Closed Captions

Two educators from the Omaha and Ponka Nations discuss tribal history, migration from the Ohio River Valley, and sacred drum traditions. They explain clan systems, naming ceremonies, boarding school experiences, and efforts to balance cultural preservation with modern education. The speakers share songs and describe how their tribes maintained identity despite forced removal and federal assimilation policies.

Transcript

0:03 because we have many voices that come here to talk about Lewis and Clark to talk about the Native Americans that they met along their way and to share different cultures and today we're very fortunate to have with us Pierre Merrick and Dwight how from the Omaha and FKA Nations to talk to you a bit about their
0:25 culture and share that with you today so at this time I'd like to introduce DWI and Pierre well I guess I should turn my mic on can you hear me okay I guess it on we'll just sit here kind of casual
0:48 cuz there's just so few what we like to do is uh we're here to talk about our Native American culture we're not really no they now we're not performers are entertainers actually we're uh myself I'm an educator I do cultural presentations I've been doing them for over about 20 years now my relative here Pier mer is from
1:12 the Omaha tribe as well and uh he works with uh he Human Services Human Services and works believe the Indian Child Welfare is advocate for Native American children he's also a singer he sings around this drum uh drums like this we uh we hold this is a very sacred
1:35 instrument uh I'm Omaha and PKA My grandmother raised me since I was about 10 months old so my earliest recollection of my life grown up was around Elders older people and the omahas and pkas are the same tribe we came up from the Ohio River Valley we Eastern Woodlands Indians the Kanza
1:58 quapa oage and PKA we all One Tribe generations and generations ago maybe before the time of Columbus we were One Tribe and we migrated from the Eastern Woodlands uh High River Valley up to Missouri and finally to where present day about 90 Mi uh north of Omaha
2:20 Nebraska is the Omaha Indian Reservation a little bit further up the river is NAA Nebraska and that's the original homeland of the punka so we lived right next to them we didn't move very far from our NE our relative but uh during Andrew Jackson's era and I guess it was right after uh the battle of the
2:41 Little Big Horn with the kuster getting uh Mass wiped out you know in the battle of the Little Big Horn there was real retaliation towards Indians and the society as a whole wanted to put a stop to the Indian Wars and even though the pkas Never were in that battle or even at War they were one of the tribes
3:04 picked to move to Indian Territory so they were forcibly removed from Nebraska the Homeland down to Oklahoma and that's where I grew up but that's my relationship with my relative here kind of went off the course but I was talking about this here this drum drum is symbolic to us it's a sacred instrument I see some tobacco
3:26 here that uh maybe John had left here and I'm sure before John even sang he put some Tobacco on that drum I I just I wasn't even here but I can almost guarantee that he probably did we hold that to be powerful among the punas and I can speak primarily from my upbringing which is a punka culture uh and it's similar but yet different from the Omaha
3:51 they talked about this being a very powerful instrument and you can just imagine they sang These Things sang L this many years ago when they had to go to war war and it sort of like a pep rally in a way it recanted those stories of their grandfathers of U uh of U Wonga big Soldier W shinga Little
4:14 Soldier kakuni um uh smoke maker those men way back there who who performed Brave Deeds or courageous acts they made songs about them and they put them songs to this
4:37 drum and they said the way I was told is that this drum if taken care of and if you as a as a singer take care of yourself and you remember those songs in a good way you'll make sad people happy when they hear it if you ever hear a drumbeat it's like the beat of your heart and and if you ever get close to a drum when you're dancing that it
5:02 vibrates within you it just shakes you it moves you it becomes a part of you it's a powerful instrument and it evokes strong emotions it makes like I said uh sad people feel happy it makes old people feel young and they forget their troubles for a while it has a medicine and about it and itself that it can
5:25 touch you inside I believe that I I really have high regards for it among my people uh the punas not anybody can just pick up a drumstick go out there and start hitting that hitting that drum you have to pay your way to in there you have to you have to give away to have that right to be around this drum you have to show the respect for this drum then you also have to learn
5:49 the songs you can't sit around that drum and this he was a head singer and he had his drumstick and he's sitting there and all he'd have to do is just point to you like that song that family is asking for a certain song you have to be able to start that song otherwise you're not contributing to that that whole thing that's going on there it's a powerful thing to see everyone dancing all around
6:13 this drama recanting those songs the way I heard it is that they had uh um heard it heard it sound like thunder it's man heard sound like thunder way off and he went over to the sound and this woman had a hide stretched out on the ground they stretched that you know I'm taking that back it was a log and she
6:37 was hitting that log and she was singing these songs and she said if you sing these songs take them back to your tribe they will help you and so that's what they did they they stretched a hide out sted it to the ground and that was their first first drum then they turned into then they made it wood and they made this kind of drum here uh out of a a log but through those songs that they were
7:02 given by that woman was was um creation thoughts emotions all those things that that evolve in life they center around this drum and we as P of people gather once a year uh in August and we dance and we gather and we have camps all around the PA and everywhere at the camps there's
7:25 prayer there's laughter there's Fellowship it's like reunions and then we all come together and we dance around that drum there's no alcohol there's no drugs around this this is something saf well at least let me say there's not supposed to be there's not supposed to be uh but as far as I I've known I've been to many pows and I camp and everything and I don't see that very
7:49 much I know that that goes on in other places but uh powers that I camp at where I'm at I don't see that and around the drum I don't see that they have a lot of respect for this thing they have it evokes a spirit when um when our when our men when our men folk went to war the way they explained it to me and the way I was told is that we were a small
8:13 tribe we were smaller than the omahas but on all three sides of our borders were enemy there was the Rika the Mandan uh the yankin Su Seven Nations and the omahas were our only border that were our friends and they had the Missouri River guarding them on on two of their sides so we had we sort of we a
8:35 buffer zone and we were always kind of on at rage I had to be on alert our men the hoska were always on guard and the way I was told through in the song say that is that they were like um uh comma what I would what I consider like kamakazi they were a warrior a group of men that dedicated their life
9:00 for the people and as soon as there was an alarm as soon as there was danger they would just run into it I mean they would just like throw themselves into it and many died but many many lived and any anybody that came within our borders knew that if they met this tribe there was going to be trouble when when Prince maximilan came up looking for the cities
9:23 of gold or whatever it was he was at the paon E camp and he asked them who lives up that way Northeast of you and they said don't go that way there's bad people up there don't go over there needles say they traveled that way they want just wanted to keep going they when be went down and they went up they came to this border where they found these three poles in the ground they
9:46 were 9 ft High describe them sticks that were 9 ft high and on top of each one of them were heads and that was the Border it was pawy heads were up there the punkers had decapitated them and put their heads up there symbolically saying if you come over here this will happen to you and that's sort of the how they how they Protected Their their area their their hunting
10:11 grounds um time went on it never used to the way my grandmother said it never used to really be that way all the time but uh when when game was scarce when when times were lean we had to protect our hunting grounds we had to protect our burial grounds our our our traditional Gardens we had communal Gardens so there was a need to be vigilant to watch your borders um just
10:35 so much like we do today uh with the National Guard and things the same concept but um I was I was told that that the hoska these songs they would talk about that they would recant those things that would happen that that battles there was even a time when when they had uh
10:57 uh when they were traveling and there was uh a group of lotas and they had encountered the women and they took some hostages they took some people and uh uh that were gathering and some of them ran back to the uh tribe and said uh they've taken our women and a couple of our children as
11:21 captives and the the pkas got got up together and got their horses and stuff and ran after them and they followed them almost all the way up to their border all the way up to their to their uh camp and they and they they ran into them and they and they fought him and they got those women those children back now there's the story there from that point on it was a running battle all the
11:45 way back to Nera from like almost the Black Hills was like many miles it was they would run run run then they would stop and have to fight and they' fight and then they back and they take Skirmish and they take off again and all along that way at every Skirmish that was Bloodshed a sue would get shot in the leg with arrow a Ponka would get
12:09 shot in the shoulder or get hit with a an axe or something or or or one would be hurt and another one would try to save him and he would get killed trying to save his friend another one would grab him and pick him up and carry him uh there was a they told of a a man that could really run fast and a a a one of them got shot he got shot in the neck with a bus musket ball and then the
12:34 other pker was shot in the thigh and so he picked him up and that Indian put his the other Punker put his thumb on his neck so he wouldn't lose his blood and they ran things like that happened all along that way they got to a gully a low spot and they stopped they were tired but the punk stopped they going to fight again and the Su stopped on the other side of the hill and the Su stopped and
12:58 they sang a song cuz they recognize this as being something sacred something significant sort of like out of respect they said you must really think a lot of your people to that's what they basically that song said kind of an honoring song and the punk has made a similar song about how how how many Brave Deeds that ensues what Brave Acts
13:23 were done there along that trail all the way back on that day and we and they put it into words and they kept it ours is an oral tradition it's not a written language it's passed on through stories like this and it's passed on through songs like what my brother sings without that we'd lose so much of our culture being raised by my grandmother she'd
13:47 often would tell those things over and over and over who I am where I come from what my descendency is who where where my people are who they were so I could be know who I am and I can in turn give that to my daughter I want that to be that way for my myself uh I could recount early in my earliest ages as a
14:11 little boy I could say that uh my grandmother's my my great-grandfather the name was gun and that means headman his father is named wepp weas sappi's father is named Tao Tao's father is named Manu Jinga Manu is be and Jinga
14:33 is little I know that to be true my grandmother raised me with that saying that's who it is on the same on same and along the same lines she would say who uh my father's father was and that his name was Oliver how and that he was a northern PKA from Nia and that his father was the first episcop minister in
14:56 NBR by the name of Edward how and he was half Dutch and half punka and that his father was named George Washington how and that when he was 17 he came from co uh he came from Pennsylvania on a with a surveying crew to the Nebraska territory and married a pun a woman and uh spent his life with her and uh he had an
15:21 Indian name by the name of Duma scaran and that that's my ancestry and that he came from Pennsylvania his father was named AO how and he came from Copenhagen Denmark on a steamship that's several Generations back my grandmother always was telling me those things over and over and over every time there was
15:44 snow snow winter time the stories came out again when it rained it was time to sit in the stories would come out she saved things she would do things uh she had a way of looking at it I think what she had was a sense of urgency she wanted to retain the culture she wanted to see that our culture didn't get lost when she was young and she had all her children the government sent them to
16:08 boarding schools and she didn't say nothing about it her oldest boy Wy how was born 1910 and in 1920 they sent him to seagar Oklahoma to all Indian boarding school at 10 years old can you imagine your your child at the age of 10 being taken from You by a government agency and said we're going to teach them to live a c
16:33 different way we're going to teach them a different language we're going to teach them something else something better and so she let her children go they all left my uncle my my dad went to shello Indian School my Uncle Junior went to Paw Indian school they all went to government boarding schools my dad talked about it and he talked about it
16:54 sort of fondly because he said when he was born he grew up in the depressions so it was a poor time it was a hard time so when he went to a government boarding school for high school there were three Square meals a day there was jobs he could work and there was people and he liked it it was like a Letterman's Club the boarding school that he went to at
17:17 Sho he was an athlete played sports played baseball boxed did all those things he enjoyed it but he said uh he missed home but uh he enjoyed it because it was a better better life you know than having to sleep on a hard floor and little two room house with with four or five other brothers and sisters uh so he
17:39 he looked he talked about shalat fondly in fact he talked about it so fondly that when I got old enough to go to high school the high school that I wanted to go to was the same that he did so I graduated from shello Indian School uh back in 1976 uh and just shortly after that in the 80s they closed it they closed a lot
18:02 of the government boarding schools down but I attended shello Indian School to kind of continue that Legacy that my father had talked so fondly of but uh my his his oldest his oldest brother Wy who was 10 years old and was sent to Seager Oklahoma didn't talk about it very fondly he said they were uh they were punished if they were caught talking
18:25 their language if they were T if they were caught talking punka they were punished and he came home only twice a year and uh uh Harvest Time and uh I think it said R Christmas he got to come home but while he was gone his grandfather died and his grandmother died he didn't even get to go to the funeral he just came home and they were
18:49 gone and that must be devastating to a young Indian or anybody who would be attached to their grandmother and then be sent away to school and then come home to find that she's gone and not even be able to go to the funeral and mourn the loss of a a loved one that's what the Indians had to endure that's what uh in a lot of times that's what a lot of the Indians felt like what LS and
19:14 Clark helped represent a changing of the ways and uh uh some were good and some were bad our relative that we come from we are both descendants of a gentleman by name of car La flesh and car flesh's father was named Joseph leesh and he was a chief among the omahas he saw it as something that was inevitable he said change is
19:38 happening it's coming like a flood and we have to prepare ourselves this is something we cannot avoid we need to learn these ways so in fact he was so adamant about it that he sent his kids off to school and one of them became an anthropologist and later became a lawyer his name is Dr Francis Le and his other daughter his other child
20:03 was a young lady who became the first Indian woman to become a physician and her name was susette the Flesh and she was a country doctor in Nebraska so that's where we come from on the Omaha side there he even had a a village built of houses wooden houses square houses and they called that the white man Village he wanted the Indians to adapt
20:26 assimilate cuz he saw that as being necessary we have to be like the white man we have to change our ways so he tried his best to encourage him to do that he was very Progressive man he believed in it a great deal that times have changeed and we need to change with him and so that's one of the reasons why Pierre and I come to do cultural presentations because we want to share
20:49 our culture and heighten people's awareness about cultural relations about who we are I don't really talk philosophically as much as I do when uh when children are here when there are little kids here sitting in these rows we talk about games and we talk about what I like to eat and what they ate back then and the houses and we we talk
21:13 about games but when there's an older group here I I like to take that opportunity to share Indian culture I like to a perspective mine is just been one you ask if you ask 10 Indians one question you're going to get 10 different answers uh there are over 511 federally recognized tribes with over 300 different dialects so there's
21:36 different languages different ways different beliefs uh today there are over two there are over 2 million Native Americans in the United States today but that's still less than 1% of the total population the significant thing about the Indians today is that um over half are 30 and below because of poor health
22:00 care our elders the average life expectancy is 10 years below the national average and if you're a diabetic like uh my brother and I then add 7 to 10 more years off that so if uh average life expectancy for an Indian male is 65 then uh average life expectancy for an Indian male with kind
22:21 of illnesses that we have it's 55 so at 45 right now we have about 10 more good years St statistically so that means basically theoretically I'm an elder because maybe in 10 years I might be gone so it's like that it's like that for our Indian people it's uh uh I guess they're working on changing working on better Lifestyles but that's
22:44 statistically that's the way it is for for Indians today and I want to share a little bit about that maybe uh we could uh sing a song and then we can talk about a little bit sure yeah this is my brother Pier Merritt my relative maybe he might tell you uh his Indian name and introduce himself I say good afternoon or good
23:09 morning to each of you I take a moment here to acknowledge the elders that are out there customarily back home it's the right thing to do it's a custom to say that to people that are sitting that we're going to be talking to or addressing in a either a ceremony setting or otherwise that we first acknowledge our that asked for their forgiveness for pardon us pardon me for
23:33 speaking before you uh this song that I'm going to sing is a song that was composed for my uncle uh who returned from World War II he was a Darby Ranger and uh when he returned uh home safely our people one of our composers are uh composed this song for him and uh like
23:57 my brother was saying you know a lot of our our songs that have words are prayer songs are songs songs of thanks to the [Music]
24:14 [Applause] [Laughter] Creator [Laughter]
24:33 [Music] [Laughter]
24:56 where we [Laughter] [Music]
25:24 where be [Music] [Laughter] [Music]
25:49 that song the words of that song means it's me speak this isn't speak speaking to the Creator speaking to God addressing him looking for acknowledgement asking to be looked at it's me the that's word means look at
26:11 me me look at the next verse [Music] is he went peras stood on foreign soil and faced the enemy the came home that was the song that was composed and that's the meaning
26:33 of that song the story behind it before him uh at this time I would like I guess uh car you about myself a little bit my name is I'm a Cas amongst our people I Come From the Black shoulder
26:55 Buffalo my name means uh Shaggy Waring Buffalo and uh what I'm going to do here now is I'm going to show us picture slideshow of my daughter this is my daughter her name is Emy she is a senior in high school at
27:18 the sou sou High School in Nebraska she will be graduating next month she's your average kid she loves to be on a computer go to the mall her mother CH to be sent her to school although there was a school available to
27:41 her on the reservation a public school her mother and I chose to send her to the school that's about 25 miles away north of us off of the reservation where there's probably three or four Indians I high school she attends there's like 2500 students that attend the school so it's a very competitive
28:05 world that we placed our daughter in and she has succeeded every summer she goes and she attends a uh summer program at the University of North Dakota called idence and Medicine the school is a unique school that requires that a student be uh uh at least a honor student not a
28:29 uh having a high grade point average while they're in school she's been attending the school since she was in a seventh grade like I said and this year is her final year at this school she's looking at going into the field of medicine as a following her mother uh my wife her name is Kim she's a nurse and she's also in the commission Corp uh the
28:51 military uh medical field she's a lieutenant commander at she works at the Wago Indian Hospital in Wago Nebraska we have chose to give our child our children and a lot of families amongst their native people push our children to to the challenges that are
29:13 put before them in the life that they're going to be living we push them to compete and uh take every educational opportunity that comes to them we encourage them that way we also try to instill in them the traditional values and Customs that we
29:38 have within our tribe in our school on the reservation we have native programs that we push ask our children to be involved in these pictures here are pictures of my daughter when she was uh selected as the Winnebago veterans Power Princess the dress that she wears her mother wore
30:01 that the crown that she has we had made for her because that's an appropriate thing to do when she holds that position as a princess for a year she'll represent the wio veterans association as you see that was in 2003 the B that she the feather that she
30:22 carries uh and she dances this feather I gave to her when she was just a young girl it's a a winter hwk feather and the bag that you see was given to her by her mother who was uh given to her uh by her mother grandmother she also attends Taekwondo in classes back home this is a
30:46 very uh big part of her life she's been attending this for 4 years very consistent with it her mother it's either her mother or her auntie that takes her up at least uh four times a week she attends us after school travels home to the reservation or sometimes we go up there and have her stuff in the car but she attends
31:10 these Monday Wednesday and Friday nights after school in the evenings uh and then on Saturday morning she gets up and she goes and uh does this again her and her brother her brother's uh 15 he just turned 15 he'll be attending this school also the summer school and medicine program this coming year this will be his first year so what I'm showing here
31:34 is trying to uh let you know that our our children are the same our children face the same problems and also we encourage them to set their goals high in life and to be a someday when they become an adult there'll be a positive figure amongst them
31:59 our Indian Community or wherever they may choose to live in this world that's the kind of parenting that we like to do to do with our children across the country this is done all in all [Music] reservations um as my brother Pi said it's it's a balance that we're looking
32:24 for with our children we want them to be Progressive and and have all the opportunities that every children has but yet in the same hand we want to help be sure that they retain some of the cultural things that are significant that we consider important um an example one example is is being of service U
32:48 being able to be a provider for the people when after coming out of the service in military I was inducted into a warrior Society Andy those society and they talked about that and uh to me and saying what my responsibilities were and that was to be a protector and a provider for the
33:10 people and I think that um that is uh a way of life that I will always have with me instilled in me and I hope that I can do that with my children as well we can pass those type of things on I often use an example when there's kids here we talk about shell Society among the omahas and it's the same as the the
33:33 U Clan or chiefs clan that my grandmother was a part of and they say that you should be able to count to 100 to be a member of that society and they don't mean 1 2 3 4 it would be they would have to come to the society in order to be a member of it bring them bring with them 100 Willow sticks and each time they laid the willow stick down they have to recant something that
33:58 did a good deed or something that was worthy for the people let's say uh he laid a willow stick down and said last summer this uh Man passed away on the Buffalo arm left a wife and three kids here all winter I've been C I've been providing for my family but I also have been providing meat for them or let's say a widow lived in a shelter and it
34:21 was stared to fall apart and he would go over there and him and his wife would make new hides and they would uh um uh they would uh fix her shelter all up he can count that as one uh another example would be uh another story on top of that uh is that this woman came among them to the lodge and she had all her
34:46 her clothes were all raggedy and worn out maybe maybe like a homeless person in the streets today we might see and he he came to that she came to that Lodge and uh he saw her and he invited her in and she sat in a place of honor she sat down there he told his wife we need to help her so they combed her hair fixed
35:09 it up he reached back and he asked her get some of your your clothes and they gave her a beautiful uh beautiful bug skin dress and they cleaned her up her daughter and then got water and cleaned her up and they fed her they gave her a beautiful fan and then she walked out and she left and then she walking I said look it was that Homeless lady look at look how well stressed she is who did
35:33 that for her and I said that good man over there he could count that as one something like that 100 times that would be imagine if if this room was filled every seat in here was filled with somebody that did 100 good things for each other what kind of society that would be if we all did 100 good things for each other each of us the Omaha
35:58 practice that kind of culture before the time of Columbus we were good to each other tried to help one another how much time do we have Mar what I was about 12 more minutes are there any questions that you might have if not we might be able to sing another song and maybe explain it or describe it after the questions and let us know that I'll sing
36:23 a song question um when you were naming your ancestors you didn't name any female ancestors is that normal or was it just you weren't thinking of them today I just weren't thinking of them but by lineage we we follow them men we are a patriarchal society not that the women aren't significant in fact my grandmother there was certain type of
36:46 protocols that would happen among Indian people like uh um um mother-in-law never talks to her son-in-law there comes a certain age where she doesn't talk to her brother uh when when her brother would my uncle my my grandpa Kenneth would come over to visit I'd have to get up and sit there because they need I need to be present and it'd be like it would
37:11 be like uh um I'm wanting to talk to to him through you and I'd say tell my tell my brother that I need we need to lease that land and 40 acres over there because our lease is about ready to expire now he heard he heard that and he go back and say tell tell my sister that uh that's okay with me cuz we need the money they don't need to do that but
37:35 they're sitting there but that was out of respect there were certain regulations or protocol that was uh established that they didn't talk to one another and in the same way with my my dad and then she never said anything publicly but whenever there was a crisis in our family Whenever there was a major decision that had to be made it was my
37:58 grandmother who made it she was in charge that it wasn't so I guess publicly it maybe it look like she wasn't but the women are are really the strength of our families they are the lifegiving and they are the mothers they are they are the she is the one who was in charge when there was a decision that be made what does Mom think what what he
38:22 you know so she had she held Court when it was when it was a decision that need to be made so it's not disrespecting her but we are a patriarchal society that try to follow the men's lineage so that's how you we that's why I mentioned the men folk with within our tribe uh in our involving our Classics uh we follow our father and my
38:45 father he was a aate from the Buffalo Clan his father before him and so on it's been handed down but because of our children and around is married outside the tribe if our one of our daughters uh marri somebody outside the tribe that uh does isn't a part of our tribe well
39:08 their children won't have clan names or won't belong to specific Clans within our tribe so that's kind of how and our names our naming ceremonies you know our names apply to our clan gender or our clan clanship like my name is referred to the chagy part of the buffalo's ankle um it's referred to the Buffalo because
39:32 that's where I come from if your daughter marries outside the her children don't have PL but your son marries a woman who's not in your clan do they have clan names then yes they do she becomes a part of that Clan she has right there are times when certain tribes have enrollment requirements like up in the north in the
39:56 northern like in Canada in the north Northeast where they are a patriarchal society I believe the iroy are a patriarchal lineage they follow I mean the matriarch they follow the women they they inherit the women they when they get married they go to the women's family uh uh the naming it goes to the women and sometimes uh it can counteract
40:20 each other because if if you happen to be a man and your you marry a woman that your kid kids follow hers they kind of can negate each other and you can be you could be neither tribe you could be a full- blood Indian but not be eligible to be on either tribe because one would negate the other because of the the lineage thing saying
40:44 well you you follow the you follow the on his side you follow the women's and on on her side it's only the men that side that can be enrolled in the tribe so end up being a full-blooded Indian but not enrolled in any tribe because of the Mator artical the men and women thing it's kind of uh complicated any other any other
41:06 questions that we could [Music]
41:26 uh hey
41:45 [Music] hey we hey
42:10 [Music] hey hey hey oh hey
42:33 hey hey [Music] hey High
42:55 hey hey oh that song we use at the end of our Gatherings it's an appreciation song for today for your your attention to me and
43:18 my brother as we uh did our presentation I say thank you does anyone have any other questions no well let's thank Pierre and Dwight very much for sharing your culture with us and I'd like to thank all of you for
43:41 coming to our tent of many voices that's how it got its name this is a place for many voices to be heard and we've heard from Dwight and Pierre talking about the Omaha and Ponka cultures our next presenter is

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Dwight and Pierre on Omaha and Ponka Culture

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