Tent of Many Voices: M09030501TMB

ladies and gentlemen welcome to the tent of many voices this tent is part of a traveling exhibit that has been following the Lewis and Clark Trail since January of 2003 this tent along with our exhibit tent over here our scale model kbo out here our PLS Indian Tepe all have been following this Trail went through the Eastern States in 2003 in 2004 we started in St Louis came up the river to North Dakota and in 2005 we started back in North Dakota and are heading west across the trail in about the same time frame as Lewis and Clark so here we find ourselves at the Rocky Mountains the area that was an obstacle for Lewis and Clark and thinking about what Lewis and Clark did on this journey they tra traveled across lands that they knew were inhabited and some of those inhabitants they knew and some they didn't and part of their job was to meet the Native Americans along the way that was on Jefferson's orders meet them learn from them and find out about their lives find out about the things they do this tent of many voices is called the tent of many voices so that we can bring to you people from different walks of life different backgrounds different perspectives it is a story of Lewis and Clark all the way through but not just them it's a story of the people they met along that their way and with that said I'd like to introduce to you our next presenters they are both members of the international traditional game society and they are part of the Salish language immersion school so at this time let's please welcome our Salish presenters Arlene Adams and Ryan three woodcocks he fore thank everybody for coming here today we thank you for taking time out of your life to listen to what the animal spirits have to say to us I am told that as a Salish person that my knowledge comes to me from all of the elements around me and from the teachings of those elements through the tools of my ancestors from my great grandmother my great grandparents to all of the people that helped bring me here today my name is Arlene Adams my Indian name isas that means that Indian Paintbrush Thunders Sparks makes that paintbrush that's my Indian name I come here my people were forcefully removed from this area in 1885 5 to about 1910 and so it's with the heart of the ancestors that lay below me today that I am honored to be a part of of this Gathering to come and talk about traditional games with my sisters and my cousins Sarah and Wes will come and join us at any time we are part of an international traditional the game society that formed about 25 years ago to re Revitalize our Raw Games the hockey and the basketball and all of the different n or the games that you see in athletic sports today majority of them came from indigenous peoples and so it's with that in mind that we continue on that we started this society and on every reservation and every place in the United States States will look at the revitalization of native games as well we're we are um with the Salish revitalization of our Salish language we have a school that is three years old our we started out with eight students in the preschool age and now they are going into the second grade and it's all Salish immersion we have six on staff we are hoping to to add 10 more staff members this year and 35 more students as of yesterday we had 30 students and so it is our great hope in the revitalization of all of our tools and all of our knowledge that these things will come about for us and it's very unfortunate that our history tells us and gives us what we have today but it sure certainly didn't um wipe us off like the tent was and so we're happy that today our ancestors are still looking at us and still hoping for the best for us that's what we pray for and we go out and we ask every day the elements out there to help us when we go out and We Gather our sticks everything that that we do as teachers we do as hunters and gatherers is it's really hard to have as a teacher you have a set budget to buy your your tools with $100 doesn't do it per year and so we we do our best to find any item that we're going to utilize within that curriculum when our Salish people were given creation stories it's a misnomer that were called flatheads and someday that will become that will come off of everything everything that's attached to Salish and cutney and Ponderay people but that within that frame of being Flathead it really helped me to understand my identity as Salish and how the misnomer can just go around me I'm not a Flathead Indian and I'm proud to be a Salish Indian and I'm proud that in our creation stories coyote came about and he did a lot of things for us for the coming of you the way that we're told that these creation stories I can't tell you any of them right now when that snow comes and when those Spirits say that it's okay then that's when those stories come out and so I we weave around those misnomers we go in and out of our culture to understand who you are so that someday we'll all understand who each other are and we come here with the spirit of our ancestors the spirit of all of the the tools that they give us they give us buckin balls they give us the hair that creates the the ball inside of here comes from the animal hair that hair I am told your hair is an extension of your mind it's something that you're only given an opportunity to have once in your life and so you take care of that hair and when we take care of our animals we take care of all of his body all of of everything that he has on him and so when we scrape that hair off we dry them and we use them for our buck skin balls the Rawhide and all of his animals are used to stretch onto the the drums um onto any kind of Rawhide tool that we're going to make anytime we go out and just take a stick from the hills you're always told to leave some kind of offering so that we'll always be there for our kids we'll always be there for us to go and have we've been sitting out here for 4 days teaching kids the kids in Hamilton are wonderful they're very very wonderful kids that just want to learn and want to understand that that relationship between non-indian and Indian and it helped me to understand you guys are all sitting on our homeland and I said well someday you know maybe we'll come back here and we'll have a school here and we'll be able to share this a lot of the kids wanted to know how come we didn't have a sailor school here why weren't there any Indians here and a lot of really ironic questions that if you have and that this you know our big Society picture of getting along and using our diverse culture and educations then it's up to each one of you and each one of us in this Valley to help each other to help our kids understand why the non- Indians and the Indians don't get along and so I I challenged that little girl I said go go out and ask your your postmaster go ask the store clerk go ask anybody that lives in your town why that why that isn't because the schools evidently aren't teaching that and so when we when we go out look at those raw tools we look at the arms and the elements of our trees all of the the elements out there we're told are there for us are told that when you take something you put something back and with that in mind I would like Ryan Woodcock to introduce him himself we are our families are from here originally our Aboriginal territory is so vast um we were told that you know from as far as we can see all around us and then we got shoved onto this little piece of land and so the bones of my ancestors my direct descendants of Chief Charlo and his Bunch are from this area his granddaughter I would like for her to come up and explain too when when when um Ryan speaks after he speaks to talk a little bit about about them and what brought them into this Society or the traditional games movement so to speak Ryan hello my name is Ryan Woodcock my Indian name Isa and I'm honored to be here today and speak in front of you all I know I'm much younger probably than most of you so just happy to be here and I've been playing lacrosse since I was in fifth grade and been teaching lacrosse all my life since then to whoever I go and share the game with it's a game that's close to my heart that I was given and where I was shown when I was growing up to live you know in a in Denver Colorado is where I was raised so so many things have been shown to me coming back here and realizing who my family is and meeting them and speaking and listening and being with them so I'm just so happy to be here with that said uh these are our games um these games um are for our mind our body our spirit and our emotions um it's how the games are are played and um young age simpler and going on through uh through adulthood this is shinny here um shinny Hit The Shins too much so but uh this modern day hockey um stems from this game um double ball pick up this here these basically have sand inside of here in balloons nowadays but uh traditionally uh a woman's game so I shouldn't be playing this but yeah so have two post on each side you know fuel's range uh can be half mile 500 yards you know to modern day of 80 yards or less than that so um but all the games are are played for other reasons than just physical aspects there you know to make us strong y yot make us strong inside and make us grow and become older and and become young men that's what lacrosse is it's a young man's game to grow into war um to become strong and uh and to use your mind in everything you do so um with that said these these are some other uh introducers and um we need to hook them up to the mics you have one go ahead this is Sarah wall it's a good day good day to see you all of you here today she said I'm Sarah wall um I'm direct descendant of Chief Charlo um I guess my first involvement with games was in high school I went to the tribally Run alternative school in Pablo it's called twel River School we'd have shinny tournaments the first game he showed you that was my introduction into traditional games up until that point I wasn't I was aware of games played lacrosse mostly I guess I learned more as I went along I'm lucky enough to have a mother that's really involved in a lot of our tribal aspects and teaching a lot of things she has tour guides and one of the things I love about teaching games is to work with children you know to start start with the young ones and you know talk about us and the way are the way our lives are as Arlene said so there's more understanding you know breaking stereotypes is a big part of what we do and uh I know I just I've it's it's very dear to my heart these games as well just to hang on to our Traditions our culture in any way possible as long with uh teaching more children as we go we have uh during Native American Awareness Week up at the people Center in Pablo we teach games all week long to all the schools on the reservation and some schools off the reservation and uh I it's like what what I Norm normally teach would be double ball and shinny stick some hoop and dart as well uh I saw let my partner introduce himself as well hello my name is Wesley Michael Pierre sapet I'm originally from here this is where my family comes from and um I teach native games as well usually how to make the stick and ring games for children um there's a lot of history behind each one of these games mainly for endurance and self-discipline and a lot of other things as well and if Sarah wants to continue with the aspects of the history of these traditional games I'll I'll just help her out thank you okay I noticed that we explain they started explaining some of the games and uh we could go just a little further into detail uh with these games I guess we could start out with double ball as you saw like he said traditionally originally uh The Story Goes that this was originally a black feet women's game that was played amongst women when we're teaching children we don't you know we don't pass that information on that way boys don't mind playing it the whole game uh is uh you can't can never touch the double ball with your hands everything must be done with a stick passing picking it up throwing stealing scoring all the above has to be done with the stick uh self-control is always a huge part with these games because a lot of times they would play games rather than go to war like have a have a huge shiny tournament like he said they could be miles long with tribe against tribe and the thing was is somebody on the opposing team whacked you with a stick you couldn't turn around and whack them back because you know it could start a war between your people so self-control was always the really major part of what they were teaching with them focus and of course endurance and strength these shinys sticks they're made out of Cedar usually young Cedar like when they grows out of the ground the bottom part of the roots under the ground it curves like that so when you go out to gather shinys sticks you un cover a little bit of the bottom of the root and you cut them down so they have a curve like this it's not always Cedar sometimes they do use uh Willow as well um but they are really hard sticks I mean it's it's pretty major that one of the first years my daughter played she came home with a Shiner like you wouldn't believe she got nailed right in the face you know six-year-olds with cedar sticks I don't know it's a little crazy but you do hear a lot of things people are you know worried about letting their children play these games because they can get a little rough but strength was part of you know growing up Indian you had to be strong life was good but life was tough but um I a lot yeah these are the shin shinny sticks these are the ones of see Peter they start out with at the bottom with the root and like I said uh hockey comes from this like if you've ever seen a game of floor hockey it's a lot of like originally there were really not any rules to shinny other than scoring getting the ball through the goal I mean but uh you know nobody went out of their way to crack somebody in the head or anything but there really were you know no rules like I said they could have 80 against 30 depending on the size of the tribe it didn't it was never evenly matched or you know and it could go on for hours for a full day people could play on these three mile Fields you know to decide something between two tribes and uh okay but yeah it's played a lot like field hockey nowadays when we teach you know we tell kids no high sticking and whatnot so we don't get little girls with shiners and and uh it's we do play on a lot smaller Fields a lot of times when we play Maybe It's you know 50 yards with younger kids okay and that's shinny um double ball oh I didn't explain okay scoring with shiny is just through the goals you have your two goals as long as it goes through you know you get a point for it uh double ball the scoring is a little different the way they set them up the goal post on each send would be with two tripods with a Tepe pole Laying across the top of them so the goal is usually probably about 8 feet n feet up in the air and with double ball when you throw when you score if it goes over the top of the goal that's worth one point if you can hang it on the Center pole that's worth two points if you can hang it up in a tripod it's worth three points but what with a double ball the game doesn't stop somebody scores somebody else just throws the ball back in and the game just keeps rolling as long as like I said it's only touched with the sticks you can't use your feet to step on it or you know use your hands and it's it's a really fun game double ball is definitely one of my favorite games okay and as as well as those we have uh hoop and dart which is a a younger child game that's the hoop he's holding there uh the hoop we have is got it's it's metal on the inside this one's probably as well and it's this woven and it's this um woven maybe you could call like a spider web or maybe more commonly known like a dream catcher and uh the way it's it's done is it you say line up your children on either side and the reason it's done with little kids is it's for for being able to aim you know more self-control of course and like uh the hoop is represented of of say a grouse or a you know a small rabbit and it's rolled pretty well here let's see I'll give you a good roll on that one and the way it's scored your Dart must stick in there if it doesn't stick it doesn't count if it goes through it doesn't count if it sticks and falls out it doesn't count but yeah okay I almost ran him over there but but yeah okay it was oh yeah okay we have some smaller Hoops as well but let's say okay okay if this was our playing field we'd have kids on either side they're not allowed to step the line you roll it down and uh they have to throw it it can't just be jabbed in there because everyone knows little rabbit's not going to stay there and just let you jab it with a stick or a dart for that matter yeah there there it is self-control again once again and patience is very important when we're teaching this game we tell kids okay Whoever has the most points the prize you win is is you go home and feed your family that's the winning RIS with this one and uh okay what else do we have up here we did bring a a stick game set oh we'll show you stick and ring real quick that's one of the favorites with little kid well with anybody depending on the length of the ho the string or the size of your hoop the game gets harder that one looks like a tough game if you ask me and it is all about hand eye coordination pretty much and once again patience and self-control oh good job all right and it is a tough game I've been teaching that game and Mak that game forever and my record's six in a row so it's it's a hard game when we were teaching Great Falls recently with the guy that was announcing it was teas and he's like you go back there and see Sarah she's really good she can get a hundred in a row with her left eye hand over her right eye and I was back oh no no okay um we also have stick game up here as well stick game um there's a lot of different stories that uh about how this originated the one I know comes from the Kalispel Indians they're cousins of ours they're also speak a part of the Salish dialect they will live over towards at Washington Idaho now but the story as we know it goes there was a young girl who was supposed to marry an older man you know they set it up that way so this girl would be taken care of this man was already you know proven could hunt provide for his family so they set their daughter up with him but she was in love with a young man of course right so they're they're unhappy at the situation so the Young man and the and the girl they run away they run away we're in love we're out of here you know they took off they're gone for a few days and I started realizing you know we can't live like this we need our people we can't survive without our people so they decided to go back you know because they knew like you have to have your people the way life was you needed people with you you had to survive as a group as a tribe so they go back and they go talk to one of the wise men maybe a couple of them you know and they hold Council what are we going to do about this these people are in love but she's supposed to marry this man her parents want her to marry this man and what they came up with was this game it's called stick game it is a guessing game it's these are bones what they call them originally they're made out of like the front legs of deer bones the very bottom down by the hoof and uh they represent a male and female female is the clear bone this is the male bone with the stripe and in the game it's all a game of guessing somebody else on the other team is going to be hiding them and you want to catch the female that's what you want to do you catch the female you get the the bones if you get the male bone that's how the opposing side gets sticks like if I was to guess him here I'll try to match him real quick okay this is my honey let's see if I know him huh and I know him that's my man okay but if I would have missed him he I would have had to give up a stick that's how you score if you if you accidentally pick the mail bone you have to give over a stick the game's played till all the sticks are one and that was the deciding factor he was looking for the female you always want to catch the female bone and that's that was what they were doing okay and whoever had the most sticks won the girl in the end but that's how stick game originated as far as I know the story and nowadays it's play it could be huge now they play it at almost every pow you go to you'll see stick game playing and they even have tournaments set up you know $20,000 grand prize stick game sets and you play with your team you know five people on each team it's fun to watch you get people that have played against each other for decades you know two old men that have sat across the side from each other for decades and just keep faking each other out all the time they think they know some way you know it's a lot of fun if you're ever there go you know check it out go you can always bet there's always betting going on Pardon Me Oh this the striped bone is the male and the clear bone is the female um we might even but I do we think we have enough time play a short game maybe yeah would you guys like to try to play a short game we split everybody up real quick or a few of you if you want to try it's it's a fun game no yeah no sure yeah all right well let's try it out how about if we turn some of these chairs this way this will be our center of our field and let's face each other coming in this way and we'll play real quick okay I'll give you a really fast really fast rundown down on rules and I'll explain more as we go if we have any questions okay and as well there as well as it goes along with this game a lot of times they have people with hand drums and they have their own stick game songs so while they're hiding the bones they got their people singing their good luck songs you know their good their good hiding songs it'll be fun trust me it'll be fun even if if even if it isn't equal like I said sometimes it's tribe against tribe you never know could be outnumbered okay real fast on this with the bone okay the first the first stick they go for is the kick stick this is the advantage stick basically okay you want the advantage you want to have one extra stick it's the first stick that you play for okay and you get they get a set of Bones you decide you decide who's going to point then you're going to decide who gets to guess first on him he's going to be hiding or under your shirt wherever you want to hide him at so they can't be seen the pointer is like the captain of the team they're always in control of who's going to point they can pick somebody else to point and it can be really specific like they say all right I'm going to have my friend Joe point but he's only going to point for Ed and I'm going to point for Sally or you know right okay so and this first thing they're playing for the kick stick okay so you want to try to catch to the female bone you can match much want like I did I brought my BS out not until you ready to make sure you they know have to say that way that's a legal point right cuz when you're playing the game you'll see people out there doing this and doing this just trying to fake you out you to show you what what you got you know but the thing is you have to St Hood make it legal anybody want to hide okay you're going to be pointer on the side and you could be pointer on his side are you going to poin on his side okay you po expain the points okay points just your regular left right okay this is outside like if two like if you two both had bones uhhuh and if this if someone pointed you this way that would mean your two outside hands would be the open that's what they're going for this is down the middle that would mean your two inside hands that's if both bones are on one side right now we're just on either side like this or like that okay say at the moment of calling when you say h that makes sure that they know that that's an actual call because sometimes you're trying to fake them out to get them to show oh before they say the word unless you say hook and then no for sure that that's the call never show until you hear him say and you're looking for the female you want the female okay you can point him first he's hiding decide which way it goes and you both get turn to try for this the kick stick so I can't point oh we can match them if you want if you want to open like that can match them open them up he got see if if they're if they're laying the same way as yours when you first start you're going to we're going to try to get the bones yeah you want you want his you want to take his bones so just open up and say h and see if they're on the same side then you get them now you have to open you have to open oh it's a miss you Miss so now he's got to try to match you and we're going and if he matches you then he gets that stick but if he misses then you get another chance to get the stick the advantage stick then in order for her to open oh do it do this three times just straight across and the game starts she gets a b now she gets both sets of the both can everybody hear me pretty good without this okay want you use the mic fix up for the camera oh okay I'm sorry about that now you decide who else you want to hide the bones does it work across so um actually now that they're hiding the bones now they're hiding bones now that now that they're hiding the bones one of us over here is going to be picking to try and get the bones back because we need okay so that's where you push pick like both outsides or both insides or we want to we want to get both sets of Bones back so we can start winning some of their cuz right now they can start winning ours and we don't want them to have them how can we win yours if you don't have these things anytime if you miss we get a how do we get it back we wait till they hide and then some in order to get the bones back yet they have to catch the female Bon if they catch the female they have to give up the bones just one only the one they catch but if they catch them both at the same time or down the middle since there's two of them would be on the yeah wow I'll call one okay I'll do you first uh oh missed one that's one B see he got the mail on that one so we have to give up a stick on this side that was easy the you hide your B okay now I'm her now it's your turn and you can go ahead and call call her do I have to say who yes you do I'm not going to open my hand if you don't you got a point which hand you want oh and you got her so she gives up her bones no you keep yours cuz he missed you but she's got to give up hers and she's still going they still have opportunity to win sticks as long as she's got bones when do we get the gift when they get both the bones back over here you hold them out so okay is that it oh just hook so we give up another stick we give up the bon no you keep the bones give up another stick come on let's hear it for team okay like power they would have singers on their side hand drum singers while they're hiding they're singing up a storm on that side oh so exciting and there's people making bets at all times too too they're betting on one call maybe they stand there I got five bucks on this next call anybody going to match me on it you know so now is it still yeah they're still trying to get her bones oh that time yeah all right so now it's this turn this team's turn to make some SS so who side do you want I want okay so why don't you you do the they have over there can decide who's going to point out oh you two which one oh got one both his hands cuz he he pointed that direction for his left hand oh left there's still one more to catch he got to be able to catch so so we didn't get a sticker there no the only point one at a time have Point him that was good do it again or they can either match or just individually yeah you can either match them or you can want a point or yeah well you have only one set now don't yeah we got one oh he has so you you can either turn them and match him or you can have somebody call you want to match why don't you call I can I call a how do I you just I want to match you guys well you only got one guy left I want to match the two of them oh you're going to mat well you need the bones to be able to match them well he has them if you're okay well you're the the captain who decide who keeps the bones and has them if you want to match them you have to have the bones in your hand oh so you have to point either okay what you want who then I turn them up y okay so now's your chance to win sticks again these guys get a mail bone then you guys win the sticks on there one of you one of them holds him out you want to call and you want to call okay okay do they do them at the same time I I indicate right I indicate that's down the middle that's both their inside hands all right okay show your left hand and your right hand yeah got one missed one so you hand over your bon sir and you hand over a stick on this side yay these guys are the he why he get B because he caught it he did catch the female so they get the B but they have no but they don't get a chance to make sticks till they get both BS on their side you still have them she still has them oh Mr G oh hey team one to go someone else I'm cursed no they're out aren't they out no no we just and we still we still play for those ones as well even once you get all of ours you got to get all of yours too oh my goodness we won't have time to play that long of game we'll play a few little bit more okay now do chance to make back some sticks this will be our last side hide on want okay you yeah you go you just take one person okay you finally got so it's your turn now to call I money on oh that's one set we still have 10 still got him on this one still yeah still got to catch him okay who that left or right is that left or right you got the stri he got your right so we coming back come back the Home Run s we still have any you still got to catch him he's still going you're good L now we can start getting sticks if we now you can start getting sticks we got about two more minutes to play the game then we got to do some Q&A but you want do your no they have to call they have to call they're picking you guys again your chance to win sticks oh he got them so you those bones back over c those ones I got these you what is oh it's you're doing it yeah yeah so you got to good job guys want try to get a couple more sticks got about a minute okay got okay you decide who's point and who's hid so thank you guys for coming and listening and talking to us today and we asked that help y went down both I missed them both I thought they had a mess I'm sorry I thought that was good cuz they mess no I thought you said got both his stripes yeah we got both his stripes oh so no so the sticks go this way and the bones stay on I like the way he plays be okay so the bow stay on this side yeah okay alth although if you were playing with the hardcore if you throw over your bones whether you're supposed to or not you get them back well so they'd be ours right right if they would to gave him up like that you guys would have kept all right so now it's okay one last time and we'll wrap her up who wants to do it Miss are you guessing at the same time cuz you can guess them both at the same time now do what you could get you can guess them both at the same time but he's still up and rning one more chance was at the same time okay well there was ack thank you ladies and Gentlemen let's give him a big hand wasn't that fun and we'll be glad to take some questions now if some of you have questions about the traditional games from any of our presenters so if you would raise your hand and we'll come around with the microphone so you can ask your questions that's great all right also to let you know the traditional games out on the other side of the BLM tent in the grass today so be sure you go out and check in with them and you'll get to play some of these wonderful traditional games as well was there a question back here right here is there a kid kind of kids game is there a kids game we have all kinds of kids games did you just get here y you come on over to where we're at and we'll we'll play some games with you okay for a real quick kids game there's one that's called a run and scream game it's about endurance and that's the game is exactly what it sounds like you get a bunch of kids out there you tell them scream and start running and whoever can scream and run for the at the same time for the longest distance that's who wins that round it's about endurance yeah yeah as yeah we did as a matter of fact this year at Great Falls we had about a week long of traditional games and it was an invite of anyone International is it's International traditional games we had people out of Canada people coming from all over for horse games as well as just our field games and it was yeah we do have inter triable games with each other it's fun uh the society is about is about 3 years old now four years old 25 years old 25 years old okay that's my bad totally I've been involved for about two years if my mom was here she'd smack me when we first started e Montana now we're headquartered at a great BS but every tribe has their own traditional game Society at our at home on the flat at Salish coutney um we've been at it for about 15 years but they came into the society in the last five years and so all of our students that we had as kids are all starting to teach now so that's how good it is and the international games at Great Falls were just like last month and they were awesome how many different tries how many different tribes do you know how many participated Montana yeah we all the all the reservations were represented out of Montana for sure I know spoke to somebody from Wyoming and a few people out of Canada out of Alberta and whatnot it was an amazing Gathering it was on television it was really fantastic yeah the horse the horse the horse games were broadcasted nationally as a matter of fact traditional horse games I missed them I was working I was teaching games do we have any more questions for our presenters of the traditional tribal games yes ma'am Which tribes are you three representing or four yeah I we're all Salish bit Salish we're all from let's give them all a big hand thank you very much it was our pleasure having you here to talk about traditional games please come back and join