 advertised on the wall. It's not the end, but the beginning of our time together. I'm excited to be here in out of the rain and in this nice auditorium. It's more beautiful than I expected. And it's really great to be back here again. I haven't been here in many years. I came to the museum maybe a decade ago for several years with my family. It's really nice to be back again and see the Abenaki being honored, the heritage of the Abenaki being honored. I think while we are people, it is those things that are unique in our culture that are most important and most celebrated on a day like this. And I don't think the two can be separated. I think they're integral to the culture that my family has been very involved in maintaining our first traditional stories, which I was lucky enough to hear from my father, Joseph Brushak, who's books I have many that aren't wet. It's not our best to keep them dry for you under a tent. And then the language. As well as some music, I think all those things come together. All these things are related and there are so many other parts of the culture, traditions, and ceremonies that are being preserved by other people here. Crafts that are being preserved. New things that are being created. Native people aren't just something of the past. There's new styles of art. There are new stories. There are even new patterns and ways to speak. I guess I'm kind of a linguist. I work with languages. I don't just work with the Abenaki. I'll probably pronounce it Abenaki just because I'm accustomed to that. It's a habit, but I've been lucky enough to work with many related Eastern Algonquian languages. And recognizing, as we see among those that are spoken by many people still, like the Anishinaabe, or sometimes called Ojibwe, or Chippewa, where you have over 100,000 speakers, that the language is graphically changing and growing as new concepts come into their communities. People have to develop new words for those concepts. But at the same time, children find new ways that they'd like to speak, just like our children find new ways to speak English. Sometimes we don't necessarily embrace art. We aren't too excited about them. And I hear that argument from friends of mine who are members of communities like the Bigama, who also have a lot of speakers and see changes happening in their languages. It's a sign, though, that we have to realize that the languages are then living things, just like any tradition. When it lives, it grows and it changes. And I'm often, and we're often relegated to look at native people and say, it has to be this way because that's the way it was written in 1652. Or it has to be this way because that's where I saw the image being drawn back then. That what makes languages and what makes cultures alive is that they're continuing to grow and at the same time being fully informed as best as we possibly can by what we're able to gather and know about ourselves today and about our ancestors from the past. I feel really, really lucky to be here among family and friends supported by the people that are here excited about all the work that they're doing because none of us can do it alone. So it's great to see people doing so many other things. Next mentions that I'm going to share a little music. I'd like to share a story to begin. And as I share the story, I'm going to do it both in the Abenaki language and the old way so you can hear that language. My language is far from perfect. I'm still working to become more fluent every day. I teach the language. As I said, I teach other dialects of Eastern Algonquin languages and in them I learn and I feel like I've become a stronger speaker. But at the same time, there's an adage that says the more you know, the more you realize you know nothing at all. And it feels like every time I learn a new level about the languages, the more I realize, wow, I have so much still to learn. So I'll just do my best and just say, as I know Hopi and other people who would make beautiful pieces of art sometimes would intentionally make a mistake. Because they only the creator was perfect. And if we weren't to compete with him, I'm not going to make mistakes on purpose. They're going to be there. So forgive me for this. As I begin this story that talks about the coming, as I know about the instrument that I'm holding in my hand, Piquon God, Piqua is something which is blown through on God means it's a tool. And the language Piquon God is that thing which is blown through and said that long ago, the people didn't have the Piquon God. As I tell the story, as I learned from my father, and has been done in the Northeast among native people for many hundreds if not thousands of years, I'd like to make sure you're a part of the story. Not falling asleep. It's nice and warm in here after coming in from the rain, not wandering off in your mind, but instead really fully a part of the story once being shared. I'll say ho. When I say ho, I'd like y'all to say together in one voice, hey, oh, everybody's listening. And there's four things we do within traditional native communities. Before we had universities and schools of any kind, a dollar heating back places of learning before those places existed. People had to learn using four steps that another Eastern Algonquin people just carried on this tradition. The people who called them Ohegan, Harold Tantequijin was an elder I was able to meet as a child, Lattice Tantequijin as well. And my father spent a lot of time with them in their Indian Museum down in Connecticut. And on the wall, there was a circle and on that circle, there were four points on the circle. And Harold Tantequijin said it was a circle of knowledge how our people pass all of our things that we knew from one generation to the next, our language, our stories, our culture, by doing four things. And the first thing to come into that circle of knowledge was just to open up our ears and listen. Oh, and the second thing we have to do is open our eyes and observe. Oh, and the third thing we have to do, maybe we have to hear a story many times, maybe we have to hear a song many times, maybe we have to see something done many times, maybe we have to experience something many times before we get to the third step, which is to remember it. Once we've remembered something, we don't have a responsibility to make it into a circle, it was a circle on the wall. And to listen and observe and remember things, we gain them for ourselves and that's great, but that's a straight line. As a beginning and an end, we want this to circle around. So the fourth step is to share. That's what brings me here today and it enables you to hear and observe and hopefully remember a bit and then do the same, share with others. Oh, hey. So long ago, Agua, I said it is said, Agua, that long ago, right away, as I begin the story, I'm not just speaking another language, I'm speaking a language in a different way. It's important to realize that when we learn another language, we're not just learning replacements for words, we know we're learning other ways to see the world and other ways to think. And when we speak of the past, in an Eastern Algonquin, when I speak of East Algonquin, I'm talking about from Virginia, all the way up to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, the entire East Coast, people would preface things that were not experienced by them with the term like Agua, which means it is said. And that informs the audience that I didn't experience this, the entire gospel and Bible that were recorded in Algonquin languages always had this Agua in means it is said or it's been reported to me. And throughout that story, a different form of the past tense is used, not to get too into the linguistic stuff, but the conjugation of verbs for reported events is totally different than that for ones that you have experienced. That concept doesn't exist at all anymore. We just say that God did this. And it's almost as if did you see it? Right? Whereas in Algonquin traditional stories, and as I said, even in the retongues of the Bible, the gospel, we would say it is said that and there's a little ending on the verb instead of a past tense marker, there's a sound like zah. And that again, says that it may have happened, but I didn't necessarily see it. And this opens up a whole world of beauty within storytelling, it allows things to happen that are marvelous and not be questioned, like animals talk. And people make themselves like into mountains and all kinds of miraculous things happen because this is the way this information was reported to me. So as I begin my story, I say, Agua, it is told, and you know, we've entered into a different type of language. Agama, on top of kidsy, nascamo, and I lose on gonna, honey, I don't see who Nami on Agama. Long ago, it is said, there was a young man and he'd fallen in love with a young woman. Every time he saw her, he couldn't find any words. On top of what he had no words. The only thing he could say was he just started, he choked, he couldn't speak at all. But his heart would be fast and his body would get warm. He was in love. Kids is the sound we've heard several times, because he flies fast kids, he's coming. And then kids, kids, and about the heat becomes hot. His kids are long or kids are long gone is love. It's amazing to see that that route within the language represents speed, heat and love that one route down and how often languages are bringing many parts of what you call a little pieces, maybe and piecing them together, called a polysynthetic language or a loop into and that one sound that route sound doesn't just have one meaning. There aren't that many root sounds. There are a few hundred root sounds. But in context, their meaning can change. And in the place of them words, their meaning can change. But to know that kids can mean fast, that kids can mean hot, and kids can be loved is kind of cool. Kind of makes sense if you think about it. Oh, and because of that, Agama and Donald was a close call. He had no word. I'm not the find out also topic. Most of them died at the top. We won't met. So he thought they meet up on zoe he measured in his mind, to be the whole zoo. And he went to do something that was traditionally what to visit his elder public aside his grandmother. In a word, you all know we won't make. She He lived inside of a wigwom, wigwomak, an Algonquin word, an Albanian word. He went to visit his grandmother, Okuma-san, her wigwomak, ta, na, do, da, ma, wa, za, ag, ma, ta, ni, in, kizi, kluzi, spiwi, na, pa, no, in, ke, za, no, pika, li, u, lau, da, ma, na, we, do, ka, mi, an, okumas, li, u, lau, da, ma, na, we, do, ka. Said, grandmother, I can't find any words when I see her, but I love her so much. Can you help me? Please, please, li, u, lau, da, ma, na, can you help? Oh, okay. And his grandmother, Agama-Okuma-san, i, da, kizi, lau, da, tui, alu, sa, alu, mi, wika, piwi, ta, i, bi, ta, um, da, bi, ni, da, ma, perhaps you need to go into the forest and have a sit. Now the idea of a sit, um, da, bi, ta, like, you go and you sit, you listen, it comes out in the culture we hear about, like, the Native American vision class. It's not fictional, it's true. It's important to go into the woods. The woods is an important place. Mountains are an important place where people would go to find visions. They put themselves through some kind of a trial. In this case, he heard the words of his mother, ta, Agama-u, wa, wa, da, ka, mi, u, lau, lau, ka. He knew exactly what to do. Agama-u, da, lo, sa, alu, mi, pi, za, wa, ka, mi, go. He went into not just piwi, the woods, but pi, za, wa, ka, mi, go with a deep, dark forest. Agama-u, da, lo, sa, alu, mi, pi, za, wa, ka, mi, go. Ta, u, um, quilo, wa, to, da, li, wu, zi, abi. He went into the forest and he surfed around for a good place to sit. Oh, kanwa, in da, wu, ki, zi, meskama went, but he couldn't find it. Agama-u, wa, to, mi, na, he searched more, ho, ta, mi, na, ho, ta, mi, na, ho, li, Agama-u, sa, wu, pi, ta, until he was exhausted. Alada-ho, mi, um, mo, lo, da, wu, zi. He noticed, uh, mo, lo, da, wu, zi, red cedar tree. U li, mo, wu, zi, it smelled so good. Da, alada-ho, mi, a, zi, ke, zi, sen. And he noticed a great big stone. Kizos, kizoso, kizose, ni, da, li, kan, ni, sen, ke, za, wu, da. That stone had been sitting with the sun shining right down on it, and it was warm. It smelled nice in that spot. It was a warm place, so, i, i, on, da, li, like his grandmother said, he sat down. Ho, ay, he rested and he leaned his back on that rock and prepared himself for his vision. Kanwa, agama, wu, so, mi, wu, sa, wu, toh, ta, um, pa, zi, de, pi, pla, su, wu, la, wu, so, wu, nga, na, wu, i, oh. I wish I could whistle that. So, he was so tired that when he sat down and leaned up against that hot, warm rock, the sun was setting like he honked in the west and he fell soundlessly. And he began to, tsigualakwa, so, wu, nga, no word that literally translates, or I would say, is meant to mean snoring, tsigualakwa, so, wu, nga, but it literally is tsigual, but if you know what tsigual is, I'm going to speak with you. Tsigual? With it, with it? Yes, tsigual, idamu, um, froh. So, he was froh of something. Ikusou, kikusou, is a whistle. So, tsigualakwa, so, wu, nga, means it's an action, something he was doing. He was froh of whistling. And that's to snore. He was snoring. Beautiful, so again, it's not just snoring, I didn't just say snoring in a minute, I said a totally different concept. And the way that people heard it was, it sounded like those froh of, oh, and whistling. So, well, he heard that froh, it was like, luckily, he heard something else. Ulada megoongan, agama no dama wa kaguihatsi. He heard something else as well. Tama wu, nga, tami, agama wu, lada, mean, ali, tongwa, tama wu, sipsa. Tama wu, no dama wu, nga. Ulada wu, ni, ali, tongwa, tama wu, nikoso. Tama wu, ali, ma, ulama wu, nga, kigula, tahu haga, kisab, tama wu, tami, agoji, wu, nami, honna, hanam. Agama, u dixira, wu, pita, ta iwita, te bestawa, ni, on sagitongwa. Oh, yeah, he started to hear something. It is ligoaso wu, nga, it is dream. Ligoaso wu, nga comes from some roots that have similar of ligoansa. The root of ligoaso wu, nga, I don't know that it's the same. It means sleep, gawi is in there. But ligoansa and ligoaso wu, nga are so similar, and ligoansa means to weave. And I like to believe that somewhere in dreaming, there's that root for the idea of weaving. Something was being woven perhaps together in his mind. As he dreamed, and he tsugulakwa, ligoaso wu, nga, and he snored, he began to hear something. Ali, hau, hon, it sounded, the way that it sounded. Ali, tongwa, nga, onla, wu, sipsa, bit like the birds. Nga, onla, wu, kizubom sin, a bit like the wind. Onla, wu, kikusou, it's like a whistling. And he listened closely to that sound as he slept. He listened to that sound as he plopped, as he plopped, nga, onla, nga, as he plopped, and fasted. Tahu, haga, his body, kizabuda, became warm. Agama, wu, mikua, dan, he was reminded, wu, zina, pahanam, of that woman that he loved. As he heard that, onsagi tongwa, that strange new sound. Ibita wu, nga, wa, he just listened to it. And he felt like he did when he saw that woman. He was excited, but he was also snoring really loud. Perhaps a little too loud. So loud that when he did one of those big, he woke himself right up. And you know how to say wu, you know how to say wigwam in American. Does anybody know how to say wu, said it happen in American? Very good. It's a loan word that in English we're now speaking. Maybe we speak a lot of words that come from Eastern Algonquian languages, from Jamestown, as people were learning them, from the Powhatan speaking people, like the Bumunki Alphamodic to the Hominie, and others, all the way up to East Coast especially, of course, in Massachusetts, where we had the pilgrims landing. And the English were the ones who were learning these words. So we still speak English today. It's a primary language in the US. Those loan words have remained. Moose is one of them. Another one is kerubu. Another one is chikini. Another one is chikmah. Another one is tomahawk. I could go on and on, hundreds of words that we speak every day for nouns, for things that we see, but also even for actions, like the story, it needs to move along. And to say move along, I'd say mouzi. Everybody, if you look in the dictionary, I'll say eastern algonquin origin. When we look at the word mouzi, and that fact means to move. Oh? Okay. Well, things had changed for him because he'd just woken himself up from his dream, and his mind began to change. Kila means changing. Literally it means becoming. Moose means something like strange. The moose is a strange creature. My friend, Aaron York, has a moose who zon. Today with them, a moose knows. If you get the chance to visit him. That moose was a strange concept to people. You see moose has lots of stories about moose. A giant monster moose. All types of things, moose, trying to fight the people. Moose had to be changed because he wanted to destroy the people. Well, the idea of moose, gualdah, kila, kila means changing. Gualdah means in your mind. Changing in your mind to strangeness is a verb. Now moose, gualdah, kila, and it means anger. So the root for anger has something to do with your mind becoming twisted or strange. And he had woken himself up from that dream. He was so excited about that sound. He'd heard that when he woke himself up, he got moose, gualdah, kila, he became angry. Moose, gualdah, he was upset. Oh, he had a chance. He was being gifted some kind of vision in his dream, and he just ruined it with his tug-of-lock with someone gone with all his snoring. He was so upset that he almost didn't notice that sound, that olsage-tung-wot that he heard had followed him right out of his dream. And it was still going on in the forest. It's a piece of wakami gold. That sound. And he did what Harold Tanta quidgin, when he and Alder talked about. He did the right thing. He realized the game knowledge he needed to stop and listen. And he stopped being so angry that he just opened up his ears and listened and realized he could still hear that same sound. It was still with him. Oh, man. And he also started to observe. He started to look around because it wasn't always happening. The sound would happen and then it would end. And he realized that every time kizilong sin would, the wind would blow, that sound would come. And he also looked around and noticed where that sound was coming from, that beautiful mole on docks, that red cedar tree that he'd sat down beneath. He looked up at it. From where that sound was coming, he noticed there was a beska honkpen, a branch. And that beska honkpen was mat-sina. It was dead. And it was probably hollowed out. It looked like a woodpecker. Well, my socks had not holes in it. Whenever kizilong sin, the wind would blow. It would make that sound. Figured it out. Oh. He gave thanks to that tree and reached up and posed for him and kneaded beska honkpen. He broke the branch off the tree. And he had, his hand, something, ran at him. He had that very first flute. And he wasn't good at it right away. He had to work with it. He had to get to know it. And he had to eventually realize the most important thing that he needed to add because that wind was gone was the breath that we're all sharing now, a circle of breath. That we all share. And he blew directly into that flute. And he practiced that flute as he did, he thought of that woman. We continued to practice and I get an opportunity and I know many of us get opportunities. We all can be teachers. We have opportunities to teach. And one thing I've learned is that everything I've learned and I've gotten good at it is because I've stuck to it. And I continue to work at it. And I didn't just know how to play a flute. I had to practice. And if you love it and you're passionate about it, the language, if you wanna speak the language, just find a passion. That's your passion and you stick to it. You can get it, you can get anything. And I mean, he was so in love, that love drove him. And he needed a way to communicate so he just kept practicing and practicing and practicing until he felt like he had finally made something that could communicate his message. And he went back to that wigwam. He went to the wigwam of that young woman and he stood outside of it and he began to play that song for her. Hope. Hey. When he stopped, he looked up and she'd come out of her wigwam. Hope. Hey. And he had posed for the man. Bequame, he'd broken the ice, a new modern term. Speakers of the past would probably not be too happy with me say, but like I said, the language was changing. He'd broken that ice and they began to talk. The two of them got to know each other and perhaps it was because of that song, because of him listening and observing, learning something new and then sharing it with her that they knew Balwonga, maybe King. They were married. Mieswiah is a term that means equally wife and husband because we did see they were married together and had children. And there is a tradition. I don't have another answer with me, so I'll just do an acapella. I'd like to share another song with you. There's a tradition that still exists among some native communities and existed among Algonquin people proposing marriage with different styles of flute. Not necessarily the flute that I play here, there were flutes made of reed, flutes made of bone, flutes made of stone. All types of flutes would be made, but songs would be created on them to propose marriage. Instead of going out and buying a ring for engagement, a song would be written by a young man for a young woman. The melody that was created on that instrument, on that peacone gun, on that flute or whistle, she basically took ownership of it. In fact, women took ownership, or Ari didn't take ownership, they had ownership over much of those things, although ownership, the idea that was different, it was a woman's home, it was the land that the women worked, that provided much of what people lived up, of the corn, the squash, the beans, these were all things that the women of communities controlled. So for a young man, he was really asking for acceptance into her world, into her, in my term of clan, the baby would go and live in her village. And that song would be one that she would take, that melody, she could put words to it, and sing it as a lullaby. So there are lots and lots of lullabies. This is one that I heard in the American Philosophical Society. I was down there in the early 2000s with a group from Indian Island and different communities up into Maine, passing up by Penobscot, and one of them was of Penobscot Lullaby. And as we listened to it, I was like, whoa, you can really hear the flute melody in that song. And it was sung by about 1910 or so, on a wax cylinder, since then digitized. And there's a beautiful rendition of it on YouTube if you look at the Penobscot Lullaby being sung by a Penobscot woman in modern times. And I'd like to just sing my version of it, beautiful singer as that, just to emphasize the idea that as we hear this lullaby as there are many, many other lullabies that exist that have survived, it was once played by a young man and a very young woman on his flute or whistle and a proposal of marriage. And the words added to it are simply saying, sleep well, little child, sleep well. I lonely stood across and hey-ah, hey-ah, hey-ah, no. I lonely stood across and hey-ah, hey-ah, hey-ah, no. Hey-ah, hey-ah, hey-ah, no. Hey-ah, hey-ah, hey-ah, hey-ah, hey-ah, hey-ah, no. I lonely stood across and hey-ah, hey-ah, hey-ah, no. Hey-ah, hey, hey-ah, no. Hey-ah, hey-ah, hey-ah, no. Oh! I know nobody's asleep. Thank you. Any questions, I'll have more to share, but sometimes it's great to just see it. Is the language related or is the original story related? Just tell us a little bit about how you tend to get into learning the language and doing what you're doing. Yeah, great. Yeah. I heard it as a kid, because my father was collecting traditional Abba Aki stories, and he was really learning them from everybody he could find. And we would visit Maurice Dennis up in Old Forge, New York, who was from Odinac, a reservation in Canada, but he was living in Old Forge. Many Abba Aki people lived in the Adirondack region, and he would happen to be a speaker of the language, and we would go into Adali Wasak, he called it, Adali Wasak. He even had that on wood, car, burn, over it, and it met the brightest place, and it was his kitchen. And I remember listening to him telling stories, and he'd always do them in Indian and English, and my dad would write them down, and my dad would write them in Indian as best he could. There are two books from that period, I think he published about 1978 or so, called The Wind Eagle and The Faithful Hunter, and their collection of Abba Aki and Panopska stories. And my father also traveled with me to visit Wayne Dool, who was a passable body speaker. So I got to hear when I was little, when I was like four, five, six years old, and I planted a seed, we named our family pets in the language, as I know many people here experience this, we get a little bit of our language from our family and in our usage in our home, but I was never exposed or able to speak it in my home. My father was not a speaker, he was learning, and I was just having to be there by his side. So when I was 20, I heard about a language tape by Gordon Day, and I got ahold of it, and I put on, I still take a set, and I just listened to it all the time, I loved it, and I heard about classes up in Swan, Vermont, and I went up to those and took my first lesson, was to see a law in Olet in 1992. And about the second class, I had a computer, and the second class she came over and she said, is the language in that computer, she was 88 at the time, a fluent speaker also from the community of Odenack, in Quebec, where the language survived. And I said, yeah, the language is in the computer, I'm writing everything you're saying down, she's like, that's really cool, will you help me in the next classes? And I quickly kind of became a little bit of a helper to her, and I was able to help organize the lessons, and ended up moving up to Swan because I wanted to be closer, and I lived some time up at Odenack as well with her, and with others, and I studied the language for about a decade like that, and I knew during that period, maybe 30 or 40 speakers, some living in different parts of Albany, New York, some people spread out through, there were some in Lake George, and a lot at Odenack. Every single one that I visited, I got the chance to speak with, made some recordings when I could, and I just felt like as everyone passed, it was that much more important for me to continue to learn. Most recently, I have a 10-year-old and a 12-year-old, so 10 years ago, my son and daughter came into the world 12 years ago, and I started to talk to them, and I had already been teaching and learning for almost a decade and a half at that point, and the language was so much better because I had kids, so I had a captive audience, so they had no choice. She'd say something in English to me, I immediately say it back, and if I didn't know how to say it back, I'd look it up, and I was always kind of mimicking her with the Abadaki words, so that helped me a lot, and it's still a journey, I'm still learning, I can speak fairly well, but I have a lot to learn, and my journey continues, so it's just a journey that I've been up for almost since 1992, really, really starting to work in the language, so it continues, and it's exciting to have opportunities where other people, you know, now can, I can help other people, so that's a good question. Well, thank you for sharing. You're welcome. It's great, I found one of those really cool ways for my kids, I know, for me, it was almost every night when I had, you know, when I'm with them, they insist on having a story, and I do the stories in India, and I don't translate them, have them, and they know them, so they're growing up, I couldn't do that, but they're growing up knowing our traditional stories only in India, and then later realizing, oh wait, these are in English too, and it's like, yeah, and they're getting them, and how they get them is pretty amazing, because a lot of the words that I use, I don't remember even at this point teaching them, they just get them based on the context, which is the best way to learn. I wish I had that opportunity more, so it's nice to provide it to them, and then to work with others somewhere in the audience and with the language as much as possible. Yeah. Would you tell in English specifically one of your early stories and one of your favorite? One of my favorite stories that he collected, an early story that he collected, yeah, I mentioned it in this story, and it's kind of a fun one. They say that long ago, this is when I remember him telling me as a kid, so he would come into my room and tell me stories, and he says in the front of the Faithful Eagle and the Wind Eagle, the Faithful Hundred and the Wind Eagle, that he would test the stories out on his kids, so I kind of stole that, but he used it with the language of my kids. But he would tell us stories, and one of my brother and I always loved was he talks about a culture girl named Blue Scabbing, who was one who created himself, he shaped himself, and he's spoken of as Blue Scab, Blue Scombab. To look at the language first is to say, in Abenaki I would say I'm an Al Momba, which means a common person. A talking person would be a Blue Scomba, so you're the ending is Momba. So that's the name of this character, Blue Scomba, the talking person, native talk or the talking. If I went over to our neighbors, the Penobscots in Maine, they would say Al Nabe is a person. The character Al Momba becomes Al Mabe, so therefore Blue Scomba becomes Blue Scabe. So we have Blue Scabe, and then we have Al Mab, which is the Paso Aquatic Malice, which means a man, so therefore Blue Scomba becomes Blue Scabe, becomes Blue Scabe from Al Mab. So we see how we get that name and Megama as well, we have Blue Scabe. All the same character. Blue Scabe was full of magic power, Agua, so it is said. So much power that at one point he decided to shape the human beings. And Blue Scombab knew that the human beings wouldn't be super strong. The human beings would be nothing in comparison to some of the animals that you can see in the forest. Some of these creatures are powerful and huge, and so Blue Scombab became concerned and he decided to have a council, a Podawazwi Skwadaw, which literally means translated council, but Podawazwi Skwadaw is a whale. Podaw is to blow, and that Skwadaw is fire. Podawazwi Skwadaw is about blowing smoke into the fire, literally, and it's about having a council, a council fire to beat the fire back up. A gift from native people, like corn squash and beans to the world. I always looked at it as a gift, but it certainly wasn't. It's very sacred to this day. So he decided to have a council, a Podawazwi Skwadaw, and he gathered in front of him, like you're gathered in front of me, and all the animals of the great forest. And he asked him a question. I'm going to look at the Podawazwi Skwadaw. What is it that you will do when you see human beings? And the minute he says that word, al-mubat, man, most of the animals, pulawah, pulawahadit, they ran away, or they, um, they flew away, or they takasmoak, takasmoadit, they swam away. They didn't want anything to do with us, because why? We would nadi alit, we would hunt them, and we would namaskahadit, we wish for them. But there were a few that didn't run. Oh? There were a few that, not only didn't they run, they became muswadaflahadit. They got angry. And muswadaw knew he needed to do something about these ones. He looked at the first of these creatures that didn't run. They could see our souls. They could see our souls. Awani could see our souls. What's that? Awani. They could see our souls, it's a great bear. I'm gonna eat out, what will you do? He said, what will you do when you see the first human beings? A great bear said, I will eat every human being, I see? And I'll never get full till I eat every one. Thanks. Oh? Well, who's going back a little worried about that? And he thought, my friend, you looked at that bear, he said, you seem to have some furs stuck up in your fur. Come here, come here, I have a comb, I'd like to help you with that. Who's going to use one of his combs that he had with him and he began to comb the hair of that bear. And as he combed his fur, his piazo, that bear, each time he stroked its back, that bear got a little smaller. Smaller. Smaller. Smaller. That's smaller. And eventually, I was combed out for your news of good size. It was a black bear and he stopped combing its back and he said, now what do you do when you see the human beings? That black bear looked up at the loose comb on its tail, how much bigger he was and how much smaller that bear had become and said, I'll run away. And so it is to this day that usually that's what happens. Well, there were other animals and the next one was even bigger than could see I was so as it was could see moose. But not just moose. Big moose. Big moose. Great moose. Yes. Can see moose. And that great moose was really, really moose. Well, that was really angry. And loose combed out, asked him, what will you do when you see human beings? And moose said, I'll run through their villages and I'll smush their wiggle-out. I'll smush their homes. I'll throw them up into the air and I'll spear them with my Ascanak, with my antlers. Back then, the moose's antlers were sharp like spears. And moose stood taller than the greatest longhouses of the Haudenosaunee of the Heracourt people. This moose was giant. Well, loose combed out, said, oh, my friend moose, don't you know humans? They're going to be just like me. They'll be just as strong as me. So maybe you should test your, you should test your strength. See if you can even push me over and he held up his hand. And that could see moose walked over and put his nose right into one of moose komba's hands. And then moose komba held the antlers with his other hand. And he said, who are we not? Push. And that moose pushed. Hope. And he pushed again. Hope. And he pushed again. Hope. And he pushed again. Hope. But moose komba never moved. Moose komba just stood there. And when he was done pushing, moose realized he was much smaller than he'd been before. He pushed so hard that he'd smushed his own nose right in. His antlers had been smoothed and rounded the way they are today. It looked like the shapes they say of moose komba's hands. And you can see a print of his hand on moose's face. And his back is all scrunched up from pushing so hard. Because he was so strong that he shrunk down to a more reasonable size. But moose was pretty smart. He didn't keep pushing. He stopped pushing. And he's still huge. One of the biggest creatures in the forest. Sometimes still angry, but for the most part realizing how strong we are, it's humans. Moose keeps his distance from the people. Oh, hey. And there were other animals that didn't run. There was a terrible one called kitsi mikoa. I don't want you guys to translate that, though, so you know. Because kitsi mikoa was so terrifying. The worst creature in all the forest. And moose komba said, kitsi mikoa, what will you do? I'm going to do it. Okay. What will you do when you see human beings? And kitsi mikoa said, I will pull trees out of the ground and throw them on them. I'll take great boulders and I'll throw them on top of their homes. I'll kill them all and tear them apart. Oh, hey. The moose komba looked like this one could seem equalized. Anybody figure out who it is? The great, the mean, the terrible. Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel. It was squirrel. The fact then, squirrel was as big as this auditorium. I need to vacate in five minutes. So we're going to do it. I can't tell you all the story, but that great big squirrel, you know, these great big creatures, it's funny, I heard these as I said as a kid. This is one of what I love. I remember when I went down to some museums in Washington, DC, and I saw creatures that in some cases resembled perhaps these are memories of these great rodents and things that live. But they say once this squirrel was so huge and so mean that moose komba had to pull out his old home again. And he said, oh, mikoa, calm, calm squirrel. And he began to calm that squirrel. And that squirrel was so angry, so moose komba that unlike bear, he just kept on combing and combing, combing and combing until that squirrel fit right into the palm of his hand. And it was still so angry. And that moose komba said, you'll just have to go as you are. And squirrel ran right up the tree and if you run into a squirrel in the woods, they'll still throw acorns and sticks down on you and chatter it down. I'm tearing the car. I'm tearing the car. They don't even drive. They can be on time. They have to do the scratch, use squirrels. They're still pretty angry at us. Oh, ugly. They fit the palm of our hands. There were other animals. I was going to tell you one more. There was one more animal who didn't get moose komba. He was, he was, he was happy. So happy that he began to wag his moose komba. A dog. Yeah. It was a dog. A dog just sat there, didn't run away, just started wagging his tail and moose komba said, oh, al moose. Which means you'll continue to walk with them. Al moose, the one who walks beside human beings and lives with us to this day. And that's where that story ends, by time. So thank you so much for listening.