Closed Captions

Harry Beauchamp Jr. (Shakes the Spear), an Assiniboine traditional dancer from Fort Peck Reservation, demonstrates and explains the ceremonial components of powwow regalia, including bustles, ribbon shirts, beaded moccasins, and dance sticks. He shares personal stories of sobriety, family adoption, hunting traditions, and the spiritual significance of eagle feathers. Beauchamp also recounts Assiniboine oral history regarding the Lewis and Clark Expedition's passage through their territory.

Transcript

0:02 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the tent of many voices. My name is Aaron. I'm one of the rangers traveling around with this exhibit. We've been traveling for two years and have two left to go. We have quite a ways and we're enjoying every minute of it. Every time we stop at a new city, we introduce and invite other presenters to do presentations here in our
0:23 tent of many voices to share their voice and their perspective of the Lewis and Clark expedition or um some of the native people they saw along the way and also some of the effects of Lewis and Clark. And at this hour, we have Harry Beauchamp who's here to tell you a little bit about the Senate Bill Regalia. So let's give him a warm welcome.
0:52 In my first uh words, I should say watch Naga.
1:01 Why you Ks are you cha, cha.
1:06 What I said was, it's good to see you. My Indian name is Shakes the Spear. My English name Harry Beauchamp Jr. I'm ac born Indian from the Fort Peck reservation. I live in a little community called Oswego. I uh I am a traditional dancer.
1:31 There's not much spiritual part of it other than enjoyment. If you've ever been to a powwow, you would see that. We have fun. We like to tease joke, we have what we call Indian humor. So when we gather, we all like to rip and tease one another about our Moxin or something that's out of place.
1:54 This would be called Rockers
2:00 and this is my backboard.
2:03 Unlike other presenters, they would put their regalia all on.
2:13 But I want to show you how we would do it. So you have a better, you'll have to come over here. This is my little son. His name is Harry the third. He's also a traditional dancer.
2:29 OK? You hold that right there.
2:32 I got it.
2:40 Ok? Just hang on to.
2:45 Bye bye or regalia. We call it
2:52 consist of what all I would wear
2:59 and it isn't cheap. This vest I'm wearing cost me 500 bucks, American money.
3:14 So there's a price we have to pay for enjoyment.
3:22 How many of you know what alcohol does to us?
3:31 In 87?
3:34 In 1987 I uh found myself
3:41 beat up by this drug called alcohol.
3:47 I was fortunate
3:54 that I had
4:00 family members back home praying for me.
4:12 Uh
4:16 and I found myself in 87. I was two years without alcohol then and I found myself ready to have a drink
4:33 of uh reasons of my own doings, which is called humanness.
4:41 And I uh I called a nephew of mine. And I told him, I said, you know, I said, I've had it with this world.
4:52 I'm not, I, I can't do this anymore sober walk.
5:01 He said, well, let's go fishing.
5:05 And after we're done fishing,
5:08 if you still want to drink, I'll join you. I said, all right. So we went fishing
5:16 and I was crawling down this little deer trail to get a little closer to this lake up in the flathead reservation is where we were living at the time.
5:28 And I,
5:32 I'm gonna go through the top, just pull out right there. If you can reach it, can you see it coming out there? Stay with me. It's not
5:42 ok. Then let's go through the water.
5:47 So anyway, I was crawling down on this deer trail to get closer and I found this started to find eagle parts
5:58 of this eagle.
6:09 We first nations people. We don't look at things as coincidence
6:21 for whatever reason how this little bald eagle passed away.
6:27 It was meant for me.
6:30 One, it was meant for me to, to find it because then there it is.
6:39 And then only then did I get humble with it
6:44 in my drinking,
6:49 took the backstage of it at that time because as I said before, it wasn't a coincidence, it was meant for me to find him. And I felt really sad
7:02 because we believe that a bald eagle mates for life
7:07 for however reason this eagle gave his life for me,
7:12 I chose not to drink.
7:15 So when I put him on
7:19 and I get with all these other birds of prey on this dance floor. A lot of them are golden eagles.
7:28 A lot of them are, uh,
7:33 they take prey, they won't eat something dead. The bald eagle will eat fish.
7:43 He doesn't kill rodents, I heard.
7:51 But what we always do is we always smudge up because he becomes sacred when we use him every one of these feathers all the way to here. So we use our sage. It is called big leaf sage and it grows in Northeastern Montana where we're from.
8:11 This would be called a bustle.
8:16 And I would put this, wear this on my back
8:21 in this fashion. But I got some gear back here. Maybe I might be able to get it
8:32 and I would wear it like this.
8:41 The cool thing about him when I put this guy on and I walk out on that dance floor and there are maybe 152 100 other men dancers. This little bald eagle wants to fly
8:53 and me and him get to fly amongst all these other golden eagles. I haven't ran in too many men that wear a bald eagle
9:04 back home where we're from. We take life
9:11 from a spiritual aspect. I'm not a holy man. I'm not a medicine man. I belong to a couple of societies back home
9:22 which helps us keep grounded.
9:28 I uh
9:30 when we smudge
9:33 it gives us good thoughts.
9:36 It gives us good things to, to dance for.
9:42 I'm wearing a shirt. It's called a ribbon shirt.
9:48 My ancestors star people. They recognize me when I wear this.
9:55 This was
9:58 a fully beaded old, over 110 years old.
10:10 The Assiniboine wore these. So if you ever go to a powwow or a gathering and you see this on an individual, he would be a sin. That's how we were recognized. And we had grades. Of course, this is my boy. I told you and he would wear it like that.
10:32 We had floral designs.
10:40 You know, they don't give me enough time because everything here has a story.
10:53 These would be called a side drops.
10:59 This is awfully beaded my belt. I've been only dancing. Uh This is my sixth year. I don't do it for money,
11:12 but this comes up around me and then it fits around my waist and then they hang down. They're called a side drop.
11:34 These would be tied
11:38 right above my calves
11:46 and they match
11:53 fully beaded arm. I would wear these like this
12:10 when I first started dancing. I had this item right here.
12:15 I had my breastplate.
12:20 I had a different pair of moin. I didn't have any of this bead work
12:32 and I dance like a board. If you ever go to a power, you see a guy dance like a board. That was me.
12:42 This covers up
12:47 my sacred parts
12:53 and then I have one tied in the back.
12:58 I call him a loin cloth that covers up my private parts.
13:03 But I also have another thing that covers me up. Now I invested in
13:09 on how to make leggings. So I followed
13:15 the white man's shops.
13:22 So all I do is I just pull them on if it's cold and it keeps my little chicken legs warm.
13:31 That's our pants.
13:36 These are my cuffs which I would wear, which they match. Also,
13:53 I would wear like that.
14:06 So that's part of our regalia. Had I known it was going to cost me this much money.
14:16 I would have probably never got into it. I would have probably took that little eagle and sent him to a medicine man and had him do something with it.
14:26 And these are our bells.
14:42 This would go on first
14:46 and then your belt set on top of that. Of course. So it don't, it don't rub on you
15:01 if you're going to be over in Great Falls at the end of this month,
15:06 I'm going to be over there with, I have my society painted Lodges. I'm going to be over there for four days
15:16 and then there's a powwow there, I'm told and when I get done there, I'm going to go over and powwow. So if you want, come over and watch me dance, take my picture
15:28 and his, this is what we call a dance shirt,
15:36 this would go under my breastplate, my tie, my collar.
15:46 I'm fortunate I have three mothers,
15:52 two from a place called Carry the Kettle Canada and one from a town called Glasgow Montana.
16:00 The lady, the lady from Canada, she told me, she said, Harry is your mother alive? And I said, no, my mother passed away to the spirit world. We say mak a spirit world. She said a Cinna boy man should never be without a mother. I'm going to adopt you as my son. I like how you carry yourself. She adopted me at the big ceremony.
16:23 So whenever they come back down to our gatherings from carry the kettle, she always brings me a ribbon shirt.
16:32 I have many of them. She's my other two moms always make me things too. This would be my tobacco pouch.
16:44 We call it a dance bag. I like to put my little tobacco in there and my smudge and then I'll carry this with me.
16:55 There's a story behind this. This Indian man's name was afraid of his flying.
17:03 He was our medicine man
17:06 of the first nations. People from Fort Peck. He knew everything about plants.
17:15 He knew the proper way of using them so we could be healed.
17:23 I had told him that I was going to start dancing powwow.
17:29 He said you have something to fan yourself. He said it's hot out there in Northeastern Montana. It gets 110 120 when we have all of this on, it's really, really powerfully hot.
17:45 I told him on what day I was going to come to the dance floor. He showed up at my camp and he gave me this. He's now had met, went to the spirit world, this mass. So this is very, very sacred to me. It works really well.
18:05 This is called a spreader and it is also fully beaded on here is a thunderbird. If any of you are going to be in Great Falls, I have an 18 ft teepee, fully painted art art style, not just something thrown on it. This bird right here is on the back
18:29 of the full length of the lodge. He comes to us in June out there and we say Wancha thunderbird, he scares our little ones, he scares
18:48 our animals, our little colts, our little calves,
18:56 let me see it.
19:00 This is called a wat.
19:07 It's made out of porcupine hair
19:11 and dear hair
19:20 and I'll show you how this goes. There's a story behind this. Also,
19:31 I like to look at myself as a very fortunate individual because all of these things came to me in a good way
19:44 and put on you.
19:47 Our elders tell us when we leave home. I and this little man right here in my family that whatever we do out there, we do it from here because we want to bring shame back home to the assiniboine people. So whenever we smudge, we have these in our possessions, we have to speak the truth.
20:13 Because my elders, I have five mentors which are men are all in their eighties. They walked a very humble path. And whenever I do something, I tell them, I'm going somewhere. They say you have a good trip in our language. And then they say, make us proud
20:36 because we will know
20:39 if you're spoofing everybody. How many of you know what spoofing is
20:50 talking when they should be listening and listening, when they should be talking.
20:55 And this is how this goes on. This thing here is called a scalp lock.
21:12 You just get it started. I can put it on through there. OK? It's right there in your but you can move it down more if you want it. That's how you
21:22 my fingers are
21:27 right there right in the middle.
21:30 Hey,
21:45 where's my rope?
21:55 And then I would tie it like this
22:11 when I, when I dance power
22:17 black and whites, they should be rocking
22:24 to the, to the drama.
22:28 I was told not to leave out the other winged birds. These are magpie tail feathers.
22:40 I am this little man right here is my other older daughter. She's uh five. I and her were out on their way to dig turnips. How many of you ever dug wild turnips? We were out digging wild turnips.
23:04 Yeah.
23:06 And the creator again, left me these tail feathers.
23:14 If you see there's some beautiful little bird feathers there and beautiful purple is on there. I was told never to leave out
23:25 or other little winged animals. This was made by a man that was
23:34 walk the same path I do.
23:37 He had a rough time with alcoholism.
23:43 He made this for me. It's very dear to me.
23:49 I don't want you to let me,
23:54 I was gonna have this guy bring his regalia and then be in costume because he has basically the same as me.
24:09 And that's how that works.
24:15 This is called a dance stick,
24:21 your left
24:41 in our dance. We have stories.
24:46 Each song is a story. So if you understand the language in these songs, you would know what we, what the drummers are singing to. I'm not a warrior. I never went off to war, but I am a hunter in Northeastern Montana. We have huge, huge mule deer out there
25:11 and I also have many hats.
25:15 So one day I bought myself some hunting license
25:23 because on the reservation, we don't have to pay to hunt.
25:29 But there were some bigger bucks off the reservation in order for me to go get them, I had to buy a hunting license. So I bought a hunting license and I teamed up with a couple of buddies and I said I need me
25:41 a song to go with my sneak up. The snake up dances is warriors. It's where they're tracking their enemy and dance. And every once in a while they get down and they pop up
25:56 in regalia and then they attract them some more and they look around. Bye. I said I gotta get me a story.
26:06 So we went up north of Glasgow Montana
26:11 and, and I had come across a big print of a huge buck.
26:18 I trailed him for better part of the day and over there there's no trees up there. It's just sagebrush and a lot of washouts and he was laying in this wash up.
26:32 So I use that in my snake up now. Ok? Before I, before I would follow another dancer and use him as my enemy.
26:47 And I thought no, this guy's way too quick.
26:52 So I use this buck story. So there's, there's stories that go with our, with our dance.
27:04 I've gotten pretty good at it.
27:07 I haven't made any money out of it yet.
27:12 I take that back. I won a special one time. But then there was only three of us.
27:19 This little guy right here can really dance good.
27:23 He's placed in many powers.
27:28 And I always tell him, what's it feel like to stand up there with all the winners, all these champions
27:35 someday, dad, you'll be there.
27:39 But the thing about it is it comes from here
27:46 and it's God given to us. God gives us intelligence. When I smudge, I do this, I smudge my hands because they are the foulest things that a human can have.
28:02 I spud my heart
28:07 and I smudge my intelligence
28:16 and I smudge my mouth.
28:23 Now, all of them are connected.
28:28 So it comes from here. My intelligence tells me it's the safe thing to say my mouth because one of the hardest things that comes from our mouths can very, very, very hurt us for a long time. More so than fist fighting.
28:49 That was another one of my stories. I used to like to fist fight,
28:55 but that came from alcoholism. I've been sober. I'll be 18 years sober. June 20th.
29:05 I've hadn't had a fistfight. I haven't had my hands put behind my back in cuffs.
29:15 Over 200 years ago when these individuals came up through here. Not so long after that, they brought a thing called fire water
29:27 and it destroyed a bunch of us.
29:33 I broke a cycle in my life. My little boy hasn't seen me touch and drop. My little boy hasn't seen me come home late.
29:46 He hasn't heard me lie.
29:52 But all of this right here is good for us because it gives me enjoyment to dance.
29:59 It makes me feel good when I can get out there with all them great big raptures that the golden eagles, the spotted eagles, the black eagles and all these men are real arrogant. Oh, arrogant. Me and my little ball. We come right out there.
30:20 It makes me feel good to do that
30:23 and I make them dance because they, they, they competition. Huh? For big money. There's a pow, they have 34,000 competition in Great Falls. I have a very good friend of mine that lives in Chinook Montana. I came on my way up. I stopped visiting.
30:43 He called me a couple of days before that. He told me, oh, my brother, he says, I'm ga which means pitiful. He says my Moens, they have holes in them.
30:55 Not coincidence. That morning I went to, I went with an older brother. He bought a recliner so he didn't have a pickup. So we used my truck, we went to Wolf point and at this place we were picking up this recliner. A lady came up and she said, Harry, are you looking for a pair of moin?
31:14 I said, I was thinking about getting me a second pair. She says, well, come over here. Look, she had a beautiful Paraoxon, not these but a beautiful pair of moin fully beaded like this. All of this was beaded.
31:28 You know, you figure 200 bucks. That's what I was going. She said 70 bucks. I said $70. Yeah, follow me to the bank. She followed me over there. I got her 80.
31:40 So anyway, there's this, there's this brother of mine. He, he took me as a brother. He's a groan from there. He says, uh, yeah, he says, boy, I'm really pitiful. Miens got holes in them. I told this little guy see these Moxin are going to go to my adopted brother, Bill. So on our way up here yesterday, I stopped, I told him, I said I have a gift for you,
32:02 but I want to see the holes in your Moxin that you were saying you had and he had them laying out, he picked him up off of his living room floor and he stuck his finger through. So I told you I was ushi.
32:17 So we gave him Erin,
32:23 they say whenever we give, we get back. So evidently what this bill my friend does came back to him
32:36 back home.
32:39 There are so many non Indians. They look at us as just drunks. There's some of us that are very real. There are some of us that still walk that path without alcohol in our homes.
32:55 We have prosperity in our lives because we're educated. Now, I work for an archaeology digging firm out of Billings, Montana called Ethno Science. I make good money at it. I get to do things that I've always enjoyed and that's working with Anna Mae. We say mother earth,
33:16 I go to sacred sites, burials. If there's a burial, I'm asked to do a ceremony before we dig in it because I know what's going on. I'm in tune to the spirit world,
33:32 but it comes from one thing. How warm do you work?
33:37 Save my life, saved my life.
33:42 Had I not found him, I'm sure I would have went and got drunk that day.
33:48 But everything is a gift from that. So when I put him on, no disrespect to these folks that are running this, I was supposed to put all of this on, but it's easier for me to explain it to you.
34:05 My grandmother's name was Oka, which means son, she was very fond of the floral design.
34:15 So most of my,
34:18 my bead work is all laurel except these, I run across these
34:27 three years ago, a s lady
34:34 came to this office where I was at
34:38 gave me a little sob story, which was the truth. I don't have to tell you that. She said, but I have a pair of moons. I said, all right, let me go. Look at them. I looked at him. She says, how much I asked her. She said, 70 bucks again. I said, $70 for these. I said, this is commercially tanned.
34:57 It must have took you forever to put the beads through because if you've ever sewed on, on commercially tanned, it's a nightmare.
35:08 So I gave her a little extra and I took them. So everything we have
35:14 has a significant story behind it. So when I put these on, I look to the West where our Sioux ancestors are from and I tell her, hey, I'm aware your moks.
35:26 Give me the strength. Hm.
35:30 Oh, the best
35:34 was made by a gentleman named he's from uh
35:40 Canada. He's a Korea Indian.
35:46 200 years ago. Ascends didn't have very many friends. We didn't like the black feet. We didn't like the gro von. We didn't like the heat. So we didn't like the Rick. We didn't like anybody. I could,
36:01 we had one ally and that was our CRE, the CRE nation was our ally because our language is very close. We understood one another.
36:12 This gentleman said, hey, I told him I need a vest. He says you buy everything.
36:20 It's all right.
36:24 But it wasn't him that was going to do the work. It was his wife. He didn't tell me that.
36:31 So every time I'd go over there, she was sitting there beating on this. That's
36:38 this brother of mine is supposed to be here. Korea Indians are like us. They're proud. They said, no, no, no. That's women's work. I saw both.
36:48 She did this side. He did this side.
36:54 You can see the difference in it, how tight it is compared to his side. I told myself, well, maybe my second thought, maybe we could go back the old way.
37:07 But
37:09 I'll, I'll, I'll tell you a little story
37:13 how the monkey came to the Asos.
37:19 One day the circus was in town
37:25 in Wolf Point, Montana when it was first getting built. And this little monkey escaped
37:34 and he was down along the river.
37:37 There was me and another individual we seen this little monkey said, what is that?
37:43 Let's catch it. We'll take it to the hung, the hung means chief. We'll take it to our hunga. He'll know. So we caught this little monkey and we took him to the chief. The chief picked him up. He says, ha,
37:57 oh, he's touching his little head and his tail. Hm. He says, I don't know. He said in the center boy in Dublin, he said, take it to medicine man. He'll know. So we took this little monkey to the medicine man. Medicine man held him up
38:15 to the four directions.
38:19 This little monkey because medicine men, they always prayed the four directions, petted this little monkey on the head, played with his tail. He said, huh? Got a face like a boy.
38:35 Got a tail like a cow.
38:38 I know cowboy
38:47 back home. We have a, I have a lot of friends that are cowboys. We do a lot of horse racing, horse racing and that's where we run these wild horses on saddle and into shoots. There's three of us.
39:02 We have a mugger. We have a rider and we have one guy that saddles him. We open the chutes, we have to rope this horse. Then we got to put a saddle on him. Then we have to throw this little rider on him and then he's got to ride across the arena. Talk about rex.
39:20 Cowboy Indians flying everywhere.
39:24 Usually our mugger is about 65 and about £400 man. So he just squats
39:32 and hangs on to the rope and then little skinny guys like me do the rest,
39:38 but we have fun in doing all these things. You know,
39:43 if I've offended anybody in my talk, I make my amends.
39:52 I'm honored to come here and be here.
39:56 Over 200 years ago.
40:00 This gentleman Lewis and Clark was coming through a CBO country.
40:05 We were camped at a place called Rocky Point because if you're down there, we only stayed in the river bottoms because of the wood and the safety of the wind. At that time of the year, we were up at Rocky Point, which had been 12 miles north of where they supposedly seen us. There was four of our scouts down there.
40:27 We reported back to our tribe. We said these big boats are coming up. We don't understand the language of these people. We got within your shot. Our war chief was there
40:40 our chief at that time, his name was Rosebud. He asked his chief, he says, what do you think? And our chief asked these four scouts, he says, who's all in this party?
40:53 So each of the scouts told him
40:58 said there was a woman and a baby with him.
41:05 Our war chief, he says, do you go to war with a woman and a baby? No, let him go through, keep an eye on them for four days and report back to us.
41:18 So we never did encounter these gentlemen, the assiniboine were very protective of that area at the time. I could tell you some stories that were passed down to us. It's not written in books. You don't find too many books on our religion or our spiritual walk or our life because we don't sell our stuff.
41:40 We don't sell it because we keep it in here and we pass it to our little ones. They don't read it in a book. If they have to participate in these things, our gatherings, our ceremonies, when these things are shared with us,
42:01 you know, to have a woman and a baby with these two individuals. The assiniboine took great respect for that to come across our country,
42:17 but they had a woman and a baby. We showed great respect for him. He says you guys go on in our own way and time is up, I guess so. I wanna thank you all for coming and letting me speak to you all. Hopefully, I'll see some of you in Great Falls. You know, maya.
42:39 Thank you both for coming.
42:43 Thank you and thank all of you for coming as well. I do want to invite you to come back for the next program. One of our own rangers is going to be doing a

Tent of Many Voices

Harry Beauchamp Jr. on Assiniboine Powwow Regalia and Tradition

Harry Beauchamp Jr.

Assiniboine

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Harry Beauchamp Jr. on Assiniboine Powwow Regalia and Tradition

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