 You'd like to sing a song while we wait and make sure everything is set up perfectly. And this song is really easy to sing because it's called one response. So I sing a line, you sing it right back to me. I sing a line, you sing it right back to me three times. There's a little part we all sing together. When we're all singing together, I'll just do this. And there's one besides which you already know, sounds that you already know, like yaw and pain. The one word, you know those words already. The one word that's in here that might not be familiar to you is the charity word for joy, which is huli hei lisi. He's welcome. And I mean isn't that perfect? Because we welcome people with joy, such joy that they're in our lives. So here we go. I'll sing a line, you just sing it right back to me. How many decades ago this journey started? But I had a friend who shared Vianni's book with me probably about 30 years ago. And she said, one day you'll meet her. And I said, yes, you're okay. And it's one of those works that I find that what I haven't read, I've been living. And by seeking to live a balanced life, apparently I've been following the footsteps of what Vianniyahu perceived more than 30 years ago. So, I'm a deputy tribal historic preservation officer with the Narragans at Indian Tribal Historic Preservation Office. That office is run, yeah. Well, it gets longer. That office is led by the tribal historic preservation officer whose name is John Brown. And John Brown was the apprentice medicine man for about 35, 40 years. And his uncle, Lloyd Runningworth Wilcox, stepped down from that position about three years ago. He got a call from John and he said, uncle just called and he said, you're on. And I said, what? He said, well, Brown, I'm not coming in today. So, you've got the ceremony. You have to appreciate Lloyd Runningworth Wilcox. This is a man who is the son of a medicine man, who is the son of a medicine man. And Lloyd was the youngest male, did not expect that he would have to ever do anything other than what he wanted to do in life. He was in the Korean War in Europe. He got to know a lot about Germany, got to climb the alps, got to fish it. Now, I'm giving you snippets of stories that I have to listen to over and over again. He's now in a nursing home and I visit him once a week. And when he's not harassing me and taking me through intellectual paces, he's telling me his stories. And it took me a long time to figure out that he was not just a curmudgeon, abusive old man, but he could actually see into the future. He could anticipate what I was going to have to deal with the coming week. And he basically would give me a tune-up fight. So, I would leave on Fridays or Saturdays whenever I stopped by to see him, bloodied and trying to be unvowed intellectually. He would have taken me through my paces and it took me a while to finally figure out, oh my God, I just went through this with Lloyd last weekend. And that's what I'm having to deal with with this idiot. It was always somebody who I would wish to disrespect, but Lloyd had given me the tools with which I could actually not only disrespect them, but win them to an argument. So, that's a little bit about Lloyd running with Wilcox, a little bit about John Brown. We were the 14th tribe in the United States to be acknowledged as having tribal historic preservation office status. I was always told, oh no, no, no, no, we were in the first 12. And then I found out from a woman from the National Park Service just a few weeks ago, oh, the reason that you all are not in the first 12 is because the first 12 counts, the first 12 tribes had actually received money. You all were arguing with us until you became 14th. So, there was a big argument and Narragansett's, let's see, is there anyone else in here who knows Narragansett's? There's one gentleman who had experience with Narragansett, so I figured I could trade on his knowledge. But Narragansett's aren't easy to deal with. You're going to deal with Narragansett. You're going to have to fight on your hands. We fought in King Philip's War. We fought the Mohawk before King Philip's War. The Narragansett's led other Algonquin people in defeating the Mohawk in Algonquin country. So Narragansett's have the assessment that they are hot poo poo. And that starts back with people like Tash Dusuk, Kananchet, and his uncle before him, Kananakas. I'm honored to be here. I'm honored to be in the land of the Wabanaki people in Vermont. We've had great dealings with Wabanaki people. We've been here before consulting on ceremonial stone features with the Forest Service over in Rutland where they were considering dismantling ceremonial stone platforms because the retiring archeologist wanted to make a name for himself by having established that they were either colonial built or Indian built. And how do you do that? It's the old Western technique. You do surgery. You take it apart, see what it's made of. Well, we heard about that. And said, wait a minute. That was a ceremonial. You don't get to take them apart and find out anything. You take them apart and you're engaging in sacrilege. I presented the issue at the United South and Eastern tribes and one of my colleagues fought me on the issue. And she was a good fighter. I learned to really respect her a great deal. And I usually respect her best when I'm either standing behind her or next to her, not in front of her. We sat there and I began to say, well, we have to consult on this. Now, I'm going to show you shortly a resolution. It was the first resolution that the United South and Eastern tribes produced dealing with ceremonial stone landscapes. And it was done in October of 2002 and it carries the number of 2003. And since that time we had done about seven resolutions dealing with ceremonial stones. And so I took the position we are the leaders in the protection of ceremonial stone landscapes. We have to stop these people from destroying a ceremonial stone landscape. Now, what I didn't know was that the lady sitting across from me, whose name, who will remain nameless because some of you probably will know her and they'll get back to her again when I'm talking about it. Had brought this other tribe from Wisconsin to visit United South and Eastern tribes about two years before. So they proceed that these were their friends. And here was one of their friend tribes that was going to consult on this dismantling. Well, my position is that if in fact we protect ceremonial stone landscapes it doesn't matter if it's a tribe that's saying dismantle it or the federal government. They're not going to dismantle it. Well, the person sitting across from me said, No, no, no! I said, oh my God, I've never heard that coming from her before. But she was focusing all this energy on poor little me who thought that she would be working along with me. She said, you can't do that. That's a federally recognized tribe and they have the right to consult the way they want to consult. She said, federal, tribe or not, they do not have the right to dismantle a ceremonial stone feature. And she said, as a federally recognized tribe they have the right to consult however they wish to. Well, we battled back and forth for a couple of hours. And I then stepped outside and asked the chairman of the committee if he would step out with me. I said, this isn't going to end well. If I win, she loses. If she loses, we've all got a problem. So I said, I'm going to take the issue off the table. I know my backup position. I will apply for consultation and I will get it on behalf of the Narragansett tribe. And if I can get a few other tribes to apply for consultation then we'll go to Vermont and we'll deal with the Forest Service. He, chairman of the committee was the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer with the Porch Band of Creek. I need to know, can you see and hear okay? Yes, if you speak a little louder, I'll hear it even better. I will yell because it's you. What happened to the children? Generals, grandma, sister, sister. Oh, that shifts my focus a little bit because as much as I want you all to understand all of this it's absolutely essential that that generation hear the words. So if we can get them back in, that would be great. As you need to take the time, please do. You didn't hear my compliments about about 30 years ago how I was introduced to you through one of your books by a young lady. And I said that that's when my journey to here began. So when I first met you and embraced you the tears that you saw in my eyes were because of the journey that I've been on to get here. So thank you. She was a woman who changed my life in many ways. She introduced me to being a vegetarian. She introduced me to many things and I assumed that some of that had an influence from her experience either of your book or of you directly. So I give thanks to you because mine has not been the journey I've planned for life and I'm not sure it's the journey that my ancestors saw. Sit down. You have the honored seats in the house because I'm really here because of you. Okay, I'll explain that. Now first of all I need to know some names and I need to know some ages. What is your name? Alora. Alora? Alora. And how old are you? Eight. And how old are you? Eight. And what is your name? And how old are you? Ten. And what is your name? Ari. And what is your name? Angle. And how old are you? Eight. And I know your name is Orion and you're going to tell me about your belt soon but not yet. That's a joke between you and me. How old are you? Nine. You're nine. And how old are you? Ten. All right. And what is your name? Good. All right. Eight. Nine. Ten. And no elevens. Okay. I'm seventy-five. Okay? And the reason I'm asking you numbers is because I've made an arrangement with creator and the ancestors that I hope they're going to honor and that is that I'm going to stick around for another ten years because I've got that much work to do. So how old are you? Eight. When you're eighteen, I'm going to expect that you will understand what I'm talking about and that you may actually be doing something about what I'm talking about. Okay? I may only have ten. Now if creator and the ancestors says, oh no, we're going to hold you here for twenty years. The only thing I'll ask in return is please make me a sound mind and allow it to still be able to walk in the woods. Okay? But I want you to understand that within ten years I need each of you to have heard my words and to be doing something about what I'm going to teach you today. Okay? And you don't have to do that. That's just what I want you to do because if in fact I leave this level in ten years, I don't want to feel that my life here was to serve no purpose. Okay? I want to feel that I left some words behind with people who are going to be ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, and that they will be able to do something about this work that I may have left behind. That's why I wanted you all here. Okay? And Orion, soon you're going to have to tell me about your belt. Okay? All right. This is a conversation that started yesterday and sooner or later he's going to give me an answer but until then it's just a running joke between he and I. It's truly an honor to be in the land of the Wabanaki where Narragansans have had a relationship for not only hundreds of years but thousands of years. The Algonquian people have always known about their cousins whether it was we today or they to we. We were always family and what we understood was that as Algonquian people we had, and I was told that that's a French determination. They picked one tribe and they said everybody else talks the same language the same customs as these people that we know and those were the Algonquian people. I was told by my elder, El-Asiketown what they're talking about is a Nishiki tampouak. I said, oh, okay. So our word for this family is a Nishiki tampouak. My elder told me that and that to me will always be so. So the word that I got historically was that the Mohawk who are now very much our friends were at one point not and they came eastward to the coast to exploit the fact that there was a longer corn growing season and that wampum was available for the ceremonial belts that they like to use. Now if I step on, first of all, are there any Mohawks? I wonder where a rock is coming from. There are two people. Are there any Mohawks in the room? All right. Okay. Well, you and I already have a good relationship. Are we good? I'm going to meet your husband later and we're okay. All right. So I can talk bad about your people. It only goes so deep. Well, it's always at my own risk. I call a creator and the ancestors every night to give me guidance so I don't misstep and I don't get shot. And I don't get a rock thrown at me by a Mohawk lady. So longer corn growing season, wampum. Wampum is from the Kohog shell and it's processed primarily along the coast and the wampum belts and the wampum beads were trade goods traded with our relatives because they needed them for various purposes and the belts were also utilized and made along the coast. The Mohawk came and we don't know where they got their warrior tradition from because I've always been taught that when the colonists came here and I just heard a version of this today that really knocked my socks off that the word Indian, my brother, comes from Indios, which is in God. Is that a proper translation? It is. All right. So that Christopher Columbus was not talking about Indians from India because, and if you'll just give us that short story. In 1492, there was no country on planet Earth called India. It was Hindu state and because they don't teach history the way it should be taught, people believe and don't check to see if what they're being taught is accurate. So when that bearer set his response to the crowd that there was no country on planet Earth called India, then his next question was then how did we get to be called Indians? And he referred that to me and I said, the response was, I said, you're right. 1492, that land was called Hindu state. And I said, don't confuse that with me being smart. I said, that was the only year I paid attention. I said, I barely got out of my school. But he asked me again, he said, then how did we get to me? And I said, I don't have a clue. Well, he went and asked permission to go to Spain to look in Columbus' law. And he asked two translators, one with Italian and one with Spanish. He said, I need to know the reference that Columbus made in his law to the people who knew that. And in the Spanish, the word deals means God. And in the context of the phrase Indians, he was referring to the people as being in with God. So it really changes the perspective of the image of the people, not being heathens, pagans and savages, but actually being a higher functioning group of people that was seen. There's much more, that's tying into exactly your premise and your approach to the history and the things that we need to set straight for the future generation. Well, I think you gave it to me today because there's a part of me that has always felt, somehow or other, less than the people that Columbus was actually seeking. And to find out that what you're saying supports the belief that I've always been taught that this was better than the Garden of Eden. That this was the place where there was no warfare. So I get to that point because we get to, what was wrong with the darn Erochoi? Why were they fighting so much? And I don't have an answer to that question. But that's a leap from that to this. We are the people who were of the land that was in harmony with God. India, in God. All right. Thank you for that. I put that in my medicine bag and I can pull that out. I may not add your name to it next time I pull it out. I'll be thinking about you. As I indicated, I expect to learn as much as I can teach. So I expect to hear from each of you that which you know. And it may come in your questions or it may come in your answers. But I expect that you will understand where does the word Indian come from? What did he just say? He said, Indian deals with the words that Christopher Columbus used to talk about the people he met here. And that he, at that time, there was no country called India and no people called Indians. But he was talking about us and as my brother said, the country was then called Hindustan, the place that we now call India. His name is Lloyd Running Wolf Wilcox. And I went to the elder medicine man and I said, Mr. Wilcox, I don't know what we're going to be able to do. The state wants to not acknowledge the ceremonial nature of this hill that kind of falls there. And the archeologists don't want to acknowledge it. They've already acknowledged that it was a Paleolithic site. But what I found across from the Paleolithic site are ceremonial stones. And they don't want to accept that. What they're saying that the state is saying is that Indians did not do any of this. I said, so Mr. Wilcox, the only thing I can recommend is that I will lay down in front of a bulldozer. I believe in what's there. I will lay down in front of a bulldozer in order to stop this action. Wait a minute, Harris, hold on. Don't count on the oral history or tribal law to win a fight like this. Because they, the state and the federal government know how to undercut that. Let the landscape speak for itself. Well, when he told me that I had the answer, I got up and left his office. I was up and skipping. And you're happy about it. Only took me three days to figure out that I did not know what the hell he was talking about. Oh, you like that. So if I say hell, you're like... So all I have to do with you guys is just say hell, hell, hell. Did you know? Did you know that indigenous people, our ancestors did not have a hell and did not have a devil? Did you know that? Oh, you're not laughing anymore. Okay, nice. That was introduced to us in 16, either 22 or 1623 by Edward Winslow, who came to visit one of our chiefs who was sick, whose name was Massasaur. And he brought him back to hell. And when he realized and wrote in a letter that one of his associates was, these people don't have a hell or a devil. And how can we Christianize them if they don't understand devil and hell? Sorry. How do you know how to push your buttons now? Hell, hell, hell.