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

Oak Lake Reserve, Manitoba. Summer 1972 INTERVIEWER: Have you been a farmer out here, Mr. Young? Tape 847 Arthur: One time...here it was all just farming, Arthur: Well this is kind of a joke. Way down (inaudible) just horses (inaudible) I was farming east, along the Halifax (Nova Scotia), in early then. days the Indians camped along the big water. And the Indians all camp, they were hunting and INTERVIEWER: I see you still keep a few they were hunting and everything. But there horses out here? was a big boat that came from England... English came. They see these Indians and they give them Arthur: Oh yeah, I still keep four horses here and silver dollars, you know, big silver money, some I’m still going around with horses, go to town paper money. And the Indians don’t know what with the team; me and my wife, yeah, and winter to do with the money. They didn’t know what to there... when it’s not so cold we go to town with do with it. So these Indians, they gave it to the the team but it’s cold weather we got to hire a kids, the money, silver dollars, and the kids car to take us to town and back, it cost us $2. If playing with it outside and all that. Indians camp we go on the team, well we save our $2. around there, money laying all over the Indian (Laughing) camp. Then the white men they gone back... One time another boat came, well that was, Scotland INTERVIEWER: Is that to Pipestone? came, Scots you know, Scots they came. Arthur: Yeah, to Pipestone. INTERVIEWER: Yes. INTERVIEWER: You were born in Portage? Arthur: Why they came to the Indians camp, why that money was laying all over the Indian Arthur: Yeah, Portage la Prairie. camp. The Scotchmen they start to picking up the money, all that Scotchmen went home rich INTERVIEWER: Is your father from there? from the Indian camp. Well, that’s the end of it. (Laughing) Arthur: Yeah, my father’s from there.

INTERVIEWER: Would you care to talk about INTERVIEWER: Did he ever talk to you at all your background a little bit? about how Portage was settled by the Sioux?

Arthur: Well I was born in Portage la Prairie and Arthur: Well I don’t know. There’s just only a I came down here when I was a young fellow. I’d few acres of land, you know. One might get been running around all over the reserve, Sioux about two, three acres maybe, acre and a half, Valley and all that you know, when I was a young like that. I think the Sioux Indians they bought fellow. And then I came over here, and I married with their own money, it’s not like a reserve here, over here and stayed here. Over here, hunting, they bought that. shooting, everything, there’s nothing in Portage, there’s nothing like that. INTERVIEWER: Oh they bought the land?

INTERVIEWER: Isn’t there? Were you born at Arthur: Yeah. They bought the land, a few acres, the old village there? mind you at that time it was cheap you know,

1 acre or one acre might be $1.50 or $2.00 or Arthur: Yeah, my Granddad was one of them. something. I know dad, he’s got about two acres. There used to be lots there, lots of Indians there; and then some they move, some they move INTERVIEWER: Did your dad come from the onward, some they move on Saskatoon, Prince States or was he born here? Albert, all them. That’s the way it went, some moved here to Sioux Valley. Arthur: No, his father. INTERVIEWER: Do you know why they split INTERVIEWER: His father came here from the up that way? States? Arthur: I don’t know. I don’t know about that. Arthur: Yeah, his father came from the States. INTERVIEWER: How long did you live at INTERVIEWER: Did you know him, your Portage? grandfather? Arthur: I came here in 1937. Since from that I Arthur: No, no I didn’t know him. His grave is at was here. I’m 65 now, 65 years old, June 23rd on the Poplar Point, Manitoba I think. That’s where Saturday. they buried the Indians in the early days. Before the reserve was nothing, going back and forth, INTERVIEWER: Those were depression years they camped somewhere I think and they go weren’t they? another place, all over. Arthur: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Did your dad even talk about that, how your grandfather got up from the INTERVIEWER: Hard times? States? Arthur: Hard times. Now I got arthritis, can’t do Arthur: Well, this is going to be hard for me to much, I’m getting welfare. explain. Dad told me that his father came... there’s a man and his wife, he got three girls. INTERVIEWER: How many children do you And they coming this way, run away from the have? States. There’s some kind of white war or something. And my dad’s father, he kind of liked Arthur: Me? None. one of them girls, try and make love or something. Well they coming, they beat it this INTERVIEWER: No children? way into Canada, and my dad’s father he said he’s following them, every day they come into Arthur: No children, no. Canada and my dad’s father he’s still following them. He’s still hanging around where they INTERVIEWER: How much did you farm here? camp, sleep in a bush, and then keep going and follow them all the time. So at last they gave him Arthur: Well I’ve just got 40 acres here, and what he likes, they gave him the girl to get that’s all I got across there but it’s gone now. married, see the Indian way married at that time, Some Indian agent kind of take it back. I think no minister that time. That’s the way it went. they leased it now for the white man. See the Now my daddy’s father, he came into Canada this band gets the share of that, you know, one---third. way, and that’s the way it happened. INTERVIEWER: When they lease it out? You INTERVIEWER: He was one of the first Indian don’t get that as a person but the whole band. people at Portage wasn’t he?

2 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

3 INTERVIEWER: That keeps you busy though? Cecil Sioux Benn Cecil: Oh yes. Tape 842 INTERVIEWER: Where’d you go to school? INTERVIEWER: That’s by the Portage Glee Club? Cecil: I went to Birtle and Brandon.

Cecil: Tom Jackson and the Portage Glee Club. INTERVIEWER: How long did you go in Birtle? It’s some kind of a history; they made it into a song. I think it was last year’s Centennial or Cecil: Well I started about four years I guess, something. three years at Brandon, then I finished school here right on the reserve at the day school here. INTERVIEWER: That was the treaty? INTERVIEWER: Oh you finished here at the Cecil: Yeah. Day School? So you actually went to three school systems? INTERVIEWER: And that’s by the Manitoba Indian Brotherhood? Cecil: Yeah.

Cecil: Yeah, the Manitoba Indian Brotherhood INTERVIEWER: Did you start with Birtle? are the ones that paid for the recording. Cecil: I started at Birtle and then to Brandon and INTERVIEWER: Are you a member of the then I finished here. Brotherhood? INTERVIEWER: Did you just board at Brandon Cecil: No, I’m not. and then go on to public schools or was that school running then? INTERVIEWER: Is anybody around here on this Reserve? Cecil: I don’t think at the time there was any public...you mean with the whites? Cecil: I don’t think there is anybody that’s a member of that. INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: I was going to ask you just a Cecil: No, that started not too long ago; going question or two about yourself, if I can. to public schools. Nothing very deep, but first of all, how old are you Cecil? INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

Cecil: Twenty---eight. Cecil: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Are you married? INTERVIEWER: So you just went to Brandon school there? Cecil: Yes I am. Cecil: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: How many children do you have? INTERVIEWER: What do you remember about those schools, what did you study mostly? Cecil: I’ve only got one.

4 Cecil: Well, taking English. INTERVIEWER: Your name is from Sioux Benn isn’t it? INTERVIEWER: What were some of the other courses then? Literature? Cecil: Well Sioux Benn is my great--- great--- grandfather. They named me after him. Cecil: Oh, we hadn’t had some of those. INTERVIEWER: I see. That’s a proud name. INTERVIEWER: Spelling? What have you been told about him? What do you remember about him? Cecil: We had spelling, yeah that kind of thing. Cecil: Well I haven’t heard too much about him. INTERVIEWER: Did you have any industrial, The older people might know more, but I haven’t like crafts, woodwork? heard too much about him.

Cecil: No, nothing like that here. INTERVIEWER: Just that he came from the States? INTERVIEWER: The Birtle school closed didn’t it? Cecil: Uh huh.

Cecil: Yeah it did. INTERVIEWER: What do you do now Cecil? Do you work off the reservation at all? INTERVIEWER: Indian school. That was what, about 1970? Cecil: No, I haven’t been working. I’ve been going to upgrading in school at (inaudible) and I Cecil: Yeah about 1970. passed at my level and I am supposed to take level three but that wouldn’t start again until this INTERVIEWER: And this school out here coming winter I guess. closed about what 1950’s, something like that, 1958 wasn’t it? INTERVIEWER: That’s Adult Education? Is that here at the Band House or do you have to Cecil: Yeah, ’58, around there. go away for that?

INTERVIEWER: Where does your child go to Cecil: No we have to go to Birtle for that. school? INTERVIEWER: Into Birtle for that? Cecil: Well she’s just a baby. Cecil: Yeah, and we’re sponsored by some guys, INTERVIEWER: Oh she’s just a baby, she isn’t like either Manpower or – I forget what they call big enough? the other, Ron (Houston?) is one of them, he was the guy that sponsored us. So I get $249 a month Cecil: She’s only nine months right now. when I was going to school there, that’s for upgrading. INTERVIEWER: But she will go into Birtle, won’t she? INTERVIEWER: Oh I see, how long did you go then, during that? Cecil: Yeah most likely she will be going into Birtle. The white kid’s parents don’t like Cecil: Well for level four I had to go two months, (inaudible) by Indian people. (Laughter) because they said I was doing good and they wanted me to keep on and practice for 11 weeks.

5 So I stayed with them another two months and Cecil: No, you will have to pay your own hospital that’s the end of the course. bills and all that, once you sign off the reserve. So I think he only got about $125 at the time he INTERVIEWER: You go back then, will you for left the reserve. But he couldn’t work, he’s got some more training? that arthritis and...he’s been living on welfare now. But of course he gets better health and Cecil: Yeah, most likely, I’ll have to go back, they welfare when he’s on the outside. But on the have it back here in Birtle. And I think it’s kind of reserve you get welfare help, but it isn’t that hard for us if we have to go all the way down to much. Like me, myself, I get $70 a month. Brandon and there will be nobody back here to look after our families...like during the winter. INTERVIEWER: You get $70 a month here, for the whole family is that? INTERVIEWER: Where do you think that will take you? Do you plan to move away some Cecil: Yeah for my whole family. day or you just want to better yourself, your understanding? Do you think that will get INTERVIEWER: Yeah. So you kind of hope you you a better job? get away?

Cecil: If I had a job, a steady job, I’d go. Cecil: Well I don’t think I’ll be able to get away because I’m getting a new home this year. INTERVIEWER: Would you? Take your family away and leave the reserve? INTERVIEWER: You going to build that right here on this place? Cecil: Yeah, because I got two brothers that are out of the Reserve. Frank Benn is living in Cecil: Yeah well right down the road there, we Brandon; he worked over 20 years now in the have three new buildings coming in this year. I water works. Well of course he’s now a member don’t know how they get the money. of the (Job listing?). So he’s been there for quite a long time now; he’s been away from the INTERVIEWER: Is your wife from here too? reserve but he still has had his band number here. Cecil: Yes she’s from here and she lived up further north where her parents are. And it’s not INTERVIEWER: What is the other brother, even a year yet that we’ve been married, we got where is he? married on September the 18th.

Cecil: Bill Benn, he lives up at Isabella. INTERVIEWER: What do most of the young people, or people in your age, what do they INTERVIEWER: What does he do? do for the most part, are there many jobs around? Cecil: Well he used to be working on farms. But he signed out; I really don’t know how much he Cecil: Not this year I don’t think. But there were got paid for signing out. (*Enfranchised?) You quite a few jobs back in the latter years, the see, when you leave the reserve you get so much earlier years I should say. I think everybody’s money. got the problem of finding a job. Because now like the wages have gone up to about $1.75, and INTERVIEWER: And then they don’t pay you the white man don’t have to pay the Indian after that? 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

6 pay $1.25 an hour. So that’s about all we get INTERVIEWER: Have you ever heard of AIM--- from the white people. When the general farm American Indian Movement down in the labour, I’m sure everybody understands that States? because the wages gone up to $1.75, that includes like farm labour and all that. Cecil: No, I guess I haven’t. But then there’s nobody that wants to pay that and I believe that’s why they are not out here. I INTERVIEWER: Come out of Minneapolis. think one reason is because they’re having a They’re something like the Manitoba Indian problem of selling their grains or something like Brotherhood except that they’re more that. younger people I believe. Do you think the Indian Brotherhood can do anything by just INTERVIEWER: I see. No market for what publicity for the way that things are here, they are doing? that they can get you some help?

Cecil: Yeah. Cecil: Well I think the Manitoba Indian Brotherhood are supposed to be the ones that INTERVIEWER: Yeah, you cut some posts here help the Indians on the reserves. Like if there with your father and all this? were any problems or anything like that, I think they were the ones that we are supposed to look Cecil: Yeah, I do, and that even is ... It’s kind of up to. And we had a Social (amalgamation?) like slow selling. But I dig Seneca root too and I get how to go about things on the reserve and all real good pay for that. that type of thing. Well the people couldn’t get together. This reserve could be a whole lot INTERVIEWER: What is a Seneca root sell for? better if the people got together; at least that’s what we were taught in Social (amalgamation?). Cecil: Well its $3.15 for the top price. Now we were supposed to have that again this year, then the chief or council didn’t say anything INTERVIEWER: A pound. That’s a dried root? about it. And there’s another thing too, that we don’t hardly have any band meetings here on the Cecil: Yes, $3.15 a pound and I get the top price. reserve. I think that’s one reason that we don’t know what really is going on... on the reserve. INTERVIEWER: How much can you gather in a day? INTERVIEWER: The tribal government. There’s one chief and two council members Cecil: Well you have to dig quite a bit to make a isn’t there, to get elected? pound. It’s kind of slow work but I think it’s worth it, like in a time like this where there’s no Cecil: Yes. jobs, I’m able to pay my hydro...( inaudible) and have a little extra cash. INTERVIEWER: Has that been going on very long? How long have you had an organized INTERVIEWER: Do you hunt some? government like this? For as long as you remember, have you always elected a chief or Cecil: No that’s one thing that I don’t do. is that recent?

INTERVIEWER: You don’t do that. I notice Cecil: Well I think every two years we elect a new there are a lot of deer around here. chief and council and it all depends on how big the reserve is. Some have six councillors. Cecil: Oh yeah.

7 INTERVIEWER: Is there tribal policemen here INTERVIEWER: So you think it ought to stop? or any other officials? Cecil: Yeah. Cecil: No there isn’t any policemen on the reserve here, but we have from out of town like INTERVIEWER: That’s a good answer. It’s Hamiota, the police comes around, Saturdays obvious to me that you like to get along with and I think Wednesdays, two times a week they people; you were very friendly from the start. travel around here. Are the other people about your age in the same boat you’re in, where there’s no jobs, INTERVIEWER: These men digging the well, just kind of have to wait? are they tribal employees? Cecil: Yeah, they are all pretty well in the same Cecil: Yeah they are employed by the reserve. position I am. Some maybe that have been working steady before might be back on farm INTERVIEWER: And the band also keeps the work or might be lucky enough to get back. roads up? INTERVIEWER: Cecil, does anybody farm Cecil: Yeah. See the band pays them $2 an hour. tribal land here now. 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 Cecil: Well you see they just got their land back. an hour. All this top land here was leased out, and that was finished last year. Down here another INTERVIEWER: Yeah, that’s right, that’s right. construction works down there and this is the Any jobs in Birtle or Miniota for you? last year working on it. And I do believe that some of the Indian people are going back, but not Cecil: No, if there was I guess I wouldn’t be here too many of them. There’s only a few that will be (laughter). farming those lands.

INTERVIEWER: You would have gone, End of Tape 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.

8 “Look at me,” and I said, “I’m healed by the Lord Edward Bunn Jesus Christ.” Look, my fingers all straight, my fingers were crooked, I couldn’t straighten them Tape 837 out and that night they just came out straight like that. INTERVIEWER: June 26, 1972, at the Pipestone Sioux Reserve in Manitoba. So he says, brother you’re healed, take this.” And he gives me a Bible, a second hand Bible with Edward: I’m Edward Bunn of Birdtail Sioux two or three names on it, and he says, “Go out Reserve in Beulah, Manitoba. I used to farm and preach the gospel to the people. Tell them there many, many years, and of course I never that you are healed by the Lord.” got rich with that, but just was making my living. Then I quit that, of course I was sick at the time So I start walking out with the Bible. And today and I thought I would go to the Lord. I heard a I’m all over the place into the States and back pastor say I had a chance to get healed. And into Canada and into Saskatchewan, Alberta, and when I come to I realize I was really sick and all over. (....) And now today I’m working with a nobody can’t heal me, then one evening I went to church group that just sent me to Cass Lake, service and the pastor was preaching and he’s Minnesota, in the States for a Bible school. The telling about this Jesus doing the miracle things reason why they sent me to Bible school is to talk and healing the people no matter how sick they English perfectly. Now I talk English, but there is are, what kind of disease they got. So I had a gap, a lot of gaps in between. I can’t use the arthritis but no medicine to cure, and I suffer hard words, so I’m going over there to learn how with that for just about 20 years. So I thought; to talk English, or you may call it grammar. After I’ll try that. So one evening I went up, the last I finish two months, then they are going to give evening, he called the alter call and I went up in me some kind of certificate to show the people from and I got prayed up. that I could go out preaching. So this is my At the time he said “Brother, you pray.” testimony for the day. (....) Oh yes, I forgot to say, And I said, “Brother, I never prayed in my life.” when I came to the Lord that was back in 1965, So he says, “Ask your father which is in heaven.” September 6th, and I was going nine years old That night I find out I had a father up there, my now. Oh yeah, pardon me, I made a mistake two father died way back in 1933 and I started to places there. Remember I said two months? pray and I said, “Father, if I shouldn’t use that That is supposed to be two years in going to word,--- “if”--- but I used it – that night – if I’m healed school in Cass Lake. And then again I said 1965, tonight by praying, I’m going to work for you all that’s supposed to be ’64, September 6th. my life.” And I give myself to the Lord that We used to raise cattle, way back in my father’s evening. And you know, I had the Lord touch days. Everybody has cattle and used to sell any me, top of my head, sort of a shock coming down time they feel like it. And then they can kill one through my neck bone, through my spine in the fall to use it for meat and this goes on until and divided up my waistline and through my legs, after the Second World War when we came back out they come through the tip of my toes. And from the Army. We started raising cattle. I had uh, then I feel the way I feel now today. That’s five head of cows to start with, and I had almost how I started this Christian work. fifty head of cattle. And one fall, I went to sell And after that, the pastor said, “Brother, how do one because we used horses at that time and I you feel?” got to use a binder. I got to have binder twine. I I said, “I feel 100 percent.” got to have repair, canvas repairs, and all this. I Then I reach down, touch my toes, and touch my got to have food, I got to pay the hired man to neck, no pain, not a thing in my body. Then I stook the fields. And ..., I went up to the next city cried with happiness, my tears were just running to the Indian agent and asked for a permit to sell down. Then I turned around to my people, I says, one of my steers. I had four or five steers and

9 they’re two year olds, raised to sell and they are Then I came out and the very next day I sold one in good shape. steer and I sold another one, sold another one on black market. And by November I sold them all, And the Indian agent said, “No Ed, you can’t sell, shipped them all to the city. And in the fall end none of them, until the end of November.” of November, the Indian Agent came and I offered him a chair, sit down at the table, and And I said, “What’s the use selling them in opened up his briefcase and pull out the big slip November, because I need the money now for of paper. repairs and twine.” And he says, “Well Ed how many head of cattle, “No, you can’t sell it.” calves you got?”

So I said, “Well, I got a heifer that didn’t have a I say, “None.” calf for two years now, so what about that, I want to sell that.” Then he looks at me and he says, “What happened to the calves?” I said, “They are all He says, “No you can’t sell it, you must try it dead. All but the cows, they’re all dead.” I said, again another years.” “They are down in the valley, they die with the black leg, so I have no cattle, nothing at all.” Boy, I say, “What’s the use keeping that heifer for all he was mad. And he didn’t say a word, he just the life? Because she won’t have a calf, I tried took off. But I never heard nothing at all next two years now.” time. And at that time we used horses, and I had about 14 head of horses—work horses—and “No, you must try; keep on trying, some year.” that’s all I had. So everybody on the reserve, I say, “No use feeding that.” they start selling their cattle. By next year, by Then I said, “What about the old cow?” I had spring, there was no cattle. We used to have two old cows, didn’t have a calf. about four or five hundred head of cattle on the reserve, down on the river flats. But next year So he says, “Well, you must try next year again, when there’s no cattle, all the pastures are maybe they missed this year.” nothing in it; and ever since then we have no cattle, on the account of this permit business. I say, “What’s going on here? I want to sell We can’t sell nothing, we can’t sell grain, they something and I came for a permit.” “No, I can’t hold us back for grain. And if we sell a load of give you a permit until the end of November.” wood, we got have permit. And we sell a load of hay to a farmer, we got to have permits. If we Then we start chewing the rag and we got red don’t, the farmer will be in trouble and so are we, faces...calling each other down, and then I said to we’re in trouble. So what’s the use trying to him, “I’ll go home and make my own permit.” farm? This is no good. And within the year, they do away with the permit, and they left it wide So the Indian agent said, “What did you say?” open. Just then we have no cattle, but we are still farming and we can sell our grain any time, same I said, “You heard me, I’m going home and make as the white people. And of course now you can’t my own permit.” sell your grain just the way you want it on account of this grain quota. Whenever the quota And then he said, “You know where you are is open, everybody sells, if the quota is full up going to be if you do?” then you have to stop.

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

10 INTERVIEWER: One thing about that, what INTERVIEWER: Takes a lot of rain, I suppose? year was it that you sold your stock, do you remember? Edward: Yes, we could have a rain every day, and then we get a good crop. But in every land Edward: That was ’50s. the crop will die, but you could have a good rain all night, the next day in the afternoon you could INTERVIEWER: And they have taken away the go out in the field, it all soaks through. But it requirement that you have a permit, what, in gives a lot of moisture then. It is all sand, but if 1970? When did they stop requiring the you get a rain quite often you will get good crops. permit to sell? When they stop, you say the Good nice, heavy crops. day you don’t have to have a permit? INTERVIEWER: That land down in the valley Edward: Well after that, back at the end of the is pretty good, isn’t it, a couple hundred ‘50s. acres?

INTERVIEWER: I see, at the end of the ‘50s Edward: Oh yes, there’s a lot of land down there. they took it off. But there’s nobody farming That’s all broke up less than ten years, that’s the there now, is there? earliest.

Edward: Oh yes, I was farming till this spring. INTERVIEWER: Oh really, that’s just started.

INTERVIEWER: Oh you were? Edward: --- Just started, yeah. And before that, back in my days, it’s all pasture, cattle pasture. Edward: I didn’t farm now, because I’m working. All that field you seen down there? Did you see Because I can’t farm and can’t do this thing too. everything down there?

INTERVIEWER: Preach too, that’s right. INTERVIEWER: Well, down from Eli’s place, I saw that. Edward: So my nephew took over my farm. Edward: No, no, further down. INTERVIEWER: Oh, he’s farming for you? INTERVIEWER: Further down, why I could see Edward: That’s all that black field in front of my it, but I wasn’t down there. place there. That’s all my land you know, from the church east. That’s all mine, all that land Edward: Oh yeah, well, that’s all that river flat, there. that used to be pasture. Lots of cattle grazing there, lots of it. Them cattle was just round as INTERVIEWER: What does he put in there, could be and nice. But now it’s all broke up for wheat? farm and of course we get something out that you know. I think it’s a fourth share we get, the Edward: Wheat and oats and barley. farmer give us.

INTERVIEWER: How is that land up there? INTERVIEWER: Oh yeah, when you lease it out? Edward: It’s all sand. Edward: Yeah. And I think they are going to INTERVIEWER: Is it? change it into so much an acre, cash. Because on account of this quota you couldn’t get your Edward: Oh yes. money so quick, because the farmers couldn’t

11 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.

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

Tape 843 Eli: No, they settled here, the family. Well they got this. Give this reserve to the Indians and they INTERVIEWER: This is June 21st at Birdtail moved here see? I think what they do, I’m not Sioux Reservation, Herbert Hoover the sure. I think what they do is they all go all over interviewer. Well, I think what I would like the place, they settled here and they settle there. to start with is what you were talking about You know whenever they pick out a place, until there again. Go over that, your grandmother some Canadian government give them reserve, there you said, was married to an army this reservation like this. The Birdtail Sioux captain. Reservation here, one over there at Sioux Valley Reservation so on like that. And they put them Eli: Yeah. She married, they call him Captain here and there like that. That’s how she settled Bunn. She knew he was a Captain Bunn , it was here. either John or George or whatever he might be ( laughing) . And of course she never went to INTERVIEWER: I see. And you were born school before and couldn’t talk English but she here? wanted to marry this man so she just learn every...you know on and on but all she knew was Eli: I was born here. Captain Bunn and my father was born, after while she was with this Captain Bunn. INTERVIEWER: How old are you sir?

INTERVIEWER: On the Minnesota Valley that Eli: Sixty---nine. would be? INTERVIEWER: You been a farmer most of A. Yeah, some place there. Then the war started your life have you? with the Indians and whites up there. Her husband was a captain so he took his army out Eli: Yes, my father was. And after my father died and said well we’ll quit that war with the Indians, I carried on. Yeah, he was a farmer all his life. just the Indians. And he comes along and tells her how many were killed and what’s going on. INTERVIEWER: How much land did you have She never liked that, but one day he came home under cultivation here? and told her, he says, “Two of your uncles were killed today’’. And when she heard this... after Eli: Well, I had 230 acres of when we were another day or two he went away again to the farming. war, my grandmother took her baby on her back and took off. That’s when she came over to INTERVIEWER: Mostly wheat? Canada. And I don’t know how many days or how which way she came or anything like that. I Eli: Oh, wheat, barley, oats. That’s what we don’t know. But anyway she got here you know grow here. and so my father was raised here in Canada. INTERVIEWER: Do you lease this out now? INTERVIEWER: She probably went to Portage first? Eli: Yeah, we pull in a lot of money through here.

Eli: Probably, yes. In those days you know, there INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see he farms...? were no towns near or things like that.

13 Eli: Yeah we set out to (a white man a few?) Wahpeton and Sisseton, something like years ago. I quit four years ago. He gave up last that...(Laughing) fall and my own nephew here, he takes it over, his name is Jack Kasto. INTERVIEWER: Your other relatives are there at Fort Totten? INTERVIEWER: He lives up on top here? Eli: Yeah some at Fort Totten. Eli: Yeah he lives up on top this here. My sister live right up here too. She knows, she’d know INTERVIEWER: Well did you go to school at more than I do (laughing). She’s older that I am. Birtle yourself?

INTERVIEWER: You said your relatives back Eli: For a little while yeah. in Sisseton were...? INTERVIEWER: It was an Indian school there? Eli: Yeah, on (inaudible name) and (Shepherd?). Eli: Yeah, Indian school. INTERVIEWER: Waubay. INTERVIEWER: How long has that been Eli: Yeah, Waubay, yes. Not far from Sisseton, closed, do you know? somebody told me about thirty miles from there. Eli: Well I don’t know how long it’s been closed. INTERVIEWER: Maybe, twenty---five or thirty I couldn’t exactly tell you how long it’s been miles straight south. closed; quite awhile now. Well they used it up until two years ago. Eli: Yeah, straight south. INTERVIEWER: Two years ago? INTERVIEWER: Nice little town. Eli: Yeah. Eli: Yeah, we visited up there. Of course there’s quite a few relatives up there you know INTERVIEWER: 1970? (inaudible) and others like that you know. Different names, some of them I don’t know and I Eli: Yeah, see the students from all over, go to never met them that’s why. high school. That’s where they stayed. They go to school here and all but they go down town. INTERVIEWER: You’ve been back there twice, That’s where they board like, you know. too.... INTERVIEWER: I see, they board and go to the Eli: I went to Sisseton twice and North Dakota regular day school? four or five times. Eli: Yeah, they go to Day School downtown. But INTERVIEWER: To Fort Totten? then they closed that.

Eli: Yeah, Fort Totten, yeah. INTERVIEWER: The bus picks up the kids now and takes them in? INTERVIEWER: Do you, did you ever meet any of your Wahpeton relatives? Eli: No, it’s just only this. Oh, you mean from here? Eli: Well yes, but I tell you something, I don’t know much about the different of these INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

14 Eli: Yeah, to Birtle yes. Around 18, 17 miles combine and the farmer’s wives hauling the from our place, 18 miles. They travel over 16, grain (laughing). They got loaders you know, fifteen miles to buses, go there every day. One they have them harvest on a truck. The farms come down here this morning to pick up my always just press the button and dump the grain grandchild and went away. and elevator take it and dump the grain and done. So these Indian people got no jobs. We used to INTERVIEWER: Oh yeah, I saw that little, go out picking stones in spring before seeding, kinda panel truck. now they got stone pickers. They go along pick all the stones with a machine. Eli: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: With a machine? INTERVIEWER: The school bus? Eli: Yeah. Now they got big, everything’s big Eli: School bus, the other one is blue. now and all big tractors and big machinery and one man do the whole work. INTERVIEWER: I would be interested to know, I think the people there would too, how do INTERVIEWER: Are they cutting hay now? most of the folks here make a living? You’re a farmer, do most of them farm? Eli: They cut hay. They used to hire men, pitching hay you know. Put up those stacks, now Eli: Well yeah, it used to be years ago. But now they all bail it and they have machines that load things so hard that they had to quit. You know, itself and stack them itself. The farmer himself try to keep it up and used to get a government does all the work now, so they get people loan in the spring until back in the fall when you couldn’t get no job, unless you’re well educated, get your crop until they cut that off. Now they you might get a job. You go to unemployment can’t make it go so most of them quit. Right now help... this place, ask for a job, what grade are most of them live on relief, what do you call it, you? Seven, eighth, sixth. No, no job. Another yeah relief. come along and says he got grade twelve, he got a job right away. So you got to have an education INTERVIEWER: Do they? you know, to get a job. Even though, right now the jobs are scarce he told me. Eli: Yeah, relief. INTERVIEWER: Hard for anybody? INTERVIEWER: Are there many jobs around here? Eli: Yeah, for anybody.

Eli: No, no jobs at all, not any jobs at all. All, INTERVIEWER: What do you see for the what do you say, you know, all power. future for your grandchildren?

INTERVIEWER: Power and equipment now? Eli: Well if they are educated and maybe see through something better, I know, I don’t know Eli: Yeah, power and equipment now. what they’ll do; seems like there’s no future at all. (Laughing) INTERVIEWER: People used to work out on the farm? INTERVIEWER: Are there any industries out here at all like they have at Sioux Valley? Eli: Oh yeah, years ago, like thrashing machines, They do a lot of craft work over there. thrashing machines and tell you about ten, fifteen men working. Now today they got a

15 Eli: Well, they do it here too, a little. Not as big Eli: Yeah, all the reserves seems to be in the as over there but that is a big reserve; 1000 over valley or on the river, where they can fish and 1000 up there on that reserve. Here it’s just a hunt. In those days way, way back in those days little over 200 I think. Yeah, they do it here too. when there was no farming or nothing, all they They still have their craft work and oh anything I think of is hunting, you know. They live on think that they can do. hunting. Whatever you trap or hunt or shoot or fishing. So that’s why they choose their own INTERVIEWER: The government helps some places. on relief then? INTERVIEWER: I see where the best hunting Eli: Oh yeah. and fishing is?

INTERVIEWER: Do you have medical service Eli: Yeah, where the best hunting and fishing is. do you? INTERVIEWER: Did you do some of that when Eli: Yes. you were a boy?

INTERVIEWER: Everybody in Canada? Eli: Oh yes, I loved that.

Eli: Everybody in Canada, we you know we don’t INTERVIEWER: Did you? pay. No, we don’t pay anything, we just got it. Eli: I loved trapping and fishing, I’d go way up INTERVIEWER: Then all you kids are going to north, six or seven hundred miles north with the Birtle to school? white fellows you know and not myself, we go fishing every summer once in a while. Eli: Yes. Well I only have one going there, there’s two but one is away just now. The other INTERVIEWER: Do you trap around here? one’s finished, quit now, drop--- out or whatever you might call it. Eli: They trap around here.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah. I was going to ask you, INTERVIEWER: What do you get, mink? there’s seven Sioux reservations aren’t there in Manitoba, Saskatchewan? Eli: We get mink, beavers, coyotes and of course rabbits and coons, things like that. I don’t mean Eli: Yes. rabbits, but other furs you know, weasels or vermin. Whatever you call it, white yeah, white INTERVIEWER: Yeah, do you know how those in the winter and brown in the summer. were formed originally? INTERVIEWER: Do you remember how much Eli: No, I couldn’t exactly tell you how it formed, they used to bring when they were. .. ? in the first place. All I know is that the Canadian government put the Indians here. Where ever Eli: When I was a young boy the price wasn’t there was, they let them choose themselves I was very good. Of course it goes up, down, up and told that. Indians choose the valleys where they down, the way it goes. Last year beavers were could hunt. poor, last year we couldn’t sell mink. In fact, they don’t want it. The best mink we used to get $35 INTERVIEWER: I see. 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: Well yeah, that’s right.

Eli: Yeah, so we don’t trap them this winter but INTERVIEWER: I grew up on a mink ranch. we trapped odd ones and sell them, trap them for five dollars anyway, five dollars is five dollars Eli: Uh huh. so...nothing else we could do so we trapped them and the price went up to forty dollars. INTERVIEWER: I grew up raising them.

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

Eli: When Hudson sell some. INTERVIEWER: Yeah. The beaver, do you still trap a little of that or...? INTERVIEWER: At Hudson Bay? Eli: Oh yeah, beaver, yeah. We trap a lot of that. Eli: Well no...Yeah that’s well; Hudson Bay and The price was good this year. these auction sales, big auction sales at Winnipeg (inaudible) sell it to all over the world. INTERVIEWER: Was it?

INTERVIEWER: Forty---dollars apiece? Eli: Yeah.

Eli: Forty dollars and way up, Edmonton, is way INTERVIEWER: What do they bring, do you up north. They went up to ninety dollars, some, remember? not all but some, the best. Yeah, they got fine dark mink up there. We don’t get it here. Eli: Oh they bring big, good, real large, what they call the “blanket beaver”, extra large, extra, extra INTERVIEWER: What do you have here, large, forty to fifty dollars. brown? INTERVIEWER: That’s pretty good, I.... Eli: Brown, dark brown, pale. It usually goes thirty---five maybe forty dollars. So the buyers Eli: Yeah. here will make money this year ( laughing). They pay five dollars, six dollars here and the INTERVIEWER: I trapped with a kind, I think price jump way up. fifty---five dollars was about as high as they ever got. INTERVIEWER: Yeah, people don’t... Eli: Yeah, but you see, there’s what I was saying Eli: The sellers were late you know, that was in about the fine, dark beaver, you don’t often get January and then after that the furs no good. I them. Well in the spring you trap them, you don’t know, that was in January and then after might get two or three. You get mostly light that the furs no good. I don’t know, I never seen brown and pale and light brown, dark brown. the difference myself. I trapped all my life but that’s the way they grade them. Furs good from INTERVIEWER: Do you ever do any November to December and they call it woodcutting for? (inaudible) or something like that. After January, the price go down. Yet I can never see no Eli: Yeah. difference. INTERVIEWER: Is there a market for that? INTERVIEWER: The fur rots a little bit I guess.

17 Eli: Yeah. We cut a lot of posts and take to this INTERVIEWER: I talked to Tom about here store in Beulah here and he treated them. It’s a and he said that he has some posts here and poplar posts. He treat them and he sell them. Oh nobody buys them. he give us a good price, 18 cents a post, he gives you know. Cut it from the bush and take it up Eli: No. there. Get 18 cents trade from the store and well, he sell it thirty---five to forty---five cents each I INTERVIEWER: Do any of the young people go guess after he treat it because there’s a lot of away now to Winnipeg or Brandon? work you got to do. Eli: Oh yes, there’s a lot of them. INTERVIEWER: Do you have to peel them or...? INTERVIEWER: Went away to live?

Eli: Yeah, no, we don’t peel them. We used to. Eli: I don’t know, I couldn’t tell you. I was in To start off we used to peel them. Now they tell Winnipeg last week. I had a girl up there in the us just to peel what goes in the ground, now they hospital and I went up to see her. They told me just take the whole thing. They find out there’s the biggest Indian reserve in Manitoba is no difference. Winnipeg , the city of Winnipeg ( laughter) .

INTERVIEWER: Is that right? INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

Eli: Yeah. Eli: Yeah, people moving into the city, into the city and not doing anything. INTERVIEWER: Treat them with the bark on? INTERVIEWER: There’s no work there? Eli: Yeah with the bark on. Eli: (Inaudible) they drove up there (inaudible) INTERVIEWER: I’ll be darned. to live up there.

Eli: But this year a (inaudible...he tried to help INTERVIEWER: Things may be better here him?) He stopped buying so we can’t sell nothing. isn’t it? But I don’t know, I say we, I don’t cut wood any more myself. But the boys on the reserve here, Eli: Yeah, that’s why I want to be out here, you’d they sell a lot of posts. have to get us welfare ...help us out here in the country (laughing) than in the city. I don’t know INTERVIEWER: Still do, huh? how they work. I guess they get them houses and help along side. Eli: Yeah, the buyer, as I said before, the buyer is sick and he don’t buy anymore, nobody does now. INTERVIEWER: How many children do you have Mr. Bunn? INTERVIEWER: Yeah, I talked to... Eli: Well I have two boys and a little girl, and the Eli: It hits, it hits us hard. girl died when a year old, so I only raised two sons. Two sons and I have nine, ten grand, no INTERVIEWER: I guess. nine grandchildren.

Eli: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Do they all live here?

18 Eli: Yeah, they all live on the reserve here; two Eli: Yeah. girls and seven boys. That’s my grandchildren, then the boy who came with him, that’s the INTERVIEWER: That’s terrible. oldest of my grandchildren. Eli: Terrible. INTERVIEWER: Grandchildren, yeah. INTERVIEWER: Well the house, you have a Eli: He’s got three little boys, so I... nice house here just finished, is this a tribal project or is this...? INTERVIEWER: I saw them. Eli: Yeah I guess that’s what you call it. I pay Eli: I, I got three great--- grandchildren. twenty---five dollars.

INTERVIEWER: Oh yeah? INTERVIEWER: A month.

Eli: The boys there. Eli: No.

INTERVIEWER: And they all stay here, do they INTERVIEWER: Oh, just... farm or...? Eli: Put down twenty---five dollars, well pension Eli: No, they don’t farm; they labour; whatever to get a new house. way they can get a job; whatever they can get. INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see. INTERVIEWER: How about the government, do you think the government does enough for Eli: They told me this is a 8 or 9 thousand dollar the people out here or...maybe that’s kind of house, if we go inside and see it how it’s finished hard to answer, I don’t know. inside, still not painted yet.

Eli: That’s pretty hard to answer but what they INTERVIEWER: Three bedroom is it? help us with, if we use it right. I think its good enough. That’s what I think myself, if we use it Eli: Yeah, one, two, three, four bedrooms. right. But we don’t. In places we don’t. I got one hundred thirty--- seven dollars a month relief. INTERVIEWER: Four bedrooms. They raised that now. I’m going to get one hundred fifty dollars so with back pay from Eli: Yes, four bedrooms, kitchen and living room. January, this coming month I’m going to get one And the plumbers got the water works. They hundred ...or two hundred dollars with the back going to drill wells beside all the houses and put pay. And from there on I get one hundred fifty in the water works. So they might get that this dollars a month. If I use that right, it’s just ...you year or the next year or whenever they come in. don’t make it, but you know, that’s a (inaudible). INTERVIEWER: I saw some log houses back INTERVIEWER: Yes I... here. Are these (inaudible) that the old houses? Eli: You got hydro bills to pay and. Well that kind of stuff you know. You go in the store today, Eli: Yeah, the old house we had to move away you spend twenty dollars, you just get a handful we’re not allowed to live in log houses any more. of groceries, come out. INTERVIEWER: Oh you aren’t? INTERVIEWER: Yeah, isn’t that true?

19 Eli: No. Eli: Yeah, there’s two flyers went by here, one 3:30, one 4:30 in the morning. But they don’t INTERVIEWER: I’ve seen several of them in stop here, they stop way back, way back, oh way Sioux Valley (here in the recording a train is back in Saskatchewan, they stop in Rivers, and passing by and drowning out the Portage and Winnipeg. conversation) . INTERVIEWER: What do you have, bus Eli: No, no, yeah the houses aren’t allowed. They transportation out there? don’t allow us to live in log houses anymore. That’s why they build us houses, every year they Eli: Yeah, they drive mostly buses... build houses. (inaudible) two or three (inaudible) hours of, soon as we get (inaudible) INTERVIEWER: You catch that one out on the that one followed why then the ( .. inaudible) highway there? that’s just down the hill. Well we got a lot of your. . your American engines over here. Eli: Uh huh, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Oh you do. INTERVIEWER: Yeah, they stop at Beulah?

Eli: Yeah. Eli: Uh, huh.

INTERVIEWER: Is that right? INTERVIEWER: I want to ask you too about the government, I, down in the States since Eli: Yeah they are supposed to rent them or the ‘30’s, every tribe, has a constitution (* something like that. Indian Reorganization Act) and they have a tribal council and they elect a chief you know INTERVIEWER: You know they are kind of.... and tribal president and all, how does that work up here? Eli: To speed up hauling grain. Eli: It works just the same. INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see. INTERVIEWER: Does it? Eli: Yeah, I think they’re sold a lot of grain to Japan or China or Russia or something like that. Eli: Yeah. And they want to get that in this summer. We haven’t got .. enough engines right now. INTERVIEWER: Just about the same. (...) How often do you have elections then? INTERVIEWER: Well you know they are taking off trains down there. Eli: Every two years. Every two years, new chief and councillors and (...). Eli: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: How many on your council INTERVIEWER: Trains are having a lot of here? trouble; you can’t even get a ride on one anymore. I wanted to ask you... Eli: Two.

Eli: Well, we can’t, we can’t ride, we don’t ride INTERVIEWER: Two on the council. trains anymore here.

INTERVIEWER: Don’t you?

20 Eli: Two yeah. Depends on the size of the should have one or two. Our biggest trouble on reserve. I think Griswold has eight or nine, ten this reserve is drinking. or something. Bigger reserve. One chief. INTERVIEWER: Is it? INTERVIEWER: The chief seems to stay pretty busy here. Eli: That puts us down, very badly, all Indian people. Eli: Yeah; always got to sit in the office all the time. Self---government they call it now. He looks INTERVIEWER: It got worse over the years after everything here. We used to go to Indian or..? agents to get those things done you know, but now it’s all done right here on the reserve. They Eli: Worse and worse and worse every year. Lot run it themselves, they elect their own secretary, of troubles. all Indian. White man come along from the government, man come along, check things over INTERVIEWER: Yeah, I guess, that’s and go again, maybe some days he don’t come at everywhere I think people... all. (Laughing) Eli: It’s everywhere. INTERVIEWER: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Yeah. Eli: Yeah, they give us a grant, grant so much money for this, so much money for that, so much Eli: Like I was saying before, that my money for go to work, recreations and things like grandmother came from the States, and I said I’d that... hospital (inaudible). Oh somebody was be back when winter starts... sick and they come here and ask would you take Well her grandfather was a (inaudible) Chief up them in? I start up my car and take them in. there one time. They paid me for that, right now. INTERVIEWER: Did she ever talk about him? INTERVIEWER: That’s all through the tribe? Eli: Yes , oh yes, she talked about him. She said Eli: Yeah, all through the tribe. I got the they took him to Europe one time. statement book there, every one of us have one of them. Somebody’s sick and couldn’t get a car INTERVIEWER: Yes they did. 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. Eli: Yeah, Europe one time and he come back So I just write down here and take my statement and told the people, he says, “Look when I was into the doctor, doctor sign his name. I brought up there”, he says, “out there the people are just it back to the office, I get paid. like ants” he says, “and that’s what’s going to happen here too in the future time”. Well you INTERVIEWER: I see. did today.

Eli: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: People all over.

INTERVIEWER: Have you tribal police or Eli: People all over. I seen that he says when I band police or...? went across that ocean...in those days it took a long time, long time to go across. Eli: No we didn’t have any. We’re thinking of, talking about having one (D.O.Ps). We really INTERVIEWER: On a boat?

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

Eli: Like a sailboat. (Laughing) INTERVIEWER: Well you know, the Peace Pipe and...? INTERVIEWER: You said that Captain Bunn looked for your grandmother? Eli: Oh yes. At Griswold they do lot of that and Pipestone, lots of that and they do it here too but Eli: Yeah, looked for his grandmother, I mean his not too many. wife. INTERVIEWER: I gather that people here still INTERVIEWER: Yeah his wife. talk Sioux quite a bit.

Eli: Wife. Eli: Yeah, they talk Sioux quite a lot.

INTERVIEWER: Did he ever find her? INTERVIEWER: Young people do too or?

Eli: Never found her, never wanted to go back so Eli: No, these grandchildren of mine sitting in she hide away from him I guess, maybe. the house here they don’t talk Sioux, they understand but they don’t use it. INTERVIEWER: Did she talk at all about trip up here, or you said she didn’t know? INTERVIEWER: That’s too bad.

Eli: No, why I was only a kid when used to talk. I Eli: Yeah, a long time when, a couple of years ago, was only a kid when she used to tell stories, they were talking about putting up a school to that’s a long, long time ago so I don’t remember teach them, teach them the old language. (* all I hear. She used to tell a lot of stories, but my immersion) Yeah, fell through you know. father doesn’t talk about it. He’s so busy farming and working, he never talks about it to us. I just INTERVIEWER: Yeah, they started to teach remember here and there, you know what I them now at the University of South Dakota. recall from what my grandmother said, that’s all. Eli: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: The kids are learning again. Eli: Probably a lot to it but... Eli: Yeah, that’s what they are talking about here INTERVIEWER: Somebody told me, I think too, in Canada. They shouldn’t forget their Florence Bunn told me that there’s mostly language. Presbyterian church here, is that...? INTERVIEWER: No indeed, they shouldn’t. Eli: Yeah it’s Presbyterian church on the reserve, Well that’s good. yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Never anybody use the old End of tape Indian?

22 Emma: Well I can’t just... Emma Pratt INTERVIEWER: From Sissteon Tape 791 INTERVIEWER: Yeah, I was in that cemetery a Herbert Hoover the interviewer. August 3l, 1971 couple of days ago. Were some of those at Sioux Valley Reserve in Manitoba north of people your relatives? Griswold. INTERVIEWER: At Portage. INTERVIEWER: We’ll start right where you were there. You said you were born and INTERVIEWER: Because of the people in raised in Portage. Portage that provided.

Emma: Yes. INTERVIEWER: I see.

INTERVIEWER: So you would have been in INTERVIEWER: Your mother? What was her the old village there, huh? name?

Emma: Yes, in the old part right down by the INTERVIEWER: Lidia. I see. And how old are Assiniboine there. you Mrs. Pratt?

INTERVIEWER: Yes. Emma: 87 and left there when you were 20?

Emma: It’s washed away now. INTERVIEWER: What tribe did your people come from back in the States? INTERVIEWER: Yeah, I was in that cemetery a . From Sissteon couple of days ago. Were some of those people your relatives? ?

Emma: Yes, my mother. Emma: No, what they call Shanshiope.

INTERVIEWER: Your mother? What was her INTERVIEWER: Shanshiope, I see, where did name? they come from?

Emma: Lidia. Emma: Over in Minnesota.

INTERVIEWER: Lidia. I see. And how old are INTERVIEWER: Over in Minnesota, down you Mrs. Pratt? around the Granite Falls and that area do you think? Emma: I’m, I’ll be 87 in November. Emma: Yes, I forget, my Uncle Jim did tell me the INTERVIEWER: 87 and left there when you name of the place where they came from, but I were 20? forgot, I forget.

Emma: Yes. INTERVIEWER: I see. What was your name before you were married? INTERVIEWER: What tribe did your people come from back in the States? Emma: Well my father’s name was Chanupa. I don’t know the rest of it. He had a long name.

23 INTERVIEWER: I see. That is the most that was in there. It wasn’t a big place. It was an old house built up you know and Emma: But when we went to school, went to the school room added to it and the play room in boarding school. See he died and my mother was between. Miss Walker was the first teacher sick at the time so I was only four years old when there I think, or Miss Best. And they when they I was put into school there. left Miss Frazier came, and Miss Laidlow came from Ontario. I don’t know where Miss Frazier INTERVIEWER: At Portage. came. She was a Scotch lady.

Emma: At Portage. And each child, if they went INTERVIEWER: What kind of things did they there and had someone from the town provide teach you? for them and they take their name. That’s how I got my name. Garland. I was called Emma Emma: Well there just the school books. Garland. INTERVIEWER: Just the regular courses? INTERVIEWER: Because of the people in Portage that provided. Emma: Courses and school books.

Emma: Yes. INTERVIEWER: Reading and writing and history and... INTERVIEWER: I see. Emma: Yes, geography. Emma: And my sister when she came in she was Grant, Jessie Grant. INTERVIEWER: Were there any practical things like cooking and sewing? INTERVIEWER: I see. Did your father come up from the States then? Emma: Oh yes, we had to cook and sew. I did most, well when the bigger girls left, there were Emma: I don’t know. some there that were older, shouldn’t have stayed that long, but they were helping in the INTERVIEWER: You don’t know whether he school. They were 18 when they left school. So came? 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 Emma: I don’t know whether he came. No, I in the mornings. don’t think so. INTERVIEWER: I see you work in the INTERVIEWER: He didn’t ever talk about mornings. that? Emma: Getting dinner ready and stuff like that. Emma: No, cause I didn’t know him. I was only four when he died and my sister was only two. INTERVIEWER: What did the boys do? And Miss Frazier and Miss Laidlow were the teachers there in the school. Emma: Well they, they used to put in garden and when they, a load of wood came, they would saw INTERVIEWER: What do you remember about it up. They kept the wood pile high, and played that school? most of the time. (Laughing)

Emma: Well, I never, there weren’t more than INTERVIEWER: Was that school close to 30. There were few boys and girls about 30 of us. where the boarding school is now?

24 Emma: No it was way off on the east end. I just brother, worked at the meat, where they used to was coming through there last spring and I can’t kill beef and at that same place, they made cider place it, you know, it’s all tore down I think, and there and he used to come home drunk every there’s just where there’s trees there I think that night on the cider. (Laughing) was the spot. I couldn’t recognize the place. INTERVIEWER: Were there a lot of people in INTERVIEWER: On the east end of Portage? the village then?

Emma: On the east and right off the east end and Emma: Well there seemed to me, of course, I they used to be near the railway and there used was small and I stayed there most of the time. to be a big tank you know. Water tank there for There were a lot of older people like there the CPR train. seemed to be a lot of old women at the time and old men. ‘Cause we used to gather in the evening INTERVIEWER: Oh I see. you know they’re going from, visiting here and there. Then there were quite a few seven or Emma: See these trains used to stop there for eight of them sitting outside there and mother water and it’s gone. There is no tank there now used to invite the old people there and there so I couldn’t recognize the place where it was. used to be quite a few. You know, Uncle Jim worked at this butcher place and he’d bring meat, INTERVIEWER: You couldn’t have been more a lot of meat home, and she used to cook big pots than just a short distance from the village full and make bannock outside you know and though. About two miles huh? invite all these old people in the evenings. They kind of looked forward to that. Emma: Oh yes, it’s about two miles. We used to walk out there and take a walk down there’s a INTERVIEWER: Was there hunting around for creek going through before you come to the the men? village there, and there used to be a lot of berries around there. Plums, and chokecherries, Emma: Hunting, yes, they used to go way down cranberries, and when they were ready we used south. When mother married again, my to go up there and pick them. stepfather went across the Assiniboine. I don’t know how far he went but in the winter time I INTERVIEWER: Mrs. Pratt, what did the folks know because mother came in one day very in the village do for a living mostly back then? excited. He’d shot a bear and brought it home.

Emma: Well, I don’t know what they did, but INTERVIEWER: Oh my. they kept them...well the men used to go around working for farmers around there and people in Emma: So I had to see this bear. She took me town. They used a lot of wood those days and it home and oh it seemed such size you know. was all going around selling wood or they were (Laughing) Yeah. People came from Winnipeg they helped in the yards and things like that. even to buy a piece of bear meat. They got little jobs around town. I know when my grandfather was living he used to make INTERVIEWER: Did they fish up on the baskets, little baskets. Manitoba Lake?

INTERVIEWER: Oh he did? Emma: Yes, when they were up there trapping and they used to go up and trap up there a lot. Emma: And he made pot scrapers and things like that and he went around town selling them INTERVIEWER: They did. Mink? and then my uncle worked at the, my mother’s

25 Emma: Yes, they got lots of mink. There’s so Emma: Presbyterian. much mink. I used to have mink made in my cap and the boys went around with mink caps and INTERVIEWER: Presbyterian. Most of those mittens. people are Presbyterians then?

INTERVIEWER: My goodness. Emma: Yes. Because we were, there was a Presbyterian school in care of the Presbyterian Emma: Jackets made of mink. kept it going.

INTERVIEWER: Were those natural black INTERVIEWER: Oh the boarding school was? mink? Emma: Yes. Emma: Yes. INTERVIEWER: Oh I see. That wasn’t a INTERVIEWER: Pretty? government school then?

Emma: Oh yes, and there’s lots of muskrats, Emma: No. It was a church school. muskrats were worth hardly anything. Well we only got 20 cents apiece for them. INTERVIEWER: You were twenty then when you got married. INTERVIEWER: 20 cents? What did they get for the mink, do you remember? Emma: Yes.

Emma: No, the minks were more, but I don’t INTERVIEWER: And moved over here? Yeah, know just, I don’t remember just what they got what tribe or band did your husband come from them. from then. Do you know?

INTERVIEWER: How about beaver? Emma: Wahpekute

Emma: Oh they got beaver. INTERVIEWER: Was he?

INTERVIEWER: Did they? Emma: Yes.

Emma: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: I see. Then he would come maybe from North Dakota or South Dakota INTERVIEWER: Was there a church at the old too, around the Sisseton area. village? Emma: No, he come from about the same, near Emma: Yes. the same place as where my mother’s father came? INTERVIEWER: There was. INTERVIEWER: Did they all come in the ‘60s Emma: There was, but I don’t know when it then, the 1860s? started but there was one there. Emma: Well whenever that... INTERVIEWER: Do you remember what denomination it was? INTERVIEWER: That uprising?

Emma: Yes.

26 INTERVIEWER: Yeah. I see. Yeah. What did INTERVIEWER: Archie. Do they all work out your husband do for a living out here? here on the reserve or do they work off?

Emma: He farmed here. Emma: Well, my youngest boy works in Winnipeg. He’s in the MIB (*Manitoba Indian INTERVIEWER: Did he? Brotherhood) business. He was used to be at home here and he added to my old house that Emma: Yes. was built in 1901 but he got this work and he had to move back to Winnipeg again. He was in INTERVIEWER: How much land did he farm, Winnipeg. He was working for this CPR trucking. do you remember? But he’s moved back again. He just moved back Thursday. Emma: Not 200 acres anyway. INTERVIEWER: I see. Have you always lived INTERVIEWER: It was a pretty big farm in this house since you’ve been married? though, huh? Emma: No this was built not long ago. Emma: Yes, it’s all this flat here and then almost to the hills across the Oak River. INTERVIEWER: Not long ago?

INTERVIEWER: Oh I see. That’s a big... yeah Emma: Not very warm. did he do that with horses? INTERVIEWER: Isn’t it? Emma: Yes. Yeah, when I came he had his cousin with him and they were the two outfits, Emma: No. four horses working. INTERVIEWER: It’s a very nice house though. INTERVIEWER: What did they raise? Emma: Yes, its nice built, but my old house was Emma: Mostly wheat and oats. kind of creaky so they built this one for me but...

INTERVIEWER: Wheat and oats. I see. You INTERVIEWER: This one is colder. have some children here now, do you? Emma: Colder, yes. Of course, there I was Emma: Yes, my son lives here and one up the hill. sheltered in the bush down there. There’s My daughter lives here and I have two up there. nothing here. I’m out in the open. But my I have seven living. daughter here she didn’t want to stay down there any longer because the river came over. INTERVIEWER: Seven children. Every spring and we’d be have to wade up to our knees pretty to get out of there to come up here. Emma: Yes. And one right at the corner, you Kept our buggies and horses up here and car come past this place there where there’s a lot of when I got the car, they had to have a car ready granaries. up here.

INTERVIEWER: Yes. INTERVIEWER: Most of the houses are nice. What were the houses like when you came Emma: That’s Archie’s. over here?

Emma: They were just log houses.

27 INTERVIEWER: Log houses. My goodness. Emma: Oh all over. A lot it went to England.

Emma: Yes, well there were two or three frame INTERVIEWER: It did. buildings, not very many, but the most of them were log houses. Well they were warm. Emma: Cause you see the missionaries here ( Laughing) often come from England and they send home beadwork. Oh I sent a lot of it over there. A lady INTERVIEWER: You were, you mentioned was here two years ago and I sold her a lot, she awhile ago that you used to, when you were was from Scotland. small go out and pick berries and things. Do you remember the food that the ladies used INTERVIEWER: And took it back over there? to make? Emma: Yes. Emma: The food well mostly corn, corn, and they’d grind the corn and make porridge of it. INTERVIEWER: Well my goodness! Do a lot And well I don’t know, we always, of course, I people here make beadwork then? can’t remember far back. After I left Dakotas you see four years old, I was in the school you see, Emma: Oh yes, you should see the place where but often I go home. My mother would come for they sew. me and take me home. Grandfather kept, well he INTERVIEWER: I went looking for that. Is that used to go hunting a lot. I remember him. back in there...?

INTERVIEWER: Do you? Emma: It’s in that school.

Emma: I remember my grandmother too. She INTERVIEWER: Oh it’s in the school building? was a French woman. Emma: Yes, it’s in that school building just below INTERVIEWER: Oh she was? the hills there.

Emma: Yes. I don’t know how they all got INTERVIEWER: Where they’re putting on the married. My grandfather, well he had a little bit roof? of English because he worked for white people around town and I think my grandmother must Emma: Are they fixing the roof? have been brought up in a school or brought up by white people because she talked good English. INTERVIEWER: Yeah, I thought they were.

INTERVIEWER: I notice you’re making some Emma: Oh, they might be because I heard that it beadwork here. Do you do that a lot? was leaking.

Emma: Oh I’ve done that a lot since I came. I INTERVIEWER: Yeah. never did any before I got married. Emma: Oh that’s good. INTERVIEWER: Didn’t you? INTERVIEWER: So it’s right in there. They Emma: No, I did a lot of that since. work in there every day do they?

INTERVIEWER: Where have you sold it mostly, Emma: That’s where my daughter, she teaches in Winnipeg? kindergarten in there.

28 INTERVIEWER: You have your own INTERVIEWER: Well what were their names? kindergarten. Who was it that was killed by The chiefs, your grandfather? Crees on the way to Winnipeg? Emma: My father---in---law? Well my father---in – Emma: That was my father---in---law’s father, was law’s brother was (Indian word) and the next killed. He and his older son were killed. one, his father was (Indian word) the first and then (Indian word) was made chief here in INTERVIEWER: By the Crees on the way to Canada. And then my father---in---law was (Indian Winnipeg. word). My husband’s name was Tatanka Hota.

Emma: On the way, they were going in to INTERVIEWER: And that was passed down Winnipeg what for I don’t know, anyway they from father to son. were killed and they found them dead they was all stripped of everything that he had and his Emma: From father to son. medal and all was taken. So then the governor whoever he was, you know Governor Morris is INTERVIEWER: I see and when did that it? At that time, they made my husband’s uncle, system stop? the next son to the one that killed, they made him chief and his name is on the map. I should Emma: With my husband. have my map here but I haven’t got it. I haven’t even got the medal my husband’s father was INTERVIEWER: With your husband and then made Chief and he went to Regina and they gave since then they’ve been elected? him a medal and it hasn’t got. ah treaty ,anything about treaty or anything like Emma: Yes, every two years. that on it; the only medal that’s like that in Canada. And I went and sold it. I was afraid to INTERVIEWER: I was looking at your house keep because these others that had medals, they here. You have, everybody here has were old medals given by the army and they sold electricity don’t they? them and these young boys were breaking into houses and I think that’s what they were looking Emma: Well mostly, I think they all have. for. I was afraid that someone would get this if I wasn’t here. At times, of course, I took it with me INTERVIEWER: And you all have wells? when I went to stay with my son in Winnipeg in the time. It was too cold out here for me so they Emma: No, we have a well, the government dug always. I don’t know where I’m going to go this a well out here for good water. winter. They’ve moved, the house isn’t as big as what they had before. He’s got 6 children, but I INTERVIEWER: So you have running water in sold it and I bought a great big monument. Big your house? stone with all the chiefs’ names, the three chiefs names on it. The father’s and sons and my Emma: No. husband was the last chief. That’s the chief that came down from father to son. INTERVIEWER: No, you go out there to get it and bring it in? INTERVIEWER: From father to son. Emma: No running water. Emma: These are just elected every two years. The chiefs now. 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 they didn’t use any material, but the used the Florence Bunn hides of buffalo. They took the hair off them and they worked them in such a way that they were Added Notes: Lives with and cares for mother soft like a (Kleenex?). And they’d sew those who is 98 years old, memory fading. together and make those tipis.

INTERVIEWER: Just move them around? Tape 838 Florence: And there were no cars, no wagons or INTERVIEWER: This is June 20th, 1972, no horses in those days. Just a few people had a Birdtail Reservation in Beulah, Manitoba. horse or two. They never stayed in one place; You said that your mother had told you some they keep moving and moving on. I remember things that she remembered about the old another old lady used to live down there. She days; maybe about the migration up here? told me that they moved all over the place, and they came to a place where apples grow, so that Florence: Well, as she said she was born in Fort was B.C., wouldn’t it? Ellice, that’s up here near St. Lazare. She was born there and they moved back to this reserve INTERVIEWER: Probably so, yes. here. It wasn’t a reserve at the time, just a few people used to roam around that they didn’t Florence: And that was... have no reserve, nothing. The Indians used to camp around and they come to a place where INTERVIEWER: British Columbia. there was lots of buffalo, they would camp there. And the men would go out hunting and the Florence: Yes, somewhere there. She told me, we women would cure, dry the meat you know, came to a place where the apples grow, she said. pemmican. Well they used to dry the meat and But we didn’t make use of them at all, we just that would do them for a long time. And when took a few to eat. So they must travel very far in their meat is going low, well, they move on to those days. another place where there lots of buffalo and the men would go hunting again. That’s how they did INTERVIEWER: Did your mother ever talk things in the olden days. about the migration up here from Minnesota? That would have been your grandfather INTERVIEWER: And they camped here at this wouldn’t it? place, did they? Here at Birdtail, at this reserve? Florence: Yes. No, she never talk about it. You mean, these people coming from the States? Florence: No, all over, all over yet. INTERVIEWER: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Just roam around? Florence: They ran away from there. They were Florence: Yes, roam around. Not one family, but chased out. I heard some old people talking I’d say about six or seven families used to stay about that. I think they had trouble over there, together. and they made a law that the people that did it, they were to be hanged. So anyway they came, INTERVIEWER: What kind of places did they they travelled back towards to Canada. That’s all live? Did they have tents? I heard.

Florence: They had these...you know people call INTERVIEWER: Did they walk, do you know? them tipis, these with lots of poles. And then

31 Florence: As I said, just one or two fellows they Florence: Not very much. had their horse and they tied sticks along the horse, and that’s where they put their belongings, INTERVIEWER: Didn’t you? you know, their tents and stuff like that. And they walked. The women and children had to Florence: I remember I hardly spoke English walk. when I left school but since have these TV’s and these radios, I learned a little bit more English INTERVIEWER: How did this reservation get that way. It was a poor school. We did go to established, do you know? school half a day. Some of us work in the kitchen and the laundry; and in the afternoon we go to Florence: I don’t know. That was long before I school. It was reading and spelling and was born, so I wouldn’t know. arithmetic and number work. That’s all we did.

INTERVIEWER: Were you born here? INTERVIEWER: How did your father make a living while you were growing up then? Was Florence: Yes. he a farmer?

INTERVIEWER: And how old are you, maybe Florence: Yes, he farmed. fifty? INTERVIEWER: Was right here? Florence: That’s my dark secret. Florence: Yes, yes. INTERVIEWER: Oh, that’s your dark secret. Did you go to school around here then? INTERVIEWER: Anything else besides farming? Florence: Yes, in Birtle. Florence: Yeah, the women had gardens too, INTERVIEWER: Did you go to the public nothing else, just farming that’s all they did. And school there? then in the winter time they trap.

Florence: No, it was a boarding school. INTERVIEWER: Beaver and mink?

INTERVIEWER: How many years did you go Florence: And muskrats. there? INTERVIEWER: How much did they sell for, Florence: I went to school about eleven years. It do you remember, did they give much for was a boarding school. But we come home for their trapping? summer holidays and Christmas holidays. And that’s the only time we come. Well, that’s the Florence: Well, I remember one time I took in only time we come to spend with our parents. three beavers and I got over $100.

INTERVIEWER: You stay there all the rest of INTERVIEWER: Is that right? the time? Florence: But since then the prices seems to Florence: Yes. come down. The price isn’t that high now for beavers, I mean. INTERVIEWER: What do you remember about that boarding school? What kinds of things INTERVIEWER: Yes, that would have been did you study there? quite a few years ago, then, wasn’t it?

32 Florence: That would be quite a few years. they don’t encourage them to go on from there, like getting them jobs or anything like that. It’s INTERVIEWER: The do some fishing and just they don’t have anything to do with after hunting too? they leave school.

Florence: Yes, they fish and hunt. INTERVIEWER: There’s no place to go but back here, then? INTERVIEWER: Never any jobs around here for them? Florence: Yeah, no place to go but back here.

Florence: No, never any jobs. Even today a lot of INTERVIEWER: There enough houses here for boys have no jobs. them when they come back?

INTERVIEWER: What do the young people do Florence: I’m telling you, I have two boys that here now? have no homes, no home at all. Their parents separated when they were small, and now they Florence: Well, every now and then a white guy are grown up and there’s no home for them. And will come around and pick them up to pick I don’t know who to turn to; I raised these two stones. And that’s not a steady job, just a day or boys. But of course they are now allowed to stay two they do it, and when they finish the job, with us because we are on pension. that’s it. There’s no more jobs. INTERVIEWER: Does your mother get a INTERVIEWER: They get out to school now at pension from the government? Birtle? Florence: Yeah, we both get pension. That’s all, Florence: Now they are sending them to school no other income. down in Ninette, somewhere the other side of Brandon there. INTERVIEWER: Is that enough to keep you? It is. How much does that come to? INTERVIEWER: Do the young people go away now to stay, or do they pretty much stay back Florence: Well, we get $137 and she gets that, on the reservation? but I heard we’re going to get a raise in June.

Florence: Well, there’s boys and girls from INTERVIEWER: That’s not very much. Where different reserves going to this (Pembina) house, does she go when she’s sick? I don’t know what they call it but it’s in Ninette ( Ninette Residential School) . And they’ve been Florence: Mom? To the Birtle Hospital. living there all winter, but they are all finished now, and in September I think they will be going INTERVIEWER: In Birtle. to school in Brandon next, taking a higher grade, I don’t know. Florence: That’s the nearest hospital. But of course if a person’s really sick or something INTERVIEWER: After they graduate do they serious, they send them to Brandon and come back here, or do they like to go to Winnipeg. Winnipeg? INTERVIEWER: Is there an Indian hospital in Florence: They come back and there’s nothing. Brandon? They don’t make use of what they learn in school. There’s Indian newspapers... in there they said

33 Florence: It’s just a regular hospital. Both white was young at the time and the money was and Indian people go there. (something). You’ve got to put some in the bank.

INTERVIEWER: Do you every write back to INTERVIEWER: You haven’t had any land anybody in the States? Do you write to there yourself? Around Sisseton? anybody back there that you’re related to? Florence: Well, no he sold it before. He passed Florence: I have some relations in North Dakota. away about five years ago. I’ve been alone, and I wrote to them, but I never got an answer. we’re both widows living here.

INTERVIEWER: At Fort Totten? INTERVIEWER: What tribe did you and your mother come from originally in the States, do Florence: Yes. The only time I see them, is when you know? Wahpekute maybe, or was it they come down for the celebration in Sioux Sisseton? Valley. There’s always a big camp there, and a great big tent where they have these dances, Florence: Oh, I don’t know. My grandmother was powwows in it and that’s where all the Indians half Sioux and half Saulteaux. They got along from different reserves come. down on this side of Canada.

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

Florence: Yeah some come from there. I have a Florence: No. cousin there; his name is George Albert. And that’s the only time I see them is when they come. INTERVIEWER: Do you know where she came from down in the states? INTERVIEWER: Anybody from South Dakota every come up there? Florence: Mom was born in the (inaudible due to coughing). Florence: Yes, the drummers. I heard they were announcing that the South Dakota people are INTERVIEWER: In (coughing). Where was her going to sing at the drum next. From different mother from, do you know? reserves, you know, they take turns singing for these dancers here. Florence: No, and she doesn’t know.

INTERVIEWER: You said that your husband INTERVIEWER: Oh, she doesn’t know that had some land, did he, around Fort Totten? either?

Florence: No Sisseton. Sisseton, South Dakota. Florence: No, she doesn’t know.

INTERVIEWER: Did he lease that out to INTERVIEWER: She doesn’t remember somebody or get some money for it? anything about the migration, when they came up from the States? Florence: Yeah, he leased it out to, his name is Stapleton. And then it wasn’t very much, and he Florence: She doesn’t know because I think she was getting old, so he thought he’d sell it and wasn’t born then, and her mother never make use of it. So he sold it and he got around mentioned anything about it. Well, there’s an old $4000. But he sold another land before, and he man up here. Maybe you could get something got 400, 500, and 800...something. Of course he out of him.

34 INTERVIEWER: Who’s that? INTERVIEWER: So, we all come from the Garden of Eden then? Florence: Old Joe Paul, an old man. I think he knows; he speaks good English. He lives up here, A. Maybe... maybe. up the hill there. INTERVIEWER: Well, I don’t think that INTERVIEWER: What is his name? anybody can say that’s wrong. What church do most of the people go to here on this Florence: Joe Paul. I think he remembers a lot of reservation? things. And there’s another old man further down the road; he knows a lot of what you are Florence: The church around here is the talking, about, migrating out there. He knows a Presbyterian. lot about this. George Bearbull is his name, the other one. INTERVIEWER: You were brought up a Presbyterian then? INTERVIEWER: Does he (Joe Paul) live next door here? Florence: Yes.

Florence: Yeah, just above the hill there. And if INTERVIEWER: Have you ever had the old you turn further down this way, that’s where this Sioux church here, like the Sweat Lodge and other old man lives. And he knows a lot about the Pipe? Have you ever had the old what happened years ago. He knows a lot. traditional Sioux religion here at all or has everybody been Presbyterians since you’ve And in the Bible, it says the lost Tribe of Israel, grown up? and some people think that the Indians are the lost Tribe of Israel, that’s what they think. That’s Florence: Yes, since I was growing, well, I notice what I heard, could that be? that they are all Presbyterians.

INTERVIEWER: Well I’ve heard this story, a INTERVIEWER: How about the Native gentleman about seventy, name Joe Rock Boy American Church? Have you ever heard of told me that he believes that all Indians, that up here? especially the Sioux, are from the lost tribe of Israel (*Mormons) . That they came across Florence: No. the Atlantic Ocean, they lived on Atlantis; and then they went to the Carolinas and so on. INTERVIEWER: I don’t know where people came from originally, that’s one of the Florence: And there’s a narrow space there in the mysteries of the past, I guess. ocean, and they must have come through there, that’s what I heard, I don’t know. Florence: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: What do you think? INTERVIEWER: But a lot of people believe that the Sioux were always here, were Florence: Well, I kind of believe it. created here maybe, thousands and thousands of years ago. INTERVIEWER: So there probably has been a lost tribe of Israel? Florence: Now would that be just the one tribe, the Sioux? Florence: Yes.

35 INTERVIEWER: Well, the Incas believe that Florence: The only time I hear anything about they came from a creation down in the them, sometimes comes on TV there. And they Andes...that a lot of the Indians were created usually send us Indian news; that’s where we in many places, grew up into tribes. hear what’s going on. The Indians are talking up their rights. They were cheated of their rights, or Florence: Of course the Sioux said the Saulteaux something like that. The Indians are talking up were the first to be around here, and they were now. They used to be quiet and never say very much against each other, enemies. They nothing, but now they are speaking up for their would scalp one another, yes. rights. The said that this land is theirs and it was taken away from them. And they don’t get INTERVIEWER: That was after the Sioux came anything out of it. That’s what the Indians said. up from the States? INTERVIEWER: Is that what most of them feel Florence: Yes, after they came up here. about the government now?

INTERVIEWER: Do you know why, just fight Florence: That’s what they feel about it, and they over land? talk about it quite a bit now, in these Indian news.

Florence: I don’t know. I never heard anybody INTERVIEWER: Do you think the government say why they were so much against each other. will do anything? So they were always on alert. When there’s a camp, some of the younger boys had to always Florence: I don’t know. be out watching in case the Saulteaux came along. INTERVIEWER: Well, there’s not much land INTERVIEWER: Did the Cree ever get down left, is there? here from the north? Florence: When the Indians came it all belonged Florence: No, I never see any. Well, when we to them, and it was just taken from them. And were in school, there were all kinds of Indians they put us on little reserves like this and they there. There was Saulteaux and Crees and Sioux gave us an education but nothing for that. all went to school there. INTERVIEWER: No place to go after you get an INTERVIEWER: How about Assiniboine? education?

Florence: Yes, some of them come here but not Florence: No jobs. very many. They have schools of their own up at Saskatchewan. INTERVIEWER: Is the population growing here, getting bigger, more and more people INTERVIEWER: The tribes have been getting on this reserve? along in your time, haven’t they, pretty well? Florence: Yeah, there’s more and more people on Florence: Yeah, they are getting along pretty well here. now, they are more civilized. INTERVIEWER: About how many were here INTERVIEWER: I suppose the intermarriage, when you were small? they marry each other and then they tend to get along better. What do you think about the Florence: There was a lot of them, but of course Canadian government’s policy toward the they all died off, the people did. Indians?

36 INTERVIEWER: Are there about two hundred addressed to his name saying that there’s some here now? funds up in the office for you. You better write so that I could pay that out. So I wrote and told Florence: Close to that. Do you know anything them that he passed away long time ago and I’m about land, a person selling his land? When a widow now and I need the money. Marvin sold his land, this Allen Stapleton said, “I’ll buy the land from you but you can have your INTERVIEWER: You never heard anything oil rights,” he said. What does he mean by that? from there?

INTERVIEWER: Well, I guess he means that if Florence: Yes, somebody wrote for me, but they they ever discover oil under his land you didn’t answer. And yet they said there was funds know, it will belong to you. And in North up there, does that mean money? At the office? Dakota, there’s quite a bit of oil. I don’t think they found any oil around Fort Totten, but if INTERVIEWER: At the Sisseton Tribal Office? they ever did, why, it would belong to you and not Stapleton. Florence: Yeah.

Florence: Oh, this is in Sisseton. INTERVIEWER: You don’t hear from any of the people down there anymore? INTERVIEWER: Oh, Sisseton. Florence: No, I don’t. My mother used to get Florence: And Ft. Totten is in North Dakota, and money from over there too. Sisseton is in South Dakota. INTERVIEWER: Lease money, was it? INTERVIEWER: No oil has ever been discovered at Sisseton. But if they ever did, Florence: Lease money. They didn’t send it for why then you can have it. Of course that is two years now. That should come every year. possible. The Dakotas have quite a little oil under them but they just haven’t had enough INTERVIEWER: Yes, she didn’t sell it? money to dig for it yet. But more and more, the tribes control the sale of land and they Florence: No. In fact there’s...she’s not the only don’t like people selling it to non---Indians. one that’s getting this money. You know what I They sell it to the tribes you know, try to hold mean. Different people. it together. But Sisseton is different; most of the land was taken away. INTERVIEWER: How much did she get when she was getting it, do you remember? Florence: Yes... sold to the white people. Florence: Oh, I don’t know. My brother Tom was INTERVIEWER: Yes that’s right to the farmers looking after her, and I never knew how much it there. Do you remember, how long ago did was. he sell his land? INTERVIEWER: They don’t send it anymore? Florence: I have a paper here on that. Florence: No. Maybe it’s because she didn’t write INTERVIEWER: Anyway, that’s been a number for it, she should have written. But I don’t even of years ago? know the address, but it’s in Sisseton anyway.

Florence: Yes. My husband died in May, and just INTERVIEWER: If you just write to the Tribal a few months after maybe, I got a letter Office in Sisseton it should get to them.

37 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.

38 George: Well, they were leaving all their money, George Bearbull they borrowed their money see? You understand? Tape 844 INTERVIEWER: Yes. INTERVIEWER: June 20, 1972, at Birdtail Indian Reserve in Manitoba, Herbert Hoover George: They borrowed that money, and when the interviewer. they get paid they go to replace this money back, what they owe. Well again ah, it took them two George: Well, he told us that story until in the years to come on out, they were leaving out the morning. other Indians and then the storekeeper he was kind of tight you know. He told... this chief, the INTERVIEWER: He’d talk all night? one who went to ask for their rations, and he says that they owe quite a bit of money now. He George: Talk all night. He says, “You got to stay says, “You’re not ready to pay for it.” So he said, up with me,” he says. We did, we did but we got “We’ll pay for it.” They (inaudible 3:11) the sleepy. He said that, this Indian chief, he sold, ah, whole North Dakota, they sold it towards North Dakota, by this fellow, the chief, you see, seventy---five, and why, this fellow, this old bugger, he sold that, that , North Dakota. he didn’t sell it tells us that there’s seventy---five, seventy---five cents yet, I imagine 1870, 1859... an acre you see? (Unintelligible) INTERVIEWER: My goodness. INTERVIEWER: 1859? George: Done there the whole North Dakota. George: He must have sold that, that time see, And that’s what we told, you see. And he keeps because that’s when they, they move out here; asking and asking, but the store keeper is cutting they came across. back, like here, he was scared of his stockade, he might lose that money. Well, I guess you’ll have INTERVIEWER: Out of the States? to go back and eat grass.” That’s the store keeper... that’s what he said to this Indian, “You George: Yeah, out of the States. This fellow here, got to go back and eat grass.” he went into the store asking for rations, a provision is what they called it, provisions or INTERVIEWER: Eat grass? groceries or something like that. They ask for it. This chief, the chief that sold his land here see, George: Well, he couldn’t do any better, and so for two years. . he waited for two years, and he he came back, and he asked the next fellow. He hasn’t got paid for it. An then this fellow, this said, “You go down and ask him next.” So he chief here ( inaudible 2:03) and the other fellow... went down there and asked him. The interpreter South Dakota, the other chief, the other side of didn’t tell the whole story. The store keeper said Dakota .. Minnesota or South Dakota ah. Santee to this Indian here. And this other Indian went or I don’t know those two, there’s North Dakota down there and asked him and he told him the and South Dakota. same thing, “You got to go, you got to go back to say this to the other fellow, what I told the other INTERVIEWER: Uh huh, Sisseton in South fellow”, and he says, “What did he say?” That he Dakota. said, “He told me to come home and eat grass.” “But who, who told you that he told me to eat George: Yeah. grass, come home and eat grass?” He said the INTERVIEWER: Yes. 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,

39 “Yes.” Well, what did you tell me after this first George: Well, they were there on the east side of place? So he called the storekeeper out, out of it, see? The east side of this river here, and they the door, and he shot the guy (inaudible) and he come into uh, the river comes out like this and pulled him out of the door. He pulled him out of starts on the other, just like a knife over here it the door, and he opened his mouth, and he starts close to here. Well, they come in there and packed his mouth. (Laughter) (inaudible 7:58) every time then they meet a farm house you see. And the soldiers, the INTERVIEWER: With grass? Yeah. (Laughing) American soldiers they do the same thing you George: Well, that’s just what the, this uh, this know, they, they give warning like this people, trouble started you see? the Indians. And they get tired of carrying the children on the back, and some of these old INTERVIEWER: I see. fellows left them on the road, and the Americans started coming down and hit them with a sword George: Right there. Another one they coming, on the head and knocked them over then ... the coming out towards Grand Forks, that’s another kids they got a hold of the legs like this, and coming you see. And then they talked to the chopped the head off. Dutch, you know the Germans. They seem to be Germans he knew of them. For started this INTERVIEWER: Cut em’ off. Indian here they come as a ( inaudible 6:20) George: Yeah, well both are doing it. The they uh, they agreed to uh, killing him you know? Americans are doing the same things as what INTERVIEWER: Uh huh. they do... the Indians, what they do. Indians they, they kill everything that they come to, see, you George: About 800...800 settlers. understand? INTERVIEWER: Eight hundred settlers. INTERVIEWER: Uh huh. George: At least this what this old fellow told him, George: Well, that’s what the old fellows told me, yeah. And that, it says that, uh ( inaudible 6:44) it’s just the way I tell you. and the tall grass, and they hide and the kid cried and the ( inaudible) down there and they took a INTERVIEWER: The soldiers killed everybody knife... fight... tear them right open. they came to then? INTERVIEWER: Kill them? George: Uh?

George: Yeah. And the old one there shot them. INTERVIEWER: I said, the soldiers killed That’s the way they killed them right away they everybody they came to? coming on, on and on until they come to uh, I George: Yeah. imagine that the way they tell us that story, I imagine that they traveled along side of the INTERVIEWER: Yeah, because they were Minnesota, the river. running up toward Canada? INTERVIEWER: Minnesota River, yeah. George: Yeah. Right up to Canada, uh the, they George: Right, well they called the Red River, come into this bend, the river here come in a again it’s half of that. See? kind of bend like this and almost meet together out there, and we’re the first coming. .. that river INTERVIEWER: Uh huh. is sort of like, uh,. . this Indians they were chased ( inaudible 9:29) . And the soldiers they, they George: And they came into Canada. blew their bugle you know. The soldiers, they whatever, they always what they going to do or I INTERVIEWER: Yes. hear that’s what the says, you hear

40 . I hear the bugles blow, (inaudible 9:46) shots, a little bag... with the ten of them, from talk and so on like that. I hear they blow the Winnipeg to Turtle Mountain. bugle and then they stop in there and they come right across these, these top of the neck like this INTERVIEWER: My goodness. you know. The river comes this way, this way, George: And that, that my grandfather died the they almost meet there by the neck. The Indians next morning before they got home. why there were inside of this neck here. Well anyway them soldiers here they watched here INTERVIEWER: Did they go to Turtle careful this here on this, on each side you see. Mountain first before they went to Portage? INTERVIEWER: I see. George: Oh, they, Indian?

George: And I believe the Indians can’t get out INTERVIEWER: Yeah, they went to Turtle this side, and they looked all there to see if they Mountain first huh? could. On the other side is that little place here if they could get out, they got a place there, they George: No, they came out to Winnipeg first. got a cut the trees and they make you know, the INTERVIEWER: And they where did they go? flat uh, logs like this and across like this way. And they kept shipping themselves right across George: Grand Forks, you, you know, you seen the lake before daylight. And they made it out. the, you know Grand Forks? INTERVIEWER: Uh huh, my goodness, was INTERVIEWER: Yeah that on the Red River, was it? George: Well, they come out on the east side of it George: Uh, the Red River. you see? East side into the where the, well they INTERVIEWER: On the Red River. cross somewhere in there between the Winnipeg and the Grand Forks you see? And then they George: That river that passes through Winnipeg. come across there and they come straight on to Portage. INTERVIEWER: Yes, uh huh. INTERVIEWER: To Portage? George: Well, and then they come out to, and at that time the police came across with uh, they George: Yeah. ( inaudible 11:13) there, they can’t come anymore. That’s just what they, this Indian says, INTERVIEWER: And then they go to ... they Sioux, the old Sioux they just young fellows. George: And then from there they go to Winnipeg. They got nothing, say know nothing about it, but They got to get stocks you know, shots and the old Sioux they all die off anyway. That just powder and caps and everything. You see, they was the story. go down there but they, they don’t agree them, INTERVIEWER: They come up, they came up much. But (inaudible 13:31) why they asked for, into Winnipeg, there at Manitoba? they asked for because, but they told them that they don’t want war, so they call it, I guess. And George: They come up to Winnipeg and they they told them, he says, you go to make a treaty asked for powder, shots and bullets. They with the soldiers first before we do anything for wouldn’t give it to them. They heard that uh, the Indians, Sioux Indians he said. So he gave out they knew what they done coming on the place the (inaudible 13:56) and he got a treaty with to Winnipeg. And from there a couple guys went the Indians right along here, along the border off to Portage to pray and then Turtle Mountain. and then now there’s a Reserve you see. There’s My grandfather, my grandfather he carry his old, first time the Reserve was uh, Brandon on this a little bag, I figure it was sixty, sixty pounds of side river, that other creek comes straight into

41 the Assiniboine, the Reserve was that long and George: Yeah. And then uh, what they call off to Oak Lake, north of Oak Lake, is a ways, Standing Buffalo, what they call it Fort that’s quite a ways here from right down here. Qu’Appelle.

INTERVIEWER: From Brandon to Oak Lake? INTERVIEWER: (Indian) that was Standing Buffalo? George: No, there, not the Brandon is way out there, I’m talking about this river, not a river but George: Yeah, White Cap went to Saskatoon. the creek. There’s a way you white people called uh, called this here creek here. INTERVIEWER: White Cap went to Saskatoon? INTERVIEWER: Yeah, uh huh. A. Yeah, I don’t know the other fellow was chief was...went to Prince Albert. George: River, they call it. INTERVIEWER: One more went to Prince INTERVIEWER: Yes. Albert? George: Birdtail River, but it’s not a river, it’s a George: Yeah. creek. INTERVIEWER: Who came here to Birdtail INTERVIEWER: It’s a creek, yes, yeah. then. George: Well they, they go through there, that far George: Huh? you see, there’s a big hill right about there, come in through there, there’s Assiniboine right here, INTERVIEWER: Who came here? To this one? there’s a big hill there, oh the Indians in George: Well this, this was uh, old Enoch. there, oh, it really, and way on the west side too. Right south, north of Oak Lake. INTERVIEWER: Old Enoch? INTERVIEWER: North of Oak Lake, huh? George: Yes. George: Yeah, there was but they just INTERVIEWER: Enoch. couldn’t get along, they couldn’t get along themselves, between themselves see. So they George: Enoch, (Indian) ( 16:44) , they call him, decided the chiefs decided so that uh, they Coming Up Cloud, Coming Up Clouds, they call moved, oh this old (Indian), (Indian), Rattling him. Walking and he moved, he choose Turtle Mountain. INTERVIEWER: Coming Up Clouds? INTERVIEWER: Uh, huh, Rattling Walking George: George: Yeah. went to Turtle Mountain? INTERVIEWER: He, he came here? George: Yeah, he, he is a, a ( Indian name 15:46) George: Yeah this was, down here. So that’s why Pipestone (Indian). the, you come, you come each way, one the river INTERVIEWER: (Indian) went to Pipestone? and stories coming out, out of this and that. But you just trouble with like this, and trouble with George: Yeah. And (Indian 15:53) ) White Eagle like that, trouble with the . But do you went to Griswold. know, the people, white people that know this, some of the stories that I tell, I can’t mention it INTERVIEWER: White Eagle went to here see but liable to tie that there if I tell Griswold? you the whole story you know, you understand? INTERVIEWER: Uh huh. 42 George: But you have to have a six---pack or... INTERVIEWER: Yeah. Well, were you born on (Laughing) this reservation here?

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, I come back with a six--- George: Well, I was just, I was just riding through. pack then? I was just riding through a out there in Winnipeg. Pension people you know, the house George: Yeah. Well that’s why, that’s the way I was paid. You see in the paper some of these see it. Uh, the, what did you do out here for, try house was paid, the house over the years to find this history of the Sioux? lived there, I lived here too, but there’s a house but white water and that like my god it just INTERVIEWER: Well see we got, we got fifty me . But I was just in the whole thing thousand Sioux down there. you know, that’s what got something to do with George: Huh? this, uh, pension. He handles that you see, I was telling him that so I don’t know what he’s going INTERVIEWER: I say we got about fifty to say but, uh, how the hell he going to answer thousand Sioux down in South Dakota and me. But if he don’t answer me, why I want him they want to know about this up here, see to find a place for me in town. they want to know what happened to you people. INTERVIEWER: You want to move to town? George: Well that’s the time that they come out George: Yeah into town. Find a place for me in here in 1862. town and for the winter like, see I don’t know what it’s like and several times, well, I had the INTERVIEWER: Yeah. opportunity, well I could get a house, he could get me a house, well all right. Because if uh, I see George: Unless uh, you know the government in in the paper that uh, the pension in the pension Washington, they’re slow, the government just for is entitled to five hundred dollars and a bought that land there that gives the money to thousand dollars for the roof and everything, the Indians. They, they said you have to help to see? Do you understand? wait two years before they gather the money, and they haven’t got it yet. INTERVIEWER: Yes. INTERVIEWER: They still haven’t got any George: You might have heard that too? money? INTERVIEWER: I don’t know... 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)

43 INTERVIEWER: At least, yeah. Well, could you Arnett Smoke tell me a little bit about your life here? How big is this reservation? Occupation Farming Arnett: Well, this reserve is only, I’d say from Tape 794 about 1200 acres to about 1500 acres, I guess. I wouldn’t know exactly. INTERVIEWER: This is August 26, 1971 at the Long Plains Community in Manitoba, Canada. INTERVIEWER: Well, how many people live I’m speaking to Arnett Smoke on the Long here then? Plains reservation. The best way to begin here, Mr. Smoke, we always do this way just Arnett: Well, actually there’s only, the Smokes to start out with who you are. You call live here and one other family. yourself Sioux. Do you remember yourself as INTERVIEWER: On this reservation? Mdewakanton or any particular tribe within the Sioux? Arnett: Yeah. Arnett: I wouldn’t know. Ask my uncle, he INTERVIEWER: On 12 to 1500 acres? knows all about that. Arnett: Yeah, the other family’s name is Chaske. INTERVIEWER: I see. And you’re one of nine children here? INTERVIEWER: Chaske? Arnett: Yeah. Well, there’s ten in our family. Arnett: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: There are ten. INTERVIEWER: These are both Sioux families? Arnett: One girl and nine boys. Arnett: Oh yeah, they’re both Sioux families. INTERVIEWER: Nine boys and one girl. What was your father’s name then? INTERVIEWER: How many people all together then in those two families do you suppose, 40 Arnett: Chaska Smoke. or. ? INTERVIEWER: Chaska Smoke, I see. And did Arnett: Oh, there would be about 80, I guess. your father say that you were from the Sioux that came up from Minnesota or...? INTERVIEWER: About 80 people? Arnett: Yeah, yeah, that’s no, I wouldn’t know Arnett: Yeah, about that. I figure about that. that part, we figured from North Dakota. INTERVIEWER: I see and this is part of Long INTERVIEWER: From North Dakota? Plain?

Arnett: Yeah. Arnett: This is Long Plain Sioux. INTERVIEWER: How long ago do you figure INTERVIEWER: Long Plain Sioux. And next to that your family came up here? you is Long Plain Saulteaux? Arnett: Oh, quite a while back. I wouldn’t know. Arnett: Saulteaux, yeah. INTERVIEWER: A couple of generations? INTERVIEWER: Oh I see. So you have about 80 people of Long Plain Sioux? Arnett: Oh, yeah, yeah. Arnett: Yeah

44 INTERVIEWER: Do you have an organized INTERVIEWER: Into the band? tribe then? Arnett: Yeah Arnett: Oh, I’ll say yeah. You see, we’re together with the other Sioux village down on this side of INTERVIEWER: Oh I see, so it’s all really Portage there. community land and you don’t divide it up like they do in the States where each person INTERVIEWER: Oh, you’re part of the same has 40 acres or so? tribe? Arnett: No, no. Arnett: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Oh I see. And where do you INTERVIEWER: Do you have a tribal chairman send your children to school? or tribal head of any kind? Arnett: Well, we send ours out here about 5 Arnett: Oh yeah, my brother’s the chief miles, I guess, into Rossendale. INTERVIEWER: Ernest is the chief? INTERVIEWER: Rossendale? Is that a public school or...? Arnett: Yeah, Ernest. Arnett: Yeah it is. INTERVIEWER: Does he have a tribal council that serves with him? INTERVIEWER: How many children do you have, sir? Arnett: No, we get together and it’s mostly brothers, he runs that. Arnett: Well, I have three girls and one boy.

INTERVIEWER: You kind of run the tribe by INTERVIEWER: They all go to school down yourself? there? Arnett: Yeah, yeah. Arnett: Yeah, one is starting this year, I think, to kindergarten, the youngest one. INTERVIEWER: Well, about the land? Does each person have a certain amount of land INTERVIEWER: What do you, do you work here like they do in the States? around here some place?

Arnett: No, we usually rent it out if we can’t run Arnett: Yeah, whenever I can find a job. It’s it ourselves, but two of my brothers are just pretty hard for us to get a job around here. starting to farm it now. INTERVIEWER: Is it? INTERVIEWER: Oh, they are? Arnett: Yeah Arnett: Yeah, this is their second year now. And they’re running most of the land of the reserve. INTERVIEWER: Where do you work when you work, out on a farm? INTERVIEWER: Oh, they are? Does it belong to the whole tribe? Arnett: Yeah, usually out on a farm, yeah. Arnett: Oh yeah, it belongs to the whole tribe. INTERVIEWER: There are no industries where you can get work? INTERVIEWER: What do they do then with the crops? Arnett: No, no.

Arnett: Well, it’s theirs and they pay so much into the band. 45 INTERVIEWER: I see. How do you go about INTERVIEWER: I see. Do they keep a tribal getting work? Do you just go with the roll then there in that Indian Affairs office in harvest? Portage or. .. ? Arnett: Yeah, we go with the harvest. Arnett: Yeah, they have... INTERVIEWER: Drive tractors or something INTERVIEWER: And how about things like like that? medical help? Do you have. ?

Arnett: Yeah. Arnett: Oh, that’s all free like It’s paid by that Indian Department. INTERVIEWER: What do you the rest of the year when there’s no harvest? INTERVIEWER: By the Indian Department? Arnett: Oh, you try to another job here and there, Arnett: Yeah you know, keep us going or else go on relief. INTERVIEWER: I see. You have no individual INTERVIEWER: I see. How much can you get ownership of land then, so nobody here own on relief? 40 acres or..?

Arnett: We’re getting 100 dollars for two weeks. Arnett: No, whoever can... During the winter we get about 180, I guess around there, 186... INTERVIEWER: Whoever can use it best? INTERVIEWER: I see. For two weeks? Arnett: Yeah, whoever can use it best.

Arnett: For two week...no, that’s for a month. INTERVIEWER: And then they kind of pay for the use into the tribal fund? INTERVIEWER: Is that from the province or is that from the nation of Canada or...? Arnett: Oh yeah, yeah.

Arnett: From the Indian Affairs, I guess. INTERVIEWER: Do you have any tribal functions then, like do you have any INTERVIEWER: Oh, from the Indian Affairs. community hall or .. ? Arnett: Yeah. Arnett: No, we don’t.

INTERVIEWER: That would be in where, in INTERVIEWER: You don’t? Ottawa? Arnett: No Arnett: Well, we have an office in Brandon and one in Portage. INTERVIEWER: Do you ever have pow wows or dances or. ? INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see, the Indian Affairs office there. Arnett: We used to have, but we cut that out. Arnett: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: You did?

INTERVIEWER: And that’s the branches then Arnett: Yeah, we were spending too much of the National Indian Affairs Commission? money on... Arnett: Yeah. 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 INTERVIEWER: You went there, how many men around here that pray the old Indian years did you go there? way? Arnett: Oh, seven years, anyway. Arnett: No, not in this part, not in the Sioux side anyway. INTERVIEWER: Seven years there and then did you go someplace else after that? INTERVIEWER: Think, they do in the Saulteaux? Arnett: Well, I started in Brandon, but it wasn’t too good so I quit after a few weeks. Arnett: Oh, they might have, yeah. INTERVIEWER: And then you went to get INTERVIEWER: I see training in heavy equipment? Arnett: They had a ...I went to school for heavy Arnett: Yeah, I did, yes. duty equipment operator and I couldn’t get a job through the Man---Power. INTERVIEWER: Have you worked away any place off the reservation? INTERVIEWER: Oh, you couldn’t? Arnett: Not on heavy equipment, no. Arnett: No, I couldn’t. INTERVIEWER: Have you worked elsewhere INTERVIEWER: So you’re trained then to run in other kinds of jobs in your life? big heavy road machinery and things? Arnett: Oh, just farm, mostly farm. Arnett: Oh, yeah. INTERVIEWER: Mostly farm. You haven’t been INTERVIEWER: I see. What about your in the Canadian Armed Forces or anything? personal history? Did you go to school here? Arnett: No, no, nothing like that. Arnett: Well, I went to school here, yeah. INTERVIEWER: I see. Do all your brothers live INTERVIEWER: At where? around here?

Arnett: Right at Long Plains. Arnett: Yeah, they all live here. INTERVIEWER: At Long Plains..oh, at the INTERVIEWER: Do they? Saulteaux school? Arnett: Yeah, yeah. Arnett: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: The whole family? INTERVIEWER: Is that still running? Arnett: Yeah. Arnett: No, no. INTERVIEWER: So there’d be ten families INTERVIEWER: That’s the old school on the of...ten Smoke families? north side there? Arnett: One is not married; the youngest is not Arnett: Yeah, well, they use it for kindergarten married yet. All the rest are married. and they use it for the band office. INTERVIEWER: I see. And what was the name INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see. of that other family?

Arnett: Indian band office. Arnett: Chaskes. INTERVIEWER: Chaskes, they’re Sioux too? 47 Arnett: Yeah, they’re Sioux, yeah. Arnett: Yeah, we’d be free from them. INTERVIEWER: How many of them are there, INTERVIEWER: What kind of controls do they families? have on you then?

Arnett: There is two boys and two girls in the Arnett: Well, when we have to have relief, we family. have to go up to them or whatever we need, like housing repairs or we need housing, we have to INTERVIEWER: I see. I’d like to get back to the go up to them and things like that. tribal head. Do you elect him or is that an office that Ernest. . ? INTERVIEWER: Do they help you with housing? Arnett: Oh, well we, my oldest brother was the Chief first and then we just he just got in there, Arnett: Oh yeah, we have to pay 135 for a big we just put him in there now just to take ‘til we house like this in order to get it. elect a new Chief. INTERVIEWER: You pay 135 down? INTERVIEWER: Oh I see. Arnett: Yeah. Arnett: But he stayed on for two years now, I think it was. INTERVIEWER: And then how much do you pay after that? INTERVIEWER: You elect a new chief every now and then or .. ? Arnett: No, that’s it. Arnett: Well, we used to, but not this last time. INTERVIEWER: That’s it. You pay them $135 We just put him in there, see. dollars and then you..? INTERVIEWER: I see Arnett: Yeah Arnett: But he was supposed to run until INTERVIEWER: Do they build this for you somebody else gets in, but we never had an then or...” election or nothing. Arnett: Yeah, my brother built that. He’s a INTERVIEWER: So he just kind stays on? carpenter. Arnett: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see. Does the Indian Affairs office supply the materials then? INTERVIEWER: Do you have any kind of tribal constitution that you run by like they do in Arnett: Yeah, just the material. the States or do you just kind of run your own INTERVIEWER: But you have to build them affairs without contact with the central yourself. government? Arnett: Yeah, but they paid them like through Arnett: No, we don’t, we have to. we work the Indian Affairs pays them so much a house. through the Indian Affairs. Right now we’re trying to get self---government. INTERVIEWER: To put them up? INTERVIEWER: You’re trying to get self--- Arnett: Yeah government? INTERVIEWER: And once you pay them $135 Arnett: Yeah then the house is yours? INTERVIEWER: Do you’d be free from them? Arnett: Yeah. It’s, oh... it can go back to the...

48 INTERVIEWER: To the tribe? INTERVIEWER: How about the land, is it very productive? Arnett: It can go back to the tribe if nobody’s living in it, if you move out or something. Arnett: Oh, it’s not too bad, you know but we have some, a few sandy spots and then they INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see. So they all really couldn’t do much with it, and a lot of water holes. belong to the tribe then, you’d never really own a house yourself? INTERVIEWER: What about your children here? What are your hopes for them? Arnett: No, no, not really. Arnett: Well, I’d like to see them finish school, INTERVIEWER: And the same is true with the maybe go as high as they can, I guess. land? INTERVIEWER: Go on to college? Arnett: . Oh yeah, that’s the same with the land. Arnett: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Now is the same true of the other people here? Most everybody just stay INTERVIEWER: Do you think their here and kind of work around or do any of opportunity will be there? your people ever go off to college or anything like that? Arnett: Oh yeah, I hope so, I think it should be there. Arnett: No, not very many, not that I know of. Usually they stay around. INTERVIEWER: Going to send them away to the city, huh? You want to go to the city? INTERVIEWER: They stay here on the reservation? Arnett: Well, they can finish their 12 years, you see, grade 12 staying at home and then if they Arnett: Yeah have to go to college, I guess they have to go to the city or someplace. INTERVIEWER: Is there any money available to help them go to college? See, I’m kind of INTERVIEWER: Well, one other thing I ignorant here. I’m in a different country. wanted to ask you is what do you folks do for entertainment here mostly? Do you have a Arnett: Yeah, the Indian Affairs, I figure, I think baseball team or anything that you do pays for that if you want to go to college? together? INTERVIEWER: They’ll help them go to Arnett: No, no, there’s not enough for us, you see, college? for organized sports. Arnett: Yeah, oh yeah. INTERVIEWER: You cant’?

INTERVIEWER: You haven’t had too many do Arnett: No. that though? INTERVIEWER: What do the kids do, they fish Arnett: No, no. or...?

INTERVIEWER: Any move away to say to Arnett: Well, they go out and play for different Winnipeg for work? teams, you see. My boy was playing this spring Arnett: No, no. for Rossendale over there for the white kids. INTERVIEWER: I see. Do they go swimming INTERVIEWER: Pretty much stay here? down to the river here? Arnett: Oh yeah 49 Arnett: Oh yeah, they go swimming. INTERVIEWER: But you don’t write to anybody back there or...? INTERVIEWER: Just a little country entertainment all by themselves? Arnett: No, well, I have some relatives, down in Fort Totten there. Arnett: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Do you know their names? INTERVIEWER: I see. Arnett: Oh yeah. Arnett: We usually go out to these big pow wows they have across Manitoba here. INTERVIEWER: Who are they?

INTERVIEWER: Oh, the big pow wows? Arnett: Henry Johnson is my uncle. Arnett: North Dakota INTERVIEWER: Henry Johnson.

INTERVIEWER: Where do you go, Fort Arnett: He from the Hill. Totten? INTERVIEWER: He from the Hill? Arnett: Yeah. Fort Totten, Tokio and around there. Arnett: Yeah. And I must have some more, but I don’t know. INTERVIEWER: I see. You make the big pow wows in the summer? INTERVIEWER: Do you write to them sometimes? Arnett: Yeah Arnett: No, they come down sometimes, you INTERVIEWER: Were you out this summer? know, to visit.

Arnett: No, I haven’t been out to the States this INTERVIEWER: Oh, they do? summer. I was up west here, Sioux Valley and Pipestone. Arnett: Yeah, or else we go down. INTERVIEWER: I see. They have big pow INTERVIEWER: You stop down there? wows at Pipestone? Arnett: Oh, yeah.

Arnett: Yeah, they do. INTERVIEWER: So you do visit some people INTERVIEWER: They are also Sioux? from back in the States?

Arnett: Yeah. Arnett: Oh yeah, we go back and forth.

INTERVIEWER: You get over to the States INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see. You don’t know of very often? any relatives you have elsewhere though, like Prairie Island or Sisseton? Arnett: Oh usually, I used to go quite a bit, but I haven’t been down this summer, I mean this year Arnett: No. We have some in Sisseton, but I yet. wouldn’t know, I wouldn’t know their names. You have to ask my mother. She was down there INTERVIEWER: Well, I gather that you don’t once or twice, I think. really remember who your relatives are back there in the States then from...? INTERVIEWER: Was she a Sisseton?

Arnett: No, not from way back, no. I guess my Arnett: Yeah, she went down there, yes. uncle and the older people know, I think.

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 INTERVIEWER: Were there quite a lot of Jacob Blacksmith them?

Tape 793 Jacob: There was quite a bunch.

INTERVIEWER: Well, from what you said, Mr. INTERVIEWER: Where did they come first? Blacksmith, I gather that you are from Sisseton originally...your people are from Jacob: They, oh... they came through Sisseton, Sisseton. and through North Dakota – Devil’s Lake, you know. This is on August 24, he says, and they Jacob: Yes, I’ve got related people over there. stayed at Devil’s Lake. You know, that big bush on the south side the Devil’s Lake ends, and they INTERVIEWER: At Sisseton? stay over winter...winter... INTERVIEWER: Where did they go then? Jacob: Yes, at...it’s important, my parents. I had a daddy that had parents over there; my mother Jacob: After that, after that its second year, they too. went to a stop over here...it’s...wait a minute, I forgot that...well, east side of Poplar, Montana INTERVIEWER: How did they get up here? some place. I don’t know what you call the white people’s words. You know this is Sioux words Jacob: Well, it’s...it’s a long time ago...it’s 1862 for that land here. So it’s second years older. that had that war, you know. Down here across the border, I don’t know that time they had the INTERVIEWER: Second year, then. borders across the States and Canada, I don’t know. So anyway, they came over here so my Jacob: Yeah, and third year... these Turtle parents... and dad, he told me. That time he was Mountains. nine years old. INTERVIEWER: At Turtle Mountain? INTERVIEWER: He was 90? Jacob: Yeah, the third year they are going to stay Jacob: Nine years old at that time. there. And the fourth year, that one guy they had a dream, you know. And they saw a little INTERVIEWER: Nine years old at that time. house...white house. I don’t know how he did And he remembers coming up here then? it...he dream you know, so somebody talked with him. I don’t know who was all in the dream, but Jacob: Yes, yes, he remembers. this is what he talked with the dream, you know, so somebody talked with him. They went to east INTERVIEWER: Did they ride on horses or did and they found that little house. It saves they walk? us...nobody killed or no nothing. That what he dreams, he got. Well, this is my father’s uncle. Jacob: No, they had wagon and buggy...oh, I My father’s mother...that’s her brother, you know. mean the wagon. So they went east, I don’t know what way they go. They went to go through Camp (Charlotte?), I INTERVIEWER: The wagon. think. And they went to Portage and crossed that .. go across the river, you know. They went Jacob: Yeah, and the team of horses and some to the top of the hill. Well, this is at that time is few options and they travelled behind. 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... Assiniboine. So they got there, for told these government, that whoever walked in the Jacob: Yes, that same building. At the front on morning as soon as the sun come down, and the top is that part...the one part of the house is sun’s going down he can far walking, you know. sharp like this. It was a church house, mind you. So they put a tipi around there by that house, and INTERVIEWER: Yes. this house, it’s man in house...at the next in the church house. The man came there and they Jacob: They give him that much land, you know. tried to talk with something. I don’t know how they talking, it’s nobody, they can talk English, I INTERVIEWER: Give him as much land as he don’t know. So somehow they talked with them, can walk in one day. you know. So they stay there for over winter. And this little town is Portage, you know. Those Jacob: Yeah, one day the sun come up and the town is French town, so they stay there and they sun’s going down. hire Indians for cutting wood. So give it a potatoes, pork or meat or something and then INTERVIEWER: Well, for land sake. some ladies went to town, so wait over town, they make a little bit of money. In a sense, you Jacob: So one guy, he’s a good walker and a good know, it’s 1865 and between four years they got runner, too. So they fixed up four moccasins or into the Portage. stuff like that and the... you know they get for the foot or something. The one morning the sun INTERVIEWER: In four years. come up and they run down to cross the, you know Virden? Jacob: Yeah, and I don’t know how long this four years, that 1869, I think. INTERVIEWER: Virden, yeah.

INTERVIEWER: When they got to the Portage. 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 Jacob: Yeah, and...and they got there...it’s they miles east side of the bridge you know. He get went to Winnipeg and bought piece of land, you there and the sun goes down. So therefore they know. It’s 1812, that Canada fight with the get that much reserved, you know. This is, I States, you know...so it’s Sioux, they help the think, wait a minute, well this is about – 1871 or Canada for seven tribes. They win them so these something. Canada says, they promise to a piece of land. I don’t know how long after that they went to INTERVIEWER: 1871. cross the borders and States, and then they stay over there. I don’t know how long they stay. Jacob: Yes, 1871, and I can’t tell you how many And go back to Canada again. And they went to we get on the wide you know. Winnipeg. They asked for these lands they promised them, and this is the way they got this INTERVIEWER: How wide is it? reserve. And I’m not sure this over here it’s about (speaks in Dakota) . Jacob: Yeah, I don’t know... It’s over there in the north by Alexandria right now. INTERVIEWER: So it was as long as he walked all day. INTERVIEWER: North by Alexandria. Jacob: Yeah, all day...and at that time this one Jacob: Yeah, so there from little...a little railroad bunch, you know it’s in here in Portage and formed them north and right into the through (inaudible) and Pipestone and Beulah

53 and Saskatoon, and Fort Qu’Appelle and...Prince get smaller, some Pipestone and Fort Qu’Appelle Albert. and Saskatoon, and Prince Albert. They get a part mile, acres you know. This is the way. INTERVIEWER: All seven? These, it’s reserved, it’s seven miles long and four miles wide. Jacob: Seven years reserved for Sioux. For this much they all get that land, you know. INTERVIEWER: I see, so...

INTERVIEWER: They were all in that one Jacob: Yeah, at the south end it’s a mile wide. place at that time? INTERVIEWER: Wide, huh? Jacob: Yeah, in that place. Jacob: Well, this is the way they got the reserve. INTERVIEWER: 1871. INTERVIEWER: So they gave up that big Jacob: And after that I don’t know, how long it’s reserve and then seven groups formed? after that, you know, when they had some, they’d go around to group to group, you know. Jacob: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Uh huh. INTERVIEWER: And they got little reserves.

Jacob: You know its some people. The head man, Jacob: Yes, and now they have their regular you know, we...about in the dream. reserve.

INTERVIEWER: Yes. INTERVIEWER: You know when this reserve was founded that way? It would have been Jacob: It’s men, (freed) men like that you know, last century, huh? so this is the way. It’s the one guy at the bottom they follow wherever they go, to the river area or Jacob: Well, this is the way, it’s part one man, the lake area, there are lots of fish, or lots of they went to, there from the government says jumping deer over there, so the followed him. you go all over the place and what place if you It’s a...they had a few people like that you know, like it, so you can have that place, you know. so this is the way they would follow him, this one people. INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see.

INTERVIEWER: I see. Jacob: So they went west, come through the Portage, so they find these high rise place. It’s a Jacob: So this is the way it’s some group you big hill and the bushes, lots a reeds for their know. They went to, they run into the Oak Lake. jumping deers, and the big lake down in there, so The big lake. So they thought they had lots of maybe lots of ducks, and the river there for fish, fish, lots of muskrat, mink, or things like that so and the one river, the one little river from the they ask government department... piece of land, south, north to come from south to get into the take the part... they move to the Pipestone. Assiniboine River.

INTERVIEWER: The Pipestone. INTERVIEWER: I see.

Jacob: Yeah, so take to the part so much acres, Jacob: But this is the place nothing but fish, you know. Section, you know, move over there. winter and summer. This is the way they are That’s where they get, they get all the time they going to stay for I don’t know how long. And

54 anyway this one man, I don’t know how long INTERVIEWER: Yeah, and that’s grown into they stay there. He, dad told me, but I forget how about 940 people, huh? long they stay there. (Long pause) .... I forgot it, so it’s the man who come over, come over the Jacob: Yeah, close to a thousand. high rise over here to hunt the jumping deers, you know, and he got home before dark, you INTERVIEWER: Close to a thousand people. know, and the people there, paper or stuff like that, so a piece of earth and tie him to a tree like Jacob: (Communication in Dakota among family that, to take him home and then the next time at 15:01) they have, the next day they made the meeting about this earth, you know. INTERVIEWER: Are they going to the store?

INTERVIEWER: On the land down here. Jacob: Yeah, you came through Souris?

Jacob: Yeah, that. So this is, I found good land INTERVIEWER: Yeah, I stayed there one day, over there. It’s black I touched it, I think this nice town. land good for crops. I wondered how he knows that it’s a land and a good crop. No wheat, no Jacob: That’s all down the valley. barley, no oats at that time. INTERVIEWER: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: There weren’t. Jacob: Yeah, I was there last Saturday, good Jacob: So I wonder how its good land for ... place,. (laughter) INTERVIEWER: Nice place. INTERVIEWER: So there were planting that by Portage, then weren’t they? They had wheat Jacob: Yes, I see a lot of cars that stop there from and oats back there, huh? all over the place. I see a lot of different license plate on the car. Jacob: Maybe, maybe it could be. INTERVIEWER: They have a beautiful place to INTERVIEWER: How many people were stay and they have those rocks that people there? like.

Jacob: Not very much at that time. Jacob: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Not very many. INTERVIEWER: Well, you said nine or ten families probably started this reserve. Jacob: Not very much. Even about, or I see, not very much, maybe 10 or 15 families. Maybe even Jacob: Yes. less. INTERVIEWER: Yes, what do they do here INTERVIEWER: On this reserve. mostly, hunt and fish then?

Jacob: On this reserve. Jacob: Well, no, it’s a, at the first place the Indian government they issue you for cattle. INTERVIEWER: I see. INTERVIEWER: Oh, they did? Jacob: At that time.

55 Jacob: Yes, cattle. So it’s that and Johnny INTERVIEWER: For heaven sakes. Some of (Nault’s?) father, he’s died now, so they went to those houses are still here, aren’t they. Those east of Portage. They go down to get a bunch of old houses, the log cabins are here. cattle to bring them in. I don’t know how long it takes that, it’s a long ways there. 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 INTERVIEWER: Yeah, east of Portage. a cemetery. And keep going for quarter of a mile, south side is a log house there. One lady we ask, Jacob: East of Portage, Poplar Point they said. did you see how old this is and that time they came from Portage. She said 1889 they came to INTERVIEWER: That’s almost 100 miles. reserve.

Jacob: Yeah, about 100 miles. I don’t know how INTERVIEWER: From Portage. long it takes. Jacob: Yeah, and they saw these house. So it’s INTERVIEWER: Brought some cattle and over... started... INTERVIEWER: Almost 100 years. Jacob: And this is the way they grow... this oxen, to break in to the oxen and start the plow. Jacob: Almost 100 years. You can see the house if you want to see it. So go down 21 to the top of INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see, the cattle were oxen. the hill.

Jacob: Yes. INTERVIEWER: It would be off to the north then, would it? INTERVIEWER: They started ploughing the ground. Jacob: Well, you go off...

Jacob: And they had growing cattle and buy INTERVIEWER: Twenty--- one there. lumber for the houses, mind you some guy, some people, they make the house. Time it you see, Jacob: Twenty---one to the top of the hill, not very and they are just as good as made for the white far from the cemetery, and you keep going on people make. highway a quarter of a mile on the south side just next to the road. INTERVIEWER: They didn’t make their own houses. INTERVIEWER: And that’s one of the original houses? Jacob: Their own house, mind you. I wonder how they learn to make the house. I can make Jacob: Yeah, it’s an old Indian house. At the the house myself, you know, right now so ( Holland/ Allan?) house about his size. because I see how they make it. So this is the way I can make the house, not for them people. INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see, my goodness. Are most of these people from the Sisseton area INTERVIEWER: They never see how... originally?

Jacob: They never seen how. (Laughs) Jacob: That’s right. Daddy is an old agent from Sisseton.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, he was?

56 Jacob: Yes. INTERVIEWER: Just once back there.

INTERVIEWER: Well, this reservation is doing Jacob: I was there, I was...Dad and man, they pretty well isn’t it? You are on the council went too, it’s 1917, they went to the train you aren’t you? know. Since I never go back to (inaudible); I remember the country, how does it look like that Jacob: Yeah. time.

INTERVIEWER: I see you have quite a few INTERVIEWER: You haven’t been back ‘til industries, you have handicrafts, and farming. then.

Jacob: Yes that’s right. We want to grow a few Jacob: Yeah, and I saw my mother’s cousin. We potatoes, grow farm. stay there, their little girl, I play with them you know. I saw here it’s 63 years now. INTERVIEWER: Do many people work away now? INTERVIEWER: Oh my goodness.

Jacob: Oh, lots of people is working around here Jacob: They don’t remember me, you know. on the reserve, you know. INTERVIEWER: No? How old are you sir? INTERVIEWER: They do. Jacob: Me, it’s 63. Jacob: They drive the tractors and build the house and stuff like that. And get money from INTERVIEWER: Sixty---three. the government you know. It’s quite a place, you know. So I suppose to be going to fix the Jacob: Same age as that lady. (grainer?) today. So it’s...I walk out this morning. So it’s rain so we waiting. So I kind of waiting, INTERVIEWER: How many children do you rain on it so I feel not very good, so I laying down. have?

INTERVIEWER: You still own land in Sisseton, Jacob: Eight. you were telling me? INTERVIEWER: You have eight children. Do Jacob: Yes. they all live here?

INTERVIEWER: Started...yeah, how much land Jacob: Oh it’s, oh they’re all married, the girl is do you have? married, the one girl is married live over the next, the other side of the ridge, and we got three of us Jacob: It’s three of us. It’s close to 240 I think. here now.

INTERVIEWER: Are you still on their tribal INTERVIEWER: What kind of work do you do rolls then. on the council?

Jacob: Yes. Jacob: All kinds... dirty.

INTERVIEWER: You are? Do you get back INTERVIEWER: Dirty work? (Laughter) Do there very often? you work mostly with agriculture or...

Jacob: No, just once. Jacob: Yes.

57 INTERVIEWER: You do that, farming. How Jacob: Yeah, not (inaudible) for sure, maybe 40 much farm land do you actually have here on or 45 somewhere around. It’s a good crop. the reserve? INTERVIEWER: Yeah, let’s cool it off, ok? 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.

58 Kenneth: Yeah, we worked and fixing up the... Kenneth Eastman you know, that’s a lot of work, a lot of work. See we had to clear the bush you know. Clear the Tape 845 bush and, a lot of work, most just work. And we have great big potato patches, turnip patches, Kenneth: I was born on November 24, 1889. I patches of oats. Maybe forty, fifty acres of was born way up here in the bush ways up here, potatoes, there was quite a lot of us there. So Gladstone they call it. I was born in November, I you ask why, why I didn’t get a good education always tell the Indians, I always tell, you know I all these years. I’ve been there not less than wasn’t born in a hospital, you know, I was born three months. in a tipi they call it. And no stove just a fire in the middle there you know. No beds or nothing, just INTERVIEWER: At the school? evergreen branches you know, have that for mattress and bed spread. And they, well I always Kenneth: Yeah, and I only get what they call tell the people how I was born and how I was (grade, of see that means that I don’t pass?). I’d raised and all, this and of course I didn’t travel go to school from nine o’clock to twelve o’clock very much but still it (inaudible). I was put in and (the fifth?) They used to race through school and I spent most the time in school and so (inaudible) between that... I was hardly in school, I, the truth I don’t know very much about the most work. Of course we learned the farm, outside...the Indian side, like, eh. farming stuff. We learned all the farming, you know, the machinery. I could fix the machinery INTERVIEWER: Where did you go to school that’s broke. I could fix it up and fix it up like Mr. Eastman? that, but if it’s broke well it’s broke. And I, I learned all that. Kenneth: Uh, Brandon Residential School, It’s right in Brandon. INTERVIEWER: At the school?

INTERVIEWER: Yes, I’ve seen it there. Kenneth: At the school.

Kenneth: There was a school west of uh, north INTERVIEWER: Yeah. side... across the Assiniboine. It was... it’s a new school there now but the one I went to, it’s a... Kenneth: And my trade was farming, carpentry, that’s gone now. and gardening, and that’s what I am doing today. I’m working right in Pipestone. I transfer the INTERVIEWER: That’s gone now, the one you trees and oh, everything. Transferring lawn, you attended? know and cutting little strips where they just stick them in the ground where they grow and all Kenneth: Yeah, everything is gone ...I guess it’s them trees over there? been now. Why I was there, you know... we had a great big, big stables and we had horses and INTERVIEWER: Yes, I saw, by Frank’s place. cattle and sheep and pigs, you know, and hens. But you know, they, that’s why, because all day Kenneth: I cut those little strips right there, they sit and (I had a sister that was there?). So I stuck them in the ground and I don’t know what been there for quite awhile you know, but I’m they are now. not a very educated man. All these years I spend mostly was work because that school was just INTERVIEWER: You still do that? started you know and we worked, we worked... Kenneth: Oh sure that’s what I’m doing today. INTERVIEWER: Working the stables then?

59 INTERVIEWER: I see. a little bit and then quit again. And then go on again towards evening when it’s, you know, Kenneth: I just, I was from ah... 9 o’clock toward shady and cool, go ahead. Oh that, that’s nice... six you know. Just take my time and I make ten you know, pretty good. dollars a day, ten dollars a day for doing that. They told me not to work... You know they told INTERVIEWER: How much would they plough me to take a rest right where I am. I have a chair in a day? there you know, I sit there and take a rest right there. And when I feel like it, well go ahead and Kenneth: Not very much. cut. So that’s my trade life you know. INTERVIEWER: Not very much. INTERVIEWER: Yes. Kenneth: Slow you know. Kenneth: Somehow, it’s pretty hard right now in my old age. It’s pretty hard. Well, that’s what I INTERVIEWER: I’ll bet. can tell you now, you know, many a time I tell the white people how I was born, I wasn’t born in Kenneth: But they do a good job, you know. It’s the hospital, just in a little tipi. a breaking plough and it’s one of these you know. And of course I had, they give me a disc you INTERVIEWER: In a tipi? know, a disc and they give me the house too and this pond, oh it’s a nice end of the reserve and... Kenneth: Yeah, no stove, nothing, just a fire in Oh it’s small poplar land you know, and it’s kind the middle. And my dad and mother they tell me of soft like so the disc goes on pretty good you it was a pretty early winter and there was a lot of know. snow on the ground. INTERVIEWER: Yes. INTERVIEWER: Did you farm after you left school then? Kenneth: Just cut it right up and then you, they can get the house on well then. Kenneth: Oh yes, I farmed quite a lot. I farmed Sioux Valley they call it. I farmed the north and INTERVIEWER: Is that out toward the old you know, I farmed there quite a bit and then I cemetery there? That Sioux Valley is it out come home and then I farmed this land here. toward the old cemetery where the school is That first year I was out at the school they give now or...? me a yoke oxen... oxen, and a breaking plough. Yeah, and I have to go before the sunrise, I got to Kenneth: No, no it is furthest north. go on out. It was, the oxen then was good enough. And hot as it was. INTERVIEWER: Further north.

INTERVIEWER: When it was hot...( Laughing) Kenneth: I’m one of the last, last man on there.

Kenneth: So I had to get out there before INTERVIEWER: I see uh, uh. daylight like you know, all day. Yeah pretty good , a breaking plow and ( Gene and Hall ?) , Kenneth: Way up north, I was the last man on you know they learned you know, have a piece of the reserve land, right on the hill there, that’s rope that I can run with my hands. Oh I quit mine. around sometimes half past ten or eleven o’clock. I’d quit then and take a quick rest like you know. INTERVIEWER: How much did you farm there, And when the afternoon cools down, start again Mr. Eastman?

60 Kenneth: Well I had One hundred twenty acres, Kenneth: Right, you know, like my (inaudible) to but most was, you know, bush, most poplars, here you know. (patches?). You know, I left on 1908 (the original transcript listed 1918) in February, well INTERVIEWER: I see. they didn’t have pure land you know so I came along the Sioux Valley there and the Indian agent Kenneth: I go back and forth this way you know. was (Mr.Hollies *) ( blank in original transcript) I know this is where they departed to. I know Note *: J. Hollies was acting Indian Agent for that. Portage in 1908. R. Logan was Indian Agent for Griswold Agency in 1908 and Jas. McDonald for INTERVIEWER: Did you start to farm here Griswold agency in 1916. then or? ) they call him and there was no land to give it was all picked up. So this one Indian told me, Kenneth: Yeah. In 1912, I spent, 1912 to 1918 “Well he’s my uncle”. He told me there was one you know back and forth, like. And then after hundred twenty acres on the north end of the that, in 1918 that’s what did they call it? Spanish valley was, beautiful farming you know, patches flu? of poplar, you know, the trees and everything else. So I bought, I...they asked me if I wanted it, I INTERVIEWER: In the war...World War 1. said, ‘Sure, I’ll fix that”, that’s good 20 acres and over here there’s a big hill there. You know it’s Kenneth: Yes, well that’s the World War I. A flu, supposed to be about eighty acres and I took that a bad flu came along and wiped, oh the non--- for my oxen to pasture. (Laughter) I spent that English (inaudible) you know Sioux Valley, in all up, all that, you know. two weeks it wiped out 49.

INTERVIEWER: Did you have some cows too INTERVIEWER: Is that right? and sheep and ...? Kenneth: Yeah 49. Well then I came back in Kenneth: Oh we just had one or two cows then. 19...well ah, I tell my first wife like and the So, you know when I was kind’of young way up children, were all wiped out in the flu. And then there I didn’t know what, what tired is, when I I came back in ’23, ’23. Ever since I’ve been was little you know, always on the move like you here, ’23. 1923. So I don’t travel very much know. So I came here in (1912?) and we stayed anymore. there for quite awhile, but I go back and forth you know. INTERVIEWER: How much did you farm here then, there’s a couple of hundred acres here INTERVIEWER: I see. aren’t there?

Kenneth: And my dad and mother was (poor) Kenneth: Oh about oh, all this and all that, well there. (Inaudible) and this guy wanted to know there’d be about over two hundred acres, two, the dates on this reserve (of the dates?) when he two hundred acres, and I never quit farming, bought and sold, one of them was (inaudible) if keep on ploughing, ploughing all these people they sold for six he was going to get it. So he here they all ( inaudible) all acres celebrations bought two for the record. you know, Carlyle, Sioux Valley, Cardinal you know, Oh I been here just working. I don’t INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see. (inaudible).

INTERVIEWER: You came here in 1912 then? INTERVIEWER: You didn’t travel, you stayed home and worked?

61 Kenneth: No I didn’t travel at all. INTERVIEWER: He did?

INTERVIEWER: This is good land down here, Kenneth: Yeah he come there to see my dad, isn’t it? that’s his first cousin like you know. He’d come there and then I seen him you know and he had a, Kenneth: That’s the very best part of land right he wasn’t that old, he had a young white man of here, all this. course driving him and they both take him off and things like that, stayed there for a while and INTERVIEWER: Right here. then he went to Beaulah, they call it, Birdtail.

Kenneth: It’s no gumbo, no gumbo, just a heaven INTERVIEWER: Birdtail, yeah. that... (Note* Gumbo is fine---grained silt soil that becomes sticky mud when saturated with rain) Kenneth: That’s that’s, he’s got some cousins over there too you know. He went over there to INTERVIEWER: Black soil. see them.

Kenneth: Yeah, pretty good land. INTERVIEWER: I see. Do you know who his cousins were up there or...? INTERVIEWER: Yeah. Kenneth: Charley Huntska was his cousin. Kenneth: I used to get... I usually get crops, yeah know? INTERVIEWER: Oh, Charley Huntska was his cousin. INTERVIEWER: How many bushels did you get for an acre? Kenneth: Yes, Charley Huntska that was his cousin there and Moses, then of course Moses Kenneth: Oh, let me count... (Laughter) was... you might say a half---breed, and his mother is related to these Eastmans. INTERVIEWER: Let me count? INTERVIEWER: I see. Kenneth: But ah, I was always satisfied with what I get anyway. Kenneth: Oh there was quite a few, quite a few, two or three Eastmans over there, but they INTERVIEWER: Yes. passed away long ago, long ago.

Kenneth: We grew a lot of vegetables too you INTERVIEWER: Are there any Eastmans’ out know, they grow all, not a little garden, it’s in Saskatchewan? (inaudible). Kenneth: No, I don’t think so, I don’t know. INTERVIEWER: That’s beautiful; I tell you I wish mine were that clean. INTERVIEWER: You don’t know just Sioux Valley and here and out at Birdtail? Kenneth: Yeah, they’re pretty good...well. Kenneth: Uh huh. INTERVIEWER: You said that Charles Eastman was your uncle? INTERVIEWER: Yeah. Do you remember anything about Charles Eastman when he was Kenneth: Yeah, he come to, when I was over here, did he talk to you at all about...? there, way up Sioux Valley, he came there.

62 Kenneth: Charles Eastman? Kenneth: Yeah, he was right here, he was raised here. INTERVIEWER: Yes. INTERVIEWER: Oh he was raised here? Kenneth: No, my dad did all the talking. They stayed. They didn’t spend quite a long time here Kenneth: Yeah, he was raised here on the, they you know, they, they stayed for a few hours you start to drift, drift, drift went to South Dakota know and then went on. and then from there on he went to Sisseton, Sisseton, South Dakota. That’s why I went down INTERVIEWER: Went on his way. to his place.

Kenneth: But uh, Rogers they call him down INTERVIEWER: You were only there once there. then huh? Have any of the Eastman’s down there ever written to you in Flandreau? INTERVIEWER: Rogers? Kenneth: No, just, just a cousin. Kenneth: John Rogers was here. He used to play baseball. INTERVIEWER: Just that one cousin. I see.

INTERVIEWER: Oh yes, yeah. Kenneth: They, uh, just (inaudible) speak at all. His mother, she’s from Montana. She’s from here Kenneth: He used to play baseball for the but she went to Montana and got married over (Brandon?). I used to see him, tall, you know. there. You know and uh, she was over there, but You learn (inaudible). Yeah, my mother and dad this John... they used to camp over there you know. John Rogers would come along once in awhile at INTERVIEWER: I see. evening you know. He is, if he felt like coming down, down here to have an Indian, Indian Kenneth: Yeah. meeting you know all the time in town you get (inaudible) brother---in---laws and that stuff, he INTERVIEWER: Did your father ever talk of; likes that get an Indian (league?) You know in did he come from the States, your father? something, buy Indian bannock or tea like. Oh he likes that. Kenneth: No, my dad is from Fort Qu’Appelle.

INTERVIEWER: So do I. INTERVIEWER: Oh he was, he was born up there? Kenneth: Yeah he used to sit there and sip it (laughter). Oh he likes that you know. I seen Kenneth: He must because his dad is from there. him. Now I understand why (inaudible) He’s old, my granddaddy. He’s from there and somewhere. my dad is from there too.

INTERVIEWER: You said earlier that you were INTERVIEWER: I see, and your mother was related to Mr., you were to Mr. Cloud at from over here, Sioux Valley? Sisseton? Kenneth: Yeah. Kenneth: Yes. INTERVIEWER: Oh I see. How many children INTERVIEWER: Yeah. do you have Mr. Eastman.

63 Kenneth: Oh, well I’ve, I have six uh, well six Kenneth: Yes, they’re over there, . with three left but I, I don’t know, three, three passed away you know and I still got four INTERVIEWER: That’s good. girls, four girls and two boys ( Frank and Norris) . Just the youngest one here, Gloria, she’s the Kenneth: They stayed together at Long Plain and youngest. they’re going pretty good, course my son---in---law is a mechanic, you know garage...he’s got his INTERVIEWER: She’s your daughter? papers...

Kenneth: She’s still here and the other ones INTERVIEWER: Oh I see. (inaudible)( Irene Smoke?) She’s down in Long Plains right now. Kenneth: So he, he could do it, make money you know. INTERVIEWER: Oh, is she? INTERVIEWER: He could work in Portage Kenneth: Yeah, she was, she was quite awhile in maybe someplace. Brandon there and ...(Inaudible) Kenneth: No he’s farming right now. INTERVIEWER: Yes, I see. INTERVIEWER: He’s farming? Kenneth: She was at that job for five or six years now. She got to talk . One day she Kenneth: He’s farming I don’t know how many come along and said, Dad, I’m not getting acres. anywhere, she said she’s not getting anywhere at all; although I’m getting a top price but I don’t...I INTERVIEWER: I see. Well Frank is carrying can (add quicker?)...to go to school. More and on your work here; isn’t he on the farm? more I’m beginning to talk to but I don’t have . She went to a, she went to University of Kenneth: Oh yeah. He works over here but he, Brandon. he is a councillor.

INTERVIEWER: Yes. INTERVIEWER: He’s on the council too?

Kenneth: She went there. She stayed quite a Kenneth: Yeah. while and then I guess she ...oh with so many talents, returned to the university but she kind of INTERVIEWER: I see. went through there and then she moved to Long Plain Reserve. And she was married before all Kenneth: Chief and two councillors, he spends this you know, but to (inaudible). He was a most of his time in the office you know taking drifter; drifted... he went off towards North notes and all that. Dakota and then way up to California that’s... INTERVIEWER: I see he’s got his crops in. INTERVIEWER: My goodness. Kenneth: Yeah he does. Kenneth: He used to drift you know. So he just came back, oh, about couple years and kind ‘of INTERVIEWER: Uh, Pastor Jackson told me drifted back again. you spend quite a lot of time over at the church over the years. INTERVIEWER: So they’re back, they are over at Long Plain together? Kenneth: What?

64 INTERVIEWER: I said Pastor Jackson told me Now...it’s quite about that, they use all that you spend quite a lot of time in the church Church. And everybody passed away involved in over the years. that they use all the Church...The Catholic Church.

Kenneth: Oh there’s I am an elder in that church INTERVIEWER: They do? you know. I am a member and I was a man that worked pretty hard, five years to get that church. Kenneth: They do. Five years and you know, you have a Catholic church? INTERVIEWER: I see.

INTERVIEWER: Yes. Kenneth: And the chief that didn’t want no Presbyterian church , His grandson passed away Kenneth: This church, one church from ahh I you know and he didn’t have ...(inaudible) don’t know if it’s the Presbyterian Church. You church, To our church , at a funeral services. So I know the Chief at that time, by the name of (inaudible) I bet even you could see that he was a chief he’s called. Well the Chief Catholic church, it’s all, windows all boarded up. says one church is (good?)for a small reserve. So I, I fought for it, I said we got to have our own INTERVIEWER: Oh is it? church too you know, Presbyterian. My dad was on always on the Presbyterians. So we got that Kenneth: Oh it’s boarded up, I don’t know how church so that, Sunday school children long, it’s been boarded up, yeah. (inaudible (Taylor?) pick up the money for it you know, we built our church. I did a lot of work, INTERVIEWER: And they use your church it’s a lot of work you know, digging the tunnel. now?

INTERVIEWER: Yeah. Kenneth: They use our church. I’d like, I like it. I’d like to see the people go there. Kenneth: And we worked there and worked there and there were four of us. Four of us INTERVIEWER: Do you know Ed Bunn, worked pretty hard (inaudible) to do this faster Edward Bunn from ... you know, and we got that church. There I used to meet an elder there they were...since I Kenneth: Oh yes, I know him. am back here, you know, I got some...most sometimes I spent in the hospital, like you know. INTERVIEWER: He’s a fine man.

INTERVIEWER: Oh you do? Kenneth: He’s my brother---in---law.

Kenneth: Oh yeah. INTERVIEWER: Oh he is?

INTERVIEWER: When did you build the Kenneth: Oh yes. He’s, well of course my missus church, do you remember the year? passed away a couple years ago, couple years ago and I’m alone with my daughter here, but Ed Kenneth: I don’t, it was quite awhile. Bunn. Well that’s his first cousin, my missus, first cousins. INTERVIEWER: Long time ago? INTERVIEWER: I see.

Kenneth: Well not very long ago. Just a, Rev. Kenneth: First cousins. Jackson and there was a man there, ah (Crips?) He was a Minister at that time, Reverend (Crips?)

65 INTERVIEWER: I talked to him for quite War I. He went on to point out that he was awhile yesterday. rather aggressive and successful athlete when he was in school. He played some hockey. He ran Kenneth: He’s fine. both the 100 yard dash and the ten mile cross--- country when he was there successfully and he INTERVIEWER: He was in Birtle. He was with also played football, or they call it in the States, Pastor Jackson. soccer. He said they played that throughout the year and he always enjoyed that. He felt as a Kenneth: Oh yeah. young man that liquor and smoking would impair his progress as an athlete and so he never INTERVIEWER: I ran across him there. was given over to it and he has continued on to the day to abstain. He’s also known as one of the Kenneth: That’s all I know, I don’t know nothing leaders of the Presbyterian church here. As he about uh (the practices?) You know, I don’t pointed out in the tape he was one of the move around. So... founders of the church to provide an alternative on the Reserve to the Roman Catholic Church INTERVIEWER: You’ve been a man to stay which was the only one at the time of his arrival. home to work haven’t you? He pointed out too that he has relatives, doubtless has relatives all around in South Kenneth: Oh yeah, all, all these that go away to Dakota and the area but he doesn’t know about celebrations but I won’t go to these. them. I suspicion that Grace Moore at Flandreau, was an Eastman was a relative of his and, INTERVIEWER: Well this is very good, I because Charles Eastman is both Ken Eastman’s appreciate it. uncle and Fred Eastman’s uncle, Fred Eastman being in Winona, Minnesota, we have a tape from Have a footnote for Mr. Eastman’s tape. After we him and then Fred Eastman and Kenneth concluded our full interview he went on to point Eastman have to be cousins even though they out that he has never been one in his life at any seem today to be unaware of each other. It time to use either liquor or to smoke. He pointed would be very interesting if they could read each out that he never traveled around but lived a other tapes and when they get together, frugal disciplined life and the comments of the exchange views about Charles Eastman. 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

66 INTERVIEWER: You have one and three--- Lawrence Smoke quarter sections here and then there’s a village on the other end? Tape 792 Lawrence: Yeah, there is a Sioux Village over INTERVIEWER: This is August 27, 1971 at the there. I don’t know how many acres is in there. Long Plains Sioux community in Manitoba No too much, just a small little lot. and I’m speaking to Lawrence Smoke. Mr. Smoke’s home is on the southwestern fringe INTERVIEWER: How much farm land do you of the Saulteaux reserve. His home is have here, Mr. Smoke, altogether? You have situated in the middle of a number of fields. more than a section? There’s a field of oats to my west and a field of barley to the south and it seems to be one Lawrence: Yeah, nine hundred and, what is it of the most fertile parts of the Sioux part of now, 929 acres or something like that in this reservation. The house is modest cultivated land. That’s farming, but some of it is although it seems to be an adequate dwelling leased out right at the moment, and we’ve got place and around the yard there’s some now 727 acres. heavy machinery. There’s one wind rower and two combines and a truck and a couple of INTERVIEWER: That you’re farming yourself? large tractors, a substantial investment in farm machinery. Our concern here, well, I Lawrence: Yeah, ourselves, yeah. have three questions to ask you this morning. I was thinking on the way out and one, I’m INTERVIEWER: I gather you’re trying to get interested in what you are doing here in all back, so you can run it yourselves? farming. Your brother, Arnie, told me yesterday that you and your brother, Lawrence: Yeah, we are. Raymond, had taken over the farming operations of the tribe pretty much. Is that INTERVIEWER: Does this tribal land then true? belong to the group or...?

Lawrence: Yeah, we are. This will be our second Lawrence: Yes, it belongs to the group, yeah. year. INTERVIEWER: But you’re farming this as an INTERVIEWER: How much land is out here, individual, aren’t you. tribal land? Lawrence: Yeah. Lawrence: On here we’ve got, let’s see now, one and three---quarter sections is what we got. INTERVIEWER: I gather your machinery out here is yours? INTERVIEWER: You do? Lawrence: Um hum. Lawrence: That’s the Sioux’s on this side. See, on the other side, like that road that you come on, INTERVIEWER: You and your brother that’s the divided line. The other side is together? Saulteaux. Lawrence: Yeah. There’s one combine that’s not INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see. ours there and the truck and that one little tractor, but the rest is ours. Lawrence: And this side is Sioux.

67 INTERVIEWER: Do you lease it from the tribe easy, maybe more but... And the flax usually then, the land? comes out good, oh, maybe it’ll go about 35 anyway. That’ll be at the least the way it looks Lawrence: The land, yeah. now, but it all depends on the frost and that. If it’s a heavy, early frost, then we might not get INTERVIEWER: I see. What do you raise what we expect. But otherwise the oats is going mostly, wheat...? come out good. It’ll come out to about 45, 50, somewhere in there. And the wheat is not as Lawrence: Wheat, barley, oats, and flax. That’s good as we expected. It wouldn’t come out as what would be put in. good as we were thinking anyway, but my brother was swathing it yesterday and he said it INTERVIEWER: What kind of production do was pretty thin in places. So I don’t know, I think you get? we’re alright though.

Lawrence: Well, this is our second year. Last INTERVIEWER: Does the tribe have any other year we were hailed out, you know, we only had, industries besides agriculture? we didn’t have too much. We were pretty well flattened out and another year like that would Lawrence: No, we don’t, no. Well, there’s, we’re have finished us. But we’ve managed to get by planning on a meeting this fall and get all the this year. We got a loan and then we got some work done and the boys are out and away from money from the government to back us up for and that. We’re trying to get into cattle and spring feeding and that. That’s how we’ve poultry. managed to go this year, I guess. And we didn’t have no insurance last year. INTERVIEWER: Oh, you are, out here?

INTERVIEWER: You didn’t? Lawrence: Yeah. Some of these boys, we all depend on the boys. They’re interested and Lawrence: No. we’re going to work as a group, you know. They have a community; well it’s a community INTERVIEWER: Then it’s a dead loss to you. development that’s coming in to help us get started. It all depends on the boys, if they’re Lawrence: Yeah, so this year we’re insured and interested; well we said we’ll take it. Well, we did what was supposed to be done last year, I Raymond and I were talking about cattle. I don’t guess. But this year it never hailed or nothing so know, it’s still in the talking stage, you know, that I’m going to sleep easier at nights anyway. they’re coming out as far as we know, this fall when our work is done. We are going to go into INTERVIEWER: Yeah, I guess. What kind of poultry, talking about geese. And they said production do you expect out here this year there’s money in there for that, so we might as per acre, you figure? well get a share of it.

Lawrence: Oh, I really don’t know. Barley’s the INTERVIEWER: What about the tribe? Do you thing that really grows out here. Like this year have a tribal constitution, or council, or how we figure ours will go about 60, 60 to the acre, does your tribe, what’s the government like you know. in your tribe?

INTERVIEWER: It will? Lawrence: Here?

Lawrence: Yeah. And some guys are getting INTERVIEWER: Do you elect a chairman; do more, be we ourselves think that it will go 60 you, or a chief?

68 Lawrence: No, we don’t, we’re just a small group reserve. Now what we’re trying to do is form here. See, that village and here, they’re divided one band... share in what, let them share in what and some of them were, well, that is the original we’ve got and so we can elect a chief and council. place was up there south of Portage. You see, they’ve got more people up there than what we have here. But some of them are afraid INTERVIEWER: Old village? to, see, what they think is that if they make them one band, they’re going to move them all out Lawrence: Yeah, they moved them to this other here. This is not the idea. The idea is to create a, place. Well, anyway they’re divided, see. There see, if we could form, both form, we can was a lot of, well, at the start, might as well start administer our own band. And give these from the beginning. younger, the younger people that are coming up, they’ve got the education and no jobs. Give them INTERVIEWER: Yeah, let’s do that. jobs. Make welfare administrator and stuff, you know, to run their own reserve. This is what Lawrence: My dad was raised there and he told we’re after. But they’re scared; they can’t seem me, one day, I guess, the river start cutting out, to get it into their head that they can stay there. cutting banks on where they were. The Well, this..., but no, they said, we can’t. They said government came in and they said, they asked if you make us one band, you’ll move us all out them who’s interested in farming. That if here. No, I said, it isn’t that. And we said if you anybody was interested in farming they would make it one band, we can buy land where you are, get them land and they could move whoever I said, add to, you know, make it bigger. We wanted to move. could do that. As you’re sitting now, I said, you can’t, you’re not advancing, you’re not going INTERVIEWER: From the old village? anyplace. The government is not doing nothing for you, you know, because you’re not on a Lawrence: Yeah. And apparently Dad told me reserve. If you make it a reserve up there then, there was quite a few. Well, there was the Bells join us, I said, you can buy land outside and they and Smokes and the Chaskes, I forget how many could make, you know, we could buy a big piece there was. There was one, two, three, four, five, of land there, but they don’t seem to understand six, seven, there was about eight families that that. They’re afraid they’re going to get pushed moved out. Different ones, you know. And they out of their... all moved out and they started to get them machinery and the horses and there was, I think INTERVIEWER: Out of the village? some of them stayed the first year. Some of them Lawrence: Yeah. stayed one year and some went back they kept gradually going back and they told them that INTERVIEWER: You’ve never then really had anybody that left this reserve and went back to a tribal government as such? the village had nothing to do with this reserve’s...the money part. You know, whatever Lawrence: No, no. came off this reserve had nothing; they couldn’t do anything with it. They had no part in it INTERVIEWER: You’re just thinking now because they left it already. They had the first about forming one? chance. Well, this is always brought up at the meetings all the time too. Why couldn’t they Lawrence: Yeah, we’re just thinking now. Boy, share in what money we’ve got here? But we this has been going on for... well, I was hitting always told them why? The government said them for about three years. Three years and I that if any of you left this reserve and went back, tried to talk them into it. But I just couldn’t get they had no share in what comes off this reserve. to them, I finally, I quit and Ernie has got the job This is what they told them. So it’s a separate now and he’s trying to make them form in one

69 band, but couldn’t seem to... I don’t know, they INTERVIEWER: This is true of most of your just couldn’t talk or get it through their heads people? what we’re after. A. Yeah, most of them, yeah. INTERVIEWER: How many people are out here in this end? INTERVIEWER: Are there any Mdewakanton up here? Minnesota people, Prairie Island? Lawrence: Down here, right now? Lawrence: There is four, I’m sure. I don’t know INTERVIEWER: Yeah. who’s who and we had a meeting, well, we had different meetings and this is something that we Lawrence: There’s only about 45 because some always talked about. The four reserves, Sioux of them moved out. There’s only about 45 now. Valley, Pipestone, this one was included ( down there?) ... Prince Albert. There’s seven different INTERVIEWER: How many back at the village? bands of Sioux, you know. They’re all mixed up and we’ve had meetings is Yorkton, Regina, Lawrence: Two hundred thirty---five was the last Qu’Appelle, and Brandon. And then we’ve, this is count we had. Two hundred thirty---five, so you what they’ve always discussed, who’s, what he is, can see there, they’re a bigger bunch up there what tribe he comes from, and a lot of them than here. wouldn’t say, you know, they wouldn’t say there, what tribe they’re from and so I really couldn’t INTERVIEWER: Well, what you’d like to do tell. I know there’s four different ones out here. then is form a tribal council then and have a chairman? INTERVIEWER: Four different reservations?

Lawrence: Oh yeah, we would. Lawrence: No, there are seven different tribes. Like Wahpeton and that, eh, they’re different. INTERVIEWER: Do you have any kind of constitution now like we have in the States? INTERVIEWER: Are you Wahpeton?

Lawrence: No. Lawrence: Yes, as far as I know that’s what I am. I’ve always said I was. INTERVIEWER: Nothing like that? INTERVIEWER: The reason I asked the Lawrence: Nothing at all, no. question is that the folks back in the States say, well, my grandfather used to write, you INTERVIEWER: So you’re acting then as know, but they’ve stopped writing and they individuals? don’t know anymore where to write or where to go to find their relatives. Lawrence: Yeah, more or less. Lawrence: Oh yeah. INTERVIEWER: I see. I wanted to ask you too, from what your father said and all, what tribe INTERVIEWER: Do you have some did you come from in the States? Are you Mdewakanton here on this, do you think? Is people for the most part Wahpeton? there a family or two at Long Plains or not?

Lawrence: Yeah. Lawrence: There could be at the village, I couldn’t say.

70 INTERVIEWER: None out here? INTERVIEWER: Everybody lived in the village before that? Lawrence: None out here, no. Lawrence: Um hum, at that south of Portage INTERVIEWER: I see. village there, the old village.

Lawrence: This is, we are all brothers out here. INTERVIEWER: How’d they make a living when they were at the old village? INTERVIEWER: I understand there are nine of you? Lawrence: Oh, just by cutting wood mostly. They used to walk way out here to cut wood. Lawrence: Yeah, they’re all brothers out here. All the houses around here... our uncle lives over INTERVIEWER: They did? there. Percy Chaske, he’s the only one. Lawrence: Yeah. There was a bridge over here, INTERVIEWER: Percy Chaske is the only one? they call it white bride and there was a guy up there, Arnie Shaw. I know my grandfather, he Lawrence: Yeah. said, that he used to walk from Portage. He used to cross the river and then walk down here to cut INTERVIEWER: Where does he live, just wood. Cut wood up there all day and then walk south? back again at night. He said for 25 cents a cord.

Lawrence: The house over there. The rest are all INTERVIEWER: Fantastic. brothers. Lawrence: He used to walk every day. He’d start INTERVIEWER: I see, so there are just two out walking when it would come day break, we’d families here then, really. start out walking and then we work out there all day and when the sun was going down, they’d go Lawrence: Yeah, there’s only two families. The on back again. rest all moved back to the village. INTERVIEWER: That was really all there was INTERVIEWER: Percy is your uncle? to do?

Lawrence: Yeah. Lawrence: That’s all there was to do.

INTERVIEWER: When did you get this land INTERVIEWER: How do most of the folks in from the government out here? You said that the village make a living now? the government had offered an opportunity to come out. Was that when your father was Lawrence: Oh, on farms, working on farms and small? like, now they would by pitching bales, mostly farm work. Lawrence: Yeah, that was, I don’t know what year that would be. That was way back. INTERVIEWER: Not much industrial work?

INTERVIEWER: In the ‘20’s in there? Lawrence: No, no, there’s nothing at all. They can’t get a job. Oh, we’ve got some boys Lawrence: Yeah, it was in the ‘20’s, yeah. educated here. Some are welders, some are mechanics. They can’t get a job.

71 INTERVIEWER: They can’t? there’s bus here. We’ve been trying to get a bus here. They’ve been beating us out on the Lawrence: No, they can’t get a job. Orville, my contracts and everything. You know, every brother, he’s been after a job for, I don’t know, reserve has got their own bus routes and we said well, before he got sick actually. He got sick why couldn’t we have one? We’re a separate there, oh, he was in the hospital for maybe 18 band from those people on this side. They run months, maybe more. He was a welder, you our buses on that side and run them through know. And he was a real good welder. When he here. Well, why couldn’t somebody get that job went to the hospital, he went back for, to his job here and make a little money on our side. Well, and they wouldn’t give it back because he left his we’re not doing the proper way to get a bus. We job. Well, he couldn’t help it because he was sick. don’t go through the proper channels to get a bus. Well, we work hard enough and try hard, but at INTERVIEWER: Was that in Portage? the end they always say, well, somebody else got the contract. You know things like this. Well, Lawrence: No, that was in Winnipeg. 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 INTERVIEWER: Oh, I see. bus. We told that and now they’re saying okay that you’ll get a bus. But we said, we’re going to Lawrence: They wouldn’t give him back his job see that we get a bus because if we don’t get a because he wasn’t there a certain length of time, bus, our kids are not going to go to school till we I guess, and... do get a bus. So they say they are going to get us a bus. INTERVIEWER: Is the Manitoba Indian Brotherhood over there at Winnipeg doing INTERVIEWER: Where do your kids go to anything now? school?

Lawrence: Yeah. They are the ones that told that Lawrence: At Rossendale. there is money for these community development and that. They’re the ones that INTERVIEWER: Rossendale? notify us and told to get a share of that money. Before we never got what we wanted. And we Lawrence: Public school. never knew there was money for different projects, you know, and things of this nature. We INTERVIEWER: Is there a high school over never knew about it till it was all spent. there?

INTERVIEWER: That’s government money? Lawrence: No, there’s a high school at MacGregor. The boy that went out of here, he’s Lawrence: Yeah, government money. We never, going to high school this year. He’s just starting it seems that we’re being neglected out here. high school. That’s the way I feel anyway. And then when you go back and ask, inquire about some and ask for INTERVIEWER: Any money available for your some and they beat around the bush. They don’t kids if they want to go to college? come to the point and tell you, they just beat around the bush till it’s all, till it’s over and then Lawrence: Uh, uh... they tell you why and what you should have did. That’s just the way they act. We’re actually... we INTERVIEWER: Nothing? are being neglected out here; this band out here anyway, this small group. I know there are a lot Lawrence: Not that I know of anyway. of things that we want and for an example,

72 INTERVIEWER: Any arts and crafts? Do the INTERVIEWER: You don’t have any? people in the village make anything that develops a profit for them? Lawrence: No, just our little boy (Laughing) He’s loud enough. Lawrence: No. INTERVIEWER: What church do most of you INTERVIEWER: Nothing. people go to?

Lawrence: No, there’s nothing. Lawrence: Church? We don’t even go to church.

INTERVIEWER: They don’t carry that along INTERVIEWER: They don’t. You don’t have with their traditions? one out in this community?

Lawrence: No. Lawrence: No, we don’t . No.

INTERVIEWER: I understand that you don’t INTERVIEWER: Do the kids have any have a powwow any more either in your community recreation, baseball team...? group. Lawrence: No. Lawrence: Here? No, we... this family and Raymond’s, they’re the only ones and Cody’s, INTERVIEWER: Nothing like that? they’re the ones that always attended powwows. I think this is our first year we travelled. We did Lawrence: No. a lot of travelling this year. INTERVIEWER: It’s too isolated for that? INTERVIEWER: Where did you go? Lawrence: Well, these... our kids always play Lawrence: We went down to Twin Buttes. We with the Rossendale boys. were up there and we went down to Totten, Fort Totten. INTERVIEWER: Oh, they do?

INTERVIEWER: Did you go to the Totten Lawrence: Yeah. He won an award this year as powwow? top athlete of the year.

Lawrence: Oh, we didn’t go to this big one. No, INTERVIEWER: Good. How many kids do you we were busy then. We were doing too much have? travelling and we were forgetting our summer products. We had to stay home one week. Lawrence: We got four, two girls and two boys.

INTERVIEWER: I know the feeling. INTERVIEWER: Well, I’m starting to feel....

Lawrence: We missed that one, but I think we End of Tape took the rest all in.

INTERVIEWER: But you don’t have one here? Do you have any singers around this band?

Lawrence: No.

73 We had to go and plant our garden beside the Nora Bunn Assiniboine River, closer to the water. And now as I look back I praise the Lord. Nobody had INTERVIEWER: I want to record your garden in those days, but Grandma had a very testimony here; but before we get to that I good garden. would like to just have you talk a little about yourself—where you were born and where And she used to grow a lot of vegetables, and I you went to school and then go on and say used to see every day little children, our anything you want to say. neighbour’s children, they’d come to her gate, and she’d go to the garden with the children. Nora: I was born in Portage la Prairie Manitoba, They go home with vegetables. She shared her on September 11, 1915, and I was there for garden with her neighbours. Now I see why that about two years with my mother. Of course, my happened. If you are not Christian, if you don’t father was in the army at the time I was born. He obey God, well you have a hard times. But if you went overseas, and while he was overseas, things trust and believe in God that he said he will look didn’t work out right and my parents separated. after you, now as I look back in those times I see And I had to come back to my father’s parents we were very lucky to have the Lord with us. and I was raised in Sioux Valley Reserve. So after I left school I worked here and there out My grandfather was an elder of the Anglican on the farms. I had to work to support myself. I church, and he himself had quite an experience didn’t have a very high education but I learned a in his childhood life, my grandfather. He was lot after I left school, by working out of which I’m adopted by the white people when he was a child, very thankful. Back in 1946 I got married, and I and he went to school and he speaks very good stayed with this man nine years. And our English. My grandmother, she can’t talk English; marriage didn’t work out very good, so we but he taught her many ways of white people, separated, and he joined the army in the Second and so I was brought up in a Christian home. I War, and I had to go out working again to went to school in Elkhorn, for seven years I was support myself. in there. And after he went overseas and he came back— But in those days they worked us more than nothing happened – he came back and he had an school, like in the classrooms. We’d only go in accident and he got killed. In 1946 I stayed with the classroom half a day. And the rest of the time my present husband here, and he’s a very good they give us work, and we’d do our own laundry man. He didn’t know the Lord, and I used to tell and our own sewing and do our own cooking and him about the Lord, but he didn’t know so it was all sorts of work. It was good, I really enjoyed it. very hard for me. And he had children; I had to I’m not complaining. Because as now today I look after all his children. But I’d teach the look back in those times, I see what the good children to pray, he never used to like me for Lord has brought me through. I was never that, he used to scold the children when he sees hungry in those days of Depression; we had them praying and saying grace at the table. He Depression back in 1930s. used to get mad and scold the children.

But I see now as I look back, I know the good One day these seven brothers came from Lord is with us all the time. And after my Saskatchewan, they brought this tent mission. grandfather passed away in 1927, just me and And Wilbur came and told us, they say you folks my grandma and my dad and my stepmother. didn’t come to service last night, we had a very And she always had a big garden—there was no nice service. So he invited us, so we went; and rain in those days, it was very hot—we used to the fourth night we both got saved. And ever get up early in the morning and water the garden. since then we were happy, and we had a lot of

74 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.