- [Voice-over] This program was made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

(upbeat music) - I am Mike Galligan with the Law Offices of Galligan and Newman in McMinnville, Tennessee.

I support WCTE, the Upper Cumberland's own PBS station because I believe it is important to create entertaining TV programs that also promote lifelong learning and understanding.

When I support WCTE, I know that I am helping our Upper Cumberland community for generations to come.

- [Voice-over] The Law Offices of Galligan and Newman provide clients with large firm expertise and small firm personalized care and service.

♪ You walk with me ♪ ♪ You talk with me ♪ ♪ Teach me how to see ♪ ♪ You walk with me ♪ ♪ You talk with me ♪ ♪ Share your mystery with me ♪ - Being someone who is not indigenous but has devoted... half my life to studying indigenous culture and interacting with native people on a pretty regular basis if someone were to ask me to distill down the essence of indigenous culture, if I had to pick one word, it would be balance.

(gentle orchestral music) - I'm Avery Hutchins, host of "Where Stories Live."

And in this episode, our story begins with Dee White Eye and Sayota Knight, two Putnam County residents with Native American ancestry.

Dee and Sayota will share their knowledge of their native roots and how their rich history and culture has shaped their beliefs.

We'll also hear from Dr.

Troy Smith, an associate professor of history, at Tennessee Tech University where he teaches several courses on Native American history.

Now let's begin our story by hearing from Dee.

If you would start off by telling us, what is your tribe and where do you come from?

- So I would say (speaking in foreign language) So I am Singing Bird and I'm from the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe of Michigan and (speaking in foreign language) I'm from Bear Clan.

My great grandma is named Emma Wabinaw.

And then my grandmother's name is Elizabeth Hindman.

Her Indian name is Wawgahtonoquay and they both live on the Isabella Reservation.

It's just outside of Mount Pleasant, Michigan.

That's where my father's from.

I grew up in Flint, Michigan.

That's where I was born.

On the other side of my family my mother is from down here.

The grandma on that side of the family is from Westpoint, Tennessee.

She was Scotch-Irish.

And my other side is native so I jokingly say I am a shamrock tomahawk.

(laughs) - Well, in Tennessee more broadly, you had the Chickasaws out west.

You had the Creek, Muskogee Creek and the Shawnee that sometimes were active in East and Middle Tennessee.

Of course, you had the Cherokees who were originally from the Smoky Mountains.

In this area in the Upper Cumberland, you had the Yuchi who were... similar to the Muskogee Creek.

And they were here for a very long time.

The Cherokees chased them out in the early 1700s and then claimed this area as a hunting route.

So those are all the tribes that have been associated with this part of Tennessee in general.

- For generations, the native communities have shared their beliefs through storytelling and through elder influence which has been the same for Dee and Sayota.

In this segment they talk about the importance of tribal families, mentors, and what it means to them to follow the red path.

- In native culture generally, the elders were and continue to be very, very important.

They were the sort of the repositories of the stories of the tribe and of the rituals and the ceremonies.

- One of the things she told me about when I was younger was boarding school.

And I said, Grandma, "what happened?"

And she said that when she was taken from her home, her family, they sent her to a school.

And she told me some of the stories about that and it made me cry.

I just couldn't believe that they would do that to our people.

But she said, "it's okay.

We're still here."

So that's the part that's important is that whatever was given to the people, they survived and we're still here.

And so Grandma shared a lot of things with us and brought that piece of our culture into my life.

- Due to years of stereotyping, natives are often forced into a small cultural box by non-natives which can lead to many misconceptions regarding Native American beliefs.

It can also lead to bigotry and ignorance among the non-natives.

We asked Dee and Sayota how they felt about the stereotypes and what they think can be done to open the box with non-natives.

We also hear from Dr.

Troy Smith regarding his research on words that have been used to describe the people with tribal descent.

- I use Native American.

I use Native interchangeable.

So I think the best thing that when people wonder what to call us is just ask what do you like to be called?

- There was a survey I conducted I think in 2000 of people who self-identified as indigenous and the census asking which they preferred Native American or American Indian.

And by about 2:1, the preference was American Indian which means there's about another third that hate the term American Indian.

The reason that's been given to me by indigenous people that I've talked to is that they didn't ask to be called either one of those things and neither one of 'em is accurate.

- We've had different names.

Growing up, American Indian is what we were called.

All our treaties were signed as that.

And even our tribe is named the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan.

So that name is in all of our stuff.

And we don't want it to be that someday down the road they forget.

Oh yeah, there's no Native Americans anymore.

Everybody's just indigenous.

And so we want to make sure that those treaties stay honored and that that name still stays with us.

- And part of that is there's been a concerted effort in the last 20 years by scholars and the federal government to pay more attention to what indigenous people prefer.

So the term American Indian, although some people regard it as inaccurate which it is or a racist term is starting to be used more often again in government documents and in academia.

- With the influence of social media, the internet, and 24/7 communication, we may all feel the legacy of our ancestors have been lost, perhaps even forgotten.

Dee and Sayota talk about the importance of protecting and preserving the native culture and why it's so important to honor those that came before them.

- The tribe my people come from are the Chiricahua Apache.

And quick backstory on them, there's seven bands of Apache or what we call Nde.

And the Chiricahua is the band that's most famous for what people know as Geronimo and Goyaale.

And how I've learned about my culture and my tribe is that their resilience in very stressful situations in extreme environmental... context.

The desert is not a friendly place for people who can't handle it but our people lived there for tens of thousands of years.

So what that's taught me in life is to persevere in all the hardships I go through.

And when I look back at some of the hardships that I've had through my life and I think well woe is me or you know poor me, I think about my ancestors and the people who've come before me and how hard they've had it in such strict or harsh conditions.

And so that's helped me shape my perspective of life and to continue on.

And I'm fortunate to be here because of their survival.

- I try to take the golden threads that many of us have and we've been sharing those ever since I joined this team back in my early 20s.

Maybe I was 21, 22.

It's called NACAT, Native American Culture Appreciation Team.

And after we got the right to self-determination and the right to practice our religion, we went to different reservations all across the United States, up through Canada, and helped get the old people together with the young people.

We didn't want the stories to be lost.

- The types of traditions that were passed down include really most aspects of the life because these tribes until the 19th century didn't have written languages.

So oral history, oral tradition was extremely important.

So it's things like from how you should treat your fellow tribe members to your relationship with the natural world and the supernatural world, learning the rituals and ceremonies that are an important part of your tribe's life.

All those would've been passed down by your elders and frequently the ancestors in general.

Even those who were no longer on the scene were still revered and spoken about.

- Everybody's life is their path as we say, the red path in the indigenous culture is different.

So I always take that into consideration when I teach my son or my daughter something.

And traditionally indigenous culture as I've been taught by my elders we don't want to force feed our ways onto our kids because we have a hard enough time to keep our culture as it is now.

What I've tried to instill is a conglomeration of experiences that I've had personally.

And then what I've learned from my travels and journey to learn my culture and from my parents who raised me and their influences and their backgrounds.

And this combined lived experience that I've been able to have I've tried to piece parts of my... thoughts to help them and give them guidance to go by like a reference.

- I didn't do much reading about Native Americans.

I sat next to an older lady while we were doing beadwork and she told me this is what happened when I was a little baby and we were at Sand Creek outside of Denver.

And that was a battle there.

And so I learned these things by participating with the elders and learning the stories from them.

I learned how to do beadwork and make baskets and all these things.

And then I began to share 'em.

I started making regalia for my kids and teaching them the ways.

So as I grew, I was able to share more.

And so starting in my 20s, I began doing that.

Prior to that, we didn't have the laws in place to make us feel safe enough to talk about it.

- We combat as a people all these exterior distractions like TV... churches... the internet, and then everyday life in general.

And what I say these things they're distractions is that they're each competing for our children's thoughts, their time, everything.

And nothing in indigenous culture is being implemented not only in our school system but even in our own family life.

We have a hard time to say hey kids, let's go do some ceremony of whatnot.

I'm just putting that out there.

However, I've invited my children to these things but if they don't go, I don't punish them or hold it against it.

It's just something that I was taught that if somebody's hungry for something, you put out the food and they'll come to it eventually.

- A common belief among many tribes is that all things are connected in the universe.

The belief that whatever happens to the earth happens to the children of the earth and that men did not weave the web of life but that it is merely a strand in it.

Dee and Sayota share their beliefs and their journeys to understanding the religious traditions and broad characteristics that relate to their tribes.

- Well, in my vow when I said (speaks in foreign language) Boozhoo means hello.

(speaks in foreign language) means we are all related.

And in native way of thinking, we don't mean just the human beings are related.

We mean you're related to every tree, every flower, those cute little ducks over there.

Everything that has life is from the Creator.

Creator God made all of us.

We don't call our relatives like people use the word cousin.

We call everybody brothers and sisters because Creator God is our relative that made all of us and we're brothers and sisters.

Sometimes as I get older, I'm an auntie now but as I get older I'll be grandma to everybody and not just my own grandkids.

It's just the way we look at family.

- The importance of maintaining a balance in everything because everything is connected.

In Lakota there is a term (speaks in foreign language) which literally means all my relations.

But it gets at the idea I'm related to everything.

So really it's like the cosmos is a big spider web and if you disturb one strand, the whole web is disturbed.

- I think sometimes we forget that we'll go in and we'll harvest something and we take everything instead of just taking what we need.

If you take only what you need that's called a good harvest practice because that leaves other plants to grow.

If you go in and you take it all, then it can't continue to grow.

So even how we treat the plants, the animals, one another, all of those things are going to help us be better people, have a world for the future.

- So having that kind of a view makes people a lot more aware of their actions and the possible consequences of their actions.

And throughout native culture, there is this really strong emphasis on basically keeping the scales balanced.

Traditionally in many cultures if you were a hunter and you killed a deer let's say, there were certain rituals you had to perform in which you apologize to it and you thank it for providing for you knowing that it's part of the cycle.

You're part of the cycle.

Your turn will come.

And if you don't have that consideration, then the cycle is disrupted and it could lead to bad repercussions for you or for your village or your tribe.

- If we use it all up, if we abuse it and in today's world this is happening it may not be here.

It may not flourish.

We call the earth our mother.

She gives us everything we need.

Back in the 70s, people started talking to their plants and they found that they grow better when we talk to them.

And we all know with our cats and dogs that there's a little spirit in that animal and they understand us and they love us unconditionally.

So that's that kind of spirit I'm talking about that's in every single thing your eye can see.

- So there is this sense of responsibility to keeping things in balance and remembering that everything is connected.

- In the church I belong to, that's one of our principles.

And I feel as American Indian part of my responsibility is to share how we have that relationship with the earth.

When you call something your mother you're gonna treat it with respect and honor it.

When you honor the plants and the animals, and even every human being, what would it be like?

Just imagine this if you would.

If we saw everything through sacred eyes, if we looked at people as one of the Creator's best creation how we would treat one another, how we would care for one another.

Even by me calling you my sister or my brothers or the animals, my relatives.

That means they're family.

And we treat our family in a good way.

Light represents... understanding and sometimes the Creator and then that spirit of truth.

They often say truth will set you free.

Be honest and caring with one another.

And those two types of the spirit come together when we treat things sacred.

- Dee and Sayota share how they stay in touch with their roots while recognizing the ancestors that have contributed to preserving the rich culture and spiritual beliefs to be passed from generation to generation.

They believe that the values of these efforts allow us all to identify with others deepening our sense of unity, belonging, and national pride.

When we preserve our culture, we create experiences that make us human and connect us all together.

- A lot of our indigenous ways come from the environment.

We mimic things within our environment.

So our environmental aspects will kind of control how we view things to preserve.

Water's very sacred to us.

In most indigenous tribes or nations, water is sacred.

In fact, the Lakota say (speaks in foreign language) which water is life.

- Any environmental movement that's going on, Native American Indians are disproportionately represented among the people who are engaged in that action.

And that's because culturally, they have a good understanding of community and working together and they have a good understanding of maintaining the balance of nature and protecting the sacred things like water.

- In the Ojibwe, we have prophecies and all of those prophecies have come true except we're on the 8th prophecy right now.

And that's where we are at a standstill.

And there's two paths we can choose.

One path is for the destruction of Mother Earth.

And the other path is to revitalize and keep her alive.

So one of the things my hope is that people will be allies with us and help make things better so that we can survive.

- So protecting the waters and understanding that aspect of it, protecting sacred grounds, and learning about our culture in that way I think could go a long ways in preserving native culture.

- There is so much we can learn from them.

And a lot of the things that I hope students take out of my environmental history class really are coming from native culture 'cause I feel like incorporating that kind of thinking into our standard westernized American thinking is the solution to a lot of our problems.

- Thank you for joining me for this episode of "Where Stories Live."

I hope you find a way to connect with your heritage in a way that reflects and shapes the values and beliefs of your ancestors.

And we close our show.

We hope you can see the world as a beautiful place where profound feelings and gratitude, love, and respect can be cultivated.

- So with indigenous peoples and then people abroad there's something instinctual that when you break it down to I won't say primitive but to a bare bones thing we all have needs that are human aspects.

Like we love, we cry, we need food, we need water, we need shelter.

And a lot of people when they talk to me they love indigenous culture.

They romanticize about it.

And that's okay to a degree.

But then I inversely put it back on them.

Well, your culture had some of that aspect as well.

You've just forgotten or you've been taken away from it because of technology or progress has allowed you to think that that way of living was not good for some reason or the other.

- Some people say, "well, I just really identify with the native culture."

And they want to be part of us.

So there's two ways to be Indian.

One is by blood, the other is by heart.

And oftentimes we get people who are allies because they want to come and be a part of us and be with us.

They don't have to put an outfit on or regalia on.

They can just come and be an ally.

- I had a lot of romanticized ideas that you get from popular culture.

And we all know how bad negative stereotypes are but sometimes positive stereotypes are still stereotypes and are misleading.

- They started having Native American studies in colleges and that made it so that people could learn some of our history.

I was before that time so I learned it through word of mouth through all the ancestors.

- The one thing I think that my advisor and my mentor, Fred Hoxie, really drilled into me is that...

Native Americans also happen to be human beings with minds of their own whether you're talking about in a historical context or present that have agency, right?

So sometimes things are more complex than they are presented in these simplified... TV shows or movies or books.

- We're at a whole different place in society than we were back when my grandma was alive and they took her to boarding school.

Those things brought us to this moment in time.

And now we have people who have education and the ability to give a happier more fulfilling horizon for our people.

- There's a lot of deeper layers of humanity... at play.

And I try to stress that now that this is not some romanticized magical being we're talking about.

It's another person who happens to have this particular culture but we shouldn't lose sight of their humanity.

- So there's hope that we can have a brighter future if we all just start practicing some good ways of treating one another and listening to one another.

- Our connectivity is that first of all we're on Mother Earth.

We share this planet.

And then furthermore, even though somebody has a view about the Creator or how they came to be, their origin story.

We all have an origin story.

And that connectivity of an origin story if you really look at it basically from its root source, I think once you get people together, there's really no argument.

It's like we're all from the same aspect of this great thing we call energy or great spirit or (speaks in a foreign language) whatever, God, Allah.

- Thank you for watching.

And I'll see you next time when we go "Where Stories Live."

- I am Mike Galligan with the Law Offices of Galligan and Newman in McMinnville, Tennessee.

I support WCTE, the Upper Cumberland's own PBS station because I believe it is important to create entertaining TV programs that also promote lifelong learning and understanding.

When I support WCTE I know that I am helping our Upper Cumberland community for generations to come.

- [Voice-Over] The Law Offices of Galligan and Newman provide clients with large firm expertise and small firm personalized care and service.

- [Voice-Over] This program was made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.