And Another Thing...

NINETY-NINE percent of the people down in town ON the reservation will sit there and tell you about our spirituality and our culture, but they know nothing about it. They don’t know any more than a white man. Only difference is that a white man wasn’t told that it was witchcraft, that it was against God, that the bundles had to be burned because they were bad, and that everything negative that happened in the world was due to the fact that these people were fooling around with these bundles. But people came to these bundles with serious health problems, like cancer, that they don’t have today. They came with heart problems that they don’t have today. You can listen to people on TV, like Bill Maher, who is an atheist. All I can tell Bill Maher about being an atheist is that he’s lucky that the rest of the world doesn’t feel that same way. If there weren’t some spiritual structure in the world, your life would be worth absolutely nothing. What does it matter if I kill you or I don’t kill you? That’s where we’re headed right now. Take a good look at this reservation. What recreation is there here? You could go to a basketball game if it was in town that weekend. But if you don’t have the $3 a gallon for gas it takes to get out of town, you cannot go to Cut Bank, the next town over, to see a game. But really, what would you do here for recreation if you didn’t go to a bar? I own a bar that used to be known as the second-rowdiest bar in the whole nation. It’s called the Babb Bar. When the bundles came and found me, the emphasis on alcohol went away. Now I own a restaurant called the Cattle Baron, and it’s known as one of the 25 most sacred places in America. Out here we have cultural elders and then we just have old Indians. There’s a huge difference. Many of the old Indians think they have the cultural knowledge, but they don’t. In fact, one of the best elders I know is only 29 years old. He started early. Our whole culture is based on transfers of knowledge. A Medicine Pipe is transferred to you. Songs are transferred to you. Everything in our whole society is based on transfer. If someone walks up to you and gives you a free car, you don’t put much stock in it. If the tires are getting bad, you just say, “The heck with it.” But if you paid $30,000 for that car and you’re making those payments, you take awful good care of that car. That’s the same concept behind transferring. If I just give it to you, you don’t think much about it. But if you want the knowledge that I have, you can bring your horses and pay me for it. It’s like credit or college. They don’t let you go to college for free, do they? If you want knowledge, you have to pay for it. BOB BURNS