Golden Eagle. Yellowstone National Park. Courtesy of the National Parks Service. www.nps.gov
Robert Four Star
with Robert Four Star
Robert Four Star::
Speaks in Assiniboine language
Music:
Grandmother’s Lamb
Delphine Tsinajinne
Mother’s World
Canyon Records
Arlie Neskahi:
On today’s Turtle Island Storytellers Robert Four Star tells a story from his mother who shortly before her passing sang a song to the eagles.
Four Star:
Okay. Let me share with you what I grew up with. I was fortunate as a young man to be raised in a traditional closed society. And as we grew up we spent time, summers with our grandparents. We spent time with ah, others of our relatives. That’s all they spoke was Assiniboine so fortunately we, we spoke our language.
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Placating the Spirit of a Slain Eagle. Photo by Edward S. Curtis.
My grandparents would come down ah, come and stay with us ah, if it was Grandpa us boys each took turns spending the day with Grandpa. The elders would come into our house. They would always sit on the floor, as they had no use for chairs and tables. They would lay their blanket and bedroll down there. We were there at the beck and call of either Grandpa or Grandma. That’s the way we were raised. That’s teaching respect for our elders.
The name Assiniboin is an Ojibwa word which means “People Who Cook with Stones.” And we have stories and traditional stories of our people is that ah, we are tied to the Big River Assiniboines, those who lived east of St. Louis. They were mound, mound builder people. We’ve been in this Montana area here. This last time I think we came out here, I’m guessing in the thirteen hundreds, and we’ve been here since then.
The Assiniboin people call the Red Bottom people Hudesa. And Hude is the lower end, it’s the root. The Red Root people is what they are. And at one time they were the keeper of all of these roots for all the bands of the people, you know, for medicines or whatever, whatever the reason.
Woman's Costume and Baby Swing - Assiniboine. Photo by Edward S. Curtis.
We roamed everywhere. We have stories of the Grand Canyon. We have stories of this big ocean up west over here. We have stories of some people coming in down into the Great Lakes area, that they were riding in these big boats. They had hides or cloth hanging from their boats and they took some of our people back with them. We look at history now, they must be Norwegians.
And then we have stories of dealings with Hudson’s Bay in Canada. We have some of our people that are another band of the Assiniboine, the White Oak people from north of Edmonton.
We have stories of our association with the Cree people. We have stories of our people where ah, our relations with the people of the long houses, which is the Iroquois and what have you up above the Lakes area. So the history goes back quite a ways.
Our people have been here on the north side of this Missouri. This is our wintering grounds. We scatter south and north, whatever, but we always come together here and, and ah, this is where we winter in the trees for our animals and, and for our people so that they’re in a safe place. Because you get up on the plains in a blizzard, nobody will survive, okay.
Music:
Soaring
Coyote Oldman
Rainbird
Coyote Oldman Music
I will share with you a little story.
About two weeks before my mother left us. I said, I went to her apartment and I said, “Mom, how are you feeling?” She had lost eyesight in one side because of diabetes and she had limited eyesight on the other.
I said, “Do you want to go see the eagles?”
And she said, “Sure, my boy.”
So we dressed her warm and put her in my car and we went over there. And there’s this one tree that they all sit in. I pulled right in there and she said, “Are they here?”
And I said, “Yes.”
She said, “You brought tobacco?”
I said, “Yes.”
She said, “Well, you put your tobacco out. Then I’m going to sing for them.”
And so I went and put the tobacco out and they were looking at me, you know. “What’s this crazy guy doing down there?” So I put the tobacco out and I thanked them for letting my mother see them. And letting her sing the song to them and what have you. And thank you for watching over us and all the other things that we pray for.
When I got back in, my mother said, “Okay, now I’m going to sing this song and now you listen to me.”
So she sang this song and then she got done, she said, “Did I sing it right?”
I had never heard that song before. I said, “Yes.”
So she said, “I’ll sing it one more time for you.” So she sang it. And she said, “Okay, did you learn it?”
I said, “Yes.”
She said, “Now it’s your turn to sing it.”
And what this song says is ah, “Just pray, wherever you go the Creator will hear you. Our father, the Creator will hear you.”
And she said, “Now as you travel, you’re always announcing for people. You could use this song Anywhere and you always tell the people, “If you can learn this song, show respect wth it, sing it. It’s for everybody. Just pray wherever you go. Our Father, the Creator will hear you.”
And so she said, “Now, you sing it.”
So I, I said, “Okay, I’ll sing it, Mom.” And so thanked the Creator for letting her share that with me, and I said, I don’t want to ah, offend anybody. I’ll sing this song. So I sang that song. And it goes:
Indu wacekiye uwo He Ate wani agabiktenoyo yo Ya ehaya he heya haya yo Ya ehaya hau heyo heyo heyo
Indu wacekiye uwo He Ate wani agabiktenoyo yo Ya ehaya he heya haya yo Ya ehaya hau heyo heyo heyo
Indu wacekiye uwo He Ate wani agabiktenoyo yo Ya ehaya he heya haya yo Ya ehaya hau heyo heyo heyo
He mitugasawanoabi
(Speaks in Assiniboin)
I said, “That’s all I can do, and I thanked them. And that same song, there’s other words in there they said, “Whenever you talk about the Creator, Creator will hear you. Even though the Creator is a long ways away, the Creator will hear you.”
Neskahi: Robert Four Star is an Assiniboine elder and storyteller from Wolf Point, Montana.