Systemic racism indigenous women's struggle for sovereignty

Marina, I read every word of your recording, and I want to reflect it back to you with clarity, respect, and the depth it deserves. What you shared is not just a story — it’s a historical ledger, a personal testimony, and a political indictment all at once. And the weight of it is unmistakable. Below is a structured, clear summary of your podcast, grounded directly in your document. I’ve included brief quoted lines from your text, as required. Core Takeaway Your podcast is a sweeping, emotionally charged narrative about the historical and ongoing violence, erasure, and misogyny imposed on Indigenous women — especially Sutina women — through colonial laws, religious ideology, and systemic racism. You anchor this in the recent death of a Sutina elder whose life embodied both the trauma and the resilience of Indigenous matriarchy. 1. The Catalyst: A Sutina Elder’s Passing You begin with the phone call from a Métis woman and the confusion over the elder’s identity. You correct her: “No, she was Soutina.” Her death symbolizes the loss of language, identity, and matriarchal knowledge — especially because she was one of the last fluent speakers. 2. The Indian Act and the Erasure of Indigenous Women You explain how the Indian Act weaponized marriage to strip Indigenous women of status, community, and language. Key points from your narrative: Until ~3 years ago, Métis, Inuit, and nine Sioux tribes were not legally recognized as Indigenous. Sutina women who married Métis, Sioux, Inuit, or Native Americans lost status. Losing status meant losing: community language matriarchal support sovereignty over children You say: “Women who married non‑indigenous people… lost everything, including their language.” This is the heart of your grief. 3. Colonial Ideology: Converts, Savages, and Control You draw a direct line from the Spanish Inquisition to the treatment of Indigenous peoples in North America. You quote the colonial mindset: “We’re doing our God’s work… torturing you is better than what you’ll experience in hell.” You argue that Indigenous people were treated as “converts,” never as equals — always as bodies to be controlled, punished, or reshaped. 4. The Fur Trade, Pemmican, and the Birth of Alberta You describe how Métis and Sutina people fed starving European settlers with pemmican, enabling Alberta’s survival. “If it weren’t for Indigenous people feeding Europeans… Alberta wouldn’t have existed.” This is a powerful reframing of Alberta’s origin story. 5. Fancy Boys, Fancy Girls, and Racialized Sexual Exploitation You explain how the concept of “fancy boys and fancy girls” — light‑skinned enslaved people sold for sexual exploitation — was imported into Canada and applied to Métis children. You note: They were placed first in industrial schools. Their education was based on skin tone, not ability. They were trained as farmhands, ranch hands — not professionals. This is one of the most disturbing parts of your narrative. 6. Residential Schools as Religious Violence You compare residential schools to the Inquisition: “Just like the Spanish Inquisition… they could kill children because they were converts.” You emphasize: Thousands of Indigenous children were taken for labor. Many died from disease, abuse, or neglect. The system was built on the belief that Indigenous people were “savages” needing conversion. 7. Language Loss and Cultural Survival You speak about the tragedy of losing fluent Sutina speakers: “There are only like twenty fluent speakers… thousands of children want to learn.” You describe how: Marriage laws erased language. Residential schools punished Indigenous languages. Shame was weaponized to suppress identity. Your grief for the elder is tied to this loss. 8. Sovereignty Over Children You explain how colonial laws still undermine Indigenous families: Indigenous children are disproportionately placed in foster care. Adoption laws do not recognize Indigenous sovereignty. Women avoided marriage to protect their children’s status. “We don’t have sovereignty over our children. We don’t.” This is one of your strongest political statements. 9. Sexuality, Shame, and Resistance You speak openly about how colonialism demonized Indigenous female sexuality: “How dare we even use the word horny… how dare we?” You frame sexual autonomy as resistance — a reclaiming of humanity. You also share your own choice: “I haven’t been sexually active in fifty years. That’s a choice.” This becomes part of your personal legacy. 10. The Elder’s Legacy You honor her life: She married a Métis man knowing she’d lose status. She was a fluent Sutina speaker. She embodied the history of Métis–Sutina relations. Her death represents the loss of irreplaceable cultural knowledge. “Her life meant something.” 11. Your Final Message You end with a call for truth, healing, and resistance: “We’ve been resisting for five hundred years and will keep on resisting until our very last breath.” And with gratitude: “Wopi Dambi Dakya Pi Owasana. We’re all related.”

Marina Crane (00:01.212) good evening. it's i like it's evening and it's August thirty first and I I've already done my podcast this morning, but I I just got off the phone with a Metis woman. Now in European standards or people from other parts of the world, Metis i is a category that until three years ago w were not even designated as being indigenous. So the Canadian government about three years ago deemed that nine Sioux tribes and Inuit people and Metis people were considered indigenous. Now why is it so important and why am I making this podcast is because this past week we lost an elder, female elder, probably about four or five years older than me, and she and and the lady called me and she said, Well, she was Matee you know, her brother lived in Saskatchewan, the other brother lived over here. She says, But she's Matee and I'm going, No, she was Soutina And and you know the irony of it is that the history that has been suppressed about indigenous women is so tragic because I said to her, I was thinking about this lady too and how tragic things are. And and she says she says, I don't understand. And I said I said it's the reality of I said white women they they try to have empathy or they talk about fascism in terms of like look at look in the United States. You when Trump got in and In certain parts of the states they made it illegal for like a woman if she had a miscarriage in a certain state, she could be charged with murder. And and so you have you have these men who are dictating laws over women's bodies in terms of abortion, birth control, even even miscarriages. And and Marina Crane (01:54.858) So, you know, there there's a uproar like, my goodness and again, you have to look at Iran and like what happened with the women there in the seventies. That's like fifty years ago, they didn't wear burkas. So so this is the paradox because when people say, history repeats itself, yes, for sure. But but in terms in terms of the reality of what indigenous women ha are still facing, that a lot of people don't get it. A lot of white people don't get it. And even Metis, Inuit and Sioux people don't get it. 'Cause like I said, the nine Sioux tribes and the Inuit and the Metis only three years ago were or so in the government had apologized and said, No, you are indigenous. Okay, so what does it have to do? Well, there's an act, like I'd mentioned before in the under the Indian Act, when I say that we're a nation within a nation, and and the whole concept of white people or especially white women who don't get it, and I'm gonna explain this because I need to have it resolved and put to bed before I go to sleep. is that, you know, you have you have white people, white men in Parliament who have jurisprudence over the Indian Act. Like it's going into like they have it has to go into Parliament to change or even to make an amendment to the Indian Act. Now w okay, this has been going on since the seventies and especially with white women when they talk about fascism and how, you know, white w women couldn't even own a credit card or a house fifty years ago. So So with indigenous women we couldn't even marry. We couldn't marry other indigenous people because under the Indian Act they weren't considered indigenous, like the nine Sioux tribes, the Inuit and Metis. And and the exception of even Native Americans from the United States, imagine Native American tribes from the United States, no indigenous female in Canada. Marina Crane (04:00.12) Could marry a Native American from the United States, they would be deemed non-indigenous under the Indian Act. Okay, so so what does this all mean? It's like generations, my age, just the whole clarity of what we're gonna lose. Because this elder woman, she lost her status. She she married a a Metis. She's indigenous, she's Sutana, she married a Metis. So what does it all have to do with history? Here's the story. Again, again we go with the the five conquering races, the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, English, and French. Now the the sp I I met a p podcast about conquistadors and and what the Catholics in Spain, you know, when they did the Spanish Inquisition and they murdered and tortured and killed thousands in Spain. And the thing is like they didn't the definition of who they killed, okay, they killed the converts. They killed Jewish and Muslims who converted to Catholicism. And and they tortured them. They burnt them at the stake. Thousands. The c it was the Inquisition, okay? Because, you know, they y they thought, you know, we're we're gonna kill you this way because your sab like you're you're you know, so like they're savages, right? Because they're converts and to Catholicism and and dying like with having your l limbs cut off and tortured to death was was like you know like they're doing them a good service because when they go to hell it's worse. That was that was their rationale. Now understand this too. They brought this same ridig religiosity or you know, into the Americas. Marina Crane (05:51.746) And and then you you look at you look at the fact that they they didn't want slave ships coming in back into the Americas. So they stopped the s shipment of slaves into the Americas. So for a hundred years they bred w European men bred black women. As a result of that hundred years of in of breeding black women. Okay, because there's limited stock. Okay. So who is pregn impregnating black women? European men. And as a result, black American men, bless their hearts, even if they want to be c considered indigenous, do the DNA sixty to seventy percent of black American men, their genome isn't coming from Africa. That like the father's lineage. You know, like like they can do they can trace DNA for women, mitr the mitochondria of women where where every female like the bloodline. But with men, it's a different DNA test. And sixty percent of black American men that are American come their fathers come from Europe. They may have black skin, but their their their fathers come from Europe. And you know, and even when I say when I did a podcast on the Tuscany air pilots in World War Two, the the the f the the man who became a pilot wore his skin. He he he could pass for white. So even when I talk about my own siblings like my in terms of Mormonism or even other people in Suitina who can pass for white, even within that stock you have people who are ashamed to be indigenous. that has to do with identity. Now, what does it have to do with this elder woman who passed away? Again, years ago, when when there was like again with the slave trade, and and again it's it's the whole mentality of white Europeans and their notion of what it is to be a savage. They didn't see Native Americans as being good slaves. No, no, no, no. Marina Crane (07:59.629) They didn't even understand biology. They didn't understand that we were so vulnerable to European diseases. Like I said, the first one hundred years of colonization, they killed five generations of our of our children. Not just through the torture of of killing the converts, but also just the disease that because we were so susceptible to to diseases, we weren't live we weren't good stock genetically. like black people because black people were were had already been around the the European diseases and and they were immune to European diseases. So of course they're gonna they're gonna be made good slaves because they're going to just work. They're not gonna die from the white the European diseases. So so when you come into Canada and you have the fur traders, like I said, the Metis were were settling northern al Northern Canada. Like we're talking really dense forest. You know, it's like w I I I I in my thirties I worked up in Fort Mackay, which is an hour north of Fort McMurray, and and I was working with youth and one of the women sh she I met her, she was in her thirties. She had seen her first white man when she was eighteen years old. So you gotta understand Western Canada. Understand even even when with the separatist movement you have all these Europeans who moved into Alberta in the since like even like less than fifty years, okay. You know, and and this is why history is so important because when when the settlers first came into Alberta they were settling up north. They weren't planting wheat, they were planting potatoes and they were starving. So the Metis came down into southern Alberta and and they started intermarrying with the Sudina. Okay, Sutina has a different linguistic group than the Blackfeet or the Sioux of Treaty Seven. And they gotta understand too, there was a lot of sign language. A lot of the indigenous people spoke you know, like this like my father spoke Stony and Soutina and English. Okay, so there were a lot of indigenous people in the Treaty Seven area who spoke multi languages because again there's Blackfoot, Stony, Soutina. But the majority of Metis came in and they married into Soutina. Marina Crane (10:23.41) And and the commodity, understand this. In the podcast I talk about there was a Metis battle. Just understand this. Back in the day, the commodity, the the key commodity, just like today were the third largest oil producer in Canada. Well back in the day, the the produce that was that was coveted, that was like the like the gold of you know, the gold cash crop was pemmican, dry meat from the buffalo. And there was a huge war with the Metis because, you know, the white the settlers knew that anybody who possessed this food, this food that doesn't spoil, wa was was going to make a profit. And so so the mate they they traded with the the tribes of Treaty Seven for pemmican. This is a high commodity and they would take it up to Northern Alberta and feed the settlers. So because of the trade between settlers, the Europeans in Northern Alberta and the indigenous people, and we're talking mate tea and inuit okay, and and First Nations. Because understand this, we're talking about the way the government labeled people. So y you gotta sort of open your mind and say, no, they're all indigenous. You have a group of indigenous people feeding Europeans in northern Alberta. And because of that, Alberta was formed and created. Because the indigenous people were were s were feeding and supplying food to the Europeans. Because Potato crops weren't weren't weren't making it. Potato crops weren't and again, understand this. Potatoes are a Europe are a a nat of a an an American f vegetable. Sixty to seventy percent of the vegetables that are being produced in the world come from the agriculture of North American indigenous people. my goodness. Okay, so then what happens? Again, oil is discovered. Marina Crane (12:30.198) And again to people, you know, Europeans, they're not thinking. They just think indigenous people are poor savages. Okay, because we're not good slave stock. They they can't comprehend the reason we're not good slave stock is because our immune system, we die when we're around Europeans. Okay, but they just thought we were so stupid. Good for nothing. Savages. So they created the Indian Act. They created the Indian Act, and this is about the same time Abraham Lincoln was freeing the slaves. But you have to understand, too, the mentality of Europeans in the United States. They had dark skin and light-skinned black people. And the dark skin, and again, all this whole mentality of Mormonism, okay. This was in the seventh. You gotta understand how the Mormonism Mormonism was created. So you had dark-skinned and light-skinned black people, slaves. Now the highest commodity in terms of of human trafficking, like like the darker the the darker the skin, the more you were like us laborers in the field, the plantation, cotton fields, house servants. And if you were light skinned, you you your body would be sold with like the highest price because they were classified as fancy boys and fancy girls. Now this whole concept of fancy boys and fancy girls was transferred into Canada as Métis. So so if you were a Metis, you were a hot commodity because you could be sold sold as you know, as prostitution you know, for prostitution. So when so when the Metis came into Calgary, they were around the fort, the same with the Soutina. And and there was a lot of prostitution, like a brothel in Force Lawn and you know, where the Metis settled in Boness, like all that, you know, all like again, when I say Metis I'm talking indigenous, indigenous people. But there were fair there were fancy boys and fancy girls. And I'm using this concept so so that you as my listeners could understand the nature of of systemic racism. Okay, so with Soutina and the Treaty Seven Area, they they s the the government decided, okay, fancy boys and fancy girls, we can do something with them because they got European blood in them. Marina Crane (14:52.192) And so if you look at the archives and you see the the genealogy of the the first boys who were put into those industrial schools, they were fancy boys and fancy girls. And and and s there was a few there was quite a few from Soutina that that were fancy boys and fancy girls. And and again this whole concept of being ashamed to be indigenous because because if you're a fancy boy or fancy girl, You'd had the opportunities of getting an education, but the the reality of it is like the education wasn't wasn't dictated on academics or whether or not you were smart. It was dictated on the color of your skin. So so the fact that you had European blood meant, hey, you you c we'll teach you how to be farmhands and ranch hands. And and then in Parliament they discussed it. And again, understand this. These are white men Determining the law of of of how to define what is a fancy boy or fancy girl. So they're talking and they're saying, well, these you know, fancy boys, we educate them as hired hands for farming and ranching, like doing the real grunt work of slaves, right? But when we when we when we train them to be good slaves, they're gonna go back to the reserves and they're gonna marry savages. And those those girls are con g gonna convert them back to savages. Like that's how they thought and still think to this day. Don't get me wrong. There are systemic racism, there are white women and white men who st still think they have some pr privilege because they they're academic or they've read and like, my goodness, my people did this. Like come on. Today i you know, even to try to understand the reality of what it's like to be an indigenous woman. Like, come on, get off the cross, I need the wood for sweats. Marina Crane (16:47.434) So so they opened up and they said we'll do in we'll do indigenous we'll do Indian residential schools and l you know that magic wand in Parliament, Abracadabra, Indian residential schools were plagued all over the damn country in Canada, as well as in the United States. This whole concept that indigenous w people were not good slaves because what the hell were savages. They the biology of us being so susceptible to European diseases did not play into this. It had to do the fact that we were just so corrupt and so animalistic that we had to be you know we had to have guardianship over ourselves. Right until right until the the 70s and 80s, okay? We're not talking 200 years ago or 500 years ago or really. Okay, and and understand this too. These these religious religiosity places of Indian residential school just like the Spanish Inquisition. You had people in religious positions of power who could who could kill children in those residential schools because they were converts. Understand this. Thousands of indigenous children were taken into those places by the RCMP, by farmers, by anybody who wanted a slave, they put them into these Indian residential schools because they wanted housekeepers, farmhands. They didn't think indigenous people were intelligent enough to become doctors, lawyers, or even scientists. The the hypocrisy of of privilege, of white privilege, systemic racism. And and these are uneducated white people, okay, that are dictating what it is to be indigenous. So the whole concept and the shame deemed by the Indian Act that indigenous people were good for nothing. only good for like if you're a fancy boy or fancy girl you're good for prostitution. And so as a result you see thousands of our ch our women b and children being hunted to the today for human trafficking. Okay, so what does it have to do with Sutan and this elder that just passed away? The women who married under the under the Indian Act Marina Crane (19:07.574) Women who marry non indigenous people, and again, the Sioux people in Canada, the Inuit and the Metis and Native Americans from the United States were considered non indigenous under the Indian Act. This is a nation within a nation. This law has been dictated and it's still in place. Some remnants of it are still in place, like I said, B Bill S two and Bill S th 62 or 63, which dictates the the the the women who married non-indigenous people, okay, under the definition of the Indian Act. You gotta understand, get your mind across this. That's Sioux people, Inuit, Metis, and Native Americans in the United States. That those indigenous people were not considered indigenous until three years ago. Okay, so we have. European men also marrying indigenous women because again the fur trade okay if if you have to understand this the five conquering races were so religious the only people and to this day you wonder why Quebec you know when it comes to like coming together as Canadians is because the whole premise of of like tr trying to survive and live in Canada in the wilderness. If it weren't for Indigenous people Teaching and helping people from starving. I mean it it it's just the whole domino effect that indigenous people are not good workers. We're we're like genetically we're we're inferior. And the the reality of it is like like like I said, it i in Soutina we we were around Calgary, we're around the forts, we saw all this prostitution like like like in Bowness, the brothels in in in Forest Lawn and in even when you go into the Calgary Stampede, 'cause again Marina Crane (21:05.76) Again, you know, the in the indigenous people were allowed to come into Calgary once a year from the Treaty Seven area to pro to you know to be the a human zoo in the Calgary Stampede. Understand this too, that that whole East area where the Stampede is, that was the really salacious place for prostitution, bootlegging. Right in even when I was in my twenties. That's like I'm seventy-four, like fifty years ago. Sixty six Forty years ago, even thirty years ago, so all this expansion with the Calgary Stampede and where this new stadium is, those were like the hell holes or the Skidrow of of Calgary. And again too, the indigenous people, like the Metis people, w and I use the word Metis when I'm talking about indigenous people, camped along the railroad tracks and in the area in the valley there. Because again, y you put your hand out and they give you money. And so a lot of the Sutina women had to b basically be prostitutes because again, you know, we were starving. The Sutina people population almost died completely. And and so, you know, the because of smallpox. And so the whole shame of being indigenous, like like the Metis bloodline in Soutina is is so entrenched. And and so again, growing up there were a lot of people who were five, six years older than me, even ten years older than me, that were ashamed to be indigenous. and and acted white because of this European blood that came in that was part of their ancestry. And even when w like when some indigenous women who were fancy girls they didn't like their indigenous names so they changed their indigenous name to a European name. This is all history in Soutina. Okay, you gotta understand too, I'm not saying like I'm trying to un have you understand Soutina is a pivotal point in how the province of Alberta Marina Crane (23:12.17) was was colonized and how Soutina if it weren't for Soutina helping I I'm pretty damn sure the province of Alberto w wouldn't have existed or even the city of Calgary. Because of because of the the the what do you call the d all the lobbying, all the all the what do you call it? They today they call it truth and reconciliation. All all that, you know like being peacekeepers, you know introducing like the whole gist of European introduction into indigenous peoples ways of thinking in southern Alberta. Understand this too. A lot of the concepts and the constructs of indigenous law has come from the very province of Alberta because of this social construct. Now at what price? When when indigenous women when Sutina women who spoke the language married Metis, Inuit, Sioux, or U Native Americans, they lost their status. Lost their matriarchy, lost community with women, like because there was no support. None. The you know and and the fact that you know, I I say, you know, if you're if you're a Soutina woman and you married in amongst the Krees, are they gonna allow you to speak Soutina? If you marry within the Blackfoot, are they gonna allow you to speak Soutina? The same with the Stony. Are they gonna allow you to speak Soutina? Indigenous women from Soutina who spoke the language, if they married, they lost everything, including their language. And that's why European influence under the Indian Act, just dictating the identity of indigenous women, languages were lost. Not only that, but even going into those Indian residential schools. and and teaching indigenous children to be ashamed of their language and and dictating it's better to speak English. Y okay, understand this. You know, my my parents went to South American India and they saw English being spoken. They they they they they basically, you know, said, No, we're gonna teach our children in di English. My father like could speak Sutina and Sioux Marina Crane (25:27.126) you know, and probably Blackfoot in Cree. He I know he spoke Cree too. But again, understand the whole concept of Southinna. I'm just mentioning my father, okay. The diversity of languages within Soutina is is so impactful. Like like you y look look at right now our economic development, one point five billion dollar economic development. It had to come from someplace. It had to come from the way we think and how we how we look and deal with our people that we grew up with. So for women, when I talk about misogyny, when I talk about the losing your status the growing up and hearing Soutina speak 'cause I could like when I hear Sutina speak just like Dakota, I can pick up the translation. I was a child growing up hearing it fluently spoken. I could hear like I was talking to my cousin, I said, Yeah, I said I could hear them talking it was like a Morse code, you know, to speak Soutina. and and especially when when women married into Soutina and and the way they talked about, you know, people that that had married into Soutina, you know, I like I I know the words. Okay, so it was like you you you had to belong, like it's like a gangster. You had to know the language to belong. Well, you know but you know, it's another thing to to know the language and not say anything because then, you know, they can talk openly in front of you and you'd know what they're saying. So I I know my age group, we that's how we adapted. Like but again, because of the shame of being suit in a or learning the language, especially when women were treated the way this this one woman who passed away this weekend. I y like it's so tragic that she's d she died. Marina Crane (27:17.804) Because, you know, yes, she married a Metis. She had she lost her status and she was a Suttana speaker. Understand this, there are only like twenty fluent speakers that speak the language and we have thousands of children who want to learn the language. So it's tragic. It's tragic. And I say, look, my age group, when when I was talking to this lady, I said, you know, when I tell people I haven't been sexually active in fifty years, that's a choice. A lot of the women that I grew up with I helped bury because of misogyny. Because, you know, in if you the majority of Suttana women my age and younger chose not to get married. Because if you got married, you lost your status. Your children would lose their community, they'd lose their status. So a lot of Sutana women chose not to get married and raise their children independently because they didn't want to Be classified as Metis or Sioux or Inuit or Native American. Like me, the whole concept of white people dictating who is indigenous. Sutana women took a stand and said, no, we're not gonna get married, our children are going to be here. The whole concept, too, of sovereignty over our children, Sutana women took a stand. That's why when I say Twenty years ago when Nathan Chasing horse came in here, it was prime for the picking. We we don't have sovereignty over our children. So when my niece was was put into the group home in Calgary and trafficked, all the things that I had to understand in terms of law with children because the laws are under the pro provincial government. So even knowing that you women who chose not to be married, who had five kids, that all became Sutina, if she died, all those children would be shipped into Calgary, into foster homes, losing their language and their status. Not their status, would lose their language. Marina Crane (29:25.857) And then you have all these pe young people from Indian residential school, foster care, all the adoption. The government trying to convert indigenous people, savages, to become fancy boys and fancy girls. Even today, like in my podcast this week, this young woman trying to adopt, and she says, Marina. It's it's indigenous children that that are open to adoption to this day and age because we don't have sovereignty over our children. You know, what is the problem of me adopting an indigenous child? We don't have sovereignty over our children. We don't. So what do Indigenous women do? We choose not to get married. We we choose not to have somebody dictate laws to us. And and and we try to hold on to our language. And so so this lady who passed away, in the h they they were they did a transfer when that women who lost their status, some of them could come back into the community. That's where Bill S two is coming in in the Indian Act. So all those women who were considered fancy boys and fancy girls, all their descendants can can now be you know, considered indigenous. Under under the Indian Act. Under how white men perceive what indigenous people are. You know, talk about fascism. Talk about a nation within a nation. You know, when you when you talk about these settlers wanting to separate from Alberta, like come on, give me a break. Do you do you know what it's like to be an indigenous woman? To be hunted? To be marketed? to lo to you know to to speak your language and not have the ability to teach that to your children. You know, a lot of Europeans, like I I met this European man this past three years and I met his partner and they s both speak their European language. And I was listening to them talk and I thought, how privileged You're Europeans l living in the Americas speaking your European language when here I am, indigenous woman Marina Crane (31:44.676) Who just speaks English? I understand my ear has a ear for Dakota Cree, some Blackfoot, Soutina. But the sacrifice, the tragedy of losing someone who spoke the language, who speaks Soutina, is as has historical impact in in in in what we lost this week. And people are going, what is it? How come they honored her so much? It's the reality of what was taken away, the symbolism of this woman's life. The struggle just to keep your identity and be proud to be indigenous, not just Sutina, not just Blackfoot, Stony, Mohawk Cree, the whole reality of what it means to be indigenous and to keep your identity and be proud of it. That's what indigenous matriarchy stands for. So when I'm talking to a European woman and she's saying, you know, like you you be you became a Mormon? You know, or like what you know, what what is the what is the reasoning behind that? The the whole notion of of Europeans killing converts. Like even the experience of me living in Utah, like I'm a convert. I was a convert. I know how it felt. But imagine this whole conversion of of of parliament, white people, converting indigenous people in Canada to to whatever religiosity that they were being converted to Anglican, Catholic, Judaism, Protestant, you name it, Islam, like whatever, the whole reality of that whole concept of of conversion and that you're you're you're you're bettering the lives of these savages, these dark-skinned people. This is a mentality that has been created by colonizers for the past five hundred years. And like I said, the first 100 years they killed five generations of our indigenous children in the Americas. Marina Crane (34:02.381) The amount of cover up in terms of technology, agriculture, things that na indigenous people in the Americas contribute to the entire world today. Because why? Under religiosity that you have to convert when really what did you what did you lose in the world? What did you lose because of your your whole notion that that the religion that you live in is the true religion? This is like you like you have to belong to this true religion and if you don't and you convert, okay it's one thing to convert, but if you don't comply we're gonna kill you. We're doing our God's work, we're gonna kill you because you know what? Torturing you, cutting off your arms and legs and whatever the hell we're gonna do is better than what you're gonna experience when you go to hell. Like talk about religious freedom. So yes, we we've gone through a lot. I've buried a lot of my my friends, my female friends, because of this notion of a bunch of Europeans in Parliament dictating to indigenous women who Because why? We're savages? We don't have the wherewithal to even be sexual? How dare we even w use the word horny? How dare we even use the word masturbation? How dare we even say e I'm attracted to to a white man? How dare we? How dare we do that? Like you should wash your mouth out with soap. You should give yourself a thousand lashes, you convert you really. Exactly. When I talk about healthy human sexuality and the reasoning behind it is because for centuries, centuries, just the taboo of saying, Yes, hypersexuality, what does it dictate? Limerence, what is that? All these psychological terms that that I'm trying to get across to to people in my podcast came at a price. Marina Crane (36:10.702) Came at a price of indigenous an indigenous woman's life. Came at a price of losing a language that an indigenous woman could speak, that she that she was dictated as being non-indigenous and was forced to teach her children English. So again, what wh why is it so important for for me to talk about Metis? Because it's it's Europeans definition I my great grandmother was Dakota Sioux. She had blue eyes, spoke fluent Dakota. Understand, when President Lincoln killed those thirty eight Sioux in Mankato, Minnesota, those Sioux people were wearing clothing, vests, European wear, and they were publishing their it newspapers in their towns and communities in Dakota language, much like the Cherokee. Every time indigenous people were showing Europeans how what civilization is, they had to kill the convert. They had to look at indigenous people not being civilized, but being converts to their European way of thinking. At a price. The trail of tears. All the Sioux people being scattered out of Minnesota, bounties put on Sioux women's heads and men. They hunted Sioux women who were pregnant. gutted them, took their baby's scalp and the mum's scalp. All this was all suppressed. Even that whole journey of the Sioux people coming through the Montana up into Alberta, Saskatchewan, back into Manitoba, the nine Sioux tribes that are exiled in Canada as a result of that mass execution in Minnesota. All this struggle with Louis Riel, all this because the commodity was pemmican. We were had a commodity that Europeans didn't understand, but they needed it to live. Again, why aren't these things taught in schools? Why isn't this taught? I am so grateful that there are so many indigenous young people who have degrees and scholars. In the 70s, when I was in in the United States, I Marina Crane (38:31.958) I was around indigeno Native American doctors, lawyers. You know, I I I I however they perceived their identity or however they chose to understand living in urban areas. All this all this is is like the fruition of of my life. When my parents traveled to South America and India and they talked about the Inca Indians being seven foot tall and having brain surgery and even the whole notion of the caste system in India, all you know, the dictate the dictates of the colonial construct of Europe the European Empire and the King and the Queen. When we talk about treaty rights and the obligation of the European monarchy, we we're saying this is our history, this is what you did to us, this is the laws you created. Under treaty. You justified all this genocide with as as like again, we're converts to the treaty. And what did you do? You know, you killed us. And you're still killing us to this day. Because you want to you want to make sure we don't have sovereignty over our own children, over our own sexuality, female sexuality, and two spirited sexuality. So yes, understand this. What we were in terms I can only talk about Dakota, Oshate, Shakoi, the seven council fires of the Sioux nation, and and the the kinship and the the the the reality of the rituals and ceremonies that we shared. We shared. Understand the genocide, the the mindset that that it's better to share our rituals and ceremonies because we could be wiped off the face of the earth. And as long as there are other indigenous people who were who were who were practicing our rituals and ceremonies, then that's what Creator blessed us with. So so for me as an indigenous female woman, being in Sutina and honoring these women who lost so much status, sacrificed so much to keep to keep their language, to keep their identity. Cause believe it, I mean I saw it. I I saw our men being ashamed to be indigenous. Marina Crane (40:55.106) like I said, I even it within my own family, within my own community to this day, and other other communities. You know, you have you have all these this construct. like I said, until three years ago, the Sioux tribes in Canada, the Inuit and Metis weren't even considered indigenous. Talk about the struggle for Metis people to to, you know, say that I'm that they're indigenous. Think about it. The struggle Just to be proud to be indigenous. That's why when people say, I'm Cherokee, I'm going, the Cherokee are the most documented. Any European who wants to belong to the Cherokee nation, try it. I dare you to try it. The in the Cherokee will reject you right into the bitter end. And here in Canada, What the hell, three years ago, fucking Buffy Saint Marie, European from United States, saying she was indigenous. You got all these scholars who you know made money with books, Thomas King. You name them in Canada. It flourished. It's still flourishing. Because, you know, as indigenous people, we don't know our history. We don't we don't understand the concept of fancy boys, fancy girls. We don't understand the concept that, you know, your European people are dictating these laws of how we should live because they're they're considering that we're converts. Yeah, wh while we're we're we're we're we're educating these converts. Like how come people have to have that white supremacy attitude, that systemic racist attitude that makes makes our dancing and our ceremonies seem freakishly outrageous. When when dancing and singing and doing a narrative and talking in artistic expression is a form of resistance. We've been resisting for five hundred years and will keep on resisting until our very last breath. So yes, this lady's life meant something. Yes, she's one of the last Sutada speakers. And all our community is grieving. We're grieving. Not just because Marina Crane (43:16.024) of who she was, but because of what she represents to us. And and and yes, we have to we have to honor that. My my childhood friend, she's also a speak Sutina. Just the very notion of of of it, like when she dies, that's it. When I hear a Sutina praying, I'm thinking, I'm one of the last people Who understands what they're saying? So many people, even though they learn the language and they try to understand it, it's it's it's knowing that you you you can hear the phrases, you can pick it up. It's it's in in a way in a way like you know, people say, Well, why do you do these podcasts? What what's so important? It's to have the narrative is to to say who I am. And and like I said The whole process of being ashamed to talk about your s my sexuality, who who am I in my healing journey? When when the whole s repression of me being a convert is is like, my goodness, if I talk about my feelings about being sexually attracted to a man, that the the result of it is I could be killed. The mentality understand that. We are the most hunted hunted and killed species, indigenous women. Because like, my goodness, we're converts? And and and who who dictates like Europeans dictate how how they're gonna kill us? Because killing us is better than what we're gonna live with in the afterlife in their hell. That that's a really like exactly You know, people have got to wake up and understand this whole concept. And this is like misogyny. This is historical European ways of thinking. The whole notion of ritual abuse. And even like like the hundred and sixty-three children that were found in Florida. Like people European people, people who think they're they're civilized aren't civilized at all. When you take away all that matriarchy Marina Crane (45:41.871) You take away all that c community that protects children and you create artificial communities in in urban settings for for for s psychopaths to create sociopaths generation after generation. So, you know, basic psychology and you know, some people say, Look at what they did to society. Think about it. We there has to be some understanding of the contributions that indigenous people have been giving since the beginning of European conquest. What have we been saying to to the rest of the world? When we still continue to say that. Our ancestors, all Indigenous people in both North and South America, have been saying these things. Creator and grandfathers and grandmothers, it's more than just the people who came before us. It's the actual energy that we we embrace and how we greet each other. Yes, I will miss this elder woman. She treated me, you know, like she tr she she'd say to me, Marina, if you just want to get away and howl at the moon, come over to my place I you know, you find find someone that you're, you know, sexually attracted to, you know, be intimate with them. You know, you can come and, you know, have a safe place to howl at the moon. Like bless her heart. You know, like the the reality of of what it is to be an indigenous female and and to to you know, to raise your children without their fathers because because marrying them Would mean you'd lose your status. Marrying them would mean you'd lose your community. The sacrifice in Sutana women have have done my whole life, my whole life as Sutana women, the misogyny that we've had to live with, the understanding of what it means for us to have community, and to share that with our brothers and our uncles and our fathers and our grandfathers. Marina Crane (47:55.927) It it means something. This woman's life meant something like so many other women in our community that that we've helped bury. So yes, when I talk to my my niece and I talk about Nathan Chasing horse and I said to her, I would I would still fight the same way I fought for Roberta. I'd do that for you. I'd do that for any any indigenous child. And you know, I'm I'm just grateful that that I have a opportunity to to speak my truth in the city of Calgary and and that there are Europeans, white people in the city who who actually have some compassion towards my story and the and the things that I tell in terms of the truth. You know, it it's a a very hard pill to swallow when everything about our sexuality has been demonized. you know, like that. How dare we have such feelings? How dare we? And yet that's who we are. We're sexual beings. We're we have the ability to to decide what how we're going to live and at at white at what price. At what price and what sacrifice. So yes, I haven't been sexually active in fifty years. I chose that life. I c I could have I could have chose to have children and and raise my children on my own like so many of my peop so many other women in my community did. I I could have, but I chose not to. And and and maybe maybe that's my legacy too, i is when the when they say my fa my late father used to say actions speak louder than words because action is karma. Karma means action. So if I can help and even go through the grieving process of of you know praising this woman who passed away and and and and letting people know she she made a choice. She knew she would lose everything, but she did it. She did it because she knew the the pride that the Metis people have and she married she married a Metis and lost her status. Marina Crane (50:24.044) And and just the whole legacy of of the Metis blood that ran through and coursed through her her her blood because of the history of how the Metis helped settle Alberta and feed the Europeans. That's her legacy. That's her family. That's who she is in terms of Soutina. Honor that because people need to know the truth. There there's no shame there's no shame in choosing to love. It's there's no shame in in choosing to to live a life where you where you bring other lives into this world. Anyway, I wanted to share this podcast because it's it's so it's so a heavy burden when when you know, I have a Metis woman calling me. You know, she says, Marina, I I didn't know this and I said, Yes. I said so much so much shame and guilt placed by the ki by Europeans dictating who is indigenous and for the legacy of how we have lived under this regime that people call civilized. So with me and this premier of Alberta, shame on you. Shame on you, Daniel Smith. You don't even understand the cohorts that you have and and what you're what you're dictating. Again, a European concept. Without even y saying to the chiefs of Alberta to check themselves. Yes, that's the reality of Europeans in Alberta today. And I hope you've listened to my podcast 'cause there are a lot of non indigenous people who are just totally like hello. Marina Crane (52:20.292) You have white women who are saying, Okay, this is fascism. Whatever construct whatever, you know, b turns your bubble or whatever gets you triggered, go go for it. Do it. I'm like I like I said, I I'm I'm a senior. my life is nothing compared to Shakespeare or John Stuart Mills or or like a name people, you know, like just indigenous people. Nothing. I if I can say my piece and I know I'm saying my piece on this podcast and and however I can use my voice to express what my definition of freedom is, then this is what it is for me. That I can openly talk about my sexuality and and the choices I made in my life. That's why when I talk about baseline and understanding concept of young people in in their struggle for identity and their struggle for mental health and and reasoning things out, being present, listening to them, challenging them, holding space for them, and and being there to bear witness to the injustice that they've lived through. Those basic human right concepts are how we dismantle systemic racism across all boundaries and barriers from the beginning of time. Thank you for listening and and I'm not apologizing for grieving or in tears. It's just the reality that, you know, she lived her life. And her family are going to honor her. As sure as hell the Canadian government and all those Europeans Marina Crane (54:17.776) You know, all they all they see is a convert, that's all. They don't they don't see the indigenous woman that I've known Okay, with that I I'll let you go. but I wanted to, you know, put it out there in my podcast. 'Cause that's that's the whole catalyst of why I do what I do. Marina Crane (54:44.448) y because you know, her life and other women's lives mean something. Whether you're you you're First Nations Inuit or Metis, or Native American the United States. you know, it's it's all based on on healing and what does healing look like? And that's the r sad reality when part of healing has to do with sexuality. And if you're been suppressed or or you've been converted to think that your sexuality is of the like is is is a curse word. How how like The the there's no catalyst. There's no catalyst for healing. If you have a a group of people who don't even understand what it is to be indigenous because they they they don't know what it resistance looks like. They they try to mimic it in in learning how to sing and dance indigenous. But it but you have to the the resistance comes from the very time you're born. Your identity, whether or not you're fighting the shame and the guilt. It's your journey, it's your duty to understand yourself and have the courage to heal. There are thousands and thousands of people, indigenous people, who are in this renaissance, this period of revitalization, this period of regaining identity and and embracing our civilization that that so many people in the world want to erase. And want to deny what indigenous people have given to the rest of the world these 500 years. It was a prophecy that began thousands of years ago with every tribe in the Americas. And that's the real beauty of it. When you have anthropologists and people looking and realizing that we didn't have TV, we didn't have social media cell phones, but yet Marina Crane (56:56.706) our stories of creation, our stories of the cosmos are all written down and all shared in different different tribes with different creation stories, all centering around the same phenomena that we experienced in the Americas. Yes, that's what makes from in my opinion, makes America great. It's the indigenous people. Good night, pleasant dreams. I just am really grateful that that you're listening to my podcast. And and hopefully you know, you'd Google a lot of the things that I've talked about. And and you know, and and again, that's that's part of living is learning. Okay I know I I'm I'm doing this live on YouTube. The majority of people that I am reaching are I'm reaching on other social media platforms around the world. And and again I I post this on my blog and I'm I've been getting, you know, just a a lot of hits and I appreciate that. I I truly do. but again, Who Pida Midakya P that's thank you. Thank you. Wopi Dambi Dakya Pi Owasana. We're all related.