Iye Ohdakapi: Their Stories Manitoba Dakota Elders

Compiled by Craig Charbonneau Fontaine

Interviews by Herbert Hoover

Introduction The following stories were recorded in the summers of 1971 and 1972 on all five Dakota Nations in Manitoba. One interview was recorded at White Cap Dakota Nation in Saskatchewan. These interviews are part of a larger collection of interviews at the Institute of American Indian Studies, South Dakota Oral History Centre, University of South Dakota. The collection consists of approximately 5,500 interviews of Indigenous people’s lives in the northern Great Plains region. The collection contains an enormous wealth of oral history from many Indigenous Peoples throughout the Midwest states and fortunately the Canadian Dakota are included. Noted historian Dr. Herbert T. Hoover, Professor Emeritus, conducted the original recordings.

I first came upon the interviews on microfiche at the University of Manitoba Library. I read through them and found the original transcriptions showed missing textual information in the work. Although this resulted in difficulties in comprehension one still understood the value the stories conveyed. I walked away knowing the importance these interviews would serve to Dakota history. Over the years publications devoted to Manitoba and Saskatchewan Dakota history have been written. All should be required reading for any student of history or Indian studies. Unfortunately, as with many history books, a key ingredient missing in these publications are the voices of the people themselves. Although this publication stands on its own merit it should serve to enhance the historical works already existing on the Manitoba Dakota.

The Elders’ stories, as you will read and hear, convey memories of lived experiences and historical reflection. They demonstrate intelligence, humour, struggle, and a commitment to hard work that enabled all First Nations people to overcome the hardships of an indifferent and sometimes hostile populace. The recordings capture a moment in time in each Elder`s life, but the ideas and thoughts should enable further enquiry into the field of Dakota oral history. Students can use each elder`s story as a guide in developing future oral history projects in each Dakota Nation.

When I was hired as a researcher at the Manitoba First Nations Education Resource Centre Inc. (MFNERC) one of my original goals was to compile the interviews into a book. I contacted the University of South Dakota Oral History Centre to request permission to reprint the interviews. Permission was granted, and they also agreed to supply the original recordings in digitized form. I have tried my best to correct the errors in the original transcriptions. The quality of some of the original recordings did not facilitate easy transcribing, and I apologize if I have incorrectly misheard a word or phrase in the elders’ voices.

As the project developed my next goal was to locate archived historical photos from each particular Dakota Nation. Some of the people and places in the photos have been identified with the help of those who graciously took the time to look at each photo. I am sure more individuals can be identified, but time and resources limited my ability for further enquiry. However, if you do recognize any individuals or mistakes in the photos or interviews please contact the MFNERC and relay the information for further printing corrections. Space has been added to the bottom of each unidentified photo in the hope that anyone who does recognize people will add the names in. This will ensure information will not be lost for the future generations. If you are willing to provide any historical photos or are interested in obtaining copies of the original recordings please feel free to contact the MFNERC.

--- Craig Charbonneau Fontaine

Acknowledgements A special thank you goes out Birdtail Sioux tribal member Riel Benn who created the cover artwork. A brief explanation by the artist of the work is as follows:

“The cover painting was inspired by a few very different things, both old and modern. The focal point of this painting was the two drummers in the center of the nebula. It is based on one picture I found of Sioux drummers from the 1890's. The background was inspired by the star people stories and the television show star trek; giving

it a contemporary element young people can relate too. Another element from star trek is the energize beams surrounding the drummers, as though through song and story both are being transported to a higher dimension.

Surrounding the drummers is the spider’s web, a visual representation that everything in this universe is connected. The design of this painting also has a playful element to it. The spiders web was made possible by the children's game connect the dots and the constellations. Creeping on this web is a popular character from Sioux legend, my favourite, and the spider also known as "iktomi", who is creeping in the foreground, as though he is spying and watching everything in a sneaky mischievous sort of way. There also is a bit of humour added to the

picture, a little hidden modern day icon you could say, hidden in the painting is a tiny USS enterprise, which was added near the end, a little game inspired by the "iktomi" character. Can you find the USS enterprise?”

--- Riel Benn

I would also like to thank Manitoba First Nation Education Resource Centre Inc. colleague Noella Eagle for providing advice and the title to the work.

The following individuals were helpful in developing the publication of this material. They were generous with their time, advice, photographs, or technical support; Margaret Scott, Barb Innes, Corrine Harper, Elder Doris Pratt, Dianne Taylor, Valarie Courchene, Eli Tacan, Violet Benn, Barbara Eastman, and Arlene McKay, University of South Dakota Oral History staff members, Jennifer McIntyre and Jessica Neal, Centre du Patrimoine staff members, Gilles Lesage, Julie Reid, and Monique Gravel. I do apologize if I have missed anyone.

The Manitoba First Nations Education Resource Centre Inc. would also like to acknowledge the following staff and contributors for their part in the creation of this work:

Lorne Keeper, Executive Director

Gwen Merrick, Associate Executive Director

Vera Mitchell, First Nations Language Program Manager

Margaret Scott, Special Education Program Manager

Noella Eagle, Dakota Language and Culture Specialist

Amber Green, Graphic Designer Kirby Gilman, Editor

Photographic Material information:

Provincial Archives of Manitoba, hereafter (P.A.M.) Societe

Historique De Saint---Boniface, hereafter (S.H.St. B)

Minnesota Historical Society, hereafter (M.H.S.)

Benn Family Collection

B. Innes and C. Harper Collection

Contents Arthur Young....................................................................................................................................... 1

Cecil Sioux Benn .................................................................................................................................. 4

Edward Bunn ....................................................................................................................................... 9

Eli Bunn ............................................................................................................................................. 13

Emma Pratt ........................................................................................................................................ 23

Florence Bunn ................................................................................................................................... 31

George Bearbull ................................................................................................................................ 39

Arnett Smoke .................................................................................................................................... 44

Jacob Blacksmith .............................................................................................................................. 52

Kenneth Eastman ............................................................................................................................. 59

Lawrence Smoke ............................................................................................................................... 67

Nora Bunn .......................................................................................................................................... 74

Raymond H. Smoke Sr ....................................................................................................................... 76

Frank Eastman .................................................................................................................................. 86

Tom Benn .......................................................................................................................................... 93

Vernon Mazawasicuna and Pete Whitecloud ....................................................................................101

William T. Eagle................................................................................................................................110

Pictures of the Dakota Nations… ................................................................................................... 115

Arthur Young Oak Lake Reserve, Manitoba. Summer 1972

Tape 847

Arthur: Well this is kind of a joke. Way down east, along the Halifax (Nova Scotia), in early days the Indians camped along the big water. And the Indians all camp, they were hunting and they were hunting and everything. But there was a big boat that came from England... English came. They see these Indians and they give them silver dollars, you know, big silver money, some paper money. And the Indians don’t know what to do with the money. They didn’t know what to do with it. So these Indians, they gave it to the kids, the money, silver dollars, and the kids playing with it outside and all that. Indians camp around there, money laying all over the Indian camp. Then the white men they gone back... One time another boat came, well that was, Scotland came, Scots you know, Scots they came.

INTERVIEWER: Yes.

Arthur: Why they came to the Indians camp, why that money was laying all over the Indian camp. The Scotchmen they start to picking up the money, all that Scotchmen went home rich from the Indian camp. Well, that’s the end of it. (Laughing)

INTERVIEWER: Would you care to talk about your background a little bit?

Arthur: Well I was born in Portage la Prairie and I came down here when I was a young fellow. I’d been running around all over the reserve, Sioux Valley and all that you know, when I was a young fellow. And then I came over here, and I married over here and stayed here. Over here, hunting, shooting, everything, there’s nothing in Portage, there’s nothing like that.

INTERVIEWER: Isn’t there? Were you born at the old village there?

Arthur: Yeah, the old village there, I was born at the old village.

INTERVIEWER: Have you been a farmer out here, Mr. Young?

Arthur: One time...here it was all just farming, (inaudible) just horses (inaudible) I was farming then.

INTERVIEWER: I see you still keep a few horses out here?

Arthur: Oh yeah, I still keep four horses here and I’m still going around with horses, go to town with the team; me and my wife, yeah, and winter there... when it’s not so cold we go to town with the team but it’s cold weather we got to hire a car to take us to town and back, it cost us $2. If we go on the team, well we save our $2. (Laughing)

INTERVIEWER: Is that to Pipestone?

Arthur: Yeah, to Pipestone.

INTERVIEWER: You were born in Portage?

Arthur: Yeah, Portage la Prairie.

INTERVIEWER: Is your father from there?

Arthur: Yeah, my father’s from there.

INTERVIEWER: Did he ever talk to you at all about how Portage was settled by the Sioux?

Arthur: Well I don’t know. There’s just only a few acres of land, you know. One might get about two, three acres maybe, acre and a half, like that. I think the Sioux Indians they bought with their own money, it’s not like a reserve here, they bought that.

INTERVIEWER: Oh they bought the land?

Arthur: Yeah. They bought the land, a few acres, mind you at that time it was cheap you know,

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acre or one acre might be $1.50 or $2.00 or something. I know dad, he’s got about two acres.

INTERVIEWER: Did your dad come from the States or was he born here?

Arthur: No, his father.

INTERVIEWER: His father came here from the States?

Arthur: Yeah, his father came from the States.

INTERVIEWER: Did you know him, your grandfather?

Arthur: No, no I didn’t know him. His grave is at the Poplar Point, Manitoba I think. That’s where they buried the Indians in the early days. Before the reserve was nothing, going back and forth, they camped somewhere I think and they go another place, all over.

INTERVIEWER: Did your dad even talk about that, how your grandfather got up from the States?

Arthur: Well, this is going to be hard for me to explain. Dad told me that his father came... there’s a man and his wife, he got three girls. And they coming this way, run away from the States. There’s some kind of white war or something. And my dad’s father, he kind of liked one of them girls, try and make love or something. Well they coming, they beat it this way into Canada, and my dad’s father he said he’s following them, every day they come into Canada and my dad’s father he’s still following them. He’s still hanging around where they camp, sleep in a bush, and then keep going and follow them all the time. So at last they gave him what he likes, they gave him the girl to get married, see the Indian way married at that time, no minister that time. That’s the way it went. Now my daddy’s father, he came into Canada this way, and that’s the way it happened.

INTERVIEWER: He was one of the first Indian people at Portage wasn’t he?

Arthur: Yeah, my Granddad was one of them. There used to be lots there, lots of Indians there; and then some they move, some they move onward, some they move on Saskatoon, Prince Albert, all them. That’s the way it went, some moved here to Sioux Valley.

INTERVIEWER: Do you know why they split up that way?

Arthur: I don’t know. I don’t know about that.

INTERVIEWER: How long did you live at Portage?

Arthur: I came here in 1937. Since from that I was here. I’m 65 now, 65 years old, June 23rd on Saturday.

INTERVIEWER: Those were depression years weren’t they?

Arthur: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Hard times?

Arthur: Hard times. Now I got arthritis, can’t do much, I’m getting welfare.

INTERVIEWER: How many children do you have?

Arthur: Me? None.

INTERVIEWER: No children?

Arthur: No children, no.

INTERVIEWER: How much did you farm here?

Arthur: Well I’ve just got 40 acres here, and that’s all I got across there but it’s gone now. Some Indian agent kind of take it back. I think they leased it now for the white man. See the band gets the share of that, you know, one---third.

INTERVIEWER: When they lease it out? You don’t get that as a person but the whole band.

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Arthur: They lease it out to the white man. Yeah. You have to go to the whole band. I guess it’s a little different from Canada down in the States. I got in South Dakota, Sisseton, I got some relatives down there somewhere. I got some money from down over there.

INTERVIEWER: From land?

Arthur: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Who are some your relatives there?

Arthur: Well I know I know one of Shepherds, and my father’s first cousin—he died now— that’s the way we get money out of his land. My father died now.

INTERVIEWER: Do you ever get back to the States yourself?

Arthur: I was down there one time, Sisseton. One time we went over there about five, seven years ago.

INTERVIEWER: Do you ever write to anybody down there or?

Arthur: No. My wife she’s got some relatives over there, too.

INTERVIEWER: Does she have land there too?

Arthur: No I don’t think so; she never got no money out.

INTERVIEWER: Well then your grandfather would have been a Sisseton?

Arthur: Yeah, Sisseton. I don’t know how to pronounce that white language – but we’re Santee Iháŋkthuŋwaŋ , that’s what we are.

INTERVIEWER: Santee Iháŋkthuŋwaŋ?

Arthur: Yeah, Santee.

End of Tape

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Cecil Sioux Benn Tape 842

INTERVIEWER: That’s by the Portage Glee Club?

Cecil: Tom Jackson and the Portage Glee Club. It’s some kind of a history; they made it into a song. I think it was last year’s Centennial or something.

INTERVIEWER: That was the treaty?

Cecil: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: And that’s by the Manitoba Indian Brotherhood?

Cecil: Yeah, the Manitoba Indian Brotherhood are the ones that paid for the recording.

INTERVIEWER: Are you a member of the Brotherhood?

Cecil: No, I’m not.

INTERVIEWER: Is anybody around here on this Reserve?

Cecil: I don’t think there is anybody that’s a member of that.

INTERVIEWER: I was going to ask you just a question or two about yourself, if I can. Nothing very deep, but first of all, how old are you Cecil?

Cecil: Twenty---eight.

INTERVIEWER: Are you married?

Cecil: Yes I am.

INTERVIEWER: How many children do you have?

Cecil: I’ve only got one.

INTERVIEWER: That keeps you busy though?

Cecil: Oh yes.

INTERVIEWER: Where’d you go to school?

Cecil: I went to Birtle and Brandon.

INTERVIEWER: How long did you go in Birtle?

Cecil: Well I started about four years I guess, three years at Brandon, then I finished school here right on the reserve at the day school here.

INTERVIEWER: Oh you finished here at the Day School? So you actually went to three school systems?

Cecil: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Did you start with Birtle?

Cecil: I started at Birtle and then to Brandon and then I finished here.

INTERVIEWER: Did you just board at Brandon and then go on to public schools or was that school running then?

Cecil: I don’t think at the time there was any public...you mean with the whites?

INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

Cecil: No, that started not too long ago; going to public schools.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

Cecil: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: So you just went to Brandon school there?

Cecil: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: What do you remember about those schools, what did you study mostly?

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Cecil: Well, taking English. INTERVIEWER: What were some of the other courses then? Literature?

Cecil: Oh, we hadn’t had some of those.

INTERVIEWER: Spelling?

Cecil: We had spelling, yeah that kind of thing.

INTERVIEWER: Did you have any industrial, like crafts, woodwork?

Cecil: No, nothing like that here.

INTERVIEWER: The Birtle school closed didn’t it?

Cecil: Yeah it did.

INTERVIEWER: Indian school. That was what, about 1970?

Cecil: Yeah about 1970.

INTERVIEWER: And this school out here closed about what 1950’s, something like that, 1958 wasn’t it?

Cecil: Yeah, ’58, around there.

INTERVIEWER: Where does your child go to school?

Cecil: Well she’s just a baby.

INTERVIEWER: Oh she’s just a baby, she isn’t big enough?

Cecil: She’s only nine months right now.

INTERVIEWER: But she will go into Birtle, won’t she?

Cecil: Yeah most likely she will be going into Birtle. The white kid’s parents don’t like (inaudible) by Indian people. (Laughter)

INTERVIEWER: Your name is from Sioux Benn isn’t it?

Cecil: Well Sioux Benn is my great--- great--- grandfather. They named me after him.

INTERVIEWER: I see. That’s a proud name. What have you been told about him? What do you remember about him?

Cecil: Well I haven’t heard too much about him. The older people might know more, but I haven’t heard too much about him.

INTERVIEWER: Just that he came from the States?

Cecil: Uh huh.

INTERVIEWER: What do you do now Cecil? Do you work off the reservation at all?

Cecil: No, I haven’t been working. I’ve been going to upgrading in school at (inaudible) and I passed at my level and I am supposed to take level three but that wouldn’t start again until this coming winter I guess.

INTERVIEWER: That’s Adult Education? Is that here at the Band House or do you have to go away for that?

Cecil: No we have to go to Birtle for that.

INTERVIEWER: Into Birtle for that?

Cecil: Yeah, and we’re sponsored by some guys, like either Manpower or – I forget what they call the other, Ron (Houston?) is one of them, he was the guy that sponsored us. So I get $249 a month when I was going to school there, that’s for upgrading.

INTERVIEWER: Oh I see, how long did you go then, during that?

Cecil: Well for level four I had to go two months, because they said I was doing good and they wanted me to keep on and practice for 11 weeks.

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So I stayed with them another two months and that’s the end of the course.

INTERVIEWER: You go back then, will you for some more training?

Cecil: Yeah, most likely, I’ll have to go back, they have it back here in Birtle. And I think it’s kind of hard for us if we have to go all the way down to Brandon and there will be nobody back here to look after our families...like during the winter.

INTERVIEWER: Where do you think that will take you? Do you plan to move away some day or you just want to better yourself, your understanding? Do you think that will get you a better job?

Cecil: If I had a job, a steady job, I’d go.

INTERVIEWER: Would you? Take your family away and leave the reserve?

Cecil: Yeah, because I got two brothers that are out of the Reserve. Frank Benn is living in Brandon; he worked over 20 years now in the water works. Well of course he’s now a member of the (Job listing?). So he’s been there for quite a long time now; he’s been away from the reserve but he still has had his band number here.

INTERVIEWER: What is the other brother, where is he?

Cecil: Bill Benn, he lives up at Isabella.

INTERVIEWER: What does he do?

Cecil: Well he used to be working on farms. But he signed out; I really don’t know how much he got paid for signing out. (*Enfranchised?) You see, when you leave the reserve you get so much money.

INTERVIEWER: And then they don’t pay you after that?

Cecil: No, you will have to pay your own hospital bills and all that, once you sign off the reserve. So I think he only got about $125 at the time he left the reserve. But he couldn’t work, he’s got that arthritis and...he’s been living on welfare now. But of course he gets better health and welfare when he’s on the outside. But on the reserve you get welfare help, but it isn’t that much. Like me, myself, I get $70 a month.

INTERVIEWER: You get $70 a month here, for the whole family is that?

Cecil: Yeah for my whole family.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah. So you kind of hope you get away?

Cecil: Well I don’t think I’ll be able to get away because I’m getting a new home this year.

INTERVIEWER: You going to build that right here on this place?

Cecil: Yeah well right down the road there, we have three new buildings coming in this year. I don’t know how they get the money.

INTERVIEWER: Is your wife from here too?

Cecil: Yes she’s from here and she lived up further north where her parents are. And it’s not even a year yet that we’ve been married, we got married on September the 18th.

INTERVIEWER: What do most of the young people, or people in your age, what do they do for the most part, are there many jobs around?

Cecil: Not this year I don’t think. But there were quite a few jobs back in the latter years, the earlier years I should say. I think everybody’s got the problem of finding a job. Because now like the wages have gone up to about $1.75, and the white man don’t have to pay the Indian people $1.50 an hour; when that’s the price it should have been for about two or three years. So they wouldn’t want to pay that, they’d rather

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pay $1.25 an hour. So that’s about all we get from the white people. When the general farm labour, I’m sure everybody understands that because the wages gone up to $1.75, that includes like farm labour and all that. But then there’s nobody that wants to pay that and I believe that’s why they are not out here. I think one reason is because they’re having a problem of selling their grains or something like that.

INTERVIEWER: I see. No market for what they are doing?

Cecil: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, you cut some posts here with your father and all this?

Cecil: Yeah, I do, and that even is ... It’s kind of slow selling. But I dig Seneca root too and I get real good pay for that.

INTERVIEWER: What is a Seneca root sell for?

Cecil: Well its $3.15 for the top price.

INTERVIEWER: A pound. That’s a dried root?

Cecil: Yes, $3.15 a pound and I get the top price.

INTERVIEWER: How much can you gather in a day?

Cecil: Well you have to dig quite a bit to make a pound. It’s kind of slow work but I think it’s worth it, like in a time like this where there’s no jobs, I’m able to pay my hydro...( inaudible) and have a little extra cash.

INTERVIEWER: Do you hunt some?

Cecil: No that’s one thing that I don’t do.

INTERVIEWER: You don’t do that. I notice there are a lot of deer around here.

Cecil: Oh yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Have you ever heard of AIM--- American Indian Movement down in the States?

Cecil: No, I guess I haven’t.

INTERVIEWER: Come out of Minneapolis. They’re something like the Manitoba Indian Brotherhood except that they’re more younger people I believe. Do you think the Indian Brotherhood can do anything by just publicity for the way that things are here, that they can get you some help?

Cecil: Well I think the Manitoba Indian Brotherhood are supposed to be the ones that help the Indians on the reserves. Like if there were any problems or anything like that, I think they were the ones that we are supposed to look up to. And we had a Social (amalgamation?) like how to go about things on the reserve and all that type of thing. Well the people couldn’t get together. This reserve could be a whole lot better if the people got together; at least that’s what we were taught in Social (amalgamation?). Now we were supposed to have that again this year, then the chief or council didn’t say anything about it. And there’s another thing too, that we don’t hardly have any band meetings here on the reserve. I think that’s one reason that we don’t know what really is going on... on the reserve.

INTERVIEWER: The tribal government. There’s one chief and two council members isn’t there, to get elected?

Cecil: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Has that been going on very long? How long have you had an organized government like this? For as long as you remember, have you always elected a chief or is that recent?

Cecil: Well I think every two years we elect a new chief and council and it all depends on how big the reserve is. Some have six councillors.

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INTERVIEWER: Is there tribal policemen here or any other officials?

Cecil: No there isn’t any policemen on the reserve here, but we have from out of town like Hamiota, the police comes around, Saturdays and I think Wednesdays, two times a week they travel around here.

INTERVIEWER: These men digging the well, are they tribal employees?

Cecil: Yeah they are employed by the reserve.

INTERVIEWER: And the band also keeps the roads up?

Cecil: Yeah. See the band pays them $2 an hour. And I think if an Indian could pay $2 an hour, I don’t see why a white man can’t pay that $1.50 an hour.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, that’s right, that’s right. Any jobs in Birtle or Miniota for you?

Cecil: No, if there was I guess I wouldn’t be here (laughter).

INTERVIEWER: You would have gone, wouldn’t you?

Cecil: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: I want to ask you one other question. It may seem strange to you but I’ve asked this of a number of people about your age on our campus. What do you think of the war in Vietnam? Do you have thoughts about that?

Cecil: Well, myself, I don’t think there should be wars against anybody because after all God created us all and we’re all equal. Like me I get along with anybody whether he’s a white man or it doesn’t matter what color, I get along with people. I’m hoping to be friends with everybody. And I don’t think that it’s a good thing to be fighting and to be killing. After all we’re all created equal.

INTERVIEWER: So you think it ought to stop?

Cecil: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: That’s a good answer. It’s obvious to me that you like to get along with people; you were very friendly from the start. Are the other people about your age in the same boat you’re in, where there’s no jobs, just kind of have to wait?

Cecil: Yeah, they are all pretty well in the same position I am. Some maybe that have been working steady before might be back on farm work or might be lucky enough to get back.

INTERVIEWER: Cecil, does anybody farm tribal land here now.

Cecil: Well you see they just got their land back. All this top land here was leased out, and that was finished last year. Down here another construction works down there and this is the last year working on it. And I do believe that some of the Indian people are going back, but not too many of them. There’s only a few that will be farming those lands.

End of Tape

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Edward Bunn Tape 837

INTERVIEWER: June 26, 1972, at the Pipestone Sioux Reserve in Manitoba.

Edward: I’m Edward Bunn of Birdtail Sioux Reserve in Beulah, Manitoba. I used to farm there many, many years, and of course I never got rich with that, but just was making my living. Then I quit that, of course I was sick at the time and I thought I would go to the Lord. I heard a pastor say I had a chance to get healed. And when I come to I realize I was really sick and nobody can’t heal me, then one evening I went to service and the pastor was preaching and he’s telling about this Jesus doing the miracle things and healing the people no matter how sick they are, what kind of disease they got. So I had arthritis but no medicine to cure, and I suffer with that for just about 20 years. So I thought; I’ll try that. So one evening I went up, the last evening, he called the alter call and I went up in from and I got prayed up. At the time he said “Brother, you pray.” And I said, “Brother, I never prayed in my life.”

So he says, “Ask your father which is in heaven.” That night I find out I had a father up there, my father died way back in 1933 and I started to pray and I said, “Father, if I shouldn’t use that word,--- “if”--- but I used it – that night – if I’m healed tonight by praying, I’m going to work for you all my life.” And I give myself to the Lord that evening. And you know, I had the Lord touch me, top of my head, sort of a shock coming down through my neck bone, through my spine and divided up my waistline and through my legs, out they come through the tip of my toes. And uh, then I feel the way I feel now today. That’s how I started this Christian work. And after that, the pastor said, “Brother, how do you feel?” I said, “I feel 100 percent.”

Then I reach down, touch my toes, and touch my neck, no pain, not a thing in my body. Then I cried with happiness, my tears were just running down. Then I turned around to my people, I says,

“Look at me,” and I said, “I’m healed by the Lord Jesus Christ.” Look, my fingers all straight, my fingers were crooked, I couldn’t straighten them out and that night they just came out straight like that.

So he says, brother you’re healed, take this.” And he gives me a Bible, a second hand Bible with two or three names on it, and he says, “Go out and preach the gospel to the people. Tell them that you are healed by the Lord.”

So I start walking out with the Bible. And today I’m all over the place into the States and back into Canada and into Saskatchewan, Alberta, and all over. (....) And now today I’m working with a church group that just sent me to Cass Lake, Minnesota, in the States for a Bible school. The reason why they sent me to Bible school is to talk English perfectly. Now I talk English, but there is a gap, a lot of gaps in between. I can’t use the hard words, so I’m going over there to learn how to talk English, or you may call it grammar. After I finish two months, then they are going to give me some kind of certificate to show the people that I could go out preaching. So this is my testimony for the day. (....) Oh yes, I forgot to say, when I came to the Lord that was back in 1965, September 6th, and I was going nine years old now. Oh yeah, pardon me, I made a mistake two places there. Remember I said two months? That is supposed to be two years in going to school in Cass Lake. And then again I said 1965, that’s supposed to be ’64, September 6th. We used to raise cattle, way back in my father’s days. Everybody has cattle and used to sell any time they feel like it. And then they can kill one in the fall to use it for meat and this goes on until after the Second World War when we came back from the Army. We started raising cattle. I had five head of cows to start with, and I had almost fifty head of cattle. And one fall, I went to sell one because we used horses at that time and I got to use a binder. I got to have binder twine. I got to have repair, canvas repairs, and all this. I got to have food, I got to pay the hired man to stook the fields. And ..., I went up to the next city to the Indian agent and asked for a permit to sell one of my steers. I had four or five steers and

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they’re two year olds, raised to sell and they are in good shape.

And the Indian agent said, “No Ed, you can’t sell, none of them, until the end of November.”

And I said, “What’s the use selling them in November, because I need the money now for repairs and twine.”

“No, you can’t sell it.”

So I said, “Well, I got a heifer that didn’t have a calf for two years now, so what about that, I want to sell that.”

He says, “No you can’t sell it, you must try it again another years.”

I say, “What’s the use keeping that heifer for all the life? Because she won’t have a calf, I tried two years now.”

“No, you must try; keep on trying, some year.” I say, “No use feeding that.” Then I said, “What about the old cow?” I had two old cows, didn’t have a calf.

So he says, “Well, you must try next year again, maybe they missed this year.”

I say, “What’s going on here? I want to sell something and I came for a permit.” “No, I can’t give you a permit until the end of November.”

Then we start chewing the rag and we got red faces...calling each other down, and then I said to him, “I’ll go home and make my own permit.”

So the Indian agent said, “What did you say?”

I said, “You heard me, I’m going home and make my own permit.”

And then he said, “You know where you are going to be if you do?”

I said, “I’m going to be at my own place, my own home place.”

Then I came out and the very next day I sold one steer and I sold another one, sold another one on black market. And by November I sold them all, shipped them all to the city. And in the fall end of November, the Indian Agent came and I offered him a chair, sit down at the table, and opened up his briefcase and pull out the big slip of paper.

And he says, “Well Ed how many head of cattle, calves you got?”

I say, “None.”

Then he looks at me and he says, “What happened to the calves?” I said, “They are all dead. All but the cows, they’re all dead.” I said, “They are down in the valley, they die with the black leg, so I have no cattle, nothing at all.” Boy, he was mad. And he didn’t say a word, he just took off. But I never heard nothing at all next time. And at that time we used horses, and I had about 14 head of horses—work horses—and that’s all I had. So everybody on the reserve, they start selling their cattle. By next year, by spring, there was no cattle. We used to have about four or five hundred head of cattle on the reserve, down on the river flats. But next year when there’s no cattle, all the pastures are nothing in it; and ever since then we have no cattle, on the account of this permit business. We can’t sell nothing, we can’t sell grain, they hold us back for grain. And if we sell a load of wood, we got have permit. And we sell a load of hay to a farmer, we got to have permits. If we don’t, the farmer will be in trouble and so are we, we’re in trouble. So what’s the use trying to farm? This is no good. And within the year, they do away with the permit, and they left it wide open. Just then we have no cattle, but we are still farming and we can sell our grain any time, same as the white people. And of course now you can’t sell your grain just the way you want it on account of this grain quota. Whenever the quota is open, everybody sells, if the quota is full up then you have to stop.

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INTERVIEWER: One thing about that, what year was it that you sold your stock, do you remember?

Edward: That was ’50s.

INTERVIEWER: And they have taken away the requirement that you have a permit, what, in 1970? When did they stop requiring the permit to sell? When they stop, you say the day you don’t have to have a permit?

Edward: Well after that, back at the end of the ‘50s.

INTERVIEWER: I see, at the end of the ‘50s they took it off. But there’s nobody farming there now, is there?

Edward: Oh yes, I was farming till this spring.

INTERVIEWER: Oh you were?

Edward: I didn’t farm now, because I’m working. Because I can’t farm and can’t do this thing too.

INTERVIEWER: Preach too, that’s right.

Edward: So my nephew took over my farm.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, he’s farming for you?

Edward: That’s all that black field in front of my place there. That’s all my land you know, from the church east. That’s all mine, all that land there.

INTERVIEWER: What does he put in there, wheat?

Edward: Wheat and oats and barley.

INTERVIEWER: How is that land up there?

Edward: It’s all sand.

INTERVIEWER: Is it? Edward: Oh yes.

INTERVIEWER: Takes a lot of rain, I suppose?

Edward: Yes, we could have a rain every day, and then we get a good crop. But in every land the crop will die, but you could have a good rain all night, the next day in the afternoon you could go out in the field, it all soaks through. But it gives a lot of moisture then. It is all sand, but if you get a rain quite often you will get good crops. Good nice, heavy crops.

INTERVIEWER: That land down in the valley is pretty good, isn’t it, a couple hundred acres?

Edward: Oh yes, there’s a lot of land down there. That’s all broke up less than ten years, that’s the earliest.

INTERVIEWER: Oh really, that’s just started.

Edward: --- Just started, yeah. And before that, back in my days, it’s all pasture, cattle pasture. All that field you seen down there? Did you see everything down there?

INTERVIEWER: Well, down from Eli’s place, I saw that.

Edward: No, no, further down.

INTERVIEWER: Further down, why I could see it, but I wasn’t down there.

Edward: Oh yeah, well, that’s all that river flat, that used to be pasture. Lots of cattle grazing there, lots of it. Them cattle was just round as could be and nice. But now it’s all broke up for farm and of course we get something out that you know. I think it’s a fourth share we get, the farmer give us.

INTERVIEWER: Oh yeah, when you lease it out?

Edward: Yeah. And I think they are going to change it into so much an acre, cash. Because on account of this quota you couldn’t get your money so quick, because the farmers couldn’t

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sell it. They got grain but they can’t sell it. And then when you need the money, you can’t get the money. So I think we’re going to change it into cash terms. That way you are sure to get cash before they put the crop in.

INTERVIEWER: How old are you Ed?

Edward: How old do you think?

INTERVIEWER: Oh, I would judge maybe, maybe between 50 and 55, somewhere in there.

Edward: I’m going 58 now.

INTERVIEWER: Are you?

Edward: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Little older than I am, not too much. I think I have more gray hair than you have.

Edward: There’s a lot of people there that thought I was very young you know, I look a little over 50, you know.

INTERVIEWER: I think somebody told me, I’m not sure. Somebody told me that you were in your early 50’s; I think that’s why I answered as I did.

Edward: I’m going 58 now.

INTERVIEWER: Do you ever run into any relatives back in the States? People from a hundred years ago that...?

Edward: No.

INTERVIEWER: Don’t have any contact with them?

Edward: No, never did.

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Eli Bunn Tape 843

INTERVIEWER: This is June 21st at Birdtail Sioux Reservation, Herbert Hoover the interviewer. Well, I think what I would like to start with is what you were talking about there again. Go over that, your grandmother there you said, was married to an army captain.

Eli: Yeah. She married, they call him Captain Bunn. She knew he was a Captain Bunn , it was either John or George or whatever he might be ( laughing) . And of course she never went to school before and couldn’t talk English but she wanted to marry this man so she just learn every...you know on and on but all she knew was Captain Bunn and my father was born, after while she was with this Captain Bunn.

INTERVIEWER: On the Minnesota Valley that would be?

A. Yeah, some place there. Then the war started with the Indians and whites up there. Her husband was a captain so he took his army out and said well we’ll quit that war with the Indians, just the Indians. And he comes along and tells her how many were killed and what’s going on. She never liked that, but one day he came home and told her, he says, “Two of your uncles were killed today’’. And when she heard this... after another day or two he went away again to the war, my grandmother took her baby on her back and took off. That’s when she came over to Canada. And I don’t know how many days or how which way she came or anything like that. I don’t know. But anyway she got here you know and so my father was raised here in Canada.

INTERVIEWER: She probably went to Portage first?

Eli: Probably, yes. In those days you know, there were no towns near or things like that.

INTERVIEWER: Did she ever say how she happened to settle here at Birdtail?

Eli: No, they settled here, the family. Well they got this. Give this reserve to the Indians and they moved here see? I think what they do, I’m not sure. I think what they do is they all go all over the place, they settled here and they settle there. You know whenever they pick out a place, until some Canadian government give them reserve, this reservation like this. The Birdtail Sioux Reservation here, one over there at Sioux Valley Reservation so on like that. And they put them here and there like that. That’s how she settled here.

INTERVIEWER: I see. And you were born here?

Eli: I was born here.

INTERVIEWER: How old are you sir?

Eli: Sixty---nine.

INTERVIEWER: You been a farmer most of your life have you?

Eli: Yes, my father was. And after my father died I carried on. Yeah, he was a farmer all his life.

INTERVIEWER: How much land did you have under cultivation here?

Eli: Well, I had 230 acres of when we were farming.

INTERVIEWER: Mostly wheat?

Eli: Oh, wheat, barley, oats. That’s what we grow here.

INTERVIEWER: Do you lease this out now?

Eli: Yeah, we pull in a lot of money through here.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see he farms...?

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Eli: Yeah we set out to (a white man a few?) years ago. I quit four years ago. He gave up last fall and my own nephew here, he takes it over, his name is Jack Kasto.

INTERVIEWER: He lives up on top here?

Eli: Yeah he lives up on top this here. My sister live right up here too. She knows, she’d know more than I do (laughing). She’s older that I am.

INTERVIEWER: You said your relatives back in Sisseton were...?

Eli: Yeah, on (inaudible name) and (Shepherd?).

INTERVIEWER: Waubay.

Eli: Yeah, Waubay, yes. Not far from Sisseton, somebody told me about thirty miles from there.

INTERVIEWER: Maybe, twenty---five or thirty miles straight south.

Eli: Yeah, straight south.

INTERVIEWER: Nice little town.

Eli: Yeah, we visited up there. Of course there’s quite a few relatives up there you know (inaudible) and others like that you know. Different names, some of them I don’t know and I never met them that’s why.

INTERVIEWER: You’ve been back there twice, too....

Eli: I went to Sisseton twice and North Dakota four or five times.

INTERVIEWER: To Fort Totten?

Eli: Yeah, Fort Totten, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Do you, did you ever meet any of your Wahpeton relatives?

Eli: Well yes, but I tell you something, I don’t know much about the different of these

Wahpeton and Sisseton, something like that...(Laughing)

INTERVIEWER: Your other relatives are there at Fort Totten?

Eli: Yeah some at Fort Totten.

INTERVIEWER: Well did you go to school at Birtle yourself?

Eli: For a little while yeah.

INTERVIEWER: It was an Indian school there?

Eli: Yeah, Indian school.

INTERVIEWER: How long has that been closed, do you know?

Eli: Well I don’t know how long it’s been closed. I couldn’t exactly tell you how long it’s been closed; quite awhile now. Well they used it up until two years ago.

INTERVIEWER: Two years ago?

Eli: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: 1970?

Eli: Yeah, see the students from all over, go to high school. That’s where they stayed. They go to school here and all but they go down town. That’s where they board like, you know.

INTERVIEWER: I see, they board and go to the regular day school?

Eli: Yeah, they go to Day School downtown. But then they closed that.

INTERVIEWER: The bus picks up the kids now and takes them in?

Eli: No, it’s just only this. Oh, you mean from here?

INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

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Eli: Yeah, to Birtle yes. Around 18, 17 miles from our place, 18 miles. They travel over 16, fifteen miles to buses, go there every day. One come down here this morning to pick up my grandchild and went away.

INTERVIEWER: Oh yeah, I saw that little, kinda panel truck.

Eli: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: The school bus?

Eli: School bus, the other one is blue.

INTERVIEWER: I would be interested to know, I think the people there would too, how do most of the folks here make a living? You’re a farmer, do most of them farm?

Eli: Well yeah, it used to be years ago. But now things so hard that they had to quit. You know, try to keep it up and used to get a government loan in the spring until back in the fall when you get your crop until they cut that off. Now they can’t make it go so most of them quit. Right now most of them live on relief, what do you call it, yeah relief.

INTERVIEWER: Do they?

Eli: Yeah, relief.

INTERVIEWER: Are there many jobs around here?

Eli: No, no jobs at all, not any jobs at all. All, what do you say, you know, all power.

INTERVIEWER: Power and equipment now?

Eli: Yeah, power and equipment now.

INTERVIEWER: People used to work out on the farm?

Eli: Oh yeah, years ago, like thrashing machines, thrashing machines and tell you about ten, fifteen men working. Now today they got a

combine and the farmer’s wives hauling the grain (laughing). They got loaders you know, they have them harvest on a truck. The farms always just press the button and dump the grain and elevator take it and dump the grain and done. So these Indian people got no jobs. We used to go out picking stones in spring before seeding, now they got stone pickers. They go along pick all the stones with a machine.

INTERVIEWER: With a machine?

Eli: Yeah. Now they got big, everything’s big now and all big tractors and big machinery and one man do the whole work.

INTERVIEWER: Are they cutting hay now?

Eli: They cut hay. They used to hire men, pitching hay you know. Put up those stacks, now they all bail it and they have machines that load itself and stack them itself. The farmer himself does all the work now, so they get people couldn’t get no job, unless you’re well educated, you might get a job. You go to unemployment help... this place, ask for a job, what grade are you? Seven, eighth, sixth. No, no job. Another come along and says he got grade twelve, he got a job right away. So you got to have an education you know, to get a job. Even though, right now the jobs are scarce he told me.

INTERVIEWER: Hard for anybody?

Eli: Yeah, for anybody.

INTERVIEWER: What do you see for the future for your grandchildren?

Eli: Well if they are educated and maybe see through something better, I know, I don’t know what they’ll do; seems like there’s no future at all. (Laughing)

INTERVIEWER: Are there any industries out here at all like they have at Sioux Valley? They do a lot of craft work over there.

15

Eli: Well, they do it here too, a little. Not as big as over there but that is a big reserve; 1000 over 1000 up there on that reserve. Here it’s just a little over 200 I think. Yeah, they do it here too. They still have their craft work and oh anything I think that they can do.

INTERVIEWER: The government helps some on relief then?

Eli: Oh yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Do you have medical service do you?

Eli: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Everybody in Canada?

Eli: Everybody in Canada, we you know we don’t pay. No, we don’t pay anything, we just got it.

INTERVIEWER: Then all you kids are going to Birtle to school?

Eli: Yes. Well I only have one going there, there’s two but one is away just now. The other one’s finished, quit now, drop---out or whatever you might call it.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah. I was going to ask you, there’s seven Sioux reservations aren’t there in Manitoba, Saskatchewan?

Eli: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, do you know how those were formed originally?

Eli: No, I couldn’t exactly tell you how it formed, in the first place. All I know is that the Canadian government put the Indians here. Where ever there was, they let them choose themselves I was told that. Indians choose the valleys where they could hunt.

INTERVIEWER: I see.

Eli: Yeah, all the reserves seems to be in the valley or on the river, where they can fish and hunt. In those days way, way back in those days when there was no farming or nothing, all they think of is hunting, you know. They live on hunting. Whatever you trap or hunt or shoot or fishing. So that’s why they choose their own places.

INTERVIEWER: I see where the best hunting and fishing is?

Eli: Yeah, where the best hunting and fishing is.

INTERVIEWER: Did you do some of that when you were a boy?

Eli: Oh yes, I loved that.

INTERVIEWER: Did you?

Eli: I loved trapping and fishing, I’d go way up north, six or seven hundred miles north with the white fellows you know and not myself, we go fishing every summer once in a while.

INTERVIEWER: Do you trap around here?

Eli: They trap around here.

INTERVIEWER: What do you get, mink?

Eli: We get mink, beavers, coyotes and of course rabbits and coons, things like that. I don’t mean rabbits, but other furs you know, weasels or vermin. Whatever you call it, white yeah, white in the winter and brown in the summer.

INTERVIEWER: Do you remember how much they used to bring when they were. .. ?

Eli: When I was a young boy the price wasn’t very good. Of course it goes up, down, up and down, the way it goes. Last year beavers were poor, last year we couldn’t sell mink. In fact, they don’t want it. The best mink we used to get $35 to $40. Last year they only pay $5 and the female, they don’t want them.

16

INTERVIEWER: You can’t sell them anymore? Eli: Yeah, so we don’t trap them this winter but we trapped odd ones and sell them, trap them for five dollars anyway, five dollars is five dollars so...nothing else we could do so we trapped them and the price went up to forty dollars.

INTERVIEWER: It did.

Eli: When Hudson sell some.

INTERVIEWER: At Hudson Bay?

Eli: Well no...Yeah that’s well; Hudson Bay and these auction sales, big auction sales at Winnipeg (inaudible) sell it to all over the world.

INTERVIEWER: Forty---dollars apiece?

Eli: Forty dollars and way up, Edmonton, is way up north. They went up to ninety dollars, some, not all but some, the best. Yeah, they got fine dark mink up there. We don’t get it here.

INTERVIEWER: What do you have here, brown?

Eli: Brown, dark brown, pale. It usually goes thirty---five maybe forty dollars. So the buyers here will make money this year ( laughing). They pay five dollars, six dollars here and the price jump way up.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, people don’t...

Eli: The sellers were late you know, that was in January and then after that the furs no good. I don’t know, that was in January and then after that the furs no good. I don’t know, I never seen the difference myself. I trapped all my life but that’s the way they grade them. Furs good from November to December and they call it (inaudible) or something like that. After January, the price go down. Yet I can never see no difference.

INTERVIEWER: The fur rots a little bit I guess.

Eli: Well yeah, that’s right.

INTERVIEWER: I grew up on a mink ranch.

Eli: Uh huh.

INTERVIEWER: I grew up raising them.

Eli: Yeah, well you should know what a mink is.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah. The beaver, do you still trap a little of that or...?

Eli: Oh yeah, beaver, yeah. We trap a lot of that. The price was good this year.

INTERVIEWER: Was it?

Eli: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: What do they bring, do you remember?

Eli: Oh they bring big, good, real large, what they call the “blanket beaver”, extra large, extra, extra large, forty to fifty dollars.

INTERVIEWER: That’s pretty good, I....

Eli: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: I trapped with a kind, I think fifty---five dollars was about as high as they ever got.

Eli: Yeah, but you see, there’s what I was saying about the fine, dark beaver, you don’t often get them. Well in the spring you trap them, you might get two or three. You get mostly light brown and pale and light brown, dark brown.

INTERVIEWER: Do you ever do any woodcutting for?

Eli: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Is there a market for that?

17

Eli: Yeah. We cut a lot of posts and take to this store in Beulah here and he treated them. It’s a poplar posts. He treat them and he sell them. Oh he give us a good price, 18 cents a post, he gives you know. Cut it from the bush and take it up there. Get 18 cents trade from the store and well, he sell it thirty---five to forty---five cents each I guess after he treat it because there’s a lot of work you got to do.

INTERVIEWER: Do you have to peel them or...?

Eli: Yeah, no, we don’t peel them. We used to. To start off we used to peel them. Now they tell us just to peel what goes in the ground, now they just take the whole thing. They find out there’s no difference.

INTERVIEWER: Is that right?

Eli: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Treat them with the bark on?

Eli: Yeah with the bark on.

INTERVIEWER: I’ll be darned.

Eli: But this year a (inaudible...he tried to help him?) He stopped buying so we can’t sell nothing. But I don’t know, I say we, I don’t cut wood any more myself. But the boys on the reserve here, they sell a lot of posts.

INTERVIEWER: Still do, huh?

Eli: Yeah, the buyer, as I said before, the buyer is sick and he don’t buy anymore, nobody does now.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, I talked to...

Eli: It hits, it hits us hard.

INTERVIEWER: I guess.

Eli: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: I talked to Tom about here and he said that he has some posts here and nobody buys them.

Eli: No.

INTERVIEWER: Do any of the young people go away now to Winnipeg or Brandon?

Eli: Oh yes, there’s a lot of them.

INTERVIEWER: Went away to live?

Eli: I don’t know, I couldn’t tell you. I was in Winnipeg last week. I had a girl up there in the hospital and I went up to see her. They told me the biggest Indian reserve in Manitoba is Winnipeg , the city of Winnipeg ( laughter) .

INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

Eli: Yeah, people moving into the city, into the city and not doing anything.

INTERVIEWER: There’s no work there?

Eli: (Inaudible) they drove up there (inaudible) to live up there.

INTERVIEWER: Things may be better here isn’t it?

Eli: Yeah, that’s why I want to be out here, you’d have to get us welfare ...help us out here in the country (laughing) than in the city. I don’t know how they work. I guess they get them houses and help along side.

INTERVIEWER: How many children do you have Mr. Bunn?

Eli: Well I have two boys and a little girl, and the girl died when a year old, so I only raised two sons. Two sons and I have nine, ten grand, no nine grandchildren.

INTERVIEWER: Do they all live here?

18

Eli: Yeah, they all live on the reserve here; two girls and seven boys. That’s my grandchildren, then the boy who came with him, that’s the oldest of my grandchildren.

INTERVIEWER: Grandchildren, yeah.

Eli: He’s got three little boys, so I...

INTERVIEWER: I saw them.

Eli: I, I got three great---grandchildren.

INTERVIEWER: Oh yeah?

Eli: The boys there.

INTERVIEWER: And they all stay here, do they farm or...?

Eli: No, they don’t farm; they labour; whatever way they can get a job; whatever they can get.

INTERVIEWER: How about the government, do you think the government does enough for the people out here or...maybe that’s kind of hard to answer, I don’t know.

Eli: That’s pretty hard to answer but what they help us with, if we use it right. I think its good enough. That’s what I think myself, if we use it right. But we don’t. In places we don’t. I got one hundred thirty---seven dollars a month relief. They raised that now. I’m going to get one hundred fifty dollars so with back pay from January, this coming month I’m going to get one hundred ...or two hundred dollars with the back pay. And from there on I get one hundred fifty dollars a month. If I use that right, it’s just ...you don’t make it, but you know, that’s a (inaudible).

INTERVIEWER: Yes I...

Eli: You got hydro bills to pay and. Well that kind of stuff you know. You go in the store today, you spend twenty dollars, you just get a handful of groceries, come out.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, isn’t that true?

Eli: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: That’s terrible.

Eli: Terrible.

INTERVIEWER: Well the house, you have a nice house here just finished, is this a tribal project or is this...?

Eli: Yeah I guess that’s what you call it. I pay twenty---five dollars.

INTERVIEWER: A month.

Eli: No.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, just...

Eli: Put down twenty---five dollars, well pension to get a new house.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see.

Eli: They told me this is a 8 or 9 thousand dollar house, if we go inside and see it how it’s finished inside, still not painted yet.

INTERVIEWER: Three bedroom is it?

Eli: Yeah, one, two, three, four bedrooms.

INTERVIEWER: Four bedrooms.

Eli: Yes, four bedrooms, kitchen and living room. And the plumbers got the water works. They going to drill wells beside all the houses and put in the water works. So they might get that this year or the next year or whenever they come in.

INTERVIEWER: I saw some log houses back here. Are these (inaudible) that the old houses?

Eli: Yeah, the old house we had to move away we’re not allowed to live in log houses any more.

INTERVIEWER: Oh you aren’t?

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Eli: No. INTERVIEWER: I’ve seen several of them in Sioux Valley (here in the recording a train is passing by and drowning out the conversation) .

Eli: No, no, yeah the houses aren’t allowed. They don’t allow us to live in log houses anymore. That’s why they build us houses, every year they build houses. (inaudible) two or three (inaudible) hours of, soon as we get (inaudible) that one followed why then the ( .. inaudible) that’s just down the hill. Well we got a lot of your. . your American engines over here.

INTERVIEWER: Oh you do.

Eli: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Is that right?

Eli: Yeah they are supposed to rent them or something like that.

INTERVIEWER: You know they are kind of....

Eli: To speed up hauling grain.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see.

Eli: Yeah, I think they’re sold a lot of grain to Japan or China or Russia or something like that. And they want to get that in this summer. We haven’t got .. enough engines right now.

INTERVIEWER: Well you know they are taking off trains down there.

Eli: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Trains are having a lot of trouble; you can’t even get a ride on one anymore. I wanted to ask you...

Eli: Well, we can’t, we can’t ride, we don’t ride trains anymore here.

INTERVIEWER: Don’t you?

Eli: Yeah, there’s two flyers went by here, one 3:30, one 4:30 in the morning. But they don’t stop here, they stop way back, way back, oh way back in Saskatchewan, they stop in Rivers, and Portage and Winnipeg.

INTERVIEWER: What do you have, bus transportation out there?

Eli: Yeah, they drive mostly buses...

INTERVIEWER: You catch that one out on the highway there?

Eli: Uh huh, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, they stop at Beulah?

Eli: Uh, huh.

INTERVIEWER: I want to ask you too about the government, I, down in the States since the ‘30’s, every tribe, has a constitution (* Indian Reorganization Act) and they have a tribal council and they elect a chief you know and tribal president and all, how does that work up here?

Eli: It works just the same.

INTERVIEWER: Does it?

Eli: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Just about the same. (...) How often do you have elections then?

Eli: Every two years. Every two years, new chief and councillors and (...).

INTERVIEWER: How many on your council here?

Eli: Two.

INTERVIEWER: Two on the council.

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Eli: Two yeah. Depends on the size of the reserve. I think Griswold has eight or nine, ten or something. Bigger reserve. One chief.

INTERVIEWER: The chief seems to stay pretty busy here.

Eli: Yeah; always got to sit in the office all the time. Self---government they call it now. He looks after everything here. We used to go to Indian agents to get those things done you know, but now it’s all done right here on the reserve. They run it themselves, they elect their own secretary, all Indian. White man come along from the government, man come along, check things over and go again, maybe some days he don’t come at all. (Laughing)

INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

Eli: Yeah, they give us a grant, grant so much money for this, so much money for that, so much money for go to work, recreations and things like that... hospital (inaudible). Oh somebody was sick and they come here and ask would you take them in? I start up my car and take them in. They paid me for that, right now.

INTERVIEWER: That’s all through the tribe?

Eli: Yeah, all through the tribe. I got the statement book there, every one of us have one of them. Somebody’s sick and couldn’t get a car and all the cars are busy, I’m not taxi or anything, but if they come and ask me, well I’ll take them in. So I just write down here and take my statement into the doctor, doctor sign his name. I brought it back to the office, I get paid.

INTERVIEWER: I see.

Eli: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Have you tribal police or band police or...?

Eli: No we didn’t have any. We’re thinking of, talking about having one (D.O.Ps). We really

should have one or two. Our biggest trouble on this reserve is drinking.

INTERVIEWER: Is it?

Eli: That puts us down, very badly, all Indian people.

INTERVIEWER: It got worse over the years or..?

Eli: Worse and worse and worse every year. Lot of troubles.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, I guess, that’s everywhere I think people...

Eli: It’s everywhere.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

Eli: Like I was saying before, that my grandmother came from the States, and I said I’d be back when winter starts... Well her grandfather was a (inaudible) Chief up there one time.

INTERVIEWER: Did she ever talk about him?

Eli: Yes , oh yes, she talked about him. She said they took him to Europe one time.

INTERVIEWER: Yes they did.

Eli: Yeah, Europe one time and he come back and told the people, he says, “Look when I was up there”, he says, “out there the people are just like ants” he says, “and that’s what’s going to happen here too in the future time”. Well you did today.

INTERVIEWER: People all over.

Eli: People all over. I seen that he says when I went across that ocean...in those days it took a long time, long time to go across.

INTERVIEWER: On a boat?

21

Eli: Yeah on a boat, boat... INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

Eli: Like a sailboat. (Laughing)

INTERVIEWER: You said that Captain Bunn looked for your grandmother?

Eli: Yeah, looked for his grandmother, I mean his wife.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah his wife.

Eli: Wife.

INTERVIEWER: Did he ever find her?

Eli: Never found her, never wanted to go back so she hide away from him I guess, maybe.

INTERVIEWER: Did she talk at all about trip up here, or you said she didn’t know?

Eli: No, why I was only a kid when used to talk. I was only a kid when she used to tell stories, that’s a long, long time ago so I don’t remember all I hear. She used to tell a lot of stories, but my father doesn’t talk about it. He’s so busy farming and working, he never talks about it to us. I just remember here and there, you know what I recall from what my grandmother said, that’s all.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

Eli: Probably a lot to it but...

INTERVIEWER: Somebody told me, I think Florence Bunn told me that there’s mostly Presbyterian church here, is that...?

Eli: Yeah it’s Presbyterian church on the reserve, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Never anybody use the old Indian?

Eli: No, not here, not on this reserve. Oh they do some of them, lots of them do, but what do you mean old Indian church?

INTERVIEWER: Well you know, the Peace Pipe and...?

Eli: Oh yes. At Griswold they do lot of that and Pipestone, lots of that and they do it here too but not too many.

INTERVIEWER: I gather that people here still talk Sioux quite a bit.

Eli: Yeah, they talk Sioux quite a lot.

INTERVIEWER: Young people do too or?

Eli: No, these grandchildren of mine sitting in the house here they don’t talk Sioux, they understand but they don’t use it.

INTERVIEWER: That’s too bad.

Eli: Yeah, a long time when, a couple of years ago, they were talking about putting up a school to teach them, teach them the old language. (* immersion) Yeah, fell through you know.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, they started to teach them now at the University of South Dakota.

Eli: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: The kids are learning again.

Eli: Yeah, that’s what they are talking about here too, in Canada. They shouldn’t forget their language.

INTERVIEWER: No indeed, they shouldn’t. Well that’s good.

End of tape

22

Emma Pratt Tape 791

Herbert Hoover the interviewer. August 3l, 1971 at Sioux Valley Reserve in Manitoba north of Griswold.

INTERVIEWER: We’ll start right where you were there. You said you were born and raised in Portage.

Emma: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: So you would have been in the old village there, huh?

Emma: Yes, in the old part right down by the Assiniboine there.

INTERVIEWER: Yes.

Emma: It’s washed away now.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, I was in that cemetery a couple of days ago. Were some of those people your relatives?

Emma: Yes, my mother.

INTERVIEWER: Your mother? What was her name?

Emma: Lidia.

INTERVIEWER: Lidia. I see. And how old are you Mrs. Pratt?

Emma: I’m, I’ll be 87 in November.

INTERVIEWER: 87 and left there when you were 20?

Emma: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: What tribe did your people come from back in the States?

Emma: Well I can’t just...

INTERVIEWER: From Sissteon

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, I was in that cemetery a couple of days ago. Were some of those people your relatives?

INTERVIEWER: At Portage.

INTERVIEWER: Because of the people in Portage that provided.

INTERVIEWER: I see.

INTERVIEWER: Your mother? What was her name?

INTERVIEWER: Lidia. I see. And how old are you Mrs. Pratt?

Emma: 87 and left there when you were 20?

INTERVIEWER: What tribe did your people come from back in the States? . From Sissteon

?

Emma: No, what they call Shanshiope.

INTERVIEWER: Shanshiope, I see, where did they come from?

Emma: Over in Minnesota.

INTERVIEWER: Over in Minnesota, down around the Granite Falls and that area do you think?

Emma: Yes, I forget, my Uncle Jim did tell me the name of the place where they came from, but I forgot, I forget.

INTERVIEWER: I see. What was your name before you were married?

Emma: Well my father’s name was Chanupa. I don’t know the rest of it. He had a long name.

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INTERVIEWER: I see. Emma: But when we went to school, went to boarding school. See he died and my mother was sick at the time so I was only four years old when I was put into school there.

INTERVIEWER: At Portage.

Emma: At Portage. And each child, if they went there and had someone from the town provide for them and they take their name. That’s how I got my name. Garland. I was called Emma Garland.

INTERVIEWER: Because of the people in Portage that provided.

Emma: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: I see.

Emma: And my sister when she came in she was Grant, Jessie Grant.

INTERVIEWER: I see. Did your father come up from the States then?

Emma: I don’t know.

INTERVIEWER: You don’t know whether he came?

Emma: I don’t know whether he came. No, I don’t think so.

INTERVIEWER: He didn’t ever talk about that?

Emma: No, cause I didn’t know him. I was only four when he died and my sister was only two. And Miss Frazier and Miss Laidlow were the teachers there in the school.

INTERVIEWER: What do you remember about that school?

Emma: Well, I never, there weren’t more than 30. There were few boys and girls about 30 of us.

That is the most that was in there. It wasn’t a big place. It was an old house built up you know and the school room added to it and the play room in between. Miss Walker was the first teacher there I think, or Miss Best. And they when they left Miss Frazier came, and Miss Laidlow came from Ontario. I don’t know where Miss Frazier came. She was a Scotch lady.

INTERVIEWER: What kind of things did they teach you?

Emma: Well there just the school books.

INTERVIEWER: Just the regular courses?

Emma: Courses and school books.

INTERVIEWER: Reading and writing and history and...

Emma: Yes, geography.

INTERVIEWER: Were there any practical things like cooking and sewing?

Emma: Oh yes, we had to cook and sew. I did most, well when the bigger girls left, there were some there that were older, shouldn’t have stayed that long, but they were helping in the school. They were 18 when they left school. So the next June when I was 18 or 15, 16, or 14 and 13 we’d only go to school for half a day and work in the mornings.

INTERVIEWER: I see you work in the mornings.

Emma: Getting dinner ready and stuff like that.

INTERVIEWER: What did the boys do?

Emma: Well they, they used to put in garden and when they, a load of wood came, they would saw it up. They kept the wood pile high, and played most of the time. (Laughing)

INTERVIEWER: Was that school close to where the boarding school is now?

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Emma: No it was way off on the east end. I just was coming through there last spring and I can’t place it, you know, it’s all tore down I think, and there’s just where there’s trees there I think that was the spot. I couldn’t recognize the place.

INTERVIEWER: On the east end of Portage?

Emma: On the east and right off the east end and they used to be near the railway and there used to be a big tank you know. Water tank there for the CPR train.

INTERVIEWER: Oh I see.

Emma: See these trains used to stop there for water and it’s gone. There is no tank there now so I couldn’t recognize the place where it was.

INTERVIEWER: You couldn’t have been more than just a short distance from the village though. About two miles huh?

Emma: Oh yes, it’s about two miles. We used to walk out there and take a walk down there’s a creek going through before you come to the village there, and there used to be a lot of berries around there. Plums, and chokecherries, cranberries, and when they were ready we used to go up there and pick them.

INTERVIEWER: Mrs. Pratt, what did the folks in the village do for a living mostly back then?

Emma: Well, I don’t know what they did, but they kept them...well the men used to go around working for farmers around there and people in town. They used a lot of wood those days and it was all going around selling wood or they were they helped in the yards and things like that. They got little jobs around town. I know when my grandfather was living he used to make baskets, little baskets.

INTERVIEWER: Oh he did?

Emma: And he made pot scrapers and things like that and he went around town selling them and then my uncle worked at the, my mother’s

brother, worked at the meat, where they used to kill beef and at that same place, they made cider there and he used to come home drunk every night on the cider. (Laughing)

INTERVIEWER: Were there a lot of people in the village then?

Emma: Well there seemed to me, of course, I was small and I stayed there most of the time. There were a lot of older people like there seemed to be a lot of old women at the time and old men. ‘Cause we used to gather in the evening you know they’re going from, visiting here and there. Then there were quite a few seven or eight of them sitting outside there and mother used to invite the old people there and there used to be quite a few. You know, Uncle Jim worked at this butcher place and he’d bring meat, a lot of meat home, and she used to cook big pots full and make bannock outside you know and invite all these old people in the evenings. They kind of looked forward to that.

INTERVIEWER: Was there hunting around for the men?

Emma: Hunting, yes, they used to go way down south. When mother married again, my stepfather went across the Assiniboine. I don’t know how far he went but in the winter time I know because mother came in one day very excited. He’d shot a bear and brought it home.

INTERVIEWER: Oh my.

Emma: So I had to see this bear. She took me home and oh it seemed such size you know. (Laughing) Yeah. People came from Winnipeg even to buy a piece of bear meat.

INTERVIEWER: Did they fish up on the Manitoba Lake?

Emma: Yes, when they were up there trapping and they used to go up and trap up there a lot.

INTERVIEWER: They did. Mink?

25

Emma: Yes, they got lots of mink. There’s so much mink. I used to have mink made in my cap and the boys went around with mink caps and mittens.

INTERVIEWER: My goodness.

Emma: Jackets made of mink.

INTERVIEWER: Were those natural black mink?

Emma: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Pretty?

Emma: Oh yes, and there’s lots of muskrats, muskrats were worth hardly anything. Well we only got 20 cents apiece for them.

INTERVIEWER: 20 cents? What did they get for the mink, do you remember?

Emma: No, the minks were more, but I don’t know just, I don’t remember just what they got from them.

INTERVIEWER: How about beaver?

Emma: Oh they got beaver.

INTERVIEWER: Did they?

Emma: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Was there a church at the old village?

Emma: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: There was.

Emma: There was, but I don’t know when it started but there was one there.

INTERVIEWER: Do you remember what denomination it was?

Emma: Presbyterian.

INTERVIEWER: Presbyterian. Most of those people are Presbyterians then?

Emma: Yes. Because we were, there was a Presbyterian school in care of the Presbyterian kept it going.

INTERVIEWER: Oh the boarding school was?

Emma: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Oh I see. That wasn’t a government school then?

Emma: No. It was a church school.

INTERVIEWER: You were twenty then when you got married.

Emma: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: And moved over here? Yeah, what tribe or band did your husband come from then. Do you know?

Emma: Wahpekute

INTERVIEWER: Was he?

Emma: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: I see. Then he would come maybe from North Dakota or South Dakota too, around the Sisseton area.

Emma: No, he come from about the same, near the same place as where my mother’s father came?

INTERVIEWER: Did they all come in the ‘60s then, the 1860s?

Emma: Well whenever that...

INTERVIEWER: That uprising?

Emma: Yes.

26

INTERVIEWER: Yeah. I see. Yeah. What did your husband do for a living out here?

Emma: He farmed here.

INTERVIEWER: Did he?

Emma: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: How much land did he farm, do you remember?

Emma: Not 200 acres anyway.

INTERVIEWER: It was a pretty big farm though, huh?

Emma: Yes, it’s all this flat here and then almost to the hills across the Oak River.

INTERVIEWER: Oh I see. That’s a big... yeah did he do that with horses?

Emma: Yes. Yeah, when I came he had his cousin with him and they were the two outfits, four horses working.

INTERVIEWER: What did they raise?

Emma: Mostly wheat and oats.

INTERVIEWER: Wheat and oats. I see. You have some children here now, do you?

Emma: Yes, my son lives here and one up the hill. My daughter lives here and I have two up there. I have seven living.

INTERVIEWER: Seven children.

Emma: Yes. And one right at the corner, you come past this place there where there’s a lot of granaries.

INTERVIEWER: Yes.

Emma: That’s Archie’s.

INTERVIEWER: Archie. Do they all work out here on the reserve or do they work off?

Emma: Well, my youngest boy works in Winnipeg. He’s in the MIB (*Manitoba Indian Brotherhood) business. He was used to be at home here and he added to my old house that was built in 1901 but he got this work and he had to move back to Winnipeg again. He was in Winnipeg. He was working for this CPR trucking. But he’s moved back again. He just moved back Thursday.

INTERVIEWER: I see. Have you always lived in this house since you’ve been married?

Emma: No this was built not long ago.

INTERVIEWER: Not long ago?

Emma: Not very warm.

INTERVIEWER: Isn’t it?

Emma: No.

INTERVIEWER: It’s a very nice house though.

Emma: Yes, its nice built, but my old house was kind of creaky so they built this one for me but...

INTERVIEWER: This one is colder.

Emma: Colder, yes. Of course, there I was sheltered in the bush down there. There’s nothing here. I’m out in the open. But my daughter here she didn’t want to stay down there any longer because the river came over. Every spring and we’d be have to wade up to our knees pretty to get out of there to come up here. Kept our buggies and horses up here and car when I got the car, they had to have a car ready up here.

INTERVIEWER: Most of the houses are nice. What were the houses like when you came over here?

Emma: They were just log houses.

27

INTERVIEWER: Log houses. My goodness. Emma: Yes, well there were two or three frame buildings, not very many, but the most of them were log houses. Well they were warm. ( Laughing)

INTERVIEWER: You were, you mentioned awhile ago that you used to, when you were small go out and pick berries and things. Do you remember the food that the ladies used to make?

Emma: The food well mostly corn, corn, and they’d grind the corn and make porridge of it. And well I don’t know, we always, of course, I can’t remember far back. After I left Dakotas you see four years old, I was in the school you see, but often I go home. My mother would come for me and take me home. Grandfather kept, well he used to go hunting a lot. I remember him.

INTERVIEWER: Do you?

Emma: I remember my grandmother too. She was a French woman.

INTERVIEWER: Oh she was?

Emma: Yes. I don’t know how they all got married. My grandfather, well he had a little bit of English because he worked for white people around town and I think my grandmother must have been brought up in a school or brought up by white people because she talked good English.

INTERVIEWER: I notice you’re making some beadwork here. Do you do that a lot?

Emma: Oh I’ve done that a lot since I came. I never did any before I got married.

INTERVIEWER: Didn’t you?

Emma: No, I did a lot of that since.

INTERVIEWER: Where have you sold it mostly, in Winnipeg?

Emma: Oh all over. A lot it went to England.

INTERVIEWER: It did.

Emma: Cause you see the missionaries here often come from England and they send home beadwork. Oh I sent a lot of it over there. A lady was here two years ago and I sold her a lot, she was from Scotland.

INTERVIEWER: And took it back over there?

Emma: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Well my goodness! Do a lot people here make beadwork then?

Emma: Oh yes, you should see the place where they sew. INTERVIEWER: I went looking for that. Is that back in there...?

Emma: It’s in that school.

INTERVIEWER: Oh it’s in the school building?

Emma: Yes, it’s in that school building just below the hills there.

INTERVIEWER: Where they’re putting on the roof?

Emma: Are they fixing the roof?

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, I thought they were.

Emma: Oh, they might be because I heard that it was leaking.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

Emma: Oh that’s good.

INTERVIEWER: So it’s right in there. They work in there every day do they?

Emma: That’s where my daughter, she teaches kindergarten in there.

28

INTERVIEWER: You have your own kindergarten. Who was it that was killed by Crees on the way to Winnipeg?

Emma: That was my father---in---law’s father, was killed. He and his older son were killed.

INTERVIEWER: By the Crees on the way to Winnipeg.

Emma: On the way, they were going in to Winnipeg what for I don’t know, anyway they were killed and they found them dead they was all stripped of everything that he had and his medal and all was taken. So then the governor whoever he was, you know Governor Morris is it? At that time, they made my husband’s uncle, the next son to the one that killed, they made him chief and his name is on the map. I should have my map here but I haven’t got it. I haven’t even got the medal my husband’s father was made Chief and he went to Regina and they gave him a medal and it hasn’t got. ah treaty ,anything about treaty or anything like that on it; the only medal that’s like that in Canada. And I went and sold it. I was afraid to keep because these others that had medals, they were old medals given by the army and they sold them and these young boys were breaking into houses and I think that’s what they were looking for. I was afraid that someone would get this if I wasn’t here. At times, of course, I took it with me when I went to stay with my son in Winnipeg in the time. It was too cold out here for me so they always. I don’t know where I’m going to go this winter. They’ve moved, the house isn’t as big as what they had before. He’s got 6 children, but I sold it and I bought a great big monument. Big stone with all the chiefs’ names, the three chiefs names on it. The father’s and sons and my husband was the last chief. That’s the chief that came down from father to son.

INTERVIEWER: From father to son.

Emma: These are just elected every two years. The chiefs now.

INTERVIEWER: Well what were their names? The chiefs, your grandfather?

Emma: My father---in---law? Well my father---in – law’s brother was (Indian word) and the next one, his father was (Indian word) the first and then (Indian word) was made chief here in Canada. And then my father---in---law was (Indian word). My husband’s name was Tatanka Hota.

INTERVIEWER: And that was passed down from father to son.

Emma: From father to son.

INTERVIEWER: I see and when did that system stop?

Emma: With my husband.

INTERVIEWER: With your husband and then since then they’ve been elected?

Emma: Yes, every two years.

INTERVIEWER: I was looking at your house here. You have, everybody here has electricity don’t they?

Emma: Well mostly, I think they all have.

INTERVIEWER: And you all have wells?

Emma: No, we have a well, the government dug a well out here for good water.

INTERVIEWER: So you have running water in your house?

Emma: No.

INTERVIEWER: No, you go out there to get it and bring it in?

Emma: No running water.

INTERVIEWER: What kind of heat do you have? Emma: Well just the stove.

29

INTERVIEWER: And wood is there...

Emma: Yeah, coal, when we can get it. I heard we won’t be able to get this coal pretty soon.

INTERVIEWER: Do you have wood cut down here?

Emma: No, we have to go outside the reserve to get it.

INTERVIEWER: Oh you do.

Emma: Yeah, $10 a load and sometimes more. Takes quite a bit out of the old age pension.

INTERVIEWER: Yes it does. End of Interview.

An interviewer’s note. I talked to Mrs. Pratt after the interview was over about the medal that she sold and she told me that she got $850 for it. Sold it to a rich man who was collecting materials for museums. And she said that she sold it for that amount and then she paid just that amount for the monument which was placed at the cemetery up the hill. Another thing we talked about before I left was the issue of running water. She said that they place a well near each group of homes so that 2 or 3 or 4 homes have water but it isn’t running water here. They have to go out and carry it in. Accordingly they must not have toilet facilities either. I assume that they don’t and they don’t, I don’t see many gas tanks or oil tanks in evidence around here. They seem to use wood quite a lot for burning yet on this reservation for heat and for cooking. But the houses are very nice. Most of them well painted and well kept.

End of tape

30

Florence Bunn Added Notes: Lives with and cares for mother who is 98 years old, memory fading.

Tape 838 INTERVIEWER: This is June 20th, 1972, Birdtail Reservation in Beulah, Manitoba. You said that your mother had told you some things that she remembered about the old days; maybe about the migration up here?

Florence: Well, as she said she was born in Fort Ellice, that’s up here near St. Lazare. She was born there and they moved back to this reserve here. It wasn’t a reserve at the time, just a few people used to roam around that they didn’t have no reserve, nothing. The Indians used to camp around and they come to a place where there was lots of buffalo, they would camp there. And the men would go out hunting and the women would cure, dry the meat you know, pemmican. Well they used to dry the meat and that would do them for a long time. And when their meat is going low, well, they move on to another place where there lots of buffalo and the men would go hunting again. That’s how they did things in the olden days.

INTERVIEWER: And they camped here at this place, did they? Here at Birdtail, at this reserve?

Florence: No, all over, all over yet.

INTERVIEWER: Just roam around?

Florence: Yes, roam around. Not one family, but I’d say about six or seven families used to stay together.

INTERVIEWER: What kind of places did they live? Did they have tents?

Florence: They had these...you know people call them tipis, these with lots of poles. And then

they didn’t use any material, but the used the hides of buffalo. They took the hair off them and they worked them in such a way that they were soft like a (Kleenex?). And they’d sew those together and make those tipis.

INTERVIEWER: Just move them around?

Florence: And there were no cars, no wagons or no horses in those days. Just a few people had a horse or two. They never stayed in one place; they keep moving and moving on. I remember another old lady used to live down there. She told me that they moved all over the place, and they came to a place where apples grow, so that was B.C., wouldn’t it?

INTERVIEWER: Probably so, yes.

Florence: And that was...

INTERVIEWER: British Columbia.

Florence: Yes, somewhere there. She told me, we came to a place where the apples grow, she said. But we didn’t make use of them at all, we just took a few to eat. So they must travel very far in those days.

INTERVIEWER: Did your mother ever talk about the migration up here from Minnesota? That would have been your grandfather wouldn’t it?

Florence: Yes. No, she never talk about it. You mean, these people coming from the States?

INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

Florence: They ran away from there. They were chased out. I heard some old people talking about that. I think they had trouble over there, and they made a law that the people that did it, they were to be hanged. So anyway they came, they travelled back towards to Canada. That’s all I heard.

INTERVIEWER: Did they walk, do you know?

31

Florence: As I said, just one or two fellows they had their horse and they tied sticks along the horse, and that’s where they put their belongings, you know, their tents and stuff like that. And they walked. The women and children had to walk.

INTERVIEWER: How did this reservation get established, do you know?

Florence: I don’t know. That was long before I was born, so I wouldn’t know.

INTERVIEWER: Were you born here?

Florence: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: And how old are you, maybe fifty?

Florence: That’s my dark secret.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, that’s your dark secret. Did you go to school around here then?

Florence: Yes, in Birtle.

INTERVIEWER: Did you go to the public school there?

Florence: No, it was a boarding school.

INTERVIEWER: How many years did you go there?

Florence: I went to school about eleven years. It was a boarding school. But we come home for summer holidays and Christmas holidays. And that’s the only time we come. Well, that’s the only time we come to spend with our parents.

INTERVIEWER: You stay there all the rest of the time?

Florence: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: What do you remember about that boarding school? What kinds of things did you study there?

Florence: Not very much.

INTERVIEWER: Didn’t you?

Florence: I remember I hardly spoke English when I left school but since have these TV’s and these radios, I learned a little bit more English that way. It was a poor school. We did go to school half a day. Some of us work in the kitchen and the laundry; and in the afternoon we go to school. It was reading and spelling and arithmetic and number work. That’s all we did.

INTERVIEWER: How did your father make a living while you were growing up then? Was he a farmer?

Florence: Yes, he farmed.

INTERVIEWER: Was right here?

Florence: Yes, yes.

INTERVIEWER: Anything else besides farming?

Florence: Yeah, the women had gardens too, nothing else, just farming that’s all they did. And then in the winter time they trap.

INTERVIEWER: Beaver and mink?

Florence: And muskrats.

INTERVIEWER: How much did they sell for, do you remember, did they give much for their trapping?

Florence: Well, I remember one time I took in three beavers and I got over $100.

INTERVIEWER: Is that right?

Florence: But since then the prices seems to come down. The price isn’t that high now for beavers, I mean.

INTERVIEWER: Yes, that would have been quite a few years ago, then, wasn’t it?

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Florence: That would be quite a few years. INTERVIEWER: The do some fishing and hunting too?

Florence: Yes, they fish and hunt.

INTERVIEWER: Never any jobs around here for them?

Florence: No, never any jobs. Even today a lot of boys have no jobs.

INTERVIEWER: What do the young people do here now?

Florence: Well, every now and then a white guy will come around and pick them up to pick stones. And that’s not a steady job, just a day or two they do it, and when they finish the job, that’s it. There’s no more jobs.

INTERVIEWER: They get out to school now at Birtle?

Florence: Now they are sending them to school down in Ninette, somewhere the other side of Brandon there.

INTERVIEWER: Do the young people go away now to stay, or do they pretty much stay back on the reservation?

Florence: Well, there’s boys and girls from different reserves going to this (Pembina) house, I don’t know what they call it but it’s in Ninette ( Ninette Residential School) . And they’ve been living there all winter, but they are all finished now, and in September I think they will be going to school in Brandon next, taking a higher grade, I don’t know.

INTERVIEWER: After they graduate do they come back here, or do they like to go to Winnipeg?

Florence: They come back and there’s nothing. They don’t make use of what they learn in school. There’s Indian newspapers... in there they said

they don’t encourage them to go on from there, like getting them jobs or anything like that. It’s just they don’t have anything to do with after they leave school.

INTERVIEWER: There’s no place to go but back here, then?

Florence: Yeah, no place to go but back here.

INTERVIEWER: There enough houses here for them when they come back?

Florence: I’m telling you, I have two boys that have no homes, no home at all. Their parents separated when they were small, and now they are grown up and there’s no home for them. And I don’t know who to turn to; I raised these two boys. But of course they are now allowed to stay with us because we are on pension.

INTERVIEWER: Does your mother get a pension from the government?

Florence: Yeah, we both get pension. That’s all, no other income.

INTERVIEWER: Is that enough to keep you? It is. How much does that come to?

Florence: Well, we get $137 and she gets that, but I heard we’re going to get a raise in June.

INTERVIEWER: That’s not very much. Where does she go when she’s sick?

Florence: Mom? To the Birtle Hospital.

INTERVIEWER: In Birtle.

Florence: That’s the nearest hospital. But of course if a person’s really sick or something serious, they send them to Brandon and Winnipeg.

INTERVIEWER: Is there an Indian hospital in Brandon?

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Florence: It’s just a regular hospital. Both white and Indian people go there.

INTERVIEWER: Do you every write back to anybody in the States? Do you write to anybody back there that you’re related to?

Florence: I have some relations in North Dakota. I wrote to them, but I never got an answer.

INTERVIEWER: At Fort Totten?

Florence: Yes. The only time I see them, is when they come down for the celebration in Sioux Valley. There’s always a big camp there, and a great big tent where they have these dances, powwows in it and that’s where all the Indians from different reserves come.

INTERVIEWER: They come from North Dakota up there?

Florence: Yeah some come from there. I have a cousin there; his name is George Albert. And that’s the only time I see them is when they come.

INTERVIEWER: Anybody from South Dakota every come up there?

Florence: Yes, the drummers. I heard they were announcing that the South Dakota people are going to sing at the drum next. From different reserves, you know, they take turns singing for these dancers here.

INTERVIEWER: You said that your husband had some land, did he, around Fort Totten?

Florence: No Sisseton. Sisseton, South Dakota.

INTERVIEWER: Did he lease that out to somebody or get some money for it?

Florence: Yeah, he leased it out to, his name is Stapleton. And then it wasn’t very much, and he was getting old, so he thought he’d sell it and make use of it. So he sold it and he got around $4000. But he sold another land before, and he got 400, 500, and 800...something. Of course he

was young at the time and the money was (something). You’ve got to put some in the bank.

INTERVIEWER: You haven’t had any land there yourself? Around Sisseton?

Florence: Well, no he sold it before. He passed away about five years ago. I’ve been alone, and we’re both widows living here.

INTERVIEWER: What tribe did you and your mother come from originally in the States, do you know? Wahpekute maybe, or was it Sisseton?

Florence: Oh, I don’t know. My grandmother was half Sioux and half Saulteaux. They got along down on this side of Canada.

INTERVIEWER: So they didn’t keep track of what tribe they come from there?

Florence: No.

INTERVIEWER: Do you know where she came from down in the states?

Florence: Mom was born in the (inaudible due to coughing).

INTERVIEWER: In (coughing). Where was her mother from, do you know?

Florence: No, and she doesn’t know.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, she doesn’t know that either?

Florence: No, she doesn’t know.

INTERVIEWER: She doesn’t remember anything about the migration, when they came up from the States?

Florence: She doesn’t know because I think she wasn’t born then, and her mother never mentioned anything about it. Well, there’s an old man up here. Maybe you could get something out of him.

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INTERVIEWER: Who’s that? Florence: Old Joe Paul, an old man. I think he knows; he speaks good English. He lives up here, up the hill there.

INTERVIEWER: What is his name?

Florence: Joe Paul. I think he remembers a lot of things. And there’s another old man further down the road; he knows a lot of what you are talking, about, migrating out there. He knows a lot about this. George Bearbull is his name, the other one.

INTERVIEWER: Does he (Joe Paul) live next door here?

Florence: Yeah, just above the hill there. And if you turn further down this way, that’s where this other old man lives. And he knows a lot about what happened years ago. He knows a lot.

And in the Bible, it says the lost Tribe of Israel, and some people think that the Indians are the lost Tribe of Israel, that’s what they think. That’s what I heard, could that be?

INTERVIEWER: Well I’ve heard this story, a gentleman about seventy, name Joe Rock Boy told me that he believes that all Indians, especially the Sioux, are from the lost tribe of Israel (*Mormons) . That they came across the Atlantic Ocean, they lived on Atlantis; and then they went to the Carolinas and so on.

Florence: And there’s a narrow space there in the ocean, and they must have come through there, that’s what I heard, I don’t know.

INTERVIEWER: What do you think?

Florence: Well, I kind of believe it.

INTERVIEWER: So there probably has been a lost tribe of Israel?

Florence: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: So, we all come from the Garden of Eden then?

A. Maybe... maybe.

INTERVIEWER: Well, I don’t think that anybody can say that’s wrong. What church do most of the people go to here on this reservation?

Florence: The church around here is the Presbyterian.

INTERVIEWER: You were brought up a Presbyterian then?

Florence: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Have you ever had the old Sioux church here, like the Sweat Lodge and the Pipe? Have you ever had the old traditional Sioux religion here at all or has everybody been Presbyterians since you’ve grown up?

Florence: Yes, since I was growing, well, I notice that they are all Presbyterians.

INTERVIEWER: How about the Native American Church? Have you ever heard of that up here?

Florence: No.

INTERVIEWER: I don’t know where people came from originally, that’s one of the mysteries of the past, I guess.

Florence: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: But a lot of people believe that the Sioux were always here, were created here maybe, thousands and thousands of years ago.

Florence: Now would that be just the one tribe, the Sioux?

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INTERVIEWER: Well, the Incas believe that they came from a creation down in the Andes...that a lot of the Indians were created in many places, grew up into tribes.

Florence: Of course the Sioux said the Saulteaux were the first to be around here, and they were very much against each other, enemies. They would scalp one another, yes.

INTERVIEWER: That was after the Sioux came up from the States?

Florence: Yes, after they came up here.

INTERVIEWER: Do you know why, just fight over land?

Florence: I don’t know. I never heard anybody say why they were so much against each other. So they were always on alert. When there’s a camp, some of the younger boys had to always be out watching in case the Saulteaux came along.

INTERVIEWER: Did the Cree ever get down here from the north?

Florence: No, I never see any. Well, when we were in school, there were all kinds of Indians there. There was Saulteaux and Crees and Sioux all went to school there.

INTERVIEWER: How about Assiniboine?

Florence: Yes, some of them come here but not very many. They have schools of their own up at Saskatchewan.

INTERVIEWER: The tribes have been getting along in your time, haven’t they, pretty well?

Florence: Yeah, they are getting along pretty well now, they are more civilized.

INTERVIEWER: I suppose the intermarriage, they marry each other and then they tend to get along better. What do you think about the Canadian government’s policy toward the Indians?

Florence: The only time I hear anything about them, sometimes comes on TV there. And they usually send us Indian news; that’s where we hear what’s going on. The Indians are talking up their rights. They were cheated of their rights, or something like that. The Indians are talking up now. They used to be quiet and never say nothing, but now they are speaking up for their rights. The said that this land is theirs and it was taken away from them. And they don’t get anything out of it. That’s what the Indians said.

INTERVIEWER: Is that what most of them feel about the government now?

Florence: That’s what they feel about it, and they talk about it quite a bit now, in these Indian news.

INTERVIEWER: Do you think the government will do anything?

Florence: I don’t know.

INTERVIEWER: Well, there’s not much land left, is there?

Florence: When the Indians came it all belonged to them, and it was just taken from them. And they put us on little reserves like this and they gave us an education but nothing for that.

INTERVIEWER: No place to go after you get an education?

Florence: No jobs.

INTERVIEWER: Is the population growing here, getting bigger, more and more people on this reserve?

Florence: Yeah, there’s more and more people on here.

INTERVIEWER: About how many were here when you were small?

Florence: There was a lot of them, but of course they all died off, the people did.

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INTERVIEWER: Are there about two hundred here now?

Florence: Close to that. Do you know anything about land, a person selling his land? When Marvin sold his land, this Allen Stapleton said, “I’ll buy the land from you but you can have your oil rights,” he said. What does he mean by that?

INTERVIEWER: Well, I guess he means that if they ever discover oil under his land you know, it will belong to you. And in North Dakota, there’s quite a bit of oil. I don’t think they found any oil around Fort Totten, but if they ever did, why, it would belong to you and not Stapleton.

Florence: Oh, this is in Sisseton.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, Sisseton.

Florence: And Ft. Totten is in North Dakota, and Sisseton is in South Dakota.

INTERVIEWER: No oil has ever been discovered at Sisseton. But if they ever did, why then you can have it. Of course that is possible. The Dakotas have quite a little oil under them but they just haven’t had enough money to dig for it yet. But more and more, the tribes control the sale of land and they don’t like people selling it to non---Indians. They sell it to the tribes you know, try to hold it together. But Sisseton is different; most of the land was taken away.

Florence: Yes... sold to the white people.

INTERVIEWER: Yes that’s right to the farmers there. Do you remember, how long ago did he sell his land?

Florence: I have a paper here on that.

INTERVIEWER: Anyway, that’s been a number of years ago?

Florence: Yes. My husband died in May, and just a few months after maybe, I got a letter

addressed to his name saying that there’s some funds up in the office for you. You better write so that I could pay that out. So I wrote and told them that he passed away long time ago and I’m a widow now and I need the money.

INTERVIEWER: You never heard anything from there?

Florence: Yes, somebody wrote for me, but they didn’t answer. And yet they said there was funds up there, does that mean money? At the office?

INTERVIEWER: At the Sisseton Tribal Office?

Florence: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: You don’t hear from any of the people down there anymore?

Florence: No, I don’t. My mother used to get money from over there too.

INTERVIEWER: Lease money, was it?

Florence: Lease money. They didn’t send it for two years now. That should come every year.

INTERVIEWER: Yes, she didn’t sell it?

Florence: No. In fact there’s...she’s not the only one that’s getting this money. You know what I mean. Different people.

INTERVIEWER: How much did she get when she was getting it, do you remember?

Florence: Oh, I don’t know. My brother Tom was looking after her, and I never knew how much it was.

INTERVIEWER: They don’t send it anymore?

Florence: No. Maybe it’s because she didn’t write for it, she should have written. But I don’t even know the address, but it’s in Sisseton anyway.

INTERVIEWER: If you just write to the Tribal Office in Sisseton it should get to them.

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Florence: Yes. But I don’t know who’s the agent now.

INTERVIEWER: It wouldn’t matter if you just write to the chairman there.

Florence: And this old man over here, he used to get money from over there too. And they haven’t sent that money to him for several years. This Joe Paul that I was telling you about. He used to get money from over there too.

INTERVIEWER: Did anybody else around get money from there too; or did they kind of lead you to believe that maybe there was quite a few Sisseton’s here then.

Florence: Well, the reason my husband was getting money was he was married to an American girl. And that was her property that he was getting after she died. She must have left a little for him. That’s how he got this property.

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George Bearbull Tape 844

INTERVIEWER: June 20, 1972, at Birdtail Indian Reserve in Manitoba, Herbert Hoover the interviewer.

George: Well, he told us that story until in the morning.

INTERVIEWER: He’d talk all night?

George: Talk all night. He says, “You got to stay up with me,” he says. We did, we did but we got sleepy. He said that, this Indian chief, he sold, ah, North Dakota, by this fellow, the chief, you see, he sold that, that , North Dakota. he didn’t sell it yet, I imagine 1870, 1859...

(Unintelligible)

INTERVIEWER: 1859?

George: He must have sold that, that time see, because that’s when they, they move out here; they came across.

INTERVIEWER: Out of the States?

George: Yeah, out of the States. This fellow here, he went into the store asking for rations, a provision is what they called it, provisions or groceries or something like that. They ask for it. This chief, the chief that sold his land here see, for two years. . he waited for two years, and he hasn’t got paid for it. An then this fellow, this chief here ( inaudible 2:03) and the other fellow... South Dakota, the other chief, the other side of Dakota .. Minnesota or South Dakota ah. Santee or I don’t know those two, there’s North Dakota and South Dakota.

INTERVIEWER: Uh huh, Sisseton in South Dakota.

George: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Yes.

George: Well, they were leaving all their money, they borrowed their money see? You understand?

INTERVIEWER: Yes.

George: They borrowed that money, and when they get paid they go to replace this money back, what they owe. Well again ah, it took them two years to come on out, they were leaving out the other Indians and then the storekeeper he was kind of tight you know. He told... this chief, the one who went to ask for their rations, and he says that they owe quite a bit of money now. He says, “You’re not ready to pay for it.” So he said, “We’ll pay for it.” They (inaudible 3:11) the whole North Dakota, they sold it towards seventy---five, and why, this fellow, this old bugger, tells us that there’s seventy---five, seventy---five cents an acre you see?

INTERVIEWER: My goodness.

George: Done there the whole North Dakota. And that’s what we told, you see. And he keeps asking and asking, but the store keeper is cutting back, like here, he was scared of his stockade, he might lose that money. Well, I guess you’ll have to go back and eat grass.” That’s the store keeper... that’s what he said to this Indian, “You got to go back and eat grass.”

INTERVIEWER: Eat grass?

George: Well, he couldn’t do any better, and so he came back, and he asked the next fellow. He said, “You go down and ask him next.” So he went down there and asked him. The interpreter didn’t tell the whole story. The store keeper said to this Indian here. And this other Indian went down there and asked him and he told him the same thing, “You got to go, you got to go back to say this to the other fellow, what I told the other fellow”, and he says, “What did he say?” That he said, “He told me to come home and eat grass.” “But who, who told you that he told me to eat grass, come home and eat grass?” He said the interpreter. So he took his gun with that guy and went right straight to the interpreter and says, “This storekeeper,” he says, “He told me to tell, or to come back and to eat this grass.” And he says,

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“Yes.” Well, what did you tell me after this first place? So he called the storekeeper out, out of the door, and he shot the guy (inaudible) and he pulled him out of the door. He pulled him out of the door, and he opened his mouth, and he packed his mouth. (Laughter)

INTERVIEWER: With grass? Yeah. (Laughing)

George: Well, that’s just what the, this uh, this trouble started you see?

INTERVIEWER: I see.

George: Right there. Another one they coming, coming out towards Grand Forks, that’s another coming you see. And then they talked to the Dutch, you know the Germans. They seem to be Germans he knew of them. For started this Indian here they come as a ( inaudible 6:20) they uh, they agreed to uh, killing him you know?

INTERVIEWER: Uh huh.

George: About 800...800 settlers.

INTERVIEWER: Eight hundred settlers.

George: At least this what this old fellow told him, yeah. And that, it says that, uh ( inaudible 6:44) and the tall grass, and they hide and the kid cried and the ( inaudible) down there and they took a knife... fight... tear them right open.

INTERVIEWER: Kill them?

George: Yeah. And the old one there shot them. That’s the way they killed them right away they coming on, on and on until they come to uh, I imagine that the way they tell us that story, I imagine that they traveled along side of the Minnesota, the river.

INTERVIEWER: Minnesota River, yeah.

George: Right, well they called the Red River, again it’s half of that. See?

INTERVIEWER: Uh huh.

George: And they came into Canada.

INTERVIEWER: Yes.

George: Well, they were there on the east side of it, see? The east side of this river here, and they come into uh, the river comes out like this and starts on the other, just like a knife over here it starts close to here. Well, they come in there and (inaudible 7:58) every time then they meet a farm house you see. And the soldiers, the American soldiers they do the same thing you know, they, they give warning like this people, the Indians. And they get tired of carrying the children on the back, and some of these old fellows left them on the road, and the Americans started coming down and hit them with a sword on the head and knocked them over then ... the kids they got a hold of the legs like this, and chopped the head off.

INTERVIEWER: Cut em’ off.

George: Yeah, well both are doing it. The Americans are doing the same things as what they do... the Indians, what they do. Indians they, they kill everything that they come to, see, you understand?

INTERVIEWER: Uh huh.

George: Well, that’s what the old fellows told me, it’s just the way I tell you.

INTERVIEWER: The soldiers killed everybody they came to then?

George: Uh?

INTERVIEWER: I said, the soldiers killed everybody they came to?

George: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, because they were running up toward Canada?

George: Yeah. Right up to Canada, uh the, they come into this bend, the river here come in a kind of bend like this and almost meet together out there, and we’re the first coming. .. that river is sort of like, uh,. . this Indians they were chased ( inaudible 9:29) . And the soldiers they, they blew their bugle you know. The soldiers, they whatever, they always what they going to do or I hear that’s what the says, you hear

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. I hear the bugles blow, (inaudible 9:46) talk and so on like that. I hear they blow the bugle and then they stop in there and they come right across these, these top of the neck like this you know. The river comes this way, this way, they almost meet there by the neck. The Indians why there were inside of this neck here. Well anyway them soldiers here they watched here careful this here on this, on each side you see.

INTERVIEWER: I see.

George: And I believe the Indians can’t get out this side, and they looked all there to see if they could. On the other side is that little place here if they could get out, they got a place there, they got a cut the trees and they make you know, the flat uh, logs like this and across like this way. And they kept shipping themselves right across the lake before daylight. And they made it out.

INTERVIEWER: Uh huh, my goodness, was that on the Red River, was it?

George: Uh, the Red River.

INTERVIEWER: On the Red River.

George: That river that passes through Winnipeg.

INTERVIEWER: Yes, uh huh.

George: Well, and then they come out to, and at that time the police came across with uh, they ( inaudible 11:13) there, they can’t come anymore. That’s just what they, this Indian says, they Sioux, the old Sioux they just young fellows. They got nothing, say know nothing about it, but the old Sioux they all die off anyway. That just was the story.

INTERVIEWER: They come up, they came up into Winnipeg, there at Manitoba?

George: They come up to Winnipeg and they asked for powder, shots and bullets. They wouldn’t give it to them. They heard that uh, they knew what they done coming on the place to Winnipeg. And from there a couple guys went off to Portage to pray and then Turtle Mountain. My grandfather, my grandfather he carry his old, a little bag, I figure it was sixty, sixty pounds of

shots, a little bag... with the ten of them, from Winnipeg to Turtle Mountain.

INTERVIEWER: My goodness.

George: And that, that my grandfather died the next morning before they got home.

INTERVIEWER: Did they go to Turtle Mountain first before they went to Portage?

George: Oh, they, Indian?

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, they went to Turtle Mountain first huh?

George: No, they came out to Winnipeg first.

INTERVIEWER: And they where did they go?

George: Grand Forks, you, you know, you seen the, you know Grand Forks?

INTERVIEWER: Yeah

George: Well, they come out on the east side of it you see? East side into the where the, well they cross somewhere in there between the Winnipeg and the Grand Forks you see? And then they come across there and they come straight on to Portage.

INTERVIEWER: To Portage?

George: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: And then they go to ...

George: And then from there they go to Winnipeg. They got to get stocks you know, shots and powder and caps and everything. You see, they go down there but they, they don’t agree them, much. But (inaudible 13:31) why they asked for, they asked for because, but they told them that they don’t want war, so they call it, I guess. And they told them, he says, you go to make a treaty with the soldiers first before we do anything for the Indians, Sioux Indians he said. So he gave out the (inaudible 13:56) and he got a treaty with the Indians right along here, along the border and then now there’s a Reserve you see. There’s first time the Reserve was uh, Brandon on this side river, that other creek comes straight into

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the Assiniboine, the Reserve was that long and off to Oak Lake, north of Oak Lake, is a ways, that’s quite a ways here from right down here.

INTERVIEWER: From Brandon to Oak Lake?

George: No, there, not the Brandon is way out there, I’m talking about this river, not a river but the creek. There’s a way you white people called uh, called this here creek here.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, uh huh.

George: River, they call it.

INTERVIEWER: Yes.

George: Birdtail River, but it’s not a river, it’s a creek.

INTERVIEWER: It’s a creek, yes, yeah.

George: Well they, they go through there, that far you see, there’s a big hill right about there, come in through there, there’s Assiniboine right here, there’s a big hill there, oh the Indians in there, oh, it really, and way on the west side too. Right south, north of Oak Lake.

INTERVIEWER: North of Oak Lake, huh?

George: Yeah, there was but they just couldn’t get along, they couldn’t get along themselves, between themselves see. So they decided the chiefs decided so that uh, they moved, oh this old (Indian), (Indian), Rattling Walking and he moved, he choose Turtle Mountain.

INTERVIEWER: Uh, huh, Rattling Walking went to Turtle Mountain?

George: Yeah, he, he is a, a ( Indian name 15:46) Pipestone (Indian).

INTERVIEWER: (Indian) went to Pipestone?

George: Yeah. And (Indian 15:53) ) White Eagle went to Griswold.

INTERVIEWER: White Eagle went to Griswold?

George: Yeah. And then uh, what they call Standing Buffalo, what they call it Fort Qu’Appelle.

INTERVIEWER: (Indian) that was Standing Buffalo?

George: Yeah, White Cap went to Saskatoon.

INTERVIEWER: White Cap went to Saskatoon?

A. Yeah, I don’t know the other fellow was chief was...went to Prince Albert.

INTERVIEWER: One more went to Prince Albert?

George: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Who came here to Birdtail then.

George: Huh?

INTERVIEWER: Who came here? To this one?

George: Well this, this was uh, old Enoch.

INTERVIEWER: Old Enoch?

George: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Enoch.

George: Enoch, (Indian) ( 16:44) , they call him, Coming Up Cloud, Coming Up Clouds, they call him.

INTERVIEWER: Coming Up Clouds?

George: George: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: He, he came here?

George: Yeah this was, down here. So that’s why the, you come, you come each way, one the river and stories coming out, out of this and that. But you just trouble with like this, and trouble with like that, trouble with the . But do you know, the people, white people that know this, some of the stories that I tell, I can’t mention it here see but liable to tie that there if I tell you the whole story you know, you understand?

INTERVIEWER: Uh huh. 42

George: But you have to have a six---pack or... (Laughing)

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, I come back with a six--- pack then?

George: Yeah. Well that’s why, that’s the way I see it. Uh, the, what did you do out here for, try to find this history of the Sioux?

INTERVIEWER: Well see we got, we got fifty thousand Sioux down there.

George: Huh?

INTERVIEWER: I say we got about fifty thousand Sioux down in South Dakota and they want to know about this up here, see they want to know what happened to you people.

George: Well that’s the time that they come out here in 1862.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

George: Unless uh, you know the government in Washington, they’re slow, the government just bought that land there that gives the money to the Indians. They, they said you have to help to wait two years before they gather the money, and they haven’t got it yet.

INTERVIEWER: They still haven’t got any money?

George: No. I don’t know if they, they try yet but I don’t know whether they get it or not. But they had their last meeting over here at Fort Qu’Appelle last week.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, about this money huh?

George: Yeah, well now they, they’d be here, they got a at Washington. They going to have a meeting over there by themselves.

INTERVIEWER: Oh they are? They’re going to Washington?

George: Yeah. They’re going to have a drink over there. (Laughing)

INTERVIEWER: Yeah. Well, were you born on this reservation here?

George: Well, I was just, I was just riding through. I was just riding through a out there in Winnipeg. Pension people you know, the house was paid. You see in the paper some of these house was paid, the house over the years lived there, I lived here too, but there’s a house but white water and that like my god it just me . But I was just in the whole thing you know, that’s what got something to do with this, uh, pension. He handles that you see, I was telling him that so I don’t know what he’s going to say but, uh, how the hell he going to answer me. But if he don’t answer me, why I want him to find a place for me in town.

INTERVIEWER: You want to move to town?

George: Yeah into town. Find a place for me in town and for the winter like, see I don’t know what it’s like and several times, well, I had the opportunity, well I could get a house, he could get me a house, well all right. Because if uh, I see in the paper that uh, the pension in the pension for is entitled to five hundred dollars and a thousand dollars for the roof and everything, see? Do you understand?

INTERVIEWER: Yes.

George: You might have heard that too?

INTERVIEWER: I don’t know...

43

Arnett Smoke Occupation Farming

Tape 794

INTERVIEWER: This is August 26, 1971 at the Long Plains Community in Manitoba, Canada. I’m speaking to Arnett Smoke on the Long Plains reservation. The best way to begin here, Mr. Smoke, we always do this way just to start out with who you are. You call yourself Sioux. Do you remember yourself as Mdewakanton or any particular tribe within the Sioux?

Arnett: I wouldn’t know. Ask my uncle, he knows all about that.

INTERVIEWER: I see. And you’re one of nine children here?

Arnett: Yeah. Well, there’s ten in our family.

INTERVIEWER: There are ten.

Arnett: One girl and nine boys.

INTERVIEWER: Nine boys and one girl. What was your father’s name then?

Arnett: Chaska Smoke.

INTERVIEWER: Chaska Smoke, I see. And did your father say that you were from the Sioux that came up from Minnesota or...?

Arnett: Yeah, yeah, that’s no, I wouldn’t know that part, we figured from North Dakota.

INTERVIEWER: From North Dakota?

Arnett: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: How long ago do you figure that your family came up here?

Arnett: Oh, quite a while back. I wouldn’t know.

INTERVIEWER: A couple of generations?

Arnett: Oh, yeah, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: At least, yeah. Well, could you tell me a little bit about your life here? How big is this reservation?

Arnett: Well, this reserve is only, I’d say from about 1200 acres to about 1500 acres, I guess. I wouldn’t know exactly.

INTERVIEWER: Well, how many people live here then?

Arnett: Well, actually there’s only, the Smokes live here and one other family.

INTERVIEWER: On this reservation?

Arnett: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: On 12 to 1500 acres?

Arnett: Yeah, the other family’s name is Chaske.

INTERVIEWER: Chaske?

Arnett: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: These are both Sioux families?

Arnett: Oh yeah, they’re both Sioux families.

INTERVIEWER: How many people all together then in those two families do you suppose, 40 or. ?

Arnett: Oh, there would be about 80, I guess.

INTERVIEWER: About 80 people?

Arnett: Yeah, about that. I figure about that.

INTERVIEWER: I see and this is part of Long Plain?

Arnett: This is Long Plain Sioux.

INTERVIEWER: Long Plain Sioux. And next to you is Long Plain Saulteaux?

Arnett: Saulteaux, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Oh I see. So you have about 80 people of Long Plain Sioux?

Arnett: Yeah

44

INTERVIEWER: Do you have an organized tribe then?

Arnett: Oh, I’ll say yeah. You see, we’re together with the other Sioux village down on this side of Portage there.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, you’re part of the same tribe?

Arnett: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Do you have a tribal chairman or tribal head of any kind?

Arnett: Oh yeah, my brother’s the chief

INTERVIEWER: Ernest is the chief?

Arnett: Yeah, Ernest.

INTERVIEWER: Does he have a tribal council that serves with him?

Arnett: No, we get together and it’s mostly brothers, he runs that.

INTERVIEWER: You kind of run the tribe by yourself?

Arnett: Yeah, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Well, about the land? Does each person have a certain amount of land here like they do in the States?

Arnett: No, we usually rent it out if we can’t run it ourselves, but two of my brothers are just starting to farm it now.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, they are?

Arnett: Yeah, this is their second year now. And they’re running most of the land of the reserve.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, they are? Does it belong to the whole tribe?

Arnett: Oh yeah, it belongs to the whole tribe.

INTERVIEWER: What do they do then with the crops?

Arnett: Well, it’s theirs and they pay so much into the band.

INTERVIEWER: Into the band?

Arnett: Yeah

INTERVIEWER: Oh I see, so it’s all really community land and you don’t divide it up like they do in the States where each person has 40 acres or so?

Arnett: No, no.

INTERVIEWER: Oh I see. And where do you send your children to school?

Arnett: Well, we send ours out here about 5 miles, I guess, into Rossendale.

INTERVIEWER: Rossendale? Is that a public school or...?

Arnett: Yeah it is.

INTERVIEWER: How many children do you have, sir?

Arnett: Well, I have three girls and one boy.

INTERVIEWER: They all go to school down there?

Arnett: Yeah, one is starting this year, I think, to kindergarten, the youngest one.

INTERVIEWER: What do you, do you work around here some place?

Arnett: Yeah, whenever I can find a job. It’s pretty hard for us to get a job around here.

INTERVIEWER: Is it?

Arnett: Yeah

INTERVIEWER: Where do you work when you work, out on a farm?

Arnett: Yeah, usually out on a farm, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: There are no industries where you can get work?

Arnett: No, no.

45

INTERVIEWER: I see. How do you go about getting work? Do you just go with the harvest?

Arnett: Yeah, we go with the harvest.

INTERVIEWER: Drive tractors or something like that?

Arnett: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: What do you the rest of the year when there’s no harvest?

Arnett: Oh, you try to another job here and there, you know, keep us going or else go on relief.

INTERVIEWER: I see. How much can you get on relief?

Arnett: We’re getting 100 dollars for two weeks. During the winter we get about 180, I guess around there, 186...

INTERVIEWER: I see. For two weeks?

Arnett: For two week...no, that’s for a month.

INTERVIEWER: Is that from the province or is that from the nation of Canada or...?

Arnett: From the Indian Affairs, I guess.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, from the Indian Affairs.

Arnett: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: That would be in where, in Ottawa?

Arnett: Well, we have an office in Brandon and one in Portage.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see, the Indian Affairs office there.

Arnett: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: And that’s the branches then of the National Indian Affairs Commission?

Arnett: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: I see. Do they keep a tribal roll then there in that Indian Affairs office in Portage or. .. ?

Arnett: Yeah, they have...

INTERVIEWER: And how about things like medical help? Do you have. ?

Arnett: Oh, that’s all free like It’s paid by that Indian Department.

INTERVIEWER: By the Indian Department?

Arnett: Yeah

INTERVIEWER: I see. You have no individual ownership of land then, so nobody here own 40 acres or..?

Arnett: No, whoever can...

INTERVIEWER: Whoever can use it best?

Arnett: Yeah, whoever can use it best.

INTERVIEWER: And then they kind of pay for the use into the tribal fund?

Arnett: Oh yeah, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Do you have any tribal functions then, like do you have any community hall or .. ?

Arnett: No, we don’t.

INTERVIEWER: You don’t?

Arnett: No

INTERVIEWER: Do you ever have pow wows or dances or. ?

Arnett: We used to have, but we cut that out.

INTERVIEWER: You did?

Arnett: Yeah, we were spending too much money on...

INTERVIEWER: On that kind of stuff?

Arnett: Yeah. The tribe was too small anyway for that, for our part anyway.

46

INTERVIEWER: Do you have any medicine men around here that pray the old Indian way?

Arnett: No, not in this part, not in the Sioux side anyway.

INTERVIEWER: Think, they do in the Saulteaux?

Arnett: Oh, they might have, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: I see

Arnett: They had a ...I went to school for heavy duty equipment operator and I couldn’t get a job through the Man---Power.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, you couldn’t?

Arnett: No, I couldn’t.

INTERVIEWER: So you’re trained then to run big heavy road machinery and things?

Arnett: Oh, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: I see. What about your personal history? Did you go to school here?

Arnett: Well, I went to school here, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: At where?

Arnett: Right at Long Plains.

INTERVIEWER: At Long Plains..oh, at the Saulteaux school?

Arnett: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Is that still running?

Arnett: No, no.

INTERVIEWER: That’s the old school on the north side there?

Arnett: Yeah, well, they use it for kindergarten and they use it for the band office.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see.

Arnett: Indian band office.

INTERVIEWER: You went there, how many years did you go there?

Arnett: Oh, seven years, anyway.

INTERVIEWER: Seven years there and then did you go someplace else after that?

Arnett: Well, I started in Brandon, but it wasn’t too good so I quit after a few weeks.

INTERVIEWER: And then you went to get training in heavy equipment?

Arnett: Yeah, I did, yes.

INTERVIEWER: Have you worked away any place off the reservation?

Arnett: Not on heavy equipment, no.

INTERVIEWER: Have you worked elsewhere in other kinds of jobs in your life?

Arnett: Oh, just farm, mostly farm.

INTERVIEWER: Mostly farm. You haven’t been in the Canadian Armed Forces or anything?

Arnett: No, no, nothing like that.

INTERVIEWER: I see. Do all your brothers live around here?

Arnett: Yeah, they all live here.

INTERVIEWER: Do they?

Arnett: Yeah, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: The whole family?

Arnett: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: So there’d be ten families of...ten Smoke families?

Arnett: One is not married; the youngest is not married yet. All the rest are married.

INTERVIEWER: I see. And what was the name of that other family?

Arnett: Chaskes.

INTERVIEWER: Chaskes, they’re Sioux too? 47

Arnett: Yeah, they’re Sioux, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: How many of them are there, families?

Arnett: There is two boys and two girls in the family.

INTERVIEWER: I see. I’d like to get back to the tribal head. Do you elect him or is that an office that Ernest. . ?

Arnett: Oh, well we, my oldest brother was the Chief first and then we just he just got in there, we just put him in there now just to take ‘til we elect a new Chief.

INTERVIEWER: Oh I see.

Arnett: But he stayed on for two years now, I think it was.

INTERVIEWER: You elect a new chief every now and then or .. ?

Arnett: Well, we used to, but not this last time. We just put him in there, see.

INTERVIEWER: I see

Arnett: But he was supposed to run until somebody else gets in, but we never had an election or nothing.

INTERVIEWER: So he just kind stays on?

Arnett: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Do you have any kind of tribal constitution that you run by like they do in the States or do you just kind of run your own affairs without contact with the central government?

Arnett: No, we don’t, we have to. we work through the Indian Affairs. Right now we’re trying to get self---government.

INTERVIEWER: You’re trying to get self--- government?

Arnett: Yeah

INTERVIEWER: Do you’d be free from them?

Arnett: Yeah, we’d be free from them.

INTERVIEWER: What kind of controls do they have on you then?

Arnett: Well, when we have to have relief, we have to go up to them or whatever we need, like housing repairs or we need housing, we have to go up to them and things like that.

INTERVIEWER: Do they help you with housing?

Arnett: Oh yeah, we have to pay 135 for a big house like this in order to get it.

INTERVIEWER: You pay 135 down?

Arnett: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: And then how much do you pay after that?

Arnett: No, that’s it.

INTERVIEWER: That’s it. You pay them $135 dollars and then you..?

Arnett: Yeah

INTERVIEWER: Do they build this for you then or...”

Arnett: Yeah, my brother built that. He’s a carpenter.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see. Does the Indian Affairs office supply the materials then?

Arnett: Yeah, just the material.

INTERVIEWER: But you have to build them yourself.

Arnett: Yeah, but they paid them like through the Indian Affairs pays them so much a house.

INTERVIEWER: To put them up?

Arnett: Yeah

INTERVIEWER: And once you pay them $135 then the house is yours?

Arnett: Yeah. It’s, oh... it can go back to the... 48

INTERVIEWER: To the tribe?

Arnett: It can go back to the tribe if nobody’s living in it, if you move out or something.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see. So they all really belong to the tribe then, you’d never really own a house yourself?

Arnett: No, no, not really.

INTERVIEWER: And the same is true with the land?

Arnett: . Oh yeah, that’s the same with the land.

INTERVIEWER: Now is the same true of the other people here? Most everybody just stay here and kind of work around or do any of your people ever go off to college or anything like that?

Arnett: No, not very many, not that I know of. Usually they stay around.

INTERVIEWER: They stay here on the reservation?

Arnett: Yeah

INTERVIEWER: Is there any money available to help them go to college? See, I’m kind of ignorant here. I’m in a different country.

Arnett: Yeah, the Indian Affairs, I figure, I think pays for that if you want to go to college?

INTERVIEWER: They’ll help them go to college?

Arnett: Yeah, oh yeah.

INTERVIEWER: You haven’t had too many do that though?

Arnett: No, no.

INTERVIEWER: Any move away to say to Winnipeg for work?

Arnett: No, no.

INTERVIEWER: Pretty much stay here?

Arnett: Oh yeah

INTERVIEWER: How about the land, is it very productive?

Arnett: Oh, it’s not too bad, you know but we have some, a few sandy spots and then they couldn’t do much with it, and a lot of water holes.

INTERVIEWER: What about your children here? What are your hopes for them?

Arnett: Well, I’d like to see them finish school, maybe go as high as they can, I guess.

INTERVIEWER: Go on to college?

Arnett: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Do you think their opportunity will be there?

Arnett: Oh yeah, I hope so, I think it should be there.

INTERVIEWER: Going to send them away to the city, huh? You want to go to the city?

Arnett: Well, they can finish their 12 years, you see, grade 12 staying at home and then if they have to go to college, I guess they have to go to the city or someplace.

INTERVIEWER: Well, one other thing I wanted to ask you is what do you folks do for entertainment here mostly? Do you have a baseball team or anything that you do together?

Arnett: No, no, there’s not enough for us, you see, for organized sports.

INTERVIEWER: You cant’?

Arnett: No.

INTERVIEWER: What do the kids do, they fish or...?

Arnett: Well, they go out and play for different teams, you see. My boy was playing this spring for Rossendale over there for the white kids.

INTERVIEWER: I see. Do they go swimming down to the river here?

49

Arnett: Oh yeah, they go swimming.

INTERVIEWER: Just a little country entertainment all by themselves?

Arnett: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: I see.

Arnett: We usually go out to these big pow wows they have across Manitoba here.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, the big pow wows?

Arnett: North Dakota

INTERVIEWER: Where do you go, Fort Totten?

Arnett: Yeah. Fort Totten, Tokio and around there.

INTERVIEWER: I see. You make the big pow wows in the summer?

Arnett: Yeah

INTERVIEWER: Were you out this summer?

Arnett: No, I haven’t been out to the States this summer. I was up west here, Sioux Valley and Pipestone.

INTERVIEWER: I see. They have big pow wows at Pipestone?

Arnett: Yeah, they do.

INTERVIEWER: They are also Sioux?

Arnett: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: You get over to the States very often?

Arnett: Oh usually, I used to go quite a bit, but I haven’t been down this summer, I mean this year yet.

INTERVIEWER: Well, I gather that you don’t really remember who your relatives are back there in the States then from...?

Arnett: No, not from way back, no. I guess my uncle and the older people know, I think.

INTERVIEWER: But you don’t write to anybody back there or...?

Arnett: No, well, I have some relatives, down in Fort Totten there.

INTERVIEWER: Do you know their names?

Arnett: Oh yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Who are they?

Arnett: Henry Johnson is my uncle.

INTERVIEWER: Henry Johnson.

Arnett: He from the Hill.

INTERVIEWER: He from the Hill?

Arnett: Yeah. And I must have some more, but I don’t know.

INTERVIEWER: Do you write to them sometimes?

Arnett: No, they come down sometimes, you know, to visit.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, they do?

Arnett: Yeah, or else we go down.

INTERVIEWER: You stop down there?

Arnett: Oh, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: So you do visit some people from back in the States?

Arnett: Oh yeah, we go back and forth.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see. You don’t know of any relatives you have elsewhere though, like Prairie Island or Sisseton?

Arnett: No. We have some in Sisseton, but I wouldn’t know, I wouldn’t know their names. You have to ask my mother. She was down there once or twice, I think.

INTERVIEWER: Was she a Sisseton?

Arnett: Yeah, she went down there, yes.

50

INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see. She’s Sisseton Indian from her background?

Arnett: Yeah ... I wouldn’t know.

INTERVIEWER: You used to have some relatives there?

Arnett: Yeah. We have some relatives up there.

INTERVIEWER: Do you have relatives any place else that you know of down there?

Arnett: Oh, probably at Twin Buttes we have some.

INTERVIEWER: At Twin Buttes you have some?

Arnett: Yeah. My mother was down there last, this summer.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see, yeah. Where’s your mother live?

Arnett: Well, she’s living at the Sioux Village with my aunt.

INTERVIEWER: The same place south of Portage?

Arnett: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah , I see, very good. Well thank you.

End of Tape.

51

Jacob Blacksmith Tape 793

INTERVIEWER: Well, from what you said, Mr. Blacksmith, I gather that you are from Sisseton originally...your people are from Sisseton.

Jacob: Yes, I’ve got related people over there.

INTERVIEWER: At Sisseton?

Jacob: Yes, at...it’s important, my parents. I had a daddy that had parents over there; my mother too.

INTERVIEWER: How did they get up here?

Jacob: Well, it’s...it’s a long time ago...it’s 1862 that had that war, you know. Down here across the border, I don’t know that time they had the borders across the States and Canada, I don’t know. So anyway, they came over here so my parents... and dad, he told me. That time he was nine years old.

INTERVIEWER: He was 90?

Jacob: Nine years old at that time.

INTERVIEWER: Nine years old at that time. And he remembers coming up here then?

Jacob: Yes, yes, he remembers.

INTERVIEWER: Did they ride on horses or did they walk?

Jacob: No, they had wagon and buggy...oh, I mean the wagon.

INTERVIEWER: The wagon.

Jacob: Yeah, and the team of horses and some few options and they travelled behind.

INTERVIEWER: Were there quite a lot of them?

Jacob: There was quite a bunch.

INTERVIEWER: Where did they come first?

Jacob: They, oh... they came through Sisseton, and through North Dakota – Devil’s Lake, you know. This is on August 24, he says, and they stayed at Devil’s Lake. You know, that big bush on the south side the Devil’s Lake ends, and they stay over winter...winter... INTERVIEWER: Where did they go then?

Jacob: After that, after that its second year, they went to a stop over here...it’s...wait a minute, I forgot that...well, east side of Poplar, Montana some place. I don’t know what you call the white people’s words. You know this is Sioux words for that land here. So it’s second years older.

INTERVIEWER: Second year, then.

Jacob: Yeah, and third year... these Turtle Mountains.

INTERVIEWER: At Turtle Mountain?

Jacob: Yeah, the third year they are going to stay there. And the fourth year, that one guy they had a dream, you know. And they saw a little house...white house. I don’t know how he did it...he dream you know, so somebody talked with him. I don’t know who was all in the dream, but this is what he talked with the dream, you know, so somebody talked with him. They went to east and they found that little house. It saves us...nobody killed or no nothing. That what he dreams, he got. Well, this is my father’s uncle. My father’s mother...that’s her brother, you know. So they went east, I don’t know what way they go. They went to go through Camp (Charlotte?), I think. And they went to Portage and crossed that .. go across the river, you know. They went to the top of the hill. Well, this is at that time is this Portage town, it’s a little town, you know, small town. So they went there and they saw that little house.

52

INTERVIEWER: That he saw in the dream... Jacob: Yes, that same building. At the front on top is that part...the one part of the house is sharp like this. It was a church house, mind you. So they put a tipi around there by that house, and this house, it’s man in house...at the next in the church house. The man came there and they tried to talk with something. I don’t know how they talking, it’s nobody, they can talk English, I don’t know. So somehow they talked with them, you know. So they stay there for over winter. And this little town is Portage, you know. Those town is French town, so they stay there and they hire Indians for cutting wood. So give it a potatoes, pork or meat or something and then some ladies went to town, so wait over town, they make a little bit of money. In a sense, you know, it’s 1865 and between four years they got into the Portage.

INTERVIEWER: In four years.

Jacob: Yeah, and I don’t know how long this four years, that 1869, I think.

INTERVIEWER: When they got to the Portage.

Jacob: Yeah, and...and they got there...it’s they went to Winnipeg and bought piece of land, you know. It’s 1812, that Canada fight with the States, you know...so it’s Sioux, they help the Canada for seven tribes. They win them so these Canada says, they promise to a piece of land. I don’t know how long after that they went to cross the borders and States, and then they stay over there. I don’t know how long they stay. And go back to Canada again. And they went to Winnipeg. They asked for these lands they promised them, and this is the way they got this reserve. And I’m not sure this over here it’s about (speaks in Dakota) . It’s over there in the north by Alexandria right now.

INTERVIEWER: North by Alexandria.

Jacob: Yeah, so there from little...a little railroad formed them north and right into the

Assiniboine. So they got there, for told these government, that whoever walked in the morning as soon as the sun come down, and the sun’s going down he can far walking, you know.

INTERVIEWER: Yes.

Jacob: They give him that much land, you know.

INTERVIEWER: Give him as much land as he can walk in one day.

Jacob: Yeah, one day the sun come up and the sun’s going down.

INTERVIEWER: Well, for land sake.

Jacob: So one guy, he’s a good walker and a good runner, too. So they fixed up four moccasins or stuff like that and the... you know they get for the foot or something. The one morning the sun come up and they run down to cross the, you know Virden?

INTERVIEWER: Virden, yeah.

Jacob: So it, at the go cross there, oh it’s about three or four, no it’s not four, it’s two or three miles east side of the bridge you know. He get there and the sun goes down. So therefore they get that much reserved, you know. This is, I think, wait a minute, well this is about – 1871 or something.

INTERVIEWER: 1871.

Jacob: Yes, 1871, and I can’t tell you how many we get on the wide you know.

INTERVIEWER: How wide is it?

Jacob: Yeah, I don’t know...

INTERVIEWER: So it was as long as he walked all day.

Jacob: Yeah, all day...and at that time this one bunch, you know it’s in here in Portage and through (inaudible) and Pipestone and Beulah

53

and Saskatoon, and Fort Qu’Appelle and...Prince Albert.

INTERVIEWER: All seven?

Jacob: Seven years reserved for Sioux. For this much they all get that land, you know.

INTERVIEWER: They were all in that one place at that time?

Jacob: Yeah, in that place.

INTERVIEWER: 1871.

Jacob: And after that I don’t know, how long it’s after that, you know, when they had some, they’d go around to group to group, you know.

INTERVIEWER: Uh huh.

Jacob: You know its some people. The head man, you know, we...about in the dream.

INTERVIEWER: Yes.

Jacob: It’s men, (freed) men like that you know, so this is the way. It’s the one guy at the bottom they follow wherever they go, to the river area or the lake area, there are lots of fish, or lots of jumping deer over there, so the followed him. It’s a...they had a few people like that you know, so this is the way they would follow him, this one people.

INTERVIEWER: I see.

Jacob: So this is the way it’s some group you know. They went to, they run into the Oak Lake. The big lake. So they thought they had lots of fish, lots of muskrat, mink, or things like that so they ask government department... piece of land, take the part... they move to the Pipestone.

INTERVIEWER: The Pipestone.

Jacob: Yeah, so take to the part so much acres, you know. Section, you know, move over there. That’s where they get, they get all the time they

get smaller, some Pipestone and Fort Qu’Appelle and Saskatoon, and Prince Albert. They get a part mile, acres you know. This is the way. These, it’s reserved, it’s seven miles long and four miles wide.

INTERVIEWER: I see, so...

Jacob: Yeah, at the south end it’s a mile wide.

INTERVIEWER: Wide, huh?

Jacob: Well, this is the way they got the reserve.

INTERVIEWER: So they gave up that big reserve and then seven groups formed?

Jacob: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: And they got little reserves.

Jacob: Yes, and now they have their regular reserve.

INTERVIEWER: You know when this reserve was founded that way? It would have been last century, huh?

Jacob: Well, this is the way, it’s part one man, they went to, there from the government says you go all over the place and what place if you like it, so you can have that place, you know.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see.

Jacob: So they went west, come through the Portage, so they find these high rise place. It’s a big hill and the bushes, lots a reeds for their jumping deers, and the big lake down in there, so maybe lots of ducks, and the river there for fish, and the one river, the one little river from the south, north to come from south to get into the Assiniboine River.

INTERVIEWER: I see.

Jacob: But this is the place nothing but fish, winter and summer. This is the way they are going to stay for I don’t know how long. And

54

anyway this one man, I don’t know how long they stay there. He, dad told me, but I forget how long they stay there. (Long pause) .... I forgot it, so it’s the man who come over, come over the high rise over here to hunt the jumping deers, you know, and he got home before dark, you know, and the people there, paper or stuff like that, so a piece of earth and tie him to a tree like that, to take him home and then the next time they have, the next day they made the meeting about this earth, you know.

INTERVIEWER: On the land down here.

Jacob: Yeah, that. So this is, I found good land over there. It’s black I touched it, I think this land good for crops. I wondered how he knows that it’s a land and a good crop. No wheat, no barley, no oats at that time.

INTERVIEWER: There weren’t.

Jacob: So I wonder how its good land for ... (laughter)

INTERVIEWER: So there were planting that by Portage, then weren’t they? They had wheat and oats back there, huh?

Jacob: Maybe, maybe it could be.

INTERVIEWER: How many people were there?

Jacob: Not very much at that time.

INTERVIEWER: Not very many.

Jacob: Not very much. Even about, or I see, not very much, maybe 10 or 15 families. Maybe even less.

INTERVIEWER: On this reserve.

Jacob: On this reserve.

INTERVIEWER: I see.

Jacob: At that time.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, and that’s grown into about 940 people, huh?

Jacob: Yeah, close to a thousand.

INTERVIEWER: Close to a thousand people.

Jacob: (Communication in Dakota among family at 15:01)

INTERVIEWER: Are they going to the store?

Jacob: Yeah, you came through Souris?

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, I stayed there one day, nice town.

Jacob: That’s all down the valley.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

Jacob: Yeah, I was there last Saturday, good place,.

INTERVIEWER: Nice place.

Jacob: Yes, I see a lot of cars that stop there from all over the place. I see a lot of different license plate on the car.

INTERVIEWER: They have a beautiful place to stay and they have those rocks that people like.

Jacob: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Well, you said nine or ten families probably started this reserve.

Jacob: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Yes, what do they do here mostly, hunt and fish then?

Jacob: Well, no, it’s a, at the first place the Indian government they issue you for cattle.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, they did?

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Jacob: Yes, cattle. So it’s that and Johnny (Nault’s?) father, he’s died now, so they went to east of Portage. They go down to get a bunch of cattle to bring them in. I don’t know how long it takes that, it’s a long ways there.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, east of Portage.

Jacob: East of Portage, Poplar Point they said.

INTERVIEWER: That’s almost 100 miles.

Jacob: Yeah, about 100 miles. I don’t know how long it takes.

INTERVIEWER: Brought some cattle and started...

Jacob: And this is the way they grow... this oxen, to break in to the oxen and start the plow.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see, the cattle were oxen.

Jacob: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: They started ploughing the ground.

Jacob: And they had growing cattle and buy lumber for the houses, mind you some guy, some people, they make the house. Time it you see, and they are just as good as made for the white people make.

INTERVIEWER: They didn’t make their own houses.

Jacob: Their own house, mind you. I wonder how they learn to make the house. I can make the house myself, you know, right now so because I see how they make it. So this is the way I can make the house, not for them people.

INTERVIEWER: They never see how...

Jacob: They never seen how. (Laughs)

INTERVIEWER: For heaven sakes. Some of those houses are still here, aren’t they. Those old houses, the log cabins are here.

Jacob: You see it’s on number 21 and you go top of the hill, and the south side on top of the hill is a cemetery. And keep going for quarter of a mile, south side is a log house there. One lady we ask, did you see how old this is and that time they came from Portage. She said 1889 they came to reserve.

INTERVIEWER: From Portage.

Jacob: Yeah, and they saw these house. So it’s over...

INTERVIEWER: Almost 100 years.

Jacob: Almost 100 years. You can see the house if you want to see it. So go down 21 to the top of the hill.

INTERVIEWER: It would be off to the north then, would it?

Jacob: Well, you go off...

INTERVIEWER: Twenty---one there.

Jacob: Twenty---one to the top of the hill, not very far from the cemetery, and you keep going on highway a quarter of a mile on the south side just next to the road.

INTERVIEWER: And that’s one of the original houses?

Jacob: Yeah, it’s an old Indian house. At the ( Holland/ Allan?) house about his size.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see, my goodness. Are most of these people from the Sisseton area originally?

Jacob: That’s right. Daddy is an old agent from Sisseton.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, he was?

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Jacob: Yes. INTERVIEWER: Well, this reservation is doing pretty well isn’t it? You are on the council aren’t you?

Jacob: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: I see you have quite a few industries, you have handicrafts, and farming.

Jacob: Yes that’s right. We want to grow a few potatoes, grow farm.

INTERVIEWER: Do many people work away now?

Jacob: Oh, lots of people is working around here on the reserve, you know.

INTERVIEWER: They do.

Jacob: They drive the tractors and build the house and stuff like that. And get money from the government you know. It’s quite a place, you know. So I suppose to be going to fix the (grainer?) today. So it’s...I walk out this morning. So it’s rain so we waiting. So I kind of waiting, rain on it so I feel not very good, so I laying down.

INTERVIEWER: You still own land in Sisseton, you were telling me?

Jacob: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Started...yeah, how much land do you have?

Jacob: It’s three of us. It’s close to 240 I think.

INTERVIEWER: Are you still on their tribal rolls then.

Jacob: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: You are? Do you get back there very often?

Jacob: No, just once.

INTERVIEWER: Just once back there.

Jacob: I was there, I was...Dad and man, they went too, it’s 1917, they went to the train you know. Since I never go back to (inaudible); I remember the country, how does it look like that time.

INTERVIEWER: You haven’t been back ‘til then.

Jacob: Yeah, and I saw my mother’s cousin. We stay there, their little girl, I play with them you know. I saw here it’s 63 years now.

INTERVIEWER: Oh my goodness.

Jacob: They don’t remember me, you know.

INTERVIEWER: No? How old are you sir?

Jacob: Me, it’s 63.

INTERVIEWER: Sixty---three.

Jacob: Same age as that lady.

INTERVIEWER: How many children do you have?

Jacob: Eight.

INTERVIEWER: You have eight children. Do they all live here?

Jacob: Oh it’s, oh they’re all married, the girl is married, the one girl is married live over the next, the other side of the ridge, and we got three of us here now.

INTERVIEWER: What kind of work do you do on the council?

Jacob: All kinds... dirty.

INTERVIEWER: Dirty work? (Laughter) Do you work mostly with agriculture or...

Jacob: Yes.

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INTERVIEWER: You do that, farming. How much farm land do you actually have here on the reserve?

Jacob: Well, in here the stuff is about 300 acres, and we got put some more on for this year, and they put some on for the next year again.

INTERVIEWER: I see.

Jacob: So I can plough some more. The only thing, I don’t have enough money to do it, so it’s late, too. So we leave it for the next year, you know.

INTERVIEWER: I see. You get more than 300 acres actually planted, yes. What do you plant mostly, oats, barley?

Jacob: Some oats and potatoes and...

INTERVIEWER: Potatoes and...

Jacob: Potatoes and wheat and we put some in, and save 25 acres for registered see. We going to grow for the next spring for the people for sowing you know. So this is the way we do it. Keeps the money coming too, that way, you know. And the other way, they buy in (the cabin?) and white people spend too much money. And this is, the cheaper, save some you know. So this is the way we do that. So we had about 30 acres for registered barley. It’s supposed to be coming tomorrow. We had a good crop of barley.

INTERVIEWER: You did.

Jacob: And all barley is good. Last year’s barley crop was not very good, and this year it’s pretty good, but number two.

INTERVIEWER: How many bushels to an acre do you figure you get?

Jacob: It’s about, look like it’s about 50 acres, 45.

INTERVIEWER: Forty---five to fifty.

Jacob: Yeah, not (inaudible) for sure, maybe 40 or 45 somewhere around. It’s a good crop.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, let’s cool it off, ok?

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Kenneth Eastman Tape 845

Kenneth: I was born on November 24, 1889. I was born way up here in the bush ways up here, Gladstone they call it. I was born in November, I always tell the Indians, I always tell, you know I wasn’t born in a hospital, you know, I was born in a tipi they call it. And no stove just a fire in the middle there you know. No beds or nothing, just evergreen branches you know, have that for mattress and bed spread. And they, well I always tell the people how I was born and how I was raised and all, this and of course I didn’t travel very much but still it (inaudible). I was put in school and I spent most the time in school and so I, the truth I don’t know very much about the outside...the Indian side, like, eh.

INTERVIEWER: Where did you go to school Mr. Eastman?

Kenneth: Uh, Brandon Residential School, It’s right in Brandon.

INTERVIEWER: Yes, I’ve seen it there.

Kenneth: There was a school west of uh, north side... across the Assiniboine. It was... it’s a new school there now but the one I went to, it’s a... that’s gone now.

INTERVIEWER: That’s gone now, the one you attended?

Kenneth: Yeah, everything is gone ...I guess it’s been now. Why I was there, you know... we had a great big, big stables and we had horses and cattle and sheep and pigs, you know, and hens. But you know, they, that’s why, because all day they sit and (I had a sister that was there?). So I been there for quite awhile you know, but I’m not a very educated man. All these years I spend mostly was work because that school was just started you know and we worked, we worked...

INTERVIEWER: Working the stables then?

Kenneth: Yeah, we worked and fixing up the... you know, that’s a lot of work, a lot of work. See we had to clear the bush you know. Clear the bush and, a lot of work, most just work. And we have great big potato patches, turnip patches, patches of oats. Maybe forty, fifty acres of potatoes, there was quite a lot of us there. So you ask why, why I didn’t get a good education all these years. I’ve been there not less than three months.

INTERVIEWER: At the school?

Kenneth: Yeah, and I only get what they call (grade, of see that means that I don’t pass?). I’d go to school from nine o’clock to twelve o’clock and (the fifth?) They used to race through (inaudible) between that... I was hardly in school, most work. Of course we learned the farm, farming stuff. We learned all the farming, you know, the machinery. I could fix the machinery that’s broke. I could fix it up and fix it up like that, but if it’s broke well it’s broke. And I, I learned all that.

INTERVIEWER: At the school?

Kenneth: At the school.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

Kenneth: And my trade was farming, carpentry, and gardening, and that’s what I am doing today. I’m working right in Pipestone. I transfer the trees and oh, everything. Transferring lawn, you know and cutting little strips where they just stick them in the ground where they grow and all them trees over there?

INTERVIEWER: Yes, I saw, by Frank’s place.

Kenneth: I cut those little strips right there, stuck them in the ground and I don’t know what they are now.

INTERVIEWER: You still do that?

Kenneth: Oh sure that’s what I’m doing today.

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INTERVIEWER: I see. Kenneth: I just, I was from ah... 9 o’clock toward six you know. Just take my time and I make ten dollars a day, ten dollars a day for doing that. They told me not to work... You know they told me to take a rest right where I am. I have a chair there you know, I sit there and take a rest right there. And when I feel like it, well go ahead and cut. So that’s my trade life you know.

INTERVIEWER: Yes.

Kenneth: Somehow, it’s pretty hard right now in my old age. It’s pretty hard. Well, that’s what I can tell you now, you know, many a time I tell the white people how I was born, I wasn’t born in the hospital, just in a little tipi.

INTERVIEWER: In a tipi?

Kenneth: Yeah, no stove, nothing, just a fire in the middle. And my dad and mother they tell me it was a pretty early winter and there was a lot of snow on the ground.

INTERVIEWER: Did you farm after you left school then?

Kenneth: Oh yes, I farmed quite a lot. I farmed Sioux Valley they call it. I farmed the north and you know, I farmed there quite a bit and then I come home and then I farmed this land here. That first year I was out at the school they give me a yoke oxen... oxen, and a breaking plough. Yeah, and I have to go before the sunrise, I got to go on out. It was, the oxen then was good enough. And hot as it was.

INTERVIEWER: When it was hot...( Laughing)

Kenneth: So I had to get out there before daylight like you know, all day. Yeah pretty good , a breaking plow and ( Gene and Hall ?) , you know they learned you know, have a piece of rope that I can run with my hands. Oh I quit around sometimes half past ten or eleven o’clock. I’d quit then and take a quick rest like you know. And when the afternoon cools down, start again

a little bit and then quit again. And then go on again towards evening when it’s, you know, shady and cool, go ahead. Oh that, that’s nice... you know, pretty good.

INTERVIEWER: How much would they plough in a day?

Kenneth: Not very much.

INTERVIEWER: Not very much.

Kenneth: Slow you know.

INTERVIEWER: I’ll bet.

Kenneth: But they do a good job, you know. It’s a breaking plough and it’s one of these you know. And of course I had, they give me a disc you know, a disc and they give me the house too and this pond, oh it’s a nice end of the reserve and... Oh it’s small poplar land you know, and it’s kind of soft like so the disc goes on pretty good you know.

INTERVIEWER: Yes.

Kenneth: Just cut it right up and then you, they can get the house on well then.

INTERVIEWER: Is that out toward the old cemetery there? That Sioux Valley is it out toward the old cemetery where the school is now or...?

Kenneth: No, no it is furthest north.

INTERVIEWER: Further north.

Kenneth: I’m one of the last, last man on there.

INTERVIEWER: I see uh, uh.

Kenneth: Way up north, I was the last man on the reserve land, right on the hill there, that’s mine.

INTERVIEWER: How much did you farm there, Mr. Eastman?

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Kenneth: Well I had One hundred twenty acres, but most was, you know, bush, most poplars, (patches?). You know, I left on 1908 (the original transcript listed 1918) in February, well they didn’t have pure land you know so I came along the Sioux Valley there and the Indian agent was (Mr.Hollies *) ( blank in original transcript) Note *: J. Hollies was acting Indian Agent for Portage in 1908. R. Logan was Indian Agent for Griswold Agency in 1908 and Jas. McDonald for Griswold agency in 1916. ) they call him and there was no land to give it was all picked up. So this one Indian told me, “Well he’s my uncle”. He told me there was one hundred twenty acres on the north end of the valley was, beautiful farming you know, patches of poplar, you know, the trees and everything else. So I bought, I...they asked me if I wanted it, I said, ‘Sure, I’ll fix that”, that’s good 20 acres and over here there’s a big hill there. You know it’s supposed to be about eighty acres and I took that for my oxen to pasture. (Laughter) I spent that all up, all that, you know.

INTERVIEWER: Did you have some cows too and sheep and ...?

Kenneth: Oh we just had one or two cows then. So, you know when I was kind’of young way up there I didn’t know what, what tired is, when I was little you know, always on the move like you know. So I came here in (1912?) and we stayed there for quite awhile, but I go back and forth you know.

INTERVIEWER: I see.

Kenneth: And my dad and mother was (poor) there. (Inaudible) and this guy wanted to know the dates on this reserve (of the dates?) when he bought and sold, one of them was (inaudible) if they sold for six he was going to get it. So he bought two for the record.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see.

INTERVIEWER: You came here in 1912 then?

Kenneth: Right, you know, like my (inaudible) to here you know.

INTERVIEWER: I see.

Kenneth: I go back and forth this way you know. I know this is where they departed to. I know that.

INTERVIEWER: Did you start to farm here then or?

Kenneth: Yeah. In 1912, I spent, 1912 to 1918 you know back and forth, like. And then after that, in 1918 that’s what did they call it? Spanish flu?

INTERVIEWER: In the war...World War 1.

Kenneth: Yes, well that’s the World War I. A flu, a bad flu came along and wiped, oh the non--- English (inaudible) you know Sioux Valley, in two weeks it wiped out 49.

INTERVIEWER: Is that right?

Kenneth: Yeah 49. Well then I came back in 19...well ah, I tell my first wife like and the children, were all wiped out in the flu. And then I came back in ’23, ’23. Ever since I’ve been here, ’23. 1923. So I don’t travel very much anymore.

INTERVIEWER: How much did you farm here then, there’s a couple of hundred acres here aren’t there?

Kenneth: Oh about oh, all this and all that, well there’d be about over two hundred acres, two, two hundred acres, and I never quit farming, keep on ploughing, ploughing all these people here they all ( inaudible) all acres celebrations you know, Carlyle, Sioux Valley, Cardinal you know, Oh I been here just working. I don’t (inaudible).

INTERVIEWER: You didn’t travel, you stayed home and worked?

61

Kenneth: No I didn’t travel at all. INTERVIEWER: This is good land down here, isn’t it?

Kenneth: That’s the very best part of land right here, all this.

INTERVIEWER: Right here.

Kenneth: It’s no gumbo, no gumbo, just a heaven that... (Note* Gumbo is fine---grained silt soil that becomes sticky mud when saturated with rain)

INTERVIEWER: Black soil.

Kenneth: Yeah, pretty good land.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

Kenneth: I used to get... I usually get crops, yeah know?

INTERVIEWER: How many bushels did you get for an acre?

Kenneth: Oh, let me count... (Laughter)

INTERVIEWER: Let me count?

Kenneth: But ah, I was always satisfied with what I get anyway.

INTERVIEWER: Yes.

Kenneth: We grew a lot of vegetables too you know, they grow all, not a little garden, it’s (inaudible).

INTERVIEWER: That’s beautiful; I tell you I wish mine were that clean.

Kenneth: Yeah, they’re pretty good...well.

INTERVIEWER: You said that Charles Eastman was your uncle?

Kenneth: Yeah, he come to, when I was over there, way up Sioux Valley, he came there.

INTERVIEWER: He did?

Kenneth: Yeah he come there to see my dad, that’s his first cousin like you know. He’d come there and then I seen him you know and he had a, he wasn’t that old, he had a young white man of course driving him and they both take him off and things like that, stayed there for a while and then he went to Beaulah, they call it, Birdtail.

INTERVIEWER: Birdtail, yeah.

Kenneth: That’s that’s, he’s got some cousins over there too you know. He went over there to see them.

INTERVIEWER: I see. Do you know who his cousins were up there or...?

Kenneth: Charley Huntska was his cousin.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, Charley Huntska was his cousin.

Kenneth: Yes, Charley Huntska that was his cousin there and Moses, then of course Moses was... you might say a half---breed, and his mother is related to these Eastmans.

INTERVIEWER: I see.

Kenneth: Oh there was quite a few, quite a few, two or three Eastmans over there, but they passed away long ago, long ago.

INTERVIEWER: Are there any Eastmans’ out in Saskatchewan?

Kenneth: No, I don’t think so, I don’t know.

INTERVIEWER: You don’t know just Sioux Valley and here and out at Birdtail?

Kenneth: Uh huh.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah. Do you remember anything about Charles Eastman when he was here, did he talk to you at all about...?

62

Kenneth: Charles Eastman? INTERVIEWER: Yes.

Kenneth: No, my dad did all the talking. They stayed. They didn’t spend quite a long time here you know, they, they stayed for a few hours you know and then went on.

INTERVIEWER: Went on his way.

Kenneth: But uh, Rogers they call him down there.

INTERVIEWER: Rogers?

Kenneth: John Rogers was here. He used to play baseball.

INTERVIEWER: Oh yes, yeah.

Kenneth: He used to play baseball for the (Brandon?). I used to see him, tall, you know. You learn (inaudible). Yeah, my mother and dad they used to camp over there you know. John Rogers would come along once in awhile at evening you know. He is, if he felt like coming down, down here to have an Indian, Indian meeting you know all the time in town you get (inaudible) brother---in---laws and that stuff, he likes that get an Indian (league?) You know in something, buy Indian bannock or tea like. Oh he likes that.

INTERVIEWER: So do I.

Kenneth: Yeah he used to sit there and sip it (laughter). Oh he likes that you know. I seen him. Now I understand why (inaudible) somewhere.

INTERVIEWER: You said earlier that you were related to Mr., you were to Mr. Cloud at Sisseton?

Kenneth: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

Kenneth: Yeah, he was right here, he was raised here.

INTERVIEWER: Oh he was raised here?

Kenneth: Yeah, he was raised here on the, they start to drift, drift, drift went to South Dakota and then from there on he went to Sisseton, Sisseton, South Dakota. That’s why I went down to his place.

INTERVIEWER: You were only there once then huh? Have any of the Eastman’s down there ever written to you in Flandreau?

Kenneth: No, just, just a cousin.

INTERVIEWER: Just that one cousin. I see.

Kenneth: They, uh, just (inaudible) speak at all. His mother, she’s from Montana. She’s from here but she went to Montana and got married over there. You know and uh, she was over there, but this John...

INTERVIEWER: I see.

Kenneth: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Did your father ever talk of; did he come from the States, your father?

Kenneth: No, my dad is from Fort Qu’Appelle.

INTERVIEWER: Oh he was, he was born up there?

Kenneth: He must because his dad is from there. He’s old, my granddaddy. He’s from there and my dad is from there too.

INTERVIEWER: I see, and your mother was from over here, Sioux Valley?

Kenneth: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Oh I see. How many children do you have Mr. Eastman.

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Kenneth: Oh, well I’ve, I have six uh, well six with three left but I, I don’t know, three, three passed away you know and I still got four girls, four girls and two boys ( Frank and Norris) . Just the youngest one here, Gloria, she’s the youngest.

INTERVIEWER: She’s your daughter?

Kenneth: She’s still here and the other ones (inaudible)( Irene Smoke?) She’s down in Long Plains right now.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, is she?

Kenneth: Yeah, she was, she was quite awhile in Brandon there and ...(Inaudible)

INTERVIEWER: Yes, I see.

Kenneth: She was at that job for five or six years now. She got to talk . One day she come along and said, Dad, I’m not getting anywhere, she said she’s not getting anywhere at all; although I’m getting a top price but I don’t...I can (add quicker?)...to go to school. More and more I’m beginning to talk to but I don’t have . She went to a, she went to University of Brandon.

INTERVIEWER: Yes.

Kenneth: She went there. She stayed quite a while and then I guess she ...oh with so many talents, returned to the university but she kind of went through there and then she moved to Long Plain Reserve. And she was married before all this you know, but to (inaudible). He was a drifter; drifted... he went off towards North Dakota and then way up to California that’s...

INTERVIEWER: My goodness.

Kenneth: He used to drift you know. So he just came back, oh, about couple years and kind ‘of drifted back again.

INTERVIEWER: So they’re back, they are over at Long Plain together?

Kenneth: Yes, they’re over there, .

INTERVIEWER: That’s good.

Kenneth: They stayed together at Long Plain and they’re going pretty good, course my son---in---law is a mechanic, you know garage...he’s got his papers...

INTERVIEWER: Oh I see.

Kenneth: So he, he could do it, make money you know.

INTERVIEWER: He could work in Portage maybe someplace.

Kenneth: No he’s farming right now.

INTERVIEWER: He’s farming?

Kenneth: He’s farming I don’t know how many acres.

INTERVIEWER: I see. Well Frank is carrying on your work here; isn’t he on the farm?

Kenneth: Oh yeah. He works over here but he, he is a councillor.

INTERVIEWER: He’s on the council too?

Kenneth: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: I see.

Kenneth: Chief and two councillors, he spends most of his time in the office you know taking notes and all that.

INTERVIEWER: I see he’s got his crops in.

Kenneth: Yeah he does.

INTERVIEWER: Uh, Pastor Jackson told me you spend quite a lot of time over at the church over the years.

Kenneth: What?

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INTERVIEWER: I said Pastor Jackson told me you spend quite a lot of time in the church over the years.

Kenneth: Oh there’s I am an elder in that church you know. I am a member and I was a man that worked pretty hard, five years to get that church. Five years and you know, you have a Catholic church?

INTERVIEWER: Yes.

Kenneth: This church, one church from ahh I don’t know if it’s the Presbyterian Church. You know the Chief at that time, by the name of he was a chief he’s called. Well the Chief says one church is (good?)for a small reserve. So I, I fought for it, I said we got to have our own church too you know, Presbyterian. My dad was on always on the Presbyterians. So we got that church so that, Sunday school children (inaudible (Taylor?) pick up the money for it you know, we built our church. I did a lot of work, it’s a lot of work you know, digging the tunnel.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

Kenneth: And we worked there and worked there and there were four of us. Four of us worked pretty hard (inaudible) to do this faster you know, and we got that church. There I used to meet an elder there they were...since I am back here, you know, I got some...most sometimes I spent in the hospital, like you know.

INTERVIEWER: Oh you do?

Kenneth: Oh yeah.

INTERVIEWER: When did you build the church, do you remember the year?

Kenneth: I don’t, it was quite awhile.

INTERVIEWER: Long time ago?

Kenneth: Well not very long ago. Just a, Rev. Jackson and there was a man there, ah (Crips?) He was a Minister at that time, Reverend (Crips?)

Now...it’s quite about that, they use all that Church. And everybody passed away involved in that they use all the Church...The Catholic Church.

INTERVIEWER: They do?

Kenneth: They do.

INTERVIEWER: I see.

Kenneth: And the chief that didn’t want no Presbyterian church , His grandson passed away you know and he didn’t have ...(inaudible) church, To our church , at a funeral services. So I (inaudible) I bet even you could see that Catholic church, it’s all, windows all boarded up.

INTERVIEWER: Oh is it?

Kenneth: Oh it’s boarded up, I don’t know how long, it’s been boarded up, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: And they use your church now?

Kenneth: They use our church. I’d like, I like it. I’d like to see the people go there.

INTERVIEWER: Do you know Ed Bunn, Edward Bunn from ...

Kenneth: Oh yes, I know him.

INTERVIEWER: He’s a fine man.

Kenneth: He’s my brother---in---law.

INTERVIEWER: Oh he is?

Kenneth: Oh yes. He’s, well of course my missus passed away a couple years ago, couple years ago and I’m alone with my daughter here, but Ed Bunn. Well that’s his first cousin, my missus, first cousins. INTERVIEWER: I see.

Kenneth: First cousins.

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INTERVIEWER: I talked to him for quite awhile yesterday.

Kenneth: He’s fine.

INTERVIEWER: He was in Birtle. He was with Pastor Jackson.

Kenneth: Oh yeah.

INTERVIEWER: I ran across him there.

Kenneth: That’s all I know, I don’t know nothing about uh (the practices?) You know, I don’t move around. So...

INTERVIEWER: You’ve been a man to stay home to work haven’t you?

Kenneth: Oh yeah, all, all these that go away to celebrations but I won’t go to these.

INTERVIEWER: Well this is very good, I appreciate it.

Have a footnote for Mr. Eastman’s tape. After we concluded our full interview he went on to point out that he has never been one in his life at any time to use either liquor or to smoke. He pointed out that he never traveled around but lived a frugal disciplined life and the comments of the people around the Reservation and in Virden, bear this out. He’s a man who commands respect. The family, the Eastman family which today resides on and lives on the eastern side of the Reserve. That is that side of the Reserve which is east of Pipestone Creek. The creek separates the eastern group from the rest of the Reservation. This end of the Reserve looks prosperous. They have about two hundred acres of land down here and it’s under cultivation today. Frank Eastman the son of Kenneth now farms it. He has a big tractor and he has wheat, grain sown now and the crop is growing, the place, the gardens are in good shape. He serves on the Tribal Council. It appears to me that the Eastman family has been a contributing family throughout the history of the Reserve since Kenneth’s arrival, back about the time of World

War I. He went on to point out that he was rather aggressive and successful athlete when he was in school. He played some hockey. He ran both the 100 yard dash and the ten mile cross--- country when he was there successfully and he also played football, or they call it in the States, soccer. He said they played that throughout the year and he always enjoyed that. He felt as a young man that liquor and smoking would impair his progress as an athlete and so he never was given over to it and he has continued on to the day to abstain. He’s also known as one of the leaders of the Presbyterian church here. As he pointed out in the tape he was one of the founders of the church to provide an alternative on the Reserve to the Roman Catholic Church which was the only one at the time of his arrival. He pointed out too that he has relatives, doubtless has relatives all around in South Dakota and the area but he doesn’t know about them. I suspicion that Grace Moore at Flandreau, was an Eastman was a relative of his and, because Charles Eastman is both Ken Eastman’s uncle and Fred Eastman’s uncle, Fred Eastman being in Winona, Minnesota, we have a tape from him and then Fred Eastman and Kenneth Eastman have to be cousins even though they seem today to be unaware of each other. It would be very interesting if they could read each other tapes and when they get together, exchange views about Charles Eastman.

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Lawrence Smoke Tape 792

INTERVIEWER: This is August 27, 1971 at the Long Plains Sioux community in Manitoba and I’m speaking to Lawrence Smoke. Mr. Smoke’s home is on the southwestern fringe of the Saulteaux reserve. His home is situated in the middle of a number of fields. There’s a field of oats to my west and a field of barley to the south and it seems to be one of the most fertile parts of the Sioux part of this reservation. The house is modest although it seems to be an adequate dwelling place and around the yard there’s some heavy machinery. There’s one wind rower and two combines and a truck and a couple of large tractors, a substantial investment in farm machinery. Our concern here, well, I have three questions to ask you this morning. I was thinking on the way out and one, I’m interested in what you are doing here in farming. Your brother, Arnie, told me yesterday that you and your brother, Raymond, had taken over the farming operations of the tribe pretty much. Is that true?

Lawrence: Yeah, we are. This will be our second year.

INTERVIEWER: How much land is out here, tribal land?

Lawrence: On here we’ve got, let’s see now, one and three---quarter sections is what we got.

INTERVIEWER: You do?

Lawrence: That’s the Sioux’s on this side. See, on the other side, like that road that you come on, that’s the divided line. The other side is Saulteaux.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see.

Lawrence: And this side is Sioux.

INTERVIEWER: You have one and three--- quarter sections here and then there’s a village on the other end?

Lawrence: Yeah, there is a Sioux Village over there. I don’t know how many acres is in there. No too much, just a small little lot.

INTERVIEWER: How much farm land do you have here, Mr. Smoke, altogether? You have more than a section?

Lawrence: Yeah, nine hundred and, what is it now, 929 acres or something like that in cultivated land. That’s farming, but some of it is leased out right at the moment, and we’ve got now 727 acres.

INTERVIEWER: That you’re farming yourself?

Lawrence: Yeah, ourselves, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: I gather you’re trying to get all back, so you can run it yourselves?

Lawrence: Yeah, we are.

INTERVIEWER: Does this tribal land then belong to the group or...?

Lawrence: Yes, it belongs to the group, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: But you’re farming this as an individual, aren’t you.

Lawrence: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: I gather your machinery out here is yours?

Lawrence: Um hum.

INTERVIEWER: You and your brother together?

Lawrence: Yeah. There’s one combine that’s not ours there and the truck and that one little tractor, but the rest is ours.

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INTERVIEWER: Do you lease it from the tribe then, the land?

Lawrence: The land, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: I see. What do you raise mostly, wheat...?

Lawrence: Wheat, barley, oats, and flax. That’s what would be put in.

INTERVIEWER: What kind of production do you get?

Lawrence: Well, this is our second year. Last year we were hailed out, you know, we only had, we didn’t have too much. We were pretty well flattened out and another year like that would have finished us. But we’ve managed to get by this year. We got a loan and then we got some money from the government to back us up for spring feeding and that. That’s how we’ve managed to go this year, I guess. And we didn’t have no insurance last year.

INTERVIEWER: You didn’t?

Lawrence: No.

INTERVIEWER: Then it’s a dead loss to you.

Lawrence: Yeah, so this year we’re insured and we did what was supposed to be done last year, I guess. But this year it never hailed or nothing so I’m going to sleep easier at nights anyway.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, I guess. What kind of production do you expect out here this year per acre, you figure?

Lawrence: Oh, I really don’t know. Barley’s the thing that really grows out here. Like this year we figure ours will go about 60, 60 to the acre, you know.

INTERVIEWER: It will?

Lawrence: Yeah. And some guys are getting more, be we ourselves think that it will go 60

easy, maybe more but... And the flax usually comes out good, oh, maybe it’ll go about 35 anyway. That’ll be at the least the way it looks now, but it all depends on the frost and that. If it’s a heavy, early frost, then we might not get what we expect. But otherwise the oats is going come out good. It’ll come out to about 45, 50, somewhere in there. And the wheat is not as good as we expected. It wouldn’t come out as good as we were thinking anyway, but my brother was swathing it yesterday and he said it was pretty thin in places. So I don’t know, I think we’re alright though.

INTERVIEWER: Does the tribe have any other industries besides agriculture?

Lawrence: No, we don’t, no. Well, there’s, we’re planning on a meeting this fall and get all the work done and the boys are out and away from and that. We’re trying to get into cattle and poultry.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, you are, out here?

Lawrence: Yeah. Some of these boys, we all depend on the boys. They’re interested and we’re going to work as a group, you know. They have a community; well it’s a community development that’s coming in to help us get started. It all depends on the boys, if they’re interested; well we said we’ll take it. Well, Raymond and I were talking about cattle. I don’t know, it’s still in the talking stage, you know, that they’re coming out as far as we know, this fall when our work is done. We are going to go into poultry, talking about geese. And they said there’s money in there for that, so we might as well get a share of it.

INTERVIEWER: What about the tribe? Do you have a tribal constitution, or council, or how does your tribe, what’s the government like in your tribe?

Lawrence: Here?

INTERVIEWER: Do you elect a chairman; do you, or a chief?

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Lawrence: No, we don’t, we’re just a small group here. See, that village and here, they’re divided and some of them were, well, that is the original place was up there south of Portage.

INTERVIEWER: Old village?

Lawrence: Yeah, they moved them to this other place. Well, anyway they’re divided, see. There was a lot of, well, at the start, might as well start from the beginning.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, let’s do that.

Lawrence: My dad was raised there and he told me, one day, I guess, the river start cutting out, cutting banks on where they were. The government came in and they said, they asked them who’s interested in farming. That if anybody was interested in farming they would get them land and they could move whoever wanted to move.

INTERVIEWER: From the old village?

Lawrence: Yeah. And apparently Dad told me there was quite a few. Well, there was the Bells and Smokes and the Chaskes, I forget how many there was. There was one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, there was about eight families that moved out. Different ones, you know. And they all moved out and they started to get them machinery and the horses and there was, I think some of them stayed the first year. Some of them stayed one year and some went back they kept gradually going back and they told them that anybody that left this reserve and went back to the village had nothing to do with this reserve’s...the money part. You know, whatever came off this reserve had nothing; they couldn’t do anything with it. They had no part in it because they left it already. They had the first chance. Well, this is always brought up at the meetings all the time too. Why couldn’t they share in what money we’ve got here? But we always told them why? The government said that if any of you left this reserve and went back, they had no share in what comes off this reserve. This is what they told them. So it’s a separate

reserve. Now what we’re trying to do is form one band... share in what, let them share in what we’ve got and so we can elect a chief and council. You see, they’ve got more people up there than what we have here. But some of them are afraid to, see, what they think is that if they make them one band, they’re going to move them all out here. This is not the idea. The idea is to create a, see, if we could form, both form, we can administer our own band. And give these younger, the younger people that are coming up, they’ve got the education and no jobs. Give them jobs. Make welfare administrator and stuff, you know, to run their own reserve. This is what we’re after. But they’re scared; they can’t seem to get it into their head that they can stay there. Well, this..., but no, they said, we can’t. They said if you make us one band, you’ll move us all out here. No, I said, it isn’t that. And we said if you make it one band, we can buy land where you are, I said, add to, you know, make it bigger. We could do that. As you’re sitting now, I said, you can’t, you’re not advancing, you’re not going anyplace. The government is not doing nothing for you, you know, because you’re not on a reserve. If you make it a reserve up there then, join us, I said, you can buy land outside and they could make, you know, we could buy a big piece of land there, but they don’t seem to understand that. They’re afraid they’re going to get pushed out of their...

INTERVIEWER: Out of the village? Lawrence: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: You’ve never then really had a tribal government as such?

Lawrence: No, no.

INTERVIEWER: You’re just thinking now about forming one?

Lawrence: Yeah, we’re just thinking now. Boy, this has been going on for... well, I was hitting them for about three years. Three years and I tried to talk them into it. But I just couldn’t get to them, I finally, I quit and Ernie has got the job now and he’s trying to make them form in one

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band, but couldn’t seem to... I don’t know, they just couldn’t talk or get it through their heads what we’re after.

INTERVIEWER: How many people are out here in this end?

Lawrence: Down here, right now?

INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

Lawrence: There’s only about 45 because some of them moved out. There’s only about 45 now.

INTERVIEWER: How many back at the village?

Lawrence: Two hundred thirty---five was the last count we had. Two hundred thirty---five, so you can see there, they’re a bigger bunch up there than here.

INTERVIEWER: Well, what you’d like to do then is form a tribal council then and have a chairman?

Lawrence: Oh yeah, we would.

INTERVIEWER: Do you have any kind of constitution now like we have in the States?

Lawrence: No.

INTERVIEWER: Nothing like that?

Lawrence: Nothing at all, no.

INTERVIEWER: So you’re acting then as individuals?

Lawrence: Yeah, more or less.

INTERVIEWER: I see. I wanted to ask you too, from what your father said and all, what tribe did you come from in the States? Are you people for the most part Wahpeton?

Lawrence: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: This is true of most of your people?

A. Yeah, most of them, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Are there any Mdewakanton up here? Minnesota people, Prairie Island?

Lawrence: There is four, I’m sure. I don’t know who’s who and we had a meeting, well, we had different meetings and this is something that we always talked about. The four reserves, Sioux Valley, Pipestone, this one was included ( down there?) ... Prince Albert. There’s seven different bands of Sioux, you know. They’re all mixed up and we’ve had meetings is Yorkton, Regina, Qu’Appelle, and Brandon. And then we’ve, this is what they’ve always discussed, who’s, what he is, what tribe he comes from, and a lot of them wouldn’t say, you know, they wouldn’t say there, what tribe they’re from and so I really couldn’t tell. I know there’s four different ones out here.

INTERVIEWER: Four different reservations?

Lawrence: No, there are seven different tribes. Like Wahpeton and that, eh, they’re different.

INTERVIEWER: Are you Wahpeton?

Lawrence: Yes, as far as I know that’s what I am. I’ve always said I was.

INTERVIEWER: The reason I asked the question is that the folks back in the States say, well, my grandfather used to write, you know, but they’ve stopped writing and they don’t know anymore where to write or where to go to find their relatives.

Lawrence: Oh yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Do you have some Mdewakanton here on this, do you think? Is there a family or two at Long Plains or not?

Lawrence: There could be at the village, I couldn’t say.

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INTERVIEWER: None out here? Lawrence: None out here, no.

INTERVIEWER: I see.

Lawrence: This is, we are all brothers out here.

INTERVIEWER: I understand there are nine of you?

Lawrence: Yeah, they’re all brothers out here. All the houses around here... our uncle lives over there. Percy Chaske, he’s the only one.

INTERVIEWER: Percy Chaske is the only one?

Lawrence: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Where does he live, just south?

Lawrence: The house over there. The rest are all brothers.

INTERVIEWER: I see, so there are just two families here then, really.

Lawrence: Yeah, there’s only two families. The rest all moved back to the village.

INTERVIEWER: Percy is your uncle?

Lawrence: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: When did you get this land from the government out here? You said that the government had offered an opportunity to come out. Was that when your father was small?

Lawrence: Yeah, that was, I don’t know what year that would be. That was way back.

INTERVIEWER: In the ‘20’s in there?

Lawrence: Yeah, it was in the ‘20’s, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Everybody lived in the village before that?

Lawrence: Um hum, at that south of Portage village there, the old village.

INTERVIEWER: How’d they make a living when they were at the old village?

Lawrence: Oh, just by cutting wood mostly. They used to walk way out here to cut wood.

INTERVIEWER: They did?

Lawrence: Yeah. There was a bridge over here, they call it white bride and there was a guy up there, Arnie Shaw. I know my grandfather, he said, that he used to walk from Portage. He used to cross the river and then walk down here to cut wood. Cut wood up there all day and then walk back again at night. He said for 25 cents a cord.

INTERVIEWER: Fantastic.

Lawrence: He used to walk every day. He’d start out walking when it would come day break, we’d start out walking and then we work out there all day and when the sun was going down, they’d go on back again.

INTERVIEWER: That was really all there was to do?

Lawrence: That’s all there was to do.

INTERVIEWER: How do most of the folks in the village make a living now?

Lawrence: Oh, on farms, working on farms and like, now they would by pitching bales, mostly farm work.

INTERVIEWER: Not much industrial work?

Lawrence: No, no, there’s nothing at all. They can’t get a job. Oh, we’ve got some boys educated here. Some are welders, some are mechanics. They can’t get a job.

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INTERVIEWER: They can’t? Lawrence: No, they can’t get a job. Orville, my brother, he’s been after a job for, I don’t know, well, before he got sick actually. He got sick there, oh, he was in the hospital for maybe 18 months, maybe more. He was a welder, you know. And he was a real good welder. When he went to the hospital, he went back for, to his job and they wouldn’t give it back because he left his job. Well, he couldn’t help it because he was sick.

INTERVIEWER: Was that in Portage?

Lawrence: No, that was in Winnipeg.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see.

Lawrence: They wouldn’t give him back his job because he wasn’t there a certain length of time, I guess, and...

INTERVIEWER: Is the Manitoba Indian Brotherhood over there at Winnipeg doing anything now?

Lawrence: Yeah. They are the ones that told that there is money for these community development and that. They’re the ones that notify us and told to get a share of that money. Before we never got what we wanted. And we never knew there was money for different projects, you know, and things of this nature. We never knew about it till it was all spent.

INTERVIEWER: That’s government money?

Lawrence: Yeah, government money. We never, it seems that we’re being neglected out here. That’s the way I feel anyway. And then when you go back and ask, inquire about some and ask for some and they beat around the bush. They don’t come to the point and tell you, they just beat around the bush till it’s all, till it’s over and then they tell you why and what you should have did. That’s just the way they act. We’re actually... we are being neglected out here; this band out here anyway, this small group. I know there are a lot of things that we want and for an example,

there’s bus here. We’ve been trying to get a bus here. They’ve been beating us out on the contracts and everything. You know, every reserve has got their own bus routes and we said why couldn’t we have one? We’re a separate band from those people on this side. They run our buses on that side and run them through here. Well, why couldn’t somebody get that job here and make a little money on our side. Well, we’re not doing the proper way to get a bus. We don’t go through the proper channels to get a bus. Well, we work hard enough and try hard, but at the end they always say, well, somebody else got the contract. You know things like this. Well, this year we said ok this is it. Either we get a bus or our kids are not going to town until we get a bus. We told that and now they’re saying okay that you’ll get a bus. But we said, we’re going to see that we get a bus because if we don’t get a bus, our kids are not going to go to school till we do get a bus. So they say they are going to get us a bus.

INTERVIEWER: Where do your kids go to school?

Lawrence: At Rossendale.

INTERVIEWER: Rossendale?

Lawrence: Public school.

INTERVIEWER: Is there a high school over there?

Lawrence: No, there’s a high school at MacGregor. The boy that went out of here, he’s going to high school this year. He’s just starting high school.

INTERVIEWER: Any money available for your kids if they want to go to college?

Lawrence: Uh, uh...

INTERVIEWER: Nothing?

Lawrence: Not that I know of anyway.

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INTERVIEWER: Any arts and crafts? Do the people in the village make anything that develops a profit for them?

Lawrence: No.

INTERVIEWER: Nothing.

Lawrence: No, there’s nothing.

INTERVIEWER: They don’t carry that along with their traditions?

Lawrence: No.

INTERVIEWER: I understand that you don’t have a powwow any more either in your group.

Lawrence: Here? No, we... this family and Raymond’s, they’re the only ones and Cody’s, they’re the ones that always attended powwows. I think this is our first year we travelled. We did a lot of travelling this year.

INTERVIEWER: Where did you go?

Lawrence: We went down to Twin Buttes. We were up there and we went down to Totten, Fort Totten.

INTERVIEWER: Did you go to the Totten powwow?

Lawrence: Oh, we didn’t go to this big one. No, we were busy then. We were doing too much travelling and we were forgetting our summer products. We had to stay home one week.

INTERVIEWER: I know the feeling.

Lawrence: We missed that one, but I think we took the rest all in.

INTERVIEWER: But you don’t have one here? Do you have any singers around this band?

Lawrence: No.

INTERVIEWER: You don’t have any?

Lawrence: No, just our little boy (Laughing) He’s loud enough.

INTERVIEWER: What church do most of you people go to?

Lawrence: Church? We don’t even go to church.

INTERVIEWER: They don’t. You don’t have one out in this community?

Lawrence: No, we don’t . No.

INTERVIEWER: Do the kids have any community recreation, baseball team...?

Lawrence: No.

INTERVIEWER: Nothing like that?

Lawrence: No.

INTERVIEWER: It’s too isolated for that?

Lawrence: Well, these... our kids always play with the Rossendale boys.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, they do?

Lawrence: Yeah. He won an award this year as top athlete of the year.

INTERVIEWER: Good. How many kids do you have?

Lawrence: We got four, two girls and two boys.

INTERVIEWER: Well, I’m starting to feel....

End of Tape

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Nora Bunn INTERVIEWER: I want to record your testimony here; but before we get to that I would like to just have you talk a little about yourself—where you were born and where you went to school and then go on and say anything you want to say.

Nora: I was born in Portage la Prairie Manitoba, on September 11, 1915, and I was there for about two years with my mother. Of course, my father was in the army at the time I was born. He went overseas, and while he was overseas, things didn’t work out right and my parents separated. And I had to come back to my father’s parents and I was raised in Sioux Valley Reserve.

My grandfather was an elder of the Anglican church, and he himself had quite an experience in his childhood life, my grandfather. He was adopted by the white people when he was a child, and he went to school and he speaks very good English. My grandmother, she can’t talk English; but he taught her many ways of white people, and so I was brought up in a Christian home. I went to school in Elkhorn, for seven years I was in there.

But in those days they worked us more than school, like in the classrooms. We’d only go in the classroom half a day. And the rest of the time they give us work, and we’d do our own laundry and our own sewing and do our own cooking and all sorts of work. It was good, I really enjoyed it. I’m not complaining. Because as now today I look back in those times, I see what the good Lord has brought me through. I was never hungry in those days of Depression; we had Depression back in 1930s.

But I see now as I look back, I know the good Lord is with us all the time. And after my grandfather passed away in 1927, just me and my grandma and my dad and my stepmother. And she always had a big garden—there was no rain in those days, it was very hot—we used to get up early in the morning and water the garden.

We had to go and plant our garden beside the Assiniboine River, closer to the water. And now as I look back I praise the Lord. Nobody had garden in those days, but Grandma had a very good garden.

And she used to grow a lot of vegetables, and I used to see every day little children, our neighbour’s children, they’d come to her gate, and she’d go to the garden with the children. They go home with vegetables. She shared her garden with her neighbours. Now I see why that happened. If you are not Christian, if you don’t obey God, well you have a hard times. But if you trust and believe in God that he said he will look after you, now as I look back in those times I see we were very lucky to have the Lord with us.

So after I left school I worked here and there out on the farms. I had to work to support myself. I didn’t have a very high education but I learned a lot after I left school, by working out of which I’m very thankful. Back in 1946 I got married, and I stayed with this man nine years. And our marriage didn’t work out very good, so we separated, and he joined the army in the Second War, and I had to go out working again to support myself.

And after he went overseas and he came back— nothing happened – he came back and he had an accident and he got killed. In 1946 I stayed with my present husband here, and he’s a very good man. He didn’t know the Lord, and I used to tell him about the Lord, but he didn’t know so it was very hard for me. And he had children; I had to look after all his children. But I’d teach the children to pray, he never used to like me for that, he used to scold the children when he sees them praying and saying grace at the table. He used to get mad and scold the children.

One day these seven brothers came from Saskatchewan, they brought this tent mission. And Wilbur came and told us, they say you folks didn’t come to service last night, we had a very nice service. So he invited us, so we went; and the fourth night we both got saved. And ever since then we were happy, and we had a lot of

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miracles. Our home is a happy home. Of course, our son, he’s way up in San Francisco. And he was a good boy but he got into bad company, and he learned to drink.

But I’m praying and he’s praying too that he wants to come back to the Lord. And we’ve been very happy and we’re trying to share this happiness and tell this happiness to others, sharing this happiness with the others. It’s a good life, life is worth living. Every day we’ve been doing that.

It’s a wonderful life to have Jesus. And when we have sickness in our family, we just pray for one another; and that proved that Jesus is the same as yesterday, today and forever. He’s a living God. And other people tell us that Christ, that’s just a fairy tale; you just want to scare us. But later on they find out that there is a true living God. And I’m happy to say that I found the Lord now. I used to shout for the devil, now I’m shouting for Jesus, praise the Lord, God bless you all, thank you.