Closed Captions

Patrick Stands-Over-Bull presents Crow tribal history, emphasizing the nation's peaceful alliance with the U.S. government and the consequences of the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty. Sharon Stands-Over-Bull shares traditional stories, including a vision quest narrative about the coming of European settlers and a cautionary tale about a mountain Crow woman. Both speakers discuss Crow women's roles, the significance of Pryor Creek's naming, and the tribe's enduring connection to their homeland.

Transcript

0:17 Hello guys.
0:20 Ok. Well, here we go then. All right. I'd like to welcome everybody to the Tent of Many Voices. And just to let you know, we are, of course, adding one more voice to our story today. Part of our traveling exhibition here in the Crow Agency area is to bring many folks from the local area to share. And so today, it is my great pleasure to introduce Sharon Stands-Over-Bull and Patrick Stands-Over-Bull. Um Tell you a little bit about our presenters.
0:45 Today, we're gonna be talking about Crow history and lore and Patrick right here to my left. He has been a past co-tribal chairman. He has his Bachelor of Science in secondary education and has taught for many years at the Plenty Coups High School um at the high school. He taught history, social studies and Crow studies. He's also an ordained minister of the, of the Arrow
1:08 Creek Christian Center. And so, um it's a real honor to have you here, Patrick today and then I'll let you know a little bit about Sharon. Uh Sharon Stands-Over-Bull has her bachelor's from Eastern Montana College. She also has a master's from Montana State University in Bozeman and School administration. And she has been a teacher and principal. Uh she currently is working at Plenty Coups State Park
1:33 um with the friends of Chief Plenty Coups Association. She is also an ordained minister. So we have um some wonderful folks here that wear many hats here today in the Tent of Many Voices. And without any more time, we want to welcome both of you to the tent and we'll give you a little round of applause and let it, let you speak Patrick. So thank you.
1:54 Thank you. I guess I can start right off by uh you did all the introductions pretty well and I don't think there's any further need to talk about myself. I will be talking a little bit about Crow history and my wife Sharon will tell some stories. So
2:17 without, without further ado, you know, I like to, uh, well, first of all, I guess the Crow history is so vast that I have about 15 minutes to talk and, and it it
2:33 be be, well, I just kind of condensed into one area of history. Uh One of the things that's important in our history is that the Crow reservation, one of our tribal chief, way back in 1500
2:51 name was No Intestines, No Vitals. He's the one that kind of found a place here and he called it the Great Spirit, put this in the right place and at the right time. And so one of the things that kinda interesting to know is that, uh, the Crow tribe of Indians had never been
3:18 prisoners of war. There's only two Indian tribes in the nations that have never been present in the war. And that's the part of the Seminole Indians down in Florida. And during the Great Indian removal of 1828 under President Andrew Jackson, that the, the Trail of Tears so called took place
3:43 and part of the Seminole tribe went and hid in the Everglades and they were there until all was quiet and they come out. So they never really, they never really had a, a treaty or uh uh
4:00 relationship with the tribe, whether it was the government where they were prisoners of war. You look at the other tribe, uh they were fighting, especially the, the Plains Indian Chiefs like Sitting Bull and Red Cloud and Crazy Horse and Rain-in-the-Face and all those uh Cheyenne and Sioux Chiefs were famous. But at the same time, what happened to them,
4:25 eventually, they were all caught and they become prisoners of war uh Down in Southwest tribes, the, the Jicarilla and Apache San Carlos Indians. they've got the Geronimo and no uh leaders down there that were resisting the, the westward movement of the white man, the Europeans. They eventually were caught.
4:50 All those Indian tribes that resisted down, especially down in Arizona, the Geronimo and the tribe, they were put on a stock car, they were captured and put in a stock car on the railroad and they shipped them back east. And thats the last they heard of that, that bunch Sitting Bull eventually was killed by his own people in, in South Dakota.
5:14 So you see that Chief uh Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce. Also, he was famous for his big speech of "I will fight no more forever", but he was caught resisting the movement. But the Crow Indian never have resisted. They were friendly with the, the European. Our leaders told us way back then. Their advice was that there is a group of people coming
5:40 and, and they're just like the ants. There's so many of them, they're blue eyed and blonde haired, don't try to fight them, be friends with them. They will never be able to stand against those people. And that was the advice of our people probably by, by No Intestines and No Vitals. Uh That was the advice that we had. So ever since that time, the crows have been a, a
6:04 friendly uh tribe of Indians. We were never a big tribe, but we were, we were very uh able to maintain our, our uh
6:19 our people and our way of life. Uh The
6:25 westward movement of the 1825. The gold was discovered in 1849 in San Francisco. Gold was discovered in Pikes Peak. Uh gold in the black hills and there was a large movement of miners coming from the west. It pushed the, the Sioux and those, uh, Indians in that area westward they were, they were losing their hunting ground.
6:50 And so the Crows on the other hand, they turn around and they, they help those wagon trains that would move to the west of the homesteaders and they would protect them against the Cheyennes and the Sioux and the, the Blackfeet and the Arapaho And so as a result, we have been good relations. We have a good land.
7:13 If you look at our reservation, we have three mountain ranges. We have excuse me, three uh three valleys, the, the, the Little Horn Valley here, the Bighorn Valley, the next, the valley and, and then the Pryor Creek Valley and the Arrow Creek. And uh we have three mountain range, the Pryor Mountains, the Big Horns and the Wolf Mountains.
7:36 And so we have a very, very good land here because of our relationship with the government. Uh We have some leaders that are not feisty, so to speak, but they have good advice that gives to us. And even today, we are still uh very much uh
7:56 at peace with the government.
7:59 The first treaty we had was in 1825 and that was called a Crow Friendship Treaty. And that treaty didn't really stipulate any special provisions, but it did require that, that the Crow made a commitment to protect the white man in the movement west
8:19 Donald Eric. We uh come along in 1851 was the first Fort Larrabee treaty. And this treaty of 1851 provided 39 plus billion acres of land for the Crow Indian. That's a lot of land. And the south southern boundary, it goes all the way down to land of Wyoming.
8:42 The northern boundary goes up to up up to uh pop Montana. And then the eastern boundary is up the Potter River and the Black Hills. So we have a big area with the 1851 Treaty.
8:58 When that treaty was made, there were never any, any uh
9:05 I [unintelligible] anything. The reservation boundaries set up and 11 years later, I believe it was 16 years later in 1868. That would be what 7, 16 years later, the Congress of the United States said, hey, we're gonna look at this land that we gave to the Crows. Uh
9:29 They were pressured by the, basically the Sioux Indians and those people in that area because of the westward movement, they were being pressured for by the white man, but with the hunting area and when they look this way and the Plains Indian, the Crows had all that land with all the buffalo and elk and plenty of berries and a land of plenty. So the Sioux
9:54 and the Arapaho and the Shoshone the Blackfeet
10:01 they connive and they got together and they tried to wipe out the Crows and this is the result of this battle we're gonna see this afternoon battle of the Arrow Creek. And that was one of the results of the, the plains movement. Uh, the plain warfare, the Plains Indians and, and Congress looked at that, the pressure from the Sioux, the Sioux are a big nation. They
10:28 convince the government that, hey, look at the crows got too much land, they've got too much hunting ground. Why don't you cut some of it off and give us some. and they were already talking treaties at that time in the 1850s.
10:44 And so they went back to call the second Fort Laramie treaty and they call all the Indians down there. And our Chief was, Sits in the Middle of the Land. Or Chief Blackfoot, he took a delegation, they went down there and they cut from 39 million acres. They cut our land back to 9 million acres.
11:08 They took 30 million acres away. And what the, what's really amazing about this story is that the Chief Blackfoot and his delegation did not really understand what was going on. Their interpreter was a Frenchman named Chienne I forgot what his first name is. Chienne and he was a half breed Frenchman interpreting for us. And he was the one that
11:31 wrote all the provisions in that 1868 treaty, 1868 that's 17 years after 1851 congress said that it never ratified the 1851 treaty. So we're gonna take 30 million acres away to provide more acreage hunting ground for the other tribes. Well,
11:56 they came back and about four or five years later, the Crows had a meeting and they begin to, [audio cuts out] it wasn't supposed to be there, but it was too late five years after the Laramie treaty. And by the way, Fort Laramie treaty
12:21 was not in the town of Port Laramie Wyoming for Laramie is over at by Torrington, Wyoming where there was a Fort Laramie there. That's where they call it two treaties in the 1850s and 1860s. And so as a result of that 9 million acres, we have this line here
12:43 and it's still quite a few acres. And if you look at the 1851 treaty, the northern Cheyenne reservation was on our was was in our reservation boundaries. So that reservation they have belonged to the Crows by the 1851 treaty. And so a lot of arguments can be put up today, but it's a lot of water under the bridge. Also
13:08 the 9 million acres they start giving away to the white settlers that they come in around the turn of the century. In 1890 to 1900 a lot of land was ceded for a minimal amount of money. The western area, the west, the west uh
13:30 portion, portion of our reservation was given away for from Roseman Montana all the way to Huntley Montana. All that was given from the middle part of the Yellowstone River was given away for as a homestead for a non Indian.
13:50 I think they got about a million dollars for it. And then over here on the north side of the Carpet Creek area where we have a gold coal mine that was given up called a feed us trip that was given up for about $900,000. And that money were used to build this canal. Uh
14:13 They were, they were already projecting to build the hotel dam. And up there, they build that canal and they pay the Crows, they took their own money and they pay him 25 cents an hour using horse teams to build that canal. And when you think about those things, it's kinda, it kinda uh
14:38 feel that, you know, it's not the right thing. When you sell your land, you feed it, you get the money, they use that money to pay you 25 cents an hour to build the ditch. And today you go over to the, the Bighorn Bench over there, there's the, the Bighorn Valley, there's that big canal that comes from the Hill Tail Dam and that land is fertile. And we call that
15:01 the bread basket of the Crow Indian reservation and all that is up there used to be the world's largest wheat farm, one track Camel corporation guy by the name of Camel developed the open field mining called the
15:21 uh dryland farming technique. He developed that technique to, to create wheat in that area and it went from the Bighorn, [unintelligible] all the way down 50-60 miles below, past Harden. That also be used to be one track of wheat fields.
15:42 Even the Russians and the Chinese would come and listen, I mean, look at that place and they wanted to know how to develop agriculture in their land in Russia and China. So you see there's a lot of good things. It was a blessing of the Great Spirit. When we see these things happen, No Vitals was probably a prophetic
16:07 Chief. When he said that this line is in the right place.
16:14 It became that way today. You look at it. We have our eastern part of the reservation that's underlying with coal.
16:24 There's a lot of from Billings, Montana to the Sheridan, the bottom of the ground is covered with natural gas. We have a few spots of reservoirs of oil was on our reservation. We have our Cypress Creek oil field that's been produced in for many years. But see this is why when the chief said it, the great spirit put it in the right place. We were, we were blessed,
16:49 I guess. But by by saying that we listen to our chiefs at that time, even to this day. We, we still listen to those chiefs of I was gonna talk about Chief Plenty Coups our last chief of the crow, but time is running out and uh we are a blessed people here.
17:09 We have coal, we have water, abundance of water. We have all kinds of minerals underlying this reservation. All we have to do is develop it. But we have a hard time agreeing with one another. How we're gonna do it? It's been 30 years that we talked about developing. We only developed one coal mine and that over at [unintelligible] Creek and that was done under my administration.
17:33 But nothing happened since then for over 30 years, his reservations stagnated. No development, nothing going on, no water compact. But see this is a blessing that we're, we're not taking advantage of the blessing of the great spirit. We have very rich land. We have agricultural land that is, that is all over the wheat and alfalfa and all over.
18:00 That's why we call it the bread basket of the Crow reservation, the Bighorn Valley, Bighorn Bend. And so you look at the history of the Crows. We are very, very fortunate people.
18:14 I think at 1700s, the membership of the Crow Tribe was only about 600.
18:24 Down and up to 1930. We got up to 8000. Today, there's about 12,000 Crows approximately today on the crew travel membership. So we're growing, but we're still a very small uh people, you look at the, you're gonna see this battle of the Pryor Creek that battle. That was one of the results of the,
18:48 the westward movement of the plains Indians where the Sioux and the Cheyennes and the Arapaho and, and the Blackfeet got together. They were gonna wipe out the Crows completely annihilate them from the face of the earth. When they came to that battle at Pryor Creek, it was 20 to 1. So the number that I hear was 20 to 1 for every one crow. There were 22 warriors,
19:14 but the men held on and that's why today we have our, we're still a people that are still blessed. We are still enjoying the fruits of the blessings of the great spirit. And that's about and con condensing one of the, the history that I could give you [unintelligible]
19:36 and Sharon's gonna talk about some, some stories of the Crows, some are legendary, some are fiction. But I believe that these stories have taught us our young people a lot. Like I said, I taught high school for 20 years and a lot of these Indian stories and uh allures have been a great benefit of our young children to learn about their history.
20:02 Uh Old man coyote. I was gonna talk to you about uh the star boy, a guy by the name of [speaks Apsáalooke] a grandma's kid or he's also known as [speaks Apsáalooke] and he was a guy. He was a young boy that was raised by his grandma and eventually originally originated from, from the, from up where the star people
20:28 and she's gonna talk to you about it. It's a good story. Remember that name. [speaks Apsáalooke] You don't hear that much. There's a lot of Crow storytellers on this reservation, but I don't hear too much about [speaks Apsáalooke] You can hear about [speaks Apsáalooke] grandma's boy, but she'll tell you about it. There's also stories about little people
20:50 with the Pyror mountains. I'm gonna be talking about these when I speak over at Pompey Pillar. This coming weekend, I'll be speaking there on Saturday and Friday
21:01 at Pompey's Pillar and I will be speaking on some of these stories about the little people and uh
21:09 the Bighorn, the Bighorn ripper, its name. [speaks Apsáalooke] story about the little boy that was thrown over by his stepfather and he survived. He was hanging on the cliff for many days and some Bighorn sheep came and rescued him and they gave him the medicine and the name of the Bighorn derived from that episode of history.
21:33 The story goes that if the Crows ever lose the Bighorn River, that's the end of the Crow people. So there's a lot of stories to tell, to share with the people of America. Thank you. I'll send it over to my wife. Her story is kind of warm here. I appreciate the advertising and I am privileged today to share a little bit of what I know. Thank you.
22:21 Good afternoon. We are surely in the a time, a season of summer, it is very, very warm, but this is what summer is all about. And it's a privilege for me to come and have the opportunity to be a part of this Lewis and Clark uh gathering Corps of Discovery Two. We as a Crow people
22:45 over the years have been known to be a people where the women are very important. They um do a lot of the um decision making. And we as a people have um been a nomadic people in the past
23:07 and the warriors back there, they would be out hunting and uh fighting enemy tribes and it was the women's responsibility to be at the camp, taking care of all the necessary uh I details that needed to be done such as child rearing,
23:28 such as food gathering as with berries and roots and setting up a teepee and keeping the inside neat and clean and providing for their family. Be sure, be sure uh to have everything ready before the sun came up so that their husbands would have something good to eat, something healthful,
23:51 something that would give them strength before they would leave for the day as they went out to either hunt or to uh fight enemy tribes. And so we as a Crow people, the women uh make a lot of the decisions. And, uh, to day we always talk about how the woman,
24:10 uh, in the home is the one who takes care of the household, the finances. And, uh, the other day we were talking about that and one man thought, well, he didn't know if that was really true, but I believe for the majority of Crow households, it's the woman who is in charge of many of the things in the home. And so today,
24:33 I just wanted to uh tell you about a story that my husband just touched on very briefly. Uh We were on our way to uh Bozeman, Montana many years ago. And as we were going through uh on the highway, my mother looked to the left, she and I were together and she said, those are the Crazy Mountains.
24:55 And I'm gonna tell you a little story about the Crazy Mountains. And so as I listened, she told about the time that the Crows were camped around the Yellowstone River. We as the Crow people know Yellowstone River as the Elk river. [speaks Apsáalooke] That's the name of Elk river to us Crow Indians. And there's an encampment uh that was always held right on
25:19 at the edge of the river in a certain area near Livingston, Montana. And every year the Crows would end up there for a period of time and they would camp there. And I imagine the times that they were there were uh in times of summer, well, on this particular summer day, uh one of the men of the village decided, well, he was going to go on a vision quest.
25:44 And so preparations were made and he went in a sweat bath and got himself cleansed and the elders prayed with him. And so he made ready to go. And finally, I believe it was the next morning he left and he went up towards the Crazy Mountains, not taking anything with him just as he was. And he continued, and he walked for,
26:08 I don't know how many days without food or without water, but he was seeking a vision. He was seeking uh the Great Spirit to lead him to a place where he could come back and tell his people what he had heard. And so as he went and continued on up toward uh the crevices of the mountain and continued on for some days,
26:32 he became so faint that one that he finally just keeled over and fell into uh the, a crevice with a rock overhead. And so he lay there for some time and while he was in uh uh in that area under that rock, he uh was in a trance and he then had this vision and a voice came to him
26:56 and the voice said, uh I want you to listen closely and what I tell you, you take back to your people who are camped there uh along Elk River. And so as he listened, the voice told him, there are many, many people that are coming, people that you have never ever seen before they are coming
27:18 and they are going to be so numerous that you will not be able to withstand them. And so my advice to you is when they come, that you will be a friend to them. And he gave him uh an illustration like today. It must have been a hot day like today. Uh This voice said when you see a buffalo carcass
27:41 out on the prairie and uh, meat is just there in the hot sun. Uh uh there will be flies that will be flying around this buffalo carcass. And pretty soon as the flies are just swarming over this buffalo carcass, pretty soon these uh flies will lay eggs and they will turn into worms. And then pretty soon this
28:04 uh uh buffalo carcass will be overflowing with worms. That is exactly what's gonna happen to your land. These people are coming from a far and they're gonna come just a few at the very beginning, just a few, but they're gonna keep, continue to come, they're gonna continue to come and you're going to know that as they come, the buffalo is going to be gone,
28:27 the buffalo is going to be wiped away and they are bringing another animal that have white faces, some are black, some have spots, but they are not the buffalo, they do not look like a buffalo. They are smaller than a buffalo, but these people are coming with their animals. So I want you to go back and tell your people these people are coming.
28:50 They have a different color skin than you do. Their hair is a different color. Even their eyes are different. But when you go back, you be telling them that we can, you cannot be fighting against these people that's coming because they're going to overtake this whole land that is now yours. And so the man woke up from this trance, this vision
29:15 and he got up and he found enough strength to finally get back to the Crow village and he had to ford the Yellowstone river, the Elk river. And as he came to the river, he must have just been so thirsty and so worn out. He no uh undoubtedly jumped in and was refreshed and as he cross and got back to the other side that evening, uh that as the teepee
29:38 fires were burning and uh elders of the Crow encampment came together, he then related this story that there is a people coming and we have to get along with them because there are going to be too many of them for us to go against. And so we must always remember that we have to do whatever
30:00 we can to live together on this land because this is what's going to happen the buffalo are going to vanish and our way of life is going to change. And so this was the advice given to him on his vision quest. He came and told his people. And I believe that maybe one of the reasons today that we as the Crow people, the Crow nation have never been at war with the US government.
30:25 And I believe maybe that's why today we live in a beautiful area. We have three mountain ranges. We have a blue river, uh river, blue water, uh filled with fish that many come from all over the world to fish at. And truly what Chief Plenty Coups said we are in the right place. And so that's the story that I have of the time that my mother and I
30:48 motored to Bozeman and I've never forgotten it and it all has come to pass. And so as I mentioned, we are a matrilineal society. We women take uh take uh the lead in many things. And even today, that is the case, I believe it's us mothers that try to uh push our children on
31:10 to get a higher education to do what they can so that they would be successful in this time, in this world, in which we live. I know that happened in my own family. My grandmother uh didn't have an education, but she worked as much as she could. And so she finally was able to send her children to go and get an education. And so they went on and got college degrees.
31:35 And so today, this is what we need to do is to encourage our young people to go and become skilled that they will have a sellable skill that they can be employed and be a contributing member of society in a society in which we live today. Uh Another story I just wanted to share was um way back in the days when uh we were still a nomadic people
32:00 and uh the people would move, they'd follow the buffalo and they didn't all stay together. There was uh the river Crow and there was the mountain Crow. And in this particular story, this is the story of a mountain Crow woman and she was a woman that was very uh um very exceptional. Everything she did she did to the best of her ability if
32:24 their lodges were all there and you went in her lodge, it was so neat and even the buffalo uh shoulder blades that were used for cooking or for eating as plates, they were so white and so clean. She did everything that meticulously. Well, as they moved one day, it was a time of berry picking like it is right now.
32:45 Our people out in the Pryor Valley are going out berry picking and I believe this is happening throughout this reservation for service berries. And so it was at that time. And so they finally got moved to another place and people were setting up camp and, uh, this woman was setting up her camp and getting everything together.
33:08 And one of the women was, woman was so anxious to get to the berries. Oh, she just hurried and she just put up her camp just haphazardly and as quickly as she could because she needed to get to the berries. And, uh, this, uh, other woman put everything up the way it should be and did things in order. And, but this woman,
33:30 she just put her lodge up and put things and threw things in there and off, she went over to where all the berries were. They were just hanging from the bushes just purple and um, so inviting and she was over there and as uh they were still working and this woman was over there trying to get uh as many berries as she could.
33:52 She uh she heard the women at the camp heard a scream, they heard someone crying and yelling for help. [speaks Apsáalooke]
34:02 And so here a bear had come, a bear had come. And so this woman that was so anxious to go and not waiting for the others went and she was already very much injured and eventually lost her life. And I believe the uh the message to this story is that we need to do things decently in order and wait for others.
34:25 Not always to be the first one to run and get as much as you can. And so that's the uh the story about uh the berry picking at that time. I do have other stories that I plan to share when we get to Pompey's Pillar. But at this time, I believe we have 10 minutes. And if there are any questions and answers, I mean, questions which uh uh attempt to answer them is what I should say. And again, I wanna thank all of you.
34:53 Yeah.
34:57 Do we have any questions? Do you have any questions for Sharon or Patrick?
35:05 Well, I just feel that this is a beautiful endeavor. The Lewis and Clark expedition uh came and as a result, I believe that we as Native people have had uh a change in our lifestyle. And today, uh we are out in uh American society being a part of this great nation
35:27 and uh we are so happy that things are going well for our people. People have jobs. We live in dwellings, not teepees like we did back there. And it's wonderful to go and on a cold winter morning, just turn up the thermostat and uh house gets heated up and warm and to turn on the faucet and to uh uh get running water.
35:51 We have all the niceties that all Americans have and that's a privilege to all of us.
36:00 I also would like to thank the group here for inviting us. Uh I think we come from a special place that I should mention Pry or. And we got the name Pryor from this group that came in 1806 when they were camped at Pompey's pillar. One of the members that Nathaniel Pryor came and
36:20 explored Pryor Creek and all the way up to uh Pryor Mountains. And as a result, it Pryor Creek and Pryor Mountains and Pryor Montana. So when I was, when we were looking at this in our youth history class, uh some of the kids don't even know where the name Pryor came from. And uh when I begin to tell them, you know, they, they learn to appreciate that there is an
36:45 ownership of this expedition for us Pryor people. You know, we uh
36:51 got our name from it again. I want to say thank you very much and, and uh I appreciate the time and effort. Thank you.
37:02 Well, with that, we too would like to thank you guys, both Patrick Stands-Over-Bul and Sharon Stands-Over-Bul for coming and speaking in the Tent of Many Voices today. It's been a real privilege and it's been really nice to hear what you've had to say and the stories you shared and I'm sure we all look forward to next week at Pompey's Pillar where we'll get to hear a little bit more from both of you. It'll be really great. Um I do want to let everybody