John Cox- Waccamaw Storyteller

Partial Transcript: There was a story that my great grandmother told me. I was about five years old. At that time, I remembered it, but I forgot. And then my mother reminded me, oh, probably when I was around ten. And it goes like this.
Many years ago when legends and myths were starting out and being formed, there was a people living together. There was a chief, and there was a wife of the chief. The wife of the chief had twins, had two little ones. The wife of the chief was appalled at the way they looked, but the chief says, "They are beautiful. They are going to be strong warriors. They're going to grow up and be a great asset to the tribe." As time goes on, they are growing up. They are playing with the other children. But instead of playing in the sense that we know, they are hurting the children. They are taking bites out of the children. And as they are growing up, they're becoming more and more grotesque. The people of the tribe are saying, "They are ugly. We have to do something about them. They are hurting the other children." The wife says the same thing. The chief says, "No. They are beautiful. They are going to grow up and be great warriors."
Time goes on a little more. Children of the tribe become missing. No one understands. Then someone sees these twins eating children. They keep growing. They keep growing. They keep hurting the people. The people of the tribe say, "We have to do something. We'll take them into the woods and do away with them." The chief says, "No, they'll grow up and be great, great warriors." They keep growing. They keep growing, and now they are very big. And they are grabbing the older ones and eating them. As it goes on, they get very big, but they cannot move fast. They are slow and clumsy. But the people did not know what to do. So they realized we have to just stay away from them. We can move faster than them. They can't hurt us now, but the older ones and the ones that can't move real fast become prey to them. So the people did not know how to handle them.
The people start praying, and they are praying what to do, what to do. We need help. And the help comes. The Great Spirit says, "We have to do something." So the Great Spirit decides it's time for rain. A cleansing. And the Great Spirit brings rain. It rains, and it rains, and it rains. As it is raining, it drowns these beasts because they cannot swim. The people have ways of staying on top of the water in their canoes. And as that goes on, it rains a long time. The giants, they drown. And then the people have no place to go. And then a turtle, a turtle comes. And the people say, "Turtle, we need help." The turtle goes to the bottom and starts putting Mother Earth on top of his shell. And as it's putting Mother Earth on top of his shell, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Before long, plenty of land, plenty of land. And the people come, and they get on this land. And as they are living there, they call it Turtle Island. And this is where we are now, this, what you call continent, is Turtle Island. And the Turtle Island spread all around the world, cracked up, cracks up. And all the land masses that you see today come from Turtle Island. This is all I can remember. And this is what I was told.

Partial Transcript: I am a Fire Keeper for the Waccamaw Indian people. I start a fire in the morning—a particular morning—and I keep the fire going night and day. And people come and talk to me about things. And if they need a cleansing, I cleanse them with sage. And I help them know how to go into the fire and take care of the advocacy of the fire circle. I make sure the wood is good and make sure the tribe is safe spiritually as best as I can.
The fire burns continuously for we at a powwow—we used to have it for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. But now they have changed over to just Saturday and Sunday. So it used to be three days we kept the fire going. And traditionally, it should be three days. We have fires on equinoxes and solstices, and it should be three days. We have decided—they have—to have it for one day for people to be able to go on their business as the world has it for them now. The equinoxes and solstices are for to continue the balance of harmony between our Father Sky and our Mother Earth to make sure Father Sky comes up where it's supposed to and to go where it's supposed to and set, goes down. We need this harmony and balance so that we can continue to live here on our Mother Earth. We need to be able to grow our food. We need the substances that we have for us to live. And then the substances that make the next generations are here on our Mother Earth and our Father Sky. And we need those in harmony and balance so that the next generations can be formed and to grow and continue this balance.
Interviewer
How far back do the ashes go that are in that fire?
John Cox
About?
Interviewer
The ashes that are in the fire, how far back do they go?
John Cox
0:11:29.2 Oh, my gosh. There's no telling. Way back. Way back. I have read writings by the English when they came here, they found mounds—fire—I don't know if I should talk about this. They found mounds. But it's written. They found mounds. The people who lived there were long gone. And the trees have grown up all around the mounds now, but smoke was coming out of the mounds. And they looked down, they could see where there was hollow trees that they stuck—people in the past—stuck down, down in there. Tall mountains, taller than these trees. And down at the bottom is burning fire. That was once flat land. And there was where the first fire for those people that lived there. So as time goes on and the Fire Keepers and their helpers are passed away, they bring them into the circle, and they bury them in the circle. And they bring dirt in, Mother Earth in, and cover them. And then they take these hollow trees and they set them down where the fire is. They hollow tree that there. They bury—they bring in Mother Earth, cover that up. They mound now is this high. They put the tobacco down to the fire, down here. The next people pass away, they bury them, bring in Mother Earth and another hollow log. And they keep going, keep going, keep going, till the mounds are as high as these trees. And you came, they saw these mounds. They looked down, and they saw this. Now, I don't know how long ago that was. A long time, but it's called stacking. The Fire Keepers are buried into the fire circle, stacked. People came and destroyed that. They just took it down, didn't think anything of it and found these people buried and didn't think of anything. But that was what it was about for the sun, Father Sky, to continue going south, coming up for the summer, going south for the winter. We need that to continue and going across. And that's the harmony and balance between our Mother Earth and Father Sky to keep us alive.

Partial Transcript: I was a wild boy, very wild. And I mean that wild. I was five years old. I would be out catching rabbits, anything I could grab with my hands. I wanted to just hold them. There were these tall tufts of grass and nothing in between them. And the grass down at the bottom of these tall grass was like this. I saw a rabbit run into one. So I ran over and I stuck my hand in, and I pulled out the rabbit. And I—oh. So every morning, I would go out and I would try. I would just stick my hand. Sometimes I'd pull it out rabbits. Sometimes I didn't pull out anything, but I was lucky because I could have pulled out something that might have bit me bad.
So I'm catching animals and the best I can do now is I learned a barn was being torn—not being torn down. The boards are falling off of it. I would go down—I'd get up before everybody. And I'd flip these boards over, and I'd learn to find snakes. And my uncle was sleeping—I mean eating—in the kitchen with the back door here, the kitchen table over here. I would wake up and go down there, flip these boards over, grab these snakes, run up, run into the kitchen. And I'd say, "Guess what." He would say, "What?" I'd throw the snake in his lap and run out the house and say, "That's what." And I did that, and I did that. And I know why he wasn't worried because if I ever got hold to a bad snake, I would never make it back to the house. (laughter) And no one in the family ever told me to stop catching animals. It's not healthy.
A friend of the family took me and said, "Listen. You have to stop this." So he built this—he showed me how to build a live trap. And we set it up, and we'd catch animals. And he still wouldn't let me go near the live trap until he'd looked in it. And I think that's kind of strange that no one in the family would tell me—show me. It took a stranger to show me. The others were going to wait until I learned the hard way. I learned the hard way. Do not grab the chipmunk. Don't ever grab the chipmunk. They bite. And they don't let go. They bite very hard, don't let go. It was very—it wasn't fun.
Interviewer
Sounds painful.
John Cox
And so I kept—I had different ways. I loved being outside and probably more—time goes on. I had a pet. I called him Moe. I called him Moe. I was about—I was five. I really started that when I was four, catching the animals. But at five, they got the wheelbarrow, filled it up with dirt, put the Moe in it. And I had me a pet. I didn't think about it. A terrible rainstorm came. And filled the wheelbarrow up with water, and Moe drowned. That wasn't nice. I didn't like it, you know, but I had the pet. I learned that the animals do not belong in cages then. And I feel bad now because my wife's mom passed away and left me a bird in a cage, and I don't know what to do with it. I don't think it should be there, but I know it can't come out here. And now my son wants it, so I'm stuck with this bird in a cage that I don't think should be there. And that hurts me very bad.
0:20:42.6 But I did—and as time goes on, I'm trying to find something to grab hold of in my heart. And I had nothing. I did not like the conventional things that people were doing. And I—around seventeen, I started reading about Buddhists. I started reading about Shinto and all kinds of different other ways to go. I was not happy with anything. And I knew there was something out here, out here. And I realized that this Father Sky and Mother Earth, is all we need. We don't need to make up stuff. Everything that we need to—not worship—but to honor and respect is right here. And I realized that. But I still did not know where to go. When I was going to school, I played sports. I get hurt very badly. I go on and try to make a living. I get hurt. I get poisoned very badly. I believe I got poisoned so that I would have time not to be out in the world but time to live the way believe my ancestors lived as closely as I could to that. As time went on, I would become—meet—Earl Many Skins. For eight years, he trains me. And this is what I was looking for. This was what I was looking for. And I guess everybody goes through that some kind of way. They find what they're looking for, and they feel a nice earth—what is it—settling feeling in them. And I had that settling feeling from the fire circle and what I learned and what I respect, spirituality, at the fire circle. I believe the injuries and everything I went through young was leading—the Great Spirit was leading me to the fire circle Earl Many Skins. There was a purpose for everything that I and everybody else—the trees, the animals, the things that crawl underneath our Mother Earth and on top and fly. They all—they experience things for a reason too. The Great Spirit does that. They guide them.
0:24:36.0 And I do not believe in coincidences. I believe there is a purpose and the Great Spirit is making sure that you're going to go on a road that he knows you need to go down. But you don't have to follow it. You have your own will and mind. And sometimes you're going down this road, and you're doing good and uh-oh, something over there is going to want you to go over there. And you go on over there and uh-oh, you're in trouble. You wasn't supposed to go there. You were supposed to be over here. Now, I don't want to get in trouble with some people, but Jesus had the same thing. People come and tempt him, tried to get him off of his road. But he was too much, too much spirit in him. He wasn't going to do that. He knew getting off of his road was not the right thing to do. Sometimes the temptation for us is just too good, too great. And we follow a road that leads us into some bad trouble. So I believe the Great Spirit tries to keep you on that road through some times and injuries and things that we experience that are not good. Those things were to keep us going a certain way. And he drove me to the fire circle. That's how I got there.

Partial Transcript: Oh my. Let's see. They were here in this land that goes south and slightly north, further inland a little bit all the way to the ocean. They were here doing good. People from the north would come down. Very bad things happened. Rapes. But that would go on and on. The English came with diseases and prejudices and pretty much wiped them out. And then they, what was left, went—0:27:43.0 ???(inaudible)—what was left went north, north west. They tied in a little with the Catawba, maybe with the Lumbee. And there they found solitude from another tribe that was a war-like tribe. And this war-like tribe, the English and the Indian, the Native Americans who were there, got together to fight out that war-like tribe. And that war-like tribe went up north and joined with some people up near the Great Lakes.
Interviewer
This the Tuscarora?
John Cox
0:28:50.5 The Waccamaw found solitude. They would probably been totally gone had they not gone up into the Catawba who helped them. And the Catawba took care of them—I believe that's how—and the Lumbee. And then they filtered back down. And what was left—many of them, the story I was told—was a lot of them, when the English come, went up north, went to what is—I think—Illinois, somewhere there and stayed there. And then they filtered down into the plains, is what I hear. That's what I hear. There were Siouan linguists here, and we—some of us think that there's a tie between the Sioux and us based on that legend that they went up into Illinois and down into the plains, and that they had a Siouan speaking way. The ones that filtered back here are the ones that are—from when the English came and they had to go up and stay with the Catawba—came back down and stayed with—and became the tribe we have now. They are trying to bring back their heritage the best they can.

Partial Transcript: What ties me to them? Up in just north of North Carolina, Virginia border—North Carolina, South Carolina border, is where my people come from. I don't know—I cannot—I should not say some things. What I will say is—I don't know how to say this. Someone having—if I say that, then you'll know. Oh my. My great-great-grandfather, he knew the king of England. The king granted him thousands and thousands of acres of land in North Carolina, but it wasn't his really. Well, it was his, but his job was to come here. And when people come to give it to them—well, he gave—that's what he did. That's what he did. He divvied it out to people, but he kept a good part of it himself and gave some to other people in his family when they came. So as time went on a little bit, one of them in my family decided, his white wife, could not keep up with the chores of the house. He left, and he came back with a second wife. And that wife was an Indian. And I don't want to—there was a big problem. I can't tell you more because there's a problem. I can't say more. I can't go on any more. I'll tell you why though, but that is how some Indian got to me. And the Catawba—I mean—when I heard the Waccamaw was forming, I say, "I want to learn more." So I come. The Waccamaw accepted me. And no matter who or what tribe I'm really from, I am Waccamaw. The Waccamaw accept me. When that happens, I am Waccamaw. And that is how I became a Waccamaw. And I came to—I can't tell you anymore.

Partial Transcript: Why is it important? Oh my. To learn. First, it was to learn something about my past, my family's past. Then after awhile, it was to grab my heritage. First it was to learn. Then it's to grab my heritage. And then it became to live my heritage. It was something in my heart that was urging me. There was no logic. It was like why do you go to the water when you're thirsty? It was that kind of thing. And I can't explain that anymore than why you know to go to the water. I was that thirsty to learn my heritage. And now, it is to show the people a heritage that was totally destroyed the best we can because there's so much missing here. We will never know exactly everything that these people here was doing. And the best we can do is to see what other people's heritage near us did and was way back then. What is the word? Assemate (sic)?
Interviewer
Assimilate? Assimilate?
John Cox
0:37:51.9 To see various people a hundred miles, they must have been very close to the way we were. And that's why we are trying to bring back our heritage the best we can.

Partial Transcript: The powwows? The powwows were started at a time when Native Americans were totally just pushed down. They could not practice their beliefs. They could not practice they're spirituality. Someone says, "Well, we're going to do something." And so they have a get-together and—was it—? There was a holiday that the English was celebrating. And I cannot remember what that holiday was. The Native Americans said, "We're going to have our gathering the same day, and we're going to say that we are celebrating their celebrations." But all it really was, was part of their theology, their spirituality. And they were doing their spirituality thing at the same time. The English said, "What you doing?" "We are celebrating what you're celebrating." The English let them alone. As time goes on, people make things. The land is gone, so they were making—they make these beautiful objects. And they try to sell them, but they live so far out that it's very hard to get anywhere to try to sell them. So what they did was this celebration of their spirituality at that time was done at the same time the English was having their celebration. I did know what it was, but what happened was someone said, "Look, we've got people living out. They cannot get what they make. We have to deal with this money thing now. And they can't sell what they make. So we are going to have them come during our celebrations of our spirituality. They can set up, put a mat on the ground, put their things down, and people can come and look and buy." And that was how the powwows got started.

Partial Transcript: Help the tribe. Foremost is it lets people know there's Indians still here and Native Americans have not completely gone away. It makes people understand that even though you're not a full blood, the blood of the Native Americans that does run through your veins is so strong that—because it wants to remember the past that these people are here. And they want to know the past. So the powwow lets the community know there are still people here that have who have that strong blood running through them even though it's not completely pure. That blood is still strong, wanting to pull back. Second, it should—you learn your heritage. You learn there's dancing. You learn how to fix your feathers. You learn how to be in your heart through the fire circle, which has been here on the Turtle Island since time can remember. We have brought that back because people can come and experience something that was here in the past. Our ancestors did this. These people who have that strong blood in them can come and be a part of that. It also—the people who truly make things with their hands, the powwow allows them to be seen and to help them sell what they make with their own hands. You live out here in the woods by yourself, and you make. And you make things—these beautiful things—and no one knows you exist. It is almost as if when they decided to bring people to the first few powwows to sell what they make. And so that is very important for the powwow. And then other tribes and other people can come and show off their dancing and their skills. And that is very important. Basically, it is to show our heritage to the community and let the community know that we are still here.

Partial Transcript: That has to happen. When you think—walk in the woods. Go a quarter mile into the woods and stand there and you think. There was once people here. But some of us have that blood in us. What were they like? We'll never know. We're here. How are we going to know anything? If I'm going to the people closest that have not been completely destroyed and have been able to hold on to as much as what they knew 200 years ago—now, it's probably 250, 260 years ago or more. A little bit more, 300 maybe. Because those people's great-great-great-grandparents held onto what they were taught and they were taught by people who only knew just a fraction of what was here because they were taught by the people who remember. And everything else was gone. So that's handed down 100 miles, 200 miles from here the people that were here. These—all gone. Most of us all gone. So we have to look to other people for help.

Interviewer
But what I was asking is that there's non Indians, people who are not Indians at all who take pieces of Indian culture and do things with that. I just wondered what your feelings were for groups that aren't Indians that do fire circles, who do sweat lodges, or other kinds of things that are really part of your culture. But they do that as their own celebration. Do you understand what I'm saying? There's more and more groups that value what Indians do, and so they take pieces of it. And then they make it part of themselves. Is there a harm in that? Is there a harm in that when a bunch of white people over here are doing their own fire circle even thought they don't have any historical connection to any of that? You know what I'm saying?

John Cox
0:48:33.1 Whatever. That probably happens. That probably happens. There was—I heard stories from older, older people where like the people who come down here, they would just come down here and just take people and slay them. But they also took back with what they wanted that these people did down here that they liked. So they took that back. And there was a very war, very war structure here. Everybody was at war with everybody. Although they were at war with everybody all the time, they were also like something that they're like. They would steal that. That is—when you think about that, that is nothing new. That goes back further so even in European countries there'd be the same thing. Oh my. I lost my though. I lost my thought. I lost my thought.

Partial Transcript: Moundville. Mound—it's just in north of Ellerbe. These people were highly, highly spiritual. They—it was all about the sun. It was all about life. They were gentle people. They were part of the Haliwa. Beautiful things they made. They passed away. Something happened. They just disappeared. And I think that that was the beginning of a revolution here. Less war and less war-like people. What I'm getting at is how the other tribes would take some of their spirituality and were pulling it into them to their own. And that became less war was going on among the people. I believe that was the way people—they didn't want a physical thing that those people were doing. It was more of a spiritual thing that other tribes took from them. Didn't take because if you take something, they don't have it anymore. They borrowed it. That's the word. And I believe that it was the beginning of a more peaceful time. I believe it was a time when people started growing. They're free.

Partial Transcript: Culture and nature come together, oh. When Father Sky comes up, awakens, the people can feel the warmth. The people understood as time went on—I’m going to have to move further away. As time went on, they realized that things come alive. Not really alive. Things, more beauty, comes into the world when Father Sky awakens. Much more beauty. And that beauty comes—happens for us. During the cold months, we hide and try to stay warm. We notice the food sources are not that good. And then when Father Sky awakens, warmth comes into our hearts. We can feel this warmth. And the tree, they must feel that warmth because they bring new leaves that we call these. And the trees seem to come alive again. The grass does growing. Animals start having little ones. We saw all that. And as they saw all this, they had to say, wow, we had to have a connection between what's out here in us. There's a connection. And that connection is Father Sky and Mother Earth. Things grow from on Mother Earth.
Why does stuff start to happen? Because Father Sky awakens. If Father Sky awakens, these things start coming. Animals have little ones. People feel warm. We have to be connected. And as time went on, they realized that Father Sky and Mother Earth, we are made from. The tree grows from the ground. The plants grow from our Mother Earth. Father Sky brings this energy, and the trees come, everything, comes together. We come. We feel it. The tree must feel the same thing we're feeling. The animals feel the same thing. We all feel the same thing, so we all have to come from the same thing. What is here? What is here that we have to—that we could have come from? Right here. The leaves. The air. The heat. The warmth. Everything that's here made us. Everything that's here made this curious little kitty. Everything that's here made the wood that's on that house, the glass, those shingles, the vehicle. Everything that we do, was made here. We have learned to shape it. That is all. We shape things for our own benefit. Well, they were shaping things for their own benefit. Making arrowheads. Cleaning a piece of wood to put it on. All this—the pottery making, shaping our Mother Earth into pot to cook in, to bury our deceased, making a pot for our smudge bowls. We just shape things. And they realized that we are shaped. Something shaped us and took all these things and made us. We are part of this. We are part of the air. We are part of the particles coming from this Father Sky. We are part of everything. Everything is in us.

0:59:04.5 The Great Spirit took these things, took what it had that was here, and made us. And that is how we became. That is why we are part of these things out here. The Great Spirit, in the process of doing this—everything here has sparks, I call sparks. Sometimes people say they are spirits. I don't know what is the right word. People say what's in you is in the Great Spirit. In the process of us forming from all this around here, the sparks from the Great Spirit are in everything. So if we are formed from everything that is here, the sparks from the Great Spirit have to be in us too. So we are part of everything here because of these sparks and because we are formed from everything that is here. And everything that is here is formed from what we are made out of.

Partial Transcript: Oh my. Okay. Well, the turtle is the story about the turtle that made Turtle Island. And the women, the turtle living under the water, living under the water. And the women—I don't know how to—women are connect—we believe that women are connected with water. And we believe that because of this, because of this, we watch that turtle. And he goes under the water, and he almost lives under the water. We see him go, and he digs down in the Mother Earth under the water. And there he stays. And we believe—wow. He's under the water. The women are associated with water. Water is gentle. Water flows. No matter how hard we try to grab a woman, she seems to always be able to slip away. When I try to grab the water, it always slips away. There had to be a connection. There's a—a woman gives birth. In the process of that, the very beginning process of that, what happens?
Interviewer
Water breaks.
John Cox
1:03:16.8 And this process, they started seeing a connection between women and water. The water is a life force. And we see that life force happening at the beginning of the birth. Again, that water we cannot understand because we can't grab it. And yet a woman has that water, and what happens is—when that happens, a new life forms. So the woman has to be connected with water. Is it the water helping to bring this new life? Did the water help the woman with this new life? And that, the turtle, living in the water, has to be a connection.

Partial Transcript: Oh, what do we lose when nature, part of a nature, vanishes? Oh my gosh. We lose quite a bit. We lose quite a bit. We lose the—everything out here has a lesson. Everything out here has a lesson for us. And when you go to a place where they have taken, say, all the trees, look how our Mother Earth is washed away. When the Mother Earth is washed away, the animals that used to live there cannot live there. The animals that lived under the ground are gone. When the trees are gone causing this water to wash away Mother Earth, the animals up in the trees cannot live. When the leaves cannot bring the—down to the ground, the leaves do not have—the leaves bring fresh nutrients to that ground. And that ground isn't there for that to happen anymore. When that happens, nothing can grow. Nothing can be there. We lose insight into how our animal friends—which by the way I consider my distant cousins—we do not be able to learn from them. If we lose a certain type of animal out here, then the animal that that animal would prey on would be lots more. And we have seen that before. We have seen were the wolves were taken out of an area or the foxes, and the rabbits would run. And there'd be so many rabbits, the person trying to put a garden—wow—nothing but trouble.

1:09:45.6 There was a place out in the west, recently, about twenty-five years ago. The farmers killed off all of these—some kind of animal out there—that was bothering the farmers. And they—I believed, it wasn't a wolf, but it might have been. And they killed too many of them. And the rats ran rampant. The people who still lived the way their great-grandparents lives could not keep the rats out of their homes. And the rats went into their homes, and what happened? Some kind of a disease came and was killing these people. And the farmers said, "Oh, it's because they aren't clean." In reality, it was the farmer's fault for killing off the animal that was preying on these animals that became too many of them. We lose this animal; something else is going to happen. And in our hearts, we lose a part of ourselves. I believe that the farmers, or the ranchers out there, have lost sight of what our Mother Earth is and what is out here because all they think about is money. And the more they clear land, the more they put their cows on, the more they continue to, "We're going to put this here. We're going to do this. We're going to do that." And they lose that herb. They lose that tree what we use, that root for. And they lose this, and they lose that. As they lose these things, they themselves are losing a part of themselves. And they don't even know it. They become more hard. They become more harsh. They become, "You can't get on my land. You can't this. You can't that." And they lose themselves. They lose their spirituality that they did not know they even had.

1:12:15.4 We lose our cousins. We lose our—oh, and that's one of the saddest things to see something go that should not have gone. It hurts me. It hurts others. And it hurts the environment because that animal was keeping something in check that might bring bad disease to us. Even if it doesn't, it will cause a downfall of things to continue to happen as—it's a stepping stone. This animal gone. This animal overrun. This animal overrun will do this animal away. Then this animal that took care of this one in check—it's just a continuing step downward of things.

1:13:23.6 It's like when they dig into the Mother Earth—and oh the great big giant—I can't imagine how big these holes are they are digging. Think of that. All that Mother Earth has been displaced all for this particular mineral or rock so that somebody can have a porcelain bowl. We cannot put that porcelain—change it back into the mineral that it came from and put it back. And our Mother Earth loses, and the things that live there is gone. And the people who are doing it, they're losing their spirituality because when the dig up more, more isn't enough for them. It's all about the money, and the money has lost—the money has taken the place of their spirituality. And they don't even know it, not until it's too late for them. One day they'll wake up, and they'll realize how sorry they are. And sometimes they do before they pass away. But it's too late for the damage has been done.

Partial Transcript: Oh my. Yes. The first thing, insight. When we lose this connection, most of the time we lose that connection because we are driven to succeed in a society that does not care about what is going on out here. And the process of that driven drive in us to succeed, we lose our heritage; we lose our spirituality because a long, long time ago, our heritage was nothing but about spirituality. We didn’t care about money. We didn't care about having a fancy car or having a big house. We didn't have to. It's more prestige. When you continue to have this prestige in you, which was driven by success, wanting success, you lose your spirituality that was in your heritage. Different heritages around the world, the Vikings had their heritage. All the different cultures had their own heritage. But today, whoever's there, their driven for success, they are brained into success. And in that process of one success, they're losing their heritages. Their heritage was always about some type of spirituality. Different cultures had different heritages, but they're all losing it because the old way was surrounded around spirituality of some kind or another. And we lose that because we're driven to success today. And when you lost that spirituality, you lose a connection between our Mother Earth and our Father Sky. We no longer worry about things that are so important to us. Clouds of smoke covering up the warmth from our Father Sky, people who are making money off of that don't care. They believe that if make enough money, I'll go over here and live if it gets too bad over here. And I can buy whatever I want. I don't care how much things cost. And that person has lost their heritage. They've lost their spirituality of their heritage.

1:18:45.2 And I believe that is most important, and not to mention the things that we lose out here, the trees. And up in the mountains, the trees were destroyed by acid rain. Who do you hear saying, "Let's fix that." Who caused that? Manufacturers that caused that, where are they at? Why aren't they saying, "We're going to take care of this. We're going to take down all the dead trees. We're going to plant the same species that are there. We're going to take care of what is causing it from my factory, and keep that acid rain." I haven't heard anybody come out and say, "Let's take—I caused that problem. I'm going to fix it." Why don't they do that? Because they have lost their heritage. They lost their spirituality. And they say more money. More money. He doesn't care what happens five states away from what's coming out of his factory and because he has lost his spirituality, and he lost his culture, his past culture, because he was driven for success.

Partial Transcript: I believe that although I come, and when I can and have to cut down to put my garden in, it hurts me. It hurts me to cut those things down and put my garden in. And some of those things in there were there before I ever was born. And I will—sometimes I will leave some of those things that people call weeds in my garden. I believe that I'm connected to them. And that hurts me to cut them down. It hurts me to go out here and to clean this area out. I leave some things to grow and some things have big thorns. People are taking them away. You can't find a yard that has them anymore. I leave them. I leave things here that most people take out. I won't take them all out. I take some out. I leave things and I just want them to grow because I know I'm a part of them. I'm a part of them because I know the Great Spirit made me from everything and every, what we call element, is in me, is in here. The wood on the house, everything that's on that house, I'm a part of because that was made from here. And everything that's here is in me. And although I make things, I pray to the Great Spirit to give me strength and the knowledge to do this. And to forgive me for taking something and making it. I ask forgiveness if I go out and I see an herb. I want that herb for a problem. I ask that plant for forgiveness because I am part of that plant. And I leave some of that plant to continue. And I feel sorry that I have to do that. I feel so—all things are so connected, but yet we get hungry. We have to survive too. And I know we have to do certain things to keep the food going and the stores and all. But I believe that people should realize that we are all connected, so strongly connected, that we should take care of those animals in a better way than we do. We need to understand that everything on our Mother Earth is related. And that means humans too.

1:24:09.4 We have to respect the humans that live on the other side of Mother Earth just as much as we respect a person in our own family. We have to respect what they want and need. One of the biggest problems that we face today is that countries that were super powers thirty-five, forty, fifty years ago, did not respect enough other people around the world. Oh, they just, "So and so. We can go in there and take whatever we want. The minerals, we'll just go in there and do what we want. They can't do anything to us." We look down on a lot of people around the world. And then people are tired of it. Whereas the cultures fifty years ago, eighty, a hundred years ago who were super powers, if they realized then that we were all related and that we have to treat everybody with respect and with true dignity, not fake dignity, not go in and, "Oh, sign this contract. We will take what we want. And we'll give you this, what you need." And when it's all done, their world is turned upside down. If those people respected the people back then, I believe we wouldn't have so much trouble today.

1:25:58.2 And that's why we need to understand now, more than other, that we are all related. We have to respect everybody because there are some people out here that have gone too far. And they're saying, "Look, we're going—" they are out to hurt innocent people because their people and their country were innocent when they were hurt. And it's because we don’t realize everything's related.

1:26:33.4 It's like digging up that big hole and taking the minerals out and not caring. It's like the smokestacks that make that acid rain. Those people didn't realize that they were killing something in the mountains that they're related to. And look at the mess they caused in the mountains. Everything is connected, and what we do, we'd better, better, start paying attention to the after effects because our world is getting tired. Our Mother Earth is getting tired. And our Father Sky is getting tired of trying to clean this mess that we are putting on it and in it and up in it. They're getting tired. And we're starting to feel the effects. They're calling it climate change. They're calling it all kinds of names, but it's because our Father Sky is tired of trying to keep it clean. Our Mother Earth is getting tired of trying to filter out the mess we're putting in it. What is going to happen when we poison our Mother Earth so much that we cannot grow what we need to eat any more? Or I had a vision once that the whole sky, all the way around the earth, was red and on fire from all the pollutants that we put up there. We put so many pollutants up there that these pollutants collided and boom, a fire broke out. The whole sky all the way around the earth was on fire from these pollutants. And it's all basic down to the very fact that we people have forgotten that we are no longer—they don't think we are related to everything here, very much related. And everything is so important to the minute piece of grain of sand that you find. That is so important too.