0 00:00:39,453 --> 00:00:43,480 Hello. I'm Ernest Borgnine. 1 00:00:43,557 --> 00:00:47,960 I'm here to tell you a story about the American West. 2 00:00:48,028 --> 00:00:51,862 It's about this land, 3 00:00:51,932 --> 00:00:54,025 and the conflict that took place 4 00:00:54,101 --> 00:00:56,729 between those who wanted to keep it 5 00:00:56,803 --> 00:01:00,034 and those who wanted to take it away. 6 00:01:00,107 --> 00:01:03,270 It's a story of memory and myth, 7 00:01:03,343 --> 00:01:07,279 and the truth that lies between the two. 8 00:01:07,347 --> 00:01:08,939 Watch. 9 00:01:51,091 --> 00:01:53,821 Darrell Kipp is one of those 10 00:01:53,894 --> 00:01:57,091 who helps keep the memory of the Blackfeet alive. 11 00:01:57,164 --> 00:01:59,689 He is heir to an epic story 12 00:01:59,766 --> 00:02:02,860 in which tragedy and courage have mingled 13 00:02:02,936 --> 00:02:04,836 in the struggle for a continent, 14 00:02:04,905 --> 00:02:06,270 and for survival. 15 00:02:06,339 --> 00:02:09,331 Yet today, as I look, 16 00:02:09,409 --> 00:02:13,903 you know, you almost can hear the gunshots 17 00:02:13,980 --> 00:02:16,744 and hear the people yelling at you, 18 00:02:16,817 --> 00:02:19,809 and see them running for their lives. 19 00:02:21,855 --> 00:02:25,814 And yet... today... 20 00:02:25,892 --> 00:02:29,225 very little, very little, 21 00:02:29,296 --> 00:02:32,663 has ever been said or mentioned 22 00:02:32,732 --> 00:02:34,427 about this place. 23 00:02:39,172 --> 00:02:41,367 Barely a hundred years ago, 24 00:02:41,441 --> 00:02:43,375 the frontier vanished, 25 00:02:43,443 --> 00:02:48,039 its reality actually replaced by legend. 26 00:02:51,384 --> 00:02:54,376 Join me and Jean-Christophe Jeauffre 27 00:02:54,454 --> 00:02:59,858 on the Jules Verne Adventures team's new voyage of today: 28 00:02:59,926 --> 00:03:02,520 From Wyoming to Northern Montana, 29 00:03:02,596 --> 00:03:05,156 we'll travel beyond the legend 30 00:03:05,232 --> 00:03:07,700 and meet the reality of the tribe 31 00:03:07,767 --> 00:03:11,703 that lives at the base of the world's backbone: 32 00:03:11,771 --> 00:03:14,399 The Blackfeet. 33 00:03:20,747 --> 00:03:23,716 Here is the story of two cultures, 34 00:03:23,783 --> 00:03:26,581 opposed in every way. 35 00:03:26,653 --> 00:03:32,592 One land, two visions in tragic collision. 36 00:04:29,115 --> 00:04:31,481 Northwest Montana. 37 00:04:31,551 --> 00:04:35,419 The Blackfeet Indian reservation. 38 00:04:35,488 --> 00:04:38,787 Darrell Kipp takes Jean-Christophe Jeauffre 39 00:04:38,858 --> 00:04:43,124 to a site forgotten for more than a century. 40 00:04:43,196 --> 00:04:46,097 They follow the meandering and peaceful course 41 00:04:46,166 --> 00:04:49,431 of the Marias River. 42 00:04:49,502 --> 00:04:51,663 They are traveling back through time 43 00:04:51,738 --> 00:04:53,899 to a past so recent 44 00:04:53,974 --> 00:04:57,876 that Darrell himself has known some of its protagonists. 45 00:04:57,944 --> 00:05:01,710 In 1870, the Blackfeet make winter camp 46 00:05:01,781 --> 00:05:04,511 on the banks of their favorite river. 47 00:05:04,584 --> 00:05:07,553 Here, their pacifist chief Heavy Runner 48 00:05:07,621 --> 00:05:11,717 has his people pitch their tipis for the season. 49 00:05:14,194 --> 00:05:15,957 Colonel Eugene Baker, 50 00:05:16,029 --> 00:05:18,554 commanding a detachment of the 2nd Cavalry, 51 00:05:18,632 --> 00:05:21,157 has been ordered to make punitive raids 52 00:05:21,234 --> 00:05:23,862 against another Blackfeet leader, 53 00:05:23,937 --> 00:05:27,930 a warring rebel called Mountain Chief. 54 00:05:28,008 --> 00:05:32,274 But the soldiers have failed to find Mountain Chief's camp. 55 00:05:32,345 --> 00:05:35,371 Determined to punish Indians, any Indians, 56 00:05:35,448 --> 00:05:39,043 they attack the village of the peaceful Heavy Runner. 57 00:05:39,119 --> 00:05:42,885 Ironically, Heavy Runner is one of the few chiefs 58 00:05:42,956 --> 00:05:46,357 who has signed a peace treaty with the United States. 59 00:05:46,426 --> 00:05:49,520 And his is a village not of warriors, 60 00:05:49,596 --> 00:05:53,293 but of women, children, and elders. 61 00:05:56,503 --> 00:05:59,438 Heavy Runner takes the paper 62 00:05:59,506 --> 00:06:02,066 from General Sully that he had, 63 00:06:02,142 --> 00:06:03,268 and he went out, 64 00:06:03,343 --> 00:06:05,402 and he was waving it at them, 65 00:06:05,478 --> 00:06:10,142 and... telling them that his... 66 00:06:10,216 --> 00:06:13,583 that this was the camp of Heavy Runner, 67 00:06:13,653 --> 00:06:16,645 who was at peace with the government. 68 00:06:16,723 --> 00:06:18,987 Heavy Runner walked from his lodge, 69 00:06:19,059 --> 00:06:21,653 waving this paper. 70 00:06:21,728 --> 00:06:25,994 A shot was fired that killed him. 71 00:06:31,838 --> 00:06:37,299 The many acts of heroism and desperation, 72 00:06:37,377 --> 00:06:42,940 fear, probably anger, frustration. 73 00:06:43,016 --> 00:06:45,314 As the people ran... 74 00:06:45,385 --> 00:06:50,516 mothers, children, old men would run into the... 75 00:06:50,590 --> 00:06:56,586 This river had ice stacked up against the shores, 76 00:06:56,663 --> 00:07:00,258 and they would crawl into this ice and hide. 77 00:07:00,333 --> 00:07:03,063 And the soldiers then came to the camp, 78 00:07:03,136 --> 00:07:06,299 and they began to tear the camps down 79 00:07:06,372 --> 00:07:09,239 and began to kill the people inside. 80 00:07:09,309 --> 00:07:14,212 Now, a very conservative record 81 00:07:14,280 --> 00:07:20,048 says 173 women and children 82 00:07:20,120 --> 00:07:22,054 were massacred that day. 83 00:07:24,991 --> 00:07:26,686 Miraculously, 84 00:07:26,760 --> 00:07:30,821 Heavy Runner's three children survived the slaughter. 85 00:07:30,897 --> 00:07:34,993 Joe Kipp, a regimental native scout under Colonel Baker, 86 00:07:35,068 --> 00:07:38,469 decides to adopt the slain chief's children, 87 00:07:38,538 --> 00:07:41,029 and one of them, Lasken, 88 00:07:41,107 --> 00:07:43,268 was Darrell Kipp's grandfather. 89 00:07:43,343 --> 00:07:47,302 One of the reasons I feel comfortable 90 00:07:47,380 --> 00:07:49,473 coming here to show people 91 00:07:49,549 --> 00:07:52,347 and talk about this site 92 00:07:52,418 --> 00:07:57,913 is that I think if people all over 93 00:07:57,991 --> 00:08:00,926 would understand some of the events 94 00:08:00,994 --> 00:08:04,725 that took place in our tribal history 95 00:08:04,798 --> 00:08:09,497 and other tribes' histories throughout North America, 96 00:08:09,569 --> 00:08:13,699 they might begin to get a better understanding 97 00:08:13,773 --> 00:08:17,607 of native peoples in this country. 98 00:08:19,779 --> 00:08:22,247 The Marias River massacre, 99 00:08:22,315 --> 00:08:25,284 unknown even to most historians, 100 00:08:25,351 --> 00:08:29,412 is only one in the long series of tragic conflicts 101 00:08:29,489 --> 00:08:32,390 between white men and Native Americans, 102 00:08:32,458 --> 00:08:35,916 provoked by American expansionism. 103 00:08:38,898 --> 00:08:44,131 It's a complicated history, now mingled with legend. 104 00:08:44,204 --> 00:08:47,264 To understand the Marias River disaster, 105 00:08:47,340 --> 00:08:50,002 we must go beyond the myth, 106 00:08:50,076 --> 00:08:52,806 go to the other side of the mirror. 107 00:08:52,879 --> 00:08:55,677 We must follow the trails of the pioneers 108 00:08:55,748 --> 00:08:57,978 and explore the frontier: 109 00:08:58,051 --> 00:09:01,487 That invisible and constantly moving line, 110 00:09:01,554 --> 00:09:03,988 pressed forward by the settlers' courage 111 00:09:04,057 --> 00:09:07,117 as well as their greed for land. 112 00:09:10,930 --> 00:09:15,230 By 1870, the five main trails across the West 113 00:09:15,301 --> 00:09:18,998 have taken pioneers to California and Oregon. 114 00:09:19,072 --> 00:09:21,233 The frontier was the borderline 115 00:09:21,307 --> 00:09:24,435 between civilization and wilderness. 116 00:09:25,712 --> 00:09:29,148 Towns were growing along this sensitive line... 117 00:09:29,215 --> 00:09:33,242 outposts on the edge of largely unknown territory 118 00:09:33,319 --> 00:09:38,757 considered haunted by so-called hostile tribes. 119 00:09:42,428 --> 00:09:47,161 To help us understand this tense but exciting period, 120 00:09:47,233 --> 00:09:48,825 we look to the perspective 121 00:09:48,902 --> 00:09:51,894 of one of the most celebrated of all Western legends: 122 00:09:51,971 --> 00:09:54,599 A man who lived long enough 123 00:09:54,674 --> 00:09:57,507 to witness the most significant glories, 124 00:09:57,577 --> 00:10:01,013 and tragedies, of the Old West. 125 00:10:03,416 --> 00:10:07,648 He was a Pony Express rider, a heroic scout, 126 00:10:07,720 --> 00:10:10,484 and a friend to the Indians. 127 00:10:15,028 --> 00:10:18,191 Barely 300 miles from the Marias River, 128 00:10:18,264 --> 00:10:21,290 at the edge of Wyoming's Yellowstone National Park, 129 00:10:21,367 --> 00:10:26,999 is a town named after the American Army's most famous scout, 130 00:10:27,073 --> 00:10:29,268 William F. Cody, 131 00:10:29,342 --> 00:10:32,573 better known as Buffalo Bill. 132 00:10:32,645 --> 00:10:34,772 Cody knew the Plains Indians 133 00:10:34,847 --> 00:10:38,578 better than almost any other white man of his time. 134 00:10:38,651 --> 00:10:43,020 We meet with Paul Fees, historian of the Old West 135 00:10:43,089 --> 00:10:47,822 and curator of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, 136 00:10:47,894 --> 00:10:50,590 which houses one of the world's finest collections 137 00:10:50,663 --> 00:10:54,656 dealing with pioneers and Plains Indians. 138 00:10:54,734 --> 00:10:57,328 There are a couple of things about Buffalo Bill 139 00:10:57,403 --> 00:10:59,166 that made him stand out. 140 00:10:59,238 --> 00:11:04,505 One is that undefinable thing we call charisma. 141 00:11:04,577 --> 00:11:08,104 He was someone that other people always described 142 00:11:08,181 --> 00:11:13,551 as handsome, as engaging, as modest. 143 00:11:13,619 --> 00:11:16,179 We don't think of that when we think of Buffalo Bill, 144 00:11:16,255 --> 00:11:19,418 but we... we hear other people describe him as modest 145 00:11:19,492 --> 00:11:21,790 and yet somehow magnetic. 146 00:11:21,861 --> 00:11:24,056 People were drawn to him. 147 00:11:24,130 --> 00:11:27,190 The second thing is he was absolutely authentic. 148 00:11:27,266 --> 00:11:29,826 The things that he showed in his Wild West Show 149 00:11:29,902 --> 00:11:32,928 or in his stage plays were... 150 00:11:33,006 --> 00:11:36,908 were burlesques of what he had really done. 151 00:11:36,976 --> 00:11:39,444 It really wasn't until the 1960s 152 00:11:39,512 --> 00:11:44,449 that researchers looked up his real war record in the... 153 00:11:44,517 --> 00:11:46,041 in the National Archives. 154 00:11:46,119 --> 00:11:47,848 And discovered that the things he did 155 00:11:47,920 --> 00:11:49,478 were far more dramatic 156 00:11:49,555 --> 00:11:52,183 than the things that were portrayed on the stage. 157 00:12:03,036 --> 00:12:07,735 Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, created in 1882, 158 00:12:07,807 --> 00:12:11,743 offered a mythic, romantic vision of the Old West. 159 00:12:11,811 --> 00:12:14,780 Inspired by Cody's own adventures, 160 00:12:14,847 --> 00:12:18,442 it was drenched with nostalgia, action, 161 00:12:18,518 --> 00:12:20,713 and historic heroism. 162 00:12:20,787 --> 00:12:25,053 The circus show, in some sense, was the first "Western," 163 00:12:25,124 --> 00:12:27,649 and it was a colossal success. 164 00:12:41,107 --> 00:12:44,099 The show's triumph was due 165 00:12:44,177 --> 00:12:46,805 to the authentic Native American warriors 166 00:12:46,879 --> 00:12:49,609 who surrounded Buffalo Bill in the arena, 167 00:12:49,682 --> 00:12:52,480 and to one in particular: 168 00:12:52,552 --> 00:12:57,387 Sitting Bull, the most famous Indian leader of them all. 169 00:12:57,457 --> 00:13:00,824 His name alone struck terror in audiences. 170 00:13:00,893 --> 00:13:05,159 His appearance in the show as a kind of a tamed savage 171 00:13:05,231 --> 00:13:08,098 was tinged with tragic irony, 172 00:13:08,167 --> 00:13:11,568 and yet was a sincere tribute 173 00:13:11,637 --> 00:13:14,970 from Cody to his Plains companion. 174 00:13:15,041 --> 00:13:17,839 In the time of Buffalo Bill's Wild West, 175 00:13:17,910 --> 00:13:20,504 Cody and others thought 176 00:13:20,580 --> 00:13:23,879 that the Old West was gone, was past. 177 00:13:23,950 --> 00:13:26,748 That was the premise of the Wild West Show. 178 00:13:26,819 --> 00:13:29,344 The Wild West Show showed things that had been, 179 00:13:29,422 --> 00:13:31,413 using the real players, of course, 180 00:13:31,491 --> 00:13:33,652 using real cowboys and real Indians, 181 00:13:33,726 --> 00:13:36,718 but nonetheless they were portraying a way of life 182 00:13:36,796 --> 00:13:38,957 that they said was gone forever. 183 00:13:39,031 --> 00:13:43,263 And of course in a way it was. 184 00:13:53,246 --> 00:13:56,841 In the 19th century, it was theorized 185 00:13:56,916 --> 00:13:59,180 that Native Americans, as a race, 186 00:13:59,252 --> 00:14:02,983 were inevitably doomed to disappear. 187 00:14:03,055 --> 00:14:05,080 I don't believe Cody believed that, 188 00:14:05,158 --> 00:14:07,422 but I do think that he felt 189 00:14:07,493 --> 00:14:10,485 that the Indian way of life was a way of life 190 00:14:10,563 --> 00:14:14,590 that they should be allowed to preserve on their own terms. 191 00:14:14,667 --> 00:14:18,660 In other words, we shouldn't push them into being civilized. 192 00:14:18,738 --> 00:14:22,799 We should allow them to retain their customs 193 00:14:22,875 --> 00:14:27,175 and to live their lives as they saw fit. 194 00:14:30,116 --> 00:14:33,176 Cody had too much respect for the Indians 195 00:14:33,252 --> 00:14:36,881 to take part in the federal government's treaty negotiations, 196 00:14:36,956 --> 00:14:41,416 most of which were eventually abandoned, broken, or manipulated 197 00:14:41,494 --> 00:14:44,486 to the detriment of Native Americans. 198 00:14:47,967 --> 00:14:52,768 Cody was quoted several times in interviews 199 00:14:52,838 --> 00:14:57,104 as saying that the most important thing 200 00:14:57,176 --> 00:14:59,701 to getting along with the Indian 201 00:14:59,779 --> 00:15:01,713 was to keep your word. 202 00:15:01,781 --> 00:15:05,842 He said that in his judgment, 203 00:15:05,918 --> 00:15:09,649 almost all of the problems that occurred with Indian people 204 00:15:09,722 --> 00:15:12,213 were problems caused by the American people 205 00:15:12,291 --> 00:15:15,658 breaking treaties or encroaching upon treaties. 206 00:15:15,728 --> 00:15:18,891 He felt that the government did not do a very good job 207 00:15:18,965 --> 00:15:20,227 of protecting the reservation 208 00:15:20,299 --> 00:15:24,861 or protecting the treaties... the hunting treaties. 209 00:15:24,937 --> 00:15:30,933 In 1851, the Fort Laramie Treaty imposes borders 210 00:15:31,010 --> 00:15:34,776 on Plains Indian territory. 211 00:15:34,847 --> 00:15:36,838 With their buffalo herds 212 00:15:36,916 --> 00:15:40,852 being slaughtered wholesale by white hunters, 213 00:15:40,920 --> 00:15:44,014 the tribes are beginning to starve. 214 00:15:44,090 --> 00:15:46,388 Deprived of their lands, 215 00:15:46,459 --> 00:15:49,326 their way of life, and their freedom, 216 00:15:49,395 --> 00:15:55,356 the tribes try to find a new existence on the reservations. 217 00:15:59,205 --> 00:16:04,040 In 1876, in an act of desperate resistance, 218 00:16:04,110 --> 00:16:08,877 Sitting Bull leads a huge assembly of Indians... 219 00:16:08,948 --> 00:16:13,851 some 7,000 in all, mostly Lakota and Cheyenne... 220 00:16:13,919 --> 00:16:19,118 off the reservations and into the sacred Black Hills. 221 00:16:21,227 --> 00:16:25,391 General George Armstrong Custer of the U.S. Cavalry 222 00:16:25,464 --> 00:16:31,460 is charged with forcing Sitting Bull back to his reservation. 223 00:16:31,537 --> 00:16:35,371 Sitting Bull and his people have set up a huge summer settlement 224 00:16:35,441 --> 00:16:38,604 along the Little Big Horn River. 225 00:16:39,745 --> 00:16:41,736 The hills above the river 226 00:16:41,814 --> 00:16:45,272 are now preserved as a national monument. 227 00:16:45,351 --> 00:16:48,115 We meet with John Doener, 228 00:16:48,187 --> 00:16:52,123 Little Big Horn Battlefield National Park ranger. 229 00:16:54,260 --> 00:16:56,592 Welcome to Little Big Horn Battlefield National Monument. 230 00:16:56,662 --> 00:16:59,062 We're at the site of Custer's Last Stand 231 00:16:59,131 --> 00:17:01,565 and the famous Battle of the Little Big Horn 232 00:17:01,634 --> 00:17:04,694 in Southeastern Montana in the United States. 233 00:17:04,770 --> 00:17:07,796 This is the site where Custer's 7th Cavalry 234 00:17:07,873 --> 00:17:11,866 engaged 1,500 to 2,000 Lakota and Cheyenne 235 00:17:11,944 --> 00:17:13,969 during the Battle of Little Big Horn. 236 00:17:14,046 --> 00:17:17,243 Custer's scouts try to warn him 237 00:17:17,316 --> 00:17:20,342 that he is outnumbered. 238 00:17:20,419 --> 00:17:23,877 The women and children were out picking wild turnips. 239 00:17:23,956 --> 00:17:27,016 The young boys in the village were out tending the horses. 240 00:17:27,093 --> 00:17:29,584 Custer's command marched all the way 241 00:17:29,662 --> 00:17:32,631 from North Dakota, from Fort Abraham Lincoln, 242 00:17:32,698 --> 00:17:35,565 40 days to get here on horseback 243 00:17:35,634 --> 00:17:38,967 to fight here and die in the Little Big Horn valley. 244 00:17:39,038 --> 00:17:40,733 After the first gunshots, 245 00:17:40,806 --> 00:17:43,934 2,000 Indian warriors 246 00:17:44,009 --> 00:17:47,968 engulf Custer's 300 horse soldiers. 247 00:17:52,385 --> 00:17:54,717 Right now, as we speak, 248 00:17:54,787 --> 00:17:56,584 this battle was being fought, 249 00:17:56,655 --> 00:18:00,921 right here on this hallowed ground here. 250 00:18:00,993 --> 00:18:03,791 Then Crazy Horse enters the battle, 251 00:18:03,863 --> 00:18:08,061 galvanizing his warriors with an unforgettable battle cry. 252 00:18:08,134 --> 00:18:09,931 "Remember the helpless ones!" 253 00:18:10,002 --> 00:18:11,867 And he took a part in the battle. 254 00:18:11,937 --> 00:18:13,962 "Hoka hey, hoka hey." "Charge, charge." 255 00:18:14,039 --> 00:18:15,631 "It is a good day to die, 256 00:18:15,708 --> 00:18:17,198 and remember the helpless ones." 257 00:18:17,276 --> 00:18:20,268 And he rode across the Little Big Horn River. 258 00:18:20,346 --> 00:18:24,544 When the warriors started to whittle down the command, 259 00:18:24,617 --> 00:18:29,850 they started to retreat back to the top of Last Stand Hill, 260 00:18:29,922 --> 00:18:31,412 right up behind me here, 261 00:18:31,490 --> 00:18:34,254 and that's where Lieutenant Colonel Custer was found, 262 00:18:34,326 --> 00:18:36,521 along with 41 fellow cavalrymen. 263 00:18:36,595 --> 00:18:39,086 And they were members of all five companies, 264 00:18:39,165 --> 00:18:42,259 so survivors of all the five companies on the battlefield 265 00:18:42,334 --> 00:18:44,632 would rally at that single point 266 00:18:44,703 --> 00:18:47,137 for the famous Custer's Last Stand. 267 00:18:59,652 --> 00:19:03,247 Custer's death shocks the nation. 268 00:19:03,322 --> 00:19:07,418 So-called savages have defeated 269 00:19:07,493 --> 00:19:12,021 the elite of America's modern Army. 270 00:19:12,097 --> 00:19:15,089 This is the ultimate clash of cultures 271 00:19:15,167 --> 00:19:17,067 in American western expansion, 272 00:19:17,136 --> 00:19:21,004 where we have two different dichotomous attitudes 273 00:19:21,073 --> 00:19:22,506 of the use of the land, 274 00:19:22,575 --> 00:19:24,907 each side fighting for what they thought was right here. 275 00:19:24,977 --> 00:19:26,444 The Lakotas and Cheyennes 276 00:19:26,512 --> 00:19:28,844 who were encamped in this Little Big Horn valley floor 277 00:19:28,914 --> 00:19:31,439 also would pay the ultimate price, too. 278 00:19:31,517 --> 00:19:35,510 They lost loved ones, family members in this battle. 279 00:19:35,588 --> 00:19:38,819 They won the... won the battle, but they lost the war. 280 00:19:38,891 --> 00:19:41,883 This can also be called Sitting Bull's last stand 281 00:19:41,961 --> 00:19:43,758 because the United States Army 282 00:19:43,829 --> 00:19:45,797 would renew the campaign with much vigor, 283 00:19:45,865 --> 00:19:48,333 and it was the end of an era 284 00:19:48,400 --> 00:19:50,561 and an end of the frontier, 285 00:19:50,636 --> 00:19:52,763 a last glow of a passing nation. 286 00:19:52,838 --> 00:19:56,706 After years of Congressional debates 287 00:19:56,775 --> 00:19:59,266 spurred by Native American activists, 288 00:19:59,345 --> 00:20:01,313 the official name of the battlefield 289 00:20:01,380 --> 00:20:04,781 was recently changed from Custer National Monument 290 00:20:04,850 --> 00:20:08,877 to Little Big Horn Battlefield National Monument. 291 00:20:10,389 --> 00:20:13,415 Several years after Little Big Horn, 292 00:20:13,492 --> 00:20:16,461 the aging Sitting Bull is accused 293 00:20:16,529 --> 00:20:21,193 of unlawful agitation on his own reservation. 294 00:20:21,267 --> 00:20:23,701 His accusers charge him 295 00:20:23,769 --> 00:20:27,762 with encouraging the forbidden Ghost Dance. 296 00:20:27,840 --> 00:20:32,971 Some Indians believe that the ritual of the Ghost Dance 297 00:20:33,045 --> 00:20:36,139 will bring a return of the old ways. 298 00:20:36,215 --> 00:20:38,410 The dead will rise again. 299 00:20:38,484 --> 00:20:40,918 The buffalo will return. 300 00:20:40,986 --> 00:20:44,581 The white man will vanish. 301 00:20:44,657 --> 00:20:48,957 Initially, Buffalo Bill Cody is asked 302 00:20:49,028 --> 00:20:52,156 to persuade Sitting Bull to come in for talks. 303 00:20:52,231 --> 00:20:57,362 But the president, misinformed by his military advisers, 304 00:20:57,436 --> 00:21:03,432 recalls Cody and orders Sitting Bull arrested. 305 00:21:03,509 --> 00:21:07,275 On December 15, 1890, 306 00:21:07,346 --> 00:21:09,610 on the Standing Rock reservation, 307 00:21:09,682 --> 00:21:15,450 an Indian policeman is sent to arrest Sitting Bull. 308 00:21:15,521 --> 00:21:18,752 There is resistance by the chief's followers. 309 00:21:18,824 --> 00:21:22,555 In the melee, Sitting Bull is murdered. 310 00:21:50,623 --> 00:21:54,286 Over the course of a single generation, 311 00:21:54,360 --> 00:22:00,356 William Cody witnessed the extinction of a way of life. 312 00:22:02,434 --> 00:22:06,598 His memories bloomed in his epic and romantic depiction 313 00:22:06,672 --> 00:22:08,867 of adventures now lost 314 00:22:08,941 --> 00:22:13,742 in a new century of machines and commerce. 315 00:22:13,812 --> 00:22:17,839 Those adventures would survive only in Westerns 316 00:22:17,916 --> 00:22:22,819 and in the innermost reaches of our collective imagination. 317 00:22:24,556 --> 00:22:28,959 William Cody died in 1917 318 00:22:29,028 --> 00:22:31,155 at the age of 71. 319 00:22:32,164 --> 00:22:34,359 Ladies and gentlemen, 320 00:22:34,433 --> 00:22:37,231 permit me to introduce you 321 00:22:37,302 --> 00:22:42,501 to a hundred of the Rough Riders of the world. 322 00:22:45,778 --> 00:22:48,110 Get in the jeep. 323 00:22:48,180 --> 00:22:51,741 At the vanguard of advancing civilization, 324 00:22:51,817 --> 00:22:53,512 boomtowns grew quickly 325 00:22:53,585 --> 00:22:57,180 to serve not just settlers but speculators as well. 326 00:22:57,256 --> 00:22:58,382 Gold. 327 00:22:58,457 --> 00:23:01,551 Gold became the ultimate object of desire, 328 00:23:01,627 --> 00:23:03,652 but even greater fortunes could be made 329 00:23:03,729 --> 00:23:07,358 by servicing, and most times fleecing, 330 00:23:07,433 --> 00:23:09,867 the prospectors who flocked westward. 331 00:23:09,935 --> 00:23:12,768 And then, once the rush was over, 332 00:23:12,838 --> 00:23:18,003 bustling cities could turn into ghost towns virtually overnight. 333 00:23:20,446 --> 00:23:22,414 Nevada City, Montana, 334 00:23:22,481 --> 00:23:27,214 is the largest surviving ghost town of the Old West. 335 00:23:27,286 --> 00:23:29,220 Shops have remained 336 00:23:29,288 --> 00:23:32,689 just as they were when the gold ran out. 337 00:23:38,630 --> 00:23:41,565 John Ellingson has been guarding this town 338 00:23:41,633 --> 00:23:44,101 for almost 40 years. 339 00:23:44,169 --> 00:23:47,570 Nevada City changed his life forever. 340 00:23:47,639 --> 00:23:51,769 As he guides us into the secrets of his ghostly town, 341 00:23:51,844 --> 00:23:56,144 it's hard to believe we're in the 21st Century. 342 00:23:58,350 --> 00:23:59,908 The Gold Rush, I suppose, 343 00:23:59,985 --> 00:24:01,577 is the biggest thing that happened here. 344 00:24:01,653 --> 00:24:04,178 This was the biggest gold strike 345 00:24:04,256 --> 00:24:06,520 in, some say, the history of the world 346 00:24:06,592 --> 00:24:09,720 for the concentration of the gold. 347 00:24:09,795 --> 00:24:12,559 They took out $100 million worth of gold 348 00:24:12,631 --> 00:24:14,326 when it was $16 an ounce, 349 00:24:14,399 --> 00:24:17,368 and some more when it was $32 an ounce. 350 00:24:17,436 --> 00:24:22,373 And so it's $21/2 billion in today's money, approximately, 351 00:24:22,441 --> 00:24:24,033 that was removed from all the gulches. 352 00:24:24,109 --> 00:24:27,806 Plaster gold, free gold that was simply there, 353 00:24:27,880 --> 00:24:29,609 supposedly for the taking. 354 00:24:31,216 --> 00:24:35,550 Gold could certainly put money in a prospector's pocket, 355 00:24:35,621 --> 00:24:39,682 but the real bonanza went to big mining companies. 356 00:24:39,758 --> 00:24:43,125 Storekeepers, who made the fastest profit of all, 357 00:24:43,195 --> 00:24:45,891 were the first to abandon Nevada City 358 00:24:45,964 --> 00:24:48,489 when the gold bubble burst. 359 00:24:49,968 --> 00:24:54,837 Today, John is the only customer to haunt the grocery store, 360 00:24:54,907 --> 00:24:57,774 the barbershop, and the saloons. 361 00:24:57,843 --> 00:25:01,335 Since prices haven't been raised in a hundred years, 362 00:25:01,413 --> 00:25:05,315 John is on friendly terms with all the merchants. 363 00:25:07,820 --> 00:25:09,845 Simmering with excitement, 364 00:25:09,922 --> 00:25:12,618 Nevada City, like other boomtowns, 365 00:25:12,691 --> 00:25:17,754 witnessed extremes of both violence and adventure. 366 00:25:17,830 --> 00:25:20,321 Cowboys, corrupt sheriffs, 367 00:25:20,399 --> 00:25:23,300 stagecoach robbers, gunfights, 368 00:25:23,368 --> 00:25:28,032 furious nights brightened by honky-tonk pianos in saloons... 369 00:25:28,106 --> 00:25:30,734 Western movies did not exaggerate 370 00:25:30,809 --> 00:25:34,802 the excesses of life in frontier towns. 371 00:26:07,779 --> 00:26:10,304 What is the spirit of pioneers? 372 00:26:10,382 --> 00:26:14,182 Oh, I think the pioneer spirit was mainly a spirit of freedom 373 00:26:14,253 --> 00:26:18,713 that brought the people to this country to begin with 374 00:26:18,790 --> 00:26:21,020 and then brought them out to the West 375 00:26:21,093 --> 00:26:23,755 where they were free of the laws 376 00:26:23,829 --> 00:26:28,061 that the intense society, perhaps... 377 00:26:28,133 --> 00:26:30,829 they were free to make their own lives 378 00:26:30,903 --> 00:26:32,962 into what they wanted. 379 00:26:33,038 --> 00:26:37,441 This spirit of freedom, I think, was what drove the pioneers. 380 00:26:45,284 --> 00:26:47,411 With nothing to hold them, 381 00:26:47,486 --> 00:26:50,819 pioneers could keep moving from town to town, 382 00:26:50,889 --> 00:26:55,383 to lands they considered theirs for the taking. 383 00:26:55,460 --> 00:26:58,327 And soon, the wagon trains 384 00:26:58,397 --> 00:27:01,525 that had toiled so painfully across the prairies 385 00:27:01,600 --> 00:27:05,502 would be replaced by a new kind of train 386 00:27:05,570 --> 00:27:08,698 that would change the course of Western history. 387 00:27:11,977 --> 00:27:15,276 The Indians called it the Iron Horse, 388 00:27:15,347 --> 00:27:18,339 its long plumes of black smoke 389 00:27:18,417 --> 00:27:20,817 heralding the arrival of more white men 390 00:27:20,886 --> 00:27:26,347 and more decades of anguish for native peoples. 391 00:27:26,425 --> 00:27:31,829 Jack Frost and Bob Bateman are modern railroad engineers, 392 00:27:31,897 --> 00:27:34,991 snaking their way across the North American continent. 393 00:27:35,067 --> 00:27:38,901 In Nevada City, they have discovered a gem 394 00:27:38,971 --> 00:27:43,601 which reminds them of the glorious days of their grandparents. 395 00:27:43,675 --> 00:27:46,940 I guess there's nothing like the smell of steam. 396 00:27:47,012 --> 00:27:50,504 There's nothing like the pull of a throttle that hesitates a minute, 397 00:27:50,582 --> 00:27:53,380 and then this engine has a lot of... a lot of power. 398 00:27:53,452 --> 00:27:54,783 It wants to go. 399 00:27:54,853 --> 00:27:58,755 The whole operation is different. 400 00:27:58,824 --> 00:28:00,917 It isn't an internal combustion engine. 401 00:28:00,993 --> 00:28:02,221 This machine is alive. 402 00:28:02,294 --> 00:28:04,785 We breathe fire into it, we have to light it, 403 00:28:04,863 --> 00:28:08,424 we have to maintain it, we have to take care of it. 404 00:28:08,500 --> 00:28:10,627 It's temperamental, 405 00:28:10,702 --> 00:28:14,866 and it'll do exactly what we want it to do. 406 00:28:14,940 --> 00:28:17,500 The way we treat it, it treats us back. 407 00:28:38,630 --> 00:28:42,396 I think that those... those people, my great-great-grandfathers, 408 00:28:42,467 --> 00:28:44,401 came across here as pioneers. 409 00:28:44,469 --> 00:28:47,768 Those people broke the country for us, 410 00:28:47,839 --> 00:28:53,709 and to me, this... this is part of what... 411 00:28:53,779 --> 00:28:55,872 what the history of the country is. 412 00:28:55,947 --> 00:28:57,312 It's the history of the West. 413 00:28:57,382 --> 00:28:59,077 It's the history of the pioneer period. 414 00:28:59,151 --> 00:29:01,619 The steam locomotive built America. 415 00:29:01,686 --> 00:29:03,517 If it wasn't for the steam locomotive, 416 00:29:03,588 --> 00:29:06,557 America wouldn't be what she is today, no doubt. 417 00:29:23,475 --> 00:29:28,811 The railroad radically overturned the lives of the Plains Indians. 418 00:29:28,880 --> 00:29:30,905 Their land would no longer 419 00:29:30,982 --> 00:29:33,610 be answering the needs of a handful of settlers, 420 00:29:33,685 --> 00:29:36,984 but of hundreds of thousands of men and women 421 00:29:37,055 --> 00:29:42,550 who wanted to live, farm, and remain on the land. 422 00:29:42,627 --> 00:29:47,223 Almost every contact brought on conflict. 423 00:29:53,338 --> 00:29:56,603 To settlers, the Indians did not own the land 424 00:29:56,675 --> 00:29:58,233 because they did not use it. 425 00:29:58,310 --> 00:30:02,246 They were an obstacle to progress and expansion. 426 00:30:02,314 --> 00:30:06,546 For the Indians, their whole way of life was at stake, 427 00:30:06,618 --> 00:30:10,577 and the freedom also to walk their own land, 428 00:30:10,655 --> 00:30:13,818 the land of their ancestors. 429 00:30:33,678 --> 00:30:35,168 "Kill the buffalo. 430 00:30:35,247 --> 00:30:38,580 Every dead buffalo is a dead Indian." 431 00:30:38,650 --> 00:30:42,586 This was the credo of American expansionists, 432 00:30:42,654 --> 00:30:45,418 yet the buffalo gave the Plains Indians 433 00:30:45,490 --> 00:30:46,980 everything they needed: 434 00:30:47,058 --> 00:30:51,461 Food, clothing, tools, even tipis. 435 00:30:51,530 --> 00:30:55,193 And it had great meaning in their spiritual lives. 436 00:30:55,267 --> 00:30:58,464 Government, army, and settlers 437 00:30:58,537 --> 00:31:01,062 all saw a strategic advantage 438 00:31:01,139 --> 00:31:04,905 in the decline of the great buffalo herds. 439 00:31:04,976 --> 00:31:10,744 Where the buffalo vanished, Indians vanished as well. 440 00:31:10,815 --> 00:31:13,045 When the first white man arrived, 441 00:31:13,118 --> 00:31:18,556 there were approximately 60 million buffalo in North America. 442 00:31:18,623 --> 00:31:24,027 By 1880, just a few hundred remained. 443 00:31:25,463 --> 00:31:28,432 One dream from the Ghost Dance 444 00:31:28,500 --> 00:31:33,233 has come true: The return of the buffalo. 445 00:31:43,114 --> 00:31:47,244 From the few survivors, there are now thousands, 446 00:31:47,319 --> 00:31:51,881 and the species have been saved from the brink of extinction. 447 00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:06,130 Northwest Montana, two hours from the Canadian border. 448 00:32:06,238 --> 00:32:09,605 We're now traveling through the past, the present, 449 00:32:09,674 --> 00:32:12,837 and the future of the Plains Indians. 450 00:32:26,024 --> 00:32:31,963 The Blackfeet Confederation consists of almost 30,000 people. 451 00:32:32,030 --> 00:32:36,831 The reservation encompasses almost two million acres. 452 00:32:36,901 --> 00:32:40,428 It is one of the largest in the United States. 453 00:32:46,144 --> 00:32:48,374 Our arrival in Browning, 454 00:32:48,446 --> 00:32:50,471 capital of the Blackfeet reservation, 455 00:32:50,548 --> 00:32:55,110 feels intense, as if we were entering a book 456 00:32:55,186 --> 00:33:00,214 in which all our imaginary heroes spring to life. 457 00:33:04,262 --> 00:33:08,323 This summer week in Browning is very special. 458 00:33:08,400 --> 00:33:11,392 These are the "Indian Days," 459 00:33:11,469 --> 00:33:14,563 the days of the great annual pow-wow, 460 00:33:14,639 --> 00:33:18,075 which draws thousands of Plains Tribe members, 461 00:33:18,143 --> 00:33:20,668 all invited by the Blackfeet. 462 00:33:20,745 --> 00:33:23,043 Okay, Sarsi Tribe. 463 00:33:23,114 --> 00:33:24,672 Mohawk! Mohawk! 464 00:34:06,191 --> 00:34:08,989 The Plains Indians are survivors 465 00:34:09,060 --> 00:34:14,464 who reveal to us a truly complex perspective on America. 466 00:34:16,067 --> 00:34:20,731 Captured in the past by Edward Curtis' photographs 467 00:34:20,805 --> 00:34:22,739 or John Ford's Westerns, 468 00:34:22,807 --> 00:34:25,605 our collective vision of Native Americans 469 00:34:25,677 --> 00:34:30,114 now faces a powerful new dimension: Reality. 470 00:34:30,181 --> 00:34:31,409 My name is Johnny Tailfeather. 471 00:34:31,483 --> 00:34:32,973 - Blackfeet. - Okay. 472 00:34:33,051 --> 00:34:34,450 Blackfeet reservation here. 473 00:34:34,519 --> 00:34:35,679 Okay. 474 00:34:39,758 --> 00:34:43,091 See, and there's a lot of Blackfeet on this tape, the language. 475 00:34:43,161 --> 00:34:47,154 In 1985, after traveling though North America 476 00:34:47,232 --> 00:34:50,201 to study American Indian languages, 477 00:34:50,268 --> 00:34:53,760 Darrell Kipp returned home to Browning 478 00:34:53,838 --> 00:34:56,238 to establish the very first schools 479 00:34:56,307 --> 00:35:00,767 to teach Blackfeet children their own language, 480 00:35:00,845 --> 00:35:05,077 a language that had almost died out. 481 00:35:05,150 --> 00:35:09,382 We're used to looking at the pictures of the Indian 482 00:35:09,454 --> 00:35:13,550 or going to the museum to see the Indian, 483 00:35:13,625 --> 00:35:17,083 or we hear "to see through native eyes." 484 00:35:17,162 --> 00:35:20,222 So we talk about the Native American 485 00:35:20,298 --> 00:35:23,062 like we talk about a photograph, 486 00:35:23,134 --> 00:35:25,329 or we talk about an artifact, 487 00:35:25,403 --> 00:35:29,271 or we talk about something that's static, 488 00:35:29,340 --> 00:35:33,071 so we tend to want to talk about seeing them. 489 00:35:33,144 --> 00:35:36,739 "Let's go see the Indians." 490 00:35:36,815 --> 00:35:39,477 But it... As you know, 491 00:35:39,551 --> 00:35:42,987 equally important is to hear them. 492 00:35:43,054 --> 00:35:46,581 And the sounds of Native America 493 00:35:46,658 --> 00:35:49,491 and the sounds of our language 494 00:35:49,561 --> 00:35:52,496 are something to behold. 495 00:36:00,271 --> 00:36:02,398 The Young Grey Horse Society 496 00:36:02,474 --> 00:36:07,468 was founded 40 years ago by traditional Blackfeet artists. 497 00:36:07,545 --> 00:36:11,072 Now young people from 14 to 20 498 00:36:11,149 --> 00:36:17,088 have learned to sing their tribe's traditional songs. 499 00:36:52,891 --> 00:36:57,123 You always hear people say, "Save the redwood," 500 00:36:57,195 --> 00:37:01,063 or, "Save the whale," "Save the darter snail," 501 00:37:01,132 --> 00:37:03,566 "Save the spotted owl." 502 00:37:03,635 --> 00:37:06,604 And those are all good. 503 00:37:06,671 --> 00:37:09,538 We should save all living things. 504 00:37:09,607 --> 00:37:11,575 But it never occurs to anybody 505 00:37:11,643 --> 00:37:13,804 that a tribal language is living 506 00:37:13,878 --> 00:37:17,336 and deserves to be saved. 507 00:37:17,415 --> 00:37:20,316 And I use this analogy. 508 00:37:20,385 --> 00:37:24,879 If we think of our tribal languages as our grandparents, 509 00:37:24,956 --> 00:37:28,619 and we think of them sitting alongside the road, 510 00:37:28,693 --> 00:37:31,423 and we're coming along, 511 00:37:31,496 --> 00:37:34,021 and if we were to pass them by 512 00:37:34,098 --> 00:37:36,089 and refuse to help them, 513 00:37:36,167 --> 00:37:39,227 then we would be truly brutal people. 514 00:37:39,304 --> 00:37:44,207 So it isn't a matter of why do you save your language. 515 00:37:44,275 --> 00:37:48,575 The question is you must save your language 516 00:37:48,646 --> 00:37:51,513 because they are your grandparents. 517 00:37:55,086 --> 00:37:58,351 You're going to be on the rodeo? 518 00:37:58,423 --> 00:38:01,187 You're going to do the rodeo? 519 00:38:01,259 --> 00:38:03,454 I was thinking about it. 520 00:38:10,602 --> 00:38:14,060 The Grand Entry kicks off every pow-wow, 521 00:38:14,138 --> 00:38:17,164 and the elders enter first. 522 00:38:17,241 --> 00:38:20,108 Not just any elders. 523 00:38:23,147 --> 00:38:26,275 These are American Indian veterans 524 00:38:26,351 --> 00:38:31,516 who fought during World War II or in Korea or in Vietnam. 525 00:38:31,589 --> 00:38:36,253 Thousands of them proudly wore an American uniform 526 00:38:36,327 --> 00:38:39,421 to defend America's colors. 527 00:38:39,497 --> 00:38:43,160 Paradox? Not at all. 528 00:38:43,234 --> 00:38:44,997 For Native Americans, 529 00:38:45,069 --> 00:38:49,563 this country was theirs before it was anyone else's. 530 00:38:55,880 --> 00:38:59,475 George Kipp is another child of the Marias River 531 00:38:59,550 --> 00:39:01,916 who lives modestly on his farm. 532 00:39:01,986 --> 00:39:06,650 His past links him to the activism of Red Power. 533 00:39:06,724 --> 00:39:11,423 In the 1970s, this movement finally called the attention of the world 534 00:39:11,496 --> 00:39:17,492 to the dire living conditions of North America's native people. 535 00:39:17,568 --> 00:39:21,026 We are needing our land back. 536 00:39:21,105 --> 00:39:26,975 Our land that we have here was not given to us. 537 00:39:27,045 --> 00:39:28,910 This land we own. 538 00:39:28,980 --> 00:39:34,350 This is what we were able to keep through blood, sweat, and tears, 539 00:39:34,419 --> 00:39:38,048 through the almost annihilation of our people. 540 00:39:38,122 --> 00:39:40,147 We kept this one spot on earth 541 00:39:40,224 --> 00:39:42,317 for our tribe and for ourselves. 542 00:39:42,393 --> 00:39:45,362 And for the last hundred years, 543 00:39:45,430 --> 00:39:48,422 we've been passively without resistance. 544 00:39:56,574 --> 00:39:58,838 This is where I want my children, my grandchildren, 545 00:39:58,910 --> 00:40:01,708 great-great-great- great-grandchildren to exist. 546 00:40:01,779 --> 00:40:04,577 I'm not going to passively give that up no more. 547 00:40:04,649 --> 00:40:09,143 I'm not going to allow people to move onto my reservation 548 00:40:09,220 --> 00:40:10,778 and just take our land, 549 00:40:10,855 --> 00:40:13,255 because my ancestors... 550 00:40:13,324 --> 00:40:17,021 Our blood was spilt for this land to retain it. 551 00:40:17,095 --> 00:40:20,155 Their bodies are buried here. 552 00:40:20,231 --> 00:40:21,892 This is our country. 553 00:40:21,966 --> 00:40:23,263 This is what we own. 554 00:40:23,334 --> 00:40:26,132 This is what our ancestors died for, 555 00:40:26,204 --> 00:40:29,367 and we're not going to passively relinquish it to nobody. 556 00:40:29,440 --> 00:40:32,307 One of the reasons I wanted to invite you over 557 00:40:32,376 --> 00:40:37,871 and take a look at this beaver pond and the trees, the hills and rocks, 558 00:40:37,949 --> 00:40:40,110 and all the things that's here, 559 00:40:40,184 --> 00:40:43,813 it has a great representation to us Blackfeet people. 560 00:40:43,888 --> 00:40:48,450 It also gave us a governing way of life 561 00:40:48,526 --> 00:40:49,993 and secured a lot of our history. 562 00:41:26,397 --> 00:41:30,834 War, disease, and the destruction of the buffalo herds 563 00:41:30,902 --> 00:41:35,100 came close to annihilating the Native American people. 564 00:41:35,173 --> 00:41:39,166 And those managing to survive these disasters 565 00:41:39,243 --> 00:41:42,474 were doomed to a death of the spirit... 566 00:41:42,547 --> 00:41:44,777 a lingering death brought about 567 00:41:44,849 --> 00:41:47,647 by the systematic obliteration 568 00:41:47,718 --> 00:41:52,883 of their customs, language, and ancestral beliefs. 569 00:41:55,092 --> 00:41:58,186 George Kipp takes Jean-Christophe Jeauffre 570 00:41:58,262 --> 00:41:59,354 to the Christian mission 571 00:41:59,430 --> 00:42:03,491 established on the reservation in 1890. 572 00:42:03,568 --> 00:42:09,029 The education process was very... very extreme and very cruel. 573 00:42:09,106 --> 00:42:11,870 The children would be forcibly 574 00:42:11,943 --> 00:42:14,241 taken out of their homes and brought here. 575 00:42:14,312 --> 00:42:15,438 Their hair were cut. 576 00:42:15,513 --> 00:42:17,174 They were taking off their buckskins. 577 00:42:17,248 --> 00:42:19,682 Because our people in those days still lived in a tipi. 578 00:42:19,750 --> 00:42:24,744 They were just coming out of the... the nomadic type of life, 579 00:42:24,822 --> 00:42:27,154 and none of them could talk English. 580 00:42:27,225 --> 00:42:29,386 The young children, they were forced to... 581 00:42:29,460 --> 00:42:32,327 they were never allowed to talk Indian in this... 582 00:42:32,396 --> 00:42:34,591 in this area here. 583 00:42:34,665 --> 00:42:36,292 If they was, they were punished, 584 00:42:36,367 --> 00:42:39,165 and the punishment they had was very, very cruel. 585 00:42:39,237 --> 00:42:43,230 There was... related to physical abuse of them. 586 00:42:43,307 --> 00:42:46,208 You know, it would be a crime nowadays 587 00:42:46,277 --> 00:42:48,905 to what these children had to go through. 588 00:42:48,980 --> 00:42:51,312 There was stories of that graveyard, way up there, 589 00:42:51,382 --> 00:42:53,247 where there's a couple young children up there 590 00:42:53,317 --> 00:42:54,648 that were actually killed here. 591 00:42:54,719 --> 00:42:58,120 I talked to many elders about ones that went to school here. 592 00:42:58,189 --> 00:42:59,679 My father-in-law is one of them. 593 00:42:59,757 --> 00:43:04,217 And their memories are not very great of the... that life. 594 00:43:04,295 --> 00:43:05,853 It was a total... 595 00:43:05,930 --> 00:43:08,160 it was a shocking lifestyle and change for them. 596 00:43:08,232 --> 00:43:10,132 You know, when... coming from a home 597 00:43:10,201 --> 00:43:13,534 where there's nothing but love and kindness and respect 598 00:43:13,604 --> 00:43:16,368 into a Western setting of religion 599 00:43:16,440 --> 00:43:21,468 where there's nothing but cruelty and mandates and abuse. 600 00:43:21,545 --> 00:43:26,312 And... And... these children, they... 601 00:43:26,384 --> 00:43:28,443 they grew up in that environment, 602 00:43:28,519 --> 00:43:31,716 and it changed out... changed out our way of life. 603 00:43:31,789 --> 00:43:37,591 The civilization that preceded it, 604 00:43:37,662 --> 00:43:40,222 could have been provided to us 605 00:43:40,298 --> 00:43:42,664 in a more... 606 00:43:42,733 --> 00:43:46,169 easy manner, more meaningful. 607 00:43:46,237 --> 00:43:49,536 But this is what we was forced under. 608 00:43:55,279 --> 00:43:58,043 Between 1883 and 1884, 609 00:43:58,115 --> 00:44:00,845 with the people completely dependent 610 00:44:00,918 --> 00:44:03,887 on an unresponsive government, 611 00:44:03,955 --> 00:44:07,516 starvation broke out on this once-abundant land. 612 00:44:08,793 --> 00:44:10,818 Ah, starvation winter. 613 00:44:10,895 --> 00:44:14,854 It was a very devastating time to our people. 614 00:44:14,932 --> 00:44:17,901 It was just a... 615 00:44:17,969 --> 00:44:23,839 one of the last incidents in our history that was... 616 00:44:23,908 --> 00:44:26,809 people, they don't like to talk about or remember. 617 00:44:26,877 --> 00:44:28,845 We don't know if it was planned 618 00:44:28,913 --> 00:44:31,245 or if it was... if it happened that way, 619 00:44:31,315 --> 00:44:32,612 with the political structure, 620 00:44:32,683 --> 00:44:35,311 and the actual appropriations to buy us our rations 621 00:44:35,386 --> 00:44:37,115 never reached us. 622 00:44:37,188 --> 00:44:41,921 And it started in 1880, and then it kind of... 623 00:44:41,993 --> 00:44:47,989 come to a severe head in the winter of 1883-84. 624 00:44:48,065 --> 00:44:52,331 And we had nothing to eat at all by then, totally. 625 00:44:52,403 --> 00:44:54,496 But it wasn't... it was ironic 626 00:44:54,572 --> 00:44:57,370 because 12 miles over that way, 627 00:44:57,441 --> 00:44:59,033 there was herds of cattle 628 00:44:59,110 --> 00:45:01,840 that were owned by non-lndians. 629 00:45:01,912 --> 00:45:04,745 But if we went out and butchered a cow, 630 00:45:04,815 --> 00:45:07,147 they would come and they'd kill us and hang us. 631 00:45:08,819 --> 00:45:11,083 They figure close to, just in this area, 632 00:45:11,155 --> 00:45:13,851 this one little area, out in here, 633 00:45:13,924 --> 00:45:18,793 that there was 800, out on them flats that spring. 634 00:45:18,863 --> 00:45:19,989 And they couldn't dig graves. 635 00:45:20,064 --> 00:45:21,224 Too weak to dig graves. 636 00:45:21,298 --> 00:45:22,788 Put them right on the ground, 637 00:45:22,867 --> 00:45:26,098 and they just lay them out there, all over this ridge. 638 00:45:26,170 --> 00:45:28,138 They call it Ghost Ridge. 639 00:45:28,205 --> 00:45:32,972 And there was only about 1,600 of us Blackfeet left after that. 640 00:45:33,044 --> 00:45:34,375 Starvation winter. 641 00:45:34,445 --> 00:45:35,810 What happened to the bodies? 642 00:45:35,880 --> 00:45:38,713 The bodies just laid there, 643 00:45:38,783 --> 00:45:41,843 and then, um, the government... 644 00:45:41,919 --> 00:45:45,184 they was... they start collecting... 645 00:45:45,256 --> 00:45:48,623 they start collecting the human remains, 646 00:45:48,692 --> 00:45:51,320 and there was correspondence that we... 647 00:45:51,395 --> 00:45:52,919 we discovered, where the agents 648 00:45:52,997 --> 00:45:56,524 and different government officials here would go out there in the evenings, 649 00:45:56,600 --> 00:45:59,330 and they'd start piling these bones and put them in boxes 650 00:45:59,403 --> 00:46:01,564 and ship them back to the Smithsonian Institute, 651 00:46:01,639 --> 00:46:03,436 and they would keep them and study them. 652 00:46:03,507 --> 00:46:04,599 They was trying to... 653 00:46:04,675 --> 00:46:06,438 One of their studies was, 654 00:46:06,510 --> 00:46:09,070 they was trying to judge the thickness of our skulls. 655 00:46:09,146 --> 00:46:10,477 They'd take our skin and skull 656 00:46:10,548 --> 00:46:13,244 and pour sand in it and stuff like that. 657 00:46:13,317 --> 00:46:18,016 Anyway, they ended up with about 50,000 human remains in the Smithsonian. 658 00:46:18,089 --> 00:46:20,683 And all of the 800 that was buried around here 659 00:46:20,758 --> 00:46:22,385 went out there, too. 660 00:46:22,460 --> 00:46:26,521 So it was... So it was a very devastating period. 661 00:46:40,945 --> 00:46:44,312 So I believe it will change. 662 00:46:44,381 --> 00:46:46,747 A day is coming when it will change, 663 00:46:46,817 --> 00:46:48,307 and they'll say, hey, you know, 664 00:46:48,385 --> 00:46:51,821 we did a great injustice to the American Indian, 665 00:46:51,889 --> 00:46:54,050 and we're going to rectify it. 666 00:46:54,125 --> 00:46:57,788 Cynthia Kipp is one of the reservation activists 667 00:46:57,862 --> 00:47:02,356 who campaigned for government recognition of Blackfeet rights, 668 00:47:02,433 --> 00:47:05,527 particularly in Glacier National Park. 669 00:47:05,603 --> 00:47:08,504 By having several of the park's natural sites 670 00:47:08,572 --> 00:47:12,030 renamed with their original Blackfeet names, 671 00:47:12,109 --> 00:47:15,101 Cynthia has won an important symbolic victory 672 00:47:15,179 --> 00:47:18,376 in her tribe's struggle for restitution of land 673 00:47:18,449 --> 00:47:21,612 sacred for thousands of years. 674 00:47:23,254 --> 00:47:26,485 I believe we have an excellent future, 675 00:47:26,557 --> 00:47:28,821 with our younger people 676 00:47:28,893 --> 00:47:34,354 getting a good, sound, quality education. 677 00:47:34,431 --> 00:47:35,921 I feel that here, 678 00:47:36,000 --> 00:47:39,299 that the Blackfeet, we are finally getting 679 00:47:39,370 --> 00:47:42,828 something that has been in American cities for years. 680 00:47:42,907 --> 00:47:44,534 What do you see out here? 681 00:47:44,608 --> 00:47:47,441 You see we're getting oiled roads. 682 00:47:47,511 --> 00:47:51,413 We're getting curbs and gutters and sidewalks, 683 00:47:51,482 --> 00:47:53,882 and this is the year 2000. 684 00:47:53,951 --> 00:47:55,714 Other cities across America 685 00:47:55,786 --> 00:47:59,051 have had them for over a hundred years. 686 00:47:59,123 --> 00:48:00,556 We're finally getting them. 687 00:48:00,624 --> 00:48:02,922 We're getting street lights. 688 00:48:02,993 --> 00:48:05,257 We've finally got running water 689 00:48:05,329 --> 00:48:08,127 here in this town of Browning. 690 00:48:08,199 --> 00:48:12,397 After the flood occurred of 1964, 691 00:48:12,469 --> 00:48:14,300 no one had water. 692 00:48:14,371 --> 00:48:18,102 So we have been deprived. 693 00:48:18,175 --> 00:48:20,871 But we have lived 694 00:48:20,945 --> 00:48:23,880 and still managed to be happy 695 00:48:23,948 --> 00:48:27,213 and to be healthy and to be friendly. 696 00:48:35,960 --> 00:48:39,589 It's good to be alive and well 697 00:48:39,663 --> 00:48:41,961 and happy and healthy, 698 00:48:42,032 --> 00:48:43,897 in America, in here, 699 00:48:43,968 --> 00:48:46,596 on the Blackfeet Indian reservation. 700 00:48:46,670 --> 00:48:48,763 I wouldn't live anywhere. 701 00:48:48,839 --> 00:48:50,807 We have the beautiful mountains. 702 00:48:50,874 --> 00:48:54,366 And, of course, it's cold in the wintertime, 703 00:48:54,445 --> 00:48:56,470 and it gets a little below zero, 704 00:48:56,547 --> 00:48:57,878 but we tolerate it, 705 00:48:57,948 --> 00:49:00,644 and this is my land, and this is where I grew up, 706 00:49:00,718 --> 00:49:02,208 and I love it very much. 707 00:49:05,256 --> 00:49:07,520 Joe Kipp, Darrell's cousin, 708 00:49:07,591 --> 00:49:11,755 is one of Chief Heavy Runner's direct descendents. 709 00:49:15,599 --> 00:49:18,762 I ask Joe if the relative freedom 710 00:49:18,836 --> 00:49:21,031 now visible on the reservation 711 00:49:21,105 --> 00:49:26,441 might someday lead to the return of Blackfeet control over the land. 712 00:49:28,812 --> 00:49:32,213 I'm going to speak about the Great Plains area: 713 00:49:32,283 --> 00:49:35,150 This part of Montana, 714 00:49:35,219 --> 00:49:38,882 Wyoming, South and North Dakota. 715 00:49:38,956 --> 00:49:42,722 In this arid... climate, 716 00:49:42,793 --> 00:49:45,728 this was Blackfeet country, 717 00:49:45,796 --> 00:49:48,196 Gros Ventre country, Assiniboine country, 718 00:49:48,265 --> 00:49:51,428 Lakota country, Cheyenne country. 719 00:49:51,502 --> 00:49:54,027 This whole great area. 720 00:49:54,104 --> 00:49:58,666 The area was homesteaded by pioneers 721 00:49:58,742 --> 00:50:01,404 about 120 years ago. 722 00:50:01,478 --> 00:50:04,345 The Indians were put on reservations. 723 00:50:04,415 --> 00:50:06,849 The farming is... most of these people 724 00:50:06,917 --> 00:50:09,784 came from the Ukraine area, 725 00:50:09,853 --> 00:50:13,118 and they were farmers from that country. 726 00:50:13,190 --> 00:50:17,524 And they were given a lot of free farmland to... 727 00:50:17,594 --> 00:50:20,290 The land was taken from the Indians and given to them, 728 00:50:20,364 --> 00:50:22,958 and they farmed it for many years. 729 00:50:23,033 --> 00:50:26,400 The problem is that the land is not... 730 00:50:26,470 --> 00:50:27,630 the land is productive, 731 00:50:27,705 --> 00:50:29,570 but there's not enough water out here. 732 00:50:29,640 --> 00:50:32,131 There's not enough rainfall. 733 00:50:32,209 --> 00:50:34,370 So for the past 55 years, 734 00:50:34,445 --> 00:50:38,404 the federal government has been subsidizing these farms, 735 00:50:38,482 --> 00:50:40,382 giving them money to grow the crops. 736 00:50:42,519 --> 00:50:48,014 Okay? But their population base has been shrinking considerably. 737 00:50:49,526 --> 00:50:51,050 The towns are getting smaller. 738 00:50:51,128 --> 00:50:55,224 The kids that come off those farms are moving away to the city 739 00:50:55,299 --> 00:50:57,392 'cause they can't make a living on the land. 740 00:50:57,468 --> 00:51:01,871 So their population is shrinking dramatically. 741 00:51:01,939 --> 00:51:06,103 There's only one people on the Great Plains that are thriving. 742 00:51:06,176 --> 00:51:08,303 That's Indian people. 743 00:51:08,379 --> 00:51:11,542 I'm very confident to the next hundred years 744 00:51:11,615 --> 00:51:13,082 that we're going to have this area... 745 00:51:13,150 --> 00:51:16,586 that we're going to control this area with our vote if nothing else. 746 00:51:16,653 --> 00:51:20,214 We'll be the dominant population of the Great Plains. 747 00:51:20,290 --> 00:51:23,953 And the reason is is that we don't try to change the environment. 748 00:51:25,129 --> 00:51:26,255 There is a mountain 749 00:51:26,330 --> 00:51:31,063 that looms larger than any other for the Blackfeet people: 750 00:51:31,135 --> 00:51:33,262 Chief Mountain. 751 00:51:33,337 --> 00:51:35,931 This sacred peak overlooks 752 00:51:36,006 --> 00:51:39,635 what the Blackfeet call the backbone of the world 753 00:51:39,710 --> 00:51:44,409 at the heart of Glacier National Park. 754 00:51:44,481 --> 00:51:49,009 We invited Joe Kipp to come see this sacred mountain 755 00:51:49,086 --> 00:51:53,716 from the perspective of Napi... creator of the world... 756 00:51:53,791 --> 00:51:56,726 as seen from the sky. 757 00:52:15,612 --> 00:52:17,705 So all of our water comes from there. 758 00:52:17,781 --> 00:52:19,646 The water is life. It gives us life. 759 00:52:19,716 --> 00:52:21,013 Napi's our creator. 760 00:52:21,084 --> 00:52:23,279 He made that part of the world special. 761 00:52:23,353 --> 00:52:25,913 He made it very, very beautiful. 762 00:52:27,291 --> 00:52:30,351 And He left life there for the people... 763 00:52:30,427 --> 00:52:33,760 for people such as you and I 764 00:52:33,831 --> 00:52:35,321 and all the Blackfeet people 765 00:52:35,399 --> 00:52:37,264 to go up there and to get life 766 00:52:37,334 --> 00:52:38,824 just from being there, 767 00:52:38,902 --> 00:52:41,735 to get the energy of being alive. 768 00:53:19,943 --> 00:53:23,970 Cynthia, George, Darrell, Joe, 769 00:53:24,047 --> 00:53:26,845 and all the Marias River children 770 00:53:26,917 --> 00:53:30,648 are entering a new millennium in America. 771 00:53:30,721 --> 00:53:32,450 Heirs to history, 772 00:53:32,523 --> 00:53:35,890 they are also guardians of an Indian dream, 773 00:53:35,959 --> 00:53:38,325 the oldest human dream, 774 00:53:38,395 --> 00:53:41,523 the dream of the eternal soul. 775 00:53:42,866 --> 00:53:48,168 Today, all the people of our planet ought to look down 776 00:53:48,238 --> 00:53:52,572 upon the peaceful waters of the Marias River. 777 00:53:52,643 --> 00:53:55,077 There, in that shimmering mirror, 778 00:53:55,145 --> 00:53:57,636 is reflected the destiny 779 00:53:57,714 --> 00:54:00,046 of all who keep fighting 780 00:54:00,117 --> 00:54:04,178 for the best reason to live: Freedom.