Buffalo Spirit Articles
- First Issue
Welcome on our journey
Elder Joe Cardinal
- In his own words
Devalon Small Legs
- cultural advisor
A case made for unusual, thought-provoking
art
Who do you go to for advice?
Oglala Sioux man writes
to set the record straight
Phone: (780) 455-2700Fax
(780) 455-7639
Email: edwind@ammsa.com
Phone: (780) 455-2700
Fax
(780) 455-7639Email: edwind@ammsa.com
An Elder is supposed to not go and talk, talk, talk all the time in a crowd, you know? I'm supposed to be somewhere, sitting, and people come and get advice. Maybe it's changing. It's a changing world. But I'm invited to places where I have to speak. So I do that. . . . This lady from Kahnawake, she says, 'you know, we have lost a lot of our value system. The grandparent, the grandfathers, our kinship, our relationships, we have lost the values, the family values.'
We used use to live on the land, live from the land. Like me, I came from the trapline. I know the values, had to work, had to hoof it. . . . Nobody wants to work anymore. Now we come to a crossroad. We are all sitting there at a crossroad, not really knowing the direction to go. And she says 'we are sitting there with a lot of sickness. Sugar diabetes is epidemic. We have cancer. We have AIDS. We have arthritis. Lack of education is a sickness. Alcoholism and drugs is a sickness.' She says 'we are all sitting there, maybe waiting for somebody to heal us. We're waiting, maybe, for our white brother to come and heal us. But they cannot heal us. We have to heal ourselves.'
She says 'we have to send our children to school. We have to get them to get an education. Us grandparents,' she says, 'everyday we have to work on that. The parents especially'. She says, 'don't let your children miss a day of school.'
She says when we see them graduate to being a doctor or an educator, look at how happy we will be. And we will be going into a different set of value system where we will be happy that our children are getting this education.'
We will be happy, and we will feel better. Maybe that's the way we will be healed in this situation. And I think she was right. She says 'we have to do it ourselves. . . .' These are the Elders that are speaking this way. And I also want to speak that way to people.
I say again I cannot heal them, but I want to speak to them in a way that they can heal themselves. So to that lady, education is the key. But also, the best one is family. Good family, to raise a good family, a strong family. It will make a strong community.
And I guess, believing in all this, thinking about this . . . I think that's one of the reasons they call me an Elder.
- Joe Cardinal
Two o'clock after midnight there was a knock at the door, and a young man, he had a wife and a couple of kids, so I let him in and he was so doped up. He was crying. He says, 'I have nothing to give you, but I want to come and talk to you.' So I says, 'ok, go ahead.' Oh, he told me he just about got into an accident, and he got picked up . . . you know, a lot of stuff. So I finally told him, I says, 'sleep on this couch. You're not in shape,' I told him, 'for me to really talk to you.' But he had a good idea to come, I think. I don't think there could be an Elder that could refuse. But he told me, 'I have nothing to come and give you. But I want help.'
I says, 'ok.' But he didn't want to sleep, so he drove off. I saw him, about four or five days after. And I called him over and I says, 'you came to me the other night.' I says, 'I wanted to help you, so we'll have a talk. . . .' So we went in the sweat and I talked to him, and this other woman talked to him. But he gave me tobacco and prints [cloth] after. That's how that one went. . . . I cannot refuse a young man coming to me, but I tell him. Bring something next time.
And sometime I counsel five of them at the same time. Sometimes we go to town and have coffee and talk and they talk with one another. . . . And then sometimes we go to church. If you want to go to church, we go to church. Sometimes they want to go to sweat, we go to sweat, and talk. Sometimes they want to come to the city here, and listen to a concert or something, a music festival or something . . . it's a lot of work. You have to give lots. And that way, they start to understand that protocol. I talk to them about it.
But the last big thing, is to go to the parents.... I tell the parents, listen to your son. Listen to him, and after you will get a chance and he will listen to you. The parents find it hard. Harder than the young men . . . .
I don't know if you understand what I am trying to say. I cannot refuse. Whether the guy have nothing. Later on the next session, I tell him 'Give something.'
- Joe Cardinal
Let me put some light on payment. A long time ago, we don't know how far back, everything was transferred all down the family line. That's how they lived. If somebody needed doctoring or help, and if this other person had the medicine, it just went that way. But somewhere along the line, a payment came in. Maybe it was because this person wanted everybody to know he was rich. This was during the horse culture. He wanted people to know he was rich. So he said 'I'm going to give four horses for that.' And that's where it started. And then it grew and grew and grew and it became what it is today.
When someone brings you tobacco, prints (cloth), or maybe a gift, something monetary, something blanket-wise, when that person brings you that stuff, it's a connection.
- Devalon Small Legs
I put up a fast every year at home. I don't go anywhere. People come. One thing I make sure is they have to have a feast before they go to the fasting lodge, and when they come out, they have to have a feast. Then I make sure to say to buy their own food, and buy what they want to cook. If a guy is going to a fast, he has to hire a cook, so that when he come out . . . . They give me gifts, like a drum, blankets. Boy, you should see the blanket I have at home. But, you know, when somebody comes that comes from someplace else, we give them the blankets. We just pass them on. But, you know, that's what they can give.
My mother-in-law had a lot of medicines. When this guy wanted the medicines to carry on, because he was getting old, he gave three cows to her - and cows were worth a lot of money in those days - but to be able to carry that on. But that's the way it goes. I don't think you're buying.
I liked a song. James Cardinal at home, and I went to him, and I gave him some money, I gave him a rifle - a good rifle - and I gave him a lot of other things. I says, 'I want that song from you. I'm asking you.' I could never buy, if it had a price on it, I could never give enough for it. But I gave what I had and what I could give. But one thing he told me, 'just don't bring that money in here. Leave it outside.' The only thing he told me is he didn't what the money in the sweat. Leave it outside. You're not buying. I don't think you could ever buy.
I had 27 fasters last year in Saddle Lake, and then I when to . . . Fort Fraser, and I had about 13 over there. This guy invited me over there . . . he wanted people to fast over there on his land at the [River]. I told him, I says 'Art, don't give me anything. Just give me the chance to fish here and can fish. I brought quite a few of my grandchildren over there. And they were canning fish. And, holy smokes, that's lots, lots of thing to do to can fish. And there was a lady there that showed them how to cut it and smoke it. You know that's a fortune in itself. What more do you want? These are the things that is payment.
- Joe Cardinal
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