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Um We want to warmly welcome Doctor Cheryl Bear. Give thanks for her presence at these lectures. It is an honor to hear you speak and to actually get to introduce you. Doctor Bear is from the

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N Watton First Nation. She's also a multi award winning singer and songwriter, right? Sharing her knowledge uh through her gifts of singing and uh songwriting. So she shares about indigenous life through these gifts.

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She's a renowned speaker on the, on behalf of indigenous peoples in Canada. Uh She serves on the Faculty of Regent College in Vancouver and has traveled to over 600 indigenous communities in Canada to share her gifts

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. She also holds workshops in non native communities to raise awareness for non natives so that we can grow in our understanding. So thank you for doing that . Um The patience and love that that also takes

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, she holds a doctorate degree from the King's University of Los Angeles, a Master of Divinity degree from Regent College in Vancouver, and a Bachelor of Arts from Pacific LEC Life Bible College in Surrey British Columbia

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. She is the founding board member of N A I I T S, an indigenous learning community. We thank you most of all for who you are and being here and sharing that with us. So

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welcome. Oh, my goodness. I'm so thrilled to be here. Thank you so much for the kind invitation and for making up so much nice stuff about me and thank you also so much. I

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am overwhelmed with the beautiful welcome from uh Golden Eagle . I am so grateful to meet you, Chair , Carl Paci, mother Navajo, wife Flo. My goodness, it's uh it's such an honor.

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And as I told him on the break that uh um uh one of my main elder elders and mentors was uh just recently passed away. Um It was Brian Break. He was a Takao Apache and he

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was uh he was um uh well, he was kind of mean to me because he was because, you know, we're native and that's our kind of humor and we think it's really funny. It's a

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little bit grade three, but we uh we, we have a lot of fun and I remember one Powell Larkspur uh Colorado years ago. And um uh he uh he introduced me and he was going on

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and on about how I was like, what are you doing? Because we don't, we don't kind of gush about each other like that. And he's about 20 years older than me. And at the

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end of the thing he goes and Cheryl is also my mom. I was like, ok, So that's our, that's our sense of humor. So I right away, felt a kinship with my,

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my brother, Golden Eagle and I got invited to a Pow. Wow. Yes. So, uh , that's gonna be this weekend. I think that's gonna be fun. Uh, so, um,

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so how do so, uh, Sheryl Bear Lee . N was De Den Lee. My name is Cheryl Bear and I'm from the beautiful village of Nat what? Den First Nation, which is located about

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um close to the geographical center of British Columbia. I'm from the Bear clan. We are people of the pot latch and people of the pot latch often um or always are connected to salmon and the salmon

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run is a really big uh important part of our um our community. Um And I would, um I'm so grateful for the opening prayer of our elder . And uh I would like to uh start uh

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my, my time with um a prayer as well . And this song um that I'm gonna sing is just a very short song and it, it doesn't have any um any, any words, no translatable

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words. Uh It's, it's called a chant. Uh And some, you know, folks call it um vocables and different things, but it um even though it doesn't have any, any translatable words,

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it represents the deepest cry of our heart. And so whatever is on your heart right now, whatever that deepest cry is, whatever um changes are going on whatever is um maybe troubling you or maybe even

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giving you joy, all of those things we will lift up to um we'll put these, these, these feelings and these emotions onto, onto this chant and this chant will go up to creator, right

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? Where? Yeah. Um Wait, hey, with ah I know. Um Wait, hey, yeah, wait, when, where I I I and, and a please Simon. Oh, also

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, I'd like to thank Golden Eagle for gifting me downstairs with the, the, uh, tobacco. Thank you for that. This is a very sacred thing to many, many first nations and it's,

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it's a great honor to not only have you here but to be gifted by you. And, and thank you also for, um, uh, all that, all your service and all that you do

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for veterans. So I would, oh, before I start, um, I would like to say that we were, uh, we were on, I looked it up there is a, a website

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called Native Dash Land and I don't know if it's dot C A I didn't, I just hit the , as soon as it popped up, I hit the, the go and if you go to native

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, you can look at your phones if you want to native, uh, dash, uh, land dot S dot I think dot C A. And if you can, you can pop in what city

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you're in, what city you're from, or what city you live in? What city? You were born in all of that in, in Canada and the United States. And it will tell you whose

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traditional territory you're on, traditional indigenous territory you're on . And I read, I'll try to get this , this work. First two, right? Romanos and Ka Wean. And uh those are two.

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And then the, also the kamachi and the Lipan Apache and I have another elder. That's a good friend of mine who's Lipan Apache that lives uh quite a bit south from here. But that's, I'd

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like to thank the people of this land for letting us do our business here and for um uh um yeah, for, for having us here on this land and, and making this land so beautiful.

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Yeah. So I am, I told you I'm from Nale, what done first nation. And I , I didn't tell you anything about um myself other than that. And when I introduce myself, wherever

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I go, that's all I will say about myself is um I'm Cheryl. And the best thing you can ever say about me is, oh, Cheryl's that not like girl, I mean old girl now

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, maybe but you know, uh that not like girl. And um and that's because we, as indigenous people, we identify ourselves not by our role in um uh in any organization or whatever. We

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, we identify ourselves by land. So I will , I don't find my sense of identity in uh my job. That's uh that it's not what defines me. I, I love all of the,

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the, the jobs and the roles that I have been able to um to uh work on and the folks that I get to work with, but I am first and foremost, not leu and not le

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um not le was that I am from not. And one of the first questions that we ask each other when we're indigenous is, is not, you know, maybe what's your name? Maybe. And

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then, but we never say, what do you do? Uh And that's usually the second question because that's very important to North Americans and people everywhere. But we ask, where are you from? And

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that's kind of a tricky question because I remember in um when I was in seminary, I, I met um uh a beautifully uh Chinese woman. I knew that she obviously was very, was Chinese.

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She was very beautiful and uh just getting to know her. And I said, um I said, where are you from? And she looked at me like, and, and she said, Calgary and

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it's in Alberta, it's like one of our big cities in Canada. And I was like, oops , like I knew right away. I had made a mistake because this is uh she was a third

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generation immigrant. So this is not a question, you know, and so I was like, right away. But she said, and they have a big, like Calgary Stampede is a big famous thing

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. So when she said Calgary and she looked a little offended at me. I said, so you're a cowgirl. And, and she started, she laughed and she said yes. And, and we

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kind of smooth and, and we're still friends to this day. It's 20 something years and we're still really good friends today. Thank God for that. Um, but I didn't mess that up that badly

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. But see, to her, that question is couched in, has been asked in different ways, has been asked with like racist undertones, of course , right? And that, and it's a mean

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question to someone for her. But for me, this question is really integral because when I ask uh um Golden Eagle to say, where are you from ? And that's the first question. And he says

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uh Chira Apache and I'm like, oh San Carlos , oh my n my and I right away know his people and I right away know a little bit about him. Mother's Navajo. Oh my goodness.

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I have some friends who are from the same clan as him. The bitter water was it is your mother's clan. And, and, and so I right away feel at home and I can call him

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brother. And that is that kinship that we have , that we share that value. The very um well, probably our top value for indigenous people is creator, first of all. And that's why we

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start everything we do with prayer. Uh I worked on um in my community, first nations community, as we say in Canada reservation, you'll say here . Uh I worked for um three terms for six

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years as um as a councilor. Um And I always say not the kind of councilor that cares for people, but like a city council, like a political councilor. That's a bad joke. But um

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um so I worked, I care about people but I work so on chief and council in my community and it's an elected position and excuse me, sorry , I'm gonna have to take this. Mm That's

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an elected position. And we had um often we would have um negotiations with oil companies and like worldwide like multimillion dollar oil companies and, and of course , every level, every branch of government in Canada

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, we had to meet with them about all kinds of different land discussions and um different things. And I remember there was one time where uh you know , the, you know, the business community,

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they're very on all of these things. And the president of the, one of these very rich companies said, OK, we're going to start this meeting , blah, blah, blah, here's the agenda

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. And an elder said, stop. And I don't think the CEO had ever been stopped before. So I, I kind of enjoyed it, the look on his face. So, excuse me and

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uh this, my elder said, we have to pray and so we all stood up and the elder uh my elder prayed in our language and then said , OK, we can carry on with the agenda

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now. And so from then on, we've asked that um that prayer is on the agenda and we insist that it's on the agenda. And so it doesn't matter if it's a school, if it's a

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gathering in places where they say, you know, we don't have any religion here, you know, and in Canada, some schools will say that elementary schools, high schools, universities, some, some

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, well, you know, we just, we , we don't wanna offend anyone and they'll know I'm , I was a pastor or worked in the church and different things. And, uh, and so

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they, they say, uh play is nothing religious . And I say, well, if I cannot pray, then I can't be here because it's, it's a part of our culture. It's a part

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of our traditions. And so if, you know , uh and, and then they'll sort of, uh uh uh and, and allow it. So that's, um, I thought that was kind of

00:13:13.510 - 00:13:26.160

cool that, uh we could get away with that in a very, very, and, and much more secular, like secular uh um communities. So the question, where are you from? It's a

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really, it's, it's a, it's a big , big thing to us. And I have um , said before, I've heard this before and I've said it many times that I am the land and

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the land is me. And so when we say that we're from uh first nations community, we're connected to, to land. It's a, it's a really important, important thing and it's something that um

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that I love explaining to folks, non indigenous folks because I know that there is um there is this uh really big misunderstanding of, of land and the land issues that we had um this very isolated community

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. It's a fly in community only and it was um it's called Attawapiskat. It was up in Northern Ontario and you can go in, in the um you can drive it in the winter on the ice

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roads. But um summertime it's inaccessible and they were having some trouble with some different things. And um and then so a lot of people said, oh , we heard this from a few different people.

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Why don't they just move to Toronto? And we were as indigenous people. We were just appalled like , like that's not the answer. Like, you know, we had um they would have had so

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many traditions of relying on the land that were taken away or that were um scraped away by uh um by political will. And uh and so it's, it's sort of like, no, no, no

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, something needs to be made right here. No , we don't have to move these people from their traditional land. We need to make things right. And there's a lot to be said about land in

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the Old Testament. It's really important as one of the major themes and So I feel like I'm, and of course, modern themes which I will not go there. Um Because I don't quite understand all

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of that and I would um but I do know from my perspective um how, how I can talk about Nale. So my mom was born in uh old wooden kind of a shack in Nale. She

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was born on the land by midwives who would have been uh taking care of her. And my dad was born in uh what would become East Germany and he was born in 1936 um in uh in the

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village and he was born in his, his house and we still have a picture of the old house in a tiny, tiny little town, little village , I guess called Notley or called Notley. Jee

00:15:43.210 - 00:15:58.050

. No, called guys more. Sorry, get my dad's uh mixed up. So um so they both come from very, very humble beginnings. And uh my uh yeah. And so, but I

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am, my dad came to Canada and his family is all in, in Germany and I've, I've met them since of course, uh different times in my life. But I was raised primarily really close

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to um to my indigenous community. And so the values of my mom and the values of our people are very ingrained in me. But I do like a good Schnitzel though. So, and, and

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I do like speaking at Mennonite churches as well because uh like we're indigenous. So Mennonites, they get all our cousin jokes. So, uh anyway, we have a lot of good cousin jokes. Uh

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So the land and the land of Nole has shaped me. And uh as there's a river that runs through, through the village and it's called the Nale River. It used to be known as the shortest

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river in the world because it's quite wide. And as I was growing up, I would be laying in my um in what I call my room, it's still my grandpa's house, it's still my room

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. My auntie lives there. Uh still and they used to have this wispy um chiffon, it was just old, this old curtain and we'd have the window wide open as we could because it was so

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warm there and the wind behind the it would be uh flowing through the, the trees in the back of my grandpa's house would be making this beautiful noise . And then I could hear also the rapids from

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the river, which was if you had a really good arm, it's a stone's throw away from grandpa's house like a good arm and I would fall asleep . I would be laying in bed looking up at

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the window and that chiffon um curtain would, would blow in and blow out and, and, and blow and then blow out and it was just beautiful and I just would hear those sounds and I would

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fall asleep to that uh that sort of magic in my life. And there were, there were struggles as well. Of course, indigenous communities, we do have a lot of struggles. My, my

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late friend, Brian Bryco would say my Apache friend would say we, we leave the country and everything bad. And that's uh you know, we have uh some of the highest percentages of folks who are

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incarcerated, highest. Um And in, in Canada , of course, we are um the majority of the folks that fill up the soup lines and these different things. So we do have our, our

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struggles and I say that um the, the struggles that we have are because of colonization and the difficulties that of course, that still exist with us there . So, back to my room at Grandpa's house

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and listening to the river, the, the beauty of that sound and, and that I heard in my life, um I didn't know until I started working in um um politics there that I heard more

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of the story. And actually earlier on my mom told me the story, I moved, I moved to um California to plant a church with my um uh then husband and, and my, my three

00:19:03.670 - 00:19:12.720

boys. And when I was moving away, I was like, oh, I'm gonna be so far away from Nale. It's, it was gonna be um over 30 hour drive to go back all the

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way up to Nad. And so I went down to the river and those rapids were always significant to me. I always felt like when I fell asleep to that sound, I always felt like they were

00:19:22.450 - 00:19:32.130

, they were, they were talking to me. There was, they were trying to say something to me and I was always trying to listen and trying to figure it out my whole life. Um And

00:19:32.140 - 00:19:42.410

, and so when I went to California in 2006 , I think I um went down to the river and I hauled up a rock that I could manage and carry. And I got my boys to help

00:19:42.420 - 00:19:52.050

me and we put it in the back of the van. And my cousins came down to the river and they're like Cheryl, what are you doing? And I was like, I need some of the

00:19:52.060 - 00:20:02.050

, some of monopoly to be with me in California because I'm gonna be so far away from home and , and I thought it's gonna be so hard. And uh and they just laughed at me that I

00:20:02.060 - 00:20:15.510

was bringing rocks to California. So I got two rocks out of the, out of the river and brought them and it turns out um I found in Los Angeles, a really wonderful indigenous community. There's

00:20:15.520 - 00:20:26.950

um there's a powwow every weekend in, in Los Angeles. There's been, you know, all of these little cities, Santa Clarita and Long Beach. They all have pow. So you can, every

00:20:26.960 - 00:20:37.390

weekend except for like maybe Thanksgiving or Christmas. You can, you can go to A P and it's , it's an amazing, amazing community. So I did have a lot of, I did have a

00:20:37.400 - 00:20:47.320

lot of support and it's an interesting thing as indigenous people. I sometimes like places I go to. That's um it's not very multicultural. And so if I see one other native person, I'm just sort

00:20:47.330 - 00:20:57.460

of like, we just sort of grab on to each other and we become like family, you know , because it's um there's, there's um a lot of times where you was it Gabor Mate um in

00:20:57.470 - 00:21:10.100

his books about um when the body says, no , he talks about anticipated um racism and stuff when you go into a place and you're, it, it can even be like a um corner store.

00:21:10.110 - 00:21:18.780

And if you walk into that situation and you anticipate racism or rejection, your body will start to react , your, your blood pressure will go up, different things will happen. As, as people of

00:21:18.790 - 00:21:30.980

color, we experience these things almost every door that we walk through. So it's good to see to have uh people that we feel really comfortable about and you guys have really made me feel comfortable here.

00:21:30.990 - 00:21:45.060

I'm really grateful for that. Um But as Gabor Mate says, going into a simple grocery store or gas station, if your body reacts and you're anticipating uh racism and even if it doesn't happen, your

00:21:45.070 - 00:21:53.630

body is still experiencing all those things, your blood pressure is raising your all of those things happen within your physio. And even though your mind is kind of like, ok, whew, that was,

00:21:53.640 - 00:22:06.570

that was fine. I made it, your body still reacts. And so one of the things that is um unknown about indigenous people in Canada and the United States is that um we have um a shorter

00:22:06.580 - 00:22:23.300

life expectancy as a whole group. We have at least 10 years um uh less to live than um the average American and Canadian and listening to doctor towns this morning. Uh th those things when I hear

00:22:23.310 - 00:22:34.230

that when I've, all of the things that I've learned about over my lifetime, those things make me really angry, really angry that our indigenous people have this, we have our lives cut short and,

00:22:34.240 - 00:22:48.160

and, and things like diabetes are epidemic amongst our people because sugar was introduced and, and we, you know, you can, you can kind of like think about indigenous people as sort of this ancient

00:22:48.170 - 00:22:57.600

people and all of these things happened and, you know, like history and it's way back in the history books and it's not, it's not real today . Um But in where I'm from, in British

00:22:57.610 - 00:23:12.030

Columbia, my grandpa who passed away when I was in my early thirties, his parents would have um seen the first uh white people that came into our community. Like that's how close in history we are

00:23:12.330 - 00:23:23.920

to um um to uh you know, meeting the first, having the first newcomers come to the land where, where we're from on the west coast of co east coast is different, of course. Uh

00:23:23.930 - 00:23:33.400

But still we still on the east coast. Um Maintain, I have friends here. We still maintain all, all of those traditions and we still have all of those stories, all of those, those

00:23:33.410 - 00:23:47.830

things. Um So that river the not, oh , by the way, I have, I have no concept of time. So, uh, so , so somebody's gonna need to tell me when to

00:23:47.840 - 00:23:56.160

stop and it's uh, ok. And if I don't see the hand or whatever, if you could throw something at me, like not something heavy but maybe like a cookie. And uh that would be

00:23:56.170 - 00:24:06.120

really great. Just let me know when uh, when it's time to stop. Yeah, you might need to do like some like airport flagging of that stuff for me. Yeah, because uh I'll just

00:24:06.130 - 00:24:18.120

like ignore you and just keep going. Just kidding unless I get the cookie. Uh So, so when I was, um, when I was young , uh my, um, my mom, she

00:24:18.130 - 00:24:26.440

uh, she married my dad and then they moved an hour and a half to um, Prince George , which was a larger city. I don't have my glasses on, dude. I can't read that

00:24:27.500 - 00:24:41.330

. I'll do the Bingo Squint aunties. We do the Bingo Squid when you can't read. Ok. Thank you. Sorry for being so not serious. Let's get my serious back. On. So.

00:24:41.560 - 00:24:48.830

But, ok, so when, when, when I was young, my, um, my, when my, when my mom married, my dad moved to Prince, which is, um, largely

00:24:48.840 - 00:24:57.740

back then, um, nonindigenous people. So, and it was like, there was the white people and Indians and that was, it, there was , there's no other culture up there. And when

00:24:57.750 - 00:25:07.560

I was in my teens, um, there was the first, um, African Can, uh, Canadian person and I was just like, wow, like I just, I've only ever seen you on

00:25:07.570 - 00:25:15.110

TV. It was really dumb. And I was so embarrassed that when I was growing up later, I was like, that was the dumbest thing you could ever said. But anyway, so really not

00:25:15.120 - 00:25:26.820

a lot of culture like our culture and then non indigenous people. And there was, of course, because the proximity, the closer you are in proximity that the more the racism there is. So it

00:25:26.830 - 00:25:41.280

was really tough growing up. And I was born in 1968. Um And uh in 1970 in the closest town, bigger town from where my mom's um community is. Where, where, oh my,

00:25:41.290 - 00:25:52.390

my, where not play is our community is. They were still in the early seventies signs in doors of businesses that said no Indians allowed. And so my mom would have had little Cheryl and my brother

00:25:52.400 - 00:26:02.920

, my older brother Paul, uh little Paul. She would have been walking in Vander Hoof and she would have had to pass by some of those places and I, I don't have any memory of that

00:26:02.930 - 00:26:11.730

, of course, but I would have been, you know, three or four when those things were still happening. And I can't even believe that that's something that would be happening in my lifetime because we

00:26:11.740 - 00:26:26.940

, again, we sort of think about those things as just sort of like the ancient past. The Natalie River shapes my life so deeply that every body of water I jump into, I will, it's

00:26:26.950 - 00:26:37.820

the ocean, the lake, uh, a swimming pool, whatever I will, um, you know , start swimming, you know how they're supposed to , they teach you in whatever. But then I'll

00:26:37.830 - 00:26:48.460

always turn over on my side and I will start to just do this pull with my, with my right arm and I'll start swimming like I'm swimming towards the shore of the Nale River. And we,

00:26:48.470 - 00:26:56.020

we have a, this always makes people go. Wow, that's really cool because I, we, we have a sort of a rite of passage where we jump off the bridge in Notley. And it

00:26:56.030 - 00:27:04.850

always sounds like that's really cool. It's not very , probably the highest the ceiling to the floor here is that, that's pretty high. But, um , you have to go and you'd have to swim

00:27:04.860 - 00:27:12.400

post to post and then you have to swim back before you could jump off the bridge. But that was one of our, the funnest things we would do. And as your head and the current was

00:27:12.410 - 00:27:25.880

really strong as we headed towards the shore, that was just one of the most beautiful things in my life. The feeling. And so that river has shaped every other situation where I'm in every other body

00:27:25.890 - 00:27:34.440

of water that I'm in. I swim like I'm swimming against the current of the Nale river. And I feel like there's so many other things in my life that where I am in a situation, I

00:27:34.450 - 00:27:45.630

react like I am the s not like girl because the because Nale is just in my, in my blood. Now I found out um when, when I pulled those rocks out of the river, my

00:27:45.640 - 00:27:53.920

mom said, you know those that, that those rapids are fake. I was like, what, what do you mean? Fake? She goes, they were manmade and, and she said when I

00:27:53.930 - 00:28:03.860

was a little girl, I was four years old , we stood on the banks and we watched um a a company, I won't name them but um they put those rapids in, they changed the entire

00:28:03.870 - 00:28:15.280

, they changed the direction of our river if you can believe it. And we have documents, we have photos and my grandpa's house was as, as I said, a stone's throw away and my mom

00:28:15.290 - 00:28:25.590

watched all of these things happen. They stopped the river and the elders of of our community came to the banks of the river, they sat on them because this is the salmon run and this is one

00:28:25.600 - 00:28:37.930

of the most um pivotable places in all of. We have 14 different uh first nations communities or reservations . And Nale is one of them. We have the, the biggest salmon run. So as the

00:28:37.940 - 00:28:49.910

elders sat on the bed, they cried. That just sounds very old testament, doesn't it? And when I heard these stories again, I was so angry, they didn't ask for permission. This company

00:28:49.920 - 00:29:03.780

, the government just came in and they did these things to us. And we're talking now to both of these parties and saying, how could you, why? Um And so as I heard uh uh

00:29:03.790 - 00:29:14.470

the stories of the river and how they changed it and it used to be. So um they used to have this, this um they used to have weirs that they would put for catching salmon. And

00:29:14.480 - 00:29:23.650

my auntie was, was um I think three years old when they changed the river and she says she has memories, uh my mom's younger sister, she has memories of walking across the river like little little

00:29:23.660 - 00:29:32.960

girl, right? She's still tiny. She's well this high, but she remembers walking now that river where like I said, you were jumping off the bridge, we're landing, you can hit, touch

00:29:32.970 - 00:29:47.790

the bottom, but you spring back up and you're flailing against a strong herd in this wide river. They really changed the river. So when I remember thinking that the Rapids were talking to me. I

00:29:47.800 - 00:29:57.980

didn't realize they were screaming. I didn't realize that my grandma who was born there, my mom who was born there, they would have heard silence. They would have only heard the wind in the trees

00:29:57.990 - 00:30:08.860

. And that the sound of the Rapids to them would have been a constant reminder of the injustice of some of the things that happened to our land without our consent, without even consultation. They just did

00:30:08.870 - 00:30:25.440

these things and um and well, I'll finish with this. That's uh when my, when my mom moved to the, you know, Prince George and she, she experienced lots of racism as did I

00:30:25.750 - 00:30:37.770

um uh being one of the only being a little brown kid in the class. Uh and uh and , and so she would go, she got her driver's license pretty quick after she married my dad and

00:30:37.780 - 00:30:51.360

she would go to Nale like for a lot of the summer and lo almost um every other weekend even in the winter. I remember just driving through blizzards , terrified. And you know, I remember,

00:30:51.370 - 00:31:00.830

oh, just, but when we would get to , to the turn off to Notley off the, off the highway 16, it's called the Highway of Tears because there's so many um indigenous women who've gone

00:31:00.840 - 00:31:15.740

missing on that highway. It's um and we're in the middle of that. And so as we turn off, we would drive onto the land and my mom would al like, almost like, literally just

00:31:17.840 - 00:31:26.800

she would sigh and, and I as well being her daughter and, and knowing my mom and all of the things that she went through and all of the stuff, like, just as a kid,

00:31:26.810 - 00:31:37.460

you just sort of, you feel how your parents feel, right? If they're anxious, you feel that as well. And I would always relax as well. So when I got older, when I

00:31:37.470 - 00:31:45.720

moved there, actually, when I was working there for those six years on council, I moved in with my aunties in the basement and I thought, I wonder if that feeling is gonna go away that

00:31:45.730 - 00:31:53.830

every time I drive onto the land into our tra traditional territory that, oh, I'm home free. You know, I made it and I, it never went away. I always felt that way as

00:31:53.840 - 00:32:02.610

soon as we crossed, uh, we took the turn off and went into Notley and as I got older and I thought, you know, is it because I know all of the people I know where

00:32:02.620 - 00:32:14.290

everybody lives. There's 300 people on the res, there's 300 people who live off the res and I know everybody and most of them are my cousins. This is why we have so many cousin jokes because

00:32:14.300 - 00:32:24.930

they're like, oh, there's a cute boy. That's your cousin. Oh, sorry, sorry mom . Sorry. Auntie. Um, and so I , I wonder, did I like, I know

00:32:24.940 - 00:32:32.690

everyone here. I know there are houses. I know where I'm safe. I know where to go . All my, you know, my close relatives . Uh, and I thought, hm, no

00:32:32.700 - 00:32:42.380

, I don't think it's that, I think it's the, it's the land now we have a, we have a, a value as well that wherever we are as indigenous people, and I tell my

00:32:42.390 - 00:32:50.750

boys, wherever I am in the world, uh , in all my travels, if I pass away somewhere outside of Nutley, you have to bring me back home. I have to be buried on the

00:32:50.760 - 00:33:00.730

land. And that's one of our values. And so, and we also have this um in Canada , we haven't had a whole lot of relocation. Um There's uh there is, there is quite a

00:33:00.740 - 00:33:10.640

bit but not maybe as much as in the United States or dislocation, I guess I should say. So we say we've been on the land time immemorial . It's gone out of memory. How long we've

00:33:10.650 - 00:33:21.030

been on the land. And so I think that and, and if we're, we're brought back to the land to be buried, then in a very real scientific way, the land is made of my

00:33:21.040 - 00:33:34.110

ancestors. And as I drive onto that land, I feel like not only do I feel like I'm home, I feel like the land is saying uh my girl, you're home and the land welcomes me

00:33:34.120 - 00:33:47.080

. And I feel this tingly right now just thinking about that connection to land. How much I always miss that land. And um also just, and some of you might um ancestors kind of like,

00:33:47.700 - 00:34:00.910

it's kind of wake some people out a little bit . Uh And my um one of my mentors is a, a Mima elder um from Pe I uh Prince Edward Island in Canada. And he always says

00:34:00.920 - 00:34:12.030

, I'm gonna make this word ancestors. OK, for you, right? You know you Christians right now. He says, let's just say the great cloud of witnesses, everybody relaxes. So uh and

00:34:12.040 - 00:34:20.520

with that, I'd like to close. Thank you for letting me talk about Nale so much. And thank you for, I have not shared a scripture . I have not talked theology. I'll do a

00:34:20.530 - 00:34:31.170

little bit more of that in my next uh lecture . But um I think that you could hear and I'm trusting that you guys have heard the interweaving of story of biblical story and indigenous story. Thank you