Ancient Roots Moving Fire Stories
Moving Fire Story Activity
Campfires remind us of the ceremonial and cooking fires our ancestors carried with them from their homelands to Indian Territory. Stories, songs, and soundscapes provide us with new ways to appreciate tribal histories and realities.
- In this activity, you will reflect on what you learned in Ancient Roots.
- Listen to or read the transcripts below for Cheyenne and Pawnee stories about tribal beginnings.
- Then use this organizer to capture your new understandings and begin to develop a found poem about tribal history.
Audio Transcripts
Pawnee Corn Mother Story
Narrator: Debra Echo-Hawk (Pawnee)
[background: Appreciation Song sung by Southern Thunder]
First Woman was wrapped in corn husks and contained the seeds of life within her.
First Man was wrapped in a buffalo robe, and when discarded, a herd of buffalo sprang forth.
Thus, establishing our first homeland and life was good.
The Pawnee prospered.
Our ancestors developed a special relationship with plants that allowed their cultivation for food and medicine.
This had been the central element of our culture and of our survival.
These practices embodied in working the land and water, and caring for seeds, provided the basis for the Pawnee’s respectful connection to the earth and with each other.
All Pawnee bands’ ability to grow food is the culmination of countless generations of sowing and harvesting seeds.
Those seeds are the continuation of an unbroken line from our ancestors to us and to our children and their grandchildren.
Cheyenne Bison Story
Narrator: Nathan Hart (Cheyenne)
[background: Sounds of Bison running in distance and Buffalo Song sung by John Hamilton]
What we’ve learned as Cheyenne people from the stories that have been handed down to us is that there was a time, a long time ago, when it was actually the bison, the buffalo, that used to eat the humans.
There was a challenge that was made between the two-leggeds and the four-leggeds.
The four-leggeds were represented by the bison.
Two-leggeds represented by the men.
The winner of this race would then be the provider to the others.
It was the buffalo against the humans.
This race took place in an area now known as the Black Hills located in South Dakota.
If you hear the stories, understand the stories, if you ever fly into the airport there at Rapid City and fly by the Black Hills, you can see what’s referenced as this Great Track.
There’s an area that goes around the Black Hills and you can see where this race actually took place.
In the end, the two-leggeds won.
The man won with the help of the Magpie, the bird.
But from that point on, then the buffalo made their commitment that they would be the provider to the Cheyenne people.
From that point on they have been the provider for a lot of our shelter, clothing, and primarily our food source.
So, we recognize that and, today, we have a philosophy that these animals took care of us at one time. We have a role now that, here’s something that was almost extinct.
There were efforts made to get rid of all the bison that existed.
There were also efforts made to get rid of Cheyenne people and a lot of American Indian people.
And today, we’re still here and the bison are still here.
And we feel, somewhat, a responsibility that it’s our turn now to take care of the bison.
Up Next
In the following section, you will learn about Removal and Assimilation in Uprooted.