village and one by one the people of the village began to stand up and congratulate this Warrior and praise again on how to how the sound had echoed through the village and how it brought his story to life that he had told and so that Warrior went out and he found other Warriors in the village and he gathered them and pulled them aside he gave a piece of that that cedar tree and with bone tools he showed them how to make their own fluts and told them to go out to the surroundings around them and find inspiration for their songs so that they too could teach this to their sons and teach this to their grandsons so that the story of the flute and the flute players and makers would always be part of the Manan culture so that's the creation story of how the flute came to be as um part of the Mandan and this the story is very similar to many Native cultures around the the the United States area here as well a as a as well as around the country or World in fact you see wooden fluts like this in in most cultures around the world and that same type of story of the Creator giving them this instrument is very common between that now in the archaeological and historical references of the flute we find the first um indications of flutes in these cultures in the Northern Plains area here coming around in around 1200 ad with the finding of Eagle bone whistles and those gradually progressed into wood and and Cedar being a very sacred wood but it was also very soft and so could be easily be carved with with bone tools and and be held together as well this one here as well as this one are Cedar and you're going to notice there's quite a bit different tone in them and sound compared to the other fluts that are just um um different types of hardwood that you'd find as well I'll explain a little bit more uh later on that but the next song that I want to play for you here though is uh my first food song and the story for this song um this song's called Eagle dreams and my grandmother her name was Eagle pum woman and she was a three4 mixture of Mandan and Hada and she was raised up at Fort berl by her grandmother and her grandmother had done many of the the traditional Manda and Hada um gardening techniques and and and told her many stories when she was growing up before she went off to boarding school um at age six and so when I was growing up as a child I was told a lot of these stories not as a child we didn't um myself and my brothers we we didn't want to we never wanted to sit down for a long period of time you know we wanted to run around play have fun watch some TV and so the really only time that my grandmother ever had a chance to really tell us these stories was when we were tied to a chair getting our hair cut by her she used to cut her hair and so she would tell us these stories and and they weren't stories about so and so knows so and so and and these are your relatives cuz she would tell us those stories but the stories that really that are in my memory of her are uh the stories that talk about the the life styles in these Villages there's no pictures of these Villages besides paintings that we have from Catlin and bobber and that's that's after the time period of smallpox but there was one there was a time Peri when the mandin were a huge community and so these stories would give images in my head of of these massive Villages along the river and these Gardens that spread along the river as well well as I Grew Older I began working at our our state park and I started learning more and more about my Heritage but the thing that really inspired me was our um our village there The honestant Village the the homes of the Mandan the Earth lodges that are there were um really bad off they had been standing for 50 60 years there and my grandmother thought it was a very U bad representation of the Mandan Nation she would call it these decaying homes falling apart and um collapsing in on themselves and so she she fought with other other Mandan elders and and trying to get awareness to this Village and to get um money put aside to restore it back to its um to tell the mam story well um a month before she passed away she found out that the the federal government would get give the organization there $1.9 million to restore this Village and and so when I started in 1999 I got to see all of her dreams come true and today you can go there and see these lodges see the stuff in them and hear the story of the mandam people and that's one of the greatest things I think of her dream was that the story of the mam people is being told to thousands of visitors as they come through this park and so that really inspired me during that time to learn about my ancestry which I I knew a little bit about but not a lot and when I was doing that I came across the the flute and the instruments that were part of these Villages and so that really stood out for me so this song Here is called Eagle dreams e oh e for now um getting to the Mandan living along these Villages here these um these massive Villages they said there was about 15,000 people strong that lived along these Villages and the mandans were gardeners they farmed the flood Plains of this Missouri River out here and they had massive Gardens and in these Gardens the M grew corn and beans and squash and sunflower and this was the money for the mandans this made them a wealthy tribe along the Missouri cuz this was their trade item the mandans and hadat that area were the center of trade for the Northern Great Plains tribes from all over would come in to to meet with the mandans and trade for their crops and so during the summertime these women were down tending to the gardens and my grandma was me would always mention it about these these Gardens and and the women down there that they were the backbone of the the Mandan tribe in the in the Villages because of this food that they had and so you have to imagine though thousands of women down along these flood planes and um I can just imagine in your head you can probably imagine two sitting up on the the the valley overlooking this and hearing these women down there because the women would sing to their crops during the day because in the Mandan belief everything has a spirit this River out here has a spirit the corn the beans the squash everything has a spirit it's it's a living um creature thing and so it has that spirit that needs to be nurtured and so those women would sing songs religious songs these were prayerful songs to this Garden to grow strong and healthy and so thousands of women down along these Plains you could hear these voices echoing and spreading along this um Missouri River here the the valley the garden areas and you can imagine the sound the feeling that you'd get from that type so this next song Here is called watching the corn e e e now there was um in these V villes though that the men also contributed to the village and as I said this food this this this these gardens made these Villages very very wealthy and so the men needed to protect these Villages and so you had Warriors the men that were defended these Villages from enemies coming in as well as they went out and hunted and brought meat into the village as well as game that they could use all parts of the Bison for all different types of tools and useful things in the village nothing ever went to waste but um something came through this area that these men these strong Warriors the Mandan Nation could not fend off and what that was was small pox coming into these Villages here and it's made its way all the way up into the northern Great Plains and it affected the mandans just like it affected Nations and civilizations all around the world that same disease affected the mandans and for the M as I've been telling you is their their culture was passed on orally to the upcoming generations and so with that he must like my program out there he can hear me um but with the Mandan Nation everything passed on story so as these people died off in large numbers stories began to die off with them and were lost forever and one of the the areas of these Villages of the population of the village that was affected the the worst were the elders because of they weren't able they weren't strong enough to fight that disease I mean you could survive from small pucks but uh rare PE rare numbers ever did survive that disease and it was usually the the strong and healthy individuals so some Elders would die and in those stories if they hadn't told or passed on that information that would go with them and when my grandmother was alive she'd always when when um friends up on uh reservation or or even siblings of her hers when they would die or pass on she'd always say there was a great wealth of knowledge that was lost there and um when she passed away I felt the same way I felt there was a loss of knowledge I didn't know everything that I should have known before she had left and she often times compared it to a set of encyclopedias burning up and you couldn't access that information and we don't really use encyclopedias today but imagine if your internet cord got cut and you couldn't search the internet you had that same loss that you you were lost you didn't have that information and so this next song Here is called a grandparents farewell is because these Elders of these Villages were the most respected people in the whole village you never I was taught growing up as as a child you never you never looked your elders in the eye and so you always looked away and you always listened to them if they had something to say you never talked while they were talking and so they were very well respected because of the the wisdom that they had and the knowledge that they had had from these Villages so next song again it's called a grandparents farewell for while as this disease went through the village Warriors these strong Warriors that would protect them from enemies coming into the tribe gathered around and these Warriors would gather around often times around a drum and for the Mandan culture and in many cultures around the world a drum is one of the most sacred instruments that can be part of that Village the drum is never left unattended it's all there's prayers for the drum there's even tobacco offered to the drum and because it's it mimics the most the first sound we hear as a child in the womb of our mother we hear that heartbeat that beat of life as some may call it and that drum really represents that represents that that beat that keeps life going and so these Warriors would gather around this drum and they'd sing songs and these songs were were prayerful songs they were powerful medicine wed off these evil spirits that had come into the village and that's really what they thought that disease was was evil spirits coming to this Village so this next song here you'll hear those Warriors and those voices coming together n d we'll have um a couple last songs here for you this next song Here is called the The Rebirth of a nation and and for the mandans as I studied their history after small pox and after Lewis and Clark came through this area um they were they suffered through small poox again with that with that same disease and for the mandans in 50 years the mandans had gone from this massive tribe 15,000 down to less than a thousand people 50 years and so you can imagine what stories what songs what traditions were lost during that time period but in any sense myself being here today and many of the the Mand descendants that are are here at this celebration all around us speaking and telling their story that theyve been told about the Mandan us descendants being here is rep a representative of the mandans overcoming those obstacles stles Through Time overcoming that and the reason that they were able to overcome that is because the stories those simple stories that were told to the children as they were growing up to the teenagers as they started to learn their ways around the village those simple Stories being told to each generation has been able to have the M Dan still around today and make sure that those stories are still around and that still happens today those stories are still being passed on just like I tell told you story here today myself passing that story on to you those stories are continually being passed on to the upcoming Generations so as long as this River out here is Flowing the mandans will always have a presence along this River here so this next song Here is called The Rebirth of a Nation turn the CD up a little bit oh e the e I have um One Last Song here to close with this song Here is called A Warrior's spirit and this is really because the Mandan tradition in in many Native Traditions we're always remembering our ancestors right here with this this Festival here this this celebration we're remembering the ancestors the people that came up this River the the tribes that lived here the tribes that met Lewis and Clark all those ancestors all those stories we remember them and that's very key in in in in passing on those stories and so when when my family gets together and I go out and give a tour of our our village I'm always remembering my ancestors my grandmother even remembering those stories those people that come before us and it's the same with all you folks here as well uh remembering where You' have come from your ancestors and so this next song I want you to close your eyes and and think of uh stories you may have been told by your grandparents grandmother grandfather stories that you were told if you have grandchildren what stories are do you want to tell them for them to pass on to their kids and their grandchildren as well you're remembering those stories and in turn you're remembering those ancestors that have come so this last song is here called a warrior spirit all right well I I thank you for coming out here today and and taking in the the celebration here make sure you take in everything around here today but uh thanks for listening to me and spending some time here in the the tent with me we have just a minute or two if you have a question or two for Matt and if you don't have any questions or you do um I have a a couple gentlemen up at U my reservation before birth at make them for me I I'm learning how to make them it just it's a really hard artwork to work with so I haven't really got it down path yet so hopefully sometime I'll get it down but right now I have a couple gentlemen that flute makers up there that make my great uncle was a uh a flute maker for the Mandan was your shirt actually this one's new I just I I had it just for this this so I haven't washed it yet so you'll have to ask my mother on that one though if there are no other questions then we thank you very much for attending the different programs here today and we'll be open again tomorrow from 9 until 5: thank you and have a good evening