Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome me.
It is time now for Native Beach right here on K one, the one you trust, nine forty five on the dot.
Hey, how's it going, John Weston?
Great Tom o cion Niganta. Hello everyone, Osta suna lei, good morning and happy Monday, or as we like to say in Cherokee Nation, dog claw not see as always. Tom. It's good to see you. And I was asking you before the show today, are you ready for Snowmageddon?
No, I'm not.
By the way, how do you how do you say get your snow shoes in Cherokee?
I don't know. Well, really, I'm gonna I'm gonna have to look that up, really, because I think we might be having to break those out here pretty soon.
We got to do that phone or front and call chief exactly.
Yeah. Yeah, So you stocked up on bread, milk, and toilet paper because those are the usually a three staples over one.
Yeah.
I hate to see what Walmart's going to be like later on the day.
It's crazy enough Friday when this came out, I know, right, and the shelves I think are going to be bear.
By the time this evening ends. Oh yeah, but I was monitoring the computer models for predictions. I've just been monitoring the weather app for a while and I've read everything from seven inches to thirteen inches and we're gonna the next day have three to four inches maybe, and and I mean it's the computer models.
Are just going crazy all over the place.
Yeah, like popcorn exactly. And that's that's Oklahoma for Yeah, what was it? Will Rogers said, if you don't like the weather, just stick around a little while, it'll change. Yeah. That's yeah. If we could throw a tornado and an earthquake in there somewhere.
You got it would be It's quite essential Oklahoma, Oklahoma exactly.
But I think most people live here when it comes to the weather, they're pretty skeptical. I know I am. I I generally don't even look at the weather app until it's like maybe a couple of days out because I know it's gonna change, just kind of.
All over like a.
Yeah, it's kind of one of those things. I'll believe it when I see it, but I am preparing for the worst.
I was a TV weather man for many, many years, and I'll tell you why.
I couldn't do what they do at New Sun Sick exactly. I mean it was batten up in central Illinois. Yeah, I couldn't do it there. I couldn't do it here exactly.
And I think the best place is to be a weather man would be either be Florida or California. It was really easy. Yeah, exactly.
I have eight of afternoon shower that's exactly every day day killed a hurricanes exactly, right.
But Happy President's Day to everyone that's today. I want to mention that this past Saturday, I attended a little training session we had through the Cherokee Nation Community and Cultural Outreach Department and whatever community building is in Hulbert. If you don't know what where Hulbert is. It's down a near Tahlequah and it's one of our great rural communities, probably best known for being the home of millionaire bull
rider Ryan Dirt Eater. And you know you've got to be pretty darn good at being a bull rider if you're if you've made over a million dollars, yes, yeah he has. So we have a wonderful Cherokee community there as well as a beautiful community building. They've got a storm shelter that can hold up to a couple hundred people. I've kind of taken a little tour of that at an underground billy exactly it is.
It is.
It's actually above ground. It's supposed to be able to take a direct impact. Oh yeah, so that's that's what's really neat about it. But and we also right next to the campus, we have housing for Native speakers and elders who live there, which is great because you know, it's just one of those things that's kind of all this whole idea of building community. You know, if we build these community buildings and then if we can build housing right next to it, it just kind of acts
as a hub for community activity. So I think it's a great setup. But we had a couple of training sessions. One was on computer basics, which some people you still need. And you know, and then even I, you know, as I get older, I start to lose track of some technology, you know, and I might be talking to a little Gen xer or Gen Alpha or whoever kid. Basically, in my opinion, I'm nearly fifty years old, so anyone that's
you in their twenties is considered a kid now. Yeah, so yeah, and they might mention something to me and I'm like, wow, I had not heard of that. So it's one of those things that's everyone can brush up
on it. And that was one of the great things about this meeting was that kind of covered some of that stuff and board governance, which you know, it's not apparent to some people how important the board is for a community and how they establish an agenda and make and kind of move the community of the direction that needs to go, you know, because your board is your leadership and it really needs to be an active and engage board to make sure that you can get things
accomplished for your community that you want accomplished. But I always think it's great to see the investments Cherokey Nation and CEO put into these buildings and making our community stronger. It's just amazing because I know the chief is really dedicated to it, you know, and these trending sessions are one way that they do that. Turnout for this event
was just spectacular. It's probably the largest we had in cco's history of hosting these, and I know everyone learned a lot, but we had a great time getting together. We always do with these communities. You start to know these folks, you go into these meetings and you see the same faces over and over again, and you become familiar with their communities, and then before you know it, you start building these relationships and these friendships that are
going to last. And it really does mean a lot to go to these So before we begin today's show, I'd like to think our sponsor, as always, Coffeell Cooperative Credit Union. What can I say about CCCU. One of the things impresses me most about them is that they're give you a hometown feel when you walk through the door. It's like it's like greeting friends when you walk in. Of course when I walk in, I am greeting friends because I know about half the people there. You do exactly,
so you're treated like it. You're not just feel like another customer. That's what I love about it, but you're also a friend. Lyle Martin, president of CCCU, and the folks there, they always treat you kind of like a member of the family. If you're in the market for a car loan, financial planning, or you need a little extra cash after the holidays, heading up to Coffeel Cooperative Prayer Union today. Also, we have a tax day coming up, so you might need a little extra money to pay
for your taxes. I don't know. It might be a painful thing, but they're there in case you need them. I had breakfast with Lyle this past week and he provided me hooked me up with an awesome swag bag of Cooperative Prayer Union stuff. Had a nice little thermal lunch pail in it, and a sun visor and some other things and some pens and just some great things in it. I was kind of surprised the more stuff I was pulling out of the bag and all the stuff I was seeing. So today we're gonna have a
little drawing for one of those on today's show. In the comments section on Facebook. If you watch today's show, I want you to put the CCCU phrase it's where you belong, and make sure you put that emphasis on the word you. That's very important. That's where cccs use focuses and that's providing you the services that you need. So call Field Cooperative Credit Union, It's where you belong. Insured by NCUA and check out their web page at
Cooperative CU dot com. Native Beat would also like to thank you are listeners for your continued support and tuning in. I get complimented all the time from people I run into in the community, They're like, hey, really like the show, really like what you're doing. So that's some of the best feedback I can get. And I just always love running into these folks that know they are actually people out there listening and listening to K one, which is great.
You know, I always listening to K one, especially when it comes time for weather reports. You know, I know the last tornado we had, I was glued to this radio station and heard that you guys are all going to the basement, and I thought to myself, you know, it might be time to take cover. If people at the radio station are going to the basement, I think it's time I go take cover too. It's quite a trick, yeah, exactly. So, as I mentioned at the top of the show, we're
facing snow mcgeddon or the snow apocalypse. I'm sure as people will start calling it. But that really got me to thinking, you know, what were some of the ways that our native cultures could predict the weather or whether or not we were going to have a harsh winter. So I did a little research on it, and what's really interesting is there were some scientists, I'm sure there
were anthropology students. They actually wrote a paper about this very topic, and I was really surprised because one of the sources they used was Senator Robert Kerr, because in nineteen fifty he sent out letters to Native leaders and said, how do you guys predict whether or not we're going to have a marsh? Exactly right? Yeah. So Senator Robert Kerr,
he's perhaps one of Oklahoma's most famous senators. He is an extremely influential Oklahoma and oil Oklahoma oil man, and like I said, nineteen fifty sent out these letters to Native leaders across the nation, challenging them with this he said, make some determination with regard to whether or not we are going to have an early winter and whether or not we may expect a hard winter. So Senator Kerr, like I said, it was an interesting figure in his
own right. He was born in a log cabin in eighteen ninety six in Ponatac County, which is the Chickasaw Nation. He was elected governor twice and senator three times, and he was the first governor of Oklahoma who was actually born here in Oklahoma territory. So I thought that was kind of a neat little fact about him. But anyway, he helped usher in space exploration. As a Senator, he pushed through legislation to found the Marshall Space Flight Center
in nineteen sixty one. In fact, Werner Braun Braun, who was head of our American rocket program, to help get the Saturn five rockets that went to the Moon. He actually broke brown with him at that space Flight Center, which I thought was just an amazing picture, which I just think that's really cool. But Oklahoma has some impact on the space program, you know, and I just think that's really neat. But of course he was also associated with the projects like the Kerr McClellan dam, you know,
which we all know about. You drive across Oklahoma, you you're gonnactually run into something named Kerr. So anyway, he had a very interesting life and career, very successful and given his personal and professional successes, though, one of the things I found interesting was that he still held high regard for Native cultures and traditions, you know. And it's
kind of interesting. I feel like sometimes I'm coming in that same mode because i feel like I've got one foot in the old traditional world of Native customs and cultures and trying to understand our traditions and carry them on. But ye, at the same time, I have a degree in molecular biology of analyzed DNA. I have isolated proteins, done protein essays, you know, Western blot interactions, things like that.
And so it's like I very much have a foot in both the modern world and the traditional world.
And not really a bad place to be.
It really isn't you know. And like I said, he had a high regard and he called it this for old Indian ways and determining such things as the weather, because they're practical and have always been able to make some very accurate predictions. And it's like, I think that's a very smart thing. I know, a lot of the predictions are based on empirical evidence, you know, it's just
what you observe. But some of the responses he got back from native leaders after sending out his letter to them in nineteen fifty asked for predictions of the winter, and they were very interesting. In fact, one was the chief of the Muscogee Creek Nation. He responded back, when lots of spiderwebs are in the air, and lots of trees such as we see now, it means we still have a hard cold winter. Also, when the cornshuck is thick and heavy as it is here in Oklahoma, it's
a sign of a hard cold winter. So you know, it's just observing nature, observing animals, observing insects, I guess, you know. And I was I felt like I was been a little teased that spring was going to be around the corner because i was walking through the yard the other day and I'm starting to see the daffodils peak above the ground, and I'm like, I can feel it. Spring, It's almost here. Warmer weather is almost here, so hold on,
you know. So the puebl Indians they actually responded back from Mexico and they said, whereever there is any out of drought before winter, the usually a hard winter will follow us. That's kind of how they predicted it. I know. The Lakota Sue would actually look at the colouration of the sky, and of course, you know, like in Oklahoma, when you see a tornadic weather or severe weather coming, those are the sky has an odd orange or a green, eerie glow to it, you know, And I've noticed that before.
But it's you know, it's just one of those things. It's just look with your eyes, you know, and also observe the animals, you know, growing up, I grew up on a ranch and we always knew what it was going to rain because of the cattle. They exactly the one direction. A lot of times they would gather up near the fence line.
You know what they call that when they start lining up like that?
What's that?
The early bovine warning system.
The early bowvine warning system. That's good. I'm gonna have to use that one. Yeah. I'll be driving out there and I'll see that. I'll be like, hey, early bovine warning system. Yeah yeah, but yeah, the the crow Indians which were up in Montana. There was a seventy year old up there named Sidney black Hair, and he learned a four cast from his father, who is a crow chieftain.
And mister black Hair predicted a mild winter for southeast Montana and northern Wyoming based on observations such as the occurrence of early Midsummer snowfall, frequent rains during the fall, ants not having gone into the ground yet, which I mean if the insects they're going to freeze, they know to go below ground. So I mean, just observe in your environment, it tells you everything. Also, snake still being
out and the absence of frogs. You know, of course frogs they're going to freeze if those ponds did below a certain temperature, so yeah, they're gonna burrow below ground. But the Minnesota Chippewa tribe responded by saying that we're looking forward with dis may to a long and hard winter, and the signs for forecasting outlook for the coming winter included if the muskrat or the beaver build an unusually
high and large house, the winter will be severe. Other signs of a hard winter for them included if the fur of wild animals is unusually thick, if the bark of the tree is thicker, and if the field corn is heavily covered with shell. You know, because it's kind to predict itself. So those are all sort of interesting observations.
One of the things that we don't overseee which they see out in Scottsdale, Arizona, was the heal monster they had out there was brilliantly colored, and they said that that was a sign from Americopa Indian girl who lived on the salt or A river reservation, that it pretends a long and very cold winter. So I don't know if there's any truth to that, but the coloration might have something to do with it. So I just thought
that was a very interesting thing that she noted. Well. Anyway, as you can see, there's a lot of reliance and observation. Observe the sky, observe animals, and observe vegetation, and those are some of the best indicators. And I think technology is great just as long as we don't lose our traditional ways or our humanity and the process, you know, And I know that some people are kind of afraid
with AI when it comes to that. So here in Washington County, we've been very busy to our community building. We're looking forward to having our renovations completed at WCCA. A couple of saturdays ago, we began the process of distributing meat from the eighteen thirty nine cheroy Meat Company through our new food Sovereignty program. And just to be clear, here are a few requirements for being served by their program.
You must be a Cherokee tribal member, live within the Cherokee Reservation and that's the fourteen kind of jurisdictional boundaries, and not be receiving snap benefits or commodities, and we have preference for elders, veterans, Cherokee speakers, but also families who need of assistance, but those who are not receiving
SNAP benefits or or Indian commodities. So anyway, before we leave today, I just want to mention that those who are interested in participating participating in the program can reach me at WCCA pres at gmail dot com. And I want to say, if you don't have a Cherokee community, go ahead and find one. We have several Facebook pages you can follow. Also, to be sure to check out
Fibred Journeys on the mighty six ninety KGGF. You can catch Native Beat on the Barcel Radio Facebook page or on demand to the Barssel Radio app available in the Apple Store. A big wadu, as we say in Cherokee, wanishe is, the Delaware would say, wanzi is the Osage would say. And to all of you listening, do to to goha e until we meet again.