Tribal Research Specialist: The Podcast

#64 - Between Good and Bad: Where Black Bears Eat Eagles - Guest: Terry Brockie

• Aaron Brien, Shandin Pete, Terry Brockie • Season 3 • Episode 64

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Cold Open & Banter 03:50
Buffalo Skulls and Song Memories 08:15
Thought Power and Gossip as Harm 15:30
Good Intentions, Bad Spirits & Colonial Influence 23:00
Warriors, Morality, and Historical Context 29:30
Interrogating the Good/Bad Dichotomy 38:00
Collective Intention and the Power to Harm 44:30
Language Loss: Beyond Boarding Schools 54:00
Economic Security and Self-Actualization 1:01:30
From Teepees to Commodities: Changing Lifestyles 1:13:45
Language Games, Apps, and Realism 1:21:30
Final Reflections 1:28:30

Guest: Terry Brockie (Aaniih)

Hosts: Aaron Brien (Apsáalooke), (Shandin Pete (Salish/Diné). 

How to cite this episode (apa)
Pete, S. H., Brien, A. & Old Bull, S. A. (Hosts). (2025, May 20).#64 - Between Good and Bad: Where Black Bears Eat Eagles - Guest: Terry Brockie [Audio podcast episode]. In Tribal Research Specialist:The Podcast. Tribal Research Specialist, LLC. https://tribalresearchspecialist.buzzsprout.com

How to cite this podcast (apa)
Pete, S. H., & Brien, A. (Hosts). (2020–present). Tribal Research Specialist:The Podcast [Audio podcast]. Tribal Research Specialist, LLC. https://tribalresearchspecialist.buzzsprout.com/

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Shandin Pete:

How many times have we heard that one? Yeah, I like your costume.

Terry Brockie:

Costume. I take a picture you. Yeah, I

Shandin Pete:

honestly had someone asked to touch my hair. Can I touch your hair? Why? That's weird, isn't it? I mean, even just for regular people, you know, I'm gonna do that to somebody I see this random, Hey, can I touch your hair?

Terry Brockie:

See what happens. You're asking a braid it no Aaron, either. I was

Shandin Pete:

going to start introducing myself, you know, you know how they do, like at conferences and stuff, you know, Hi, my name is, well, my, my Indian name is whatever, whatever in my, my colonial name is whatever, whatever, what. I didn't have a colonial name, and I think I should start giving myself one, you know. So I'm, I'm, I'm thinking, I'm liking Dan. Dan Johnson

Terry Brockie:

just put sir In front of that you

Shandin Pete:

uh, yeah, I remember all through school, Like, um, elementary, you know, when they used to have, I don't know, they still have it, like Indian Studies, like we'd all go to Indian Studies, and it was always somebody's relative teaching it, you know. And they all knew every well, if a small town, you know, everybody knows everybody. And so at some point in class, this would always happen, and they say, does anybody know any Indian words? This was back in the time when things were still pretty low, you know everybody? No, not really, no, no, you do. She would say, you do. They'd be like we do, yeah, and he'd point at me, you know, his name, that's the Indian word. I'd get singled out. And, yeah, man, yeah. Guess there's a point. I didn't want to I just wanted a regular name. Never happened. Never happened to you like you just get sick of your regular name and you want a different one.

Aaron Brien:

I never did. I

Shandin Pete:

never just like Aaron. It's kind

Aaron Brien:

of like I didn't think much about it. You didn't think about it. I was a little kid. I was just worried about sticks.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah, look at this cool rock, man. I bet I could throw it over that mountain. My sister is like that. When she got sick of her name, she's like, I want you to guys start calling me by my middle name. So we did. It only took to call her like a few times and she got sick of it. It's like, No, I don't call me that. No more. What's up? You guys? What's going on?

Terry Brockie:

Boxes on move today, doing all kinds of stuff. Yeah, we're cleaning. Our tribe gave me some buffalo skulls. So we're, we're out skinning buffalo skulls and nice and draw bones off and nice and, you know, for once, not attracting the flies. They were going to the buffalo skulls out of flies over me instead, you know,

Shandin Pete:

hey, tell me if you recognize The song, both both you and Aaron. Guys, ready? You? Yeah, Yeah,

Aaron Brien:

yeah, I've heard that tune before.

Shandin Pete:

Oh yeah, I've heard it more than I wish to have ever heard it. No, I like it. It's like one of those. It's like one of those forever songs. If you can't think of a song, you hear that in your head, oh, I got one. Yeah. That was recorded in Fort Belknap 19 and 77 Yep. What it got? Four score, what's four score? Four score, and I don't know,

Aaron Brien:

seven years is it?

Shandin Pete:

I knew you'd know. I knew you'd know that. I don't

Terry Brockie:

know. You don't know. I always wondered that honestly, Four score and seven years ago or

Shandin Pete:

school? Yeah, what is that I had to google it? I don't know, man, so I had a question. I had a question because I was reading. I was reading something about your your what's the word, your kin, your tribal people? And it's pretty familiar. I mean it. I mean I read it, and I go, yeah, that's that makes sense. And I think I want to hear more or your thoughts on it. I'm just trying to find it. Where the heck is that I lost it? Want to get you and Aaron's take on this. Okay, okay, here's what it says. I'm going to just read it the Indian people, at least the Gros Ventre thought the psychological effect of public opinion is so great and intense on the one whom it was trained that it shortened his life and made him a nobody, if he had a long, long life, it was certainly a miserable one. It was definitely known by the Gros Ventre that they actually thought people to death.

Terry Brockie:

You know, in as I understand it, and it's been taught to our people just like words, huh? Yeah, it's, you know, you make bad talk, you make good talk. You know what I mean, yeah, people, you can throw negativity at them and and amongst our people, thought power has always been something that that has been prevalent in our belief system. Yeah, it's like in, I don't know, psychological, environmental, instrumental control to have good thoughts. You know what I mean? Because, yeah, you know the idea of just thinking, if you think that way, you might make it happen, just like your words. Yeah, so, so we are our people were always trained to have good thoughts, good words, because, and then, and then it's, you know, and it's the karma thing too, you know that, you know, that could come back on you and as well. Yeah, so, so that was kind of another kind of instrumental control, of like, I guess, kind of in a sense, like, social order, you know, I would say, Yeah, best way, and, and what's this? It like, I know, I don't know, but, I mean, I understand, you know that you know, the to teach your children through lecture, that's always been a traditional way of ours, yeah, once on and our Grove want as we're known, yeah, is to, you know, lecture our children. I. About, you know, having good thoughts, having and have, and even even, like, even in our language, it's really cool, because I teach this a lot in our college because, like, I mean, and I try to explain that, and like, like, in, like, in a lot of plain sign language to think people will put their finger out towards their heart, from their heart, you know. And American, we might put tap it towards our temple, and but even in our language, there's, there's like, ways that mean use of heart. And then there's a way of, like, saying it, like, I'm be like saying I'm tired, and then I could say, Oh, I'm getting tired, you know. And so it's you're not there yet, you know. So we have a way of saying it that way, just like we do in English, but and then there's, then there's this term it saw we use, which means to use mental capability, and then your breath and then your word. So I always try to teach that to our students to understand philosophy that, you know, everything starts with your heart and so and even, like, like, a term that we use for think, is asset saw, which means to think, that's a word when there's there's nice means before you have mental activity, it's kind of a concept. I guess it's pretty cool, but I but I think it's really cool. I try to convey that to them, because it creates critical thought. You see what I mean, and it binds you to your heart. And so then I go out and tell them a little bit about, like, the physiological sides of it, if, like, someone got their leg cut off, or they were in a coma and they were brain dead, or or they lost an eye, or they can't hear, as long as their hearts go and they're alive, but the minute your heart stops, you're done. That's it. That's day, you know. You're you're finished, you know. And so I try to teach that, you know, just to understand philosophy, because just kind of, kind of, like you said, you know your word? Oh, does anybody know a word? And there's such a renaissance. I believe in Indian country now, you know, and all I see it a lot all over Indian country, of people trying to revitalize their languages and their and their their customs and their pathways and and it's all embedded in our language, if we look deep enough, that's just my my thoughts and my belief of the whole thing. But that thought power. I firmly have been taught that, you know, since I was young. I mean, that's, that's a, really a custom of our people.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah, it's a familiar one. And Aaron and I have talked about it a number of times, but more so on the other side. You know, where we're, where we're wishing or making a wish upon someone, yup, but just like anything you know, you can always go the opposite way too, you know, and cause harm through your thoughts and Nope, I know that's, that's, I think That that is evident in in some of the customs of of long ago, I guess when you know, it was like one of the, one of the crimes of humanity during that time was gossiping, you know, yeah, gossiping is really, really, really highly frowned upon and, and I think that that was One of the reasons, because you can cause harm, unintended harm, or maybe and even intended harm, which you shouldn't do among your own people, you know,

Terry Brockie:

yeah, yeah, as well, yeah.

Shandin Pete:

My curiosity, I guess, was also in that, that same regard, like, like, I was trying to trace these pathways of like, what we talked about last time, about reciprocity, you know, like you do something for somebody that's that's an easy pathway because you're exchanging a good or a deed or task or something. You can see it happening if you're doing it to another individual. But I think what's less concrete, not that it has to be. But is this thing like when you're when you're wishing for someone to do well or wishing for someone to do not well, like, what, where does it go, and what is the thing that acts to make that thing a possibility to happen? If you know what I mean,

Terry Brockie:

kind of gets into that back then stuff, you know, I just just follow, you know, we have we say, what gates in our language, they say, Oh, and, and every tribe almost always has that, you know, yeah, you know, like even in today, you know this, my wife will say, Jeanette, you know, they say, or that's what it means. And always, kind of refers to our ancient people or ancestors before us. Yes. And so I always just try to, I don't I, I guess, been always taught someone makes bad words towards you or bad thoughts towards you, maybe, who knows, but just say a prayer for them. And yeah, it's for them, you know. Yeah, you know. So that's where I was, kind of, yeah, when I kind of, I don't know. That's how I always kind of just think about it, try to be good and kind and Yeah, another you'll be okay. Then, then you're watched over. Yeah,

Shandin Pete:

yeah. The reason I ask is because, well, I mean, I have a sense, you know, that, that the pathway is, of course, a spiritual pathway, right? And we don't really know, we can't even pretend to know what, what happens to that. But this was, this was the thing that kind of, I guess made a dilemma for me, is that and Aaron and I can't, was it? I think was episode ago we talked about this in what we were thinking was an imposed belief about, like, you may have heard this about bad spirits, you know. Oh, don't do that. You're gonna bring in bad spirits, you know? And we were, we were tossing around this idea, and I sort of, were we talking about that, right? Aaron, confirm for me, yeah, yeah. Okay, good, okay, yeah,

Aaron Brien:

yeah, we he

Shandin Pete:

has spoken. He was on his phone. He was on his phone and he was getting, he's getting this old man look, you know, them that look, when that, when the old, old, like that, old guys on the phone got his downturn mouth and really looking.

Aaron Brien:

I was intently listening.

Shandin Pete:

Okay, so this is the dilemma. Okay, we didn't talk about this is the dilemma come to know, sort of an understanding, as you grow in your your understanding of both spirituality and your tradition and your customs, to know that it doesn't seem like there's a there's a wicked spirit out there that's out to do harm. You know, I think maybe they can inadvertently do harm through this. What if you believe that they can inadvertently do harm, potentially, and this is just a thought. I'm just walking through these weird thoughts I got. So then I think, well, all right, if, if you ascribe to that, what I mean? What is the what is the force? Then I can see the good, right? If we wish good on somebody, I can see, I can see that going off into some area that we don't quite fully understand, and then it coming back to do good for someone. But what I don't get is, what is the thing that causes the harm? So the dilemma is, I don't think this is my opinion, that there's this bad or evil spirit. Kind of think it's maybe a an adaptation of the church. But, you know, I'm just, I'm not, I don't know for sure, but that's my thought. So then, if that's the case, I'm like, thinking badly about someone. What's the force or the thing? Then that causes, like, I read in there, causes someone to die.

Aaron Brien:

Well, you got to define what's bad first.

Shandin Pete:

Okay, so bad would be like,

Aaron Brien:

if it was 200 years ago when I was going to go to war against somebody, yeah, and I, I've made a wish to vanquish my enemies. Oh, yeah.

Shandin Pete:

Is that? Yeah? That's, that's borderline, right? Because it's not, is that bad for you?

Aaron Brien:

And now times it's bad to do that. But was it? What was it? Then,

Terry Brockie:

that's a good question, you know? I mean, because I think about, like, there's like, you know, and just understanding, trying to constantly understand more and more of our culture. And I kind of think I use the example, like, what you use? So using that, say, there was a warrior that went out say, we use these gentlemen behind me in my screen, you know, but you know, if someone, some tribe, was coming to more or less try to rub them out, they're protecting their people, and they're in our, our existence, more or less. And then you think about it today, and this is kind of one thing that I always think about is, like American culture, maybe you might even use say, you know, like 1945 ticker tape parades down New York City, you know, Guy soldiers, kissing girls. And then you had Vietnam and and. There's people of evidently, and I was just, you know, I, I was born during the Vietnam era, you know, I'm dating myself, but, but that's where, that's when I was born. So I don't have any but I hear people, you know, spitting on these warriors for calling them, you know, baby killers and this and that. And, yeah, they're trying to protect and so now, today, we see a lot of what they call PTSD with our warriors, and rightfully so. But at the same time, when I think back to our culture, we had, like, we had what they call bragging contests, where, where, where our warriors would get up and tell deeds, you know, and there's, there's things in our culture where there's times when warriors stand up and tell war stories or, or when they, they're, they're in a certain place or position within some kind of cultural event or ceremony, you know? And those, to me, were always like, kind of our traditional coping systems. And then you have, you have like, so I don't know, when you get back to the kind of the bat, I don't just, like, you said, Aaron, I'm kind of in Aaron's camp, you know. I mean, in the sense of, like, hey, if, if we don't, we don't stop these guys, my children are going to die, and my wife and my mother and I have to protect at all, all costs, you know. So I don't, I don't think in that realm. But, I mean, I tie it to maybe, maybe we talk like our tricksters. And every tribe has some sort of trickster. And my view of it is, is they embody, you know, all of men, man's fallacies, his strengths, everything, and, and, and so man can be fallible too and do things, and man can be really great and do things, and, yeah, just this is how we all can be. So I would say it's us that do that. If we're going to do something like that, it's going to be us as as as people like that, you know. So I wouldn't say maybe I don't know. I just, I don't know, but that's just my thoughts, my two cents, yeah, good words, something. Stay negative. Just don't say nothing. Say good prayer for them, or think good wishes for them. They find peace. You know, that's how I look at it,

Shandin Pete:

yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, that's an important Aaron that yeah, there's the old man. Look, put your phone up now, put your phone up. Yeah. There it is. Yeah, yeah. Then you try to talk to him too. They don't even listen to you. They're just worse than they're worse than kids you know, stuck on their phone. Man,

Aaron Brien:

I'm just listening to this conversation and wondering where just get to the nitty gritty. Man, like I did talk about here, this is what I'm talking about. I think in order for you to ask that question, yeah, even the very idea of asking that question is still kind of rooted in some sort of Christendom idea, okay, this idea of like, good versus evil still, yeah, but I don't think that's like tribal, tribal beliefs didn't, don't fall in those categories. Yeah, because you can make good wishes for your clan children or for your relatives and your friends, yeah? That same ability to do that allows you to make bad wishes. Yeah? So, yeah, the idea that there's something I don't know, I just don't know what that it depends on what's asked of you. I think in today's morality, it's, it's easier to say, Oh, I wouldn't do that because yeah, A, B and C, yeah. But back then, yeah, I don't want to say things are, there was a casual confidence that existed with our beliefs that I think we lack today, even even some of the most competent, culturally competent people, yeah, we lack. We're okay. So if, if we're in a constant state of understanding our beliefs, yeah, I think that's a predicament that only exists today. I don't know if our ancestors struggled with with identity and how to move within in that. So when you ask us, yeah, there's things that are so much ingrained in us. Yeah, both native belief and non native belief, whether we say we're Christian or not Christian, there's no denying that the Christian belief system has influenced us. Yeah, I think there's a way. It's just the way it is. You. So, like, if you were to say, hey, Terry, Could you, could you ask for bad for somebody? Just that the question, the way the question is phrased, has it's coming from that thing, yeah, so I don't know. Like, I think 200 years ago, one of my clan children came to me and said, I want to kill my enemy, and I was a successful warrior, that's what I'm gonna wish for, and there's not gonna be this, like, inner like, Oh my gosh. What's wrong? What is wrong? Yeah, you know, yeah. Like, there's not gonna be this. Like, are you sure that's what you want to do? This whole system is based off of this success in battle, success with spiritual power, success with the way your home looks, the way your your your the health of your children, so your community views you and says, Look, he's got good fortune, right? He's got good luck. That's what I want. And the ultimate form of testing that luck is in battle. There's noone that you can't deny that, even today, even in today's standard, the ultimate form of testing your luck is in battle. It's just so and in order for that to happen, you have to step out of that a little bit. I think what we view as more certain levels of morality. I think people argue, they make these philosophical arguments about, like, ethics and and like, what's right and what's wrong, but again, it's all with today's standard right and definition. So I just, I think that question in itself has an identity struggle in it where that question can't exist in the past, it wouldn't even come up. The question, I don't know if the question would even come up. Yeah. I mean, I do think there's clear lines of yes and no and do's and don'ts in the past. But I think let's look at the heavy hitters like battle, right? It's easy to say, but also like there to say that jealousy didn't exist in the past, I think would be kind of naive too, right? Oh yeah, I think there's, there's all kinds of stories about little groups fighting with each other. Oh yeah. I mean, most of most of us, our tribes, have stories of separating from another tribe, yeah, usually because of some sort of disagreement, or,

Shandin Pete:

yeah, fighting over an arrow, or, yeah, grab a meat

Aaron Brien:

or but I think the way is different. You know, it's not it's so hard to separate. So I think the greater question is, how do you ask a question like that that's not entangled, to borrow a word from Will Smith. It's not entangled with Christian morality. How do you ask that question? Yeah, go,

Shandin Pete:

well, then I would. I don't, I don't disagree with what you're saying. And certainly is a question that you have to interrogate in a spectrum of time. Okay, I agree with that. So I don't know if I could say 200 years ago. I can't say, can't say 200 years ago. I mean, none of us really know, we just kind of have a guess, you know, no, based on on a lot of things, but this is so, then that, then we

Aaron Brien:

agree, though, that we've lost culture.

Shandin Pete:

Well, yeah, we Yeah, so yeah, let's just so, based

Aaron Brien:

on that evolution of losing culture that 200 years ago. There's more,

Shandin Pete:

yeah, sure, yeah, yeah. Well, that goes against my own. Well, wait, yeah, haven't lost it. Just changed good. Terry's got something to say. Yeah, I see

Terry Brockie:

that word you liked Aaron that you really liked I used. We're not homogenous anymore.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah? Homogenous. You look it up, just milk, yeah, just about milk, yeah, it's about a lot of things,

Terry Brockie:

but, but, but, I mean, it's just like, we're not, you know, like, back then I could see, I could assume, that's all I can do, is assume that everyone, like, was striving. You know, I always say we're we before the eye. So there was instruments for, say, a man to to always be striving to be better. And I think that that that competitiveness, but it was a friendly competitiveness, in a sense. To be better for the whole group. And I think that's why there's a lot of jealousy today, because it's used in different, in a in a dysfunctional way, you know? I mean, it's just like someone's doing good, you know, someone again. Now we kind of go back to, oh, look at that person. They're trying to be this way or that way. You know. Who do they think they are, blah, blah, blah, you know. And for me, instead of, like, saying, Hey, boy, that person's doing good, you you know, they're really doing good, I should go help them. You know what? I mean, I like it. Hey, look, son, look at this person. Look, they're trying, you know. I mean, see, I think that's where, like, what you were kind of getting back at Aaron, of like, like, you know, they had good, good luck in battle. And, you know, we want, I want my son to have good luck. It's kind of like, I think I talked about that on the last time was like, having, yeah, like, like, going to elders. Like, a custom amongst us is to go to our elders, and make have them make good wishes for us, because they've been given long life. Well, if you go way back in the day, they they obviously had to have good luck and do a lot of things in battle to get to that age and and so if I want say I'm my son, I might want them to go to that person and gift them and ask them, you know, to maybe, you know, because they say they're, because they've been gifted ages, they're, they're closer to the Creator, to us, you know what I mean. And so they're, maybe they can intercede or pity for that for us. You know, there's that. What is it called? That turmoil you use rep

Shandin Pete:

reciprocity.

Aaron Brien:

Over and over, okay, her hermogenosity. But Terry, I think you would agree too, though, that the more the more understanding you have of your beliefs, and the more practice you have of your beliefs, the less you actually think about those kinds of things because it's just working, just doing their thing, right, like you don't, yeah, practitioner, that's, that's why I say practitioners knowledge is different, because it's, it's, it's not like, I don't want to say it's not necessarily like a philosopher's knowledge, but It's, it's, used. So there's this, there's a different confidence. It's not as analytical as you would think, like, I think sometimes people think because you practice and you're good at it and you understand it, that you know all the nuances of it. And I don't think that's how it works. Actually. I think when you use it, like, you know how to use your muscles, but you don't know how they work, right? So I think it's kind of the same thing. So I don't think those kinds of questions. It's just not a good question. Sean Dean,

Shandin Pete:

I'm in I think, I think it is, I think it is because this is the reason why. This is the reason why? Well, I'm curious about this because, I mean, I hear what you say, whether I believe most of it, I don't know. I think practitioners have thought things out. They do wrestle with difficult situations, but maybe not to a certain degree where you problematize things, or you create the Yeah, maybe, yeah, yeah. I don't. I don't think

Aaron Brien:

most practitioners are like, You Shandi, where you're you're like, a very inquisitive person, like, the way you your brain works is you're like, one of them guys that like to take carburetors apart and put them back together to understand how they work. There's some practitioners that just say, I like the carburetor. I'm just gonna use it.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah. I think there's the,

Aaron Brien:

I think some of that's personality theory, degree

Shandin Pete:

of people like that, yeah. So, yeah. So this is, this is what, what your message implies to me. And maybe Terry can weigh in on this. It sounds like, so the idea of good and bad, I'm gonna throw a mike lafromboise term out there, the dichotomy, yeah, the dichotomy of good and bad, yeah, seems like didn't exist in the past, that that kind of what you're kind of what it sound like you said

Aaron Brien:

to a degree, yeah, you're okay

Shandin Pete:

to a degree, yeah.

Aaron Brien:

But because, I think your question, you take Christianity out of out of our world today, completely out, yeah. Then what question do you have? What's your question?

Shandin Pete:

Question. Well, the question still remains. No, it doesn't. Yeah, it does.

Aaron Brien:

I don't think it does. Well, this reason out of

Shandin Pete:

this one, this is the reason why I think it does. This reason why I think it does. I mean, the things that cause people harm exist, right? Say, what the things that cause people harm exist and yeah, things that cause people to flourish also exist. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The language of your both of your peoples has a word that is an analogous to both good and bad, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that had to exist, the good and the bad has to exist, apart from saying, Well, this was the influence of the church bringing in the good and bad. But I think this is what I this is what I think now don't, no, don't jump down my throat till I tell you the next part. It's, this is the next thing. This is the next thing, yeah, and it's what, it's what we always say, and it's kind of what you hinted at, right? It's the purpose and in the intent of that thing that we label as good or bad. Because good to one person is bad to another person. Bad to another person might be good to another person. The line is blurred depending on the direction of the thing that is getting influenced. I don't think that's a church thing. That's just the that's just the thing that happens. Man, no, yeah, because you just described it. If I'm going to vanquish my enemy, good for me, bad for my enemies, kids,

Aaron Brien:

so you're okay, so then what you're saying is that

Shandin Pete:

it's to the owner of that. I think so. I think so, yeah, I think I think so, yeah, yeah. So, so what I where I think, where I think the church stuff comes in, is when it becomes codified what is good and codified what is bad. But I

Aaron Brien:

think just the question itself is, no, I don't know. No, no, no, people are sitting there with this inner fight of morality? I mean, I can't speak for all Indians throughout all of time,

Shandin Pete:

or you just did. There's no I get it.

Aaron Brien:

I mean, I don't know. I don't know. Something doesn't sit right with me.

Shandin Pete:

Well, it's this, okay? Terry,

Aaron Brien:

oh, go ahead. Terry, well,

Terry Brockie:

I just wanted to say that, that I just go back to, like, some of our most ancient stories, if you go back to ancient stories, there are Coyote, there are trickster, they're, they're, they're, you know, they're, they're those trickster stories that I would assume that we're kind of a Indigenous education model, oh,

Shandin Pete:

God, to teach OPI. No, no, no.

Terry Brockie:

You know me think of there's practical ways, yeah, maybe. And then there's, there's, there's, there's philosophical ways of teaching different things, educating or to be human beings, right? And I just go back, it's, I think our tricksters teach us to make choice. They make, to make choice in life. And we're, we're, we're reaffirmed to make good, good choices, right? Also, know that we can make choices that are bad, you could say. And you know, we could go back and forth in English, you know what I mean? Yeah. Well, also, we could just say that we make choices that don't benefit the good, right? That way, you see, I mean, and so, like, I just go back to that all the time, because

Shandin Pete:

say that again, I'm sorry, go back say that again, because that was interesting. Well,

Terry Brockie:

I mean, it's for choices to make good choices, but then also to make choices that aren't for good, you know what I mean, instead of using bad like that. And then there's repercussions in our belief systems that when we disrupt, maybe the balance of the unknown cause, most spiritual balance of the natural world, on and on. All this, all this balance. That then, then we're disrupting things and so and so, that's how I kind of look at it, from my perspective, is, is really it's a choice. I can make a choice, and it can be a really good choice in my heart, and I could still be human and make a choice that maybe my heart I probably shouldn't do, yeah, but I still, I mean, I still do it, you know. I mean, peer pressure, something, you know, who knows? I mean, yeah, oh yeah, that's, I kind of look at it more so and yeah, just that there's that repercussion of, of, of disrupting that balance. Yeah, whatever that is that does harm to all. Yes, I guess, in a nutshell, in a nutshell, Eric,

Aaron Brien:

that's tough. Man.

Terry Brockie:

Tough one. That's it. He's thrown out a tough question. Man, this is like,

Shandin Pete:

one like one. I recently watched a video of a black bear climbing up a tree and, um, eating the eagle. Yeah, eating the eagle. So for the eagle, that was unfortunate. Man, bad deal. But for the black bear, tasty treat, man. So the deal, the deal from what I'm hearing from Terry and what I'm hearing from Aaron, is that, and you brought up a good you got you brought up a good word to really help, help Aaron to understand what we're trying to say to him. See, he's not listening this idea of choice, right? Choice? I'm in any choice that we make. Sometime we don't know if, if the outcome is going to be good or bad or destructive or or helpful. We just go about with the best of our ability to think about what we know and do the right thing. Sometime we don't it's not right because we're kind of dumb sometime where we we, what we think was right is not right, and all that that's just, you know, human choice and and the consequence that that we, we, we have to deal with. But my original question, back to my original question, where does it go? What's the pathway like? Like, I know, I know for certain that there's, there's helpers, right? People have employed the help of something, through their own sacrifice and all that, to get a helper to help them

Aaron Brien:

play their own volition, under their own

Shandin Pete:

volition, but when we're talking about this quote I read where it's like this, like there's a group of people like thinking Ill of someone, collectively thinking Ill of someone, to the point where that person could almost be killed because of the that that dangerous situation. Now again, we can say, well, maybe that's purposeful, because that person is no good and they need to die. We could go that route and say, Yeah, well, that makes perfect sense. But what if it was a misunderstanding, and maybe the person's not so bad at all, and then, but that seems, that seems rare. That's that's where I think I agree with Aaron, and what he's saying is that, well, all these things, these, this, this the cultural construct that is at work and at play. There's a lot of puzzles that fit in. And there's a reason why that instance of thinking so ill to someone to the point of death. There's probably some real purposeful reason. So it sort of pulls it out of that category, the dichotomy of good and bad, and it's just, it's just a thing that happens. It's a balance of some sort. Yeah, the vanquishing of your enemies. We, our ancestors, did that because there was a purpose for it, and the consequence, well, good for whoever, because our kids didn't die, but their kids is without parent. What's the good and what's the bad? Huh?

Terry Brockie:

Great existence, real, straight existence in that scenario, yeah,

Shandin Pete:

yeah, it's like the bear killing the eagle. This is life, man. I. It's what happens. The eagle is not so sacred. It's immune from getting murdered by a black bear. The black bear is not so sacred that it's not immune from killing an eagle that has little babies in it because, man, he's hungry. I don't know what my point is at the end of this, but I was just thinking about this, and it was on my mind the last couple days. And the conversation often is brought up in that way where there's this, there's these extreme good and extreme bad, and it seems like not a lot is talked about the stuff in the middle. Yeah, there's certainly extreme bads and extreme goods that happen. But that stuff in the middle, it's probably more common, it seems like, and it's more it's more routine, rather than, I don't know, like they're culturally or orchestrated, things that happen that can be classified good or bad as a whole, but can operate on a personal level as Having a good or bad consequence. The End, dang I dang So Aaron, yeah, I, I know you wanted to talk about the language revitalization the often talked about, yeah, once you were talking, you're talking to Terry about that because you had a interest, and then we didn't have enough time to finish that conversation.

Aaron Brien:

Is that what I said at the end of that? Yeah, he did well, that was a week ago, PARD and I saw seven years ago. Yeah, four

Shandin Pete:

score and seven years ago. So

Aaron Brien:

as a as a language scholar of the on the on Nene, saying, right, how

Terry Brockie:

do you say

Shandin Pete:

it? Oh, what's this word that that I see? It's a, t, s, I N, E,

Terry Brockie:

that's a, that's actually a black foot speaking word for whatever reason. That's kind of crazy, scholarly. That's what we're known by. And I don't know of anyone in my whole tribe that's ever said, Oh, I'm at sinner what person, honest to God, yeah, anyone ever say, Oh, I'm at Sina? That's a I think it means gut people, I think, in their life, if I remember, right and but for whatever reason, that's what we're known like you can Google at sinner, and it's just like, a plethora of things, hey,

Aaron Brien:

plethora Yeah, like,

Terry Brockie:

and then I use things, you know, just very, very simply, a plethora of things. That was a power line right there, you know, vocabulary per redundant.

Aaron Brien:

That's a bit redundant this week, this week in Pro was the it

Terry Brockie:

was a plethora, too, you know, a plethora press, plethora of stuff, of stuff.

Shandin Pete:

Okay? People

Aaron Brien:

say, You ever hear people say so? Like to me, stuff is plural, right?

Terry Brockie:

Is it not? It's plural. It's color form.

Aaron Brien:

People say, Man, I gotta run to town and get a bunch of stuff to me. That sounds funny. I don't know why. Just to be I'm like, well, bunch, a bunch, bunches. You're already, you're already saying stuff. I already know it's more than one. I gotta go get some stuff. Yeah? When you say a bunch of stuff, yeah, you might as well add a s to stuff and just get it over with. It's just a lot of plural. That's a lot of plural, right stuff, isn't it? Quantity. Those are two. Those are two markers of quantity, a bunch and stuff, yeah, that's too much. That's too much. A bunch of stuff, a bunch of stuffs, yeah, a bunch of the stuffs. It's just too much. Anyway, we Okay. The Little Big Horn College hosted the, I guess this is like 40 years of the language conference. Okay? So I thought, oh, that's kind of cool. Um, I'll have my guys attended, my my crew, you know? Yeah. So we went. They, they went all to the whole two days, I just did a couple of talks. And in my short time, in my short time seeing it, I'm going to say this, man, okay, it was horrible. I it was linguist talking about suing languages, right? So some giving presentations on different linguistic articles. Perhaps you could say ooh, non or vowel deletion. Perhaps I learned that term from from my nephew and I'm acting cool. What's the word? Vowel deletion.

Shandin Pete:

Vowel Sounds like you're mispronouncing pro word.

Aaron Brien:

No See, we learned this. We learned it in action. They they mentioned it, they didn't give us any hard hitting evidence when linguistics when I was in my undergrad. But an example involved deletion is is that the hiratsa language and the Crow language are the same languages, but hiratsa does not have vowel deletion. So the the most common example is the term Sacagawea right so, language, when you say Bird Woman, you say siga Gaia, right, yeah. In the Crow language, you would say the Gaga beer, except in in the case where vow deletion happens. So at the end of de Gaga, the Gaga is an A you would delete that from the word so it'd be taga, where that doesn't exist in hiratsa. So bird, woman, crow, you would say taga, in in hiradza, you would say saga, we

Terry Brockie:

are they use more of a WEA form for a woman too, than on the end where you guys, yeah, right,

Aaron Brien:

yeah. Well, crows can use a W too. So the B, M and W are interchangeable, okay, those sounds and that D, L and the n are interchangeable. The shot is dance, you could say Nisha, the sort this, so it's all like dance. It's the same thing. So anyway, besides that, I was just teasing about that, but it this, this is, this is linguistics. We talk a lot about tribal research, and like tribal people taking charge of research and implementing, like native approaches to research. One place that is not happening is in linguistics. It's, man, it's, it's like the you got this group of a very unique group of people, yeah, that have a very niche skill in the study of language, almost mathematical. It's like a mathematic approach to language, Yeah, completely disconnected from the languages they're studying. It's like, it was intense. I was like, Holy Smoke, if there's, if there's a need for Sean Dean, it's like holy smoke. So my nephew gave a talk. He was the plenary speaker, on on, on the second day, and it was by far the most interesting talk, yeah, and this is what, where I'm going to get with Terry. Okay, so Terry, in your experience in studying language, the same arguments are always made for language loss, right? Boarding schools, the church reservation lifestyle, they kind of make these same it's always the same, colonization talks, right? Yeah, would you agree or disagree? I disagree?

Terry Brockie:

Well, I mean, let me, let me clarify that, because, boy,

Aaron Brien:

you might be disagreeing too soon because of what I'm getting at next.

Shandin Pete:

Okay, whoa, whoa, go ahead. Go ahead.

Aaron Brien:

No, you go ahead.

Terry Brockie:

No, because you're setting me up. So you go it's.

Aaron Brien:

That I noticed, I feel like that's superficial, right? That's a superficial look at native language and why native languages are suffering. What they suffer? Yeah, of course, boarding schools had a number, but it's all these factors. My nephew made this really strong argument for economics having the strongest impact of of language loss, because he makes, he gives these sociological theories on why, the why economics has so much power in culture. And it was the first time I ever but, but he gave all this evidence of, like, tribal like, crow stuff and all this stuff. And I thought this is, like, what people need to talk about. Like, I always hear seeing documentaries. We lost our language, you know? And it's always the same kind of sad voice, you know what I mean, and it's always there. They're like, at boarding school, they wouldn't let me speak my language. But, you know, there's also a lot of people. Maybe you can even make the argument that just as many people may have actually survived boarding school speaking their language too. Like it? I mean, it would take a lot, right? Don't you think, Terry, you would take a lot to completely wipe the language out of your the way you, the way you function,

Terry Brockie:

yeah? As, yeah. Well, I mean, I think there's, there's a combination of different things again. I mean, we can, we can talk. I mean, to erase something from a person's mind. You mean, it's like, I'll use an example. I had a relative, and I was in the gas station and and, and they said, Where are you going? And I just told him, an Indian I said, I'm going to go golfing. And pretty abstract, when you think about it the way. I just, I set up up the wall, you know, Kawah on the not said, I said, I'm going to go, I'm going to go hit a little white ball. You know what? I'm going to hit this white ball. And he says, Oh, you're going to go golfing. And in English, he said, right. He, you know, he went through the boarding school, he went through everything, but yet he understood everything I said, but yet he didn't speak to me and ended, you know what I mean? And yet, but he understood everything I said. So to your point, I think it's hard to erase someone's memory. Now, you could say probably trauma. Yes, we could say a little bit of trauma, but I would make more. I'm a big person. I really and they argue this and that or what should be different ways, but I am a big believer in Maslow's hierarchy and needs. And why I say that is because when I was teaching in the elementary schools, when I first got into teaching, and I knew how I felt right, how I felt by understanding more and more of my language as I and I still feel the same way today, because there's, you know, language is infinite, and I felt, Oh, this will help a person with their self esteem, and but if you look at the bottom rung of that, it's security. And so if you have someone that doesn't speak their language and and they're in poverty, they're worried about what I'm going to eat and that the lights aren't going to get turned off, and worried about what, you know, what, what I'm I have to do. I use an example of when, one year they they had to do some work at the school, one of the schools I was teaching at, they brought the elementary over to the high school in junior high and to watch some of those kids eat breakfast and lunch. I mean, that that was two squares they got. That was that was two, two meals that they got, that they was solid meals. And you could see it just by the way they ate, you know. And so it's like that security, that economic security, is very, very important. And and I think our ancestors, when there was millions of buffalo on the earth, there was economic security, but this economic word has to do with people equated straight to money today, you know what I mean. And somehow, somehow our holistic tribe before the eye, if a person is, is is, is working hard, being industrious, and sometimes they're looked down upon. And that's kind of to me, upside down, but yet I. That, that that creates, that, that top tier in, in, in Maslow's of self actualization. Now you could say we were born with that, you know what I mean, but, but I mean, I'm just saying from, from Maslow's perspective, that's when you when you don't have to worry about security, when you don't have to worry about a sense of belonging when you don't have to worry about self esteem. And I can dream, that's what it is. I can dream, and I feel comfortable dreaming, and I feel comfortable taking a risk and failing and then trying again, you see, and those things like that. Not every when you're stuck in the bottom realm and you're just trying to live. I don't have time to study my language if I want to learn it. You know what I mean? I don't. I don't have time to read a historical document or listen to old recordings and try to do a you just it. I I'm I'm hungry. You know, my baby's got, you know, shitty drawers, and I'm down to five diapers. And, you know, I mean, I'm just talking real, you know, and, yeah, and so I agree, honestly, Aaron, I whatever i i love to heard his talk. And I'd have been right. It probably was the best talk there, you know, because, I mean, you could talk about the sin cope and the vile conjugation of the conjunct order, and whether it was a dependent participle or not, you know. But hey, man, you know, we need to, we need to, you know, make our people secure so that they they can flourish. Yeah, I'm 100% in your camp, Aaron, and that, yeah,

Aaron Brien:

that's, that's basically, and so his, his actual talk was about language declined from 1980 cuz he made a pretty good argument that, like, wait, wait a second, the crows survived the boarding school era with, like, over almost 80% fluency or Whatever, till the 80s, and then then it tanks, right? So it's like, well, well, what was it? Because if the boarding schools couldn't fully do it, the church couldn't fully do it, what was all these factors The Dawes Act couldn't fully do it, or what happened? So he makes this really strong argument for the i 90 corridor, creating economic thoroughfare and and it really made the reservation small right between Sheridan Wyoming and Billings Montana. It kind of like turned this into, like this commerce interstate, as opposed to just just for traffic. It was it made for other things, right? And I don't totally know if that was his intent. So well, I text Shaun Dean, and I was like, Man, this is pretty cool. Like, I never it was, it was good. And so he's, like, he just got into graduate school, so he was, he's, I told him, like, you're fine, dude. Like, what you do, what you presented on already. I don't see graduate students doing stuff like that thinking the way he was thinking. So I thought, how come people don't think like that? That's, that's just, it was just it like, blows my mind. Like, if you can get to a native scholar before they learn too much, almost in school. It's almost like that work can happen, but one, it's hard to catch them.

Terry Brockie:

I don't know. Well, here's, here's kind of a one that I thought about too. Yeah, you use that time for an 80, right? Right? About the Crow language, okay? And one day I went, I had to go into the housing department at our tribe, and they have a whole bunch of old pictures of different families that they went around to, and they took pictures of them, and it'd be these two, man and a wife, and they're in front of a log cabin and, and, and their home and and they might have had coveralls on, and, you know, it was just like that transition, you know, in the 30s and 40s. And then you think about, like, governmental policy. And you think about, say, like, like housing came to Indian country in in 1960s roughly as I understand it, because I asked about and they said, Well, this is how it was. When did we start getting these houses? You know, 60s, early 70s, right? And so you think about the 60s. Well, then there's also a lot of social programs that came in, like maybe under Lyndon Johnson, you know what I mean, and these different in federal policy. And then, so then you had, you created into some sense, and people probably won't like me saying this, but you created a level of entitlement as well. You see, they mean where now there were, there's certain things that that, that we were able to, to get and you could, and I'm not arguing. It's wrong or right. I'm not saying anything, you know, sometimes people get, get a little bit offended by that, but I'm just saying for 80 or 90 years, then they the the agreements we made with the government, there was nothing really brought forward. Oh, we'll give you a, you know, bag of flour and some rice and some sugar, you know, and this and that, maybe, but, but also, you think of those 20 years there, that's an adult age person about the time when you think about having kids and stuff, and all of a sudden, there's certain things I don't, I don't really have to drive for. You know what I mean, where you look back there and those log cabin days, those guys had to grow their garden, you know what I mean, they're going to have vegetables for the winter. They had to, can, you know what? I mean, yeah, they had to subsistently LIVE. And all of a sudden, now we have commodities where we have some food, you know, we have, we have a little bit of GA maybe, to help us, general assistance, you know, we got a house, you know. And so you think about our people in Indian ways. If we have a i this old document of this old man. His name was Bucha head, and he talked about like how they were able, if, if, if they were able to get hides for lodges. There was waters in the creek. There was water in the creek, and there was berries. It was a good berry year, you know, and they're able to get turnips and stuff. Life was good, you know, we didn't perish. You know, that was good. But what, what we forget about is how industrious our people had to be in order to build a hide, you know, to make a hide, and then make eight or nine of them, and then sew them together and and with the bone all and sinew, and make sinew, and to make a teepee and all these things. Our people were very industrious. And then when it went to log cabins, they had to cut log cabins, and they had to, you know, they had to do everything and grow their garden. And then all of a sudden, now there was this kind of a little bit of because now we were a little bit comfortable, and it might be the interstate going through, and now there's a, there's a complacency or content where I'm okay. I got food, I got I got shelter, I got that hide over my head. I got some I got some food, you know, I got a little bit of spending money, but it's meager. It's meager compared to, maybe I would assume, to my grandparents when they grew up. You know what I mean. So I I think maybe then you look at that too, you know what I mean. And you might say, maybe there was a drop off there too. I mean, just a thought. I'm just thinking about that, because I've always thought about that with with my own people, about, like, the instruments of the reservation and, and, and it's just a segment. I'm not saying this. There's a lot of hard work and industrious people on our reservations, and they're trying hard and educated and but at the same time, there's, there's, there's still that, that segment, that that kind of, it's, it's good. I got just this is enough. I don't need any more. And they're content, you know, and, and, so it but yet, that's still in the means of, like, we go back to economics, that's, you know, that's pretty meager. And I'm, I'm having to hustle instead of, you know, instead of, like, working, you know what I'm saying. I don't know if that makes sense.

Aaron Brien:

Makes total sense.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah, I'm down.

Terry Brockie:

It's like, yeah, like, how do we how do we empower our people to take back our, our our our gifted rights to our people. I guess I don't know how to put it into English. You know what I mean? The Creator gave us stuff, belief system and how to be as whatever tribe we are. And all I'm saying is those are good systems that lasted for 1000s of years, and then you have a system placed on top of us now that radically changed it, but yet it hasn't radically changed us, too, though. I mean, it's, it's just like all it takes, you know, that's the optimism that I have Aaron and shandine, is it? I kind of go back to old Darryl KIPP. He said, All it takes is one generation to stop speaking. You lose the language, but all it takes is one generation to start speaking, and it's living. Yeah, yeah. That's a powerful little phrase that I think is really, really important, you know, and how do we convey but it goes back to, I believe, like what you said, Aaron, you've got to be economically secure in this world today, and we don't have buffalo like we did then. Unfortunately, it's the almighty dollar. You know what? I mean, right, wrong and different and and so that's just how I look at it. And I'm not saying, Oh, you gotta be rich or anything like that, but enough to create a security level where you

Shandin Pete:

can dream, yeah, there's some, there's some pretty rich tribes out there now because of their. Or economic prosperity in certain ways, but they've got probably zero speakers. And I don't know what, I don't know how much that money equates to revitalization, but I think that's, I think it's an important thing that Aaron was saying that your your nephew is talking about, and we talked about this before, not not not directly like that, but we talked about, what are we talking we're talking about Revit, reviving certain traditions and customs, and how difficult that is if it's not placed within, within a system that it's has purpose, you know, like, um, like, how many people celebrate New Year's on, uh, you know, end of December? Lot of Indians do, you know? But that's not necessarily the right thing. It's just, that's just the made up calendar, you know, that goes off of this gridded dates that, you know, it has, has a history in a different customer culture, but that's what our tribes go off of. That's that's how the economy and the political structure of our tribes now operates off of. But remember, we talked about this, Aaron, we talked about, what if they decided to release per capita is on the first thunder? Then how many people would be paying attention to that first thunder, you know, waiting for that per cap check to come up? Did we really talk about that? We did. Yeah, we talked about that. And so that remind me when you're talking about this, this thing that your your nephew talked about, and it makes perfect sense, right? If, if the if the language doesn't have purpose in the thing that helps you to survive, then yeah, you're gonna go, you're gonna go to the language that helps you to live in the economy in which you're you're sort of stuck in. You've seen that with like that Chinook jargon. You know that Chinook jargon sort of blew up in the Pacific Northwest because it was used for trading. Then as soon as that trading went away, Chinook jargon is gone. Nobody used it no more. And I, while you were talking, I was I was thinking about, man, yeah, that makes sense, it seems like. And I don't know if this is true, this is probably not totally true, because there's probably many other factors that contribute to why language decline. But I think some tribes that were pretty economically isolated, you know, I think they're when I think about it, I think, oh, yeah, those I can see like this, language is still somewhat strong from from what I my perspective, right? But if you look at like the like fly head man, we were, we were bombarded right in the middle. I mean, all of us were right in the middle of this sort of political, political changes. But we were, we were fairly economically. Vulnerable in a in a particular way. We had the dam there. We had all these resources with railroad come through. But that happened everywhere. So I don't know if that's necessarily true, but other factors

Aaron Brien:

also your your guys is was 3040, years before you guys have been doing this since 1834 or whatever, right, right, right. Or like the crows really, never. It never really took hold with us until the 1870s 1880s you know, yeah. And then, even then, it was pretty superficial, you know, yeah. And I think, I think for us, World War Two was kind of the great unifier. It made, it made that suddenly, yeah, we took a hit with colonization, for sure, then yeah, in terms of buying into

Shandin Pete:

it, right, right, right, you

Aaron Brien:

know, because it was obviously it's been around for as long as it has been around. But you there's always these turning points where, like, you see, tribes buy into it, yeah, yeah, even

Terry Brockie:

earlier than that for our people, I believe, you know, just from reading old historical documents and different things, you know, like the imprint of the Catholic Church on our reservation, I mean, and just really, like people kind of putting it away, putting their Indian ways away, and then you read kind of these old buffalo day Indian interviews, you know. And like, there's this one old man. His name was a Cinnabon boy, and in the underlying tone of his story was, I just want to eat meatless, to be in the Buffalo days. And he yeah about how he looked at his people and saw how far away they were, and this was like in the 1930s how far away they were from the old days. And he was really, he just thought it wasn't a good place for our people. And, you know, I just want my meat. I want to be able to go hunt buffalo. I want to go I don't, I don't like this society. Our people are evolving into, you know. It was a really powerful kind of write up. And he talked about just kind of how human behavior had changed, you know, that was what kind of the underlying tone so, ya know, it's been and so, you know. And I mean, I really think just, just this is just my thought is, I really think that because of the westernized system, and we're in now, everyone has to go to school, and we go, you know, from, you know, you know, mid August till end of June, or beginning of June, or whatever. And then we're in a westernized school system. But the underlying thing that I see around in Indian country now is that, you know, I will give our state a little bit of credit is I really believe that Indian Education for All has really helped some tribes and and, and I see, you know, you have people that, like myself, I've been able to teach our songs, our history, our language, in our school system, where, when I went to school, there was nothing like that, nothing Like you said, kind of Indian Studies, you know? That was it, you know. And now, just like the school I went to in Harlem, my where I graduated from, when I graduated, there was nothing in that school, absolutely zero things in that school that I can recall that reflected me as a native person, yeah, in this person. Now I can walk in there and there's that, well, they remodeling now, but he used to walk right in there, and there was all the treaties on the wall, there's there's things all over there reflects we as Indian, as an Indian person, and but, but being able to teach all that now, you've had people that have they're more comfortable with themselves because they know who they are a little bit more. You know where, where I wasn't as comfortable. I feel like sometimes when I think back and I look at like these young guys when I was a contemporary with them in school, and they're, they're eons ahead of me, culturally, of and more comfortable. And so I think it's, it's it's it's it's helping as I'm not saying it's the salt, because we're still in a westernized box, and there's teachers up front. We're in rows, just like we're in a mission school or something, exactly the same format, the same I mean, we're not sitting on the ground in a circle. They don't know what I mean where I can everyone's equal. You know what I mean in that concept. And we got away, we got a long ways to go, but it's, it's, it's getting better. But that's the stuff, see, when we, when we have that philosophy that, no, I don't want to sit in in rows. I want to sit in a circle and I want to sit on the ground, then it's good, you know,

Shandin Pete:

I want a talking stick too. My voice. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's an interesting thing, man, to explore. And I think you're right, Aaron, it's going to take like, like, some real curious and creative minds to come up with the different way to do things, but

Aaron Brien:

native people minds that, yeah, that's what I mean. Go outside of who we are to figure out a problem, yeah? Solve it ourselves. You know, nobody's

Terry Brockie:

going to solve it for us. I agree 100% Yeah, solve it for us. No one. We got to solve it ourselves. Yeah? And you know that can be a scary thought, but it can be an empowering thought too, as well. You know,

Shandin Pete:

this conversation is giving me a dubitive mood. What? What the linguistic term? Man, it's throwing it out there, trying to play the game. I don't know what that is. Duplicative mood, you don't know what that is. Me neither. I had to look it up. It's a, it's a, it's an epistemic mood which signals the speaker's reservation about the accuracy of his or her statement. Stupid, evidently, evidently reticent. You know,

Terry Brockie:

it's funny, because we use that in our language all the time, because if we weren't there, we would use that form of speech, right? Because I wasn't physically there to hear whatever our traditional story filled with those stupid moods, because, you know, we weren't there, we weren't there. So who am I just say that that's exactly true.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah, I know people have come up with all a range of things on how to revive language, you know, radio station, dictionary, books, you know, articles in the paper. Nothing seems to be catching on. But what I think when you tie it into like, it becomes a need. You see this in in and we talked about this before, like in in tradition. When people see that you need to speak the language in in a like, say, a custom or a ceremonial sense, people will learn to say, just enough you. To be to do that thing, because it's purposeful and it's necessary, but I don't have no reason to go to the store and ask where the where the ketchup is in Salish. And then nobody cares. Nobody would know. Nobody cares. You know, it's like, who cares? Just ask to say it in English. Man,

Aaron Brien:

I'm almost like, getting tired too, of hearing like, and I don't want to say older people, because not but that somehow a youth app is going to fix the language. They're always like, they're like, let's just, we got to have a game they can play. Yeah, these kids play Call of Duty. They're not

Shandin Pete:

some whack name, find Mother Tree. Find mother tree and avoid the tiger, the mountain lion.

Aaron Brien:

There's always the same argument, like, because I heard it. I heard it at this thing. We're like, we need to have a game, a language game, the kids, the youth, can play, and then they'll learn our language. And I'm like,

Shandin Pete:

I mean, that's cool, but,

Aaron Brien:

I mean, I don't want to be discouraging, but I know it's just, I think if we're not realistic about any of this, yeah, it's not going to happen. Yeah,

Shandin Pete:

yeah. Yeah.

Terry Brockie:

I just, it's really, I mean, and it's difficult, because everywhere you're at English is there,

Shandin Pete:

yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. So

Terry Brockie:

like, like, like, like, I was, I went to this tribal language language summit in Bozeman on one Monday and Tuesday, and then we present use, I'm not fluent in sign language, plain sign language, but I used it as a tool to to help people understand kind of the basic meanings of of nouns and verbs. You know, using sign language, right? And then, and then, showing how you can, you can use it to, like, conjugate verbs, fancy word here again, but, you know, but the thing is, is, like, what I was pointing out was to them, was that was the most common, commonly spoken Language prior to westerners coming, yeah, and now English replaced that where we, you know, long ago, we would all talk signed to one. We'd be sitting on here, nobody. We wouldn't hear anything. We'd be doing, you know, you'd have to be a video thing in this day, because we'd be fine, you know, and we would all understand, and we'd be laughing and joking and everything in the language. But, yeah, you know that's, that's just, it's, it's hard, it is hard, but it can be done, but it's hard, and it has to be around our dinner table. Yeah, I put, I put, I put my hope and my wishes on our mothers, on the women folk, honestly, yeah, that child is born from that Womb of that woman. And when the women say we're we're going to make our language important, and we start talking to our our baby right from the womb, and we can do it as fathers, too, but to the womb right for right out of the womb, and that child, that's all they're hearing, they're going to know their language. And it was funny, because I can remember when I first started with the language, there was this, this, this lady from crow. I went to a mobby meeting or something. It was called, like the name of it, and they had been studying the language. Aaron about that, and they were saying how the they were, they had statistics on it. They're talking about the Crow language and the kids that were coming to school, primarily that were fluent, that didn't know English, were coming from single mother homes, really on your reservation. Aaron, that's what their data showed. They had a big chart. I was like, Wow, man, you know. And then, when I think about it, in our way of being, you know, our women folk are very, very important, you know, they're bossy, yeah, they're bossy. When our women folk decide it'll be that way, it'll be that way. Oh yeah,

Shandin Pete:

I believe it. I believe it. Well, man, you know, we've talked about a lot of things here. We talked about the dichotomy of good and bad. Aaron got Aaron got on a soapbox about it, and that's that's good though. Hey, man, he set setting, setting it straight. Terry threw in some some good evidence there about it, and he helped resolve it by bringing up the word of choice that pretty important. Mean that good and bad is, even though it's like an in, it can be an individual construct when we're homogenized, and it becomes more powerful, because then we all understand good and bad, and then the blur. It gets real, real blurry, but pretty, pretty well defined on what, how that's operationalized, and it's not looked at in such a strange way, like, like a codified book of what you ought to do and what you ought not to do. It's just what you have to do in the moment. Yeah, and then this, I think this is pretty cool, because that that comes down to, like that, like language loss, like we have a choice. We have a choice. It's just like, I got an argument with them, with a vegan with they were showing they had, you know, they put them videos up on a screen, and they're standing somewhere, and it's like these little baby chickens get grinded up and, you know, animals getting abused in these big processing places, you know. And I was watching. I was like, Man, that's horrible look at all that my kids were there were watching. I said, Man, that's not cool. And so the guy comes up and said, do you, what do you think about what you're seeing? And I said, Oh, that's, that's terrible man. And I said, Well, do you support that? And I said, No, I don't. I don't support that at all. I says, Well, do you eat meat? And I said, Well, yeah, I do. I said, well, then you support it. And I was like, Whoa, oh, yeah. I mean, but I kind of stuck in this economy. I said, well, that's just an excuse, you know, people have and, you know, you can do something to not support it. And, and I said, Well, I said, you know, there's sort of a line, have a belief about, you know, animals in our own particular way. And he straight up said, I don't care what you believe. It's like, okay, I'm out. I headed out as I yeah, this guy's not listening to me. Yeah, he's not listening to me at all.

Aaron Brien:

I don't care what you believe, yeah,

Shandin Pete:

but, but that, that, that idea about, you know, to change attitudes, you have to have a has to be a place for the attitude to be changed. You can't just expect someone to go night and day. We can't expect people to go night and day on. Language has to be purposeful. I mean, there's people who've done it. They make it their purpose to do it, but for the average person who has the has the want has to be set up in a particular way, so all tribes out there distribute your per caps on the first thunder, that'll be the start. And stop giving people the day off on New Year's. Give them the day off on

Aaron Brien:

shaunding. Too much. Don't mess with our days off.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah, we got Martin Luther King. We got coming

Aaron Brien:

Hey, yeah. Chill out, man. Chilling are you getting at least Columbus Day off, and then all these damn water protectors start bitching around. Now, no, I'm just kidding. All right, let's be done.

Shandin Pete:

Okay. All right. Terry, last words. Anything to say?

Terry Brockie:

Oh, just thank you. I just been very interesting. And you guys, it's good. You guys are doing things like this, and just talking about life as Indian people. And, you know, look out all over the place, and there's very little things like these. There you go with things and

Shandin Pete:

stuff, stuff, not enough stuff, like a bunch of stuff

Terry Brockie:

we get to and by God, you guys fill up all the stuff. Okay, good

Shandin Pete:

evening. You.

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Aaron Brien

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Shandin Pete

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