My people don’t think that animals are stupid and that they have a small brain. The animals are very clever and they have two things that we lack :
Freedom
Unconditional love
The dog is a perfect example :
The dog is always there for you. When you come home, you may not have time for him and tell him to go away. He will come back later, wagging his tail. He will welcome you and will always be happy to see you, every day of his life. He will always be ready to share your joys, and he loves you without any conditions, even if you treat him badly.
When you come home to your wife and you are tired and tell her to leave you alone, she will be angry at you. Next time you talk to her, she will sulk and show how displeased she is. She will ask you to apologize.
People always say things like « if you don’t change, I will leave you » or « if you don’t do this, I won’t do that ».
There are always conditions for everything.
When a bird decides to leave the city and live in the country, it is accepted there.
But if you decide to move to the country, somebody will come and tell you « you can’t stay here, this land belongs to me ! ». Then the government will come and ask you to pay taxes. You will have to pay because you changed your way of life. Unlike the animals, we are not free.
My people ask the animals for guidance. When we ask them, they answer, but the animals have stopped talking to those who mistreat them and enslave them.

What are we ?

My people believe that we are a representation of earth.
Our hair represents the grass on the prairie.
Our bones are the mountains that make us strong and hold us upright.
Our arteries and our veins are the rivers and the springs.
Our breath is like the wind.
Our heart is the center of the earth, and sometimes it speaks through a volcano.
Our body is a gift from Mother Earth and one day we will go back to her.
We don’t own our bodies, we only borrow them for a short time.
We must never speak badly about our body, because a light lives inside. When the body returns back to the earth, the light returns to the Creator.
If the body is in good health, so is the light. That’s why we must take good care of our bodies and not weaken then by drugs or alcohol.
It’s easy to help others, but it’s hard to help ourselves and it’s even harder with love.
All of this we learn from mother nature.
Technologies change with time, and always will, but feelings never change. Just like our elders, ourselves and our children experience joy, and sorrow and rage..
Following the buffalo remains a good way of life.
Technology will change. People’s feelings won’t.

Blackfoot Medicine Shield

The teepee

Our teepees are open to the East, so that in the morning we can open our hearts to the good news.
When our people came to the prairies, a man had a dream. He stood before a mountain and the mountain told him : « push me down ! »
The man said : » It’s impossible, I can’t push you down ! »
And the mountain replied : « Then build a house that looks like me ».
And the teepee was born. And everyone who lives in a teepee knows that nothing can push it down.

The drum

The drum comes from the thunder. It represents Mother Earth. When we hit the drum, it is the lightning. The drumbeat symbolises the heartbeat.

The bow and arrows

We used to hunt with spears. Then one day a man had a vision. In this vision he was given the bow from the moon crescent and the arrows from the lightning, and he put them together. The symbol of the lightning is engraved or painted on all our arrows.