Understanding Your Own Culture

Including:

Ruth Brass, Blackfoot Elder, Siksika First Nation.

Introduction (:16)

Script (4:22)

See I was lucky my great grandfather was at the Treaty Signing, he was 16-years-old. You know that bundle that I'm talking about: he got it then. And he died in '52. So I still have that bundle. So that has never gone out to the museums, like they took most of The Horn Societies and The Old Ladies Societies. I never thought that they should go to a museum.

But there was a period there where people were, they opened a bar for our people. For 10 years, my people went, I don't know. I used to tell my Dad and he used to tell me, ‘be patient, they'll quit.' And I was surprised that they did, and the younger ones they seemed to turn around and they wanted everything all at once. And this is what I'm talking about, about going too fast and losing something along the way.

And then I noticed that today, with our different societies, they like to makeup things beside there. That's not actually what it's supposed to. And then I ask for them, for forgiveness, because nobody is around to tell them the truth. And then we have these people popping up, you know, who claim to know it all. Because this is something you do not learn. You have to see it and I think you have to experience it.

So I wasn't allowed my first Sundance until I was about 7-years-old. Before that we weren't allowed to go. But now that they're trying to do the retreats, but there's mostly kids there. So I think that's the time when the older people should teach the younger ones the respect. And but then like today, it's so awkward because a lot of them...I don't really know the right word to say but in our language I would say, like, "______", that's disbelieving of everything. They like to think that this is what they are taught and this is the way it goes. It is not so. We have to remember we're unique. We were put on this earth for a purpose too. Not just other cultures.

And this is what I, even I get into an argument with these writers, I personally know some writers that wrote books and I tell them. They get very upset with me. Because I tell them it's nice you're doing this but why don't you tell the truth, because you're writing history and you're supposed to write it, it's supposed to be truthful. Not make up stories on all this. Like I'll give you an example, like when you phoned me, I went and I did an offering, you know for the incense. And I asked the man upstairs to help me with, you know. Because you mentioned before that you wanted to tape it. And I'm not a very, how would I say, I'm kind of, now I can't find the word. But I'm a loner. This is part of what we're supposed to do when we're belonging to societies.