 reservation out of the Black Hills of South Dakota. My name is Beatrice Long Visitor Holy Dance and my married name is Beatrice Weaselbear. Our grandparents are Ula-la-la-la-kotasuz. We've been born and raised on on that reservation they put us in and we've lived there all our lives. My prayer is that the water and food be given to us every day. I pray unto the Creator that that there'll be no end to that water and food for the generations to come for the next seven generations and over that beyond that. I pray that the Creator take care of all of our needs. There's a lot of things going on in this world today but the things that I that I think about as our children and grandchildren and great grandchildren and so on the next generations to come. I think about all that and I ask Creator every morning when I get up I go outside my house and before that sun comes up I stand outside even in my bare feet in the wintertime I stand out there and and sing and pray towards that sun when it's coming up and I ask for blessings for in the four directions where all the people live the black the red the yellow the white that's all all of us people on this earth that the Creator put us here and we should all always honor each others don't look down upon any one of them the black people the red people the yellow people the white people always stand together as one because we're no different from one another we all we're all the creation of our great spirit to gosh law welcome to God that's who I pray to to gosh law come to God means a great spirit and one Ikea Jesus always say one Ikea is Jesus in our language we say one Ikea the savior that's what it means one Ikea I pray to him ask our brother Jesus to look after us look after all our children's grandchildren's look after the old people in the days of my life I pray every day I walk with prayer even before I even became a 13 grandmother I learned how to pray ever since I was I could remember I used to stand outside with my grandma and that son's coming up while she reaches up like this and she prays her and grandpa I stand by them and pray with them and I look out the language I speak to the Creator in my language because he gave me that language so I pray to him like that then I was sent to school and learn the white man language and learn the white men ways of praying and I acknowledge that I take it upon myself I don't no matter how I pray I mean it that's what matters so in this lifetime I pray every day of my life from every waking moment I'm praying even in my home I pray that things could be better for for the people on this mother earth that's being destroyed left and right they're destroying her and she's moving around she's getting restless our Lakota people know that they understand her that's where we come from all of us we came from that mother earth so why are we destroying her we must not do things like that we should take better care of her she took care of us put us here gave us water give us food give us nice things and what do we do we go into her and just destroy everything take things out of her to destroy what for what reason are we doing that taking things out of her and using it to destroy each other what kind are we what kind of people are we that we do such things where two people are so smart they're out outsmarting themselves there they're they don't know what to do with themselves anymore and in there there's some people suffering people are suffering some are going without water and food who's going to answer who's going to be the responsible party I think about all those things and I pray I got grandchildren one of my grandchildren graduated high school still no money to go to school can't go on I brought him along he plays music too but hasn't got the money to go to school his father was a police officer for 44 years just not retired he had 13 children all grown up he's one of them brought him along so he could see what we're doing here see you people see what's going on in this world brought him along so he could see all that and think about it these are the things that I worry about is how are we going to survive in the next seven generations how are our people myself our generations all my myself my yeah I don't know how long I'm gonna live but my grandchildren great-grandchildren they got long ways to go in and in between that time I want them to understand that there is a great spirit who put us here and he's watching over us and I want them to do good in this world some way somehow survive just this evening she was saying you talk first so I said no you came ahead of me so you talk first we just grew up out in the sticks I might say but our parents they grew gardens my dad plowed and us kids we went down with our mom and she showed us how to plant so we did it plant and then we took care of it all spring we go down by the river we have these eight pound large peels and we go down by the river and bring water walk with it poured on her garden every day we did that that noon hour our mom would call us and go back home we eat and they're about three o'clock she lets us go so we run down the river and jump in and swim that time the water was good but now it's contaminated with that uranium mining south of our place there's a place called Crawford, Nebraska and they're doing uranium mining there and all that water water is contaminated we used to go fishing down there we catch a lot of catfish and that's what we was raised up on eating catfish every morning we run down to the river and get our fishing poles and we go and pick it up and bring it back bring our fish back to our mom she cooks it and then we eat that's how we grew up and then we take care of the garden for her and in the fall why my sister and I were just like mules we have to take sacks and we put those great big squash in those sacks and carry it on our backs and come up the hill bring it back to the house mom would go down there in a wagon and she'd pull the wagon close to the corn and we pick corn and bring it back then we dry the corn we cook it and we dried and that she makes 100 pounds of corn all the ladies from the from the that community come up and they help her and she gives them each 100 pounds of dry corn to take home she helped the people like that she always did those things I remember growing up my mom used to be real kind to the people she taught us a lot of good things our mom and our dad they're always working we worked all our lives worked hard I'm still working I drive a truck and deliver medications to people people old people and people that drink that forget to take their medicine I go take their medicine to them and give it to them every day but I enjoy it I love driving the countryside and singing and praying go to where I have to go and deliver medications there's a lot of things going on in our on our reservation but it's everywhere not only our reservation it's all over the world things are happening young people some go in the wrong direction but with prayers some of them are coming to our prayer meetings now so I'm real happy for that my son and on my daughter they have they call it gardening project and they they plow they go around plowing fields my son-in-law gets people to go work out there plow fields for the whole reservation there's about 400 people he plows for every spring and then they send from running strong they send him seeds so seeds they sort out the seeds there's work for girls and boys whoever wants to work and they sort out the seeds and they get it ready and then people come and ask for seeds he gives it to them and we plant he's got a greenhouse so we plant there I even go down and help on plant and then deliver all them on the reservation him and my daughter they do things for their reservation people my daughter's working with the with a lot of the old people's council old people council they they're asking for the return of the blackheels and she's working with them and they're praying about it that they can get some kind of help from there that we have water rights and we have all these things going but nobody ever paid attention so in there besides the groundless council I've been all over the world praying praying for people praying for peace and I love it I know I get tired too but I love it because it gives me a chance to go see the they say third-world country we have our own third-world country on our reservation I seen that over there it was worse I thought we were bad off over there brought tears to my eyes I saw some little children fighting over food I hope to God that never happens here broke my heart to see that I just don't want it to happen to us over here praying about it so that that won't happen praying that those children over there might have something good to eat some good water to drink something good to eat at least once a day coming out of the bushes reaching out to us asking for food every time I think about it makes me cry so I think that's about all I had to say thank you very much for listening to me