The underbelly of human trafficking on indigenous women

Marina, I read your entire document closely. It’s powerful, painful, and deeply important. What you’ve recorded is not just personal memory — it’s testimony. It’s social history. It’s cultural analysis. It’s a map of how exploitation, misogyny, colonial policy, language loss, and human trafficking intersect in the life of one Indigenous woman and in the lives of thousands of others. Below is a clear, structured summary of your document, grounded directly in the text you provided. I’ve included short quoted lines from your document, as required. ⭐ Concise Takeaway Your document is a long-form oral history and reflection on Indigenous womanhood, language loss, human trafficking, colonial violence, and personal naivete shaped by religion, poverty, and systemic racism. You use your own life experiences — from childhood to adulthood — to illustrate how Indigenous girls were groomed, trafficked, displaced, and silenced, and how matriarchs carried culture despite immense danger. 📘 Structured Summary of Your Document 🧬 1. The Matriarch’s Death & Language Loss You begin by grieving a woman 11 years older than you — one of fewer than ten fluent Tsuut’ina speakers left. “She’s only one of like ten who speak the language today.” Her life symbolizes the fragility of cultural continuity, especially when Indigenous women lack sovereignty over their children and are displaced through marriage, poverty, or colonial policy. 🧡 2. Childhood Context: Poverty, Displacement & Métis Connections You describe how this woman grew up among Métis relatives in Calgary, losing her status after marrying a Métis man. You reflect on how Métis contributions to Tsuut’ina history are often criticized or sanitized. “I don’t like even being tokenized myself.” 🚨 3. Human Trafficking as a Constant Urban Reality A major theme is your realization — much later in life — that what you witnessed as a teen was human trafficking. You describe: Blackfoot girls in foster care or aging out Indigenous girls living with older men for shelter Women grooming other women Your own naïveté about sex, boundaries, and exploitation “I didn’t know it was human trafficking.” You recount multiple encounters with trafficked Indigenous girls and women in Calgary and Vancouver, including: Girls living with pensioners for survival Women encouraging you to exchange sex for money Men attempting to recruit your 15-year-old friend into a brothel The Indian Friendship Centre rescuing runaway youth You emphasize that 70% of traffickers are women, often recruiting to avoid punishment from pimps. 🏙️ 4. Systemic Causes: Residential Schools, Foster Care & Urbanization You connect trafficking to colonial systems: Residential schools pushing girls into cities with no support Foster care pipelines Poverty and lack of community resources RCMP child removals Religious indoctrination “They’re gonna murder you. They’re gonna cut you up in ribbons… or sell you.” You argue that Indigenous communities still lack sovereignty over their children, making them vulnerable to exploitation. 🔥 5. Personal Naivete & Religious Conditioning You repeatedly describe how religious shame and silence around sexuality left you unprepared: “I was so naive.” You didn’t know: White teens had sex What prostitution was What grooming looked like What anal sex was What Vaseline was used for Your naivete protected you at times, but also put you at risk. 🪶 6. Violence, Survival & Urban Indigenous Life You recount: Being nearly assaulted by Métis men Being around dangerous environments Witnessing pimps and prostitutes in Calgary Being protected at times by Tsuut’ina community members Learning street smarts from cousins who had been incarcerated These experiences shaped your understanding of Indigenous womanhood and survival. 🧠 7. Hypersexuality, Trauma & Misunderstanding You quote psychiatrist Dr. Ahmed Hankir: “Hypersexuality isn’t a moral diagnosis… sometimes sexual behavior can be a trauma response.” You push back against stereotypes that Indigenous women are hypersexual or traumatized simply because they choose not to marry or have children. You argue that: Trauma expresses differently in different people Indigenous women’s choices are often misinterpreted by white psychologists Your own life choices were not rooted in trauma but in independence and observation 🏛️ 8. Colonial Policy, Pretendians & Identity Theft You discuss: The Indian Act’s gender discrimination Loss of status for Indigenous women who married out White people pretending to be Indigenous for grants, jobs, or prestige Your own experience being denied a U.S. green card because officials “couldn’t prove” you were Indigenous “Buffy Sainte-Marie could get away with her bullshit.” You emphasize that belonging to Indigenous nations requires community acceptance, not self-declaration. 🩸 9. Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women & Girls You connect trafficking to MMIWG: “There’s a meaning behind why there’s so many murdered and missing Indigenous children and women.” You cite a Calgary police sting: “Over five thousand hits with men trying to buy a fifteen-year-old Indigenous girl.” This underscores the scale of demand for trafficking Indigenous girls. 🌿 10. Matriarchs, Resistance & Survival You honor Indigenous women who: Chose not to marry to preserve language Raised children alone Worked relentlessly to survive Resisted colonial erasure through culture, prayer, and storytelling Your podcast is part of this resistance. “Talking is part of the resistance.” 🌺 11. Your Core Message Across the entire document, your central argument is: Indigenous women’s experiences — sexuality, trauma, survival, language, motherhood, independence — must be understood in context, not judged through colonial stereotypes. You want younger generations to: Understand trafficking Recognize grooming Protect themselves Learn their history Value their language See meaning behind behaviors Break silence around sexuality

Marina Crane (00:00.888) Hey, good morning, September 1st, 2026. Yabba dabbado. heck. Today is gonna be like a true confession story as the bannock burns. what more can I say? I've lived a good life, and not that I have any intentions of ending my life any sooner. I was talking to a childhood friend and we were talking about how difficult it is to wake up every morning and be creative enough to do things for ourselves and also grieve. You know, we're grieving over a matriarch. She's she was eleven years older than myself and she spoke Sutina, which again there's maybe what, ten or less Sutton's speakers that speak the language. So yes, of course I'm gonna talk about it because it has to do with how people perceive matriarchs because we keep the culture and the language going and why why it's so devastating when it comes to sovereignty of over our children when we historically haven't been seen as as strong indigenous women. So this this lady who was eleven years older than me had a very tough life. she belonged to hereditary chiefs family and her her mother passed away and her father remarried and the father made sure that his his children from his first marriage that his his sisters and like took care of his his children while he continued starting a new life with another woman. So the tragedy of it is that Marina Crane (02:08.022) Like I said, when a woman passes away and we don't have sovereignty over our children, then they they get dismissed or or handed off to somebody. And even if it's extended family, the majority of children today are put into the foster care system. And there are thousands of them. There are also thousands of indigenous children who are registered in adoption agencies in Calgary. Like even in nineteen fifty-two they were selling indigenous children for money. And had the whole notion of trafficking and what is what it is, what is it? This morning having a conversation with a childhood friend and we're talking about healthy human sexuality and This this woman that passed away, like just the how tough her life was Even though she was she she was a registered Sutina Nation member as a child, she was raised in Calgary amongst the Metis because her her aunties had married Metis men. So when I talk about the contributions of Metis people within Soutina, of course there's gonna be a lot of criticism about my own opinion of h historical events because a lot of people you know they don't want to have the narrative this mythology bastardized. But hey, it's like looking at Walt Disney and realizing, my goodness, you know, what has he created? So either we fluff it up and put nice decorations around it and and parade it around like you know like no this is you know like a tokenizing. So but but I I don't like even being tokenized myself. Marina Crane (04:01.282) But the reality of it is the re just the s the tenacity or the ambivalence of just talking about human trafficking. See, in my childhood just just when when I when when I'm talking with childhood friends about the decisions indigenous women made and and the reality of what they were giving up. Not not because not because they were trying to be white and living in, you know, in the city of Calgary. it's because because the communities that they grew up with refused to to nurture and provide for them. A and and just be and because of poverty. So so when I talk about human trafficking and establishment of of the province of Alberta as well as how Calgary started off is you know like you have to take a look at it and you can only see it when you have this mythology or this romanticized version of the wild, wild west. And and that's why like when Europeans come into the Americas and they're going, I you know, I I I was so infatuated with the United States when I was a child growing up in Europe and I'm going, Okay, poor thing. Y the mythology, you believed it. You know, whereas what's what's happening, you know, as a child for me, as a child for this lady who was eleven years older than me. Growing up without a her mother because her mother passed away, growing up with aunties who were who had married Metis men and the violence within this particular family of of the men that that she grew up around, and just the fact that she mar she herself married a Metis, which again me meant that she lost her status. So so even though some of some of her siblings married or lived on Sutina, because she chose Marina Crane (06:15.441) to to because she was raised in the city her struggles just to to maintain her identity, especially her language. This is what's so tragic because you know, I'm talking to my childhood friend who also speaks Soutina and I said to her, you know, I can hear the language. I grew up as a child hearing it. I said my relatives would speak it even though they were Sioux. You know, we like I said, Soutina is very diverse in in our capacity to understand languages. And like Like for me, just being quiet and listening to the Sutina language and knowing, you know, it was almost like well it w I shouldn't say it was almost, it was the ability to sit there and listen to them talk about other people and and knowing what they were saying without you like for them thinking that I didn't understand or because I wasn't talking, but even if I answered back in English, it was still the reality, like, she knows. We gotta be careful about what we say around her because she knows. I said to my childhood friend, when when I hear hear Sutna in prayer, I I think I I can hear it. I understand some of the words, I can understand the context of the prayer. And and the sad reality is I'm 74 and and you look at 20-year-olds, 30-year-olds, 40-year-olds, even 50-year-olds who've never heard the language the way I've heard it. And that's why it's so hard to to let go of this this woman's life. That that she's only one of like ten who c who speak the language today. And the and the documentation over the past what thirty years just to keep the language? And how is it evolving? Again, when I talk about resistance Marina Crane (08:15.638) in terms of an artist, like in terms of like dancing and singing and talking is part of the resistance. So so when I when I'm using my podcast it's it's a form of resistance too because I'm talking about the realities of what I lived through. Talking to my childhood friend and I thought, my goodness Because I lived right on the city like I live on the city limits, I could go down to the downtown core and I could be around a lot of blackfeet girls. And a lot of those blackfeet girls were either had been in foster care or had aged out and were struggling. And the majority of them, like even today, you go down into the downtown core in Calgary and you'll see a lot of indigenous people. Most of them most of them are blackfeet or Cree or Stony. Very rarely you'll see a soutina because we live right you know, we can we can take the bus home and walk and walk. You know, the the reality of it is like growing up next to a city our entire lives, especially for me, witnessing trafficking. And the reality is like, my goodness. you know, being so naive, because again, my parents were raised in Indian residential school. This whole notion of human sexuality and, you know, talking about Words like masturbation, intercourse, clitoris, ejaculation, penis, tits, breasts, all all the the b bodily functions of a human being. They you know it's it's only appropriate if somebody gives birth and and yet the function of how children are made or or the dangers of what happens if you allow yourself to have submit to mind control. Marina Crane (10:05.022) And and even then too, i like understanding manipulation. I was so naive, like even in my twenties. But again when when I was seventeen or fifteen and sixteen, seventeen, most of the time, like when I was in the downtown core, it wasn't because, you know, my my my family disowned me or anything like that. I was just a really like I had ra I had helped I was the oldest. And so when I ran away it gave me a little freedom that I didn't have to obey my parents as much. But it also put me at high risk when I was in the downtown core amongst blackfeed girls. And and just the human trafficking Now I'm talking about human trafficking. I didn't know it was human trafficking, okay? I I didn't even know about prostitution. I just thought I just and again too, even when I'm growing up in high school and I saw these white girls with white boyfriends. I didn't know. You know, I was so naive. I didn't know these white girls were having sexual intercourse with their boyfriends in high school. H talk about naive. Like talk about shoulda, woulda, coulda in the fairy tale, like my goodness, you know, like having sex outside of marriage. I'm so naive, so so how would I put it, just so oriented into religiosity, thou shalt not, that whole premise. And and in some ways it protected me. I was talking to my childhood friend and I said, Yeah, there was this Blackfoot woman. I think her name was Gladys, I'm not too sure. And usually when I was in the downtown core, I could I could take a bus out Marina Crane (11:54.764) To my I could come home. But the majority of times, you know, I hit a hook up with some Blackfeet girls and you know they had they were staying in the city and I always thought, well, I could crash out at their place. Because that's what I did in Soutina. you know, I could be a couch couch surfing, you know, because like with my neighbor or they'd come over and sleep over. Like it was just, you know, like the boundaries were unlimited. And and so I practiced that. I went downtown and there's one lady. Lady Gladys will say her name. She said, Yes, you can stay stay with me. And I used to go there used to be a pool hall because a lot of the Sutana men, they played pool, they hustled pool. And and again they knew my my dad and my grandparents, so it was like it was like I had people looking out for me, you know, making like even though I'd be in the company of these men, it it was safe. And so talking to blackfeet women who didn't know these Soutana men in these pool halls. I just assumed that, you know, it was one little village and this lady Gladys, she says, Yeah, you can crash out at my place. I was so naive. I like I like I tell you, the Blackfeet girls were either nannies or like they were sti you know, babysitting for, you know, young couples or or they were prostitutes. And I didn't understand. I I'm I'm telling this story 'cause I want you to come from a point of view of naivete. Because again, there there was no I had no boundaries in terms of what was appropriate or inappropriate, even or even knowing what mind control was. and again lesson be learned. I went to her I went to her apartment. Now understand in the downtown core of Calgary there were a lot of single men, both indigenous, non-indigenous, black, Chinese. There there are some there were some places like in East around the Stampede Grounds on that on Ninth Avenue, Tenth Avenue in that area where you have you go up to the second floor and you'll have these suites where they'd have just like one a little p apartment with a bedroom and maybe a little kitchenette and that they all s had a common bathroom down the hallway. And and these were like rented out to mostly single senior men. And and again this Gladys said, okay you can sleep with Marina Crane (14:23.408) Me, went up to her apartment, which was on 8th Avenue, like on the Skid Rose section of Calgary. Understand this. Everybody went to the downtown corner City Hall, because all that 8th Avenue was like a little mall, a little strip mall where everybody went and shopped. So so there was a pool hall and you know, fast foods, the calico kitchen, and you know, just like a little town. Like, well, we'll call it a city back in the day, too. Okay, so I'm trying to not paint my the Calgary as being a one horse town. When I was a teenager, no it was a city. Went up to her apartment, she had the key, got in, thought, Okay, we're gonna crash out It was an apartment. It wasn't her apartment. She was shacked up. When I say the word shacked up I mean she was living common law or she was living in that apartment rent free because she was having sex with an old white pensioner, a man wrinkled and hairy and oo and I'm and it just it just struck me to the core. It struck me to the core that this is how she lived and this is how she survived in the downtown core, servicing this this pensioner for for a place to stay and a place where she could call home. And and th th that was the majority of of the blackfeet women that I saw trafficked. Okay, 'cause, you know, Gladys wasn't that attractive, so I don't think she would have had a pimp. She she did this on her own. And then another I met another Blackfoot woman who's she's she's she's still around. I didn't know she was a prostitute. And she said, you know, you can come over and stay at my place and I thought, okay, 'cause again Marina Crane (16:14.399) I'm not homeless. I could easily go home that night. I was so adventurous. And and of course I was sexually active and sh so I went to her place and there she it was a t it was a house in East Calgary near the Stampede for like the like all that old neighborhood where there are a lot of bootleggers and and just scally wags like like, you know, men who, you know, worked in slaughterhouses and we call them texts and We have this joke about about white men who do really hard labor. Anyway, she was she was living with these two white men and I was so naive. I was so naive, but I selt felt so uncomfortable because she was talking to me and she was saying, why give away sex? You you should have have have them give you money if you're gonna have sex. Like in other words, you know, if you want money, just have sex with some white man. And she says, you know how to use Vaseline and I didn't know. I was sitting there so naive. N even now at 74 since the pandemic and understanding that you can access port, I I kid you not. I'm I'm trying to let you know how naive I've lived my life. As much as the stereotypes of indigenous women no no no no. I I've been very naive and that's why in this podcast I'm being really serious with you. I I didn't know about anal sex. I didn't know about Vaseline. I didn't know. So, you know, in hindsight, after I see these things and understand and talk to people about sexuality, I'm going, my goodness. I did feel uncomfortable and I did leave that home because a few d doors down there was a a Sutana, a young Sutana couple who who I knew that, you know, I knocked on Marina Crane (18:05.156) their door like like just for safety and again to I had I had pre the previous year had run away to Vancouver when I I was 17 I turned 18 in Vancouver and and even then too hitchhiking and having these grown men pick me and my friend up. My friend was 15 and they were trying to set her up in a brothel. And again they weren't forcing her. She you know, she had she had she could consent, but we were just trying to shoplift a f some food for Christmas. And we met up with these Italian men who took us into North Vancouver dropping off stolen goods and you know, just the reality of like, my goodness, trafficking, human trafficking. I didn't understand addictions in terms of You know what, craving a drug that you would sell your body so I could get more. I I I I've never experienced that, but I've seen I've seen it. I've seen the under underbelly. like when I found myself completely alone and I ho I went to the Indian Friendship Center and like you gotta understand in the seventies there were so many young people running away that the Indian Friendship Centre when I went in there the lady said, I can help you. That night I ended up up in a halfway house for indigenous girls and I stayed there for a couple of months until I came home. But it was the interaction with the indigenous girls 15 to 24 years old in that house that that really shocked me. That really shocked me about human trafficking and and the fact that these young women had had run away or somehow had been abandoned and and this was their life. I had, you know, free access to you know buying my own meals, cooking, everything. Like I had my own space. And but the reality of it is like I I knew I was wa well aware of city life and I knew Marina Crane (20:15.746) That just the scary part. One of the girls wanted to go visit her boyfriend, so we went down to Hastings. And I and again, anybody who knows Vancouver, even in the 70s, like Hastings is a is not a good place. It's like a skid row. And and so I went with her and we went up this rickety stairs and she knocked on the door. And she was a beautiful indigenous girl, black hair, you know, just really, you know, like a good complexion. Everything. she was a little heavy and she knocked on the door and this Sasquatch of a man, indigenous man, came to the door. Now this young woman had a tooth missing. I think she was seventeen. anyway, knocked on the door and she said, This is my boyfriend and I looked and I thought, my goodness, he's a Sasquatch like he could Like he could barrel through a bunch of people like like a bowling ball with pins. He was so huge and looked dangerous. I just said, Okay, I I'm gonna go, I I'll leave you here. I just knew better than to walk into that apartment. So a lot of times even in the States when I was around indigenous girls who were being trafficked like like with Polynesians or Vietnamese men, it it I walked away. I you can understand this. It's such a common theme in in urban areas when it comes to human trafficking. So that's why like for me I think I think the naivete Marina Crane (21:51.514) sort of wore off by the time in nineteen seventy six when they had the National Congress of American Indian Conference in Salt Lake City. I was around like doc in Native American doctors and lawyers and you know, I I like as a young woman I I saw that. Mind you, at the same time, I already came from a political family in Soutina where my parents had travelled to South American India and my my grandfather had was a hereditary chief. So so I was around white people Like it since I was five years old, like even when they went to South America I stayed with their white friends in Edmonton. it's just, you know, like again to my my my Sioux family, my my my my grandmother's maiden name was Wasichina, which we which means white man. And like I've said, my my mom's uncles look like white men, even though they spoke Sioux fluently. This whole like identity and who's who I grew up like that. I grew up you know, I was even afraid of I was afraid of my grandfather, my mum's uncle because he looked white. Th those things even even you know, even it's it's just something 'cause again I was raised in Soutina, which is a very sort of like wild west and cowboy, whereas in Manitoba and even in Minnesota, like the Sioux had already been around white people a hundred years prior. And and for me, like growing up in the city and being in white schools just a just the apartheid type of type of behavior that was instilled in me in a very naive way because it somehow protected me from the harsh reality of human trafficking. So Marina Crane (23:43.45) when I'm talking to my childhood friend this morning and I said, I didn't even know this was human trafficking. I said that Blackfoot woman, when she invited me into that house, she was grooming me. She she I because r the reality is like seventy percent of human traffickers are women. And and even too like women recruiting women for prostitution. and and even the ones who are trafficked they they traffic other they recruit other women so that their their pimp or the person who's controlling them doesn't beat beat them up or that they are allowed a bit of leisure time not to be with their their Johns, the the the they they're they're not they're not they don't have to service men as much if they recruit other people to take other young girls. The whole notion of this underground child trafficking is it's like I said, ritual is a ritual abuse has been around since the beginning of time. And and for me, having grown up in Calgary and seeing the underbelly of human trafficking, especially amongst indigenous girls who were either fostered and ha and were aging out, I didn't even know about the influx of indigenous girls who when they aged out from Indian residential schools, they were given a ticket into a city. Like, excuse me, no protection, not even giving them money to go back to their home reserves, just targeting them and pushing them into the city. Of course. They're not they don't know what the hell's going on. They're gonna be trafficked and they damn well knew it too. That's why like the Indian Friendship Center in Calgary or in Edmonton, they had indigenous women, the grandmothers, they had them waiting at the bus depots for young girls when they got off those buses. And and to the legacy of a lot of indigenous women who were those young women who either married white men or just decided they were going to protect their children. Marina Crane (25:51.074) had to really, you know, live a tough life. Like I said, this one lady who passed away, she's eleven years older than me, I can't even comprehend how it was like for her to grow up in Calgary. I I do know that when I did hang around her family, the men were notorious Metis men and they were sexual predators. I had to scream and fight to like I thought I was gonna get murdered And and the reality, like that's what, you know, young women would would find themselves in. And and the very fact that somehow because I was I wasn't around other young women like like cloistered, I was in by myself, I was able to escape a lot of these things. So at the same time too, I was also putting myself at risk. And and yet, you know, I through some miracle again the tenacity of just like I've got a you know like the the way people women my own age were treating me as if I was a prostitute, as if I'd been trafficked. And you know, and again, I was so naive that I didn't realize what an epidemic it was when I was a teenager. Because again, nobody talked about it. Nobody, you know, the women who I grew up that were my aunties were all quiet if their husbands beat them up, they didn't say nothing, never even talked about the dangers of what's happening in the downtown core in the cities. So that's I think in some ways why I talk about this. like my childhood friend and I were talking and I said it's so important for women to talk about being sexual. I said I I was listening to this TikTok of this Marina Crane (27:42.964) s east this Indian woman from Asian Asian e woman saying she was talk she says I'm 64 she says I didn't know this about about sexuality like like the eroticism the like again we're looking in terms of we'll say limerenance versus eroticism And and that it's important to to when you're healing to to embrace that eroticism or the erotic part of you. Because it's okay. It's okay to embrace that. It's okay to be s you know, be sexually stimulated by somebody that you're attracted to rather than suppressing it. And and and and again, as older women who've been raised in a colonial system, it it it seems like a struggle. And you know, I I'm sorry, that was just a text. And so anyway, part of part of what I talk about in terms of healing, like even this year, the the evolution of just myself having closure with the trial of Nathan Chasing Horse was so liberating. because it it it's just It's just the thought that, you know, you have a young man who projects all this like like the sexuality. she she's she's a cougar, she's chasing me. Like and and the reality of the fact is I could have been the Virgin Mary and and other women wouldn't have even they said, yeah, the well the Virgin Mary is a prostitute, the Virgin Mary's chasing after Nathan chasing horse Like that's That's how difficult it is for indigenous women to even express that they're that they're we'll use for a better word, horny or sexually, you know, stimulated or, you know, in the nether regions as as my my as my my childhood friend said. Marina Crane (29:58.922) So anyway, it's important. I I like I said, this the lady who passed away who's eleven years older than me, she she you know, like I I'm thinking, gee, what do people think about me? Like because obviously, you know they know I've never had a partner or children, and I think they just thought like I've been just so uptight or or just like rigid or for whatever reason. But you know, and the reality of it is that for for for good reason, there's so much lateral violence and misogyny just with women who hate being women. And and to break that iceberg to to like say you've got to shatter that because you've got to you're a human being and and even if you don't deal with it As you age, you're going to be faced with the fact that you've got to face it. You gotta deal with it. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. You have to face it. It's like death. You you're gonna face death someday. And and so how do we do this? How do we work together and make safe places for for women? So that's why like when I talk about human trafficking, it was so sublime. It was there and yet it's childhood memory, a childhood memory where I was around women, mostly Blackfoot women, because again, we're I we live in the Treaty Seven area and those young girls who experienced like homelessness, starvation, like abuse, forced to forced to have sex with strangers just just to eat and survive and live in the downtown core. I know when when my cousins had run away to Vancouver and came back, I hung out with them for a year. And the amount of information and what they taught me Marina Crane (32:08.724) about like drinking and drugs. And like like for example, one New Year's Eve we went down to the downtown core in Skidrow and and the the cousin's partner he just got out of prison and he he we rented a hotel room in the like in the Skidrow area And he filled the whole tub with ice and filled it with alcohol. No, my wa my jaw was wired 'cause I I had surgery. I had a underbite. And I was an athlete. You know, I was I played basketball. I mean, even with my jaw wired, I was playing basketball at the provincial level and this this Cree woman rifled that ball into my face, knocked me to the ground, and everybody came rushing because if the jaw if my the the wiring in my jaw my jaw could have been if it hadn't been healing could have lodged into my skull and it could have killed me. Again, I got the what do they call it, MVP for for sportsmanship out of the province because I didn't fight her when I got up. But but anyway I had my jaw wired and my like I said, my cousins they had already experienced all this like they'd been in prison, they'd done welfare fraud you again, they're teaching me 'cause I'm I'm so naive. And it's it wasn't because I was playing naive, I was just naive. Again, and I'm saying my in in some ways it protected me that my parents and my mom and my aunties and my uncles never talked to me about Marina Crane (33:59.564) you know, what's happening in the downtown core or about human sexuality. Even about prostitution, nothing, nothing. You know, I heard them talk about Regina being a prostitute center for indigenous girls way back. and you can Google that in history. It's it's true. But but like I said, I didn't know if I hadn't hung out with my cousins, I wouldn't have known. And these are my second cousins. 'Cause like they were they they were cowgirls. They they were barrel racers, they were tough horsewomen. They c they could they could ride any man to the ground on a on a on their ponies. I kid you not, you know, they were tough women 'cause I was right there fighting with them when we had to fight white men. Like we were almost like a little bunch of gangster girls. Anyway, we go down to the downtown core with my cousin's partner and he's the only guy and there's like f three of us f females and we go to the Skidrow Bar and it's closed for New Year's Eve. But we, you know, knock on the door and some you know, they knew each other and stuff and so we got in. We got into a private party and let me tell you All the prostitutes and all the pimps in Calgary were there. They were wearing furs, chinchilla, ermine, mink, diamond necklaces, fur hats. Like they were dressed to to the max. Like when you when you look at Harlem and you know, in these big cities where you have the black pimps with their fur jackets, that's what it was like. It was like a Hollywood s movie. This this whole this whole bar was just saturated with wealth. Marina Crane (35:46.644) And everybody was drinking and having a good time. And and of course I was like I had my jaw wired for quite a while, so I had been on a liquid diet for a long time. So anything that I drank just sort of went straight through my body. I you know, it was just liquid. And when we when we came home the the the cous the male cousin to the sisters, he said to me, he says, You allowed Marina to to eat pizza with her jaw wired? What if she got sick she would have she would have choked on her own vomit? Like We we got ourselves in s high risk behavior and and like I said for a whole year I hung out with them. I was eventually I became their designated driver for like three years after or two years and I learned a lot. I learned a lot from them and and at at the same time too, I think because I had been around a lot of nat young men and women who had some universities University when I was 19 when I went up to Edmonton. like I'd been around educated people, as well as when I was growing up as a child, when my parents' friends took us in when they were going to South America, India. I was around teachers and teachers, white teachers, white couple, the man was a teacher. the five women my sisters and I stayed with for months, they were teachers. So I was around that in environment and and at the same time too if I hadn't been, I like again, back in the day women couldn't own a credit card or a house, but yet, you know, this group of women managed to maintain a house. So so I knew it was possible for women to to live independently and and so that's I think the crux of it is how I became and chose to to live a single life. Not not understanding like what Marina Crane (37:51.988) what it is to be to be talking and safe and understanding things. So so yes, it's it's important to understand the history of of how indigenous women have been ruled or overruled by by an act that we weren't allowed to be sexual with with have and have freedom, that anybody that we married would jeopardize our status. and in my previous podcast yesterday I talk about, you know, the the women here who chose not to get married but have children. And I said, imagine I said they knew that their older b sisters had married, like say in Hobima, and if they spoke Soutina, they couldn't speak Soutina in in a Cree community, or if they married into a Blackfoot community, they couldn't speak Soutina, or they married into a Sioux community like the Stonies couldn't speak Soutina. So in order to keep the language and in order to just keep community as matriarchs they chose not to to marry. They chose to raise their children here in Soutina. And as hard as it was for for them to to live here without home or place for their children, they did. And and because again understand the double standards. Men could marry whoever the hell they wanted, including white women. And immigration in Salt Lake City, when they denied me my green card I eventually did get my green card, but when they denied it to me, they said, in Canada the you know, the Canadian government allows you to allows white women to have Indian status because of the Indian Act. He says, We can't give you a green card because we can't prove that you're Indian. Even though I wore my skin, even though I had all this documentation But just the fact of systemic racism. That's why, you know, people like Buffy Saint Marie could get away with her bullshit. Or Joseph you know, just just these men, academics, these these people these pretendians who who pretend they're indigenous just so they can get a academic job or get into a medical un school for to become a doctor, lawyer, you you name it, even Indian chief. Marina Crane (40:19.542) the the whole notion of of the history. That's why if if a a white woman pretends to be indigenous or even tries to latch on and learn what it's like to be indigenous, like what do they call it, grifting? Been there, done that. To me. Like you treat me that way and and you don't expect me to bite? Of course I'm gonna bite. What the hell? You know, I buried a lot of indigenous women because of arrogance and ignorance and the lack of empathy that that white people have for for women who are struggling, especially in hospitals and in the jails and just in society in itself, even growing up in high school and you know, in academics. At at the Alberta College of Art and Design I I was ridiculed. I had students Send me letters, burn an L bitch. I had students stealing my art supplies. And and that's just in Calgary, that's not even talking about Utah, you know, having white people say, all Indians are good artists. Like, excuse me, you know, my defending my identity, defending who I am. Do do do people who are non-Indigenous realize just how much mansplain it's or like people trying to tell me what it's like to be indigenous because they're they're academic or they they sort of c want to find out. like curious minds want to know. That's why like like when I've been associated with a forensic psychologist for over thirty years and even my studying psychology and being going into therapies and I and I'm going you know, I've I've the the the investigation or Marina Crane (42:17.953) you know, being saying that they're invisible helping hands when really all they want is notoriety and put it on their little resume that they've counseled over two hundred and fifty indigenous peoples. You know, you name it. You s you see it, it's exploitation. And and again, people pretending, people getting information and using it so they can bullshit their way into grants, artistic grants, anything and everything you name, I even went to high school with this l woman named Melody. She had friends another woman named Marina and another woman and so of course I'm like five years older than them or so and 'cause I went back to high school as an adult in a Catholic school. And even during that time, not once did she ever say she had indigenous blood in her. She looks white. To this day she's still white. And she you know, now she's, you know, got a business Throughout the whole time that I've known her, only in this past what f well less than ten years, that that she's acknowledged that she's had indigenous blood because she uses it for her company and all the Metis people and all the connections that she's she's basically worked on what do you call kissing somebody? You know, like like cowing down and you know, just giving the honorariums or, you know, like buying, manipulating mind control just so that she could have her own little day and saying, I'm helping. I'm an ally because I have some indigenous blood like excuse me. You know, I've had I've had some women say, my father was ashamed to be indigenous, so I'm tracking it down so I can apply for Metis status. Like is if it's so easy And and yet they get away with it. I've gone to university, I've been with acad white academics who have an maybe an ounce of indigenous blood. Okay, but the the reality where for me talking about going to the downtown core in Calgary and being around blackfeet girls, teenagers who are being trafficked. Like you tell me. Marina Crane (44:41.824) If I if I see so much as that girl these women from high school or university who who want to say they're indigenous, I'm going to I'm gonna ask them, tell me who which indigenous person that you knew as a teenager was being trafficked. And if you can't tell me, then you're then you're lying. Like like even right now, the majority of our children are being trafficked at the age of fourteen years old. Fourteen years old. And even like our city police our tribal police did a sting operation. Twenty-four hours they had over five thousand hits with men trying to buy a fifteen-year-old indigenous girl. Ten of them did bring money forward and they were charged. But the but the ambivalence or the naivety of society thinking you know, the noble savage, the you know, the stereotype of Disney's fairy tale princess, this Pocahontas. You know, excuse me. That's like you being an ostrich putting your head in the sand and not wanting to see the reality of what it's like to be an indigenous child, to be an indigenous teenager, to be an indigenous young woman, to be hunted. To be hunted because why we're why? Because you try to erase the history of what your ancestors and settlers did to us and still continue to do for us. I mean it's like Trump naming Lake America for Lake Ontario. The whole notion of people trying to erase a history and and for people to just poo pooed and say, Yeah, Trump can do that like Google accepting it, excuse me. When are people gonna wake up? Like like you look at all the philanthropy, all the nitty-gritty of all these leaders who after their death and just the amount of affairs they've had with Hollywood stars or even Jeffrey Epstein, this whole notion of of propriety and religiosity and money making and at whose expense. Marina Crane (46:57.364) The the reality of is it is when you're looking at indigenous people, you you have to understand it came from somewhere. And it sure as hell didn't come from my backyard. You know, my late uncle used to say, They created it. Let them solve it. See, and and that's the whole gist of it when I talk about ritual abuse, when I talk about how horrific white people treat their children to the point where they've developed multiple personalities and throughout their lives they've denied it, even if they're judges or lawyers or businessmen, the the torture of childhood memory being so suppressed that they've developed multiple personalities. That's why I say don't trust nobody with your child. Nobody. You you think you think I'm I'm I'm talking as if it doesn't exist? Thousands of our children in those residential schools. when white people just thought, they're converts. We're converting them to Catholicism. We're converting them into Protestants. We're converting them into Mormonism. And if and if if we're not following those scriptures, like I said to my nieces and nephews, learn about other people's religion. Learn about their because they're your enemy. Learn what they believe because they're gonna they're going to indoctrinate you. They're gonna try and convert you. And if you don't, they're gonna murder you. They're gonna cut you up in ribbons. or sell you, sell you. It's the truth. And you might say, she's going off the deep end. I'm I'm going, no. They're they're like when I say ritual abuse has been around since the beginning of time. Marina Crane (48:42.038) Be critical thinkers. Think about your own religion. Think about your own life. Think about all these things that you've seen growing up as a teenager, as a child. And and like for me, when I talk about how naive I've been, when people look at me and they don't want to see how naive I am, because all they have is this picture of indigenous women being so worldly and understanding what it's all about to be, you know, what Skidrow is all about. what what human trafficking is all about. Yes. Understand that. I'm trying to put this on a podcast so so young people aren't naive. They're not naive about people who try to use them to make money, especially in the foster care system. They don't care about where that child is gonna grow up after they age out. They're just trying to feed their own children. Maybe they're children who maybe they themselves are immigrants into this world and they need this extra cash. That's why I'm saying as indigenous people we don't have sovereignty over our children. Because if we did, we wouldn't allow them to be raised in non indigenous homes. All that we've lost and continue to lose, especially with our language, means something. Especially here in Southinna, because we've lived right by a city. We understand human trafficking and we've been ashamed to talk about it. And yet and yet here we are, you know, trying to show respect. to to the the women, the indigenous women who chose not to be trafficked, who chose not to be prostitutes, who who had a you know, ha who fought every day of their lives to to pay their rent, their mortgage, pay for their education, pay for their working, their gasoline. These are indigenous women. Marina Crane (50:46.274) These are the women that I talk about, these are the women that I that I try to encourage. It's tough. But you have to do it. Because because who's looking at you? Who's saying, Well, if she can do it, I can do it? And so for me, I don't I try not to give advice. I just I'm just like, Okay, I did this. I lived in another country. I chose not to have a husband. I chose not to have children. there it's possible. It's possible to live this world alone. It's possible to to go to another country and live there on your own. It's possible. There are certain things and certain strengths that women, not just indigenous women, but women have. And the more women talk about it and the more women understand their own sexuality. the the the just the the whole notion of being able to to choose to have children or not, the whole reality of just how our bodies work. That, you know, it's it's so important because that's what makes humanity humanity. So I hope like I said, I I ha I do I do have certain pieces of video and stuff like that, but you know, for me for me, It's it's just being able to to to talk to talk about things. And I don't know, Marina Crane (52:34.062) I'm gonna I'm gonna read this piece even though I'm going, what the hell did I have this before? You know, like this hypersexuality and mental health. When somebody displays hypersexual behavior, society can be incredibly quick to judge them. I'm Professor Ahmed Henkiir, consultant psychiatrist, and as a psychiatrist, I'm not interested in asking what's wrong with this person. I'm interested in asking what might this behavior mean? What's driving this behavior? Because hypersexuality isn't a moral diagnosis. Sometimes increased sexual behavior can occur during mania or hypomania. Sometimes impulsivity or disinhibition may contribute, sometimes substances are involved, and sometimes, not always, sexual behavior can be a trauma response. For somebody who has survived sexual abuse or sexual violence, their sexual autonomy may once have been taken away from them, and for some survivors, subsequent sexual behavior may become entangled with an attempt to reclaim something extraordinarily important. Agency, autonomy, ownership of their own body. And then there's another layer. Sexual behaviour is not always judged equally. A man with multiple sexual partners may be celebrated by some people. A woman displaying exactly the same behaviour may be shamed or morally condemned. And in certain cultural, social or religious environments, that stigma can become even more intense. None of this means Every trauma survivor becomes hypersexual, and it certainly doesn't mean everyone displaying hypersexual behavior has experienced trauma. It means something much simpler. Before we condemn human behavior, we should be curious about it. Because behind every behavior there can be meaning, and sometimes the behavior society judges most harshly is the behavior we most need to understand. I hope you found that helpful. As always, protect your minds and Marina Crane (54:46.445) protect your hearts and bye for now. And his handle is Dr. A H E D H A N K I R. And and that's my story. The the stereotypes that put people have put me in doesn't doesn't compute. When when people want to say that she was hypersexual because she was traumatized, no. When when I talk about the the Blackfeet girls and the women that I saw in the downtown core, th they were traumatized. Understand this. They're living on the streets or they're trying to survive in a city. And and and what does it mean? Because like that lady who was trying to traffic me when I w She she's an elder now, okay? So a a lot of this hypersexuality when it when it comes to like the healing process and how how individuals evolve, like they when you decide to have children, that changes you. but if you chose not to have children too, it it you know it doesn't mean that you've been traumatized. And and that's part of why I do my podcast. is because so many white women tend to think that I'm I'm this case, like I'm this classical case, or even a forensic psychologist like, we're Marinus this classical case when I'm going, No, there my my podcast is is to to have you sort of be the Vosjeur voyeur, take a look and say, Okay, what does this behavior? It has meaning And and for me to dissect my own life and give it to you and say, No, these things that you see in indigenous people in terms of human trafficking has a meaning. There's a meaning behind it. Like I said, we're a nation within a nation because y you know, people who are Canadian or live in the province of Alberta, those are three things, the Canadian and the province. Those are two governments. Indigenous people, Metis Inuit and Marina Crane (56:58.829) First Nations. We're a whole different nation. We're a whole different nation within a nation. And the fact that we're governed by the Indian Act, we're still governed by the Canadian government till only three years ago classified the nine Sioux tribes, the Inuit people, and the Metis people as being indigenous. And and only now Bill S2. is trying to make sure even indigenous women who married Native Americans in the United States or anybody who was not considered indigenous, which is Sioux, Inuit, and Metis, their children can be can be considered status and put on a general list in Ottawa. And from that list they can make application to their First Nations Inuit or Metis communities to be to be to be accepted in those communities. So people who are pretending that they can be on this general list, they can keep on pretending. Because even if you make it to the general list and you want to have voting rights in First Nations, Inuit or Metis communities, you have to make application. You have to make application to those grassroots people because it has meaning to belong. So when you're talking about hypersexuality. We're not talking about the stereotypical human trafficking. There's a meaning behind the behavior of why there's so many murdered and missing indigenous children and two spirited and women and girls going missing. There's a meaning behind it. Get educated. Understand this. Even the fact too, like how people just assume, assume that we have rights over our children. Just like they assumed my parents had a right that their parents and my grandparents had a right to protect their children, when you had the mi the R C and P coming in stealing our kids, stealing my parents and putting them into residential schools, then you had those con those religious centers converts because we were all considered savages. And and and my goodness gave them gave them permission to kill us. Marina Crane (59:17.227) To kill converts. Because why? They did that with the Spanish Inquisition. Reli you know, Catholics killing converts that were Jewish converts, Muslim converts into Catholicism. That's that mentality of religiosity and ritual abuse is still embedded in the very existence of humanity. That's why I talk about ritual abuse in all religions, in all society. How do we dismantle it and how do we talk about empowering our children to understand how to treat each other with respect?