Closed Captions Audio Described

Matt Schanandore, an enrolled member of Fort Berthold (Mandan, Hidatsa, and Oneida), performs traditional cedar flute music and shares stories of Mandan culture. He discusses the creation story of the flute, village life along the Missouri River, the role of women in gardens and agriculture, the impact of smallpox on Mandan communities, and how oral traditions sustain his nation's heritage across generations.

Transcript

0:04 Welcome to the Tent of Many Voice and Core Discovery 2. I would ike to give you a little bit of history on us. And how coming to Saint Louis really is the culmination of something spectacular. The core discovery too is the bicentennial commemoration of the Lewis and Clark expedition. It's a bunch of big words to say 200 years ago, Lewis and Clark and the members of the expedition left the East Coast,
0:28 came to Saint Louis in 1804. they left Saint Louis to find an all water route to the Pacific Ocean. And then in 1806, they made their hasty return. What took them almost a year and a half to get to the Pacific Ocean. It took them just about six months to return. And so we've been on this six month journey since about late February,
0:51 early March of this year where we two started on the Pacific Ocean and have been making our trek back to Saint Louis. And so we have been going by land where Lewis and Clark went by water. We have been visiting different American Indian reservations and nations. We've interacted with dozens of communities and this weekend is the finale.
1:14 This is where this traveling National Park, the only one of its kind reaches its conclusion. And so this is our final presentation today in the Tent of Many Voices voices. And I would like to tell you that the Tent of Many Voices is exactly what it's named for. This tent has allowed several different historians, reenactors, musicians, lawyers, American Indian nation members from
1:38 all walks of life have come through to include dogs, have come through this Tent of Many Voices to tell about some aspect of the Lewis and Clark expedition. And so our final for our final presentation this afternoon, you're going to have a fantastic treat. Matt Schanandore. He's a member of the Mandan, Hidatsa heats Oneida tribes.
2:00 He is going to give you some music and history of the Mandan nation. He's a fantastic flute player. So please welcome Matt Schanandore
3:48 Well, um thank you for coming out here today. My final performance here in the Tent of Many Voices. And as she said my name is Matt Schanandore and I'm an enrolled member from the Fort Berthold community reservation. My ancestry goes back to the Mandan and Hidatsa people coming out of the Missouri Valley area in North Dakota and I am also a descendant of the Oneida tribe from Wisconsin.
4:13 That's kind of where the Matt Schanandore kind of comes from kind of derives off of Chief Shenandoah and in that song that we all know Shenandoah. But today though, I've come here to play a little bit of the flute music as well as talk to you a little bit about the Mandan and some stories that I was told from my grandmother growing up. And before we get started here though,
4:37 talking about the man and call to give you a little bit of background on it though, the Mandans were a tribe that Lewis and Clark met when they went up the Missouri river in 1804. And just before about 20 year time period before Lewis and Clark came up the river, the Mandans were actually living south of where Lewis and Clark met them. And this area of the Missouri river was a very large area of the Missouri River where the Mandan
4:58 lived and they were numbered in the thousands. There was almost 15,000 Mandans living in this area just up to up the 1780s. And so these are massive communities that lived in this area. And that's the kind of history that I speak about is that time period just before Lewis and Clark came up the river here. And um there's a, there's a village
5:21 that we have up there, a state park in North Dakota called the Alan village. And it's a Mandan village site. And there we tell the story of the Mandan people. And I've been telling that story for a number of years. And I'll relate back to that a little bit later here. But the Mandan culture, though nothing was ever written down. And so with that, everything was passed on orally, oral traditions, oral stories, oral histories, the language passed on.
5:46 And so with that, it's a key part of the Mandan culture and the tradition of many native cultures that their history be passed on orally to the upcoming generations. And I think that's such an important part to learn from all these stories and cultures that have come together for the Lewis and Clark journey. Here, the stories, multiple stories being told about Lewis and Clark as they travel all the way to the Pacific Coast and came back through this area.
6:11 Those same stories we can learn from that have been passed on for multiple generations. But there is a set of stories that I want to begin with and these are called creation stories. And, and in the Mandan culture, the the there's there's stories that talk about how everything came to be the, the river, the trees, the sky, the birds, the people themselves in Nueita, how they became, how they came to be where they were. And
6:36 those were all considered creation stories. And and the flute itself also has a creation story. And that story talks about how this instrument, this sound, how it became part of the Mandan culture here. So I want to begin with that story here for you today. This story though, it starts out with a warrior and he set out, he set out to find food for his family.
6:59 This strong warrior was tracking the game along the river bank areas. And in North Dakota, we have large forest areas of cottonwood trees, these really tall trees that grow. And this warrior was down in this wooded area along the river and he was tracking the game. And this warrior, this young warrior, he got turned around in this forest and he really didn't know
7:22 which way he wanted to get out and nightfall was coming too. So it became dark. So this warrior bedded down for the night, this warrior, he laid beside one of these massive cottonwood trees and he listened to all the night sounds that you hear the owls, the crickets, the wind blowing through the leaves of these trees. And it was a very calming sound listening
7:46 to all these night sounds that came together. Well, there was a sound that came about that this warrior had never heard before. It was an eerie ghostly sound that blew through these leaves.
8:09 The warrior, he listened to that sound as it blew through this forest. And that warrior fell asleep listening to that sound
8:16 in a dream. This war had, he saw a red headed woodpecker and this bird told his warrior, follow me, follow me, follow me. So when that warrior woke the next morning, he gathered up all his belongings and started to find his way out of this wooded area. And as this warrior was moving through this, this forest along the river, he spotted that woodpecker perched in the trees in front of him.
8:38 And he stared at that bird. That bird stared back at that warrior. And slowly that warrior dropped everything that he had as he stared, that stared at that bird. Well, that woodpecker flew off the branch and that, that warrior followed him as fast as he could through the forest. And this woodpecker led this warrior out to an open prairie and standing alone was this cedar tree. And as his warrior approached this tree,
9:02 he noticed it was very old and the top branch has begun to die off. And as he got closer, he realized that there was light glistening through these, these branches on the top of this tree, that woodpecker pecked holes in all those top branches of that tree. Well, that warrior, as he stood there looking at this tree, a gust of wind blew across the prairie and he made the same sound he had heard the night before.
9:35 So that warrior, he climbed the tree and took a branch off and went back to his village. And there he sat for many days and he, he fiddled with this branch and trying to make that sound he had heard, he became frustrated with it. So the the warrior left the village, he went up to a hill topped area overlooking the river and there he cried for a vision on how to make that sound that he heard. Well, on the fourth night of his journey there,
9:59 this woodpecker again came to this ward. He changed into the form of a man. It was the creator. And in this man's hands, he held a cedar branch and with bone tools, this man showed that warrior how to make his first flute and play his first song. Well, when that man left the warrior went out to find that tree again. And in the shade of that tree, he took a branch from that tree and with bone tools, he carved his very first flute and learned his first song. And
10:25 he dedicated that song to that woodpecker. That bird that had inspired him to learn this music to find out more about the sound that he'd heard. Well, when that warrior had learned his song, he went back to his village. He gathered everyone into the plaza of this village and he stood up in front of them all. And this was very brave for this warrior to do because in the Mandan traditions and and many of the native traditions, you don't,
10:48 you didn't speak up to your elders, you always listen to your elders because they always had something wise to tell you a story to tell you. But this warrior, this young warrior had a story to tell the people of his village. And so he sat everyone down and he stood up and he told them the story about the woodpecker, told them the story about the flute. And he showed them his flute that he had made and he played his song for them,
12:20 that warrior, he played the song for the people of the village. And they were all stunned as this sound echoed through the village area. And this warrior, he stood up and kind of walked away because his crowd was quiet. And this warrior started to make his way away from the crowd. An elder gentleman stood up and congratulated this warrior with praise on this new sound he had brought to the village and one by one,
12:42 the people of the village began to stand up and congratulate this warrior and praise again on how to how the sound had echoed through the village and how it brought his story to life that he had told. So that warrior went out and he found other warriors in the village and he gathered them and pulled them aside. And he gave him a piece of the cedar tree and with bone tools, he showed them how to make their own flutes
13:07 and told them to go out to the surroundings around them and find inspiration for their songs so that they too could teach this to their sons and teach this to their grandsons. So that the story of the flute and the flute players and makers would always be part of the Mandan culture.
13:23 So that's the creation story of how the flute came to be as part of the Mandan. And the story is very similar to many native cultures around the the United States area here as well as well as around the country or world. In fact, you see wooden flutes like this in most cultures around the world and that same type of story of the creator giving them this instrument
13:48 is very common between them. Now, in the archaeological and historical references of the flute, we find the first indications of flutes in these cultures in the northern plains area here coming around in around 1200 CE with the finding of eagle bone whistles. And those gradually progressed into wood and cedar being a very sacred wood,
14:09 but it was also very soft and so it could be easily be carved with bone tools and, and be held together as well. This one here as well as this one are cedar. And you're gonna notice there's a quite a bit different tone in them and sound compared to the other flutes that are just different types of hardwood that you'd find as well. And I'll explain a little bit more uh later on that. But the next song that I want to play for you here though
14:34 is uh my first flute song and the story for this song. This song is called Eagle Dreams. And my grandmother, her name was Eagle Peak woman and she was a 3/4 mixture of Mandan and Gatza. And she was raised up at Fort Bertel by her grandmother and her grandmother had done many of the traditional Mandan and Hindatsa gardening techniques, and told her many stories when she was growing
14:59 up before she went off to boarding school at age six. And so when I was growing up as a child, I was told a lot of these stories. And as a child, myself and my brothers, we never wanted to sit down for a long period of time. We wanted to run around play, have fun, watch some TV. And so the really only time that my grandmother already ever had a chance
15:23 to really tell us these stories was when we were tied to a chair, getting our hair cut by her, she used to cut her hair. And so she would tell us these stories and, and they weren't stories about so and so know so and so and, and these are your relatives because she would tell us those stories. But the stories that really, that are in my memory of her are the stories that talk about the, the lifestyles in these villages. There's no
15:47 pictures of these villages besides paintings that we have from Katlin and Bob. And that's after the time period of smallpox. But there was one, there was a time period when the man ins were a huge community. And so these stories would give images in my head of, of these massive villages along the river and these gardens that spread along the river as well. Well as I grew older, I began working at our,
16:09 our state park and I started learning more and more about my heritage. But the thing that really inspired me was our village there. The the homes of the Mandan, the Earth lodges that are, there were
16:25 really bad off. They had been standing for 5060 years there. And my grandmother thought it was a very bad representation of the Mandan nation. She would call it these decaying homes falling apart and collapsing in themselves. And so she fought with other Mandan elders and trying to get awareness to this village and to get
16:47 money put aside to restore it back to its to tell the Mandan story a month before she passed away, she found out that the federal government would give the organization their $1.9 million to restore this village. And, and so when I started in 1999 I got to see all of her dreams come true.
17:10 And today you can go there and see these lodges, see the stuff in them and hear the story of the Mandan people. And that's one of the greatest things I think of her dream was that the story of the Mandan people is being told to thousands of visitors as they come through this park. And so that really inspired me during that time to learn about my ancestry, which I, I knew a little bit about but not a lot. And when I was doing that,
17:33 I came across the, the flute and the instruments that were part of these villages. And so that really stood out for me. And so this song here is called Eagle Dreams.
20:08 So um getting to the mandan living along these villages here, these um these massive villages, they said there was about 15,000 people strong that lived along these villages and the Mandan were gardeners. They farmed the floodplains of this Missouri river out here and they had massive gardens. And in these gardens, the mans grew corn and beans and squash and sunflower.
20:32 And this was the money for the man dance. This made them a wealthy tribe along the Missouri because this was their trade item, the man dances and had in that area where the center of trade for the northern great plains tribes from all over would come in to to meet with the mandan and trade for their crops. And so during the summer time, these women were down tending to the gardens and my grandma would always mention it about these,
20:55 these gardens and and the women down there that they were the backbone of the Mandan tribe in the, in the villages because of this food that they had. And so you have to imagine though thousands of women down along these floodplains, and I can just imagine it in your head. You can probably imagine too sitting up on the valley overlooking this and hearing these women down there because the women would sing to their crops during the day.
21:20 Because in the Mandan Belief everything has a spirit. This river out here has a spirit, the corn, the beans, the squash, everything has a spirit. It's a living creature thing. And so it has that spirit that needs to be nurtured. And so those women would sing songs, religious songs. These were prayerful songs to this garden to grow strong and healthy. And so
21:44 thousands of women down along these plains, you could hear these voices echoing and spreading along this Missouri river here, the valley, the garden areas. And you can imagine the sound and the feeling that you get from that type. So this next song here is called Watching the corn.
24:25 Now there was a
24:28 in these villages, the men also contributed to the village. As I said, this food, and these gardens made these villages very, very wealthy. And so the men needed to protect these villages. And so you had warriors, the men that were defended these villages from enemies coming in as well as they went out and hunted and brought meat into the village as a well game that they could use all parts of the bizant
24:52 for all different types of tools and useful things in the village. Nothing ever went to waste
24:58 but something came through this area that these men, these strong warriors, the Mandan nation could not fend off. And what that was was smallpox coming into these villages here. And it's made its way all the way up into the northern great plains and it affected the man dance just like it affected nations and civilizations all around the world. That same disease affected the man dance.
25:23 And for the man is, as I've been telling you is their, their culture was passed on orally to the upcoming generations. And so with that, he must like my program out there, he can hear me.
25:35 Um But with the Mandan nation, everything passed on stories. So as these people died off in large numbers, stories began to die off with them and we were lost forever. And one of the areas of these villages of the population of the village that was affected. The worst were the elders because they weren't able, they weren't strong enough to fight that disease.
25:58 I mean, you could survive from smallpox but rare, rare numbers ever did survive that disease and it was usually the strong and healthy individuals. So some elders would die in those stories that they hadn't told or passed on that information that would go with them. And when my grandmother was alive, she'd always, when, when friends up on a reservation or, or even siblings of hers,
26:23 when they would die or pass on, she'd always say there was a great wealth of knowledge that was lost there. And when she passed away I felt the same way I felt there was a loss of knowledge. I didn't know everything that I should have known before she had left. And she often times compared it to a set of encyclopedias, burning up
26:46 and you couldn't access that information. And we don't really use encyclopedias today. But imagine if your internet cord got cut and you couldn't search the internet, you had that same loss that you were lost. You didn't have that information. And so this next song here is called a Grandparents Farewell because these elders of these villages were the most respected people in the whole village.
27:11 , I was taught growing up as a child that You never looked your elders in the eye. And so you always looked away and you always listened to them if they had something to say, you never talked while they were talking. And so they were very well respected because of the the wisdom that they had and the knowledge that they had from these villages. So next song again is called their grandparents Farewell.
32:16 This disease went through the village warriors, these strong warriors that would protect them from enemies coming into the tribe gathered around and these warriors would gather around oftentimes around a drum. And for the Mandan culture and many cultures around the world, the drum is one of the most sacred instruments that can be part of that village. The drum is never left unattended.
32:41 There's prayers for the drum, there's even tobacco offered to the drum. And because it mimics the most the first sound we hear as a child in the womb of our mother, we hear that heartbeat, that beat of life as some may call it. And that drum really represents, that represents that beat that keeps life going. And so these warriors would gather around this drum and they'd sing songs and these songs were, were prayerful songs.
33:06 They were powerful medicine to ward off these evil spirits that had come into the village. And that's really what they thought that disease was, was evil spirits coming to this village. So this next song here, you'll hear those warriors and those voices coming together
34:28 of,
34:59 we have a couple of last songs here for you. This next song here is called the Rebirth of a nation. And, for the Mandans, they studied their history after smallpox. And after Lewis and Clark came through this area, they suffered through smallpox again with that, with that same disease. And for the Mandans in 50 years, they had gone from this massive tribe,
35:24 15,000 down to less than 1000 people in 50 years. And so you can imagine what stories, what songs, what traditions were lost during that time period. But in any sense myself being here today and many of the Mandan descendants that are here at this celebration all around us, speaking and telling their story
35:48 that they have been told about the Mandan us descendants. Being here is a representative of the Mandans have overcome those obstacles through time, overcoming that and the reason that they were able to overcome that is because the stories, those simple stories that were told to the Children as they were growing up to the teenagers as they started to learn their ways around the village.
36:12 Those simple stories being told to each generation has been able to have the man and still around today and make sure that those stories are still around and that still happens today and those stories are still being passed on just like I told you the story here today myself, passing that story on to you. Those stories are continually being passed on to the upcoming generations.
36:35 So as long as this river out here is flowing, the Mandans will always have a presence along this river here. So this next song here is called the Rebirth of a nation.
37:16 See
39:12 good.
41:59 OK.
42:11 Yeah,
42:21 I have um one last song here to close with this song here is called a warrior spirit. And this is really because the Mandan tradition in, in many native traditions, we're always remembering our ancestors right here with this, this festival here, this, this celebration, we're remembering the ancestors of the people that came up this river, the tribes that lived here,
42:43 the tribes that met Lewis and Clark, all those ancestors, all those stories, we remember them. And that's very key in passing on those stories. And so when, when my family gets together and, and I go out and give a tour of our, our village, I'm always remembering my ancestors, my grandmother even remembering those stories, those people that come before us. And it's the same with all you folks here as well.
43:08 Uh remembering where you come from, your ancestors. And so this next song, I want you to close your eyes and think of stories you may have been told by your grandparents, grandmother, grandfather stories that you were told. If you have grandchildren, what stories do you want to tell them for them to pass on to their kids and their grandchildren as well. You're remembering those stories and in turn,
43:31 you're remembering those ancestors that have come. So this last song is called a warrior spirit.
46:02 All right. Well, I, I thank you for coming out here today and, and, and, and taking in the, the celebration here, make sure you've taken everything around here today. But thanks for listening to me and spending some time here in the tent with me.
46:21 We have just a minute or two if you have a question or two for Matt
46:27 and if you don't have any questions or you do,
46:34 um I have a couple of gentlemen up at uh my reservation before birth of that make them for me. I I'm learning how to make them. It just, it's really hard artwork to work with, so I haven't really got it down path yet. So hopefully, sometime I'll get it down. But right now I have a couple of gentlemen that are flute makers up there that make them. My great uncle was a uh a flute maker in the mandan
46:56 the water.
46:59 Actually, this one's new. I just, I, I had it just for this, this, so I haven't watched it yet. So you'll have to ask my mother on that one though.
47:10 If there are no other questions, then we thank you very much for attending the different programs here today. And we'll be open again tomorrow from nine until five. Thank you and have a good evening.

Tent of Many Voices

Matt Schanandore: Mandan Flute Music and History

Matt Schanandore

Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara

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Matt Schanandore: Mandan Flute Music and History

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