What are we?My people believe that we are a representation of earth.Our hair represents the grass on the prairie. Our bones are the mountains that make us strong and hold us upright. Our arteries and our veins are the rivers and the springs. Our breath is like the wind. Our heart is the center of the earth, and sometimes it speaks through a volcano. Our body is a gift from Mother Earth and one day we will go back to her. We don’t own our bodies, we only borrow them for a short time. We must never speak badly about our body, because a light lives inside. When the body returns back to the earth, the light returns to the Creator. If the body is in good health, so is the light. That’s why we must take good care of our bodies and not weaken then by drugs or alcohol. It’s easy to help others, but it’s hard to help ourselves and it’s even harder with love. All of this we learn from mother nature. Technologies change with time, and always will, but feelings never change. Just like our elders, ourselves and our children experience joy, and sorrow and rage.. Following the buffalo remains a good way of life. Technology will change. People’s feelings won’t. 
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| The teepee
Our teepees are open to the East, so that in the morning we can open our hearts to the good news. When our people came to the prairies, a man had a dream. He stood before a mountain and the mountain told him : « push me down ! » The man said : » It’s impossible, I can’t push you down ! » And the mountain replied : « Then build a house that looks like me ». And the teepee was born. And everyone who lives in a teepee knows that nothing can push it down. The drum The drum comes from the thunder. It represents Mother Earth. When we hit the drum, it is the lightning. The drumbeat symbolises the heartbeat. The bow and arrows We used to hunt with spears. Then one day a man had a vision. In this vision he was given the bow from the moon crescent and the arrows from the lightning, and he put them together. The symbol of the lightning is engraved or painted on all our arrows. |
