It is well documented that many migrated northward into immediately following the Minnesota Massacres of 1862.14 Many of these people settled in and possibly further west. As a plains people they were tied to the buffalo harvest and implicated in the geopolitical struggles of not only the Minnesota Massacre, but also the Cypress Hills Massacre; the War of the Little Big Horn and the aftermath; as well as the Métis Rebellions. These events either included White Bear members or had direct effects upon the White Bear .

The traditional land use, livelihood, and culture of the White Bear First Nations were dramatically changed by the pressures introduced by the European colonization of both Canada and the USA. As a Plains people, the importance of the land to the survival of the White Bear First Nations, and ultimately, to their language and culture cannot be underestimated. The next part of this book briefly outlines the traditional culture and language of these people and how their entire livelihood was intertwined with their use of the land and their harvesting practices.

14 The Minnesota Massacre of 1862 is also known as the Dakota War of 1862; the Uprising; the Dakota Uprising; the Sioux Outbreak; and Little Crow's War (Dollman, Darla S., 2012).

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Chapter 4 – PLAINS CULTURE

Although the White Bear First Nations camped in the Moose Mountains, the , and Dakota peoples had originally come from or adopted what would be considered a plains cultural livelihood. A plains culture was based primarily on harvesting buffalo or bison and other animals which roamed throughout the prairies until the early 1880s. The buffalo herds provided most of the food, shelter and clothing to the plains cultures. A typical plains hunting party was made up of small family groups, with the men hunting and the women caring for their camps; preparing the meat; and tanning the hides. Although Chief White Bear’s family was they participated in the bison harvests as well as continuing their woodland cultural livelihood.

The Canadian courts have defined Elders as those First Nation people who are acknowledged within their community as being the community’s traditional knowledge keepers. Elders are an intricate part of White Bear families and community. Elders are respected for their wisdom, knowledge, and experience. Respect is earned by the individual through their behavior and experience. To have respect for Elders has been a tradition maintained throughout the generations. Harmony was always the most striking feature of their lives. This harmony was not only evident within family life, but also through the level of cooperation found within the community.

Traditional Governance

In plains communities, social organization, families, clans and tribes were founded upon a system of kinship and intermarriage. Political decisions within a plains culture tended to be based upon the reaching of consensus among families and the Chief and his headmen. Also, Elder’s councils were consulted. The Anishinaabe traditions also involved consensus decision-making typical of egalitarian societies. Women held an important role in the decision making processes as they were important members of the communities and often played leadership roles.

The organization of massive war parties against the Iroquois during the seventeenth century and Pontiac’s revolt in the eighteenth demonstrated that Great Lakes Village leaders when pressed, could act in very powerful ways. Indeed such events demonstrate that even if Indigenous governance was somewhat inscrutable to Western military, administrative and fur trade personnel, it was strong, decisive and effective to Anishinaabeg eyes (Miller, C. 2010).

Some earlier literature has characterized such indigenous governance as too decentralized and weak. However, there is an emerging amount of study praising the indigenous governance structures and extoling their positive influences on western democracies15. It is apparent that attacks on the Anishinaabeg governance structure served the purposes of those who wished to transform and assimilate the Anishinaabe People into the European

15 Such as Benjamin Franklin’s use of the Iroquois federalism and the emergence of consensus democracy in decision making.

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Christian model. This is particularly true of the approach taken towards the White Bear First Nations and the attempt at deposing him from leadership of the White Bear First Nations.

Wahpeemakwa (White Bear) pursued a strategy of maintaining his people’s ability to survive by choosing a Reserve filled with lakes and bush in the Moose Mountains. Also, throughout the 1880s he pursued a policy of rebuffing the attempts of Christian missionaries and Euro-Canadian Schools, especially residential schools to assimilate the community. This strategy enabled the White Bear community to survive better than neighbouring bands but brought him in direct conflict with the Department of Indian Affairs (DIA).

In 1889, the Indian Act contained within it provisions that violated the common law rights of the Indigenous people to self-governance and order –in-council was passed deposing Wahpeemakwa as Chief. The traditional governance structure was so strong however that for the next 8 years the DIA was unable to appoint a cooperative Chief or Headman. The result was that White Bear was restored as Chief and lived until 1900, even though he was then blind. It was in 1901 that the band was forcibly amalgamated with Ocean Man and Pheasant Rump. These two bands did not share the same vision and or same governance system and the resulting chaos of the merger and the loss of their Chief the year before undermined the continuation of their traditional governance systems.16

Chief Bill Standingready. First elected Chief of the White Bear First Nation. Photo courtesy of White Bear First Nations.

16 Ray, Arthur, J., Jim Millar and Frank Tough, Bounty and Benevolence, A history of Treaties, McGill-Queens University Press, 2000.

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Spirituality

Plains peoples are spiritually connected to and in harmony with the environment. Many of their ceremonies and cultural ways reflect this spiritualism as a way of life. White Bear traditional culture is based upon ideologies in which humans formed a part of, but were not necessarily central to, creation. Humans existed within a web of life in which all entities, be they inanimate, plant, animal or natural, possessed a spiritual dimension of their own. Life is a process of developing relationships and striving for well-being within this ‘Circle of Life’:

Indians believe God knows our hearts and loved the world, just as Christian beliefs, but long before Christians came to tell us” (Elder Fred Standingready, Living Archives, 2012).

Traditional spiritualism revolves around the Great Spirit or Creator who provides for all his people. The Great Spirit is the creator of all, giving a spirit to all things – wind, water, land, plants, animals, and people. Sweetgrass17, fungus, sage and tobacco are often part of prayers and a ways of giving thanks to the Great Spirit. They are used as purifiers of the mind and body, and also to give prayers additional strength.

When gifts such as herbs, medicinal plants and animals are taken from Mother Earth, tobacco is offered in place of the spirit taken, and thanks are given. Tobacco is also offered to Elders, healers, and spiritual leaders when someone is seeking their knowledge, advice, prayers or medicines. Plains ceremonies reflect this worldview: for example, the burning of sweetgrass represents communication with the spirit world; the vision quest is a connection with protector spirits; the sweat lodge is a spiritual cleansing; and the thirst (or rain) dance symbolizes the process of renewal of life. Closeness to the land and natural environment is central to such a belief system “They do have sweats here. A couple of people have their sweat lodges (Nadine Shepherd, 2013): They have a sweat here once a week. And they have sweats on other Reserves that I go to, like Oceanman. There are three active sweats on White Bear, so you could take one in once a week (Michael Lonechild, 2013). White Bear culture embodies a variety of ceremonies, all held for different reasons, many of which are still actively practiced today. Some were held to request gifts that the Great Spirit could give to the people such as family health, inner strength, and successful hunts. Others give thanks for all things the Great Spirit has already honoured them with. While others still, offer remembrance for ones who have left them, to join the spirit world:

Just look at them as a way of a good life - this has been their intention, because of the spiritual aspect and the balance they bring into our lives … Our ceremonies are part of who we are, handed down from past generations, and they will

17 Sweetgrass, also known as Holy Grass, Buffalo Grass, Vanilla Grass, and Zebrovka, is one of the four sacred plants to the Cree: Sweetgrass; Cedar; Sage; and Tobacco. (Edwin Paul, AFN Member).

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continue to mold us as they were intended to do (Elder Francis Lonechild, Living Archives, 2012).

The Smudge, for example, is a cleansing ceremony that is another very important spiritual aspect of Plains life. Smudging was always performed with care, love, and reverence that depicted respect to the plants that were given for healing. The Plains peopled honour these plants, as they then return the favour by keeping them well and free from disease and negative energy.

In plains culture, the Sweat Lodge is a holy place for the offering of prayers to the Creator, resulting in both physical and spiritual healing. Although this ceremony provides a cure for illness and physical revitalization, the purpose of this sacred healing ceremony goes far beyond cleaning the body. For the White Bear, this ceremony heals the mind, emotions, and soul, allowing participants to connect and communicate with the Creator, spirit helpers, and all the generations and ancestors who came before them (Laframboise, 2008). Some people also have a sweat, or a feast, to bring good luck with things like hunting.

The construction is usually a small, oval, dome-shaped lodge of willows and blankets with a central hollow in the ground. A fire is made east of the lodge, and rocks which have been previously blessed are heated here and then carried into the shallow sink of the lodge. When water is poured on the red hot rocks, the whole lodge is filled with steam, making the visitors sweat (Hultkrantz, 1997):

They use stones, water and sage. Every tribe is different but we all pray to the same god. There are many types of sweats” (Elder Elmer Lonethunder, Living Archives, 2012).

Elder Edward Little Chief Sr. explained that sweat lodges have changed a bit throughout time:

The sweat lodges we have nowadays, right here in White Bear, they weren’t as big as they were … at one time. Not in White Bear anyway. The sweat lodges were just small sweat lodges, enough for around two people. That’s how they had it at one time, a few years back. Now they’re starting to have these ah great big sweat lodges for maybe six people (Elder Edward Little Chief Sr., 2012).

The Plains people strongly believe in the ability of individuals and intermediaries to contact the supernatural world – an essential part of the collective consciousness. Visions, dreams, and Vision Quests form an important part of spiritual life. Elder Josh Kakakaway talked a bit about Heart Hill, a sacred vision quest area for the White Bear people:

Heart Hill is a very sacred area. No one’s allowed to go in that area. That’s ceremonial. They used to have eagles over there … That was a vision quest area. The Elders would be very, very ... for anyone to go around that area. Elders

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would be very protective of that area. If you put your head against that hill you’d swear there was a heartbeat there (WBFNS Elder Josh Kakakaway, 2012).

Chief Standingready explains the importance of protecting the sacred grounds of his people:

Well, some of the areas is what you call ‘sacred ground’. There’s some areas in White Bear, there’s some areas outside White Bear that are sacred. You see, White Bear did its first survey in 1877, even prior to that for White Bear Reserve itself, there are certain areas of what they call sacred ground. You can’t disturb it. Sacred ground would mean that where various ceremonies are held, it takes in burial grounds where people have been buried. Those are sacred grounds and shouldn’t be disturbed.

There’s different areas. Some of those areas are known, and some of them are kept secret. Sometimes, when somebody dies – somebody important dies - when they have possessions such as rifles, rattles, pipes, medicine bundles – those are put away. They are either buried, or they’re put in a spot where nobody is supposed to touch them. But those are considered sacred areas. Also, where they put offerings like cloth, there’s a number of those area and they are considered sacred areas that you can’t go in and destroy or disturb.

Going back even before the 1800s, there’s a lot of migration between Minnesota, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta where Indian Tribes moved, following the buffalo hunting and so on – following the herds. And, along the way, The Cree, Saulteaux, Sioux, Blackfoot – they buried their people along the way if they were sick of lost through war, and those are their burial grounds. And usually they are not disturbed, it doesn’t matter what Tribe you are from – you do not disturb them. So a lot of those we don’t know about until we stumble onto them, or construction or however we happen to run into them. Many are already grown over and covered (Chief Standingready, 2013).

During Vision Quests, the ‘grandfathers’ often will provide answers to questions, and explanations as to the humans place in the world. These dreams and visions are interpreted, and young people are encouraged to embark on these hunger-inspired quests. Adolescents would venture into the wilderness alone in order to challenge themselves to rigorous fasts. The end goal may be to summon a lifetime guardian spirit that would give them special powers and protection:

Before Indian marriage, the young man must prove he can hunt and save the life of a family that he is steady habits if he did have a woman. After he passes that test he is allowed to get married. If a woman knows how to sew and look after her own she is granted to get married. If she is lazy she is forbidden to get married. Parents control that.

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Used to be men bachelors for forty fifty years, and they would pick up an old squaw. Nowadays, girls fifteen and fourteen years and men too think of nothing by marrying. In old days, the squaw would say ‘has this young man horses. Is he youthful? Shall I be safe?

The young man would go to his parents and say ‘is this young squaw able to sew? Has she a good character, without breaking our marriage among ourselves? Will she make a good home for me? If both parents on both sides agree the Indian marriage is that a horse or two is given for a guarantee to the parents of the woman to make the marriage legal … Parents of the girl must give the presents for the young man – moccasins and other things.” (Elder Fred Standingready, Living Archives, 2012)

Before the time of Reserves, the bands would gather together in midsummer, when the buffalo were concentrated in large herds, to join in ceremonies, celebrations, and the Sun Dance. After being placed on Reserves, the White Bear still practiced this ritual with ceremonial trips to Broadview, about 60 miles north of the White Bear Reserve. Elders shared a few different ways their people had to trick the Indian Agent into allowing their Sun Dance ceremony:

I heard why they called that sun dance a rain dance; it was to trick the Indian Agent. Because they didn’t allow them to have their Sun Dance. So, they wanted a sun dance and Indian affairs wouldn’t allow it or the government wouldn’t allow it. And in the 30s it was really dry out here or something. So they told them they are going to make a rain dance (WBFNs Elder Victor White Bear, 2012).

The Sun Dance was also known as the Dakota Eagle Dance:

They sang on a big drum they did not use a hide. There is a woman called the white buffalo calf woman who would bring the pipe so the sun dance can start. They also have to have all the trees and colours up before she comes and she would be dressed in white. She would stay right through the ceremony and she teaches them how to use the pipe. At the end of the ceremony she leaves without the pipe. Everyone dances counter clockwise in the arbor. They would pierce and pull rope as well (Elder Elmer Lonethunder, Living Archives, 2012).

The Sun Dance is the most important ceremony of the Ojibwe. It is held yearly at the time of the summer solstice and lasts anywhere from four to eight days. This ceremony celebrates the continuity between life and death, depicting the cycle of death and re-birth. The ceremony features dancing, singing and drumming, and fasting. Some ceremonies also include the experience of visions, self-torture, and piercings (Vaughaun, 2014). This ceremony along with others was prohibited by the colonizers as part of the assimilation policies of the Government:

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On White Bear they did have a Sundance Lodge. At the Sundance Lodge they go for 4 years, and once they’re done, they don’t have to do it anymore, or they can keep on. We just started. We had our first one here a few years back. They put it up on the east side (Nadine Shepherd, 2013). We do a lot of ceremonies. We always go Sundancing in the summer, in the month of June. And throughout the year, we go to ceremonies to get ready for certain Sundance rituals. We usually go down to Montana for that … the people I go with anyway (Michael Lonechild, 2013). The White Bear celebrate many other traditional dances including the Rain Dance, Pow-wow and the Tea dance. The Tea Dance is also referred to as the ‘round dance’ and is celebrated for various reasons such as birthdays, memorials and other special events, and is almost always accompanied by traditional songs of love. During this ceremony, the dancers dance around the drummers in a clockwise direction. Each passing year, more and more round dances are taking place in White Bear, enjoyed by young and old alike:

We had no sports like at the present time. We had two dances, the War Dance and the Tea Dance. The War Dance was to celebrate victory about the tribes. The Tea Dance just a common shu-shu dance, a family dance. White men started selling tea, made a few pail full and invited friends and dance after. Like homemakers. Some chief’s women get benefit from this performance. They get up and dance, bend the knees up and down, women and men. Songs for that had no words, just the tune. Tea Dance for women for men. What we had at Sandy Beach was the Tea Dance (Elder Fred Standingready, Living Archives, 2012)

Elder Nora Paul fondly remembers the Rain Dances, and how her father sang the traditional songs for it. She told us “there were always powwows … the people used to be real good dancers, they were all grass dancers. They used to wear beads and more ribbons” (Elder Nora Paul, Living Archives, 2012):

I will start off with the rain dance because we used to go to them quite a bit. They had volunteers, four headmen and the bosses were inside and they did all their stuff inside the lodge. They also had singers, dancers and what they call clowns. The dancers danced for four days without eating, they also pierced, they pulled rope and this was done for purpose such as community wellness. If there were any bad stuff happening in the community they would do this ceremony so the bad stuff would go away. They only danced on the women’s side (Elder Elmer Lonethunder, Living Archives, 2012).

As far as I remember, the pow-wow arbors were made out of trees. They had all kinds of different things before they started the pow-wow, they had a parade, small ceremonies, and grass dancers at the beginning. There was no such thing as competition the dancers would challenge one another. Everybody would donate gifts to the challenger. They had a whip man and a whistle man. The announcer would be walking around and talking to the crowd because they had no PA system. They used to have a feast, horse racing, tug of wars and foot races.

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The whip-man’s job was to make sure that the dancers did not waste any songs. They did not sit in the crowd dressed up for nothing because he made them get you and dance. The men and women had roles in the powwow. The women used to join in with the men when they had the grad dance but, those times they danced on the outside and the men danced in the middle and only at certain times (Elder Elmer Lonethunder, Living Archives, 2012).

Elder Almer Standingready recalls ceremonies being held just north of Bigstone Cemetery, and the ceremonies held in his pasture, just above Laurence Sparvier’s homestead “There’s a bunch of circles there where they did their rain dances and stuff:

I have beliefs. I`ve seen my grandfather instill them in my parents. I`ve seen older things happen a long long time ago like, the rain dance, I remember when the last time was that we had one here (Grant Lonechild, 2013). Today, many members of White Bear participate in annual sun dance ceremonies held in various locations upon the plains. Chief Standingready explains the importance of ceremonies, past and present, to his people:

Our family still practices different ceremonies, whether it’s doing a sweat or having a feast, and ceremonies for marriage and births and giving names for honouring. And there’s different ceremonies. There’s healing ceremonies, there’s a number of different ceremonies for doctoring, for healing purposes dealing with terminal diseases like cancer, heart and stuff like that. We still do that. But they’re not all the same because each Tribe, Saulteaux, Cree, Assiniboine, Sioux, they have different practices on how they do ceremonies – different protocols. They’re not all the same. Just like in the European world, or Muslim world, or oriental world – they have different ceremonies and ways of doing things. For healing ceremonies, especially healing ceremonies, there are things that are still practiced (Chief Standingready, 2013).

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White Bear First Nations Traditional Dancers. Photo courtesy of White Bear First Nations. Hand drums, Pow-wow drums, rattles and songs were the main source of musical entertainment used by the White Bear – all ceremonial songs were generally accompanied by the drum. The Pipe-holders, and the men who used the drum and sang the traditional songs, did so with great respect. Elder Lonethunder shared some of White Bears traditional songs including the Flag song; the War song; Honour Song and the Grass Dance Songs. He and numerous other members know and sing them today (Elder Elmer Lonethunder, Living Archives, 2012):

Most of the knowledge that was passed down was done verbally, and a lot of that was lost when the old people past away. For example, from was never documented into words, songs and ceremonies are very important, and my grandfather passed away too soon and I didn’t learn any of his songs. So when I go to Sundance, I have to use my brother-in-laws songs (Michael Lonechild, 2013).

The drum represents the heartbeat of mother earth calling their people to gather and have a good time. There are rules and regulations … women are not to be by the drum or touch the drum and the drumsticks. Some tribes had some ceremonial drums with special singers with four hoops with an eagle feather tied to each hoop on their drums (Elder Elmer Lonethunder, Living Archives, 2012).

Left: Plains Cree/Annishinaabe/Ojibwe drum. Image number III-D-63 a, b. Right: Anishinaabe/ Ojibwe drum. Image number III-D-63 a,b. Photos courtesy Museum of Civilization.

In the late 1800s, Government officials and missionaries campaigned to suppress traditional Native spirituality – complaining that sacred ceremonies prevented indigenous people from assimilating into Canadian society (Royal Alberta Museum, 2006). Their spiritual practices were considered ‘evil’ and actually banned by laws. This official campaign to suppress spirituality did not end until 1951, with the overhauling of

64 the Indian Act. Although many communities and families keep their spirituality alive, others had lost many of their spiritual traditions during this suppression:

I just remember some of them because they were outlawed. We used to go to Raindances … up here we call them Raindances, down in the states it’s Sundances. I lost interest in pow-wows because it’s not the same as (unintelligible). It changes, it got more commercialized (Eldon Maxie, 2013).

Languages of White Bear First Nations

There are four native languages that contribute to the culture of the White Bear First Nations, two of which are Algonquin based, and two that stem from the Siouian groups. These four languages are: Plains Ojibwe/Anishinaabe/Saulteaux; Plains Cree; Nakota Assiniboine; and the Dakota Sioux. Elder Darlene Standingready explained how, although members of the White Bear community all spoke different languages, they adapted, learned and understood each other:

They spoke the five languages, like my grandmother, she spoke the five languages. Pretty well everybody did that I think ... understood each other: Cree, Assiniboine, Saulteaux, English ... We have Sioux too (WBFNs Elder Darlene Standingready, 2012). Plains Ojibwe/Anishinaabe/Saulteaux

The Ojibwe are members of the Algonquin language group which are located from Newfoundland to the Rocky Mountains and from Hudson Bay to North Carolina. Ojibwe, also called Anishinaabemowin, is characterized by a series of dialects that have local names and frequently local (non-indigenous) writing systems.

The dialects of Ojibwe are spoken in Canada from southwestern Quebec, through Ontario, Manitoba, and parts of Saskatchewan, with outlying communities in Alberta, and in the United States from Michigan through Wisconsin and Minnesota, with a number of communities in North Dakota and Montana, as well as migrant groups in Kansas and Oklahoma. The aggregated dialects of Ojibwe comprise the second most commonly spoken First Nations language in Canada (after Cree), and the fourth most widely spoken in the United States and Canada behind , Inuit and Cree.

Other tribes in this language group include the Cree, Ottawa, Sauk, Fox, Menominee, Potawatomi, Miami, Shawnee, Delaware, , Blackfeet, and the Arapaho. This classification by language has been established by scholars, but this does not mean that the tribes are closely related or that they were allies. There is no single dialect that is considered the most prestigious or most prominent, and no standard writing system that covers all dialects. The relative autonomy of the regional dialects of Ojibwe is associated with an absence of linguistic or political unity among Ojibwe-speaking groups (Bakker, P., Grant, A., 1996).

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Plains Cree

Cree is also an Algonquian language, spoken by more than 45,000 people across Canada and into Montana. There are five major Cree dialects: Western/Plains Cree, Northern/Woodlands Cree, Central/, Moose Cree, and Eastern Cree. Some linguists consider these distinct languages, but they are largely mutually intelligible (Ahenakew, Freda, 1987).

In general, Cree people can understand the dialects of communities closest to them, but not those further away: though a Northern Cree may understand both a Western Cree and an Eastern Cree, they might have trouble understanding each other.

All five Cree dialects (though not Atikamekw or the Innu languages) are written in a unique syllabary which uses shapes to represent consonants and rotates them in the Four Directions to represent vowels. There is also another language known as “Oji-Cree”, which uses an Ojibwe dialect that borrows liberally from the Cree and is written using the Cree syllabary.

One of the most important and influential of Aboriginal languages, Cree also has one of the best chances of continued survival, with many children being raised bilingually or in Cree with English or French as a second language (Native American Tribes of Saskatchewan, 2011). Nakota Assiniboine

Assiniboine (known to its own speakers as Nakota or Nakoda) is a Siouan language of the Northern Plains. Assiniboine/Nakoda is one of the five main language divisions within the Dakotan group of the Siouan family. These languages include Dakota (Santee- Sisseton), Dakota (Yankton-Yanktonai), Lakota (Teton), Nakoda (Assiniboine) and Nakoda (Stoney).

The Sioux, Assiniboine, and Stoney peoples are all members of this Siouan language group, and form a dialect continuum extending over a vast area of the northern Great Plains in the United States and Canada. Although Stoney is also known as Nakoda and is closely related to Assiniboine, people speaking the languages cannot understand each other well. So, despite their similarities, most linguists consider them separate languages, like French and Spanish.

Assiniboine is spoken today by about 200 people in Montana, Alberta, and Saskatchewan (Native American Tribes of Saskatchewan, 2011):

I speak the Nakota language and I learned it from my mom, grandmother and great- grandfather. My dad spoke Cree and Saulteaux from the Turtle Mountains. Some of my grandparents spoke that Fort Peck Nakota language and they were part Dakota also” (Elmer Lonethunder, Living Archives, 2012).

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