 So there is a beautiful pipe ceremony this morning. I know it happens every month. They have a good food one to invite people up. What was your role in the pipe ceremony today? I guess I always try to make it a point to come to all pipe ceremonies. As I guess First Nations University, that's one of our uniqueness is to have our ceremonies and our feasts. And it makes you feel that you've done something worthwhile. This morning, I joined the pipe ceremony specifically to pray for the well-being of the First Nations University for the staff, faculty, and students. What does your role as an elder in the university mean to you? I guess I find that my role as an elder in the First Nations University is that as an elder, we have to understand that our roles are to really help students to try and help them overcome difficulties that they have maybe academically, perhaps maybe financially. We go even as far as trying to help whether there's marital problems. And I think that we always have to focus on trying to make the student understand that education is so important in today's society that we really talk to them and try to assist them in sticking with their classes and completing their courses in any way they can. What is the most common problem that students approach you with? Usually, I build a trust relationship with students. And what they tell me is all kept confidential. And in my mind, I have set a place here in this room where I envision that there's a wooden box. What the students tell me, I put it in there, I close it, and I go home. I don't carry it with me. I don't even discuss students' problems with my husband. And I think trust and confidentiality is very important. But in comparison to the majority of time, I think it's financial problems that they have. You know, they get student allowance once a month. And sometimes they try and make living for one month on that budget of their allowance is very difficult. That's where the frustration comes in. And sometimes they have to pay rent out of that. And sometimes there's families. So that's the most common problem that students come with. It's always financial problems. How do you feel when you are able to help the students? I know when I help a student and maybe a month later, I see them walking in the building, still carrying their books. I know that's an achievement that they have listened well and that I have helped them. I guess the biggest pride as an elder here is seeing students walk across stage to get their diplomas, certificates, and their degrees. I know they have to go through those certifications. And then comes the degrees. But a lot of times, you know, the students sometimes, they need a lot of guidance in choosing a career. Because sometimes they come in, maybe they'll take classes from INCOD and, oh, no, we want to go this other way. So I think that's where they need a lot of assistance to tell them what classes to take in order to maybe go into social work or whatever their career is. Are there things that you have learned from the students? Over the years that I've been here, I've learned a lot from the students. Some new things, ideas have emerged. I do realize each generation is changing. You know, many years ago, I think in the early 70s, I took classes true at that time, the SIFC. At that time, the cost of everything was not as high priced as today. Today, everything is the prices are way up. So that's one of the great changes I see happening. The other thing is when I took classes only, maybe two classes a month, it was called, I guess, the module system where we take maybe political science for one month. It went like that. But today, the difference is students are taking full classes. And you know, sometimes I feel that when they do that, it's kind of overbearing for them. And that's the change I see. Do you think that they'd be more successful if they were taught the module way? I think so because it'll give them, you know, traditionally, a long time ago, First Nations people, we never lived under structured time. And when I say that, what I mean was, we don't get up at, say, we have to be there eight o'clock. We have to be here a certain time. Today, we live in that kind of a society. And as First Nations people, long time ago, my grandparents used to say, take your time. Understand what you're doing. You know, do things in a very, I guess, slowly to get, I guess, the hang of whatever we're doing to do. But today, you know, everything is such a fast pace that we're trying to keep up. And sometimes it's within us as a First Nations person that that wasn't the way we were raised up. For my part, I wasn't raised up like that. Like I did things at a slow pace. And I remember my grandparents saying, when you do everything at a certain time, you're hurrying up, it releases, it gives you a lot of stress. And combined with trying to, you know, study and all that, sometimes I feel pity for the students, you know, so. That was how it was with me growing up. Like I went to school, but at day school, we had to walk to school. We took our time, had fun on the way. You know, we got there and we went to school for, from nine o'clock, but today it has changed drastically. Yeah. That was my next question about sharing both your childhood and growing up. What are some of the things that you learned from your elders? From my elders, back home on Standing Buffalo, we have the very, very old elders. And our community has agreed that we let these old, old elders rest. It's time for them to be at peace and not to be worrying about what they have to do. It's from the 55 to about 65 year old or some that could go further than 65. We say we are the active ones. And from the old elders, all my teachings really come from my grandmother, my grandfather. I think back today that some of the things that I do, that I say the way I behave, my belief system all comes from my grandparents. They were my teachers and also from the other elders. When I have a question, today I go to them. I sit with them and I ask them, questions like maybe I'm having problems with my siblings, my family. Well, I'll go to another elder and ask for their advice. And usually they tell me, give me ideas how things should be working, the things that I should be saying as an elder. That's my guidance today. That's what I'll walk with, going to the old elders in my community. Then growing up, was it easy to like approach them? Growing up, when I was, my grandparents instilled a lot of respect for everything within me. And growing up, we didn't have television and all this new technology. So I just had my grandparents and I was taught to sit and listen to what they were saying. They told me if I didn't listen and if I didn't try to hear them out what their teachings were, someday down the road I'll have a lot of problems. And I believe that's true. So like today I try to tell that to young, I go into the classrooms a lot and this is what I tell young children, you've got to learn to listen. And I think the most important thing is respect. Today a lot of our young people have lost that. You know, when an elder speaks to them they don't tend to listen. At times I've even been told that, well those things happen when people were born on a buffalo road, you know? But I said it still applies today no matter how we live, you know? It's all right to learn our traditional ways in our prayers, our ceremonies, as well as go to the mainstream way of education and learn, get your degrees and when you balance both out you're the one that's going to be successful. What does the term warrior mean to you in today's society? Warrior? Today, in today's society, I think young people take the word very not seriously. Long ago a warrior meant that you had to go out there and like fight for a good cause, to protect your people, for protection of land, maybe for protection of your tribe, you know, and those were the warriors. And when in our language we say when you fought with another tribe, I always remember my grandma saying, hey, we are kasha each epe, they give them an eagle feather and it's painted red. That means they fought the enemy for a good cause. Today, the word warrior by young people is used and taught up in a different term, in a different way. Today, warrior is truned around very loosely, we're warriors of this, we're warriors of that. And to me, that's wrong. And today the word, a lot of times gang members think themselves as warriors, and that's not right. I always say that there's warriors of many different careers. Those that maybe get their doctorate degrees, they're warriors of education, maybe in the government system, like leaders, they take a lot, those are warriors of government systems. And maybe as a family gathering, one takes the lead, that individual is a warrior of protecting his family, his relatives. That's the way I look at the word warrior. And the other way of a long, long time ago, it was all mostly, it was a great honor to be a warrior. And today it's looked at like there's a lot of negativity attached to the word warrior. And like I said, our gangs believe in that, and that's not right. Do you think that there is room to reclaim that? From the students here, do you think that there's room to make it in the positive light? I think it all depends on each individual. You know, young people have ideas, different ideas, but I think as elders, if we sit with the young people and talk to them, explain to them what we know as describing the word warrior, that'll help a lot. And maybe I always say children are never too young to learn. Maybe if we go into the classrooms and start teaching about grade three, four, five, and teach them the word warrior, long ago it was a great pride to be a warrior. They were decorated in different ways. I come from a family, their last name is Chawiyaka, which means the rarer of an eagle feather, and that pertains to the great, great grandfather who was a warrior. He defended his people, his tribe for, I guess, land, and that he was a great warrior. So from there, that name was given to him, the rarer of an eagle feather. That's what it means, Chawiyaka. And maybe things like that, we could teach the young people so they'll have a better understanding of the word warrior. Why is it important to combine the traditional teachings with the academic studies? I think a lot of our academic studies, if we work hard enough, we could almost implement our traditional teachings into the academia. I used to be a language instructor for 17 years in my community. I took the time and the effort to go to each classroom, maybe in a science department. When they're teaching a science class, I would go and sit with a teacher at the end of the day and say, what are you teaching tomorrow? Maybe she would say, we're teaching about plants and that. So when I went in from my class to teach, I spoke in my language, but at the same time, I taught the meaning of the plants in how we use them for medicines, how we shouldn't, we should protect the flowers because each flower that grows on Mother Earth is a medicine for some tribes and for ours included to Dakota people. And that way, they had a better understanding. Sometimes they planted beans in a cup. Well, I would talk about growing plants for food. So we combine both and it seems it worked out very well. And I think here at the university, I do go into the classrooms, especially in the indigenous classes. And I talk about many things in today's world as how they're living. And I talk about the old traditional ways, like just the Saturday I was in a class, they had a class from 10 o'clock. I was in there talking about, I guess the galaxies, the stars and that, what they mean to Indian people. And what I learned, I revealed to the class there and they were really surprised that as First Nations people, we walked with the knowledge of the stars. And how important are the TP teachings today? Okay. I'd have to say I come from the Dakota Sioux tribe and there are TP teachings are different. I know the TP teachings of the Kree and the Soto are together. And I liked their version of their TP teachings, but as to in our Dakota way, we have the TP and in the middle from the top to the bottom there's a stake where there's a, it used to be long ago, we say tied with tochmeso, which means the edges of the hide was cut when the hide was cured and ready to use for clothing, making TP, whatever. And all the hair was scraped off in that. The edging around was made into a rope and there was a slit and they were attached. That was tied from the center pole to the stake down in the middle of the TP. We believe that's a very sacred significance of the Sundance Lodge. The Sundance Lodge, we have a sacred tree in the middle. And there's many teachings to that tochmeso, to that stake that's tied in the middle. And then we believe so far the bottom of our TP is the people, everybody, the children and that. Then the next part, there's many teachings of the youth, the young people. And then towards the top is the teachings of adults, adult people, teachings of how to be a mother, how to be a father. And way the top is the elders. The teachings come down. That's our belief of a TP, the structure of a TP. And when you look at the TP, they open out the flaps. And that's when we say the great Tonkanshina, Wakai Anaji, the grandfathers got its arms open looking up to that. That's how we know that there's ceremony taking place in a TP. That's how we understand, okay, there's maybe name-giving ceremony because the flaps are open. And that's what we believe in, is that they're called the people. And the other thing that the TP itself, when it's made of hides, there's many ceremonies that take place because our worldview as the Kota people, we believe that anything that's alive, the trees, the grass is very sacred to us. That's why we use the term mitakuyawase. When we say that, we acknowledge the four-legged, the birds, anything that's out there and has a beating heart and it's alive. In our way, when they first finished the TP with maybe all buffalo hides, that's when there were ceremonies and there was a big feast, we prayed to the spirit of that buffalo that's gonna shelter us. And that's how we lived long ago. And today, of course, you realize all TP's are made with canvas. And sometimes I see people doing pipe ceremony and they're doing a big feast. But I think those traditional ways, spiritual ways should be done if the TP is made fully of animal hide because they say the spirit of that animal is within that TP, it is made with all those hides maybe of buffalo, deer, whatever. That's what we believe in. And so, did you grow up on standing buffalo? I was born at home and standing buffalo delivered by grandmother who was a midwife. And I lived there till I grew up then of course I was sent to residential school until 1952, at that point there was a school built on a reserve, so then I went to school there till I spent five years at the day school then I went back to LeBret again where I did my nine and 10. And by that time we were able and we were allowed to go to provincial schools. So then I attended school for grade 11 and half way of grade 12 in a little village called Lipton, Saskatchewan. So my sister and I were the first ones to go to a provincial school from our community. I know that you weren't encouraged to speak your language or anything at the schools. How did you hold on to that? Well, growing up with my grandparents my first language was Dakota language. And as I grew up older, my grandma had relatives in Pipestone, Manitoba. They used to write to her in our language. So then she would open the letters and then I would read up to her. That's how I learned to read and write my language. Other than that I spoke, when I first went to LeBret I hardly knew how to speak the English language. But you know, when you're really, I understood right away when I went to LeBret don't speak your language, that's a bad way. You know, the nuns will tell us. But I knew immediately that, you know, praying about my language. Because my grandparents used to say dakhodi api ishwoga dakabdenawa ka'a. Our language and the words in it are very sacred. I didn't know the meaning at the time, but now today I realize what they meant. So when they used to school us they couldn't even say, don't cut your own, like how are you? You know, they'll hear you right away, they'll come and take you out in the hall and you know, they'll kind of push you and don't speak that language, you're not supposed to be speaking that here, you understand, we'll say yes. But you know, when we went up to the chapel early in the morning they'd wake us up, send us to mass. I used to sit up there in the pews and I knew we had to pray. And I knew we were allowed only to pray in English. So I used to pray in English and ask, I guess Jesus or God, to help me to keep my language. You know, because that's what I taught me at home. Always pray for your language, you know. Even pray in Dakota, today that's how comes I pray in my language and I hung onto it that when I think I was blessed that I didn't lose my language, neither my culture. You know, a lot of the way I live today is following my culture. Culture is a way of life that we have to understand to follow. Traditions is totally different. It belongs to maybe a family. They do something a certain time of the year and it carries on for one generation. That's what tradition is. Maybe a family is good at making star quilts. That's their tradition. But culture is totally different. It's a way of life. And that's the way I understand it. And that's the way I teach language and culture together. Did you ever, like after residential school, did you ever, like pick up any kind of, like convictions or anything? I know a lot of people had experience. Oh, of course. There was a time in my life that, I guess I was a social drinker. I'll admit weekends, you know, I drank. But I quit that because I had to teach my language and I knew that our traditional ways, our culture doesn't coincide with doing drugs or drinking. So I kind of fought the battle. You know, sometimes my friends would invite me to maybe, especially Christmas party, like everybody was there smoking and drinking and, but those are the times I remember I'll run to the bathroom and I'll pray. And I was able to handle it, like I had to sit with them, laugh with them and talk to them. But you know, sometimes when I left, I used to always think, why am I doing this? I could have been sitting with them having fun and you know, that and yet, but then again, I used to think, well, I'm teaching my language. I've got to stick to that, you know? So sometimes it was a battle. I think I just weekends, I drank when I was drinking and then I quit smoking in 1984. I smoked before that, but not heavily, you know, just because I used to be in class all day and there was no smoking allowed. So maybe in the evening, I'll have tea and a cigarette and that. And I knew like tobacco was used in a very sacred way and I had to respect that also. So there was a lot of, I wouldn't say roadblocks, but there was a lot of respect that I had to carry myself in order to be a good language teacher. Is there anything else that you want to add? I think like sometimes students come in here like today where we sat with interim president and I guess to her executive and they're having kind of different emotions and ideas about the new board and they're battling that. So like I was telling them, I said a lot of times there are things that happen that's way beyond our control. We can make a change, we can do anything about it. So in our cultural way, I said, we have to understand, we pray hard and we have to look a different way and think of that in a positive way. And like she said, well, what is that? I said, a lot of people are unhappy with Dr. Shanene Pete no longer going to be the president. You know, everybody had their hopes up high and saying that, you know, she's put her name in and maybe she'll be selected. But I said, we are getting a new president. I said, so pray and accept him, shake hands to him, welcome him. And if you do that, good things will happen to you. You know, that's our belief system. I said, a lot of times we live too much in a negative where we do harm to ourselves by getting stressed, depressed, many of these negative emotions. And don't do that to yourself. You have to be strong enough to change things to the positive. No matter how terrible they might be, no matter if it's happening to your own family, to yourself, always be strong to think, well, there is this positive way and maybe I should be thinking that way. It's entirely up to all of us to make changes. It's nobody can do that for us. And if you can do it, you know, pray, sit in our sacred place to tipi and pray hard and ask for that guidance and they'll always help you. Because sometimes, you know, there's many things that even in our daily lives, our families, maybe one family member is doing wrong. Maybe they're into, you know, something they shouldn't be. You know, those are the ones you're supposed to pity instead of getting angry at them, saying, you know, things we shouldn't be saying to them. Instead, in your mind, pity them, try to help them. And that way it'll relieve that bad feeling you're carrying because it could turn to, like I said, something really negative where it'll affect your whole being, like, and the other thing I tell students, always, you know, be who you are. Don't try to imitate somebody else because each and every one of us are special. We each have a spirit and we have to learn to nurture that. And that's where, like, all these teachings come out from that spirit within us and we've got to be knowledgeable, like generosity, kindness, always focus on a positive, rather on a negative. And I think that's life.