 Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Tim Patra from the Muscapeting First Nation. My late wife was one of the shakers and movers in education. She passes away in my arms of May 28, 2017. I haven't been right since, but I'm working on it. I just wanted to start out by saying that both my baby sitting at the back room, both of the him and Dustin are younger ones. My nephew Jody here is my technician. I really wanted to take a business admin program so I could learn computers, but the lab I learned off was so contaminated. I lost my exam five times. Even the instructor seemed to have seen it five different times. Technology is great, but it was a turn off for me. It's not my cup of tea. I got some help in the room here with my technical stuff. Having said that, in my language, when we were married for a long time, we would say, all of you practice it, mi hasani. So in my language, I mean the other half of my prayer, the other half of my home, she's the one that raises children. She was the boss of the Tiwai. Her Indian name was Tom, her good day woman. She was named after one of her ancestors that were buried in wounded south Dakota. So she was all three. What I'm going to be talking about today is the people of the Oceti Shikoi Oyate. But she was inspired to, like she had done some education. Her masters was in ed psych, and based off of some research I was doing with discussions we had around our table. She was studying for her masters in ed psych. So she crafted a lot of position papers as she was, because they did look at residential school. And I was overseeing some research done within Karate Kettle, Chigau King, Kitanka Najee, Wood Mountain, Pipe Bot Musculpene Pasquas, as well as Nikini. So we did some stuff in the semantic therapy. In Kree, you would say, we cheat to win. People helping people through a mental, physical, emotional, a spiritual, a hard time. We still do these things in our language, but we're not aware of it with our wakes and these ceremonies. So this is her picture. She was my client, so I kind of wanted to put that up. I haven't been quite the same. We can go on to the next slide. So I'm the son-nance chief out of Woktuga. My Indian name is Wahantukahoshila, meaning more shield boy. And my job when I got the name was to defend the children and help her old people. And sometimes I have to be the medium between the young and old and bring them together. She got king over there. We did cultural camps. Some of the mothers and grandmothers thanked me because we had some of our younger females coming in talking about feminine hygiene. Many of us grew up in residential school. We had low self-esteem. It was easy for all of us to fall victim of drugs and alcohol and all of the mischievous activity becomes of these things. But we didn't know about some of these things I'm talking about. All medicine and life. The original Woktuga helped crazy horse become the man he was. So people of Woktuga went to the next slide. It's out of Pine Ridge, South Dakota. The goals of the presentation today are to create an understanding of good health and happiness. Good health understanding with the idea that we are born with these understandings but forget them over historical trauma, colonization, assimilation, lateral and domestic violence to create an awareness and with awareness comes change at how one may see themselves and others. So when we go to our ceremonies, our swipe lodges, these four things we pray for good health, happiness, health and understanding. That's the main goal of these ceremonies we go to. And then because I'm 10 years in a resident to school through catechism we made us ashamed of our ceremonies and we were afraid to participate in their ceremonies because like I was starting out earlier they used to call us Lisabaj, little sabbages. So we were conditioned to fear our culture, our spirituality. They wanted to break our language. So now we're dealing with a disruption of high civilized groups and nations of people. So these are all our complications today. So what I'm going to talk about is these ceremonies. We've chosen the worshipy worshipy worshipy. Good health, happiness, health and understanding. One more time. People as the seven council fires, the French and English for 300 years all they wanted out of North America with their beaver pelts for their stylish hats. So we were known as the Oceti Shikoyo Yate which were the Dakota, Nakota, the Titoans, the Lakota people. But we relied on interpretation and a lot of the Ashnabian pre-work with the French and when they were coming they were wanting to know who these people were East of the Missouri River. So when they say serpent they would say Narawis. And when you pluralize a group of people you would say Narawis Su. And then pretty soon Narawis got dropped and we became just known as the Su. But if those of us of prayer were kind of proud of who we are, we're either Dakota, my late wife, mihasane, she was all three. Dakota, Nakota, Lakota. So that's who we are. One more time. Oceti Shikoyo Yate. People at the seven council fires which were the Dakota we can move on to the next slide. We're just looking at a model that all started from the Madewa Kantua out of, say, Madewa Kantua. Madewa Kantua. And that's the oldest. And they were out of mini soda, say mini soda. Mini soda. That's plenty of water. So they were out of those territories but the long ago people weren't perfect and neither are we. As people's numbers start to get large and people started quarreling and not get along, there were divisions within our Tioshkaes. So that's how all of them, the Madewa Kantua has seven different D dialects within their nation. So we're mathematical people. Even the Hectoana, the northern Nakota, they have different N dialects from territories. Manitoba, you have some up in Eden Valley. There's seven different Tioshkaes. Even in Saskatchewan here, there's pheasant grump, cherry to kettle. What's that other one? Sweetgrass. Mosquito. Mosquito. Yeah, so there's different N dialects here within the Hectoana. So they were referred to as the northern Asinaboy or Nakota. Among the Sioux, there were historically seven central community ceremonial rites. These ceremonies occurred during different stages of human life and seasonal change. Though different in nature, the common focus among all of them was health and healing of individuals and the community. Proper, regular involvement in the essential community ceremonies was and still is seen as fundamental to Nakota healing. The prohibition of Sioux ceremonies and gatherings during the 18 and 1900s resulted in the loss of cultural community knowledge and reduced the importance and frequency of some of these ceremonies. Today, these ceremonies are practiced in varying degrees, depending on the region and the community. The most common of these community ceremonies today are the... The pipe. The pipe. Sweat lodge. Sweat lodge. Vision quest. And Sundance. And Sundance. Thank you. Each of these four ceremonies are used to bring psychological, physical, spiritual and emotional healing to individuals and communities. And why I'm talking like this, we've been colonized and Christianized in such a way where we fear our culture and our spirituality. Like I said, I'm a fourth-generation residential school survivor. They didn't allow spirituality practice until 1975 here in Canada. Oh, 76, sorry. So it all started in Mundini in 1973 where they started making change in the Canadian policy. There were people doing rain dance and Sundance and sweat lodges, but they weren't as active as they are now. We're at a time of reawakening. But along the way, our young people are not actively involved in the ceremonies the way they should be, but that's okay. It's bits and pieces like our language. So this one, first one I wanted to start out by talking about was the Chinupa in the pipe ceremony this morning. This pipe was brought to us through the spirit of a woman. It's as sacred to us as the Ten Commandments are to the Catholics. When we're dealing with the disruption of highly civilized nations of people, the respect for the females has been taken from us. We have over 4,000 missing and murdered Indigenous women across the way, across our nation, Turtle Island. But I was going to share with our young people. We got some young people in the room. This pipe was brought to us through the spirit of a woman. Once she's all the practice saying P'hinchila Ska We P'hinchila Skawe P'hinchila Skawe Ska is white and we is woman. Anything that was sacred that give life in our world view we viewed as wankan. So the weas are along those lines, our children, wankayoja, those are gifts from the Creator that we have to give the tools to be responsible people. So with that pipe there were two warriors out on a resource and they were looking for goods for their nation. One of them was a better hunter, a better fighter. They both noticed something in a distance coming but it was too far for them to tell. And as they got closer the one that wasn't as good as Hunter he started feeling a little intimidated, he started to pray. And as the older one that was a better hunter he realized it was a woman he said Now we are hand made tough that woman she's going to be mine. The other one says Hia Hia Hachush Nio No no don't do that we check here pray I'm using my language you guys can practice come on now. Hia Hia Hachush Nio Hachush Nio Don't do that. I just got cheeky. But really in the old days when these two men were out looking for resources we that's what's wrong with our nation today is we forgot to proper respect for our females. These ones here were their grandmothers, their mothers, their great grandmothers. These young ones in the back they don't have husbands maybe they do but one day they will. So when we're praying with this sacred pipe around and wish for somebody else's what they have because we put in motion jealousy that does not go with this pipe. So if we're going to be real pipekeepers that truth and honesty has to be throughout all of our affairs or nothing at all so that piece of the story she told that young man go back to your circle of camp your tioshpaya practice that tioshpaya means a small band of people living together get all the young girls that are pure and pick a circle of sage the highest gift a man could offer up to another man was his daughter who was pure if he deemed him worthy of taking care of him you have to remember with those were times where there was no domestic violence there was no drugs there was no alcohol we lived in our natural state there was no quarreling amongst men and women the women had their jobs we had ours we had a perfect society not that perfect because people would gossip but the other one she said we'll get to build a circle of sage and bring something sacred for the nation to learn from. She told the other one when I was coming this way you wanted me you're wishing for me you don't have to fight me I'll give myself free to you. I want you to say this next word moakias moakias the thunder beans no matter how brave no matter how weak a man or woman is they can instill the same level of fear so as this man dismounted his horse in here and he laid with that woman she wrapped him up with her robe and moakias came and it was thunder and lightning and as fast as she covered him up she uncovered him so that piece of our creation story teaches us that we need to have proper protocols for the women of our benefit so that piece of the pipe I've been teaching not only my son my grandkids and other young men I'm working with on domestic violence I do that kind of stuff as well you know trying to mentor our men into being more responsible so that sacred pipe was brought to us through the spirit of a woman I was over at St. Victor's and we did pipe ceremony over there they're trying to preserve those petrocliffs because in Nova Scotia we went over there for Sundance last summer they have petrocliffs that are not seen by the general public the pipe is up there so it shows us we had a diverse trade route here we didn't more like modern times oh this has to be a Cree way or this is a Dakota way or this is a Schnabby way we were more inclusive and having said that many of us, our parents and our ancestors married back and forth so we've got along we need to go back to that concept so that's the Chinupa the next one is the NETP each and every one of us was brought here through a spirit of a woman that's why we need to learn that proper respect even as men were brought here through the spirit of a woman so that's what Lodge represents the mother's womb in the old days the women didn't have to sweat because every 28 days they have a natural cleansing worse we don't have that and then some of my grandpa said you don't sweat all the time you'll be able to sweat whenever the need was there we only sweat 4 times a year but you have to realize our ancestors had to do everything in hiding bad Indian agents and all these Tiyoshka all these reserves there were any concentration camps so that's how much control the government had over us so we go to that sweat lodge that's our oldest form of prayer they found a skull in Wyoming that's 15 million years older than the one they found in Asia the one they found in Asia is 35 million years old so we've always been here they try to come across with this Bering straits with that superior western mindset they want to own everything even in modern times they want to own the galaxies it wasn't just Plato and Socrates that named the galaxies our females had that star knowledge before they were colonized we've been dealing with the disruption of a highly civilized groups of people nations of people we forgot who we were the next one I want to talk about is the to cry and to pray for a vision that's our highest form of prayer when we needed my baby left the room when he was gifted his first son he grows up watching me in Sundance he went out on the hill and he asked the creator to give him the understanding he needs to be a man of discipline a teacher, a hunter, a provider an educator for his son us men we want our first born to be at least a son and then we know our bloodlines go on I've got adopted girls though five additional adopted boys so I was really rich in the things I've come to do so that humbly let you as our highest form of prayer and the next one in the Sundance I Sundanced eight years after Sundancing eight years of my overall goal was to make more in a row we follow all laws out of the Great Plains even Leonard Crow Dog Orville looking horse to make our medicine man the head natcha the head yui pi man so out of our Sundance out of the Great Plains we're the only ones that follow the old laws meaning that there is really no food or water we don't have a soup truck come in they only get one sweat when they start their journey and they get one at the end when it's over not to criticize anybody there's different places where we follow the old laws I'm not trying to brag about nothing or nothing like that the point is that those old longs before colonization and assimilation we live by them there's modern philosophies going around where women say well how come we can't go into the sweat lodge or we can't go to the pipe ceremonies when you're on your moon type and there's modern teachings but that's somebody else's teachings that's reintroduced and followed the old laws that's why I'm certainly trying to hammer out the old laws and be respectful I follow that all through work it can't be changed from my son or my grandson I have to follow it live that way so that's the where are my Sundance so I Sundance 8 years back in 94 our medicine man Sam Moose Camp we call him Ma Toble Hitch oh come on I'll help you you're going to be Sundance chief and I thought it was just for that dance you said no after this I'm going to develop my Tiosch but you'll be Sundance chief you'll have to go to all the ceremonies because all I ever wanted to do was just to go make 4 and then I wanted to start fast and raise my family but it led me down a good path it led me it gave me the basis where I take my time and learn these ceremonies I do all 7 of these ceremonies I'll explain to you and within those 7 there's 7 different ways they can be done as well so we're not here for that the next one is the the the honka ceremony making of relations I think that's been there since the beginning of time and even we do it now in modern times we look at our young people they like friends they make good friends they're sisters so we do them but we don't do the ceremony to the degree we used to do them because a lot of people don't know that knowledge I lose a sister about a year before I lose my wife and then I got mixed up this morning I was lonesome from my wife so I called her Tom back to Australia but it's on Powe Chakpe I named her she wanted an Indian name and I called her morning star woman and I take her and I put her in place because the sister I lost I lose a little sister but again an older sister so she can chew me out and she has to write and she's older than me so that's how we used to do that when we'd lose loved ones spiritually I put another woman in my wife's place just to be a grandmother for the family that's what sitting bull did when they killed his Tatanka Yutanka all of you say that sitting bull did that when they killed his family he adopted another family because they didn't want his bloodlines to go on and then sitting bull also had a sister Mary over in Chegak King and that was part of my wife's bloodlines so there is people out there that couldn't kill all that religion and history and this sixth one I lost my late wife May 28 2017 we bury her June 2 by the 4th and I had not only had one two, three ceremonies to do I had three Wopila say all of you say Wopila that's giving thanks I had three thanksgiving ceremonies for individuals that were either doctored or went out to fast or something I can't remember with the detail of the ceremonies but I had three of them to do on the 4th of June so if it wasn't for the ceremonies I might have committed suicide I thought about drinking and going back to drugs my baby leaves the room he's 37 years old the other one's 40 they've never seen me other than normal but I thought they crossed my mind that was so suicidal but for you young people here when we take your own life each and every one of us are given about 82 years to live here that's our staff of life we've got some that are past that so we've got 82 years and when we go judge for both our good and bad deeds the seven sisters were that big dipper there was a chief long ago give up seven of his daughters that's our knowledge that's why we have that star knowledge within our nation he give up seven of his daughters that's where we go to be judged for both our good and bad deeds this is old knowledge and it's real knowledge there's people that still follow this knowledge today that's why I'm explaining to the young people so we have to go there I go to a Catholic boarding school they call it St. Peter's Perley Gates for both our good and bad deeds so I'd sooner pay here when I left residential school I drank and did drugs it was very chaotic but I'd sooner pay now for my shortcomings and have that follow my children or my grandchildren that's why I tell my boys make sure you tell your kids that I was crazy I go steal and I do this and that I told the truth so that if he's living right I end up blaming the creator oh, I must be paying for the sins of my father or grandfather in some cases so that keeping them with soul when she dies you've seen in that picture I had long braids I lose a little sister I cut half my hair off and then I lost a good sister-in-law my hair was longer than this and then I lose her so she would write down to the scalp but now I'm ready to start moving forward it's gonna start coming back it's gonna get past the curls when you get past that then it'll come back if not then I'll cut it again but this hair is sacred that's why the men braid it braiding mind, body, spirit it's our identity when we went to residential school they cut her hair I wondered who had died even though I don't grow up like this I knew hair had spiritual meaning so this keeping of a soul every moon we follow a lunar year in a lunar year every 28 days there's a full moon in the 12 month cycle so for one full year I added something to that bundle and I would feeder every meal I had eaten before me I made spirit dishes so even in the ceremonies I'd make spirit dishes and the spirits would would eat that food so those are practices even though you're not maybe active in the ceremonies the young people can be putting in their home to honor those you left if you start feeding those that left then they're gonna help us with our thinking so that's the keeping of a soul the 7th one is coming of age every 7 years each one of us goes through a change of life in the old days the mothers were the teachers along with the grandmothers the grandmothers were the memory bank the knowledge base they were the ones with that star knowledge but due to colonization and assimilation and that superior colonial thought they wanted to take that knowledge away from us even in the Easter's recorded history where the early Jesuits were blown away with how we lived across the nation we'd pray, we'd get up and pray in the middle of the night we'd pray before the sun come up we'd stop what we're doing and pray in the middle of the day and then we'd also pray in the evening before we went on a buffalo hunt after we went on a buffalo hunt the men we just had to kill the buffalo the women did 99.9% of the work they would garball the meat they would tander the robes they would dry them the meat they would prepare the meat for their homes, their kiewais so the women did all of that work that's why I commend all you women even though you didn't grow up like that your ancestors lived that way so that's why in any of my ceremonies my sweat lodge I talk to these young men about being honorable and respectful to the women that's where I do most of my teaching you're just getting an overview of what I do and how I do it and why I do it so every seven years whether it's boy or girl we go through change of life usually at about 48 you've been through all your changes and you better come to terms with all of your shortcomings for if you don't then your home, your kiewais always going to be weak residential school there's lots of gossiping and backbiting that's how our reserves run today my band office is like your band office there's total chaos lots of gossiping backbiting every two years we go through political differences there's fighting my kiewais is the same as yours that hand, that colonization and imprinting has reshaped who we are what we are, how we are all across Canada here Turtle Island in the United States they're the same in our band offices, in our schools in our healthcare nobody has gone back to a traditional way of life other than a few families we all have creation stories within our teepees the grandmothers and the grandfathers would share creation stories some of them had we checkies Nanabush ours is Hikdomini and Shugamani to Spire and the coyote told us to do's and don'ts this one here the Panjia theory I may not be saying that right but we had believed in our world view the earth was half land and half water the washiichos didn't want to claim that that's their theory we knew that that earth was half land and half water but once you all the practice saying Onchimaka Onchimaka grandmother earth or mother the earth all life was brought to us through the spirit of a woman Onchimaka sent out warnings to the people to the coyote that's the people so Onchimaka sent out warnings to behave because people started coordinating we started getting mad we started gossiping we started boring Onchimaka was giving warnings to the coyote to the people behave for if you don't you all will pay but there were some that would listen to this natural environment they talk about the environment being our teacher how many of us live on our concentration camps or reserves there's a few of us live on our reserves that's really what they work if you don't understand what's disruption I'm talking about I do blanket exercise and all this land was bought and stoned beneath our feet so there's really more to it than that we don't have time for that but coming back to this Pangea theory the earth sent out warnings up to four times and then finally she got fed up and those that listened come inside she called them in their mother in their womb and she shook and she belched and she shook and she belched and then the continent started to separate but if you ever put these continents together they'll come together like a puzzle and we could make half but the creator that's his Onchimaka that was her warning to the people so that was how the continents were formed and for a long time I want you all to practice it Mitakoye Mitakoye Oyasan so when you would say Mitakoye Oyasan that's all of my relations but when you become a fluent speaker say Mitakyasan you can cut vowels so that's a short prayer in itself meaning that you understand you're related to all of creation Say Tatanka Oyate Buffalo Nation Hey Hakka Oyate Elf Nation Fish Oga Oyate Now this is going to be a tongue twister Kis Pagunta Tanka Oyate Pagunta Tanka The second one was a flood it wasn't just the Catholics and what happened in Europe all the nations endured some hardship again the people got along for the longest time we didn't more we got along we traded we'd go steal horses and we'd steal women somebody would come and steal our women and our horses so there was taboo to interbreed it was taboo to marry anything closer than third cousin not like Europe where Europe they're marrying their first cousin they want to keep that blue blood that royalty in our nation it was taboo to interbreed so a lot of long ago those people got along for the longest time after that Pangea theory when the earth separated but in their second natural disaster again the people started quarreling as we say again our mother the earth sent out warnings behave or if you don't I'm going to have to send out a reminder so as they got away from that beginning of that creation story and people stopped listening the second creation story is she put a mass flood all of you say mini sota plenty of water mini sota lots of resources lots of richness there so they didn't have to come out and that pipe that we used we prayed with the pipe this morning that bowl is the flesh and blood of our ancestors that wouldn't listen so there was a mass flood there's a quarry there and that's where that pipe comes in such a good way so that was the flesh and blood of our ancestors so that's our second natural disaster as I was telling you my late wife was a well known educator she went on a science fair up to Northwest Territories and over in the Northwest Territories they found out Dakota pottery and arrowheads DNA and mohawks the continent was different where we are here was an ancient swamp so she got a picture an arrow an aerial photograph and I wish I would have kept that because when you held it up you'd see the Pahinchi Laskaw the white buffalo cap she brought that pipe here because there was great change coming to our nations that's way before she choose or the moonyash come to our islands we were talking about the Pahinchi Laskawi and their teachings their creation stories I'm coming to share with you because these are the knowledge I go back I go out when I was a young man acquiring these things I worked in child welfare I've worked in justice I've worked in education I've also worked in health so along the way I've been blessed with many good things so these are the things I come to learn from watching my wife I can only speak of what I had I don't have that today she was the nurture she was the teacher and she also took care of the T.Y.A. took care of the home and even us when we're sick this is how much richness I had at one time and as I cross over to the male's roles that's why in sweat lodge I always tell these young men how important these females are to us that we respect them we take care of them so you young men if you're not married, when you go out to look you know, make sure you know what you're getting involved with same thing with you young women make sure you know the homes that you're attracted to watch their behaviors of their parents how are they are they drinking or doing drugs they might leave you in a bad way even us men we have to watch the Nuias are our weakness the two weakness for man is many we choni le mokka that water is sacred it gives us life and the Nuias and for the women it's the other way around it's water and men so we have to be respectful to each other take care of each other share knowledge so I was teasing this young one at the back I was asked to go to Toronto and many of our young people will come back to our kiosk fires, our reserves unless it's a funeral many of them are growing up in these urban jungles someone of I was in Toronto, they had a sweat lodge on top of a building I said, wow, I don't want to go in there so then they took me to a house it was in the backyard there's street lights all over so people are doing what they can to adapt the sweat lodge they'll never leave those places and we got to realize those are our relatives that's why I ended up going over there because they come up to Sundance and they looked on and they wanted to know if I could come speak to our youth so having said that I'm glad to be speaking to the youth here it was just to create an awareness and with awareness comes change of thought like I started talking about in my sermon at the beginning of my presentation I'm not even a ceremony I'll get a red jet top having said that I just wanted to thank you for your time and hope you take what I said and use it only in a good way for your children your grandchildren help them, they're going to help them