Closed Captions Audio Described

Craig Falcon (Blackfeet Nation) recounts his family's oral history of Wolf Calf and a 1806 encounter between Blackfeet youth and the Lewis and Clark expedition at Birch Creek. He discusses the horse medicine bundle originating from Wolf Calf, traditional Blackfeet warrior societies, the impact of disease and displacement on his people, and contemporary Blackfeet life and spirituality.

Transcript

0:03 It's been on the road since 2003. We've traveled the whole length of the Lewis and Clark Trail and now we're en route back to Saint Louis today. We have a, this is our last program of the day. We have a newly printed beautiful schedules for you. You can pick those up at the front desk of our exhibit tent or in the back at the eel
0:25 board there that has a, a series of events of today and tomorrow and Sunday. And, um, so you can plan what kind of programs you want to see and come back to. We have Craig Falcon who's from the Blackfeet Nation and he's gonna be talking to you about wolf calf and the Lewis and Clark and the black feet. So let's give a nice round of applause today and with saying that I'm gonna hand it over to Craig.
0:54 Hello, everyone. Can you hear me? Hear me back there? All right, my name is Greg Felgen. I'm the great grandson, great, great, great grandson of wolf calf. Uh, at the time when, uh
1:09 it's kind of hard for me to talk about this because it is a sensitive subject due to the fact that, um you know, we're, we got, we got into it with Lewis and Clark. And
1:21 so some of the things I may say might be a little bit um
1:27 hard because of uh things that happened to our people since Lewis and Clark came, came about through our country. Um, but just bear with me. I'll do the best I can. Uh First of all, I'd like to thank Dick back there for helping me out getting things set up, get me, get me arranged here and he helping with my travel plans and my
1:51 um my stay here. I like to thank my fiance here.
1:57 I know she didn't want me to say anything, but we're gonna get married next year
2:03 at the Sundance.
2:08 I, I told her when I introduced her to do a twirl but she, there ain't a spotlight here so I can't put it on her but anyhow Uh This story was told to me by my grandfather George Night Gunn around 1976 while we were uh in the, in the area that is the original battle site.
2:31 And the reason I say original battle site is because, um and in our tradition and our stories that were handed down to, to our people, uh the battle site. Yeah, with Lewis and Clark is in a totally different area. It's, it's probably five miles south of where it's documented today.
2:54 And I, I find that somewhat funny. Because uh I drive, I've been driving by there all my life and it always reminds me of me and my grandfather when we're out, uh we're getting teepee pigs. And he started talking about, uh he wasn't talking about Lewis and Clark. At first, he was talking about uh the horse medicine bundle that his father had. That is now in the Smithsonian.
3:17 Now he was telling me the origin of that horse medicine bundle. Uh and what how it came about and where that horse medicine bundle originated was from Wolff himself. There's a book that's Smithsonian printed. Um It's called the Blackfoot and the Horse culture. And in that book, you'll see detailed information about
3:40 the, the, the dreams and the visions that he had that brought that bundle about and how it was transferred down from family member to family member until it's until it's present time in 1950 when um my great grandfather passed away
4:01 Wallace Night Gunn. Uh he passed away in 1950. That horse bundle somehow disappeared. And for years, we searched for that bundle and it ended up in the Smithsonian Institute. So we're working on getting that back in, back to our tribe and to our family. That's a very big, big part of our, our uh spirituality back home. It's a very powerful bundle.
4:24 It's powerful like the thunder bundle, the beaver bundle. If any of you are familiar with those types of uh uh spiritual things in each, each tribe, they are um somewhat, they're con they're all connected to the Sundance. The Sundance is a renewal ceremony that we have each year in the, in the summertime, June through August, we just finished the Sundance up in
4:48 uh Brocket Alberta, uh which was our last one of the year. There's different societies that, that come to the sun dances and what it is is the four day sacrifice to renew mother Earth, renew. Um, the two leggings, the four leggings, the winged and the hof and the fur barriers and all the other beings, all the good holy beings that are,
5:12 that walk this earth. I just, uh,
5:17 but the reason this is so hard for me to talk about is because when you look at our land mass, this is what it used to be.
5:29 Our, our four bands of the blackfeet stretched out all the way up into Canada, Saskatchewan, um, down to the Yellowstone and almost down to I uh Southern Idaho. But as time progressed, uh 3d shortened our, our home base
5:47 and shortened
5:52 to the point where this is our home base. Now
5:58 up north is our relatives in, in Brocket, standoff, Gleen. Um, Sixa that are in Canada. There's one band of black feet is in the United States and three in the, in, in Canada.
6:16 Well, I guess I'll tell you the story now. It's, it's really hard for me because of all the different things that happened to our people. And my grandfather is a really good educator, a good teacher about teaching us the changing of our world into today's world. And I was very fortunate to have such a educated elder.
6:38 Constantly taking me to ceremony, constantly taking me out and teaching me things about our people.
6:45 Well, anyhow, when we were down, it's called a river called Birch Creek where the original uh the true battle site is,
6:55 we talked about the bundle and we talked about the different um rules and things like that of acquiring that bundle. But when we talked, when he talked about, after he talked about that bundle, he told me a story about wolf calf. And when wolf c was a young boy, he said he was with eight other boys that were ages 13 to 15, they are horse herders,
7:20 making sure the horses are all staying close to camp and things like that. These boys one day were writing and they came up, came upon these, they called them trappers during those days because we always had a lot of French fur trappers coming down, things like that Hudson Bay Company. And uh when he ran into these trappers,
7:44 uh let me back up a second. One of the most important things during this time. See, this isn't documented in our history very well because it wasn't a significant part of our history. These are just like any other people passing through. We didn't know that 200 years later, we'd be standing here knowing that Lewis and Clark became famous and uh routed the passage to the, to the west side.
8:10 So it wasn't something that was documented really good in our history. But as the story goes, and the journal also relates to this in, in, in a way,
8:24 they camped with Lewis and Clark that night
8:27 that morning, like any young men of that, that era, 13 to 15 year olds, first thing on their mind is ok, let's case out what these guys have. They got guns, they got horses. If we can acquire these guns and horses, then it's gonna give us great honor and respect and maybe we'll be invited out to do
8:49 more things with the older men like war parties, horse raids, things like that. So they camped that night, Lewis and Lewis and Clark shared their tobacco, shared some gifts, exchanged stories and whatnot and communicated about, you know, different aspects of our country and how they can get through our country early that morning around,
9:13 I'd say three or four. just like the journal states. Um These young boys started to take the horses, take the guns from uh Lewis and his group and started to make off with them. But as young boys, you know, they're not experienced at, at these things of, of war or stealing.
9:38 So soon as uh Lewis and them woke up, it was just a giant skirmish and you can imagine any, anybody that has a 13 to 15 year old when they know that they're in trouble or they know they got caught at something, they're all gonna scatter and so they scattered in all different directions. Um My great, great, great grandfather scattered with horses. Um,
10:02 others scattered in different directions. Some were right, still in camp, uh, engaging in with some hand to hand with, uh, Lewis and his group.
10:14 But, uh, things turned ugly after that. Um
10:18 In our interpretation of this story, uh one of the young men was stabbed in the back while trying to flee and the other was on horseback and he was shot in the back riding away, but lived, lived for a while until he got back to camp. Um
10:39 After that, the other boys got back to camp and they started to tell the men what happened. But by the time they reached the battle site, Lewis and his group had already gone. Now, history and the journals that, you know, they, they say a lot of things about it was a war party of Blackfeet.
11:00 Um That's, that's really hard for me to believe. And then when I go by the, the historic signs along the highway, I was just recently there at the, the other battle site that's documented by the state and it shows um a young man in a skirmish and he's getting stabbed, but it's not a young man. It's a very muscular warrior. And
11:24 that's one thing that's really disturbing to me is because they always portray that, um, the Lewis fought a war party.
11:34 Now, you gotta think about this realistically, if it was a war party of Black Feet eight against four, we are very well known for our battle skills. And, um,
11:49 I don't think Lewis's party would have even survived if there was really a, a war party. These are young Children, 13 to 18. If I had my son here, he's, he's a 61, 13 year old. You could see that it's just a skinny, skinny kid. And those of you that have teenagers know what I mean. When you're dealing with uh teenagers, they're, they're not grown warriors, they're not grown men. So II, I
12:14 love my country to death. But, you know, sometimes the history of how United States and our, and our people interacted is just, isn't written, right? And some, uh, in the last presentation I heard people talking about, um, we don't want to rewrite history, but I feel strongly that history was rewritten
12:38 when they wrote those journals because they didn't write it correctly.
12:43 And to further prove that fact, you got to look at it this way. Not only was there eight against four, but after that happened,
12:54 Lewis and his group of men rode the entire day and night to get out of that country.
13:04 Now, they apparently knew that they did something very wrong that, uh, that they did and I want to see the use harsh words like murder. But you know, that, that's realistic, that's, that's the realistic word for it. Um But they had no choice. These boys were definitely gonna steal their weapons and steal their horses
13:28 for to, to gain honor in our tribe.
13:33 After, after that, you know,
13:38 this is, this is really tough for me to talk about because this um
13:43 this Lewis and Clark journey really was the beginning of the end for our people. And I'm talking about all northern plains tribes. You know, if, if
13:58 it all it dates all the way back to the uh the purchase of the Louisiana Louisiana purchase. OK. I don't think Lewis and Clark came to tribes and said, you know, we come to check out the land that we bought even though it was our land. You know, I think if they would have did that, I think they would have been, they would have had more skirmishes with more tribes. But uh
14:23 they came through as explorers and the tribes, accept them as explorers and uh greet them that way.
14:31 Some of the things that uh
14:35 my grandfather,
14:38 my grandfather told me was that our people are always a warlike people, very strong, very spiritual. And this rattle here is a crazy dog. Rattle, crazy dog society. These are the like the Marine Corps of our tribe. These are the ones that are always up front for battle.
15:03 I am also a crazy dog society member and also a horn society member. Um Both are very spiritual societies today. But in the same sense, we still guard our people in a, in a traditional way like we have our traditional court now that all the crazy dogs sit as a, as the judge and jury of that court
15:26 and it's not a court of losing or winning. It's a court of mediation where you work out your problems and things like that.
15:34 Um
15:37 This is my grandfather, my grandmother
15:46 and one of the things I would like to show because these are the holy Teepees that we had. These three here belong to wolf calf and his medicine, his horse medicine bundle. You'll see the Elk Tepee Craters Tepee. And the other one in the back is the Otter teepee. And the reason I like to show this picture a lot is because it all shows my mother
16:10 when she was a child. She always, she's always embarrassed about that.
16:16 But that was pretty much the story that was handed down from my grandfather to me and to my brothers and sisters. Um It, it's not a very uh uh glamorous story because the his history is written differently.
16:37 But I thank the dick and his people for allowing me to come up here and tell the truth about what really happened. And this ne the next two years we have our, our cultural team we're gonna be um surveying the original site in marking that as the original battle site.
17:04 Is there any questions?
17:11 Yes, ma'am. Hang on one second and I'll bring the microphone over to you, Bobby.
17:24 After the uh boys died, one died immediately and one died later. Um Were they laid to rest at that site? And, or they were, they taken home because like our people, they used to bury them right where they fell. No, they were taken home for a proper burial.
17:46 Craig, when we saw you last month, you spoke about who really was stealing. What after that event? Um, and Lewis, I believe in his journal listed some things he, he took with him when he skidded out of there. Do you want to talk about that a little bit? Oh, yes.
18:04 As you'll see in Lewis's journal, he, they talked about the condition of their horses. The horses were pretty much ran down. They, they were, they were lame and I think the, the whole, uh, raid by these, by these teenagers really went awry because Lewis turned out, he came out with better horses.
18:27 The horses that these young boys had were very healthy and very fast and they had a lot of endurance and those are the horses that they used to get away that night, that day and night. So if they were to use their own horses, they probably wouldn't have got as far. And they may, they may have gotten, gotten caught and, and, you know, this, bring me to another I, uh, thing I just thought about was in the journal. It also states that,
18:52 uh, Lewis's party came in there and it was, it was raining every day. It was raining every day and they couldn't use their equipment properly to find out where they were. They didn't have a GPS satellite tracking system like we do today. So that, that's why that spot is marked where it is today. And I it's, it's,
19:17 it's close, but five miles is quite a distance. We have a lot of rivers that run through that area and meet and they, they just happened to be a little bit off when they, when the boy scouts, uh, surveyed it 40 years ago.
19:39 India name before Black Feet, but I'm from around here. So I don't know if everybody knows how you've got your name, Black Feet where the South P gang. And there are stories about how we got the name Black Feet. And, uh, I, I it's a pretty good story. Um, when we used to do raids on other tribes are in most tribes, we're far away like the crows and,
20:03 uh, the CNAs and uh, the flatheads, we didn't want to always be looking over our shoulders coming back. So we'd get so far away from their camps and we'd start huge grass fires, our forest fires. So our, our marians are always black all the time. From, you know, coming back from battle so we can come back in a slow
20:26 peaceful way, heal up from our wounds. Check out our new prizes of horses and women and things like that. And, um, that's how he got the name Blackfeet. My, um, my name Falcon, that's my father's name. Hi. His last name is uh Ron Falcon. He's a grot. My mother is a black beat. She's a night guy. My Indian name is Sabina macca named after
20:52 my great grandfather Wallace. Night Gunn was a, was a holy man. Uh The traditional name for our Indian people is um Scotti Puni uh real people.
21:09 Yes. Let me come around with a microphone. So you can be heard by everybody. Did you have at that time warrior societies? And were these boys too young to be in a warrior society or not yet? Uh qualified? Yeah, they, they were too young. They're part of the dub society. The dub society.
21:28 Um are the chickadee society is for, is for young boys uh uh young girls growing up and then they advance into these larger societies. Uh say for instance, the Crazy Dog Society back then you'd, you'd gain that uh entry into the society by going into war, going into horse raids, things of bravery.
21:51 Uh Nowadays, we induct members into the Crazy Dog Society based on um their service in the Armed Forces, Marines, Air Force Navy, um army, things like that.
22:09 You mentioned that Lewis and his party rode all day and all night back to the Missouri. And that, and that some black feet went back to the skirmish site in the Black Feet Oral history. Does it say that they also pursued the party past the skirmish site back to the Missouri River. In other words, did they did, did you folks ancestors pursue Lewis? Like he thought you were doing,
22:34 they were, they pursued but due to the heavy, heavy rain, I mean, it was raining for days before he arrived there and all the way after so tracking them was very hard. And the ground that they're running on is, you know, like the clay, it's really hard. They followed them probably a good 20 or 30 miles and then uh well thought they were following them. They were probably making circles and
22:59 looking for signs, things like that, but they couldn't pick it up.
23:12 The black feet are in those days are noma nomadic tribes, right? As to that area or did you have permanent uh campgrounds? Well, I'll show you one of our, our main areas that we like the most,
23:29 we followed the Buffalo, like most plains tribes.
23:38 Ok.
23:48 Here we go.
23:54 Today, we're located here, but our central area was usually right around in here up in the Canada.
24:03 Perfect.
24:19 I see.
24:27 There we go.
24:30 This was our main area.
24:33 This was our main area due to food supply. This area is rich in Buffalo elk deer, you name it. Um, the rocky mountains. Uh, they didn't have too, too much, uh, too much game in there when it came to buffalo. And when you have a tribe of 30 30,000 plus, you know, you're gonna need a lot of buffalo to feed that many people.
24:58 So that was our main area, these areas that bordered us, we protected them as, as our traditional hunting grounds. Um, if any of, you know, black feet history, we're probably one of the most, uh, notorious and hated tribes in our area because, uh, we kept people out
25:19 and we were very, very vicious when we did, we did keep people out. And, uh, we, we love to fight, we love to travel and we love to fight and take over other people's possessions like horses and, and women.
25:35 How many black feet are there today? Well, due to smallpox, uh, we got cut down from 30,000 down to 6000 and just about a four or five year period today. We're at 14,000 and we still have the four major bands.
26:08 They did. They live in Tepees all winter up there
26:14 made out of Buffalo Hyde.
26:19 Yeah, the wind is, is somewhat really strong up there. So I imagine a buffalo high tepee had to be pegged down pretty good.
26:28 Were the fur, uh, was the fur on the buffalo left on your, your winter encampment, uh, teepee hide structures or was it also taken off. No, it was, it was taken off. It was tanned.
26:44 You said there was 30,000 we all together. Were they spread out over the entire area in different, we're spread out over this entire area. Um Like I said, we followed the Buffalo and we watched our borders. But every year when we'd have ceremonies like the Sundance, that's was like our most important ceremony of the year, we would all come together.
27:11 Can you elaborate on the Sundance ceremony as it's done today?
27:19 Uh I'm not supposed to but I can, I can talk about it a little bit. Like I said, it's a four day ceremony. Uh Most men that go in there, say if I went in there today and I had sick family or um
27:35 or, or something I needed to uh fix in myself mentally. I'd go in a Sundance and, and vow that I, I need this help and creator would um see my sacrifice and help me fix that. And there's in the Sundance, you'll find a lot of spiritual leaders. A lot of these bundles that I talked about where they'll be healing ceremonies throughout the Sundance,
27:58 healing ceremonies, fixing, fixing anything and everything. The horse medicine bundle that I talked about earlier was one of the most powerful and feared bundles of our tribe. And it's still feared today because a lot of our spiritual people say that that bundle itself is so powerful that our spiritual leaders today do not want to, to deal with it because uh because of its power.
28:23 Uh My mother and my aunts have witnessed the last opening of that bundle in 1949. And you know, they've witnessed some really spectacular healings, one of which uh was a man that was, that was shot in the side. And he spent uh three nights at the ceremony at
28:46 the horse dance ceremony and he walked out of there without even a scar. So that tells you the power of that bundle.
29:02 Now, you know, better, you talked about the black feet, protecting their borders and their boundaries. So, uh well, f fearlessly right now, the American Canadian border runs right through your, your territory. How do you as a people work? How do you work with that? You know, how do you keep relationships going?
29:25 What kind of interaction is there between the different groups now? Good question. Well, the way we interact with the uh United States and the Canadian government, it's, it's a heated issue right now because we have a lot of spiritual things and uh that we wanna pass through that border without being um dissected. So to say, because a lot of our, anytime we go to Canada, we,
29:48 we're carrying eagle feathers or bundles. Um those things are not supposed to be opened by unless you have the rights to open them. And when, I mean rights, when you, when you receive anything that is spiritual or holy. It isn't like you go to the store and buy it. It's something that you earned over years and years of teaching. Like for instance, some men can
30:12 have a, have a holy pipe and they could get that pipe at their first vision quest. You know, their first fasting. But then there are some men that pray just as hard and live a good life. They might go a whole entire lifetime before they get a pipe.
30:39 This incident with Lewis and Clark. I understand it happened on the way over to the ocean and oh, on the way back. Ok.
30:55 Party. Question in the back over here.
31:04 Is it true that the Black Feet were never defeated by the US government? Yes, that's, that's very true. In one sense, we were never defeated in battle but how we were defeated was with smallpox.
31:20 That was, uh how was our holocaust
31:25 germ warfare wiped us completely out.
31:34 And after that, that's when, um, our land base, our land base started to shrink and it shrunk and it shrunk
31:45 until we're at our, our present location, which lies on the eastern front of the Rockies and the southern portion of the Canadian border, which is about,
31:57 I think it's 2.5 million acres.
32:01 That of the original. What of that? Yeah,
32:08 I'd say that's about three or 4% of the original.
32:15 Um, there's a lot of traditional sites that you'll see that are being documented throughout Montana. Now where you'll see uh like the belly of the shields. If any of you have heard of Valley of the Shields, a lot of black feet artifacts were found there. A lot of black feet uh remains are found there as a burial site and that's all the way down along the Yellowstone River. Um
32:41 Buffalo jumps throughout Montana date back to, to black feet through artifacts being found, things like that.
32:53 Are there any other questions for Craig? These are all good questions, by the way,
33:07 you said that uh that the horse bundle is in the Smithsonian Institute. Uh What do you feel the chances of, of your people getting it back someday? Very, very strongly. I've been working on uh repatriating that bundle probably for the last 12 years. Um I probably would have received it by now,
33:31 but uh I don't feel that I have the rights or the, the knowledge to handle something that sacred. So, until I learn everything I need to learn about that, um You'll have to stay there.
33:49 Will you be the keeper of that bundle if when it comes back? Yes.
34:00 Did the Blackfeet tribe have weapons in that time, uh repeating rifles or single shot rifles or did they prefer bows and arrows? And could you compare the effectiveness of uh a black foot shooting a bow and arrow to uh us cavalry men shooting a single shot rifle? Oh, the comparison is
34:24 they, they did just have bows and arrows. Muskets. Matter of fact, one of the things that I'm, I'm trying to track down my grandfather, George Negu, um, had this musket hanging on the wall for years and I wanted to get a hold of that so we can carbon date it. Find out when, when he, when, where that, that musket came from because
34:49 my, um, my mother and my aunts believe that it came from this skirmish. And he gave that, uh, he gave that to his friend Peter Red Horn and Peter Red Horn. And my grandfather have since passed. But I'm trying to get a hold of his family to find out exactly what happened to that rifle. And the comparison,
35:10 I guess that depends on, you know, the person that's fighting. You know, if, if, if you're a good warrior, I think you can out, you can out maneuver somebody with a single shot repeat, uh, single shot rifle. You know, if, yeah, I only have one shot and, well,
35:32 they, they could shoot a bow like you're shooting a repeating rifle and the bows were 70 to £80 in, in, you know, if any of you are bow hunters, the 70 £80 po is, is pretty good.
35:48 Good question right there in the front row, right? Talk about the, the, your tradition. Talk about the kidnapping of Sacajawea and what happened to her after that? No, no, we don't. We, we were just talking about that on the way here. And I just had to laugh. I say, well, if they would have brought
36:09 Sacajawea in our country and if there was a war party that ran into Lewis and his group Lewis and them would have all been dead at Birch Creek and Sacajawea would have been married into our tribe and she would add some black feet descendants. Ha.
36:30 Is, is there any story that talks about the, um, the start of the bad feelings between the crow and the black feet?
36:44 You know, I don't know if I want to talk about that because my fiance, she's crow.
36:53 I might be sleeping out in the van tonight, you know.
36:58 Yeah, I, I think it was more of a territorial issue. Um, if you look at, if you look at these maps, our territory runs down to the Yellowstone. Ok. That was part of our traditional hunting area. So I imagine anytime we were down in that area, an area up in that area, we were at each other's throats along with
37:21 the flatheads on this side, the CBO sues on that side and the crease coming from the top. I mean, there's a lot of documented history of all the battles that we had with different tribes surrounding us.
37:35 So what started the battles is probably because we stole all their women and all their horses.
37:46 At least they're best looking women and their best horses.
37:51 And when I'm, when I tell the story of how I met her, I stole her, she didn't steal me.
38:02 I captured her
38:05 and that, and you know, 11 of the things that is most important and I see it coming more about and more about when I was AAA young boy tradition, spirituality and things like that were really hidden because you get scrutinized for it. Um My grandfather used to tell me stories of when the missionaries first came and um
38:29 how he was, how his hair was cut, how he was beaten for speaking his language because he didn't know English language. And it took him three tries to run away from a missionary school and finally get into Canada the first time he made it as far as the mel curver and he was caught, brought back to the bar and beat it the second time he was caught,
38:52 not very far, taken back beating. And then the third time he stole a horse and he rode all the way into Canada and stayed there and you know, it, it really affected him in, in such a way that he did not allow my mother or my uncles to attend school. My mother attended school up until the sixth grade.
39:17 That's how, that's how much emotional damage that that caused on him that he didn't want his kids to get uh abused like that.
39:29 Did, did I miss it? Uh Could you speak a little bit more about your life today? What you're doing with the tribe, you know, with your people and, and so on. Um, presently, the court administrator for our Blackfeet Tribal court, I administer a small court uh staff of about 25. Um We handle criminal and civil law
39:53 and traditional law.
39:57 Um Other than that, I've always been uh um Marine Corps vet. I'm also a, a traditionalist. I was born and raised by my grandfather. Um One of the things that's most important is my grandfather took the time no matter where we lived. See, me and my, my siblings, we're all part of the relocation act.
40:21 So we were born throughout different parts of the country. I was born in Redwood City, California because, you know, my parents had to move and they were trying to retrain them to be modern citizens. But my grandparents would take the time and travel wherever we were and grab my myself and my oldest brother and bring us all summer to ceremony
40:47 until we moved back to Montana in the early seventies. And then it was, it just became a daily part of life.
40:56 Where do you live now? I live in East Glacier, well, not East Glacier Montana. I live north of Browning about uh four miles.
41:10 Uh One of the things that we still hold in our family is um our, our, our, our, our family home base where as you see my pictures of my great grandfather,
41:24 we still live uh where he was buried where, where he was born, where my grandfather was born, we still hold that land. We still take care of that land. We still have ceremonies at that land.
41:42 My name is Craig Falcon. Yes.
41:47 My uh mother is Velma Night Gunn. My grandfather is George Night Gunn and Claire Night Gunn.
41:56 That's on my black feet side and on my uh Fort Belknap side, my dad is Ron Falcon senior.
42:06 Ha.
42:12 Ok. cousin.
42:18 So you're buying dinner cousin since I'm a visitor?
42:27 Yeah.
42:33 Really? Yeah.
42:40 So are you gonna have guts?
42:45 Uh,
42:47 that's one of our, uh, traditional meals is Tripe. I love Tripe. Try berry soup. Uh, have a, have any, has anybody ever tried blood soup? You tried blood soup fresh from the kill? Jeez, that's good. Does anybody know why? We, we have blood soup?
43:13 We, we take that part of the animal after a kill and that animal animal becomes a part of us.
43:22 I have a funny story about, uh, hunting. I'm always hunting. I took these two therapists with me hunting. I used to work in a mental health center and they were so anxious to hunt. They said we wanna hunt, hunt with you, you know your way, the traditional way. And I said, ok, well, went and went to the, um, purification ceremony, the sweat lodge and
43:45 sweat, sweat all day. And then the next day, you know, we got up and we smudged and smudged our rifles and prayed and said, I told him, you know, you guys got, you got to always have good thoughts. You never can think bad when you're doing things like this. So, right off the bat, I shot a buck. Nice little buck, cut him open and took the kidney out. And I said it's, it's traditional that, you know,
44:09 either drink some blood or you eat part of this kidney. So I cut it in three pieces, sat there and popped a nice big piece of my mouth and blood was kind of dripping down. Really chewing like a big piece of bubble gum and acted like I swallowed it. And I said, OK, you guys go ahead. I had it in the back of my mouth
44:30 anyhow, they start chewing and she, I could just see her face turning green pretty soon. She was kinda wobbly and she closed her eyes and she swallowed it. And her husband, he was, he was, he must have a tougher stomach. He chewed it up and swallowed it. As soon as I got done swallowing, I spit mine out. Uh huh.
44:55 I, I drank some blood soup though, but I just had to do that to him to pull a joke on him. I really feel bad about it because the entire day she threw up the entire day. Each time we tried to go to the next draw to hunt, she was leaning over throwing up. Finally, we had to bring the truck to her and load her up and bring her home and she just,
45:20 she just couldn't handle the traditional way,
45:25 but she did a good job.
45:29 They watch
45:33 straight blood straight out of the animal when it's nice and hot.
45:42 Let's thank Craig Falcon for coming in today. Give a nice round of applause. Thank you very much.
45:53 Thank you, Craig. It's a pleasure having you in the 10 of many voices that ends our schedule for today folks. But there's a lot of stuff still going on site and down near the fair. Um, Powell ground in the TB village. If you haven't, uh, picked up a schedule yet, we have new brand new colorful schedules in the back of the easel board there or at the front of our exhibit tent. Please take one. We'll see you here tomorrow morning. Thank you.