Closed Captions Audio Described

A speaker of Blood tribal heritage discusses their descent from Sacajawea and the significance of the Lewis and Clark Expedition to Shoshone history. The speaker explains the historical structure of Shoshone nations, identifying Sacajawea as part of the Aha Dika (salmon eater people), and reflects on Shoshone cultural practices including cradle boards and their spiritual importance in transmitting Indian culture to children.

Transcript

0:00 So, ladies and gentlemen, I'm very honored to be here. I'm very proud and honored to have the blood of a very famous young native American woman. I'm so honored that uh I've been traveling extensively throughout the United States. I had the opportunity to have an audience with President Clinton. I had an opportunity to speak at the Smithsonian
0:24 and many, many opportunities because my ancestor exemplified for me, what road I should seek among the Native American people. We all believe in the red road of life. All of us have a red road, even our white relatives here, you have a red road. All of us have a road in this life. And it is a road of this young woman
0:47 that came about with the Lewis and Clark expedition that they wrote about her, that they told about her. And it is through her that we, the Lemhi Shoshone, the Aika people are known about today through that young woman. You know, first thing I wanna share with you that Shoshone people
1:10 historically encompassed a large part of the United States. We were a large nation. And if you can imagine Europe, Europe is a European nation, right? And what kind of tribes would we find in Europe,
1:28 English, Italian,
1:33 Norwegian, all different kinds of tribes, right? That we would find over there in the European nation. Well, the Shoshones were a great big nation historically and they're also composed of many tribes. You have the Tuki Dika, you have the Arai Dika, you have the Bengu Dika, you have the SIU, you have the Yamai Dika.
1:56 And if you notice we're all identified with the Tikka. Tikka is what we are identified by the primary food sources in the area that we lived in. And Sacajawea's people came from the Ardika. Can everyone try that,
2:16 Arria? Let's try that again.
2:19 Ahaa. So when you see a historian and they say to you, where does Sacajawea come from? And you'll impress them by saying, Aha Dia, she was part of the salmon eater people. She was a salmon eater. One of the only Shoshone tribes primarily identified with eating the salmon. The salmon came the furthest inland
2:44 into her people's land and it is by the life of the salmon that we symbolize our life. Our life begins in a cradle board. Much like this one. Every tribe has a cradle board, every tribe and these cradle boards are not just cradle boards, they're just not a carrying device, they're not a car seat. They're very spiritual,
3:08 very, very spiritual. Zaka JIA was taught from the time that she was a little girl about her Indian culture.