S06E12: How The Revolutionary War Reshaped Haudenosaunee Governance

We talk with Tom Porter about how colonization and the Revolutionary War reshaped Mohawk and Haudenosaunee leadership, identity, and survival, including the complicated legacy of Joseph Brant. We also work through what decolonization looks like on the ground: restoring trust, practicing restraint, and making room for condolence and real apologies.

• discovering family lineage connected to Joseph Brant and the Mohawk kings
• leadership based on natural ability versus European bureaucracy
• church pressure on matrilineal clan systems and the shift toward inherited titles
• decolonization as retrieval of original instructions without shaming people
• the “rattlesnake skin” metaphor for leadership without life
• why Longhouse relationships are not faith-based but lived
• redefining “warrior” as carrying ancestors forward through ceremony and protection
• “rattlesnake people” ethics of warning, restraint, and defense
• colonization tactics through trade, alcohol, courts, and fear
• factional conflict at Akwesasne and choosing reconciliation over escalation
• condolence as healing practice and the power of a direct apology

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Transcript

Lineage, Brant, And Leadership Talent

0:18

The indigenous people ancestral landscape. And now introducing our host, Phil Arnold. We're here with Tom Porter again, talking about the Revolutionary War and the Hood Noshone role and the Mohawks and how the consequences of the Revolutionary War, uh, what that was was for the Mohawks, and especially after Joseph Brandt. And you've called him a traitor. And maybe you could just kind of tell us a story and kind of your perspective on that whole thing. Well, I first I didn't know that he was uh my great-great-great-grandfather. I didn't know that um all all my life. I just found this out only about ten years ago. Uh maybe not even that, maybe. I didn't know that. And um but they did um gen genealogy work in Grand River, and they're the one who presented me the big plaque with all my father's relatives right to George Brand. That's how I found out before that you know that. And it turns out that all those four Mohawk kings that went to Europe, they were all cousins, and that one is uh they're all cousins, so they're all my father's direct descendant from them. Including including uh Hendrix. And Hendrix's mother, I think, was a Manu Mohigan, father was a Mohawk, but they put him up as a chief, uh Hendrix, even though he was a Mohigan. But I think back in those days they they followed more what your natural ability and talent was, yeah. Rather than being technical about your line lineage. Yeah. I think, you see. But nowadays we're we're more following more uh rules of European style bureaucracy. It's not it's not we don't recognize the natural talents that we're born with or whatever. So if technically you're not a Mohawk then the you can't be a chief. But back in those days, uh that didn't matter. It w it only mattered if you had the ability to the skill to lead and you had all the natural abilities, they recognized that. They were more natural in those days. Well, did it have also to do with just the fact that there are fewer people? I mean, after colonialism there's disease and there's warfare and there's just fewer people. So so uh what because there were fewer people still embracing that, they had to hide to do that. They they couldn't come out in the open because the consequences was uh severe. So so that didn't help the colonization. The colonization was bad enough as it is, yeah. But then when you put the other one under it's another suppression, self-suppression like within our own people. Uh so uh so so they didn't have much choices anymore. So so that's how it became now where where uh the titles are passed just like in uh the monarchy of England. It goes into the line of the family of that particular family, not the whole clan. Uh just from your if your grandma was a clan mother, then her daughter, and then her daughter, like that. It's not really supposed to be like that. Right. No. It's a clan decision. The whole clan is supposed to be their decision, and who's going to be the clan mother if they're if they got the talent and if they got the uh natural gift for that, then that's the one that would become that.

How Colonization Warped Clan Systems

4:05

We're talking about survival though, and even their names were changed. When the church came in, they targeted the matrilineal clan system and tried to reorganize the society under um patriarchal uh Christian model. So so where we are uh today, a lot of those people because the the population was small because of the wars and uh measles and smallpox and all that. Uh um I used to even hear that um the Seneca's had lost a lot of their men. And so they had to call the Mohawk peop men to go there to impregnate their woman in order to keep the population going. And that's uh that's where how come John Mohawk has the name John Mohawk because of that time of uh history. Wow. Wow. I don't know if that's true or not, but that's what they I heard that. John's the one told me that himself. And usually John is got his stuff accurate. Oh, he was a great writer. Just a great writer. Yeah, yeah. So my my point is it's now we have clan mothers and everything, but because of that period of history where they had to hold on in a small number to keep it going, uh they had to pass it down to their daughters because that's the only one that grew up or has knowledge of it. Whereas all the clan, they were Christianized, they were uh sent to residential school, whatever, so uh they can't depend on them anymore. They didn't want nothing too much to do with it, only few upholding it. So it passed down in close family. So now we got they got used to that now. They're used to that now. Uh so they don't realize there's a reason why it happened. So how how do you detach them from that monarchy uh kind of environment as how grandmothers in chiefs are put up now? Um we have that's part of the decolonization we have to go through. So we have to find a way how to do that, um where where they where we don't have to force them or criticize them, but how do we how do what method do we use to retrieve them, to revitalize or or make but back to the way it's supposed to be.

Decolonization Without Shaming Our Own

6:35

Well when the peacemaker came, um he was spreading this uh message with Hiawatha Javonsa saying, and then the Tata Tao's mind is turned. But the whole thing was that everybody united and they agreed to the peacemaker's message. So then because even today, with all the interruption of tradition, um it's doing pretty good, actually, but but there's still interruption from what it's supposed to be. So um to f how do we fix it uh back, I always I always myself describe uh the our leaders, uh claim mothers and leaders and and how they hold council. They're still doing it and everything to the best of I guess that they can. At least that's what is claimed. And sometimes I agree too that it is, and then other times I don't agree, uh, because I think they could do better.

The Rattlesnake Skin Leadership Metaphor

7:37

So I describe it as a rattlesnake. And the rattlesnake sheds its skin. And so if you see a rattlesnake skin shed it, you'll get scared because you you think it's a real rattlesnake. Yeah, but it's not moving, it's just the skin, it's dead, it's not nothing. So our grand council leaders, it's like that rattlesnake shed its skin. It doesn't have movement, it doesn't, it's it looks like a real rattlesnake, but it's it don't have life. And that's the way our Confederacy, I look at it today. I don't know if I'm right or wrong, but that's my analyzation or my uh the way I see it. And so so how do we get rid of that shedded skin and get the real rattlesnake back? Well you guys, really, you guys were like you said in just a you know an hour ago, you said your generation were the ones that really kicked the door in. Yeah, and I think that's the right the right way to say it because those were really bad times in the 50s, you know, and 60s the maybe the worst. You know, you had termination and all that going on. But then you had to go to jail a few times. You're able to take that stand before the um Religious Freedom Act for Native people to take that stand and you're you're identifying with being traditional, not Christian. That was that took a lot of nerves. Yeah, so radical. And there's so many, I mean, even even the aimers, you know, you know, Oranis tells you stories, tells us stories going out to, you know, wounded knee or wherever, and the aim people just didn't know how to behave because they grew up in a city, and you know, they but they really wanted to recapture that, and there you were telling them, you know, about the original instructions, you know. So that's uh whenever Russell Means used to see me, he goes the other way because he always had whiskey on his Russell Means. Oh yeah. He always had whiskey on his uh breath and uh so I always I saw your tradition. I tell him right to his face, it's your tradition of don't use alcohol, they'll get it hard ways. Well, I think maybe we need something like that again, you know. I mean, you know, wake up. Yeah, well a lot of people today um that are Christian and profess to be Christian, and then they also profess to be traditional. And I don't see how that can happen. And I wasn't raised traditional like you were, so I can't and this is what you're talking about. I did raise this before you told me, you know, it's kind of watching our people, it's like an accordion,

Radical Tradition And Not Burning Bridges

10:30

you know, the sound is coming out different. It's just um always in flux. Yeah. But we we were told uh by our grandmother them uh not to not to disown them or to be mean to them. They're lost, and one day they'll wake up and come home. So so we should not burn bridges. Always make it so there's a way for them to come home. But it's really but it is really hard when you have you're having to talk about the laws of the United States being really Christian-based through the doctrines of discovery that Christians have the right to force you to change your names, force you to go to boarding schools. You know, this is the legacy we all have to unpack now. There's so many damaged. Well, I'll tell you, there's a lot of people, a lot of Christians in our department that are trying to recover from their own upbringing, you know. They don't have the the resources of, you know, Longhouse or something else, you know, and that's uh, you know, some of our students are recovering from abusive childhoods when they were raised, you know, very Christian, you know, very fundamentalist, you know. That that term fundamentalist means you know that they were they were they were not allowed to be children, you know, and exper you know, be free. Um, and so I think a lot of people are experiencing a similar kind of frustration, I guess, sometimes. Some talk about fixing their Christian religions. Oh yeah, reforming. Um how do you do that when it's um a faith-based religion? Longhouse is not faith-based. Because these really these relationships are real. These special relationships with the natural world and with each other, they're not imagined. It's not based in faith. Yeah, well, I think that um the main thing I think the key to it is uh is is to uh always contain the peace within yourself, the teachers, so that you don't have to fear them, so that trust can be built and get bigger and bigger between the teacher and the people who are lost or got lost away. But the the minute the minute we threaten them or or they feel unsafe. Then they feel unsafe and the trust goes away. So now you burnt your bridge. You've got no more way to get over to them. That's a tricky thing. Um, especially with the warrior society and um and and the dogmas of of colonization, and you mix all that up, it's g i it's like a marble that's got all kind of cloudy in there. You don't even know what's that what's really in the marble.

What A Warrior Really Means

13:32

Well, do you maybe see our listeners? This is the podcast, um, maybe our listeners don't know about the Warrior Society. I mean, um it's complicated, I know, up at Aquasasny, particularly. Maybe you could kind of talk a little bit about that. Give them some sense of the company. Well, first of all, um, I don't think that um some of the traditional leadership, or most of them I would say, not all of them, but most of them, uh, think that uh there's no such thing as a warrior society. Uh and they're somewhat right uh in a way, but but the way the warriors of today are are doing things is is not really what a warrior so long ago would do. There's a big it's a difference between day and night. Uh so that that brings confusion. Um lot of the young people don't know or have nothing to judge what a real warrior is uh is about either. Um what's his name? Tarodah, uh before Leon Shandoa. He used to translate the word uh the warrior, what the word for warrior. And it doesn't mean a warrior. It doesn't mean like what people think it should mean. He he says uh gifte. That's what they call the men. It's any man, it doesn't it's not a society man, it's any men. Uh uh whether it's old young or middle-aged or a baby little boy, it's that means and what what Leon says, and I can see it too, because it's almost the same language as my language, uh the discount is like uh is a bones. So uh the de gechte means they're carrying it on their back, they're carrying it. So the bones they're carrying it from our ancestors. That's what that's the job of the men. It's to carry the bones of our ancestor to the future. That's what that means. Don't mean royal society. But a lot of young people don't know that, see. So if you run your uh you run all your ceremony from midwinter uh all the way maple ceremony and planting ceremony and uh bean ceremony, harvest ceremony, all the all the way, one year, and you you embrace all that. That's what a man's job is, and a woman too. That's what they're talking about, they're carrying the bones of our ancestors. Wow. All the ceremony never stops. So your job is to protect our language, to protect our clans, to protect our everything. But now, now uh even though in the great law it says that uh he uprooted the tree and the he comes summons all of the men to put their weapons of war in there, um the some of the leadership thinks it's forever you can't. But I always tell people, I don't think that's what it really means, that you forever, because you you have to hunt the deer, you gotta use a uh your weapon, you gotta use your spear, your club. You bury that for that. And and uh and so if we're in a uh room here, and children in here, grandchildren here, woman in here, and all of a sudden somebody shut, put that door open, and's got a gun or a hatchet or a knife is ready to stab you and the kids. Are we gonna say, oh, we bury our weapons under the tree? We can't depend. No. If if there's something in here, your impulse is right away to, no matter what, to try to take that away from them so they don't hurt you. So that's what that's what the men would do. You protect your people, your woman, your kids. So they have to be careful when they say bury the they have to be more technical to to detail and explain what does that mean. Yeah. So you don't get caught uh defenseless. Right, right. Not to be the guy coming in the door, not to be the aggressor that's trying to hurt people. But then also uh other Indians, uh I don't know if it's Jibwe or Algonquin or whoever, uh they used to call us uh the rattlesnake people. Especially Mohawk get that name. Um but all Iroquois they would call us that rattlesnake people, because in in our law too, if if somebody bother us, we we always tell them, stop, don't bother us. Then if the second time they continue to bother us, they warn it more strongly this time. But they don't do no thing, they just warn them. And then the third one, that's when they fight them or strike them. And that's why they call us rattlesnake, because rattlesnake never bothers you. He warns you first, and you're gonna he warn you again. But if you continue, he now he but he's gonna bite you. Oh, interesting. And that's why they call us the rattlesnake people. So it's not like a not like you're snakes or something, it's not it's not a no, it's it's no, it's uh it's our descriptive term. Uh-huh. Wow. It's the procedure of uh so that you don't get angry out of the way. You uh you always give a first warning, second warning, and that's the same thing when you discipline kids. That's what you do too. That's when you do great feather, that's what you do three again. Remember telling them everything repetitive all the time, three. Wow.

Rattlesnake Warnings And Self Control

19:27

Well, I was reading, you know, about the Jesuits coming into like Wyandotte territory and Inu. And when they brought Christianity in there, they wouldn't even let them fish or hunt unless they accepted Christ. And then they were trying to get the children. Right? This is the early 1600s, trying to get the children, you know, educated and Christianized. So they came in full force. And before that, the Wyandotte and Eni were under the Great Binding Peace. So it was a different relationship. But once the Jesuits started sending all the furs to Europe and creating, you know, this antagonism with the natural world and with their neighbors. That's when it started. I I imagine the wars started to become more frequent. And um, they really couldn't listen to warnings because the Jesuits were armed, right, with weapons. And it happened so quickly. Um the other thing, the other thing I says in the guy who said whenever the European colonist people had any dealings with any of the Indian people for fur trade or whatever or other else, they also made them get drunk before they were trade. So that they don't know what they get cheated all the time. So the uh relationship has always been faltered on the other side, uh, with never the intention of being honest. Right. So and in the Indian world, that's almost foreign not to be honest. Right. I even heard some judges say that uh uh usually non-native people when they go to court it's not hard for them to say they're not guilty, argue that they're not, even though they are guilty. But the some judges actually said that when Ojibwe's or Mohawk go to the court, they always right away say, yeah, I did. I stole this, or I I did like this. And they tell it right away. Whereas the non natives, they they keep lying. And that's the big difference. Because it's in the it's in our it's in our the way we think every day, like so we don't really know how to lie. I gotta say. Speeding ticket one time and I had to go before the judge and she goes, Were you speeding? And I said, Yes, I was. And she goes, Hmm, let me rephrase this. Were you speeding? And she was like telling me to lie. Yeah. Well, that's what it says. Put your hand on the Bible. You put your hand on the Bible. And and you did it wrong, but they're telling you to say not guilty. Yeah. Right. So they're telling you to lie on the Bible. Yeah. So I don't understand either yet. Yeah. And then a lot of fear. I mean Christianity is, let's face it, a fear-based religion. Yeah. Really. But then they used a disease, they infected our blankets, and then they blamed it that our God was weaker than their God. And just pitting you against him. And people are dying every day, left and right. I mean, I just can't even imagine what it must have been like. That's why, uh that's why, even though I have been critical of Joseph Brent uh before I knew I was rel relative to him, um then later when I found out that he's my relative, I thought maybe I better be a little bit more lenient in my criticism. But then of course, I wasn't there when he was born, or the circumstances by which they had to live, the environment that they had and the life they had and whatever forces were against them. I wasn't there. So so some of the people said, well, he they all tried to do the best they could just to survive. But you know, the consequences of his actions were more negative, I guess, you know, in terms of splitting the Confederacy and things. But the positive thing is though, is that he that he was granted that land in Six Nations for everybody to have shelter there, which saved lots of people on the other hand. True, that's true. So uh if they would have stayed here, most of them would have been killed, probably. Yeah. But he was completely manipulated with Christianity, and that has nothing to do with being kinder to him or you know, not criticizing him as much. It's about let's talk about those systems that have infiltrated

Trade, Alcohol, Courts, And Christian Power

24:27

Right, us all. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's the same thing with the businessmen now that have cigarettes and all kinds of stuff, they're making money in marijuana. Yeah. Um they in their mind they're trying to be capitalists or make money for their family. And so uh, but they were never raised with tradition uh that would guide them to think otherwise. Right. So so it's not really their fault. Right. Because uh how many 200 years of of being taught this is business. But it is trauma too, you know. It's they're working out of a trauma. Yeah, and you know, being raised Christian myself, I know that there is trauma because I think I you know, I tell my students this, I think Christianity is a death cult where indigenous traditions, native traditions, are all about life, you know. Really about trying to promote life. And what you were talking about, two poles, the positive, the negative, you know, and trying to figure out how to promote life, regenerate life, you know, rather than rather than be focused on the death of the world, you know, or caring for death. Yeah, right. Um so I think we're all traumatized to some degree or another. You know? So we're all sort of in the same boat. Yeah, we're we are definitely in the same boat. Never mind the two boat. And table and table and shit and this boat is getting pretty crowded. That could be a hundred songs. Then I say to people I say uh if you forget for nowadays, I just if you don't know what I'm trying, but just give a couple months, you'll know.

Resources, Reviews, And Returning To Forgiveness

26:30

Do you need help catching up on today's topic? Or do you want to learn more about the resources mentored? If so, please check our website at podcast.doctrine of discovery.org for more information. If you like this episode, review it on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And now back to the conversation. Even though the war people did things uh to my own family and my own health and all that, I still I I still don't hate them, I still don't uh disown them. I just consider that they were never taught the right way. So what they're doing, they think it's right. So maybe one day they will wake up and I will be there to welcome them home. You've always been that way. I mean, we've known you for a long time, and I was thinking, you know, it was 1999 when you first spoke, or I invited you to speak, and John Mohawk was there, and Orrin and Audrey was there, you know, they we had a little conference here, you know. Do you remember that time? Were you there in Buffalo when John Mohawk well they had invited and at the University in Buffalo John Mohawk was in there and Bob Antone and uh Billy Myers uh not Billy Meyer, Mike Myers, to uh to hang around together all the time. And so when we were having the conflict in Aquazosny, so they wanted one one week to invite one faction to tell the story, their side, and then the other other one, uh myself and others is going to go tell our side so that people can understand the conflict. And I I remember, uh so it was my turn to go there and there was full uh w lawyers in there too, that you want to hear what I'm gonna say about them, I guess. And and I I just said, you know, all the trouble we have is uh because of c colonization. That's why we don't have value of an Indian anymore or anything. I said so, um I said, so it it took them uh two or three hundred years to get us in this bad situation where we don't know ourselves. I said, so uh so if uh if we're gonna get better we we have to decolonize. Everything that was we colonized us, they colonize. We have to decolonize. So whatever they ruined, we have to replace it so that we become whole again. I said, but we don't have the pleasure of having 200 years to do it. We have to do it. So what we gotta do with this is we gotta s circumcise it right here. And everybody started laughing. And uh and I almost got mad at them because they're laughing. I was serious. And uh so when in the hall and John Mohammed laughing, Mike Murray laughed, Bob, they're all laughing. I said, What's funny uh when I'm talking? Why are you guys laughing at me? They said, because you you you're not supposed to say circumcised. Well, I meant to cut you, we don't have to under, so we gotta cut it short. I said that that's what they meant. They said, no, it doesn't mean and that's what they were laughing. John was almost rolling on the floor. Now we're gonna put an operating T V M A or whatever, right? Now I know what circumcised means. Yeah, that would be a quick lesson. Oh no. I never heard people never talk much of when I did here. It just means to cut off, you know, so I thought. Yeah.

Akwesasne Conflict And Choosing Not To Escalate

30:13

Up there at Aquasazni now you've got warrior, you've got different longhouses, right? The three different longhouses. So and they're all my relatives. I know, and you can't you can't, I mean, you gotta negotiate between them all. But back in the early 90s, and this is when we started going up there, it was like shooting each other. It was like so. That was brave to be able to, you know, think about well, how can we bring these two people to, you know, suicides together? That was three. Yeah. So well, maybe they're not gonna be able to do that. I'll tell you, I'll tell you. They were shooting at us and everything, and even even they burnt my house. Not not the warriors, but the elected system people before that was burnt my house, and I had just finished building the house, brand new house, burn it to the ground. Oh and all that, and um this was in 79. In fact, Jo John Mohawk and his family were living at my house. Uh I had to abandon my house I had just built. I didn't even really finish it to go into the camp where I ran Thompson. So John was staying at my house, but they had just uh g gone to Buffalo for the weekend. That's when they burned when he was gone, so nobody was in there. But um I ha I had a cradle board in there that was at least two hundred years old that belonged to my great-great-grandmother. Wow and uh it burnt up and I have uh different bundles that belonged to medicine for my grandmother's and her grandma that they passed it to me, they all burn up too, everything burn up. All pictures of my kids when they were babies all burn up. Everything. Completely, everything. But um, and I know who who ha I know who did it. Well, I'm friends with them, and I never I never put it to their face that you burnt my house. So but they know they did wrong, but they they they can't have a they don't want to talk about it. And so I said we don't have to talk about it. It's burnt, not gonna come back, so so I'm friends with them. And if they ask me something, I'll do it. Are you related to them? Some of them this was way before warriors. Yeah, yeah, this was way before. So this was the elective. Yeah, this was the elective, yeah. Good grief. Oh so it's been a war zone periodically, you know, the up their 70s, 90s, and then so now is it less of a war zone, you'd say? Well myself, I told the people that I associate with is uh we tried to stop it before, and our young men were killed and died over it, and nobody was ever prosecuted. Um and they shooting at us and everything like because we're trying to stop things. Casinos and smuggling and all that and uh but they've overpowered us. They're they're the m m more population than us, so we we can't really win. So rather than sacrifice any more of our people, young people, to die getting shot from our own people, it better just let 'em do let it run out. Fill up the gas tank and it'll it'll run out of the gas once sometime. Uh they'll come to the realization. It's better than sacrificing some young guys that dead. Yeah. And so that's that's the position that I've taken now. So I'm friends with all of them now. They and they all say hello to me and we talk and say in passing. But if I if I got mad, we wouldn't be able to do that. It took t it took uh twenty-five years to to where they can say hi and and mean it. Wow. And and it was hard on Sandy was talking about how it was hard on your health. Yeah, I had a magic heart attack already. Yeah, you had to be young man. That was that was thir over thirty years ago now. Yeah, yeah. Wow. So yeah. Almost killed me. Yeah, yeah. So if you get angry, it's not good for you either. Yeah, right? Or grief. Or yeah.

Condolence, Trauma, And A Warrior’s Apology

34:35

Do you feel like you need that you feel like maybe condolence? I mean, that was one of the the one of the most brilliant things about the Hood Mashone, I think, is the the the the need for condolence. And everybody needs I I don't need it because uh because the piece that the the the the others that taught me uh it grew inside my my body, my mind. So I I don't uh I I was a I had enough power to not let that drag me down. Well Tom Porter, I'm not sorry, uh Jake, Jake, uh Jake Swamp. Jake Swamp planted a tree right out here back in in '96, '96. It's still there, it's got a plaque and everything, but that was his message, right? That we all need condolence in some way. We need to overcome the trauma. He said, you can, I remember, he said, you can go out there, you can hug that tree. You know, you can touch that tree. It's got roots, it's got, it'll connect you, and that will that will help you get through some things, you know. And um that was a pop that was a really important message, and I think people still think about it. One time uh I was at the dentist in St. Regis waiting for a dentist appointment. I was sitting in there waiting and one of the warriors went by and he seen me sitting there, and he backed up and I said, Oh, we're gonna have a confrontation right here. Anyways, uh so he went like this to me, so I said, uh, maybe we're gonna have fight now. So I went over there. I'm not afraid of him. And uh he looked at me and he says, uh, I wanna I wanna apologize to you. He said, because I lost my mind for a number of years. He said, and uh I I went against you and our our people and he says and I was misled, really misled, and started to believe in those things that that people try to mislead me, and that's why I went crazy, like I almost hurt you, I almost kill you. And he says, uh he cried. Didn't you hug me? He said, I'm sorry, but I did do you that's my condolence. That one action that's a lot that one action has changed the way you're doing this today. Um that's so powerful. You thought it was right. I think so many people are unwilling to admit something they've done. But that's where the real healing comes from. That's so powerful. I think there's a lot of that, you know. I mean, you know, a lot of a lot of non-native people in that room tonight, you know, are listening to you and get something from what you have to say. Um I imagine you go around the state and it's not all native people that you're speaking to. You know, you know, you're you're someone who is open. That's what's so impressive about you. You're always open to you know, to whomever comes. So um that's uh kind of rare. You know, we're a non-endoganation territory and we've always respected them for hanging on to what they what they have, you know. But they're very insulated, you know, yeah. They're not like you. Yeah, they're not, and it's uh it's it's hard to sometimes, you know, be working with well. I used to be like them too when I was younger. Yeah, well, you've got to protect you've gotta protect, and I you know, I imagine that's something your grandma told you too, you know. You've got to hang on to this, you know. So um that's how they work. But I think even now, you know, I think now they're they're more interested in maybe going out and speaking. I mean, certainly

Openness, Protection, And Closing Thoughts

39:10

there were onadagas in the room. So the central fire. Hallelujah. Yeah. Hallelujah. Oh do we dare end it there. Our intro and outro is totally this podcast is funded in collaboration.