Elder teaches beading and Blackfoot

Page 12

Being deprived of the opportunity to practice and enjoy the rich culture in which she was born had a remarkable effect on Maggie Black Kettle, a Blackfoot Elder living in Calgary.

Instead of forgetting the ways of her heritage, which would have been the easy course to take, Black Kettle pursued her culture to a proficiency that allows her to teach it to the students at the Plains Indian Cultural Survival School (PICSS) in Calgary.

"Too many of our youth do not know their culture, their language or their peoples' ways," said Black Kettle. "We (the elders) have to help them learn those ways."

Which is just what Black Kettle does, Monday through Friday. Black Kettle teaches many of the students the art of beading and the Blackfoot language.

"Bead work takes a lot of patience," said Black Kettle. "Many people start a piece of bead work, but do not have the patience to finish it."

The chance to teach at PICSS was an opportunity Black Kettle happily took on. She saw it as an opportunity to teach young Natives the heritage which she was deprived of as a child.

Black Kettle was raised on the Blackfoot reserve by Cluny. Of her birth place she is not sure. She was not born in a hospital and birth records are sketchy, but she does know she was born August 20, 1919.

She remembers little of her father Sitting Eagle who died after a long illness when she was only three. By the age of seven, Black Kettle was at Crowfoot school near Cluny.

"I went to school until I was about 16," she recalls. "I didn't like school. We weren't allowed to speak our language or practice our ways."

But that didn't stop Black Kettle who, like most school kids, didn't always play by the rules.

"I was a shy and scared kid, though," she says. "I was always afraid of the nuns who taught us."

Black Kettle also recalls the loneliness. The school operated like a boarding school. Family visits were only allowed on Saturday and Sunday for two hours each day.

And summer and Christmas holidays were also spent at the school. Christmas did, however, hold happy memories for Black Kettle. "The nuns usually got the kids a little gift; a handkerchief, a doll or a harmonica."

Shortly after leaving school Black Kettle was married to Nicholas Black Kettle. It was a marriage arranged by Black Kettle's uncle who assumed the responsibility after her mother died when she was 15.

"It's really frightening," explained Black Kettle. When my uncle asked him (Nicholas) if he would accept me as his bride, I was afraid he'd say no."

He said "yes" and the Black Kettles were married that same day. The marriage was a happy one which included the addition of seven children, six girls and one boy.

But the marriage also helped Black Kettle regain her culture. "It was my husband's mother who taught me bead work," said Black Kettle.

The Black Kettles stayed on the Blackfoot reserve, moving to a few different homes there. But the most memorable to Black Kettle was the one that was located across from the Cluny townsite.

"It had two floors with three bedrooms upstairs," recalls Black Kettle. "And it had indoor plumbing and electricity."

With electricity the natural new addition to the house was a television. "Everybody used to come over to our house to watch that television, it was one of the first televisions on the reserve."

Eventually the Black Kettles moved into Calgary in 1969. On the last day of December 1973 Nicholas Black Kettle died.

Black Kettle stayed on in Calgary with her family. In 1978 one of the Black Kettle's grand daughter's came home from PICSS, the school she was attending. "She told me they needed an instructor to teach bead work," said Black Kettle. "I was really nervous, I wondered why they would want someone like me. I didn't speak or write very good English."

Summing up her courage however Black Kettle applied for the position and started the very same day.

Today, while she teaches the students at PICSS she continues tolearn herself. "They're teaching me English here now," said Black Kettle. "They make me read everyday.

And while Black Kettle's English is quite good, she believes in improving where she can.

As for her talents and her culture she plans to pass them on to her surviving five children, 20 grandchildren and one great grand child, as well as her students at PICSS.

But her greatest piece of advise she wishes to pass on is the art of listening. "I remember when the adults would gather together and tell us the stories of our past and of our culture," she says. "I used to like to listen to them so much. But I never remembered them. I wish I did so I could pass them on."

Black Kettle lives each day as it comes. But for her future she plans to continue teaching at PICSS.