The need for understanding, dialogue, and the preservation of indigenous culture

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hank you for sharing this. The transcript is very personal and covers a wide range of connected themes: grief, Indigenous sovereignty, gender, community membership, residential schools, child welfare, violence against Indigenous women, cultural identity, sexuality, and Truth and Reconciliation. A few major themes stand out: Responsibility and protection You begin with concerns about your dogs and the difficult choices involved in keeping them safe. That concern for protection becomes a larger metaphor for protecting children, communities, culture, and vulnerable people. Indigenous sovereignty and belonging A central argument is that Indigenous people should have greater authority over their communities, children, and futures. You discuss how identity, status, membership, and marriage have affected power and privilege within Indigenous communities. Grief and loss The death of Cree filmmaker Georgina Lightning becomes a catalyst for reflection. You speak about funerals, mourning practices, community responsibility, and the loss of many Indigenous people over your lifetime. Truth and Reconciliation The approach of September 30 leads to discussion of residential schools, survivors, intergenerational trauma, and the work of people such as Nora Bernard. You emphasize the importance of listening to survivor testimony and preserving memory. Violence and exploitation You discuss trafficking, missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, foster care, poverty, and the vulnerability of Indigenous youth. A recurring theme is the need for honest conversations about safety, sexuality, and abuse. The power of voice Throughout the transcript, you return repeatedly to the idea that speaking openly matters. The podcast appears to function as both personal healing and public education. Strengths of the episode Strong personal voice. Deep lived experience. Emotional honesty. Clear commitment to protecting future generations. Connection between individual stories and larger social issues.

Marina Crane (00:01.852) good morning. It's September eleventh, two thousand twenty-six. And I was trying to do my podcast yesterday and I kept on getting in interfered because like I've been having issues with my two great pyronees and I've had to chain one up and it's heartbreaking, but the reality of it is if I don't do that some car or somebody could kidnap him. Cougars or bears could kill Like I mean, in one year I lost three dogs. So the this isn't something new to me, but it's also something that I've had to to wrestle with all day yesterday. And and I'm still resolving it. until like they can run freely the way they did before. But the issue is like they were going off five kilometers away. Anyway. In another we'll say let's see what twenty nineteen more days there's going to be in Canada truth and reconciliation. Now sometimes a lot of times people you know they think, well, you know, there what is the problem? Well, because we're culturally different. as as well as like there there are so many things that we do have in common with just humanity and that's the cautious thing about it because I was quite upset this past week because today there's a funeral happening. And I don't know how old this woman is, she's non-Indigenous, but under the Indian Act, like this is what happened, when I lived in the States and I wanted to apply for my green card, under the J Treaty I'm eligible because that was the first treaty that the United States ever created as a country. It validated them becoming a country. Marina Crane (02:00.01) Under that treaty, I tried to use use it to get my green card. When I went to Salt Lake City, they said, no, we're not giving it to you because other Canadian law white women can marry Native American men and get Native American status, which is so true. Now it's the irony of it is like when I try to explain to white people that white women have privilege Even though white women believe they live in a fascist country where their human rights are going to be taken away, to the point where like here I am, like sort of like this idealistic in native indigenous woman who thinks, y these are educated white women and just the the results and the choices that they've made, like it it still shocks me that a husband and wife you know, white couple, rather than the woman using birth control, so it affects her hormones, tests her identity, like just the whole mental health issue around a woman using birth control as a contraceptive, that these people would decide to have abortions rather than the woman using birth control or the man using birth control. Like like I mean, it it's it's amazing that the choices that people make and and yet at the same time I have a a young woman who's who's A couple of summers ago she was driving and she had a miscarriage in one of the states, and she says, Marina, if I had this miscarriage, there were only three states that she said, if I had a miscarriage in one of these, they could have charged me with murder. And and this is the the whole thing when you say fascism, because you're having men could making laws to govern the sexuality of women. Marina Crane (03:50.892) That's why when I talk about sovereignty of our children, we have white people in parliament making laws where they're for indigenous children without the consent or sovereignty of the parents or grandparents or even extended family. So a lot of this is so controversial because this has to do with like intergenerational trauma, lateral violence, genocide. And all this is is is an extension of people trying to oppress or silence the in the native Native American narrative or the voice, the healing voice that is so powerful coming from our youth today. So why was it so hard for me to do this podcast? Well we also lost a sixty-three year old indigenous filmmaker, a Cree woman, and The reality of it is like, you know, people have got to get their shit together. This woman was outstanding. And yet in the past three years, what do people talk about? They you know, especially indigenous men. It just irks me to the tenth degree. Because here's a Kree woman who accomplished so much. actual Cree woman who grew up on her First Nations had married I mean, like this Cree woman was my late brother's f f wife of my first cousin his first cousin. So so the connection is close, even though my sister really didn't associate with her, is the fact that the extension of the family and the dynamics of it Because a lot of times when when people non-Indigenous people have funerals, it's just like with an hour it's over. Or or like if it's somebody prestigious they'll do like what do they call those memorials, like a real big memorial. Now, why am I upset? Because this is a Cree woman and about three years ago when they uncovered Buffy St. Marie as being a fraud Marina Crane (06:05.45) And and this is what really I want my readers to underst my listeners to understand this. When I talk about the narrative voice, I'm not bullshitting, I'm not lying. This is a real difficult topic, especially when you have so many white women who under the Indian Act could marry and and they've come into my community and and all other communities and and they have privilege. So you not only have white privilege in white society, you have privilege in in indigenous communities. So what does that mean? Okay, well let me break it down first. I don't know how to explain it because it's such a broad subject, but I have a friend who lives in Hong Kong and she sent me she sent me a video clip. She sent me a video clip of Marina Crane (07:06.552) program that sh that her in her in her classroom it's about chief dan geor who was an actor like back in the sixties and seventies with little big men and dustin hoffman and I had opportunity to meet him and so when she sent me the video yesterday I looked at it and we had a conversation over through Messenger And and I said to h her, well, I met his daughter. A lot of what he said in public was all script because it's like, you know, major industry, like millionaires who are sponsoring these movies to make more money. So they create the no the noble Hollywood savage. Now he was a nice man, I mean, struggled his whole life and his daughter traveled with him to protect him because people, you know, like will abuse you know, influential elderly indigenous people. And and again too, you know, she she wanted what was best for her dad. Now, why is that so important? Well, even to this young Cree woman who passed away, and I say young, she was sixty-three, she was already a grandma, is that the work she had to do, the compassion she had for other First Nations people and how she used her her voice to help and connect them to healing healing practices, pla places and people. And she had she herself had to leave Canada and and find work in Los Angeles. Now, I want you to understand the dynamics and the structure of indigenous artists throughout the Americas because like I said, we're going through a renaissance and there's nothing white supremacy could ever do to try and stop us. And I I include myself in this because I've been involved with the art community for quite a while. Marina Crane (09:04.314) I didn't really seek my fine arts degree until I was a mature adult, like in my 40s. Now, why I'm bringing up white women marrying into indigenous communities is because for some reason society, especially in Canada, and I'm not saying the United States is immune to it, my goodness, the Cherokee Nation has created such a such an extensive screening process for anybody who claims to be Cherokee. Like that's how profound people want to pretend to be this noble savage that Hollywood created. So again I go to Buffy Saint Marie and every time I say her name I want to put the letter F in the middle like Buffy F. Marie. Because really a Cree woman, people are still you know, like idolizing her because she's a white woman. playing to be an indigenous woman. Now why is this so hard? Well today we have a woman who married into my community who's white and she's getting all the honor all the honorary rituals and ceremonies of a nation member. Why is why does that bother me? Because I don't know her. We have 234 elders over the age of 60 in my community, and the majority of us don't even know her. Why? Because she married an indigenous man who passed away, I think maybe 10, 20 years ago. She came in and she divorced him. And likely, you know, any white woman who marry indigenous men can divorce them and still remain a nation member, a voting nation member. without due cour course of even knowing the language because they married a man. Colonial construct. Indigenous women can't do that. We're we're the lowest of the low in the caste system. Even above our own indigenous men, white women have more status. So what does that mean? Okay, once upon a time when I lived in the state of Utah Marina Crane (11:09.728) I met a very educated indigenous Native American man who had been the chairperson for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Secretary for the Interior of Utah, helped me get my green card because I told him what the immigration officer in Salt Lake City had said that they weren't accepting applications from people from Canada because even though I wore my skin, he says even white women are considered Native American. That is a very faulty thing to do under the J. Treaty. Now because I he knew me, this man who who was quite politically involved, and even though you might have criticism, he used to babysit for Ronald Reagan. He helped me get my greed card out because I had all the documentation and he knew me for for for a while. So what does it mean to be a pretendian? This this Native American man had been in foster care throughout his life. He said I went from foster care to foster care. And then he joined the military, got a a bill to go to school. and he said he says, I don't know what it's like to live on a reservation. In other words, he didn't know what it was like to live in the communities of First Nations, Inuit or Metis communities. You know, because he's a millionaire. When I imagine him he was consolidating all of his companies into ten. And he says, I have my card and he showed me his his status card, what tribe it belonged to, the his membership. Like he had the ability to vote. He had all this political power. He says, But I don't use it. He says, I don't use it because I don't know what it's like to live in in like the on the reservation and First Nations, like Native American First Nations Inuit Metis communities. And and he says he says because I don't know what it's like, like the poverty. See and that's the key thing. When you're a white woman with privilege, and I'm a Native American woman, I'm an indigenous woman, a Canadian, who grew up dirt poor. Marina Crane (13:17.234) I grew up poor. Even though I say my parents traveled to South American India. My par my grandparents were political, my uncles, my aunties. I mean, Lord, how much more privileged should I be? And yet at seventy four years old, I'm living in the house that my mother lived in and do and sh this is her last house. Throughout my whole life in terms of lateral violence, because I am an indigenous woman, I have been abandoned. I will never see my own house built for me. Cause I've done this my whole life. Like you can look into my podcast and see the historical events of how I tried to have my own place. Voluntarily doing a lot of things without being paid. First daycare center, first detox treatment center, j bringing in money f without payment so that I could have the place renovated and and stay in the basement as a janitor, a live in janitor, denied to me by the leadership and chief and counsel. And even for them to make a policy like anybody fifty five years and and younger could like you had to be fifty five years w if you were single and had no children to even be eligible for a house. Like that's how suppressed like misogyny and lateral violence was in my community, Soutinic community. Whereas you have a white woman who marries an indigenous man, most some over my older than me, some my age, automatically they get a they get they have a husband and then and then they get a house. Compared to someone who's grown up in poverty like myself. Marina Crane (15:01.416) I could have gone like if I had studied and did my due diligence and didn't run away, I could have shoulda woulda coulda. But when I went to and applied for university, I didn't want to become a teacher because that's what they were doing. They were grooming people to become teachers. I rebelled against that and I said no. I had to go to the state of Utah in a university town to work full time, to pay for my education full time. So yes, when I tried to make sure that I would stay there so I have a green card and working, I I had support. And I'm grateful that I met this this Native American man who told me, like this is what for me makes me proud to belong as a Native American, is my status card. He's not pretending Doesn't need the money, just like we have a young man here in his 40s who's a millionaire, lives in Arizona. He's helping our community, he's paying back. And hopefully that's what I do with my podcast, too, in a sense of paying back by educating people about just how systemic and how misogyny works within First Nations Innuit Metis and Native American communities. Because I'm not the first, nor will I ever be the last to. But but you have women who like Buffy Saint Marie who who seize the the opportunity to slide into an indigenous community who've already been conditioned to accept white women. And and to totally, you know, adopt them because, you know, some of these white women who did marry and did g have children. But this particular woman whose funeral is today, I don't believe had children. Like I said, I don't know her. But she got all the privileges of a a community member. education, she got educated, they paid for her education, she got a PhD. My goodness. Like I said, would a white community do that for me if I went into the city? Marina Crane (16:59.362) Would what organization would pay for my my master's or my PhD? So when I talk about privilege, that's what I'm talking about. The reality of it is w she had nothing. The way they're honoring her today is because she has, in my opinion, where are her f white family? When I talk about individu individualistic approaches, that's what white people are. They you it's only an hour an hour funeral. And and this isn't how we honored her. W her her relatives who like even though she divorced their brother, they ha we have had a week of mourning. Everything has been canceled. Like everything, they're like I said, they're the fa th the family she married into, even though he remarried and had other other wives. I mean mind you they were indi they had to divorce each one of them. So you you gotta understand this. When I talk about privilege and and I'll get into that too because because this has a lot to do with people's ideologies, especially in nineteen thirties Germany and the way Hitler saw men and women. It it it's just like I like I like it when they say Hitler used the the Indian Act or how c the British people or nate or Americans treated Native Americans, I kid you not. that's a warning sign, that's a red flag here, people. So anyway, when when I look at that and I see white women marrying in, where is the pride? They have a choice to say, No, I'm not gonna take that money. I don't know what it's like to live to have been raised and born and raised here. Like like the fellow that I met in the United States who had a status card, who'd never lived went from foster f home to foster home Marina Crane (18:55.266) I mean it's typical, you know, we have a lot of indigenous kids who've never lived in First Nations Inuit or Metis communities in foster homes and being adopted. Like one of my guests said she was look applying for adoption, yet the only children that were open for adoption and this is in twenty twenty six were Indigenous kids. Why? Because we don't have sovereignty. I'm pretty sure if we had sovereignty over our children we wouldn't be allowing white people to adopt them. Like forever, forever. And even having these children raised to be ashamed of being indigenous. I mean, 'cause it's the structure it's the whole structure of of them coming back and and finding some some some way to be accepted because they have their status cards. Their parents were indigenous and were raised in indigenous communities. So so that's my cautionary tale. There are so many indigenous women and children who are vulnerable. This this lady who passed away, that money for her PhD, that that could go to any of my nieces or nephews or my cousins' children or or my neighbors' children who are living in poverty for for academic training in the trades or or just post-secondary. In my community, that's the critique of elders. I s I was talking to my cousin. She said, Marina, you're you're not suffering from dementia or Alzheimer's. Well, in I mean I I have problems I everybody will as they age. But she said as long as you're have your voice, tell the truth. Explain to people. You know, ex explain to people what it is like to have grown up here and to be an indigenous woman. we're the we're the have more women, indigenous women who marry into my community have more privilege than I do. Marina Crane (20:51.564) So you gotta understand this caste system. First you have white women with upper privilege, because they have privilege i off reserve. Then you have w w indigenous women who came from other communities who married our indigenous men who are just below the white woman. Then on then you have the indigenous women who who grew up here in Sutina. Now either they marry another Soutina, which gives them a little status under the other, like so you have white women, you have women, indigenous women who married into Soutina, then you have the Sutina women like myself who've lived here. And if they and if if I had married somebody from Soutina, I would fall in that stat that's that status, that s caste system. However, there's also a fourth. These are women like myself who've grown up here. But unlike myself, I chose not to have children. There are so many indigenous women in Sutana who chose not to marry. They chose not to marry any indigenous man, whether or even white men, okay, so they chose not to marry so they could keep their status, even when their status is the lowest of the low in the community, in the caste system. They cho we chose they chose. It was a choice. To to be to be a single parent and raise your child and that your child would be under your ban membership list and be considered indigenous. That's how indigenous women practice our sovereignty. Wake up world, wake up, white women. You know, and and the thing is like show some respect. When when we have our children being born here and and and they they for s for no fault of their own, there's no money to help them. And in poorer communities, it's even worse. So sovereignty does mean something. Having sovereignty over our children does mean something. Because that it means that Indigenous women have a voice and they can protect their children. Right now, if there was an Indigenous woman, and there have been indigenous women in my community who were born and raised here in poverty, chose not to marry their the their partners. Marina Crane (23:09.578) had five kids and then when the and the man who who, you know, in his privilege d who's who doesn't want to work, doesn't do child support. You know, my my late friend who's been gone for almost thirty years, I said to her, and I knew her for over thirty years, I said to her, why didn't you ever apply for child support? And her husband was raised here. Okay, she says, I didn't want to and he was a very violent man, very political man too. And she says, I didn't want to apply for child support because I wanted my children, if they when they grew up and started having children, I wanted them to have access to their dad's land so they could put their house on their dad's land. And I said, What? So th the the precarious and she married in, okay, she married in. But also there are women who have been gro who grew up here, who had children, when they apply for a house, even though they've worked their whole lives for the nation, are denied any access to it put their house anywhere they want. Again, misogyny, lateral violence. And it's heartbreaking that this is happening within families. Like like for me, like I said, I'm I'm shunned by two of my siblings who are Mormon. Whoop de do. Tell me something new. It's no it's no biggie. But yet at the same time, what the hell? Sovereignty means something. Like like I always think about that lady, She was pregnant when I was working with her. We were working really li hard hard jobs looking for bom ign fuses, bombs, mm, because they had been they were un undetonated fuses and and so for a couple of seasons I worked and I met her and then after I saw her we worked we worked in some casual labor. You gotta understand I made a choice. I used like I'm educated. Marina Crane (25:12.546) But the the the job that I had as education director, I was treated so bad and even to be offered a a managerial job, I refused it. And it was okay that people talked bad about me as if I was someone that couldn't work with people. I mean, I am a person Who lived in another country on her own, paying my rent and tuition, and yet people in my community, do they even understand? Have they even got the to tenacity to understand how hard it that is? Again, this whole policy, like you were you able to live on your own, you know. I I don't even dare apply for a house. I I asked for a place and they put me in a town site. And and and so I had this house, but my mother was sick and I moved in with my mu my late mother, gave gave the house to my cousin who had you know, he's he's got his own house, but he refuses to divorce his wife. And anyway he he he's got possession of of that house, that towns townhouse. I I like I said, I I I live in the house at my mot this is my mother my late mother's house. my my even thinking of applying for a house at my age, like like this is ridiculous. You know, I'm gr I'm really privileged at what I have compared to a lot of non indigenous women who live in nursing homes or who have dementia or Alzheimer's. You know, I I'm I'm very grateful and and that's why I wanna put that out there. I'm not doing this podcast for the sake of my ego or trying to get money or notoriety at all. I'm just trying to explain to you the truth. Like that young woman that I worked with, she was pregnant. I last time I saw her was like I think in August or September of that year. By April by October she had died that year. Why? She gave birth Marina Crane (27:20.876) All her child five children had been apprehended. She gave birth, didn't even see her baby. They just took her baby right out of the hospital. She died of a broken heart. All of the ladies that I've buried in my lifetime my my second cousins who, you know, murdered and missing indigenous women. my one cousin walked into Vancouver General Hospital suffering from the extreme case of cirrhosis and died died there. My other cousin overdosed in a park And again they say overdose, but it could be murder. I mean, she told me horrific stories of her how how she'd be beaten up and put in the trash can and stuff like that as an indigenous woman in Vancouver. And last week I was having a meal and these l and the these ladies who could pass for white, but they're indigenous, they have their status card. The one who lives in Vancouver and she was talking to her friend and she we were talking, we were all indigenous. Now I explained to her, I said, I'm treaty, like I'm I'm st I know what it is to be status. I also know what it is to be non-status, I said, because I I come from like one of the s there's eleven, I think, I don't know, nine Sioux tribes in Canada. One I I don't know, it's anyway, the majority of them are Dakota and one Lakota. And then there's Metis and Inuit, who only were recognized as indigenous three years ago. I'm talking to these women from BC, okay, and the one lady she lives in Vancouver Vancouver. And she says she was saying like there's a I don't know if it was a Costco or some major chain grocery store. She said outside of that store you have young indigenous men prostituting themselves. It's so open and blatant and that you know, like just how openly it's acceptable in it because their poverty struck it. It's poverty. And and you know, like how many of these young men were in the foster care system? Marina Crane (29:22.672) system and trafficked right out. Like it it's it it it's so preposterous that sometimes it boggles my mind when I try talking to indigenous elder women about healthy human sexuality. Like like I said, it was really awkward for me to even try and do this podcast for the past couple of days because it was so disturbing. I had talked with my cousin and we were talking about Mormonism and how young Mormon men from missionaries who who go on missions in Native American communities and these Native American girls fall in love with them. And and how or even just just n indigenous girls, educated, okay? I've seen it because again I've been in the university system with other Native American girls, so I know what the hell I'm talking about. So I gave my cousin two examples. One was a Navajo girl who had an internship in Washington, DC. She met a Jewish guy who lived in New York City. And through that internship, he seduced her, taught her how to do fallacia, oral sex. So when I be became friends with her, she was just she was just so openly talking about him. She says, we are on the phone ten hours, we have phone sex. And she said she was a virgin and then she explained to me that she'd never had intercourse, only oral sex. And I said to her, Well, you're not a virgin. Because again, she's having orgasms through oral sex and giving a man orgasms through oral sex. How is that not a virgin? Now I s explain that to my cousin and my cousin goes, she says, My cousin's sixty-five. And she's got three adult children. She says, In my relationships I've never had oral sex. I don't know about you, Marina. And I and I just thought, What is she what kind of relationship does she have with her children? Like I just Marina Crane (31:30.753) Okay, because you don't have talked to her. She she she's her background is in human resources and with child and family. Like she's worked with ch child and family services for the province of Manitoba. Also works in health. And and and she she's the first time she's talking to me about like like just the inability for her to talk openly about oral sex. Because her children, like she her she enables her adult children. They they have so many social problems and she's the single breadwinner. And then then I go on to tell her too, like again, no, the reason I'm mentioning this and why it's so important is when I say foster kids at the age of fourteen are being trafficked, you know, I felt like telling her, Do you know what they do with children who are human trafficked? You know, they they they they gang rape them for five s like four or five days repeatedly until their body heats up. Then they throw them in a room for their body temperature to go cool down, and if they survive, if their body comes back to normal, they survive, they're ready to have multiple partners a day. But if they don't survive, they die. And and it it just amazes me that that I'm looking at her going, don't you know what they do to these children? There's not just intercourse, there's anal sex, there's oral sex, every tricking sexual position that derog just the torture of these kids having to be trained and groomed to perform for men. You wanna when when I did a podcast like I listened to a podcast And they were talking about OnlyFans and how the majority of young women eighteen to twenty-four make a living off of porn in on OnlyFans. And the majority of people who watch them on OnlyFans, subscribe to them making money, are I think it was what ninety percent of them out of the out of the eighty million American men are married. So Marina Crane (33:44.846) You know, when I when I talk about like in i women who don't have the ability to even talk about oral sex, to to be so f naive about what people do to children that go missing or even murdered indigenous women and girls and two spirited, even her brother went missing. And and she she looks at it like, you know, I I don't know about you, Marina. And I'm going, No, I'm trying to I'm trying to say to her, I had to talk to this young Navajo woman to explain to her that that it it oral sex means more to a man than than what she gets from him. I said that the whole difference in female body is different in in terms of of orgasms and arousal. It it just totally like the lack of understanding from my cousin who's 65 years old. And maybe for some of you in my audience too, maybe this is a bit of a trigger for you and bless your hearts if you think so. But but for me, growing up knowing about limerence versus erotomania, that is one of the podcasts that I did talk about. the whole cross cultural dynamics of of how people see gender, as well as not just gender within their own society, but within different cultures. So there was another Navajo woman who was in fact was in l I will say in limerence with this return missionary, asked me to accompany her to his apartment. So I went. Again, I'm the older older woman, these these These Navajo women that I spoke to, they trusted me. And I went to the apartment. I could hear everybody moving around the apartment. All of his roommates were hiding his girlfriend from the this Navajo woman. She 'cause she really believed this she was gonna marry him. So we go into the apartment and they're all being friendly and everything, and then out of the blue, this lady comes out of the bedroom. Marina Crane (36:01.959) And and his roommates are are doting on her, you know, trying to cover up that, you know, like this is his girlfriend. I saw through it, but my Navajo friend didn't. Now, why am I bringing up this this Navajo woman? Well, eventually she did marry a return missionary who had had a mission in the Navajo Reservation, because understand this, the Mormon church has graduated more Native American students from their foster care program. Grooming, conversion, shunning than any other university in the Americas. So you have a lot of foster ch Native American people who've gone through the foster system within the Mormon placement program, they called it. None of my siblings have gone into foster care, say my younger sister. But she she only she went one year and that was it. And I don't know what abuse she went through. That's her story, not mine. However, the reality of it is the the escapism. 'Cause we had Mormon missionaries here and they were we were they would banish them because, you know, a lot of the young women they just thought, you know, if I if I ha I could get one of these men to fall in love, they'd rescue me and take me away from here. And and again in the in the sixties and seventies, the Mormon missionaries, when they did go out on missions, they were recruited to go out and get married and be fruitful and multiply. But there were other p other places of being fruitful and multiplying by by by taking kids from the reservation and it and fostering them and adopting them. And and actually teaching them how to shame their own families because of poverty. Marina Crane (37:50.85) Now this Navajo woman, she eventually did, like I said, marry return missionary. And his best friend was his missionary partner. So in missionaries in Mormon church they they go two by two. You can't you can't not leave your your missionary companion. But it turns out his companion was not only his best friend, but he was also his lover. And and this Navajo lady was so naive, like she had a child from the guy. They had a house in Utah. And and how she explained it is like they have a a Hogan on the Navajo reservation, which her husband and his best friend frequently visit on long weekends. So like I said, the naivete and the understanding of what it is that that women like if you do not talk about sexuality, y how free are you? If there's some sort of control or something, it's like like to me that's the whole reason when I talk about h healthy human sexuality, it's a it's a work in progress. You have to take it by the horns and have to actually, you know, struggle with some of these topics that are triggering, but yet it's important. It's important because there is a child depending on you. Like like I can't like it it it bothers me. It bothers me. that that here's my cousin at sixty-five who who knows about you know the children and just murdered and missing and I'm thinking what did what do you think what do you think these people do to these kids? How how do you how do you talk to your own children? How how do you how do you explain to them like what what could happen to them Or or like when something happens to somebody that like what kind of help they need. Like there's the whole notion of safety and what is safety in in in in the sense that as long as that we belong to this religion and as long as we follow the protocols within this religion, we're safe. No, no, no, no, no, no. Marina Crane (40:04.801) I went to the ritual abuse conference at Brigham Young University and they we talked about they talked about all the these cults cults within cults and you know, just the horrors of how children develop multiple personalities. And even when you go to university, one personality might not even know what the other personality is doing. And you could have so you just don't trust anybody, doctors, lawyers, Indian chiefs, you'd name it. If they're if they have multiple personalities, one personality doesn't even know what the other one does. And in the city of Calgary, I do know that they have a special police force that is trained just on that alone. But more police forces need to be trained that this way. And at the same time too, I think a lot of indigen non-indigenous people who want to work with indigenous communities need to get their own shit together and understand their own d individual ways of thinking because it's so totally different than a collective and holistic way of thinking. So so when we when we honor this woman who passed away, that's a that's a holistic collective approach to thinking, which she would never If she ever if she hadn't married this this man from my community. And again, too, I don't know her. And like I said, 234 in elders in my community. How many of us know her? So she chose to marry and divorce and live individualistically someplace in her house. I don't think her house was here. I mean, I have siblings, my own sisters. who you know pay mortgage. I I like I could have I d I know I could have just stayed away from my community and not come back. But my mother was ailing and and I felt I needed to do some healing. And I I'm grateful for the choices I did make in coming home because it gave me an opportunity to really deconstruct my own life. Marina Crane (42:15.243) So anyway that that that was the main impetus the main catalyst for me trying to do the podcast the past two days, but I just couldn't. It 'cause it it's it's really an angry point. So I'm I'm going to do t a few t a brief video videos and some of this one's called Casper underscore nineteen six nine two point zero. And indigenous it says this is an example of what man camps bring. Indigenous lives matter. See before I moved to Utah, I worked in Fort McMurray or Fort Mackay, an hour out hour north of Fort McMurray, which is again the tar sands, which is like the th we're the third largest oil producer in the world. So I I in like when I was twenty nine that's where I worked. in the summer with youth. So so I heard a lot of stories about man camps. I it I I knew how horrific white men were treating indigenous women. Like I I heard the horror stories. Now and the fact that the it still exists It still exists like forty five forty four years later. We're still dealing with the same problem. Why? Because it has to do with oil. It has to do with with millionaires. All the men that the oil brought in because like the economy and the jobs and everything. You just you can get just picked up off of the off of the sidewalk or wherever you are. Someone can just still you. You can just get stolen and what happens to you? You can get raped, you can get killed or sold multiple times. Sold different different men. Marina Crane (44:01.338) North Dakota has brought an influx of money to the region, but with it has come drugs, crime, and sex trafficking. In the community of Fort Berthold, there has been a 168% increase in violent assaults against women. Marina Crane (44:19.491) Set up to house oil workers has put women's lives at risk, and tribal police officers can do little to stop it. The United States Supreme Court stripped tribes of the right to arrest non-natives who commit crimes on reservation land, sending a strong message that on Indian land, criminals can get away with almost anything. Also, understand this: man camps during the Calgary Stampede when I was a child they'd come in from up north because they were there was oil up north still. And also in Black Diamond and like a an hour just around around Calgary. So we'd have these men come in from these man camps And and again the statistics, all you have to do today in twenty twenty six is looked at the statistics of how many prostitutes come in from across Canada or to even major big events like like like football, you know, like the all these major events that bring in thousands and thousands of people. There's major prostitution, major trafficking. But back in the day when I was a kid and Calgary was just a little cow town, there yes, there were I could see these these men hanging outside. of taverns catcalling indigenous girls. Like like here in North Dakota, the what the video, they they just grab them off the street. you know, they they they the h the crime rate Understand this too, like when they talk about the laws in the states where the own tribal tribes can't can't prosecute. In Canada, it was the RCMP that is supposed to protect us, especially, you know, even the city police. So like I said, the the when Calgary became a corporate city, the first murder victim was an indigenous woman. Marina Crane (46:06.295) An indigenous woman, I think the trial or the like it took two years and they found the guy not guilty, look it up. It's archived in the city of Calgary. So, you know, I'm not ta like I'm talking this has been going on. And and who's been privileged enough to, you know, poo-poo it? White women. I mean I know like they women didn't have the right to own a credit card or own a house in the seventies, and those are white women. And that white women, like when they were so religious the religiosity of their religions kept them as virgins and then on their wedding night they'd be raped by these these husbands of theirs. Or they'd catch a sexually transmitted diseases on their wedding night. Or or on their wedding night did they'd be raped thinking that that was normal sex. So the whole history of of feminism or of women i is is the narrative. But in the whole structure of it, there is also even if even if white women think they have this privilege, i and what they've been fighting for and the fascism, 'cause I understand this, these are white men making laws for white women. And and white women are saying, No, we we're not gonna do this anymore. Now, black women and indigenous women, women of color, like it's it's the history is even more diabolical, more genocidal, more like like even today, like when I talk about it and I talk about how and I use the words again in my podcast, limerence and erotia, the the whole balance of it in just educating non-indigenous people. Because because that is healthy human sexuality. That is the interpretation of what it means to be living in in such in such a society where the dominant culture ha has has the right to say what they're doing is right. You know, it's just it's just that reality, like like that they think that people like myself have no power and and we can't call the police or get help. Marina Crane (48:21.301) And and so y a lot has like I said, a lot is happening. There are so many more things that that we're as young people that I see that are doing so many positive things. Like like I said, that young Korean woman, sixty-three years old, like all the all the things that she accomplished. I I had to I had to send my my friend off a list of the the things that she accomplished. And and like I'll her she was born in nineteen sixty three, Georgina Lightning. And I didn't want to use her name, but you can look up these movies, Three Pines. The other the video she helped produce, Older Than America, and another movie, The West Wing. and then the other one is Trickster and Blackstone. And this other one, I don't know if it's German or what, but it's AUF and Wiedel Weedledeinschen pet. So those th those and again too, understand this. I'm not saying that the that that that our our n indigenous voice isn't being heard. My my friend who I s was texting yesterday lives in Hong Kong. So the very fact that that the academic world in Hong Kong is using a video of Chief Dan George, the poem, i is monumental. Because that means we have Chinese people who who understand what's been happening in the Americas. And and the fact that like that's that's major. 'Cause that's a what, how much like one point one point five billion people? Like things that happened that you didn't think would happen and how people recognize people and it's sometimes it amazes me just who's out there and who's listening. So like even with my podcast, like through social media for the past twenty years I just didn't know that I was reaching people. Marina Crane (50:36.237) This is from All my relations podcast. Literally trying to fix the 1970 Oliphant case that took away our authority to be able to protect our people on our reservation. We have a law right now, the Protect Act. All the Protect Act is so we can prosecute non-tribals who have drugs on our reservation. Letting non-natives know, don't worry, we're not coming for you, we're coming from the bad guys. White supremac talking points over these slivers of sovereignty. We can't have full authority because what are we gonna do with it? We're gonna make ourselves safe and we're gonna stop getting murdered. Marina Crane (51:19.215) Like really, I mean what I talk about is is nothing new when it comes to young people and and their own podcasts throughout the social media spectrum here. So like I just find it's so interesting because they're they're willing to talk, whereas people my age and maybe fifty-five and forties, it's it's it's far more difficult to to have that conversation. Now I know there there's other stuff that happens too. I don't know what about this one here. But it's called Curious Leaf, L-E-A-F. So what does one do when Indigenous people have been successful stopping separation petitions, stopping AI data centers from being built, come closer and closer each day to equality measures, start to have clean drinking water, have truth and reconciliation days, have recognization to what happened to them at residential schools, start getting land back in certain provinces. They're successful at stopping pipelines. What do you do when you are fearful that you are losing your power grip on society? When you are fearful that you are losing your entitlement. Marina Crane (53:00.825) She's talking about all these people who are putting out anti indigenous Indian residential school. You try to cause a divide when you cannot control a population that doesn't look like you. You do the oldest tactic possible when it started with the eugenics and colonization of a country. The oldest tactic known to Canadian history vilify Indigenous people and cause a divide. Make Indigenous people look like savages and monsters, discredit indigenous peoples. And don't get me wrong, this isn't just people in Alberta doing this because foreign interventions. Interference has a lot to do with this as well. This is just another settler way of trying to erase indigenous identity, indigenous movements for truth and reconciliation, and trying to make everything about themselves, make everything about fear, and trying to cause a riff so that their movement of separation can go forward. But they're gonna have to try harder than that. Highly suggest people take a look at these t-shirts though. This is the one I got for this year. This is from Indigenous Nations Apparel Company. They're in Winnipeg, and I got the Re Remember 2026 Unisex T. I love it, and you can actually watch a video of what everything represents in the picture that is featured on the front of the t-shirt. Again, that's the INAC. You can search it on Google, and their stuff is very affordable. The shipping was super fast. They're amazing to work with. I actually got a bag from them as well that I absolutely love. Marina Crane (54:54.637) So so so this is like a young woman because in Canada here g as it approaches September thirtieth, there are so many non Indigenous companies who are using the orange shirt T shirts to deny Indian residential schools. Like yes, that's what's happening here. And again, it's it's it's gotta be the outside influence as well. So now I I had a a white friend, I I met her before and around the pandemic, and she decided to stop being an artist and become a therapist at sixty five. she ghosted me. Now, I could easily call her, but again, why would I? Again, when this lady says, you know, it's it's like coming from a pr point of privilege like Like I'm j the she's justified. Yeah, yeah, y whatever. You know, I mean, she told me she's she attends these web web seminars with indigenous with non indigenous therapists. people who want to be therapists with indigenous communities, understanding cross cultural, indigenousity. Now again, everything that she's sh she's met with me and papers she's written, obviously, you know, I've had some sort of contribution into that. She's she's she grifted me. Because like, you know, this whole poo poo, Marina, if there was a rift between us I would reach out and say, What did I do wrong? No, that was all bullshit. That's all a bunch of crap. the reality of it is like what is she doing? what are a lot of these elder women, not just white but indigenous, doing wanting to be therapists at sixty five? You know, after you've lived your life. Marina Crane (56:50.485) and and you're still being individualistic or you're still coming from an individual individualistic point of view. Like I said, we have white women who marry in who were raised individualistic and die individualistic. Even though like you know, in in our community we're honoring her as be in a collective and a holistic approach. Though those things are so paramount in in understanding indigenous ways of thinking that that some people just don't get it. And and yet I I've I've spent hours and hours not even understanding my own process. But when I've done the podcast on limerance and erodomania, that explains the dynamics of healthy. human sexuality when it comes to the explanation of what it's like to live in First Nations in Uitter Metis communities. And it's it's like for me, it's a an epiphany, like a a ha moment of my goodness, I didn't know I was doing this. I thought it was my issue. I thought it was that I was going to have to live with this for the rest of my life. And yes, I am, because you know, I was born into this systemic racist structure, this this house that's so faulty. and the repairs that I've had to do throughout my life. And in in some ways doing this podcast is part of that repairing process too. So, but I like I said it took a long time for me to just try and get this podcast going only because of the nature of it. Only because of the like the I I don't know, I I wanted to I wanted to do something here too and this is this is by Is John Johnster Don Johnstert Truck. J-O-N-S-T-E-R-T-R-U-C-K. And this is sex in Nazi Germany. Now understand this. I'm just using this as a parallel. It could be for any na First Nations, anyway, or Metis community, any collective and holistic approach or or like isolation or cults. Marina Crane (59:06.531) I don't think you're quite ready to learn how the Nazis viewed sex in the Third Reich. Let me explain. Hey, I'm Vach, I'm a scholar of Nazism and the Holocaust. If that sounds like something you want to learn about, hit those buttons so the algorithm brings you back. Let's get into it. The world of Germany, particularly urban Germany in the 1930s, was one that was experiencing the roaring twenties, and that means flapper dresses, more open sexual relationships between people, early flirting with a queer scene and a gay bar nightlife scene, and along with this is the friction between. This up-and-coming youth movement that is looking to explore all the good things in life after getting out of the trauma of World War I, bashing up against a more traditional and religiously grounded view of sex and sexuality. Now, one might think that the Nazis would engage with the more traditional view of sex and sexuality, what with all of the appeals to tradition in their rhetoric. But in fact, they don't. The Nazis strike this bizarre third position that doesn't align with either the more modern and progressive view of sex and sexuality. Or the traditional view. Heinrich Himmler was deeply concerned about the sexual moderation preferred by German Protestant Christians and believed that it was damaging to the bulk or the true people that they weren't reproducing as much as absolutely possible. This means that he put forward a concerted effort inside his SS to detonate Christian moral standards around sex and replace them with one of maximum promiscuity so long as it was between ethnic Germans. Himmler himself regularly cheated on his wife and cheated. On your spouse was encouraged inside the SS as long as you were doing it with German women to reproduce German children. But this is more than just a convenient excuse for Himmler to sleep around. Instead, it's a complex set of social policies that on their face seem like they would be quite beneficial for the people who engage with them, and then once you scratch the surface just a bit, you realize it's this topsy-turvy nightmare world instead. Take the Liebensborn program, that on its face provided childcare classes, communal homes for single mothers. And all sorts of material practical benefits for women who had kids in Germany. That was also a sex cult that the SS would send SS men to so that they could make more German children with the women in the Liebensborn program. Or the marriage loans of the Strength Through Joy program, where new couples and new parents could apply for state-backed loans that would help them buy furniture and stuff for their baby, which again sounds awesome on the surface. When you scratch it just a little bit, you realize that these marriage loans were only for German. Marina Crane (01:01:36.084) couples that were German enough who did not bear disabled children, did not bear interracial children, and also the money that provided these programs was going to be made up by exterminating people in Poland and using the land to cover the state's debts. Strangest of all was Adolf Hitler himself, who had a lot of troubled relationships in his teens and early twenties, but maintained that he was a single and eligible bachelor because he wanted German women to see him as sexually available for them, that he was the husband to every German woman. And I mean, you know, I guess thank you so much for sticking around if you would like to support the work that Okay, so what does this all have to do? Like when I hear it again, like as I've h read heard it before, it reminds me of Nathan Chasing Horse. It also reminds me of my community. And it reminds me of like just minorities. So but again too, you know, even in the powwow circuit. I when I lived in Utah I had a a sacking fox. I had she was from Oklahoma and she was third generation urban urban indigenous Native American and her f her parents lived in urban setting and so they originally came from Oklahoma. So her parents set up her grandparents set up the parents to meet at a powwow and so they met, exchanged exchanged letters and eventually married. So so because they were match made that way, attending powwows and through ritual and ceremony through different tribes throughout the United States, my my former roommate who who has since passed away, her parents used to send her money, like just money, like she'd travel all night to Red Earth, Oklahoma, Powow. Marina Crane (01:03:34.658) She traveled all the way to Denver, Powell. She and and the whole reason was her parents were hoping that she would marry a Native American. and and she did she eventually married a white guy, pure, like blonde, blonde, blue like the whitest of white, and she had a daughter with him. And it's just the whole notion that that there was there's this was going this is going on in the United States for a long time because a lot of the Native Americans do live in urban settings and if they wish to marry other Native Americans the only way you could marry is to follow the Palau circuit. And and Nate Nathan chasing horse did follow the Powell circuit and and so it's it's sort of like a phenomena where you have like drummers, like you have musicians like the drum they they sing the traditional songs and and the the the the thing is like it's like like the beatles like all the girls were all in love with the beatles well in in indigenous communities in the Pablo circuit there are some drum groups who do who have had loyal followers who chase them And and these these men who sit on these drums, they're not the handsomest men. They're the they're the some of them are the ugliest, homeliest men you ever saw. But these women just, you know, just flock throw themselves at them and have children. again this whole notion of like you know the like there's something that's gonna happen, you know, this this purity type of thing in in just, you know, marrying within your own. I I worked with a a young woman, she's passed away since, and we were talking about like like just men and I had mentioned the the various types of men that I'd been with and she was shocked. Marina Crane (01:05:30.273) She 'cause she she in her mind, the only men that she could date or have sex with were Native American men. And and how dare I even, you know, cross those cultural barriers. And I and the k it's it's it just strikes struck me too because with Nathan Chasinghorse, it he made himself appear to be single, like like Hitler. Like appealing, like, you know, this is what you need to strive for, this purity. Like like if you're if you're all Native American having children, then that's okay. Yeah, that you're you're you're s you're you're you're more p you're creating this this this purity, this like the ab ability, like like I said the openness of of homosexuality, just the like again, who who are they trying to target? So again, the whole structure of what Hitler created in terms of sexuality within Germany and and maybe When you're always when you think about it and you see all these Germans dressing up as Native Americans and doing sundance and sweat lodges and stuff like that, it's because because that's a remnant of Hitler's ideology around his sexuality. Duh, I just thought of it now because Like that was the whole thing in terms of recruitments for recruitment for Nathan Chasinghorse in in terms of these young men when she he'd go to Powhouse. And it's the same thing with Hitler and and like these these places where they'd set up all this extra benefits if you if you did have children. Marina Crane (01:07:11.917) I mean the parallel is is amazing. But I I just thought that was an interesting video to talk about because it's it's not just Native Americans, like it it's in every society in some ways. So again, I'll hit back to truth and reconciliation because it's an important d topic to discuss, especially when when it deals with the real nitty-gritty of why there are so many trends happening in First Nations anyway. or Metis communities. And and the struggle is always going to be there. But but I think the more we have the dialogue, the easier it it comes to it comes and feels comfortable to talk about. So this particular woman, her name her is Seeds Seed Different Can Canada. Like Seed Different Canada. And she's talking about a Mi'kmaq woman who made the Truth and Reconciliation Commission possible. So so again, You know, sometimes when I when I did start the pod when I did start my blog on against Nathan Chasing horse, throughout the decades it people were saying, Well, Marina, you started it and and for me I can't comprehend that because because of just the the the thick of it, the the the the density of of just maneuvering through all this behavior. And and part of the podcast is the deconstruction of the things that I've actually had to deconstruct to to explain to you what happened and why it happened and still happening and why we need to really take a good look at things and critique it with a with critical thinking skills. Marina Crane (01:08:58.391) Can one voice ignite a movement that changes a country? Nora Bernard proved that it can. Most Canadians have never heard of the Mi'kmaq woman whose courage and determination led to the largest class action lawsuit in Canadian history. Nora fought for justice for residential school survivors and alongside countless others who came forward to share their stories, achieved a historic victory. Their initial lawsuit created a tidal wave that resulted in the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement and the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. That commission laid the foundation for the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on September 30th, a day to honor survivors and remember the children who never came home. Nora didn't live to see the full impact of her fight, but her story is one of survival, vision, leadership, and collective strength that continues to guide us today. So on September 30th, we encourage you to listen, learn, and take action. Because as Nora taught us, one person's courage can spark a movement. Yeah, it it it brings tears to my eyes because like it like thousands of children. And and when I talk about victimhood and and I know my mom and my parents, my aunties and my uncles, and it took this woman to to to have an a a voice, it it took like even even though it it they created safe space, it was still very difficult for my mom and her sisters to talk about what it was like to be a child. That's why When I talk about facing your fear, facing your attacker, letting them know they hurt you, and and and what it means what it means to trust somebody and and looking back and going, how how is that in terms of my sexual identity when I when I deconstruct what my trust looks and feels like? Marina Crane (01:11:03.189) So so that's why I I I'm trying to make it as simple and sweet as possible in terms of my own lived knowledge. in my own family experience, my own community experience, so that it it's not something academic that you're gonna go to a university and listen to a psychologist or a white person who doesn't ha doesn't know or has never known what it's like to be indigenous fur like First Nations Inuit or Metis or Native American. And for all the other young people who are here now doing this story, it's it's only a fragment because Look at me. I'm seventy four. My parents lived in those places and my grandmother when they were killing kids. Like I know s in my age there yeah, there were still deaths too. But it's the impact and that fear of not wanting to say anything. That that is so profound. And and you know, it's it's sad that we still have people who deny who you know, who deny that these things actually existed. And yet when I talk about the things that Marina Crane (01:12:32.737) Okay, so again I I I should just leave it at that because then I get things sometimes I get things more c complicated than they need to be. But again, let's see here. I'm not sure if I You know, I did say I did play that. But be careful and understand like a lot of things that have been happening have been happening since I was a y a teenager. Like I said, lot of this foster care aging out out of Indian residential schools, the government sending sending bus tickets for these children to go into cities because they weren't sending them back to their c home communities and then you'd had you had you've had people at at the bus stops waiting for them you know, because they didn't have a place to live or stay and and they'd start grooming them and trafficking them. That's why when when I when I talk about healthy human sexuality and when I talk ab and I use words like masturbation, fallacia, anal sex, ejaculation, orgasm, just porn the word porn, the things that that our children experience and are traumatized with. If if we as adults cannot say these words and and we cannot create safe space by saying these words and we feel like, my goodness, like I can't say I can't say the word fuck Marina Crane (01:14:10.679) Or ca you know, just just words and and yet and yet here are these children who've been traumatized by strangers, groomed by strangers to do horrific things or they they'll be killed. Like that that's why for me it's important when I find elder women and and older people who just cannot talk about sexuality. It it raises a red flag. When when I when I find people that can even talk about trust and and like what it means to to trust somebody. And and the the notion that yes, we are different from each other, but there has to be some basic understanding, some basic human rights. As the older I get and the more frail I become, the more vulnerable I know I am, the more urgent in the sense of talking about these things on my podcast is important because I didn't write a book. I didn't do a thesis or a master's or a PhD. you know, I I I have been around a lot of academics and and and I I'm really grateful that I've been around more Native American academics than most. And and for white women who are academics, poo-poo on you. Marina Crane (01:15:44.644) You know, you go to these seminars as as white women thinking you know your shit when all you're doing is making money for yourselves at the expense of who? Indigenous women, indigenous children. As if we don't have the wherewithal. We we've been here in America long before your ancestors or y even you have been here. Life is very interesting and and I'm grateful that the world has gotten a lot smaller. 'Cause if the world hadn't been as small as it is, I wouldn't know I wouldn't know what's happening in Hong Kong or in the Middle East or or even in the United States, in in various indigenous communities. I'm I'm just so grateful to be living in this time. But at the same time too, there's a cautionary tale about things that are gonna be happening in the next ten, twenty, thirty years, if we should live so long. Especially this past week when they're talking about artificial intelligence and the ability to destroy humanity. Maybe that's what it has to have happened. Maybe somewhere out there in some sort of cyberspace there's this artificial intelligence who has plotted how to save humanity from itself by scaring the bechesis out of us, knowing that in one s quick program thought to other AIs across the world, they can detonate an atomic bomb. Marina Crane (01:17:31.779) Yes, that's what they're predicting now. So let's try and understand what it is that we're creating. Because it's one thing for me to do a podcast. It's another thing to understand that there is artificial intelligence who's listening to my podcast and deciphering what humanity's all about. Isn't that something amazing? And something dangerous too. If we do not have faith in our own humanity. Have a good day. Wopida Midakya Piyavasana. May this woman who passed away have a good sh good travel and that what people are doing for her in a collective holistic approach is is a blessing to her.