Unshod with D. Firth Griffith

God Is Red: Pahuk and the Sacred Geography of Animal Lodges with Taylor Keen, Episode 9

• Daniel Firth Griffith • Season 4 • Episode 42

Share episode

In this episode of God Is Red, we walk through Chapter 5 of Taylor's book, Rediscovering Turtle Island. Taylor (Omaha / Cherokee) guides us through the sacred site of Pahuk—known to the Pawnee as an "animal lodge" and to neighboring nations as a holy hill. We trace how a place becomes a teacher: a river crossing near a mound that echoes an earthen-lodge, a spring tied to underworld passages, an oak savanna forming a threshold. The landscape isn’t backdrop; it’s scripture, sanctuary, and archive.

Learn more about Taylor's work HERE.

Purchase Rediscovering Turtle Island HERE.

Learn more about Daniel's work HERE.



Daniel Firth Griffith:

Hello. Welcome to the podcast. This is episode nine of the God is Red series with my dear friend and brother Taylor Keene. We are walking through his pivotal work, Rediscovering Turtle Island, a First People's Account of the Sacred Geography of America. We are in chapter 5 in this episode, which is all about a hook, uh a place, a mound, a sacred site that I've never heard of until uh reading Taylor's work. And in this episode, Taylor brings us into his journey of understanding, of visiting, and of uh experiencing the truly sacred geography, the indigenous cosmology writ in the land of Nebraska of the Pawnee peoples, uh, in the animal lodge uh or sacred site or holy ground of the hook. And so if these things are interesting, tune in. If you're just tuning in with us today, this is your first episode, I encourage you to jump back to the beginning. It is so well worth your time. Taylor and I's conversations evolve as they go. They're also unscripted, and so sometimes because of the lack of unbelievably professionally edited content, uh, to get something that is said in one episode, uh, you might need the groundwork, the the base layer of of yarns of dialogue built in a previous episode. We're also walking through this book chapter by chapter, and so jump back five or six episodes, even if you don't believe what I just took time to say. Uh at least go back the number of episodes and start at the beginning of our conversations about this book. Which I believe is about five or six chapters uh previous. And before we jump into today's episode, I want to offer you a quick apology. I feel like every about six months or so I have to get up here and apologize for the lack of rhythmic or well-patterned pacing of these episodes and their release. And uh autumn is a very hard time on the farm. Uh our family has had a hard uh hard time of it recently as well. And uh I also just had a book come out. So all three of those things put together uh put about uh as much stress and weight on our shoulders as we could bear. So thank you for for your patience, for your loving kindness, for no emails being sent yelling at me, um, or to those who wrote me mean emails. I don't know. I hope you find some happiness elsewhere. Um, but uh hopefully we can find a more rhythmic uh pattern uh for these for these uh episodes and the releases moving forward. It seems like life may just let that happen. And so prayers this direction. And uh yeah, that's enough mumbling. Um let's jump into today's episode with uh Taylor Keene about Bohook. Well, Taylor, thanks for being with us again. This is um the fifth conversation in our deep dive into the very dark waters of rediscovering Turtle Island, your first book. Um how how how um what what what can people expect that that we have we have a lot of people following these these episodes, these conversations in this series, the God is read series. And uh I've been getting asked when your next book is coming out. Do you do you have a date on that? Have an idea?

Taylor Keen:

Well, right now, um rediscovering Turtle Island part two, finding the divine within. I have a deadline of January 15th to get it into my editor. And I hope to make that. I think we're about halfway through writing it. And from there, it usually takes somewhere between about a year after that to make it through all the editing and printing. But I'm gonna try to see if I can make it go quicker than that. I'd love to have a release in the summer. That's awesome. 2026, but we'll see.

Daniel Firth Griffith:

This this this topic here in in in chapter five, um, pahook, the idea of sacred geography. Um, we were my kids and I, who we've talked quite a piece about in these series, and uh, we were having lunch. Um, no, I'm sorry, dinner two nights ago. And uh we just have this little computer, like this one that I'm sitting on now, and I turned on uh Netflix. Um just the days have been so long, and we just I turned on some Netflix while we were all kind of sitting on the floor eating this meal, and uh and I couldn't find anything to watch. Just it was just nothing. And so I clicked on uh just a random uh episode of Ancient Aliens, um, which was just staring at it because our son Gumpy, he is six and he saw the image of it, what it was, and he thought it would look cool. So I clicked on it. And uh and and and it's it I bring that up only to say it's it's really interesting, the human connection, this intrinsic. I think it's a soul-filled, marrow-deep connection to um the sacred archaeology or the sacred cosmology writ into the landscape by our ancestors, by the ancient ones, regardless if we're related linearly or not, um, and how easy it is to bastardize it, I think. I'm not saying ancient aliens as a TV show on the History Channel is a total bastardization of all indigenous culture, sacred geography of the land, and blaming it all on aliens that came and visited. Um, but I think to some degree it's pretty true. I th I think I think there's some truth to it. I'm really excited to talk about the hook in Nebraska, this ancient uh sacred site and uh animal lodge of the Pawnee that you write about here in chapter five, and your time there. And so um I'll bring it up, and then I I more or less just want to follow your way through it because you've been there, you've studied it. Um, you wrote obviously about it, and you have stories to tell. And uh and then yeah, we'll go from there. And and we have a couple different ways that this conversation is expected to flow. And I and I assume that it'll actually go another way. Um but uh yeah, thanks, thanks for being with us again.

Taylor Keen:

Thanks for having me.

Daniel Firth Griffith:

The the more it's interesting, we were talking before we hit record, the more these conversations unfurl, the more people I meet that just want to talk. But the the difference between the singular creator creating everything, the idea that we are all related through this, I think most of us would agree on that. But then how that's understood locally. Anyways, there's a lot of conversations here. And I think take a geography is a fine place to really root us into the place of the hook in in Nebraska and talk very particularly about some things. And um, so maybe in the beginning, can could could you just intro the site to us? I don't think many of our listeners uh have ever heard of the site. I've never heard it talked about or really written about. Maybe why is that? Where is the site? What is the site? And then we can emerge from there.

Taylor Keen:

Yes, for sure. Um Paul Hook has been on my radar screen. I think ever since I began to do research for the book. So starting a little over 11 years ago, um there was a series of events, and I wish I would have written about this in the book, but that's why I'm so glad to do the podcast on each of these chapters, because it basically these podcasts are like um printing number two. I I can fix all the things that I wish I could have in the book. Um to start with, um, my inculcation around sacred geography came from um my mentor, um Dr. Deward Walker. Um DeWard is the chair emeritus of anthropology at CU Boulder. And um in the late 1990s, um it was after my first time dropping out of the corporate scene. Uh I had uh worked over in Europe on and off for three years. Um was in all these rainy cities. The year I lived in London, I remember um there were only 13 days of sunshine. That's a whole lot of dark weather. And um I remember thinking to myself, okay, if I can just get out of this gig, um, which I was able to, um, I want to go somewhere where it's sunny and the indigenous intelligentsia is, and I want to fly fish. And there was only one place that foot the bill, that was Boulder, Colorado. And not too long after getting there, I was taking my old Ford pickup truck down to the Grease Monkey to get the oil changed, and Dewar was there with his old Ford pickup truck, and we just uh eyed each other up and down. Deward's he's uh he just turned 90. But yeah, I remember even as you know, when he was um in his 70s, you know, he's still a Hulk of a man. He's probably six foot five and really broad shoulders. At age 70, I remember him throwing um you know big things like they were toys. Um gentle giant, though. And um, as an anthropologist, he's one of the good guys, meaning um he was never pompous or self-righteous with his knowledge about indigenous peoples, that it had always, you know, that their knowledge belonged to them and that you needed to ask them. And I learned a lot from DeWord. Dewar um has written extensively about sacred geography, and so that's where I um received my teachings from him through his work, understanding um how important land is. And it's through DeWord that I got to meet Vine Deloria, and I only got to chat with him for a little bit. I was working on a on an uh art project. I had I was uh I had a dot-com business back in the day. He was working on Native American art, and I um went to talk to Vine just theoretically about you know what the internet could do for um indigenous peoples, etc. And I remember um one of the lighter moments. Um he was like, Well, I don't know why you're coming to me to talk about art. And he said, This is what I think art is, and he pointed to a picture of John Elway up on his wall. But I did get to meet uh Vine and just hang out with him and shoot shoot the breeze. And um it was then that I picked up God is read for the second time. Uh I tried it during my college years and it just it was just so daunting. We've discussed this before. Some of Vine's work can be so compact. He can wrap, you know, a hundred years of federal Indian policy into one paragraph, and you're just like, I feel like I would run up against a wall and bounce off because it was just so dense and so heavy. Um but I that that's when I began to realize that at the heart of indigenous religions is sacred geography. And that, and I often start with that quote, I just use it in a paper that I wrote. Um see if I can just dig that up real quick. But at the heart of the indigenous relationship with Mother Earth, it has to do with um sacred waters, mountains, caves um. And that's when I realized that Custer died for your sins was not just a manifesto or a celebration of protesting, but it was about indigenous peoples inherently recognizing um that their places of sacred geography, whether that be land or water, was being appropriated as a commodity and a resource rather than the love and adoration that we should be given it. And that's when the lights went on for me of under of understanding that love of the land is the closest that we can get to godliness as indigenous peoples. And I think that goes for everyone. Um I just finished a paper, uh, ironically, for the University of Colorado Press, um entitled the The Power of Place, um, where I speak about trying to piece together everything about what it means to uh truly love the land. Um I started with uh the seven original bylaws of the charity, which is on my paternal side. Um number one, love yourself. Number two, love creator. Number three, love the eternal flame of fire. Love the earth, love the air, love the water, love all humankind. And um often those those teachings um get extended right into love all the plant nations and the animal nations as as we would love other human beings, because um in our conception uh all living things have a soul. And that might be um heresy amongst your Christian listeners, but give it a chance, think about it. We'd have been able to uh all of God's creations are tied to the creation itself and thus have a life force. That's how we view everything. Um sometimes there are, for example, rocks that are inanimate, and then sometimes there are sacred rocks. Uh perhaps they're perfectly round river rocks or made of a certain material, but indigenous peoples recognize them as having power. Um places like Picture Cave, uh which we've discussed quite a bit through all these podcasts, um may harbor uh spirit beings within their uh deities, as it were, of uh the upper and the lower realm who can assume different forms. But they choose uh in this case for Picture Cave, it's the spirit of the great serpent, I believe. Um is the chief amongst all the water spirits, the ruler of the of the netherworld. And that those spirits pick places that are very important and powerful. Um almost all of true sacred geography um as revered by the ancestors, uh oftentimes uh in the case of Pahook, it's uh uh a large um plateau hill that um it's situated uh right outside of um Cedar Bluff, Nebraska, which is uh adjacent to um Fremont, Nebraska, which is not very far from Omaha. So it's not very far in terms of where civilization is today. And it's uh on the bend of a serpentine river, which I think is important. And uh it's got an incredible vista and a place of prayer. And um I wanted to pay homage to um anyone who's read the chapter or is gonna read it, um, my guide to Paw Hook, um Sherry Beam Calloway. Um she just passed away. And uh I kind of want to do this podcast in honor of her spirit because she has such a strong spirit. Um Sherry um grew up in a small town in Nebraska, and uh I don't know if I would call she would call herself a flower child or a hippie back in the 60s, but uh she left small town and I I can't remember if she went to Colorado or California, but you know, definitely um spent the summer of love somewhere and then um came back to Nebraska a changed person, and somehow she met the landowners of Paw Hook, the Gilberts. Um he was a uh physician, and they had uh sort of bought Paw Hook uh as a place of relaxation and beauty and uh a country place, as it were. And it was only after they uh purchased it that uh apparently the real estate agent after they signed the papers were like, oh yeah, and there's some really important Native American stuff there, like tuck off. And so I don't remember how, whether she was family friends with them or maybe she heard about the place and being a cool hippie, she wanted to go check it all out. And so she ended up ultimately becoming the caretaker of the land for 35 years on behalf of the Gilberts. And uh as she began to learn more about it, she realized that it had strong ties to the Pawnee people. And uh I think it was during the mid-80s. That's when I I met her in 1983. Um folks from Nebraska will know that uh in the more recent past, Fremont has been extremely conservative and uh very Christian. And uh a lot of race tensions, they passed some municipal legislation that um basically was anti-immigrant sort of stuff. Um so for Sherry to develop a relationship with uh my tribe, the Omaha tribe, and to invite us to come share our culture um in the early 1980s was quite profound. I must say, in retrospect, um she was a strong woman and had a strong soul for sure. And um she was very close with um two of my grandpa in the tribe, um Elmer Blackbird and Hollis Stabler Sr. And um both were uh wonderful men, and she was sort of a mentee to them and always did her best to have indigenous peoples come voice for themselves. I some years later I served on a on the History Nebraska board um with her, and um I also do historical interpretation, but she did too as a settler and as a pioneer woman. Um she would bring a much different perspective of indigenous peoples to her character. And um eventually when I came back to Nebraska in 2009, we got reacquainted again for the umpteenth time, and and eventually um I had um read some stuff from Mari Sando, who is uh another um writer of pioneer life and settler life. Um Sandoz is kind of um revered here as you know the ultimate pioneer writer. Um people over overlook some of her other work, but she documented um a story um in some of her work. Um related to her by um Pawne Elders about Pahook. There's a number of stories that go along with it, but um if I may paraphrase from an indigenous perspective, back in the time of giants, uh earthmaker, creator, um had grown impatient with the the race of giants who were there before the human beings. They had become um haughty and greedy and proud. And so the Creator decided that he was gonna wipe this wipe them from this planet uh through uh a flood. And he instructed uh the human beings and the animals, bison and antelope and elk and deer and the wolf and the human beings to uh go to Pahuk and go down by the waters, and the great water spirit, the great serpent, would uh with his powerful breath bring them into the water and lead them to the cave where they would uh wait out um the flood as Earth's maker, creator uh instructed them to do. So they were inside of the cave for a long time and um finally they began to sense and to realize that there was life again outside. And Buffalo Woman um led them out through another passage that emerged at the top of Hawk, and there they emerged back into the to the world. So it's a navel of the world spot for the Pawnee. All the rest of the tribes, we all knew about it, had reverence for it. But when I was writing this chapter, um I actually um took it in this draft form and all the concepts, and I uh drove down to Pawnee, Oklahoma. Uh the Pawnees were forcibly removed from their homeland. Um over 3,000 years they resided in this area. Um after um becoming um the famous Pawnee scouts, they worked for uh Union Pacific Railroad and they guarded the railroad from the other plains tribes. And uh even after all that service, the good citizens of Kansas and Nebraska um marched them on a trail of tears down to Oklahoma and removed them from their homelands. Um this is all a part of the stories if I'm flitting back and forth, uh just the nature of indigenous storytelling, but the the elders as they were exiting out um had the wisdom to instruct some of their youth to uh tell them all these stories that I'm gonna that I'm sharing and will share here today. And um they took these young children to the Pawnee Tree of Life. It's a beautiful burr oak that's now at the end of its life. So definitely been there, I would say easy 150 to 200 years and perhaps even more. Um very special tree, and they instructed all these children to extend their open hand and touch the palm to the trunk of the tree. So that someday, somehow, some way um when they would be able to return to their sacred geography as a people, that um the tree would know them and recognize them. And um many years later, um that young man grew into a uh a young elder, and uh there were folklorists and ethnologists, anthropologists who were looking for these stories, and uh they found their orator in this young man whose name was Harry Madbear, and uh he confirmed all all of the stories that I'm sharing today, but not only that, he told them, Um, I can take you there, and so they went with uh um a group of other pawnees back up to Paw Hook. And uh, as the story was uh relayed to me, as they came close to the Pawnee Tree of Life, Harry instructed the rest of the Pawnees to wait while he took the lead. And he went up to the tree of life as a much older man and extended his palm to the tree again and offered a blessing and a prayer, and then turned to the rest and says, Now you may approach our sacred tree and our sacred land because we are all related, it now knows who you are, and instructed all of the Pawnees to come and to introduce themselves, reintroduce themselves back, and uh thus they continue the continuum of this relationship to sacred geography. I still think that's just such a beautiful thing, and every time I go, I go and uh make my offerings and ask for a blessing and offer a prayer and touch my palm to the tree of the pawny tree of life. There were other stories uh that were documented on said a long time ago in the age of sacrifice um there was uh a man who um sought the power of the medicine of the animals. And uh sadly he thought that the best way to do this was to sacrifice his son and uh put the offering in the river by Pahuk. And in the hopes that representative of the Council of Animals would find the offering. And uh It was the kingfisher bird that found the offering. And while he accepted the offering, he was saddened by it. This man would sacrifice his son. And so he took the boy to the council of animals, and uh one of those council sites was a cave that uh mystically lay somewhere inside of the earth around Pahuk. And he um sought the blessing of the local council of animals there at the site if they could uh revive him. And uh the elders, the elder animals in the council of animals um instructed the kingfisher that um they couldn't alone make that choice, and there were five other sites of the council of animals, the sacred sites to the Pawnee. Pahuk is the only one that remains, sadly. Most of them were um either intentionally destroyed or plundered for their resources. Um such a powerful place, Pahuk. We're lucky that it's all still there. And so the kingfisher went to all of the other councils of the animals, and eventually they all agreed that they would uh revive the boy and impart upon him all of their medicine powers of all the animals. In our stories, um God gave the animals uh many mystical powers, and only if they choose to share with human beings can that medicine be transferred. So places like Pahuk, um certainly sacred places and places where a supplicant could seek the aid of some of these spirit beings. And uh it was said that that young boy um grew up into a man, a very the most powerful medicine person for the for the Pawnee, and uh did many great things for his people. But it's another example of death, resurrection, and ascension that uh we find consistent uh in all of these stories. Um my visit to Paw Hook the first time, and um fortunately I was able to um go within the last year with Sherry again when she was uh feeling good and strong, and we hiked everything once again. But uh I remember Sherry challenged me for those who read the chapter. I really just focused on those interactions because it was such a beautiful moment. It was uh late spring and early summer, and it was getting hot, and mosquitoes were out and about already. And um, it's uh quite the ceremonial walk. You have to go up um a big hill to get there. It feels uh important and challenging. And uh I got to greet the Pawnee Tree of Life, and then we made it to the top, and she had challenged me. She said, There's a sacred spot that's here at Pawuk that uh all the true indigenous peoples knows where it is. And she said, You'll have to let me know if you feel it. And I thought, dang it, Cherry. What if I don't? But no, sure enough, uh it was um once you get to the top, again, it's a kind of a plateau hill. So think kind of like a mesa, it's very flat. And um there was um deep prairie grass up at the top that was uh moving like a sea of grass. And uh I remember up top the wind was blowing like it often does in Nebraska. And as I crested into the sea of grass that was there, I remember watching uh three or four um white-tailed deer bounding across away from me. And uh such a beautiful moment. And uh eventually I made my way over to the edge and the plateau, kind of had a little shelf that dropped down a few feet and then leveled out. And that's when I turned to Cherry and said, This is it. And she said, Yes, it, yes, it is, and you are correct. And she said, I'll I'll leave you alone. And so I set up uh not unlike uh how I did when I did my vision quest uh not too far away up on the now Omaha Reservation when I was a young man and kind of uh dug myself a little, made myself a little uh place to lay down. On the Vision Quest, they actually dig a kind of a hole for you to lay in. And I was up on the top of one of the bluffs and overlooking everything. And uh I didn't want to disturb the earth, but I made a little kind of bed for myself with my backpack and laid down and just meditated and prayed. Uh it was beautiful. Um, but while we're on the topic, I wanted to share about my vision quest as a young man. We have to fast and um pray. And I remember uh we call that going up on the hill, and my grandmother made me a little pouch of uh we call it spirit food. There's uh dried meat in there, dogay, we call that. And there was, I think, honey in it and nuts, and it's just spiritual food only. When you really need it, can you munch on some of that? And uh I had my uncles watching out for me. I could never know or see whenever they were there, but I knew that they were making sure that I was okay. I believe it was on the second day. We go for four days typically, or until you find your vision. And boy, the first night was rough. And everything itched, everything hurt. I couldn't lay still. And I was supposed to sleep. So I it was a rough first night. And um by the second day I began to get into it more. And I think it was probably like 10 o'clock in the morning when I finally gave in to just letting go of everything. It's kind of hard to explain, but I remember I was not asleep, but I was in a trance-like state. And um I felt nobody, no anything I can see and hear, but I felt like I was had gone somewhere else. And uh wherever I went was a beautiful place, um, peaceful and serene. And eventually something was tugging at my inner mind, saying, Open your eyes, open your eyes, open your eyes. And so I remember thinking to myself, no, I don't want to. This is so much more beautiful than the painful world that I came from. But the voice inside of me, which I assume was myself, uh, kept saying, open your eyes, open your eyes. Maybe it was in it was my soul, maybe it was the ancestors. But uh, when I opened my eyes, it was you know middle of the afternoon, and I was uh dug in right over the edge of the bluff, so probably 300 feet down below, um, was the river, and then you see the the plane. And when I opened my eyes, uh there was um um a bald eagle that was riding the thermals uh there along the bluff and was looking right at me as it blinked its eyes and turned. And whenever I opened my eyes, I gasped really loud because it was so close to me. I think it was trying to see if I was dead or what. Or maybe it was just a spirit being or a um who knows, but I remember when I gasped, it took its great wings and pulled them in and adjusted to the thermal and shot out of the sky. So um I got my got my vision, you know, my um spirit being of the eagle, and uh I got right up. And if you're when you have those things, they uh had instructed me uh in my training. Um we would come out when I came out of the purification sweat lodge, we would have to run to the river and purify ourselves with the water. So I ran immediately to the water and did that, and then I ran back home to my grandmother, who was worried about me. My uncles were checking on me, and I was very excited, and I came in and and uh told her what had happened to me and what I saw with the eagle, and she smiled, but she said, Grandson, that's uh that's a good vision that you had there. Turned into a real vision, you know. Um but she said, uh that's a powerful spirit animal that's associated with you now, and you're gonna be a leader, and it's gonna be hard. And boy, she was right. I was thinking about all that while I was lying blind there on Paw Hook and and praying, and eventually um I went and found Cherry who was just wandering in the flowers and in the field, and uh we went down below. Uh there's a bunch of really cool effigy mounds down by the water. Um, as far as I can tell, um I'm the first person in a very long time to publish something about it. Um it changed hands, uh, I don't know exactly what year, but the new landowners are um very accommodating to indigenous peoples who come to visit. And um but it's it's it once again it's it's the dilemma of private ownership. The Gilberts were great. Um the new owners have been wonderful, but they're already um getting to the age where they're starting to think about estate planning and what they want to do with it. Um the husband uh is interested in um having naturalists have access to the site. Um the wife, she's an artist. She wants it to be accessible by artists. Um I can only hope whoever becomes the next landowners, I don't know if their children are interested in carrying it on, but um you know it needs to be protected. It almost got uh fractionated and um split up and bought by other owners, but uh I believe the new landowners there have consolidated all of that now, so it's at least intact in its ownership. But it could be possible that the next owners um aren't receptive to having indigenous peoples come and pay homage to the sacred geography. Uh that's the dilemma. It's the same with Picture Cave. Um it's just it's my hope that I think that it's important for my work to be out there because most people don't know about these places, they've never heard of them. Um Peter uh uh Nabakoff and uh his work where the lightning strikes, I think that was in the 80s. He wrote about it then as well. And Mari Sandos did previous to that. But it's um, you know, there's there's no signs or no interpretive center or anything else yet. Um hopefully that's one of the things that I can do in my time here on this planet is to help at the very least bring knowledge of these sacred places and their importance. And uh hopefully that's something rich that um your listeners uh can take away from this. Just the beauty and the serenity and the knowledge of the power of sacred geography and is the power to to heal and as a a place of worship. Um go ahead.

Daniel Firth Griffith:

Yeah, I was just gonna in in in the chapter, um, I think it was Lakota's name for the site was Holy Hill.

Taylor Keen:

I don't remember the there was they all sort of sound sound the same.

Daniel Firth Griffith:

Yeah, I don't I think it's on page 67 or 66. I was trying to find it fast enough. But maybe after uh addressing that for for our listeners, um, on that same page you talk about the specifics of what makes Paha Wakan. Paha Wacan.

Taylor Keen:

Holy hill. Holy hill. And uh the Omaha's we call it Pahe Wahube. Wakube means something is sacred. Yeah, to be considered uh sacred, these animal lodges all have common elements. They occur on a riverbank close to where a trail crosses the river. They have a mound that replicates the earthlodge of the animals. Spectacular view in all directions from the top of the cut bank. They all have a cave or a spring that is tied to the emergence narrative about coming from the underworld or out of the water to this realm. They are located in Oak Tree, Savannah.

Daniel Firth Griffith:

On the next page, you talked about this already, um, but maybe just a little bit more depth. On the next page on page 68 of your book, uh, you mentioned that these animal lodges were places where animals of all species met and conferred supernatural powers, undeserving pawnees who had been uh to Pahook in dream or in a dream. Talk to them about that. You mentioned that the uh original directive maybe is a wrong word, but the original uh good directive to the animal nations from creator um was that they would have power when they shared it, or when they gifted it, or when they conferred it. I don't know the word. Speak a little bit more about that. What what was this unison between the animal nation and and then and the pawnee, the humans coming to these places? Um was it to receive like, I'm thinking from a European sense, but like a totem spirit? Was it to find guidance? Was it for knowledge and wisdom?

Taylor Keen:

I think that depends upon the uh seeker. Um that's the oftentimes we would say that you know, if a Sahelkin is interested in trying to understand things such as uh medicine powers, um, although in our way it's um it's it's not our place to ask for such things. Um if they chose you as a vessel, then you might dream about the place. Um perhaps there were devout individuals who um had been shown or decided that the that their path was uh a medicine path, and um they offered themselves as uh you know worthy becals to be taught things. Maybe that was another way that some of them did it. Um you know it would be uh really powerful to um have Pawnees speak about all this. I'm I'm uh I wrote about it because I had the opportunity to go and to help voice for the the site itself, but I I you know I I can't speak to Pawnees and their spirituality with uh the animal nations. It's not my place, but um I can envision different scenarios that you know uh it might come to them to want to go to seek it. I do know that the the Pawnees uh come up and visit on a regular basis now. That that warms my heart. Didn't know that they're coming back up and they've had dances back up here, which I've participated in. They plant their sacred corn bean and squash up here still. It's a very peaceful place. I hope I hope it's there for everyone for a long time, I don't know, I don't know.