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Collecting Oral Histories in Indian Country - Ep 41
327 Plays5 years ago
On this months’s podcast we have Aaron Brien (Apsáalooke), a member of the Night Hawk Dance Society and faculty in Salish Kootenai College’s Tribal Historic Preservation and Native American Studies programs and Dr. Shandin Pete (Salish/Diné), Director of the Indigenous Research Center at Salish Kootenai College. We talk briefly about how the two got connected and the development of the Indigenous Research Center, but mostly we chat for two of the three segments about collecting oral histories. What roles do they play in culture, how can you collect them in the best way, and how should you best prepare yourself?
OLinks
- Indigenous Research Center Website
- IRC Youtube
- IRC Twitter & Instagram: @ircskc
- Facebook: SKC Indigenous Research Center
- IRC Podcast: (Apple) or BuzzSprout (Hosting Site)
- Apsáalooke field museum exhibition
- Heritage Voice Episodes 23 (Salish-Kootenai College’s Tribal Historic Preservation Program) and 25 (Technology)
- Seliš ontological perspectives of environmental sustainability from oral traditions
- The Lodge Boy and Spring Boy Tale as Depicted at Hole in the Wall, Wyoming Article
Contact
- Jessica
- Jessica@livingheritageanthropology.org
- @livingheritageA
- @LivingHeritageResearchCouncil
- Aaron
- aaron_brien@skc.edu
- @indigenousarchaeology (Instagram)
- Shandin - shandin_pete@skc.edu
- Lyle
- Lyle.Balenquah@gmail.com
Affiliates
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorship
00:00:00
Speaker
We're excited to announce that our very own podcasting platform, Zencaster, has become a new sponsor to the show. Check out the podcast discount link in our show notes and stay tuned for why we love using Zen for the podcast. You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network.
Heritage Voices Episode Overview
00:00:20
Speaker
Welcome to Heritage Voices, episode 41. I'm Jessica Uquinto and I'll be your host today. And today we are talking about collecting oral histories in Indian country.
00:00:30
Speaker
Before we begin, I'd like to honor and acknowledge that the lands I'm recording on today are part of the Nooch or Ute People's Treaty Lands, the Daneta, and the Ancestral Puebloan Homeland.
Guest Introductions: Erin Brin and Dr. Sean Dean Pete
00:00:40
Speaker
Today we have two guests on the podcast. Uh, the first one you may remember, Erin Brin from episodes 22 and 25 from Salish Kootenai college. If you don't, you should definitely go back and check out those two episodes. And the second guest today is Dr. Sean Dean Pete. Sean Dean was raised on the flathead Indian reservation in Arleigh, Montana. He completed an MS in geology and a doctorate of education in curriculum and instruction at the university of Montana.
00:01:09
Speaker
He has been a faculty member at Salish Kootenai College since 2008, where he has co-developed the hydrology department. He currently serves as the director of the Indigenous Research Center at SKC, while seeking to advance understandings of Indigenous research methodologies from Salish philosophical commitments. So welcome to the show.
00:01:31
Speaker
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me. So I guess I also, I didn't give Aaron the opportunity to say hi.
Dr. Pete's Academic and Indigenous Journey
00:01:42
Speaker
Aaron, say hi. No, he's been on, he's been on twice. Yeah, I'm good. I'm good. Hey, this is Aaron coming to you from Montana.
00:01:55
Speaker
Well, thank you, Aaron. Sean Deed now so that so they can hear the difference between you two. Do you want to say hi? Sure. Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you for having me on the show and great to meet you virtually here. And I'm looking forward to the conversation. Yeah. Looking forward to having you. So on that note, since you are the new person, you get to start us out with how did you get into this field?
00:02:25
Speaker
get into as an interested in.
00:02:27
Speaker
Okay, yeah, that's probably a longer story than we have here, but I guess in particular, anybody growing up on the res, any young person growing up in the heart of the reservation here and anywhere is always, we're always on a quest for knowledge, whether we know it or not. And we use academics, I guess, and the degrees we get from academics as
00:02:57
Speaker
kind of a catapult for that. Even if those degrees don't exactly align with something you would traditionally call ethnography or archaeology or what have you, I think we all are thirsting for knowledge of the teachings of our ancestors. So I think it's always been on my mind, even though I worked as a hydrologist, as a land surveyor,
00:03:22
Speaker
as a science educator, really finding out and digging more into the past has been really one of the foundational disciplines that keeps me going. Yeah. So, okay.
Collaboration at SKC: A Friendship
00:03:35
Speaker
What brought you guys to this partnership and what are you guys doing?
00:03:39
Speaker
Well, I met Aaron many years ago through his sister. His sister and I were roommates in college and I believe he came and stayed with his sister a few times and that's when I got to know Aaron when he was just a young lad prior to his emergence into manhood.
00:04:02
Speaker
snapper. Yeah. Yeah. So really at that time, you know, he was, he was just a kid who would walk around the house singing reggae and talking about skating. And yeah, that's all I really know of him. But you know, as I seen him grow up through life, you know, it could tell he, he embodied a certain attribute of his tribal people. That was pretty important. And I think we share that quality in particular with the, with ceremonialism and, and, and the songs are
00:04:32
Speaker
were our one strand that kind of tied us together. Well, geez, thank you, Shonnene. You're welcome. So post, post reggae singing, when did you guys come back together or when did you guys see each other again?
00:04:52
Speaker
We live in the same town, so we kind of see each other now and again, or prior to us working together at SKC, I would always see them say hi, always stayed friends with Sean Dean, singing together, and yeah, we always kind of shared interests and whenever I'd
00:05:07
Speaker
I'd bring up ideas that we should kind of talk about or do some research on. But when I started working at SKC is when he approached me about maybe contributing to this grant proposal for the Indigenous Research Center. So I threw in my little two cents for that, but he's really the one who authored it. So yeah, a couple of years ago is when our tag team kicked off.
00:05:34
Speaker
Yeah, it sounds about right. So, okay, since you authored it, do you want to explain what it is, Shaundin?
Developing the Indigenous Research Center at SKC
00:05:41
Speaker
Yeah, sure. I'll give you an abridged version. So, the Indigenous Research Center was really the idea of a number of faculty at SKC that formed a faculty research group
00:05:55
Speaker
I think it was around maybe 2014, maybe even sooner than that. But there was a lot of folks interested in pursuing and understanding further what the literature meant at that time concerning indigenous research methodologies. And we wanted to explore that. And there was, I guess, a nice rounded sample of folks vying for different opinions about what it was and what it wasn't.
00:06:25
Speaker
When you're raised on the res here, you have a deep understanding and it's really a very subconscious understanding of your own worldview. Whenever you see academic literature citing your own worldview, you have to kind of question whether it's accurate or not.
00:06:44
Speaker
kind of my opinion about indigenous research and in particular methodological approaches to research from an indigenous worldview seemed like the literature was scant or it wasn't fulfilling what I thought was accurate characterization of that.
00:07:06
Speaker
This research group started to explore those ideas and then a couple of the researchers in that group submitted a proposal to do a self-study to develop a good understanding of how well Salish Kootenai College could support a center that had the mission of examining closer what this indigenous research methodological approach could be for our local communities here.
00:07:34
Speaker
After that self-study was completed, a few years later those two researchers had left Salish Kootenai College and pretty much I was the one of few from that original research group that was still around. And then a funding opportunity came through from the National Science Foundation
00:07:54
Speaker
to write a proposal to develop a research center. So things kind of aligned. I solicited some input from the folks who were in that research group and also some of the newer faculty that came on, such as Aaron, and just forged ahead and put together a plan on how to examine this approach that we think works for our communities.
00:08:20
Speaker
also works within an academic environment, I suppose.
Securing NSF Grant for Indigenous Methodologies
00:08:25
Speaker
So that's just kind of the basics of how that started and how I'm pretty lucky to rope Aaron in on this very important project.
00:08:36
Speaker
I mean, I guess first, Aaron, do you have anything that you want to add to that? No, that's a pretty concise summary of our goal, I guess. Well, maybe if I do, I don't know. I mean, the idea that Shandine said that some of the literature out there about indigenous methodologies just never seemed to satisfy myself either. So when we would sit and visit about this topic, it seemed like we were on the same page in terms of
00:09:02
Speaker
at least knowing that it could get better. And I think it's not a criticism of any individual, but more of just wanting more out of the discipline of it.
00:09:13
Speaker
indigenous research. And so I was all on board for jumping in on the research center and doing what I can because it sounded like a lot of fun. The proposal from the National Science Foundation is a five-year grant and we applied and received $3.5 million to see this center through for the next five years.
00:09:35
Speaker
Yeah. That's a big deal. Yeah. That is legit. Okay. So wait, before, before we, um, go too far with this, I'm just curious. I mean, naturally you hit my little, uh, ethnographer antennas. I don't know what you'd call it, um, with this, uh, self study thing. So I'm curious, what were some of the big conclusions and that? I mean, I know you, you mentioned that,
00:10:04
Speaker
It was two other individuals that actually wrote it. And how has that like matched up with what you guys ended up going with? I don't know, just kind of curious about what came out of that, I guess.
00:10:17
Speaker
Yeah, you know, we took a lot of the recommendations from that self-study, which was interview with tribal college administrators at SKC and some of the closer tribal colleges, and also interviews with the local culture committees, interviews with students. And a lot of the recommendations were very broad, but it was more so to generate data that said, yes, people want this.
00:10:46
Speaker
And people want to know more about indigenous research methodologies. They want to be able to employ them in the tribal college environment. Yeah, I mean, without looking up the exact details of what was said in there, that was kind of the basics of that self-study.
00:11:03
Speaker
So, I mean, I guess the natural question off of that was, you know, you're mentioning using indigenous research methodologies in a tribal college setting.
Challenges in Indigenous Research Methodologies
00:11:15
Speaker
So what does that look like? What is that that you guys are now doing?
00:11:21
Speaker
Yeah, Shandine, what does that look like, Shandine? Well, I think that's a valid question, and it's something that we're heavily researching because we get stuck in this mind frame of what we want to do and what we think is ideal, but we quickly understand that we're fenced off in a certain way by
00:11:47
Speaker
the industry of academics. Even in a tribal college setting, we have some restrictions that don't allow us to actually employ what we really feel is a true pathway to generating or producing new knowledge and
00:12:04
Speaker
in a true indigenous way. But even so, I don't know if we exactly have a good framework for how that would look yet, because like I was talking in a previous interview is, you know, we have this behavior where we look into the past to find exemplars of behaviors or values or anything that would guide us on how to behave today. But
00:12:33
Speaker
The reality of it is that the past is a far different environment, far different situation than it is today. So I often have to reel myself back in and say, okay, those are the ideals, but the reality is
00:12:49
Speaker
we can't really operate the same way today. So one of the things I often try to reflect back on is how are we trying to frame this methodological approach? Are we examining it in the right time frame? And are we kind of shielding ourselves from what the actual reality is of today?
00:13:11
Speaker
So, yeah, there's no great answer on how that's going to look yet. But I think the tribal college setting is a great battleground to do that. And we have our own battles that we have to fight with our own administration in their own structure. But it's something I think we can achieve. Yeah. And I think it's important to say, like, we sit in a pretty privileged position in the fact that we're Indian people working with Indian people.
00:13:40
Speaker
in Indian country. We're not from the outside looking in. We're getting to do the work of trying to figure out what indigenous research methodologies look like with the greatest resource available, which is Indian people. In that sense, I don't know if to that extent it's ever been done. I'm not sure.
00:13:59
Speaker
Hopefully we get something that people can use out of it. That's the plan is to take these methodologies out of the philosophical realm and into the practical realm and usable realm and turn it from more of, like I said, a philosophy into something people can use. Yeah. Okay.
Traditional Cultural Property Nominations
00:14:18
Speaker
And with that, we are already at our first break point. Can you believe that? So we will be back here in a second.
00:14:28
Speaker
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00:14:56
Speaker
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00:15:48
Speaker
All right, we are back. So we just, we were just having a great conversation on the break. I wish you all could have been there for all of our shenanigans, but wanting to move from what they were just talking about on air, which was methodology into actually talking about some methodology. So we're going to be talking about collecting oral histories.
00:16:14
Speaker
So let's dive in. I mean, do you, are you guys doing any specific projects related to collecting oral histories? Are you more just like thinking on how to best do that from more of a methodological sense? Where are you guys at with that? Sean Dean, you're, you got a few things going right now, don't you? Yeah, I think so. I mean, I always got some going on.
00:16:40
Speaker
talk about it. When Jessica asked that, I was thinking like, well, I always kind of have something going, whether it's paid or unpaid is really the question. But yeah, I'm constantly collecting oral histories. And at the moment, I'm working on a nomination for a TCP nominee or for the register. And then I'm also
00:17:04
Speaker
What else? Well, me and you, Shaundine, are going to work on a publication, but also we're doing some stuff on the grass tan ceremony, hopefully down the road, right? Yeah, correct. Yeah. What do you want to talk about, Jessica? Well, okay. So you're working on a TCP nomination you said?
00:17:24
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. I mean, we obviously don't have to get into the specifics of that, but it's just interesting because TCP nominations are obviously insanely rare by far the least officially nominated or formally nominated type of historic property and for obvious reasons, which is confidentiality.
00:17:50
Speaker
While we're in the early stages of it, right now we're just collecting stories and any oral histories related to the landscape. I try to think of what I do in collecting oral histories as more as understanding landscape, right? Through the power of observation, which is tribal people, right? Tribal people have been observing landscape for a long time. So traditionally in archaeology, it always seems as though
00:18:19
Speaker
Are in any kind of natural resource field where they're going to implement some sort of oral history, it's more like in a supplemental setting where it's kind of like in the appendix of the document. It's kind of like after the project's done, let's kind of get some anecdotal evidence or some cool stories that we can throw in. Or in education, you see it more with like curriculum development.
00:18:45
Speaker
kind of you learn by our wildlife biology, and then they'll say, oh, we're going to have our unit on tribal knowledge, where I've always tried to come from it where it's like, no, we'll do that first. The collection and the interpretation of oral histories happens first. And in how I use it in archaeology, you can kind of think of it as like a form of predictive modeling, maybe even.
Oral Histories and Cultural Landscapes
00:19:10
Speaker
I've kind of thought about that in my head a little bit about
00:19:13
Speaker
not only understanding landscape, but kind of showing me where things might be or how to interpret certain archaeological sites, if that's the need. But honestly, I'm just a fan of it, too. So I'm a fan of Indian culture. So it's never been much of a chore in collecting these stories for these projects.
00:19:34
Speaker
Yeah, and you know, one thing you were saying there about how it's really about telling the story of a landscape, I feel like that is more how I describe my job too, that I talk about people's connection to place.
00:19:52
Speaker
basically. But the hard thing being, you know, one thing that you already talked about, you know, I'm not indigenous, I'm Jewish, so I'm coming from that like outside perspective. And then I'm also coming from the outside perspective in the sense of I'm also not a, you know, natural resource specialist. Like, you know, when you're talking to
00:20:15
Speaker
indigenous elders, they're not just talking about the archaeology, they're talking about the geology and the plant life and the geography and the physical landmarks around and the hydrology.
00:20:31
Speaker
And that's like, yeah, with Sean Dean's work, like he actually is the one, I've kind of used him as an example of a lot about how he uses oral histories in his field because it's not a traditional thing for people to throw ethnography or the collection of oral histories in the hard sciences or at least the geosciences. So if he can do it, then I think people who study humanity, we should be able to do it pretty easy. So yeah.
00:21:00
Speaker
John Dean. All right. Well, yeah, you know, I always fall back on this as a crutch saying, well, you know, I'm not a trained historic preservationist or a trained anthropologist or anything like that. So, you know, the discipline has its own
00:21:20
Speaker
the own language of its own and its own definitions. And sometimes I can be ignorant of some of those things. But I think the approach is all familiar and the spirit of it is all familiar to me.
00:21:36
Speaker
But in particular, my general approach to bringing together cultural components into a discipline like geology or hydrology, the goal really is to connect the students that I teach to a piece of knowledge about their own people that maybe they don't have access to or maybe that has been forgotten.
00:22:04
Speaker
It also serves a double purpose to really inform myself of knowledge that has been lost. So it's kind of a natural approach that I have taken, but largely what I'm finding more recently is that the older folks of today are
00:22:22
Speaker
They don't know as much as, of course, the generation beyond them. So a lot of what I end up having to do is rely on archival data to kind of match up the bits and pieces that the older folks know today. And that requires quite a bit of filtering of data to make sure that you're getting an accurate representation of a piece of knowledge that you might want to use or that you might
00:22:52
Speaker
theorize that connects to some hydrological or geological phenomenon. So that's kind of my approach in a nutshell. That's really what is the driving force behind what I do.
00:23:07
Speaker
But, Shandine, wouldn't you think, though, in order to understand that archival information, that you would first have to have a fairly strong understanding of culture yourself and being that you are a practitioner of, like, Salish beliefs and ceremonial life?
Cultural Understanding in Archival Research
00:23:25
Speaker
Do you think that has had an effect on how you're interpreting the archival data that you're collecting and even deciphering knowledge that elders even have today that are non-practitioners? Does that play a part in how you're collecting information?
00:23:41
Speaker
Oh yeah, it's vital. It's just like an emerging tradesman. If they don't have the experience, the life experience of carpentry, there's certain things that you
00:23:59
Speaker
you know, you have to kind of fumble your way through. And when we're talking about disseminating information as a fact, as truth, we want to be really cautious. And we need to make sure that we're honest with ourselves and that we know and understand what we're reading as being true before we, you know, pronounce it as such when we are
00:24:22
Speaker
you know, merging disciplines like that and even examining a story. Yeah, you have to be seeped in the tradition of today, you know, what we have left to really understand the experience of the things that were written down. Yeah. So this is kind of making me think about some recent experiences in terms of
00:24:46
Speaker
how on the one hand, I mean, obviously like growing up in an indigenous setting, like there are certain connections that you can make with other indigenous communities that I am not going to understand on the same level. And then also having
00:25:05
Speaker
you know, conversations about bringing in ethnographers from other tribal communities and basically getting the response that in certain situations, basically it would be better to be white than to be from the wrong tribe. So, you know what I'm saying though? I think you're talking about white privilege.
00:25:30
Speaker
both. I mean, I think white privilege plays into everything. But so, okay, on the one hand, yes, there's like a white privilege element. And then there's also like, you know, like there's certain tribes that are like rivals, basically.
00:25:48
Speaker
Um, or, you know, like in the case that I'm thinking of, they call themselves like a traditional enemies. And give me, give me an example. Oh, I wasn't going to single anybody out. Um, kind of like a lot of, um, the surrounding tribes don't necessarily love to work with Danae or Navajo people.
00:26:24
Speaker
I would say, I would say again though, cause we run into that problem here in Montana, right? Like we'll, we'll hear stuff. People will say, well, how is it? It says, say I'm a Crow Indian, right? So if I was going to work with the Blackfeet tribe and they would say, Aaron, go, go up there and they'll say, well, maybe it's better if we send a non-Indian person. That may be true. That, that, that I'm not going to say that that doesn't happen, that there's not a certain privileges, but again, it also has to do with.
00:26:34
Speaker
was what I was not going to say.
00:26:52
Speaker
tribal people understanding their own oral histories and really understanding that there is really no animosity between the Blackfeet and the Crows or the Lakota and the Crows and that it really came from a system of collecting war deeds and whatever problems that have happened during the reservation era should stay and be isolated within that reservation era and not be flooded into our
00:27:18
Speaker
into our own histories because it's really just a misunderstanding. I get what you're saying because I've run into it and I know that there are certain times, but again, that same argument can be made between male and female too. So I've also had situations where like, you know, in fact,
00:27:37
Speaker
I would actually say that probably happened. It's more common than Indian versus non-Indian that male and female play a bigger role in how people respond to you in collecting stories. Yeah, 100%. And I would say too, not even just race and gender, but also age in the sense of I think part of
00:28:02
Speaker
Like I've seen people respond better to me, I think because I am a young woman. And so that comes across as like not threatening in the same way that like an older white male might come across as more threatening or you know what I mean? Like intimidating or something. I think it seems like that's kind of impacted my experience. I don't know. What do you think Shondine about all of this?
00:28:30
Speaker
Yeah, I think I agree. You see a lot of that misogyny from really the reservation era still alive and well.
Intent and Relationship-Building in Data Collection
00:28:40
Speaker
But it works oddly in another direction as well, where you might have, like you said, a young female researcher who's going to get more information out of an older male gentleman just because of the dynamics of male-female.
00:28:57
Speaker
interactions, to put it that way. But you know, when I think more about, I think more about intent, you know, I think everybody has a sense of what a person's intention is, whether they're male, female, from a neighboring tribe or from from even from their own tribe. I think people with knowledge that is useful and true and
00:29:20
Speaker
they themselves are practitioners of that knowledge or have a sense of responsibility over some information. I think the judgment of intent from a person is probably one of the biggest factors. And the person collecting the data, I think their patience is also another factor. I know a couple of
00:29:45
Speaker
instances where I've been trying to gather data from a particular individual and I know and understand the approach and it's almost like a five year long approach you have to take to get to that particular part of the story or that particular piece of data that you need because you know they're watching your actions not specifically but you know they're judging you and the life that you're trying to lead and know that
00:30:13
Speaker
when they give you that information, you're going to use it responsibly and you're going to take care of that knowledge or you're going to perpetuate it in the way that it is intended. So I think intent really is the biggest factor no matter what you look like or how old you are. Yeah, I would even say
00:30:34
Speaker
that knowing you got to know your audience to some degree like I know that I have run into problems not problems I wouldn't say that where we're asking a lot of these people who hold knowledge right and so uh what what I think the job the job of somebody collecting oral histories has to be not just thorough but they got to know what they're talking about the example that I always give is um if I go up to a crow elder
00:31:02
Speaker
or a Salish one for that matter is, and I say, tell me, what does it mean to be Salish? That's a labor intensive question, right? And you're going to get virtually the same response from both people. But if I go in and I and I understand the culture enough to ask specifically like a micro question, focus on the micro and not the macro, the response is actually greater. And in my experience,
00:31:28
Speaker
the more I do my research and get to understand the topic that I'm trying to research, those questions yield more. So I think young ethnographers are young collectors of stories. That's where I see the biggest pitfalls are, is they want to start with a huge general question and narrow it down, where I would actually say, no, don't do that. For one, that's a three-hour conversation.
00:31:56
Speaker
And some of these people are older, they're not in the best health and maybe by you knowing what you're the topic you're trying to research, you can actually speed up the process and it becomes more enjoyable for them because you're talking about things that are specific and their topics that are
00:32:15
Speaker
more narrow and they're fun for them to talk about. And I'm, cause everybody's asking those same 10 questions about, tell me what your grandma told you kind of questions. And, and it's labor intensive for some of these people. And I've run into it on several different reservations and Indian communities. So yeah, we're already at a second break. I feel like the conversation's like really, really getting going, but we will be right back and jump right back in.
00:32:46
Speaker
Hello, it's Jim Eagle. Please join us for the Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirit Society's 11th annual Two-Spirit Pow Wow in person or online this year at San Francisco Fort Mason Center on Saturday, February 12th, 2022. Gore Dance at noon and Grand Entry begins at 1 p.m. There will be over 60 vendors selling all types of indigenous products and crafts. Pow Wow dances from all over the U.S. will be competing in contests all day long. We'll also be having several delicious fried bread taco vendors. For more information, go to baits.org. That's B-A-A-I-T-S.org. COVID protocols will be in effect. See you there.
00:33:19
Speaker
We are back with our final segment talking about oral histories. So, okay, we were just talking about knowing your audience. Do you have any other advice, I guess, thinking in the framework of indigenous methodologies about how people can collect oral histories in a better way, I guess?
Time and Rapport in Oral History Collection
00:33:47
Speaker
Yeah, like I was mentioning earlier, the concept of time is a pretty big factor in collecting data in tribal communities. There's a tendency to work in a small time space that's generally driven by funding sources. The approach of
00:34:09
Speaker
A lot of native folks can vary on a time scale. Sometimes we are not living in the same dimension of time, figuratively, not in reality, but we don't have time machines. Just the idea of patience.
00:34:28
Speaker
The idea of having patience and knowing that you might not get the data you want right off the bat. It's going to take, like Erin was saying, you have to develop your own mastery of what you want and in a way really proving your worth that that information is, that you're deemed responsible for that information. So understanding the timeframe of when you want to collect this data.
00:34:56
Speaker
And I don't know any other experience outside of my own on how that works, but I couldn't imagine just driving down to Crow Reservation and whipping out a tape recorder and saying, you know, question X, Y, and Z and expecting to get
00:35:11
Speaker
to get the data I want, the expectation I would have on myself would be a far longer process. So it's really about developing a rapport or a relationship with the person that you're intending to get some information from. So they really get a sense of what you want to do with that data and they get a good understanding of you and what your intent is.
00:35:36
Speaker
So time, the timeframe has to be adjusted in your own schedule of events on collecting that data. Yeah. Like, like I would say, like, if you're going to work, especially if you're going to work in Crow, even here to some degree are on the flathead res are, are like, um, Blackfeet res is be willing to work late. Like, um, I know that a lot of times like ethnographers want to get up bright and early. They want to get out there, but.
00:36:05
Speaker
It seems like reservation life for a lot of people doesn't start until like eight o'clock at night, you know? And so some of my best conversations, I guess you can call them interviews, have happened like 10, 30, 11 o'clock drinking coffee at night with people in their dining rooms, you know?
Cultural Norms and Rapport Building
00:36:24
Speaker
And if I didn't drink coffee, it would drastically change the way I do my job because I know
00:36:32
Speaker
on these three reservations here is like if you don't drink coffee, man, people look at you like a leper. So do you want to go into their house? You want to visit? You want to visit? They're going to pour you a cup of coffee and you're going to sit there and they're going to refill your cup of coffee and they're going to refill it again. But I noticed that when I didn't do stuff like simple things like
00:36:54
Speaker
say, yeah, I'll have some coffee. Like if I didn't say that, it seems like the interview goes weird because they're already kind of like, oh, this guy doesn't want to sit down and visit because in Indian country, sitting down and visiting meetings, you want to sit down and drink coffee or you're not going to mind cigarette smoke or you're not going to mind. It's kind of like a
00:37:18
Speaker
I don't know what you would call it, kind of like a test, maybe. I don't know. It's definitely not a formalized test, but I know that it's almost a turnoff for a lot of people. If someone comes and says, I want to talk to you about cultural stuff, and they say, well, sit down. I'll pour you some coffee. Like, oh, no, I'm fine. I don't drink coffee. And it immediately tells that person, it's like, oh, this guy don't want to visit.
00:37:39
Speaker
You know, I've run into that personally. I know that I have, they don't talk about that in school when you're taking like a field ethnography class or like, are you reading old ethnographers? They don't talk about stuff like that. And I feel like.
00:37:54
Speaker
collecting stories is like creating rhythm with the person. If you can get them talking in a rhythm, in a cadence, man, the information comes. But if you destroy that or if you compromise that cadence, man, it just seems like it's hard to get it back, you know? You know, it's like a mannerism that's been, it's a holdover from a time that's been
00:38:20
Speaker
gone for a number of years, but a lot of those mannerisms still exist. And it just reminds me of the story that this one priest wrote in his journal about this interaction between these two people. They were enemies in the same tribe. And the guy had it in his mind that he's gonna kill his enemy, which is a guy from his own tribe. So he invites him over to his teepee. And so
00:38:49
Speaker
he sits down even though they're enemies he was courteous enough to to to go to his camp because that was just the mannerism and the guy starts feeding him
00:38:59
Speaker
So the guy eats because that's his mannerism. He has to do that. And so the guy keeps feeding him more and more and more. And finally the guy realizes, oh, he's trying to kill me by feeding me to death. And the guy wouldn't think of stop eating because it'd be rude. It would be rude to stop eating. And that just didn't even cross the person's mind. So he understood that, okay, he's going to feed me to death.
00:39:22
Speaker
So he kept taking off pieces of his clothing to give to the guy to make him stop feeding him until finally the guy was satisfied and whatever beef they had was gone at that time. So it reminds me of that and you see a lot of these older people, you know, they'll kind of scoff at you if you refuse a piece of food or, you know, like Aaron said, if you...
00:39:43
Speaker
hacking around because they're smoking or even, you know, smallest thing is, you know, just refusing a cup of water. So it's really important that you develop that sense of a mannerism. It's kind of like you don't want to look like a rookie. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:40:02
Speaker
Well, and I'm not doing a very good job of this on this podcast. I keep accidentally cutting you guys off, but I, the other part of it, like you're saying, you're talking about timing is, is timing within the interview in the sense of at least down here, if an elder is talking, you're expected to sit there and listen.
00:40:19
Speaker
long pauses become your best friend, I guess is what I'm saying. You have to learn how to become comfortable sitting in silence. But again, I think that can come down to what types of questions you're asking too.
00:40:34
Speaker
know, I think if you ask a question that's so culturally specific, it usually yields a direct response, a very quick response too. And I actually have found in the work I've done, it's like people kind of light up, they kind of get excited when you ask a certain type of question, you know, especially when it comes to like ceremonial life, which is usually
00:40:56
Speaker
what they're trying to get to anyway when they're talking about landscapes or understanding of the natural phenomenons out there. It's usually interpreted through ceremonial life, especially with practitioners. They'll round it back to say, well, when we're in this particular ceremony, we do this and it's because of, and it has something to do with natural phenomenon. So the more specific you get, it seems like the response you get is a lot different.
00:41:24
Speaker
at least in my experience. I know Sean Dean probably runs into that a lot. Yeah. Yeah. You know, this, it was like I was saying, you know, you have to, you have to really become a master of what, of really the whole of what you're trying to ask. It's if you're going to piece it up into, you know, subsections of
00:41:46
Speaker
whatever kind of information you want to get, you're going to get a varied response. But if you have already developed a good rounded sense of the type of data that you need, then you're able to take in, I guess, unintended questions, unintended answers, and develop those into a question that would keep the respondent moving along in a conversation. But if you're just one-tracked and you want to know about
00:42:16
Speaker
you know how choke cherry wood is used for making arrows or whatever but you can't talk about you don't know nothing about hunting or you know nothing about the performances of how to take care of animal products in a certain way you then you're really confining yourself to getting stuck into a situation where the the respondents is going to turn off and
00:42:41
Speaker
And, uh, you'll have a long, uncomfortable silence until you leave. Well, and I mean, I wasn't necessarily, I mean, not necessarily uncomfortable silences or I mean, like in the sense of like, just like letting people like think things through, like sometimes you can see the wheels turning and like, yeah.
00:43:02
Speaker
our white people instinct is like, oh, I got to like jump in because it's silence, you know? And so like learning how to just like turn that off, I guess is what I was getting at. But yeah. Yeah. No, I agree. Yeah. Silence isn't bad. I think just learning that right away that it's not bad.
00:43:22
Speaker
Right. I know because you're going to kick us off of here pretty soon. I think it's important for us to maybe talk a little bit too about how oral histories actually function, the function of them within tribal society because that's always been where I've had my biggest problem with what field ethnographers do and looking at them old oral histories
00:43:50
Speaker
These guys were collecting things in a sliver of time, right? A snapshot in time. And there's this idea that I've kind of...
00:43:59
Speaker
been stewing on over the years that I've called stratified narrative and how stories are constructed among tribal people. But Shaundi knows a lot about this too, because man, we visit quite a bit about this topic of these stories and how they're interpreted and how they're looked at in the collection of stories among tribal people, like traditional communities, because how stories are used and the purchasing of knowledge, which is a real thing,
00:44:29
Speaker
Like tribal people believe in reciprocity and spiritual reciprocity and the purchasing of knowledge. And so you're actually giving physical gifts.
00:44:39
Speaker
for for an intangible idea and all of these things that you never taught they never ever talk about in the field of anthropology are it really any field i'm done oh we're practicing that uncomfortable silence getting used to it yes
00:45:06
Speaker
I was like, did he cut it? Yeah, he took off. No, I think that's true. Trying to situate the understanding of knowledge in today's world is so different. And even the elders of today in their 60s, 70s, and 80s, they're
00:45:28
Speaker
their whole remnants of that time that's gone past. We have such vast access to knowledge these days that we maybe have lost or are losing the significance of it, and that might be guiding us to valuing it far differently.
Knowledge Transmission in Tribal Communities
00:45:49
Speaker
I think that is not so true when, especially when the information or the knowledge is still in practice today, then in that way, I think we can still appreciate and understand the value of something like Aaron was saying, more like a trade item.
00:46:11
Speaker
But really, like I was saying before, it depends on the intent and the receiver and the listener and the giver's ability to reconcile any differences that may be perceived in that kind of interaction. But, you know, trade items help to facilitate that transmission of knowledge between people. Yeah. So on that note, I mean, obviously,
00:46:37
Speaker
First of all, just you need to pay people for their time. Like if you're asking people for their experience, you know what I mean? Like all these people are always like, wait, we have to pay elders for their, and it's like, no, yes. Like if you're asking for someone's PhD level, you know, a doctorate of education level experience in culture, like you need to respect that authority and pay people. But like you're saying too, like there is something,
00:47:05
Speaker
you know, payment also kind of has a different feeling. So like, depending on who you're working with, coming with some, you know, food or some tobacco or sage or, you know, sweet grass, whatever, you know, like that combination of the two can really, I guess make a big difference. Like you're saying, like the, like here's an actual tangible thing too.
00:47:34
Speaker
Right. Yeah. And that requires a person in doing a little homework too, I think. I've seen people giving things in the same instance, that person giving that thing away in the same instance, or, you know, immediately after that, you know, because it's something that, you know, they have already have plenty of, you know, oh, okay, another Pendleton. Well,
00:47:57
Speaker
And I would like $200 check instead. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think you got to be, uh, there's obviously cultural norms, but there's also like practical things too. And like my mom always says like, you, you, you.
00:48:12
Speaker
no one's going to turn down food and gas money, you know? So like, that's always a part. Yeah, we might give like traditional things, but at the same time too, it's like a lot of these families have, these elders have like grandkids and, and, and children living in the home. And there's like,
00:48:28
Speaker
six, seven people, eight people, sometimes 12 to 15 people in a house. So it's like a $20 bill or a $50 bill, or if you can give more, man, it contributes something practical to that household.
Compensating Elders for Oral Histories
00:48:41
Speaker
So in it, in your right, Jessica, it's weird that these
00:48:46
Speaker
professionals and academics still ask the question, like, so are we expected to pay? And it's like, yeah, like, why is that even a thing? Like, why are you even asking? They're not just going to volunteer. Yeah. They might have to get babysitters. They might have to like, you know what I mean? Like, this is just, I mean, for a lot of the elders we work with, this is literally their only income, you know?
00:49:14
Speaker
So it's like... Yeah, especially nowadays it seems like it's doing... Unfortunately, preservation is a hot topic in Indian countries. So collecting oral histories, you would think people... All of us are actors in that and we should all be collecting stories and doing our part in the collective of the preservation of culture. But it's just... It's weird that it seems
00:49:43
Speaker
I had some archaeologists say, well, what should we do to collect these stories? And what I felt like saying was, why is it our job as Indian people to teach you something your mother should have taught you?
00:49:58
Speaker
Yeah, which is just to be a human and be willing to visit and be patient and value conversation and just chill, man. Like really, just be cool. Yeah.
00:50:13
Speaker
Yeah, the emotional labor. Yeah, it kind of reminds me of like, you know, the thought if I if I think about it from the other side, like the person wanting the data and wondering why they have to pay, it's like bird watching, you know, you just have to have the right equipment and you go watch some birds. You don't have to pay the birds nothing.
00:50:31
Speaker
Indian people. We're not birds. Well, yeah. But I mean, like you would never think that like me as a contractor would be like, no, it's cool. I'm going to volunteer. You know what I mean? Like, yeah.
00:50:47
Speaker
This seems like to be the mentality though, you know, thinking of Indian people as this other thing, this non-human thing. That just seems like an old relic of the past, you know? It's like collecting rocks. You don't have to give the rock nothing because it's sitting around. Yeah.
00:51:07
Speaker
Well, if they really cared that much about the land, they would just do it for free. And that's when you say, and so would you. I've never heard an elder say billable hours. Billable hours. Ooh.
00:51:32
Speaker
That'll be, I have to, you know, I'm older to say billable hours now. That's my goal. Yeah. If we can teach these old folks to just sit down and say, and say, this is billable hours. And then I think non-Indian people will be like, oh yeah, they're speaking our language now, you know?
00:51:53
Speaker
Oh, yes. All right. Well, do you two have any, you know, final thoughts, like any plugs that you want to throw in there before we close out? Well, Shondeen, well, before Shondeen does the IRC stuff, which we're both working on together, I don't want you guys just to think it's all about him.
00:52:19
Speaker
No. Of course, remember my Instagram page, Indigenous Archaeology. You guys go jump on that, follow it. I think there's a YouTube page too, but we haven't put nothing on it yet for the Indigenous Archaeology, but hopefully soon. Well, I was going to say, you got some time. You could get it on there before this episode launches.
00:52:41
Speaker
Yeah, and then we've got a website that's in development. It's live right now for the Indigenous Research Center. It's just IRC.SKC.edu. So we'll be putting up more content on that page as we move forward. And we also have YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram. And I'm not sure what the IRC is.
00:53:10
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's at IRC.SKC is the Twitter. And then the Instagram is IRCSKC. And the Facebook is SKC Indigenous Research Center. And I'm not sure what the YouTube is. I do not know that one. I don't know it, Alfhan.
00:53:35
Speaker
I don't think you can customize that one anyway, but if you just go to YouTube and you search up SKC IRC, you'll get to our YouTube page. We have a total of one video. Yeah. So that content will be developing in the future as well. Very cool.
00:53:57
Speaker
Yeah, hey, and if you're in the Chicago area, you have to go to the Field Museum and look at the Absalu Gay Women and Warriors exhibit that's there right now that I help contribute in collecting oral histories for that. So go check it out. Yeah, let's see something about that one. We'll have to find that and put it in the show notes.
00:54:17
Speaker
All right. Well, thank you both. It was, it was great to, to get to chat more, uh, nerd out, I guess on oral histories and get into some of that nitty gritty that I don't normally get to talk about on the show. And thank you for, uh, all your service. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for listening to the heritage voices podcast.
00:54:47
Speaker
You can find show notes at www.archaeologypodcastnetwork.com forward slash heritage voices. Please subscribe to the show on iTunes, Stitcher, or the Google music store. Also, if you like the show, please share with your friends or write us a review. If you have any questions, comments, or show suggestions, please reach out to me.
00:55:14
Speaker
at Jessica at livingheritageanthropology.org, or you can find me on Facebook through livingheritageanthropology or on Twitter at livingheritagea. As always, thank you to Lyle Blanqua and Jason Nez for their collaboration.
00:55:41
Speaker
This show is produced by the Archaeology Podcast Network, Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle in Reno, Nevada at the Reno Collective.
00:55:47
Speaker
This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com. Thanks again for listening to this episode and for supporting the Archaeology Podcast Network. If you want these shows to keep going, consider becoming a member for just US$7.99 a month. That's cheaper than a venti quad eggnog latte. Go to archpodnet.com slash members for more info.