- [Eliza Voiceover] This episode of "Wish You Were Here", with Eliza Blue is brought to you in part by Strengthen North Dakota and South Dakota Public Broadcasting.

Thanks for watching.

(mellow music) ♪ Back roads and byways ♪ ♪ Campfires will lie awake ♪ ♪ Sweet grass and summer sage ♪ ♪ Come on baby, come and take my hand ♪ ♪ Take my hand, take my hand ♪ ♪ We're Dakota bound.

♪ Join us as we travel to share stories and songs from the Prairie.

The Tuttle Rural Innovation Center is located in the Heartland of North Dakota, in the small town of Tuttle.

Housed in the town's former school building.

And, only an hour Northeast of Bismarck.

TRIC offers a commercial kitchen, a maker-space, office spaces, a gymnasium, and more for makers, bakers, and doers looking for a space to do what they love.

This charming town is small, but mighty, with the community as deeply rooted as the tall trees that shade it's lovely streets.

And, that is reflected in this gathering place.

TRIC also hosts concerts and other cultural events, including a recent harvest fest, that featured Kevin Locke.

Kevin is a world renowned Lakota and Anishinaabe folk artist, who's traveled to 96 countries as a cultural ambassador, sharing performances as a storyteller, hoop dancer, and player of the Northern Plains indigenous flute.

Kevin is also an educator, who says his primary goal is to create a positive awareness of the oneness of humanity, while also celebrating his unique indigenous heritage.

- Hi, I'm Eliza Blue and I am in Tuttle, North Dakota, in front of the Tuttle Rural Innovation Center.

And, I wish you were here.

Well, it is really great to be here with you today Kevin.

And, we have been corresponding for a while, but this is our first time meeting in real life, so it's a pleasure and an honor to be here with you.

And, for this first song, you said you'd maybe teach me a little bit and then I'm gonna let you play it.

But, this, tell us a little bit about this particular song.

- Okay, this is a song from the Zuni tribe in New Mexico, Zuni, New Mexico.

And, they are one of the Pueblo tribes.

And, this particular song is about the sun coming up on a beautiful day, dawn of a day.

And, I think it's really good, because today, you know, we have this beautiful fall day and there's not a cloud in the sky.

So, in Dakota, we call this, (speaks foreign language), which just means total blueness.

And, it's a sign of a blessing.

It means a blessing, because it means there's nothing obstructing the flow of grace from heaven to earth, you see.

We're receiving all of it now.

So, it's a good way to celebrate with a song.

(serene music) - Well, I'd really like to know a little bit more about what you do and why you do it as a musician.

- As a musician?

Oh, okay.

Well, first of all, you know, I'm really happy to be able to present these, what they call folk arts or traditional arts.

It represents a community progression through time.

In other words, it's, you know, people come upon a ways to express symmetry, beauty, order, harmony, balance, and they do that through, you know, like through music and dance and things like this.

And so, to me, these folk arts are really powerful, because they transcend the culture and tribal specific.

And, they hit, you know, universal human values, you know, like the nobility of the human spirit.

So, I myself, you know, when I travel around and perform, I don't really care about, you know, indoctrinating people into a specific culture or tradition or anything like that.

I don't care about that.

The main thing that is it should make us feel good to be human beings and to make us realize that we're all legitimate heirs to the richness of the human heritage.

So, that's what I like about being a musician.

And like I said, I do mostly schools, like, 95% schools.

It's a great audience.

You know, they're all there involuntarily.

They can't leave.

(Eliza laughs) They're there against their free will.

They can't escape, you know?

- Will you tell us more about your flute?

- Yeah.

- Or the flutes that you play.

- Yeah, anyway, these are, this is made by a man named Bryan Akipa, from Sisseton.

And, he was, he took it upon himself to really keep alive this traditional tuning system.

And, it's a, it's really a, the word that we use in Dakota for a flue, we say, (speaks foreign language).

It evolved from this bird bone whistles, bird bone whistles.

And, the way that the sound is produced inside this instrument, it's the same as making a bird bone whistle.

So, that's the oldest wind instrument.

They find those going back 40,000 years.

- [Eliza] Wow!

- 40,000 years, they find the archeological evidence.

But then, at some point, they started making those out of wood, see like this.

But, they don't really survive the you know, test of time.

What they do on the flute is they play, it's a very aberrant, very unique genre of music within, you know, the vast repertoire of indigenous music, you know, from any given ethnicity.

But, these are very distinct.

And, there's a kind of a poetic form, I would say much akin to haiku.

Because, the first part of the lyrics, they all originate as a vocal composition.

Then, they're also played on the flute.

And so, then the first part is very cryptic, very mysterious.

So, when a person hears that, it's gonna peak your curiosity.

You're gonna wonder, "What is that about?"

And then, the second part of the song will kind of disclose the significance of that, see?

Yeah.

- That's awesome.

- Yeah, yeah.

So, I can play one like that, should I?

- [Eliza] I would love it!

- I'll play one.

I'll play one not from here.

I'll play one from the woodlands area, from the great lakes area.

It's a Sac and Fox song.

And, I'll play the melody and then I'll sing it, so you can hear how it, the vocal composition start is the origin of it.

Then it's instrumentalized on the flute.

(cheerful flute music) ♪ Hey, yeah, yeah.

♪ (sings in foreign language) (cheerful flute music) So, it's about this couple.

It's like a Valentine song.

So, this couple, they're separated by a river.

There's a river in between them.

And, it might be the spring, so that river might be really high, really deep, really fast, really wide.

And, there's no bridge.

They wanna communicate.

They really wanna communicate.

So then, that person says, that's the first part is about.

(speaks foreign language) That's a Meskwaki language, you know?

Sac and Fox, from Iowa.

And then, the next part says, person says, (speaks foreign language), so the person's saying, when you're thinking about me, take your mirror and then flash the light across.

So, I suppose, you know, like, the one on one side, when the sun gets over like this, they can flash that light directly across.

And then, maybe earlier in the day, the other one can flash it back over that way, see?

So, they go back and forth.

This is to show that they're still have that affection for each other, see?

So see, that's kind of a romantic song.

But, it's, the reason why they, even though those songs are from the pre-reservation period, they, in different communities, where they have, where the language is strong, or they've got a, you know, a solid language community, those songs are really interesting, because they preserve a lot of archaic vocabulary, a lot of idioms, a lot of grammatical structures, you know, it's got a beautiful, a lot of beautiful sentence forms and just expressions, you know, that are really interesting.

It's like a Shakespeare.

It's like Shakespeare, listening to Shakespeare.

I know you speak English, ah, that sounds so good.

You know, and listening to the way they use language.

So, that's what those- And, we have a lot of them too, a lot of Dakota songs.

They use a Western red Cedar, you know, they get get it from the black hills.

And then, the sound is produced with the aperture is created with a little piece of Birch bark, Birch bark.

You know the James river that starts over here, goes down through Jamestown and Aberdeen, all the way that.

That's what they call (speaks foreign language), Birch river.

I don't know if there's that much Birch there now, but at one time there was.

That's where they get this Birch.

And then, the other thing I was gonna show you that since, you know, it's an instrument that's basically played outdoors and then the, who's ever playing the flute, you know, they want to send that melody, it's like a Valentine message.

So, they wanna send it directly to the person they're intending to hear it.

So, they get the wind to their back and then they send it that way, but there could be a crossbridge.

So, they put this little chimney, can you see this chimney in here?

So, it protects the air, you know, that's coming underneath that aperture, that I guess you call it a fipple, I think.

And so, it protects that air, so that any kind of cross breeze won't take it away.

So, this is made to be played outdoors.

Like here, I could play it out here on a windy day.

And, because of that chimney.

And, I was at a music school last week, music university, and I showed that to those.

And, they have a whole wind instrument department, study world wind instruments.

And, I showed that to them.

They said they never saw anything like that.

(laughs) Yeah, maybe it exists somewhere, but it's really a feature of the wind instruments from this region right here.

- Which makes sense, because it's really never not windy- (laughs) - (laughs) Yeah, I know!

- In this part of the world!

- Yeah, exactly.

(crickets chirping) - [Eliza Voiceover] And now, some notes from the field.

(mellow music) ♪ Autumn fire is coloring the high roads once again ♪ ♪ Orange, yellow, green, and gold, green and gold ♪ ♪ But, this beauty ♪ ♪ Won't last long ♪ ♪ Strong October breeze is pulling at the leaves ♪ ♪ But, the wind doesn't know ♪ ♪ What it can't conceive ♪ ♪ Is the Autumn leaves rustling in the breeze ♪ ♪ Are the prettiest sight ♪ ♪ I think I've ever seen ♪ ♪ But, this beauty ♪ ♪ Can't last long ♪ ♪ But, this beauty ♪ ♪ Can't last long ♪ ♪ But, this beauty ♪ ♪ Can't last long ♪ - I'd like to show you a design that I incorporated my hoop dance, towards the end of the hoop dance.

And, I got the idea for this design from an experience I had years ago in our (indistinct) community center.

People came up from Pine Ridge, from the Oglala community in Pine Ridge.

And, they were relatives of a Crazy Horse, Chief Crazy Horse.

And, they explained that before Crazy Horse was killed in 1877, he went up on a Bear Butte, down close to what's now Sturgis.

And, he went up fasting there and he was fasting for four days and four nights up on Bear Butte, we call it (speaks foreign language).

And so, when he was in that state of fasting over there, he, you know, he really felt the weight of history on his shoulders.

And, he was really praying so sincerely.

And, he had a vision towards the end where he transformed into an eagle.

So, in my hoop dance presentation, I use 28 hoops to make that eagle.

So, the other ones are the tail down here.

But, this is just the wings.

If you can use your imagination.

Crazy Horse was soaring out in this condition, in his vision as an eagle.

And, I wanted to just pause here for a second to say that in Lakota language, when they talk about ethnic ethnicities, they say, (speaks foreign language).

It means the hoop of the nation.

It represents, because you know, the people here in North America, they always live within that shape of the circle, which puts them into synchronicity with everything good, everything holy, everything beautiful.

The same formation that all of creation aspires to, the hoop of life.

So then, as he was flying in that way, as an Eagle, flying over the world, he saw all the diverse hoops of humanity, all the different nations.

He was just like today, you know, like total blueness, (speaks foreign language).

And, in his vision.

And, he could see that everybody was just intimate.

You know, there's a strong connection between heaven and Earth.

And, the people receiving all those bounties, it's like that sun pouring out, you know, the light and the heat.

But, in this case for him, was like the light of knowledge and the warmth of love, just bathing humanity in goodness and grace.

And, he saw in his vision all of humanity reaching up like that, to receive that.

In his vision he can hear this great chorus of beautiful music from all the diverse kindreds, was going up towards the heavens.

He could see all the beautiful movements, their different dances, all the ways that the people express themselves.

And, beauty is such a sublimely beautiful and joyful vision he had as he was soaring out over the world.

But then, to his horror, in his vision, what happened was that these thick, thick clouds began to sweep over and blot out the light all over the world.

And, what it was he realized was that evil machinations of egotistical leaders wanting to control just like vultures, wanting to pray upon the carrying of the souls of the people of the world.

He saw this thickness, all this animosity and hatred blotting out the sun.

And, when this happened, he saw all the people begin to recoil from that.

And, they began to have all this negativity within themselves.

He saw brother against brother, nation against nation.

He saw every heart was broken.

Every eye swollen with tears, every mother destitute, every child so forlorn.

It's just like, all the spirit of life was sucked out of the world.

Everything became dark and there's wars, conflagration, gore flowing out over every land.

It was so horrific!

And, he saw that all the people were just laying there, broken and dead, lifeless, no spirit in the world.

And, he just, he saw that there was no hope, there's no future in his vision, he just wept.

But then, something came into his mind and he thought, "If only people could see "how beautiful we all are, "how glorious we all are meant to be."

And then, he had that thought and that thought became his prayer and that prayer became the wind beneath his wings.

It kind of swept him up, propelled him heavenward.

So, in his vision, he soared up again, this time he soared up above of all that darkness.

He flew up so high.

He looked out, he saw the light of a new day break the horizon.

This beautiful light came up into the world.

And, as the light began to shine over all regions, he could see the people begin to stir.

They begin to move.

They began to shake all that dust, all that disillusionment off of themselves.

And, they began to reach out and they began to create a beautiful design.

And, what that design was, it was a hoop of many hoops.

He saw this beautiful design.

And, he saw this design was put down upon the earth.

Put down upon the earth, right here in our beautiful homeland of North America.

He saw us put down here and he saw, you know, I like to make that design and think about that vision, because what it was is foretelling was a day in which this symbol called the hoop of many hoops.

You can see it right here.

It's like looking through my crystal ball, but the future's not out there, it's right here.

It's right now, it's all of us, no matter who we are, we can see that we all have a place in this design.

It doesn't matter what color we are, but he can see in this design, there's no corner.

There's no dark place.

There's no place to hide.

There's no second row, third row, no back row.

But, know we're all there within this formation.

We're there shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm, hand in hand.

And so, that we all have a place within there.

It doesn't matter if you're black or white or whatever your color is.

We cannot be excluded.

Nobody can be left out.

If anybody is excluded, then we go back to the result, which is like that.

- Well, thanks so much for joining us.

We're gonna do one more song.

Kevin's gonna let Todd and I play along.

And Kevin, can you tell us just a little bit about this song before we play it?

- Yes, it's a Buffalo song and there are many, many Buffalo songs.

As you can imagine, this was the epicenter of the millions and millions of bison that roamed over the central part of North America.

And so, in this particular song, the lyrics say, (speaks foreign language).

In other words, "I appear with a visible face."

And, it doesn't state it in the song, but, and it was never explained to me.

But, the way it sounds, is like, when you see one of these big thunderheads and there's lightening inside of it and is flashing inside and you can see it from the outside.

Anyway, that's what it sounds like to me.

And, the next part says, (speaks foreign language).

"I'm the one that causes the bison to roam over your lands."

So, that's the interpretation of that song.

(cheerful music) (sings in foreign language) (cheerful music)