Closed Captions

Crow oral historian Howard Boas discusses Crow nation culture, spiritual beliefs, and territorial presence during the Lewis and Clark expedition. He describes the four-pole lodge structure, sacred rock art and prayer sites across the region, the Clark Fork River gathering place, and the capture of Clark's horses. Boas emphasizes Crow cosmology centered on relationships with sky, earth, sun, and moon.

Transcript

0:08 Well, good afternoon everyone and welcome to the 0 of Many Voices. I encourage you to come in and have a seat and join us. We're just about to get started with our 1 o'clock program. The Tenementy Voices is part of the core of Discovery 2 traveling Lewis and Clark exhibit. It's a multi-agency
0:31 exhibit with the National Park Service being the lead agency. But if you spend some time here today, if you go to the keel boat, for instance, you talk to members of the Army Corps of Engineers, if you go to the dugout canoe, you talk to someone from the Bureau of Reclamation. So it's a multi-agency exhibit and it's a multi-partnership exhibit.
0:55 Here in the 10 of many voices we have a wide variety of presenters that share with us a wide variety of perspectives both on the Lewis and Clark expedition itself. But also we like to hear from the
1:12 descendants of the people that were living there long before Lewis and Clark arrived. We'd like to hear from these indigenous or American Indian nations to share their story, their perspectives. And that's what we have today with our one o'clock program. We have Howard Boas, who is an enrolled member of the Crow nation.
1:36 He's gonna share some of his people's history and culture. Howard is a oral historian, has been learning. His history and culture of his people since he was 6 years old, so very privileged to have him here. Let's give him a warm welcome to the 10 of many voices.
2:00 OK, you got me on.
2:03 Oh, OK. All right, thank you. Uh, I wanna thank the National Park Service for.
2:10 Allow me to come here to speak with you and uh talk to you about the history of the people who were here when Lewis and Clark came. Uh
2:19 One of the things that people don't see in the in the diaries and of the Lewis and Clark and and stuff like that there was people here there was culture there was societies, there was religion all of that was here and it's all basically the same as the stuff that Lewis and Clark brought here and uh Jesuit priests and uh other religions that brought religion to the Crow people afterwards
2:43 but uh anyway uh.
2:47 I'm an enro enrolled member of the Crow Tribe of Indians and uh At the age of 6 years old, I was designated by a Crow Indian elder named George Washington Hogan. And When you go down on the crow Nation, you will find many Washingtons.
3:09 You will find many Lincolns and uh things such as this because at that time the Indian people named almost all of their children after a president or somebody that was very, very important, so you find them types of names down there, but Mr. Hogan, when he adopted me. Uh, that does not mean that I left my family and went to live with the Hogan family.
3:34 Oops, my outfit fell off here.
3:40 My uh speaker fell off the back of my belt.
3:44 But uh anyway, uh, when uh Mr. Hogan, when he adopted me, Um,
3:52 I became a member of the Hogan family, so I had OK. Uh, so I had two families, uh, to bring me up. And when Mr. Hogan, uh,
4:05 Doctor, he's, he, he asked my parents if I could be brought up as an oral historian. So I've studied oral histories all my life. Plus the written histories. I've put together a library of over 8 around 800 books on the Crow Indian people and the other Indian tribes of Montana and, and thousands of loose leaf pages. I don't know. I,
4:30 I got so much I don't even know what I have anymore. But uh anyway, when When, when he uh asked me to do this, then he, in row tradition, then he designated two people that would be my tutors when I was very young.
4:48 One of them was one of the people was Robert Sumner Yellowtail who was actually the first American Indian that became a superintendent of a of a of a tribe of Indians in the United States and he was one and Mr. Yellowtail became came back and he became the superintendent of the Crow tribe of Indians. Uh, and the, the other person who he designated was Robert Summers
5:13 Howe, who was, who was my, my mother's older brother. So I had a clan uncle and a and a and and and an uncle who were my, my teachers and these old these gentlemen would take me out into the hills and stuff, you know, and you know I can remember now, you know, where you. In in the 40s and 50s, men, we had,
5:36 we were still driving Model A's and old junker cars and stuff such as that, you know, rattle trapping around the hills and these guys would take me along and say, you know, this is what happened here on this hillside. This is come and look at these, these rocks and this the this rocks and that, that this marks a prayer site or a battle site or it's a trail marker or something such as this, you know, and so
6:00 I've actually spent most all of my life. Hiking the hills and looking to uh my friend Mike Penfold here goes with me all the time anymore because I, I lost all my peripheral vision, so I only have central vision also they don't allow me to drive.
6:17 But so Mike here, he takes me all the time and, uh, but anyway, we go out and we, uh, find the paintings and stuff out here. We, we visit paintings here that have been carbon dated at 1000 years old. So the, you know, there was a culture, there was, you know, and uh that was here a long time. Uh, we,
6:42 we walked the trails. We have a highway system today. The Indian people had a highway system.
6:51 One of the main highways is just right out here just west of Great Falls. It goes from Alberta, Canada to New Mexico. And all you do is you follow little piles of rocks all the way. Um,
7:04 One of the things that's always uh very interesting to me is that the, I, I believe that the Indian people. Got along a lot better before the white men came along, before they was being pushed into smaller groups. Uh
7:21 Because at, in, in our beliefs. No one owns the land. The land is there for everybody, and the land is there to, to take care of everybody. Uh, in our, and we, and in our structure of life, uh, our structure of life as a family is, is a family structure because I pray
7:46 to my, my father, the sky. I pray to my mother of the earth. I pray to my grandfather, the sun. I pray, I pray to my grandmother the moon. These are the things that Brought us into this into this life and this earth. They're the ones that brought us up, they tutored us, they taught us, they fed us, they took care of us. So our,
8:11 our really our our way of life and our religion was our family. And our earth, our sky, our sun, our moon.
8:21 You know, it's, it's like uh.
8:25 My father, this guy. He looks over my mother of the earth. He showers with the rain. My mother, the earth brings up the green grasses, the trees, whatever it takes to feed us. Or to feed the animals that we are going to consume.
8:46 Without it, our grandfather, the son, without our grandfather, the son. This could not happen because we need the sunlight to take care of it. But you know we need time to rest, so our grandmother, the moon, she watches over us while we rest at night. So that we can get ready for our new life that begins in the morning. Because in our in
9:10 our crow tra tradition. Our lives are one day at a time, our life is one day at a time. And it is for all of us. Yes, we always plan for the future, but our life is still only one day at a time. And so that's, this is how our belief and our culture was and this was a belief in a culture that was going on at the time when Lewis and Clark
9:35 came up through the Missouri River. I drew this map right here. This map right here
9:43 This is Mandan right here.
9:47 And uh
9:51 I drew this map off in Crow Indian oral stories.
9:58 I drew it off of the information. That was given By sits in the middle of the land. When he signed the 1826 treaty at Manan with the United States government, that was the first treaty that the Crow Indian people. Ever signed with the United States government. So when uh They signed this treaty.
10:24 Uh, the general, he says, well, sits in the middle of the land, he says. Where, where do you live? How can I find you if I need to contact you? Because the 1826 treaty, it didn't say I'm gonna give you something, I'm gonna take anything. It was a treaty of friendship. Because
10:45 The crow were recognized as a nation by the United States government, not as a tribe of Indians, not as a reservation we were recognized as a nation. One of the very few tribes there, there was only probably 8 to 10 tribes in the entire United States that were recognized by the United States government as a nation. But anyway, when uh When we
11:10 signed this treaty here, and he said, where do you live? Well, he says, My cruel people live under my lodge. We as Crow, when we set up our lodge, we use 4 main poles. All of the rest of the tribes used 3 main poles to set up their lodges, but Kroll used 4.
11:31 So we set up one, he says, my one pole.
11:38 That's at the river, big river. The Missouri River where the Yellowstone, the acheda runs into it.
11:50 This is up here on this. My second poll It's down here and it's
11:59 Or the, it's the gap where the buffalo come through. Spearfish, South Dakota. That's where the 2nd poll was set for the coalition.
12:11 The 3rd pole was set way down here. In the southwest
12:19 And uh It's at a place that is called that you can visit today. It's the gurgling waters,
12:28 the pollapa waters.
12:30 And it's for the waters are boiling from the ground. It's a beautiful place to go to.
12:37 Our 4th pole set where the rivers mix.
12:43 The headwaters of the Missouri River with the Jefferson.
12:48 All three of the rivers come together. Here at the 3 forts.
12:55 And this is our crow nation. Sets under our lodge because our lodge is round. If you noticed
13:07 The, the, the reserva the, the nation was in a shape of a heart. And I couldn't figure it out. I I studied Father De Schmidt quite a little bit. And uh Father De Schmidt went back to uh Saint Louis. When he got to Saint Louis, they ask him where have you been? Where did you come from? He says, I just came from the heart of the Crow nation.
13:32 We have to remember that Father De Schmidt drew. A good share of the maps of the American West.
13:41 He was a priest, a Jesuit priest, but yet he, you know, he had to have a, a way to finance himself. Because uh the Catholic Church was not financing.
13:54 The Catholic Church was not financing and uh Father just met.
13:59 Father De Schmidt was a renegade.
14:02 Study him. Oh, he's fun. He is fun. But uh anyway, when, when he got back to Saint Louis, he said that he was, he had just came from the heart of the crow country.
14:14 When I use the oral stories.
14:19 This country over here, this is Platte River country. This water all runs into the Bighorn River. This run water all runs into the Yellowstone River. This water runs into the from the Missouri into the Missouri here into the Yellowstone and then. Yellowstone Park up here.
14:40 Yeah, Crow Indians at one time. Yellowstone Park, almost 80% of Yellowstone Park was in the Crow Nation.
14:52 We should have kept that and give them the rest of the reservation.
14:58 But uh no it's, it's very interesting of the history and the people who went here but one of the things I like, I always like to talk about uh the culture uh we had artists and our artists when they made a painting 1000 years ago. You can read it today and it tells you a story. Um, that's one of the things I forgot to bring along with me.
15:21 I was gonna bring along some photographs of, of some of the paintings and uh. Because one of the things that I find in the paintings when I see them all the time is that they generally have they all generally have the number 13 marked into it. There's generally 13 little marks. You, if there's a whole circle of marks, you divide them, you'll divide out into 13.
15:47 Because The 13 moons, we have 13 full moons in a year. The Indian people use that as their calendar, the 13 fold moves. We even had a calendar, believe it or not. The 13 moons on the turtle's back. The next time you see a turtle. Count the little squares on his back.
16:12 There is 30, that is our that was our calendar.
16:17 Yes. So, you know, they, they was, we was doing the same thing as a white man, different way. Uh
16:27 The other thing that was very interesting was, you know, like I say, you know, the, the religion part of it is how we, how when we prayed. When actually when it's gonna come out, when it, when it all comes down, we all prayed to the same person up here. When we die I, I was buried on the top of the ground. Because of the fact that if I was buried down under the ground.
16:52 My spirit can't rise and go up and I need to do that. And, and, uh, you know, it wasn't until 1894 that the United States government passed a law and said I had to have 5 ft of dirt on my face.
17:09 Yeah. One of the things that uh the non-Indian people, I don't say, I don't, I don't use the term of white man very much. I don't, I, I think it's a derogatory term. But uh I, I generally say the non-Indian, and one of the, the things that the non-Indian people did. Uh
17:28 Get from the Indian people. You go to any of the cemeteries. You're always buried so you face the east.
17:40 Indian people were always tried to bury so that they could they would face the rising sun. When I set up my lodge. I would set up my lodge, my openings when I sit in the back of my lodge. I would sit there in the morning and I could sit in my lodge and I could watch the rising sun from the back of my lodge.
18:04 So east was a very, very important part. Of of our our our way. Uh, 13, you know, like I say. Everybody thinks 13 is a great a bad number, uh, not for us. It's great. No.
18:21 Fact is, I was in Washington DC a couple of years ago and I was visiting Nick Rahall of West Virginia. And uh when we were visiting Mr. Rahal he says uh well you know this might be a bad time for you to ever probably to do because we was trying he's uh actually put together a bill to try to uh put protection on uh cultural sites,
18:45 historic sites across the nation, Indian and not Indian, but he's getting a lot of. Flack over it because I mean it it it protects a lot of land. So, but anyway, when uh when I was talking to Mr. Ray Hall, he says, well, this is my 13th term, he says, this might be uh the beginning of my 13th term, he says this might be a bad time. I said, no, this is the most wonderful time for us. I said,
19:10 because 13 is our, is our good number. And like I say, when you go around the, the paintings, you will find them always have. 13 in some way or another. Uh
19:24 In, uh, in the paintings, uh, some of the paintings, I mean, you, you read them, uh, you get them and get them, and as you see on my belt buckle here, I have lodges beaded into my belt buckle and the lodge is my home. My home is very, very sacred. My home is my church. Because uh in in American Indian people, we don't.
19:50 Go build a million dollar building so we got some place to go on Sunday.
19:57 Any time that I go out here, my feet touch the earth. And I can see this guy. I'm in my church. I'm in my church
20:10 And I go there quite often to do this. But uh what a lot of times, you know, I like to talk a little bit about the prayer. OK, I do a prayer. Something happened in my life. I don't know, maybe a death, maybe I'm not getting along with people or somebody got hurt that's very close to me or something like this. I go out to do a prayer
20:35 and when I go out to do my prayer. I go before sunrise to where I'm gonna do my prayer. I do a prayer twice a year on top of Pompey's pillar.
20:47 And I go up there. I have my little place that I could sit. I could sit there the entire day. People don't even know that I'm there, but I go before sunrise and I don't come come back down off until sunside at night. And when I Up there. I, I pray for what was is, is going on happening in my life. But I don't sit there and pray the entire day.
21:12 I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, what is the bad things that's happened in my life? What is, what is the way that I can, can fix this, uh, let's, it's more uh it's in our belief is that we, we need to know who we are within.
21:33 We need to know who we are.
21:38 As long as we know who we are, we will do well. But the day that we don't. That we find that we've lost ourselves and we became. You know, Uh, maybe we start drinking, maybe we start using drugs, maybe we do, you know, we, we start doing things, but you gotta remember who you are and take care of, take care of that, that person
22:02 as long as you always know exactly who you are, you will do well. But
22:09 When
22:12 I'd like to talk a little bit about Lewis and Clark now. Lewis and Clark
22:19 Entered crow country right here.
22:23 Right here They traveled up Crow country right through here. Crow people were on the Sun River, which is west of Great Falls, the two medicine River. Crow people were living up there at that time. It was crow people living on the Melk River.
22:41 Which is way up here.
22:45 But Lewis and Clark, they entered crow country right here, traveled up here. And out the other side of coal country down at 3/4s. Then they returned Lewis made this entire trip back. Clark made his trip down to Yellowstone. Uh, there was one of the groups went down to, to the Missouri River here. Again, and uh Prior
23:10 made the journey with the horses across over here. On these yellow lines.
23:17 So they traveled about 1700 miles and never spoke to a crow.
23:24 And a lot of people wonder, so why did they travel all these miles right through the middle of the crow people? They see signs of the Indians all the way. They never met a crow.
23:37 For one reason, one reason only.
23:41 Mosquitoes
23:45 These crows, they were smart enough that you get back away from the rivers into the hills, the high mountains, you get away from the mosquitoes and mosquito time, they left. They left the river country. This was the time when Lewis and Clark was doing all of their things in crow country. And they stayed on the rivers.
24:10 They stayed down in the mosquitoes. They got ate up the crow were gone. What was very interesting. At this point right in here. Where they made the canoes. Well, they made the canoes they camped there. 3 days Lewis and Clark did or Clark did in his group.
24:33 Within 12 miles of where Clark was camped. There was a crow sundance going on at the very same time. There were thousands of Indians there. It was on the Clark's Fork River. As we know it today. But then to the, to the crow people, the Cheyenne, the Sioux, the Blackfeet.
24:58 This is the river where we all come to dance. This meant all of the tribes of Indians come there to the Clark's Forks River. They would do some dances and they would hunt. They would, they would take care of their hides, their meat, and think and get a year's supply of meat. And then they would start venturing back from Nez Perce I mean there was many, many tribes.
25:22 She shown all of the tribes would come there because the Clarks Fork River.
25:28 We didn't fight on that river.
25:31 When we all came to that river, we know that was a place that you could set down beside your enemy. Break bread, eat. Hunt together. Maybe we even got together and we went off and raided somebody's horse horses. See, we never stole a horse. I want you to know that we never ever stole a horse. We captured a horse.
25:58 Because to capture a horse was a very honorable thing for a crow. Yes. To capture a horse is a very honorable thing. When I, when I, when I wanted to become a chief, I had to do 4 things. To capture a horse from within an enemy's camp was one of the things I had to do.
26:21 Within the camp that didn't mean that he's running on the hillside out here. I stuck into the camp and I cut the
26:31 The rod that was holding that horse. My friend Mike, he's a Siou over here.
26:40 Mike's landing in his lodge. He's sound asleep, but he has that cord tied around his belly. Because he don't want to lose his favorite war horse.
26:52 I sneak into his camp. And I steal his horse.
26:58 See, but really in Crow I captured that horse because I did a very honorable brave thing. I took his horse while he was hanging on to the end of the light of the cord. Yes. And so When, when, when we got the, when Clark came down the river, we, uh,
27:22 We didn't get the 1st 9. That was taken Further west of the. Of the 3 forts. It was 9 that was taken over there. And uh the Blackfeet claimed them them them 9 horses that that was taken. I want you to, I want you to know.
27:43 These guys have Shoshone and Nez Pierce horses. shown got most of their horses, a good share of the horses from the nest purse because. The the next person. Immediately started breeding horses to get a certain type of a horse. They wanted a particular horse, the Appaloos, so they started breeding to get the appaloose. That's where the Appaloos came from.
28:08 And uh but they were strong horses, small horses, very, very good horses us crow knew a good horse when we seen one, you know, and here comes Clark down the Yellowstone River. You know he's just rambling along and he's making maps and he's doing all of these good things, you know, that he's supposed to be doing, but us crow are setting up on the hillside counting horses.
28:35 And You know, and uh one of the things that in all my years of studying. The military might protect their encampment, but they would put their horses over here on the hillside 3 miles away to graze.
28:51 You know, so they were just very easy to get to, so we would just come down and we relieving of his forces and uh we're uh. According to the diaries, uh, Clark left his horses approximately 1 mile from the camp where he was making the canoes, uh. We found a site that pretty much fits the entire diary as to where the horses was being kept.
29:16 Because it uh says that from that position there, it was 1 mile, approximately 1 mile to the river crossing for the, for the Indians who took the horses across the Yellowstone River and going south and, and down into Cro country. And uh So we, we pretty much believe that we found the spot pretty much where the horses was being held. But uh no, they was,
29:41 they was nice horses and you know, we was good the first time, you know, we only took half of them. You know, and Doug done it. He went on down the river. You know, and They got down near where Billings is today and that's where they crossed the river with the last 25 head of horses that they were left. We'd already took 24 in a colt. And when they crossed the river.
30:07 Prior traveled about 6-7 hours. And he was at a place called Fly Creek today. Uh, Fly Creek is, is a, is, is starts from a basin. This basin is large like this. 200,000 acres in it. But it only has one little dry stream that goes out of it to drain it. One of these big old
30:30 Montana cloud bursts come along. And here was prior he was camped on this little dry creek and all of a sudden I mean he has a roaring river between him and his horses.
30:44 And so he spends a few a few hours trying to get his horsesh back together. But when he Went to bed, he was tired and he was sleepy, so he really went to sleep and he got up in the morning and when he got up in the morning.
31:00 He just didn't have any more horses. Uh, one of the row guys wanted to let him know. Who got the horses, so he left the moccasy.
31:15 And uh so we had we had a pretty good horde of herd of of horses but now I'm gonna tell you a story about these horses. Uh,
31:25 The crow horses, the horses that the crow took from the lark. They were taken so easily.
31:37 There was no danger of any kind in us taking the horses, so in our crow tradition we could not I could not I if I'm not the person that took the horses, I could not keep the horses. I had to give away as gifts. So you know, really, you know. Clark, he made a lot of cool Indian people very, very happy because I We gave away
32:02 50 horses, 49 horses in a cot. As gifts Because in row tradition we were not allowed to keep the horses because there was no risk to our life. We can only keep a horse for ourselves that we risked our life to get.
32:19 But anyway, when uh
32:23 After, after that, you know, then the crow, they just took, took off and, and took the horses and they went kinda into the southwest. Mike and I've been working on a trail that goes into Bighorn Canyon National Park called the Bad Pass Trail. These horses was headed right for the bad Pass Trail. Bad Pass Trail is a is an area. That when you walk you step over this rock and you
32:47 stumble over the next and you had next step you have a rock roll under your foot. I mean it's a, it's a bad trail but it's a, it's a trail it's probably 10,000 years old.
33:00 And uh Very, very well marked.
33:04 But and it's marked with piles of rock. Some of the, the rock piles and bypass trail, they are 1015 ft apart from here to the other end of the camp. They may be 5 or 6 piles of rock. They will be this high, probably 1 ton or two rock in in this pile.
33:25 But you know what one of them rocks are? Every one of them rocks is a prayer.
33:33 As I'm going down the trail, I pick up this stone. I carry this rock. It becomes part of me. My my sweat gets on this rock. I carry this rock for a while and I talk to this rock. And then when I get to where the places where the prayer, where the prayer piles of rocks are, I get up to this pile of rocks and I
33:58 Spit on the rock. I put part of me on my saliva. I put the rock in the pile.
34:05 When I put the rock in the pile, I say, thank you, Grandfather. For the good journey behind me.
34:13 Give me a good journey forward. And I go on
34:19 The next Indian person that comes along behind me. Does exactly the same thing. I can take you through piles of rock. Found in the crow country that is growing yet today because in our belief we cannot go past these piles of rock and we have to stop and do prayer, say a prayer. Sandy and I one time
34:45 We was going up into the Prior mountains. And
34:52 She was uh driving along and and uh I said stop, we need to stop and do the prayer. Well, let's we'll do it on the way back and let's, you know, I said no you gotta do it now. Sandy and I went up onto the Prior mountains. We spent the entire day in the Prior Mountains. Had a wonderful day. He was coming back down off of the Paramounts that night. We got within 300 ft of that, that rock pile.
35:17 She blew a right front tire, just blew the whole side of it out.
35:21 I didn't stop and say my prayer on the way up and ask for the good journey.
35:26 Yes. No, we, we believe in this very, very strongly. We do it yet today.
35:36 But uh You know that's, that's why I like to talk you say a little bit about Lewis and Clark when they came here. I mean we had people who were painting the history on the rocks, the paintings that are on the rocks today. that are 1000 years old. Uh, right now, we've got
35:57 near 400 located on the Yellowstone River and its tributaries.
36:04 Uh
36:06 When you sit there and you you look at these and. I don't come up here and say, OK, I'm gonna paint on the rock.
36:17 5 minutes, I'm going down, I'm going down the trail. No. Takes me maybe years to choose my spot.
36:27 Because I want absolute perfect light at a certain time of the year, things such as this. I go up here, I have break the wall till it's perfectly smooth. I take a, a black river stone. Almost every abrasive stone that we've found so far is a black river stone.
36:50 So they packed this rock a long ways to do their, do their paintings. But they abrake this wall perfectly smooth. And these walls And this one particular spot. That has been carbon dated 950 to 1000 years old.
37:14 This rock today is absolutely perfectly smooth sandstone. The abra this perfectly smooth.
37:26 They would have put a lot of house painters out of business if the house painters could figure out how they made the paint. Because they paint their paintings on the walls.
37:36 The paintings we we think are just something but no that painting is part of me. It tells a part of a story. It tells it, it tells something about my people. And uh
37:49 Some of the paintings we, one of the paintings that we find. It has a circle. So
37:57 It has inside of the circle coming to the middle. The shape of lodges all the way around. In series of 13.
38:09 There are 13 lodges to make the circle. On the bottom of each lodge on the outside of this, on the outside of the circle, there are 13 fringes.
38:21 But the lodge is our home is our church. That the lodge means people. That's where the people live. So that that that that particular painting is very sacred to us because it tells us of, of the people. OK, there's another one there. And that's right beside, excuse me.
38:45 But uh there's another painting that's right there beside of it and uh the painting that's right beside there. It's got what we call a two-headed water monster on it.
38:58 Any time we find something that has two heads in the paintings, it means one thing. I actually needs two things actually.
39:08 Good and bad.
39:12 Good and evil.
39:17 11 head is for good, one head is bad, and I'll tell you a little story, uh. It took time, took time about
39:33 In the late 1800s. Uh, Chief Plentyos. had been on a rating party. We went down from down in Nebraska and we got some good Si horses. I mean.
39:48 You know our neighbors always had good horses and crow always needed more. Because to to to crow horses were wealth. The more horses I had, the wealthier I was. Because I could always trade horses for anything that I wanted. But anyway, Sanny Cruz was returning. He uh
40:09 Go back to the Bighorn River. The Bighorn River was being flooded.
40:15 Man, he got to the river Hall man, we can't get across and we're only a day and a half journey from home. Good long day we could probably make it.
40:27 They didn't know what to do to do big shoulder blade. Big Shoulder Blade was a very tall man. Uh, at that particular time, mostly in the crow people were 6 ft and more taller, very, very big people, not fat. Just tall thin people. But anyway, big shoulder blades, he was a very big man. He was riding a very,
40:51 very large horse. And he said, Well, I'll go into the river, and he says, I, I'll, I'll find a way to get across. So he went and chose his place for where he where he entered the river when immediately when he got into the river, big shoulder blade and his horse was caught by the water and it started washing him down. So immediately
41:16 big shoulder blade, he starts singing a chant. This chant So it is to. The good and the evil of the water monster.
41:33 He's chanting and he's praying that the good, the good water monster will get a hold of him and the good water monster will take him to the land. The bad water monster will take him into the water. This is the belief This painting is on the wall. 1000 years old. That story is 1000 years old.
41:56 Uh, the other painting is there. It's just of a lodge.
42:04 But the painting that's in the center, the ball is in the middle of it. Is green
42:12 Do you know that in the state of Montana, there are only 5 paintings that have grain in them. One is over here at Heller along the lake. The weather, the other 4. Are on the Clarks Fork River.
42:31 The other 4 are all within probably less than 30 ft distance apart.
42:39 No, it's it's uh uh and so green was was something that was kind of hard but we, we feel that that that green was for earth, the mother. The grasses because the land, the earth turns green.
42:57 So that's that's that's part of this part of that particular prayer that big shoulder blade was singing. When uh
43:11 The crow people would travel, like I say, they would mark the trails with the markers. And they had this highway system.
43:20 You can go out right around. I, I can go around here just about any place in the country out here. And I can choose a valley, a river, and I will find a a trail that is marked along that river valley, maybe a ridge. Uh, one of the things about the American Indian people was They were never
43:46 Afraid of anything that I can see, I was never afraid of anything that I could see. But I was afraid of what I couldn't see.
43:58 That was what was bothered me more than anything. So when I traveled, most of the time I traveled on a high ridge. I could see for miles. Nobody could sneak up on me.
44:14 No, that's the way, and that's where I, we find most all of the trails and we've followed these trails across Wyoming, Montana.
44:24 I have a friend who followed the same particular trails in Colorado and New Mexico. No, it's, it's a I can get, I can, I can go out here probably within one day in this area right here and find the trail right here that takes you.
44:43 To Man
44:46 You know why?
44:48 The black feet The crow That's just shown
44:56 We
44:57 Nomads, we don't stop to plant to grow.
45:04 The man down down here on the river, they grew. The stuff that we want. The English, the French, everybody brought their stuff here.
45:17 The Manan when they brought it to Manan, all of the tribes come here. There is many, many trails that come. To man down
45:30 Am I getting out of time? OK.
45:34 Yeah, I, I always talk to the last second, so.
45:40 You know, that's, that's the one thing I always tell people, you know, about crow, about crow history. We don't, we don't have short songs.
45:51 We don't have short prayers. We don't have short stories.
45:57 Because in our songs they talk about our history in our life.
46:02 Our prayers talk about our history and our life.
46:07 Our stories talk about our history and our life and as an oral historian. I have to tell you in detail as to what's going on. This is why I'm talking about something and all of a sudden I'm over here talking about something else because I have to tell you the details because otherwise you're gonna get the story messed up. You, you need,
46:31 you need the details and, and that's how an oral historian is taught. I've been taught all my life that when I tell a story, I have to tell the details.
46:45 But the Lewis and Clark venture was interesting to the American Indian people. Uh, I call it the beginning of the end.
46:56 It was the beginning of my uh of the of the American Indian way of life.
47:03 I, I call you a Native American. You are Native Americans. I am a cruel American Indian.
47:14 Columbus gave me the name of an Indian.
47:17 When he came
47:20 And I'm proud to be called an Indian. I'm always very proud to be called an Indian because I'm very, very proud of my heritage and I've studied my heritage my entire life.
47:32 I just turned 66 years old two days ago.
47:37 Yeah, and I've got 60 years of history behind me.
47:43 Yep.
47:47 Yeah.
47:58 Thank you Howard. Thank you for sharing your history and your culture and your accumulated years of knowledge with us. We appreciate that very much. Here in the 10 of many voices, there are regular programs every hour on the hour.

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Howard Boas on Crow History and Lewis & Clark

Howard Boas

Crow

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Howard Boas on Crow History and Lewis & Clark

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