SAVAGE

these are smudged necklaces that I made for a client. I’m just showing the products that I sell, but this blog isn’t about the product. It’s about a decision I made. This past year I’ve been approached by an organization from New York State regarding a documentary. They were trying to create about Nathan chasing Horse. The potential for me to participate was there however today, I decided that I didn’t want to get involved.

after knowing that there are so many people out there, pretending to be indigenous they’re claiming to be either Dakota Sioux,  metis  or Inuit. There are so many indigenous academics who’ve never lived in a first nations, Inuit or merus communities.. A lot of times academics have read about, ritual and ceremonies and may have attended a few, but we’re never raised within an indigdnoid community. So the reality of what’s out there in terms of people trying to make money off of ritual and ceremony has become a little bit too outrageous. I've battled many acdenics wgive claimed someone in the gene pool is I dive ois therefore they're indigenous. I've had non-indigenoid people telling me what its kike to follow protocols of swearlidges, ceremonies around sundance who voku teer therefore they've got a privilege to tell me how things work. I grewuo knowing systemic raidm and this is apart of the damage being dine. I will not participate in any discussion around rituals and ceremonies and especially ritual abuse. 

It wasn’t an easy decision yet at the same time I thought about my previous interaction with investigative reporters. A documentary about Nathan Chasing Horse. I thought about the things I went through academically to help them connect with people I knew and people that I thought since my sources had lived experience if actually living within an indigenous community. Who had experience helping indigenous people reconnect? Decades of people trying to reconnect using non-insigenous people to volunteer in rituals & ceremonies. Its got out of hand. 

I didn't really see what I was doing. I documented myself, my interaction with these investigative reporters & now have reflected back on the amount of energy & time I got involved with them. From an acedinic presorctive  I had documented 37 pages. 37 pages of worrying if I was doing the right thing by explaining whibi was,  37 pages not of this blog. It was just interacting with with people who were curious about Nathan chasing Horse. Actually talking, emails exchanges with actual people who actual were publishing my words in articles.  I have the documentation and I wondered why did I stress so much about answering questions and explaining situations. Basically, it’s the only way I could put as was academic.this is not his I inaxt naturally with indigenous people & mainly people in general don't or are not academics.

however, I’m not an academic when it comes to actually living my life in an in the first nations community. I’m not an academic when I’m talking with other people within my circle of friends and community. So the decision I made was to just step back and let it go. I think I believe I’ve done everything I could over the past 17 years to make my readers aware of Nathan chasing Horse and to be aware. To raise an alarm that he was out there and that people needed to be careful. Its much the same way academically. The difference is I am the expert. I am like the professor grading the investigative reporters stories. 

I know, unless you’ve actually been in my shoes you don’t really know the stress that I went through. At the same time too just going through people asking me questions again there was a reflect triggering with a whole bunch of other stressors and things that I never thought I would have to deal with surfaced. When I thought everything was fine academically, people approached me from New York State thinking I didn’t know what its like to live in the USA. Maybe somebody else could do it and the reality is yes there are so many academics out there. So many pretending & rewriting our own history to make money Fir themselves. Basically it was what Bathan Chsding Horse was marketing. He was selling a product, he was recruiting more academics to falsely claim they practiced rituals & ceremonies. They did & he did for their own selfish reasons. It just seemed that whatever I was going to do was going to give anything more justice than what was already done in the First documentary. Then I realized I was t.

I decided I have no as propleceill fibdvtgeir iwn experts to fit their own narrative. I know cause my entire life I've been into another culture during the day & return to my indigenous ways of doing things at night, back home in my own indigenous community. I know egatbits like to live here. People do its like living in a small community. It isn't! People do and put themselves on a platform and I don’t need to worry about that or their narrative cause its a waste of my time.. I really don’t need to interact or engage with people. I do have a sense of duty for helping younger people and I will continue doing that in my TikTok and my social media platforms. 

I’m really grateful for all the invisible helping hands helping me to really think about whether I wanted to help out with another documentary. I asked for advice tonight again and I received good advice from so many and I received good emails back from the people in New York State but today it was just so clear that I don’t need to worry about what anybody says or does I can’t I have no control over their narratives and my experience working within the city and even the politics with truth and reconciliation here in Canada opens up a can of worms. The politics of people who don’t know what it’s like to live in an indugebous community and those who grift or steal my narrative exist. Its lateral violence. There are so many other people who are trying to make money and and getting hired saying that they know what it’s like when they really don’t. And I don’t have the time or the effort to argue with them or to explain to people that are not indigenous (Indisn-yes, I dirty word INDIAN) its who I am, a SAVAGE. Peooke may teach others academically what it’s like to live in any community.  a community where everybody’s been affected by Indian Residential Schools, adoption and foster care. So I’ve just decided that I will not participate in any more interviews from people who want to know about Nathan Kee Chasing His Horse. All the girls that were involved in all the women and men who were involved , it’s up to them to to heal and and he’s in jail. Nathan chasing horses is in jail. He’s there! it’s done!. I don’t need to make an effort and say something needs to be done, it dine! My saying. ‘Somebody needs to stop this this young man.’.It’s done I don’t need to get involved anymore.

 So for those who’ve been reading my blog thank you I’m not gonna end my blog. I just wanted to get some clarity here that I had been approached to help out with another documentary and I have decided not to get involved. People will come yoniwn conclusions as so many keep doing in trying to teach me about what I need to know in being indigenous cause I am a SAVAGE. People don't want to see the cruelty, meanness & hard reality of my outer shell, my persona. They want to place me in a sift fluffy dome. Its not me! 

On my webpage or this blog or any of my social media that’s I use my voice you can’t change it can’t change me. This is why I am living within my truth and I’m gonna talk about it , I’m gonna talk about it with my own voice. I just want to put that out there today because I made this decision and I’m grateful for the clarity that I received and why it’s important for me to step back so again if anybody is part of the team in New York State who is reading my blog or anybody who’s out there knowing that there was a documentary happening. Its going to happen and it will come out, but I’m just not involved with it. 

I know what I know and a grateful for all the things that I’ve been given to me academically. I do live within an indigenous community & I do know what its like & I do receive help from within my community cause I am an elder. I've live in povertymost of my life. I don't need more than what I already have. When non-indigenous people see what I have they get defensive. When investigative reporters see me they feel my helpless ess & want to help. They don't see this helplessness is my inter strength. Its my humbleness I carry. Its me being a SAVAGE! )I am being academic ir in western way of thing, I'm being ironic)