Is it all right to share what you know?

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There's a balance that needs to be found between the sharing of traditional knowledge and the keeping of generational secrets. That was the message delivered by Lois Frank, a Native American Studies professor at the University of Lethbridge.

Frank, a member of the Kainai Nation, teamed up with Don Yellow Kidney of the Blackfeet in Browning, Montana, to present a workshop called Traditional Medicine and Healing Practices. The workshop was part of Native Awareness Week celebrations at the university in early April.

"I believe you can build that knowledge base," said Frank, but the difficulties lie in what Elders are willing to share with the population in general.

That need for secrecy, said Frank, has been built up over generations, when Native people were told by Europeans to leave their culture and traditional ways behind, put into residential schools, and had many of their ceremonial objects confiscated.

"Because (Native people) were outlawed from practicing, it made it difficult for traditions to continue. Our young people need to be bold enough to learn and we need to re-educate some of our Elders not to scold our young people for learning or speaking their language," said Frank.

While Frank's ancestors are not healing practitioners in the traditional sense, she said that they were healers not the less.

"I've been taught by these people to share information. I'm a firm believer in educating people in our traditions," said Frank

But holding on to the sacredness of those traditions, sometimes through secrecy, is important to Yellow Kidney, a cultural counselor with the Blackfeet Chemical Dependancy Program in Browning.

"There are certain things about Blackfoot medicine I'm not allowed to talk about. I'm under a covenant and there's things I won't ever share. That's my secret," said Yellow Kidney, whose father and grandfather and great grandfather were all practitioners, passing their knowledge down through generations.

Yellow Kidney believes that working with the medicines is a right he's been given.

"With those rights come a lot of responsibilities. It's not just a plant to me. It's someone's hopes, someone's prayers."

While Frank understands this and imparts this perspective to her students, she also things that people who come out to learn about Native medicine and healing practices "are meant to learn. They're in a room for a reason."