054 | OREN LYONS | ORIGINS OF DEMOCRACY
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Young and Indigenous Podcast is an outlet for people to know about Indigenous knowledge, storytelling, and history. Through our youthful journeys as Indigenous people, young people, and elders share their experiences with us. Without them, we wouldn't be able to do this. About to tell some Reds stories. Stay tuned. Yay, podcast! And I am home.

- Good morning, my name is Free Borsi. My traditional name is Tzakvilem. I'm a member of the Lummi Nation and First Nations, Wakayake, or Cape Mudge, Campbell River area. It's an honor to be here with both of you today and I look forward to our incredible conversation.

My name is Roy Alexander. I'm from Nooksack. My traditional name is Dasha Hame. I also come from the Sqe band of First Nations up in Canada, BC. And I also come from the Kilgard tribe, also up there in BC. I'm LCM, Cyrus Jameson at SNET. I'm Tulalip.

- is my traditional name. Raven Borsi and I'm also Lami, Uyayike, First Nations as well. And it's an honor to be here with both of you and to be able to share this knowledge. - My English name is Rex Lyons. My Indian name is means he gets the message through.

And it's an honor to be here and share this time and share our stories and our commonalities. You know, you mentioned something here that our word "scanu," this is how fundamental Native people are. It's the same word for health.

you know, and peace. So you can't have one without the other. Skandu is the same word. So if you don't have health, you don't have peace. You don't have peace, you don't have health. So that's our first, whether it's a formal greeting or an informal greeting, it's Don't have Skandu because if we're sitting in a circle, we're fortunate than some others. And we recognize that right away. - Mm-hmm. - Jowak Gwishon and Jastup. That's my native name, Jowak Gwishon. And Wolf Clan and the

I got drafted to help out the turtle clan because a wolf sits on the same side as his turtle. And they didn't have a leader at the time and they said, "Would you help us out?" And I said, "Yeah, temporary," they said. 58 years ago. So I've been sitting there with the turtles for a long time, you know.

The names are important and Jewekwismo is an old name, it goes with the clan. So when I pass on, that name comes up again for use again. I remember this very old woman and in those days they never used the English name, I was the Indian name.

And this very old woman lived by herself. She took care of herself, cutting her own wood, keep her own fire. And then I was watching some kids play. One time they were running and they called it and I heard her name. And there was now this little girl had her name again. Kind of a little shock. So the name is passed on, keeps going.

And you can make another name if you want to make a name for the baby, its origin. But people like to keep the old names, keep going. So his name was my father's name because they were in the same clan. And the clan names, they all had their own separate names. And then we go by a mother's side.

So that's why I'm a wolf. He's an eel, because his mother was an eel. So our system is matrilineal. A lot of the nations were like that, a lot of them. Not all, but a lot of them were. When our white man got into our business, he made everybody want to be a Christian. So that whole business was killing us.

As they said, kill the Indian and save the man. That can't kill us. Now we're still here and you're evidence of that. There you are, here we are. And you keep going, you know. You're going to have kids and they're going to keep going. So it goes on and on and on. After all's said and done, we're going to still be here no matter what happens. We'll be here. However it goes.

Can't say much about the white guys, but... Let's see. Let's see. Yeah. Well, the Iroquois or the Haudenosaunee. Haudenosaunee.

has a long history of democracy. Could you share with us the origins of democracy, what democracy is at its truest? Well, you know, that came up a long time ago with me. I asked that same question, you know, to one of our elder clan mothers. You know, I said, democracy is English word. So I said, you know, before the English got here,

I said, "What, what, what, how's that related?" You know, she says, "Well," she says, "I'm trying to figure that out." But she says, "The closest that I can come to in our language is free. We're free people. That's what it means. We're free. Independent, free." And then they, you know, you heard the word sovereignty.

That's a French word, sovereign, and it always referred to the king. He was the sovereign. He was the leader. And we understand, you know, the implication of sovereignty, but we don't put it to a person. We put it to the people. So we changed the intent of it so it's inclusive because our system always included community. It's always community is the main thing.

to be common. There's a story, an old story, about when our people were fighting each other. Men were fighting. Women and children, they were hiding from the men. They were so fierce. And they were fighting. And this story about this was early in the morning and the Mohawks were on a run.

It was just breaking daylight. It was just very still. The woods were quiet. But if you look close, you see people hiding. People hiding. You couldn't see it. It's all just woods, you know. But it was the women and children hiding. And then you could hear them coming, but very quiet. Maybe about 40 men, all painted. In those days, long hair.

You know, long hair. And they're going somewhere, and wherever they're going, it ain't gonna be good. But they're single file, they're right in front of you. So they're hiding. And she's got a little baby, and the baby started crying. And had to kill the baby, keep it quiet. So that's the sacrifice that our people did. Otherwise, if that baby cries and exposed all the people hiding,

So you see, that's huge law. That's a huge sacrifice that she made for the common good. No choice. So it gives you some idea of our people, how we were, you know? And we're still that way. We're still that way. It's always the common good. It's always for everybody. But that's a supreme sacrifice that she made. But the story illustrates how important that is for the common good.

It was always that way. Talk about the peacemaker and how we got our instructions on how to govern and beat them out. I want to know the origins of that. Yeah, we were lucky. You know, we were lucky. The story is very old. It comes from a leader who was born among people from the north side of what is Lake Ontario now.

And they're not sure exactly, you know, what nation. But this baby boy was born and the grandmother, the mother of the daughter who had the baby, she said, "Who's the father?" And the daughter said, "I don't know." She said, "I never..." And the mother said, "You can't have a baby without a father, you know?"

And the daughter just was pregnant. So the mother took the baby and drowned it, put it in the water. She didn't believe. How do you have a baby without a father? But there was a baby, and the daughter didn't have any idea. And so she took the baby away and she drowned it. The next day she came back over and the baby was with the daughter.

So she tried again, three times. And every time the baby was back. And so the mother realized, you know, this is something very, very different about this baby. That was the peacemaker. That's the beginning of that story of how he grew up. And then, you know, comes a time when he's probably a little older than you guys are right now, maybe.

And he's carving away a canoe, he's making a canoe, but he's making it out of stone, white stone. And the people just say, "What are you doing?" He's making his canoe, you know. It's just made out of stone, yeah. Well, he gets it done, but he has a mission. And he says, you know, "I have to go to these people here who are fighting."

pushes the canoe in the water and everybody's waiting to see it sink, you know. Floats. No way! So he jumps in the canoe and he's gone. And that's where that art story starts where two Mohawk men standing on the property on the southeast side of what is Lake Ontario now. So the Mohawks were in that area.

And there are two men standing and they see this out there in the lake, it's white. What's that? It comes closer like that. Somebody's coming. One man in there. So they take their arrow out, wait to see. It comes up, and sure, they're looking at the man. He's very imposing, you know, because they're both looking at him. What's your business?

He says, "Peace." And they look at each other and say, "Not much of that around here these days." And they're wondering whether they're going to dispatch him right there or... But he said, "Very imposing. I want to talk to your leader." She says, "This about what?" He says, "Peace." I said, "Well, this is something... Maybe we better find out. Better not..." I said, "You... There's a lodge over there.

There's a woman in there that she takes, you know, visitors running, men coming back and forth. Always a place to sleep, a place to eat. Go over there and we'll see if they're going to meet with you. So they go run and he goes over there and he spends the night with this woman and her name is Jikuntsasa.

And she sees this is a different visitor because some nights in her lodge you have enemies sleeping together but their weapons are outside. Put your weapons out there and they'll feed you and rest here. Sometimes enemies in the same room. And anyway, they have a talk and she says, well, I'm sick of this fighting and this war and fighting and fighting.

And so he says, "Well, my mission's peace." And she says, "Whatever I can do to help," she says, "I'll do whatever I can." So anyway, the story goes on, and he goes on to meet with the Mohawks. And, you know, he's a very imposing person. So they're going to, he says, "You're going to talk about peace?" He says, "Yes."

"How you gonna do that?" He says, "Well, I'm gonna start with you." That's why I'm here. "Oh, really?" "Yeah." "Well, we're gonna test you out. We're gonna test you out, see who you are, who you say you are, what you're gonna do." So there was a big cliff, and there was a tree standing. I said, "You climb up that tree, and then we're gonna cut that tree that's gonna fall in." "Okay."

It comes up the tree, they cut it and it goes down. I said, "Well, well, let's see." Anyway, next day I see that smoke coming from a camp. He's sitting by the fire, making breakfast. So I said, "Better listen to this guy." So then he convinces the Mohawks, fierce.

convinces them, the leaders, to peace. So then he begins that whole bringing the five nations together on that issue. And the story goes that it took a long time, years, to get them all to sit in one fire and agree. But he did it.

And the last one was the Onondagas. He couldn't penetrate there because there was a very fierce leader there. His name is Tadodaho. And he lived in a swamp. He didn't live with the people. And he was fierce, twisted, evil, terrible, powerful, very powerful. And he was a ruler. So...

Peacemaker weren't around on Ndaga, went to Cayuga's, into Seneca's, got them all lined up. He says, "Now we gotta go deal with this Ndaga." And so they're trying to have a conversation with him. He's just laughing in the woods. So they send for this woman, the one that Peacemaker met. He says, "You know, I met this woman. She might help."

So they send for her and she comes down and they said, "We can't bring him out." Just laughing at us, doing this and that, making it storm, making this, doing all kinds of stuff. And she says, "Well, you know, that's funny, but there's been a song running in my head. It keeps running in my head. I don't know where it come from." She says, "Maybe that'll help." So she teaches that song to the leaders. She says, "Okay now."

We start this song, we move to the woods and they start singing and that starts to pull him out. He didn't want to come out, you know. He's so fierce, his head was full of snakes, you know, he's just evil and twisted. But as he was coming out, he was being pulled out by the song. And he didn't want to fight it, but they could see snakes were falling and he was transforming.

He looked like a human. He's coming out. So the story is that they had to bargain with him. He was still hard against it. And they said, if you join our Confederacy and your nation, Nandarga Nation, then this will always be the headquarters of the Confederacy.

of the union, always be here and your name and your position will be the spiritual leader of everything. And they convinced him. And so turned the most evil person, terrible killer, everything, into spiritual leader. So today we have Tadodaho. We have that title. They said it's well over 360 years.

Different people hold that title so far back. So today, Sid Hill is Tadodaho, and he's a companion of Rack's. He's a few years older than me. Well, quite a few. But they were in the same lacrosse team, you know, and Sid is now the Tadodaho. And before him was my uncle, my great-uncle. And before him...

I've known three Tuttadaho's in my life. And so Sid now is doing a good job. Nobody wants to be a chief because it's all work, you know, it's all service, service for people. So the Tuttadaho is spiritual leader of the Six Nations and he oversees the health and welfare.

That's what they said to him, "You will be, Tantata will always be here on Odaga." So they bargained, so he agreed. And that became our union. So that's old, that's how our union started so long ago. And they were trying to, you know, we don't keep records like that, it just don't happen. They just, "Well that happened long ago," you know. And so they're,

He had a hard problem with the Senecas. They didn't want to join. "No, we like it the way we are. We'd rather fight." And they questioned him. "Who are you anyway?" He says, "Well, I have a mission. The mission is peace." He says, "And I'll tell you tomorrow, I'm going to cover the sun." And the next day there was an eclipse.

So the Senecas, they were convinced. They said, this guy, okay. So he brought them in. And then they went and they had to bring in the Onondagas. So that's the beginning of our story. In the Tuttadaho then, who was this leader, this spiritual leader? Explain the 50 chiefs and the clans and how that, because that's where the democracy comes, the governance. That was all given at the same time.

Yeah. All of those original leaders, their names became offices just like his name. So the, that I sit under is Ta-Hiat-Kwai. You know, so long ago, hundreds of years ago, there was a leader by name of Ta-Hiat-Kwai. So when he died, he became an office and the clan mother is in charge of that title, the woman. Mm-hmm.

She's the one that will choose the leader and he has a deputy so to call maybe a sub chief to but in Onondaga we're faith keeper and that's what I do. I'm faith keeper to Taihekwai. I've been sitting there 58 years now, so I'm not a principal chief. I'm the sub chief or faith keeper to that title and I work now with three

Three of our people have passed on, but I'm still here. It's '94 now. It's almost 100 years. So I have a perspective. I'm just a common person, you know? I just accepted that work that they asked me to do and do the best I can with it, but I'm a runner, basically, for the council. That's who gives the directions and the message I carry and so forth.

So people put a lot of emphasis on who I am because I'm carrying a message. They think I'm the leader and sometimes the leaders are back there. I'm the runner carrying the message. And because I had gone to a university and I could speak the English language better than my own, actually, that's put me on a mission for the nation.

So I've been doing that all these years now, you know, for two years, and travel, I go overseas, been everywhere carrying the message and doing all this work, but always with the leaders and so forth. So we've done a lot of stuff. We've done a lot of stuff, and people have put a lot of emphasis on who I am, but I'm telling you, I'm the runner. The leaders are sitting back there. And, uh...

Done pretty good, actually. We covered a whole lot of territory and that brings us to right here where we're sitting right now. So I'm just giving you a background of how we wind up over here. Situation, of course, is dire now. It's dire for people. You've got two wars going on right now, big ones. Everybody should be worrying about hate.

It's here now. We're in the heat now. It's going to get hot and hotter and hotter. So we have to prepare, and a lot of it's going to fall on you guys, your age group, his age group, which is just ahead of yours. So his age group is doing what I was doing back in those days, and we're on a tail end now. 94 is 94. We'll be here very much longer.

But we have to get things passed on and so forth. So that's the main thing is the missions and survival and so forth. And how are you going to do that and get ready? Because it's coming. I mean, it's not coming. It's here now already. It's just going to get worse because...

People of the world are not meeting the issues, they're fighting. They should be sitting together saying, "How are we going to take care of all this?" But there's going to be a time when they can't ignore what's going on. The heat's going to get them. Well, right now, that woman that came from India... Spain. Spain. She came from Spain. She come visit us. She said that in Spain,

They can't come out during the day, it's too hot. They have to wait tonight already. So the temperatures in India are 150. Wow. That's not even human. That's not human. Yeah, you can't survive. Yeah, you couldn't survive. That's insane. So where we are, where we're sitting right now, we're in kind of a temperate zone. We're in between where the ice is melting and where the heat is down here.

It's going to push people to migrate though. I was just going to ask about the mass migration and humans, one thing that's known is we've been migrating for as long as we've been here and all beings have, but the mass migration that's coming is making sure...

point where our areas like you said in that safe zone are gonna become coveted areas where they're gonna be people moving migrating into those areas and we're gonna see the scarcity of mindset and the land grabs and the fighting they're fighting and so we ask you how does I'll let you guys carry this conversation forward with sovereignty moving forward how do we bring those people who are fighting together and sit down at the same table and really focus on the collective good well I

What's going to move the people, especially the thing that's making them move is water. They're going to be looking for water. You can live without food for a long time. 50, 60 days, you know, 70 days you can go without food. Try to go without water. Not very long. So you've got to have water right away. That's driving everything. Africa, Africa.

So the water is the issue. That's what's going to move people. And they're going to go regardless. So you have to really think about that. You know, your question is, okay, it's a good question. How do we meet the issue? And that's going to take conversation with your communities. But you have to accommodate and you have to get ready for it because it's coming. It's not going to stop.

It's coming for sure. - It's a good example. If you look at this problem they have with immigration on the Mexican border, they think putting a fence up is the solution, you know, that that's gonna solve the problem. The problem is where they're coming from.

Life is so dire that they are so desperate that they're forced to move even in the face of death They're just carrying what's on their clothes on their bag They got kids in their arms or crossing the river because they have no there's no quality of life where they are So that's where the solution has to be. How do we help those people? You know

live with some kind of peace where they come from. How do you solve, instead of building this, throwing money at immigration and building a fence, the money should go to where the problem is because it's pushing the migration. So now you're talking about leadership, you're talking about politics, where I think people like yourself can realize

have more reason and common sense than the people with the leadership that's in power right now. They got no instructions and they have no concept. There's always power and authority. They're not worried about peace and equity. That's not in their thinking. It's always about commerce, who's in control, and might. They always think the gun is gonna be the deciding factor. But the people that are so desperate, they're gonna come.

I don't care how big your fence is, how big your gate is, they're going to come in the face because they don't have nothing to lose. That level of desperation is going to push them, and we're going to see that. We're seeing it already. They're going through climbing over razor wire, coming through. That's not pleasant, but that's how desperate they are. And, Rex, speaking on that, you know, we talk about putting up barriers and preventing it. It really is based on class because you look at the – there's no walls and barriers going up for the –

for the higher class, the upper class, what's considered in our class system, the rich people. And even in our territories alone, our indigenous territories, the San Juan Islands or Fort Lummi, we have Oprah who owns houses out there. We have Bill Gates who owns houses out there. We have many Hollywood elites and actors. And there's no acknowledgments of the lands for one, but that comes second to the bigger picture, which is

these coveted areas and these resources being hoarded and the values of sharing and respect are no longer being upheld, right? That kind of brings me to, you know, the next, the second part of my question about democracy and how the United States came to be a democratic system with the influence of the Haudenosaunee and the Confederacy and how that system

has strayed away from its innate and original values. Well, I made the point the other day when they asked me, and I was on the speech there, you know, when they, being the rebels now, rebelling against England, going back to 1775 and the revolution, and our leaders, Six Nations, was very strong at that time, very strong. And they couldn't do anything wrong.

unless we agree. And now they were going to fight our number one ally, which is England. And they said if Six Nations gets in there, they can't win at all. But, you know, our people watching this going on, watching this whole 400 years of experience dealing with the white people here. So we had a lot of experience. We knew them. We knew how they were thinking and trying to keep some kind of an order.

trying to protect what we have, and they kept coming, you know, just kept coming. So I told them at that time, "Well, you know, you're going to make a union like ours." They said, "Yes, you suggested that to us in 1744 in Lancaster. One of your leaders said, 'Why don't you make a union like ours? Look how respected we are. Look how strong we are.'" So we're taking your advice.

make a unit like yours. This was a Continental Congress because they couldn't have the revolution if the Six Nations got involved. There would be none. Just wipe them right out. So they had to come to us and we did have that meeting in 1775 in Albany, New York. Took three months to get it going and we had the meeting with the England earlier that year

And England said the same thing, you know, big fight coming. Oh yeah, we've been watching, we know it's coming. Well, can you guys stand to the side? England said that because we had six nations and some of our nations were heavy towards the colonies, some were heavy towards England. So within our six nations, we had disunion.

And then Onondaga being the central, we tried to keep the peace here amongst ourselves, never mind. And so we knew that when the fight comes, and it was coming, that some of our people would be on this side, some would be on that side. So what about our union? So we had a meeting. They said, look, this is bad. So what we're going to do, they said, is take our wampums and take our union, all the belts that...

put us together, we're going to bury them. Bury them. And the fight will go on, and it'll go wherever it goes. We don't know how it's going to go. But at the end of the fight, we bring those belts back up, and we still have our union. We agree. You know, the Mohawks sitting there, the NIDA's over here, you know. They said, "Okay, we agree on that." So that's how we kept our union. And the Mohawks did fight heavy on the side of the English.

And the United States touched ground about having an aside of colonies. We did have that, but we never fought as a nation. But we said, "You're going to see our men in the field," and we told both sides, "You're going to see our men in the field, but when you see them, understand they're on their own. They're not representing the nation." Because we have free people, you can't tell them what to do. They're going to do what they're going to do. So we had this discussion, you know.

So everybody understood. It was a bad fight. The revolution was fierce and so forth. And at the end, we're still here. So the first peace treaty then, which was between now the new United States, the new union there, and England. They had a peace treaty that was in Paris in 1783.

Peace Treaty. And then the next treaty they had to have, they had to have with the Six Nations. Because there was, this fight was going on in between. So 1784, at a place called Lancaster, that fight, we met in that treaty. Renewed our friendship. Now we're greatly diminished. Things have really changed, but we're still strong.

Cross is a great sport, yeah, but it's a lot deeper than that, you know. And people don't understand that. They get blown away when I tell them the story. What is represented in that stick? You know, because it's the whole, it's the whole, you know, it's the animal nation, it's everything that grows, and it's the families, the clans all come together, and the ball is the medicine, you know. It's working in concert to play the creator's game. You know, so it's powerful. It's a powerful example of

you know, how we're working together all the time and connected to the natural world and the spiritual world and understand the two work together all the time. You know, our people, you know, I say our, collectively including you guys, all of our people always had games, always had amazing different kind of games, you know, put a lot of work into games. Because,

Instead of putting it into war implements or anything, put it into games. Because there's always competition. People love that competition. So you go to different parts of the country, you see the different parts of games they play. But it's always tough games. It's a positive way to express that competitiveness. Entertain the people, people like that, you know.

But like Rex was saying, the origin of it and the medicine game, which it is, that's a whole different thing when we play medicine game. Then a whole different thing happens. Then a fire is built and then a speaker comes and then sticks are laid down. And then it's explained that the wood in the stick represents all of the woods in the world.

all the trees, everything's on that stick. And the cut and the leather that's in there, all the animals, it represents all the animals. And then the interweaving of the net itself represents our people and our governance. There's a whole lot of symbolism in that stick that when you're playing the game, you don't see that. But that's what was the origin of it.

And we have those games, we have those medicine games. Now they're mesh, so you don't even see the traditional weave as much. But before, that's how all sticks were. They had their little eyelets that were connected. So that's everybody that kind of locked arm in arm, the clans, families together, represented the clans.

And then the ball is the medicine, so you got everything working together. And then whoever called the game, whether it could be an individual, it could be a family, it could be a nation, it could be anybody calls for the game, they get the ball after the match. That's... When they switch, they...

They went to the plastic and so forth. The white people, you know, cost them. So we call that Tupperware. What do we call our fiberglass canoes? That's so interesting. How vast was a game traditionally? It's all over the whole, almost variations of it.

You know, some have a small longer stick, but ours is the one with the longer handle, but then some have two handles, but it's the same thing. Same principle, yeah.

Tough game, though. The idea is to get the ball in there, that though. And the name lacrosse came from the Jesuit, the missionaries, because the stick reminded them of the crozier. So that's the French term, lacrosse. Wow. I didn't know that. We call it, which means they bump hips. That's the real name.

You know, but this is how it got its name, lacrosse, you know. And this is a statement on a society because back in the day, a lot of times when you were competing, it was usually one-on-one, foot race, wrestling match. But the idea of a team playing together was a different concept, especially to them. It really struck them as an observation on a society. Really? Yeah. Wow. Having a team sport. That's magic. Yeah.

the competition with the white people was always combat. Two guys fighting, two guys on horses, two guys whatever. We had a team work together. Way advanced, way advanced. - And the games bring us together, huh? - Yeah.

Well, they talk about, you know, when you talk about diversity and inclusion, we have a story about the animals when they played the game. It's a great story about the winged playing the four-legged. Please tell it. Yeah, well, you know, it's a kind of, like every story has a moral, you know? And it's about the bat. And the bat, you know, he comes fluttering over and

to the wing-eds, ready for the game. They said, what are you doing over here? You got fur and teeth. You belong with the four-legged. So he goes fluttering over to the four-legged. He said, you don't belong over here. You got wings, and you got to go over with the wing-ed. Well, eventually, he plays with the wing-ed, you know, but he was getting kind of outcast for his uniqueness, you know, and his differences. Hmm.

But he ended up, long story short, he makes the winning goal because he flew in the manner that he flies. It was hard to cover. So he gets the winning goal, which again illustrates you can't discount somebody's difference. That could be the advantage you have. And that's that thing about judging a book by its cover, that moral. Everybody has a place. Whatever your gift is, we all have gifts.

Some people are fast, some people are strong, people got the different intellect. We all have it. We always honor that because when we say, when we shake hands at the end of a contest, we're thanking our opponent for bringing out the best in us.

It's our gifts against their gifts. And on a given day, whose gift's going to win, we don't know. It's up in the air. At the end of the game, you know. But the curator gave us those gifts, and that's why we have such reverence for our good players. They're our heroes. I had heroes, you know.

Slug Hill, I used to watch him. He could run up along the glass. He was fast, and he could just defy gravity. I don't know how he did that. Great stick handler, could score, but as a little kid, you always want to be your heroes, and it kind of goes like that. There's always...

Guys that are very, like the Thompson brothers. I'm sure you've heard of them. Oh, yeah. You know, same thing. Now the kids, you know, they all have braids now because of that. You know, that's a powerful thing because they instilled that identity. Be proud of who you are, you know. And, you know, it's all part of that identity. And before, you know, when you're talking about the residential schools, they beat it out of everybody. There's a lot of shame attached to it, you know, and all of this stuff, that brainwashing that went on.

You know, a lot of damage that was done to our spirit and our cultures and our societies. Displacement, another one. Once you lose where you come from, that's part of your DNA, part of your identity, and you're kind of in this new... They usually would relocate you, and they couldn't plant very good there. If it wasn't the desolate land, they'd say, we'll put you over here, you know. But natives always figured out how to survive, you know, but you're still displaced, you know, and you're still...

kind of lost a part of who you are because when you go somewhere around the world, you always recognize who's living there, you know? Who's the original people? There's always somebody who was there first, you know? Mm-hmm.

Wow. The way the bat story, it kind of reminds me, I used to play lacrosse in high school and we had a player just like that who would move his stick and just move through really kind of chaotic and sporadic. And he could shoot behind the back, just like behind the back of the head, just shoot everything and

Yeah, that's so funny that I can actually visualize the movement of a bat on a lacrosse field. And if you get a good storyteller, somebody's telling the story, you can imagine how fantastic the story is. You've got the bear in there, you've got the deer, and it's this big contest. And depending on who the storyteller is, it's great. Hey, what up, y'all? Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the podcast.

This episode was produced by Roy Alexander and Waikiki Okurli-Bear. The music for this episode was done by Zach Cohen and Roy Alexander. Huge shout out to our funders, the Inatai Foundation and the Paul Allen Foundation. Aishka for listening. Thank you.