Chief Standing Bear on Osage Nation Survival, Sovereignty & Self-Expression

If you're not familiar with that backstory , it's worth ducking back to listen to that brief 13-minute episode first .

We pick up the Osage story in the 21st century , where they're mapping a masterful resurgence , including the rare reclamation of land , the powerful realisation of food sovereignty , the innovative return of language , the powerful realisation of food sovereignty , the innovative return of language and so much more .

G'day , Anthony James here for The RegenNarration , your independent , listener-supported podcast exploring how people are regenerating the systems and stories we live by . Enormous thanks this week to Phil Garozzo from the Loop Growers crew back home in Oz for doubling your subscription amount . And in such fraught times for farmers too .

P hil messaged to say no matter how tough times are , I can always find a few dollars a month for what you bring . Mate, I want to say to you that powers me on big time . Same to all you paid subscribers for your support , especially in these times . If you can too , please consider joining Phil and this brilliant community of supporting listeners .

Get additional stuff if you like and help keep the show going . Just follow the links in the show notes . Thank you . As mentioned in the introductory episode last week , some of you might recognise the Osage Nation from the recent Martin Scorsese film Killers of the Flower Moon . The Chiefs' early reference to their extraordinary Academy Awards appearance relates to that .

Ok , let's meet Chief Standing Bear sharing a couch , for a fascinating , frank and generous insight into the Osage Nation , his role and their resurgence .

And go on YouTube and look at the Osage Academy Award singers . That's Osage . They were nominated for an Academy Award and you'll see them singing . And it's not this drum , it was another drum like it .

And that's how we met , nicole and I , and that's how , essentially , you and I have ended up meeting , because I've learned more about the osage nation as we neared your country and some of the great work you're up to , and , essentially , with the passion for sharing those stories to show people there are ways that we can manage these things .

So they asked me to bring a ceremonial , to bring a ceremonial Osage who could bless them and bless the grounds . And we got there and they had also invited some folks from Australia Aborigine and so we did the ceremony and also the Aborigines did the ceremony and it was fascinating that our people , the Osage and others here used cedar

as one of the elements and they burned that cedar . There's other things they can do and other things they can burn , but in this particular ceremony they that cedar . There's other things they can do , but in this particular ceremony they use cedar and they use an eagle wing to bless members of the family as they came through and other people .

But the Aborigines were doing the same thing . If they weren't using cedar , they were using another plant and they also were blessing the same way . So our people were here and the Aborigines were here and the people were coming through and so I was like , wow , that was very similar and the prayer that was involved was very similar .

We translated it the best I understood them translating it to us , and then we got to spend some time with them , away from this , the big crowds , and I said well , tell me something about your people . How many of them , how many of you are there ? Where do you live ?

And what I learned is how naive I was and how naive others must be here , because I did not know .

Aborigine is just a term , like you would say , native American , I thought Aborigine was a tribe and it turns out , as you all know very well , that there are so many tribes and their languages are different and their customs , although they have come from a common area , common source , they've matured in different ways , just like us .

And we had a great conversation . More than one went to dinner and I learned how similar they are . And I learned how similar they are . They even had reservations and they had boarding schools where their children were taken and told not to speak the language , not to do your customs , and exactly like us .

And the next day we kept talking about this and I said you know , this has got to be like the British playbook .

Exactly , that was my comment , and you can see a lot of these same practices from the United States government at the time and very recently in fact , and when I was being told about the Aborigine people , they were so similar the same practices , the same methods to attempt to .

They called it assimilation here and I didn't ask what they called it there , australia too , yeah , Well , you know , and if you don't assimilate , then what happens ? well , it's not a pretty story , um , and we we don't like to dwell on , on the negative .

There's plenty of that , uh , to dwell on that's really interesting to hear that well , americans need to know that , uh , that , um , the aborigine people of australia are are indigenous people or tribal people and they think , like , uh , like we do . I saw it . Yeah , that was amazing yeah , I wonder .

Are working on budgets , working on policy interaction with the federal United States government on funding , about the concerns that they all had about whether that funding is going to be there , be reliable

, given the current political situation . Just one group of funds we're talking about which they are concerned about is $3.6 million , which for a small tribe like us is a lot of money , and there's other funds .

That group is about $10 million in funding and they are working together , working hard and have been for months , and I was getting updated because that's the time to do this today and I told her . I said you know this is part of the job as a chief , where people think I do this stuff .

When I don't , I say we should go do this stuff , and then you all get together and decide what parts of this would be beneficial to our people and then you work months and months and year in and year out to build things further than I had even imagined . And it's not my vision . It's my suggestions and those that are smart .

Suggestions have to come at the right time at the right place , and I try to be very aware of the circumstances and the timing where we are , because you don't want to send people down a path of frustration and not getting things done . So I have a lot of internal tests that I use Can the project be done within a time period that we can all get behind ?

Because our history is one of disappointment and appreciation of the small blessings that we get that are really turns out to be huge blessings . Just to be able to recognize that is a skill that I don't have alone .

We fortunately have traditional people who can tell us we have this , we have this ceremony , we have this belief , we have this , and so I guess what I'm telling you is we rely on each other , we encourage each other . My name just happens to be there as chief , but I can guarantee I can talk all day about how it's not me . It's not me .

It's because if I take the wrong path , the people know they can talk to me and say I think we're on the wrong path and I've got to decide whether that's correct or not .

The people know they can talk to me and say I think we're on the wrong path and I've got to decide whether that's correct or not and engage in debate at times , especially when it comes to the children , about our language programs , about you say tomato , they

say tomato . If you guys can't figure it out together , I'll decide it , even though you're both better speakers than me . So , uh , you know I gotta do things like that , which doesn't make me real popular , but but you know you gotta keep moving . So it . A friend of mine went out to the harvest land .

He's a retired lawyer and the harvest land is where our greenhouses are and others . He saw those and he said , chief , this is a remarkable vision . Well , I told him later that this all explained myself when I said , david , it wasn't a vision , it was panic . David , it wasn't a vision , it was panic .

And he looked at me and I said you've got to understand .

During the COVID pandemic there were some federal funds available , and this is really the contradiction for being a Native American government On one hand , we don't want to have the United States government in our business , but on the other hand , if money comes our way , with all the strings that are attached , we will decide whether or not to grab it , and often

we grab it because it's good for our people . So how do you reconcile that contradiction ? That's a lot of what I do . But during COVID some funds came down because the economic impact was strong and so we had to decide what to do with these funds and some tribes decided to put them in checks and send them to people .

That's not working for us , that doesn't build our community , that doesn't protect us at home . Everybody's I mean I know half our people are moved off to other states over the decades for a lot of reasons . So we decided . We decided and you can say under my leadership , because it was true to try to be self-sufficient , because this pandemic will occur again .

It's been going on for human history the plague of Justinians , the great plague , the 1918 flu pandemic or whatever , and there will be more . So how do we insulate ourselves from that disruption and those fears ? Where there's no meat , there's no food , which is what happened . Well , we try to be self-sufficient . So we

directed those funds and matched what we could with our own funds , from our small casinos and all , and put it together the harvest land , which is greenhouses . We grow our own food . We have food processing .

That fluctuates of course as they go into the herd and with all our different entities , our departments and our small economic development arm , about 2,000 at least . Well , see , they sell things , but sometimes 2,000 head of cattle and so cattle , and so that's that's progress .

So I told david uh , the reason we got it done from from day one and completion of the butcher house in 19 months and get all the united states department of agriculture permits and all that stuff

and then work with the greenhouses , that we did was not so much a vision , it was panic because we had no meat , no food . And when you're feeding children at lunch here in our programs and elders and there's no food and you're the head of this , you gotta do something . I mean you're talking about food .

And then of course we're really short as reliable , clean water of course it's real third world here regularly out of water sometime for a week or two . That's ridiculous . And we're getting internet now for the first time , broadband for the first time . That's big .

But some of this that's going on in Washington DC is making us anxious because we are living this contradiction the federal government provides the funds , but that's federal money and there's conditions upon it . When you get into that you've got to assume those risks . But once people get involved in it they have a tendency to relax on various levels .

And if you get out there and talk to our director , secretary of Development , secretary of Natural Resources , jan Heyman , she'll tell you I have been saying again , this is not a vision To me . This is showing a necessity that what you would see out there really needs to be treated as a pilot project . There's no debt on it .

We're doing our best they are to sustain itself by doing farmer's markets , making relationships which they have to do with , restaurants , et cetera . But they've got to start being more self-sustaining . And I've told them we didn't have anything like this before . And now our people know we're here . We have 26,000 members .

Our people are scattered , only about 4,000 , 5,000 here . But should there be another pandemic ? I tell the people in those areas . And now our people know about that . Now I'm just trying to do off-the-cuff mathematics , which I'm not good at , but trying to figure out what would be the demand .

And if I'm in Osage in Oklahoma City , two hours away from here , and I have a non-Osage wife and non-Osage children and there's again no food in the grocery stores , what I'm going to do is say , hey , don't worry everybody , our Osage tribe , my Osage tribe and you kids' Osage tribe we're all going to go up to the Osage and we'll get boxes of meat , which we

can do , and we'll get whatever vegetables and fruits they have going on , which we do , and we'll be okay . But I tell my people do you realize that I've already counted how many people would come ? And that could be over 5 000 people lining up . Are you ready for that ? Answer is no .

Well , that's why we've got to get out of this complacency where , okay , we've done this great stuff , but we can't handle the demand and the other communities around us don't do this as they should . So how do you motivate people to do what I think is a great program and emulate it and expand it in some order to feed ourselves and have healthy food ?

How do you do that ? And I'm not doing it and we are not doing it . Here's where you get to share the blame . Everybody gets the credit . We are not doing it .

So we've expanded from a double-wide trailer to a restaurant and some gaming machines and a hotel here that's got like 33 rooms , I believe , in a hotel here that's got like 33 rooms , I believe . And then we have a larger one further away that's got 100 rooms .

So these are not gigantic but it fits our ability to pay for everything and have the money for our educational programs or health programs . We basically tax , like all tribes , we tax our gaming facilities at 100% , right , yeah , and

so what we do with these funds ? In our agreement with the United States and somewhat to the state of Oklahoma , we commit this to the people through health programs . There's a new clinic being built , for example .

If you go downtown here you came in from the west just keep going down through the east just about three blocks and you'll see the clinic we're going to open in July . Every Osage that can get involved in an education certified or accredited university or college we can pay up to $14,000 a year in their tuition and books .

We also have a career tech program where we will pay for that and also give them a small stipend monthly . Then we have Medicare supplements that we pay for our people if you have Medicare , which is a federal program for the elderly , and then we have burial assistance at $8,000 to help with the defray the cost of a funeral and burial .

And those are the big three programs that we have and after we fund those we get into . Oh well , how do we match what's left over from our casinos with the federal monies or private funds that we seek and to put into our program budgets like the Indian Child Welfare Act is a federal act that allows tribes . I think it's some federal money but not much .

But it allows the tribal nations . I've got to get away from tribes , tribal nations , because we are nations , we're political entities and we've been here since before the states , you know .

So how do we take these funds and fund a program like Indian Child Welfare where in 1978 and a little after that , the laws allows the tribes to intervene in a case where an Indian child is subject to removal from the home for whatever reason that a state says so , be it drugs , arrest , broken home , or usually they're all bad situations , my experience .

But instead of having those children put up for adoption , which was the case prior to the 70s , one-third the record will tell you of all Native American children were being put out for adoption . Yeah , australia too , going back to that . Well , that law allows us to pick up , and this is mostly in fact . I had a meeting earlier this morning about that .

How do we increase funding and get more people and travel money to go to the different counties just in Oklahoma and tell the court we're here under federal law and Oklahoma law . Now we can provide a foster home , which is an extended family member . We can provide a report to the court and we will work with the state social workers .

We can do this with you , with everybody , for the benefit and the best interest of the child , as they say , and get those children in safe environments with the goal of reuniting the family .

And there's all these methodologies that apply to that crazy complex world of trying to rescue our children and our families before it's present for tomorrow , and so that costs money and we have to pay for that . So what we do is we take after , we do our . This is just associated . Other tribes do it differently .

After we pay for our scholarship programs , after we pay for our health card , everybody gets a $500 to be increased later in the health card . Our elders have a Medicare supplement . How do we take care of that ? That's one program . Burial assistance All those things cost millions of dollars . So after we do that , what's left over from the gaming operations ?

We use that to match federal and private funds , and so there's the amount of money . Now , what's our budgets ? What do our budgets look like ? What's the request going to be now to my legislature 12 people . What are they going to appropriate from these funds to satisfy that budget ?

Which means , at my level here , we've got to cut that budget before it's submitted .

Quite a bit often because people say , well , in order to do what we need to do , it needs to be this or that , and I have to make the call that it's not going to be this or that , it's going to be much smaller , and so people have emotions about that , and that's normal .

But you've got to be able to withstand that criticism and say , for the greater good of our people , this is what I determine , and if you can't handle it , you have to collect somebody else . Yeah , yeah . So that's , that's the .

I think I just summed up the entire being being what I do , and it's it's the minuscule to the , the big picture stuff , both , and yeah you gotta have good people yeah , and you to let room for art and music dance . We're really big on that . You've got to have that , or it's all mundane and it's all sterile .

You've got to say , okay , well , some of this money that's left over we've got to commit to the puppet show . Or on their own . Our people get these giant puppets , you know , they're more than life-size and they get in , like the chinese puppet things , and they get in and they tell our creation story and other stories .

Or our dance maker , where we have actual classical ballet school . That's a private school here in town and we fund it through donations and or whatever , our museum . We have a museum . We want to expand . But one thing we've I've learned is you've got to have that ability to express

yourself in artistic form , even video , yeah , or it's just , we're just here and that's not . It's great to be here , it's great to have survived , but we've got to express ourselves . But we got to express ourselves , yeah , that's . That's . The big deal to me right now is how do we do that in a way that continues things , that makes people happy ?

because , damn it , there's too much depression , yeah , there's too much negativity and it's contagious yeah you know , you know just art can , can destroy that and rebuild the world in my opinion .

So my brother and I were exposed to fencing where we used the Italian foil or the French foil or the saber , and we did that as 14 , 15-year-olds because I was raised in Tulsa and they had these opportunities .

But here what we're trying to do is recreate best we can and we can't really just transplant communities and say , well , here it is , you've got to be patient , you've got to let people develop their own way and then , one thing our people have done . next to that new clinic you'll see an outdoor health trail with exercise machines all the way

through and it's rather large , over a mile , and in walking areas and you'll see all the outdoor health equipment . And then we have pickleball courts and basketball courts , and we just did this this last year , really , yeah , wow . And so people are participating , not just Native or Osages , but our community , community and so um .

So we found little places where we can't change the , the activities , get healthier . I didn't do that . That was a group of of those ages that said let's go do that . They came up here , chief , we want to do this . I will it 100% . That's a lot of what I do .

. I really cottoned on to your words before , at the start , where you said , beyond what you could even envision , oh yeah , if you create the conditions . I'm curious . Yeah , that's right . There's

so much happening at the same time as a result of that process . And I'm curious when you talk about the paradoxical role that you play as chief in terms of dealing with the United States political structures . We don't have an Air . Force you always have to remember that .

Yeah , exactly the reason we put it into the title where it says United States of America in

trust for the Osage Nation , because under federal law in this country , you have to fall into the treaty relationship and the federal relationship to not be subject to state taxation , state regulation , state control .

And so , even though you're under the federal system we are used to that , we understand that , and the states historically have been much more hostile than the federal relations . They both have their problems . Our sovereignty , as they say and I try to teach my people here at this staff level sovereignty is something that all governments have and all people have .

But you know how it manifests itself , is what we struggle with and what we believe in , and for us , well , it turned out to be expressed with the 43,000 acres in trust . It turns out to be expressed with the 43,000 acres in trust . It turns out to manifest itself with our language programs for our children .

It manifests itself in our existing and our strength and our culture , but it is , I guess , theoretically , and this is Western world training I've had . I was a lawyer for many years and I did a lot of work for a lot of tribes .

I look at it and , as some others have said better than me , that sovereignty consists of an internal sovereignty and an external sovereignty and an external sovereignty .

And one thing I'm working on this morning is the relationship between the state and us , as Osage and other tribes , on taxation of tobacco products and able to issue our own license tags and use of the state turnpike system .

All have their own differences and similarities and on the turnpike , for example , our people are using it without a pike pass , they call it , and the turnpike authority is an instrumentality of the state . They want their money and so we have said , well , it's true , our people use that , let's work out an agreement .

And they said , okay , well , here's an agreement . And our lawyers come back and say , well , here's a modified from that . This is different . And I got involved and I go go . Why are you all talking in your agreements about sovereignty ? This is nothing about sovereignty , this is a business deal . Can't you give us a fleet right ? Can't we start looking at it ?

Because anytime you throw sovereignty out there and you only see this in the external relations with the uh , other tribes , counties , cities , federal government , when you start throwing sovereignty in there . That's dangerous Because once sovereignty is tied up in an

event that doesn't have to be qualified as a sovereign event , it could be a business transaction Like just give us a fleet rate , you know , like we were a trucking company , and then let's negotiate the arrearage , but let's find out , how did you determine that arrearage , you know ?

So that's where we are on that issue the smoke shops and our individual smoke shop owners , et cetera . That's got its own world . And then we have the license tag general issue .

And those are all where the state and the nation have to act as sovereigns and have to determine how much of that external sovereignty will we concede , how much will you concede in order to enforce an agreement with each other and for how long . And it's dangerous If you're not careful and you end up in court .

The court can be hostile and we have experienced that where some of the tribes in Oklahoma . They have large , re-recognized , reaffirmed reservations in legal theory and on paper and now they have to supply the law enforcement and they're getting deeper and deeper into that . The Osage had a case in the year 2010 where they put that sovereignty out there and lost .

So our reservation and where our jurisdiction , our authority to govern , occurs , is extremely limited within these lands . Where we're sitting now is federal land in trust for the Osage Nation , and it has been since this spot here . It was in 1906 , and prior to that it's 1872 , when we finally were removed into Oklahoma from our previous journeys , survivors of war .

So you've just got to understand these elements

and how they behave , and nobody can do it alone . You've got to count on divine intervention a lot , really . Yeah , uh , yeah . This this is like yeah , I mean you can't . You can't figure this stuff out . I don't care who you are , but you've got to recognize certain commonality in concept and conversation to even get to an agreement .

Like you know , I mean rudimentary we agreed this is a table , right ? Well , where'd that come from ? You know ? I mean , I've got photos here on the wall . I'll show you . My family back in the 20s were eating . They didn't eat on tables , they sat on the ground . I've got photographs here . They did that stuff .

One of my cousins she's older than me when we were little she was always so mad because some of these old folks would use their hands to eat on everything and she

went to a private school , julia , and she was like , oh , our people are so crude and you know she was prim and proper , but we've been doing that thousands of years now . I use a fork and knife and all that . But you understand that I love air conditioning , especially in this heat , and I like easy water and electricity .

But , as the old folks , the old Indians , used to tell me , why do you want to be like we were and our parents and grandparents ? We didn't have air conditioning , we didn't have penicillin , we didn't have this , this , this . You know what are you doing ? I said , well , I guess it just sounds cool to be an Indian . He said , well , we are Indians .

And you know , I'm telling , telling you , it's a hard , hard world . So that's , that's that . Gotta take that view too . Yeah , yeah . So I owe to count your blessings .

I guess that's the moral of the story yeah , I'm so curious on so many levels with how you navigate that if the situation is upon you , you know like you're in a stream , you want to get in the water and watch a small river and you see a stream within a stream like over here you can go , over here . You can usually do that .

That's where the fish are , you know . Run a little different . You can feel the difference in the pressure right . Oh yeah , yeah , you can go . Oh okay , I don't want to get over there , I'll be swept away . Same thing , you just go ahead and go well .

And they know how I think about chasing . Futility is something I will not tolerate . If we're making progress , no matter how difficult it is , reinforce that , get behind it , move forward , but I will cut bait and leave in a heartbeat if it's not going anywhere .

Yes , we have really good relationships with some of the people within the federal government . One of them called me this morning and said I'm going to need to review my ethics letter regarding Osage because he was one of our attorneys for 11 years , so we'll

sit down and work that out . He's high up in the Department of Interior . He's high up in the Department of Interior , selected to be there . So we have people we know , but in the meantime , you can't just rely on that because they can come in and do what they want .

The defense is self-sufficiency , economic self-sufficiency , and when we say the federal government , everybody agrees on political self-determination , then what you have to do is get behind that and you've got to mean it and say we will defend it . And what are you talking about now ?

We're talking about our way of life and we're talking about territory , because in order to do any of this sovereignty , external and internal . You've got to have your territory that you're talking about . This is us as a people , this is our language , we still have it , we're rebuilding it and this is our territory .

So , even though we walk into the contradiction of in trust for the Osage , you've got to understand what that means . In trust , there's an obligation in the United States to recognize certain treaties , certain other actions .

But you don't want to rely on that because then , if you get in front of the judges , the judges may say , well , that used to be the rule , so you can't take anything for granted . The only defense is self-sufficiency . So I mean , that is it .

Otherwise , people should not be surprised if the federal government comes in and says well , we're going to do what we did in Alaska . We're going to create corporations , tribal corporations , and you can have your tribal entities as governments , but all your resources are being transferred to corporate entities .

That's one idea that's still circulating in Washington DC to , as they say , get out of the Indian business . Where's the exit ramp ? Now , that's a because under no , here's the exit ramp .

You know , that's a because under under the law at spring court of the United States decisions , there is a lot of unilateral authority from the United States Congress and President called plenary power .

It's like a one-way street almost to unilaterally modify the treaties and other arrangements because it's in the national interest of the United States , and I've watched that since I was a young lawyer . I saw this happen in court many decades ago in the Japanese internment cases .

I don't know if you knew this , but American citizens that were of Japanese descent were placed in camps .

And so when you dig into that line of thinking and you look at reasoning and action and you look at other activities of the Native Americans , what we have , you can see , or I can see at least . If it's determined to be in the national interest , anything is possible . So my advice is to be ready and we've got to expand our .

So I said , our butcher house , our harvest land . Look at these as pilot projects . Let's become self-sufficient , otherwise we are internally weak in our sovereignty . We're internally weak , which makes us weak when we try to expand or protect ourselves externally . That's how I see it and that's how I act . We are really at risk right now .

The world is changing and we could be collateral damage , not even targeted as being part of the thing .

It's just like my child care director said Secretary of Child Care and all that she says we got this $10 million , we're trying to consolidate , make it more flexible , but we can't really say it's going to be there in three or four months , because we don't know what Washington DC is going to do , and it's not just on us .

It's not just on us , it's just the larger program . It's like our broadband . If it's cut at a national level , we would be like our solar power project was cut . It wasn't directed at us , it was directed nationwide at funding a program cutting all these renewable energy programs .

We had a solar power project down in Hominy , near the , where the butcher house is , and it was caught up in that and they clawed back . They said they called it , clawed back the money it already had been appropriated by the United States Congress . It's there . It was sitting along with other governments not just tribal , but other governments in accounts .

I think it was Citibank , I'm not sure which bank it was , but it was already there and we were just one of many . And when they cut that out , clawed it back . End of solar project , end of contracts , end of aspirations of using that solar power . Just done . That happened a couple months ago .

So we've got we have like other projects that we've got to keep an eye on if it happens and they claw it back . There's not a whole lot you can do . So what you got to do is look for alternatives . The only alternative it makes sense to me is self-sufficiency , but damn , that's hard . Yeah , I mean , of course , right , yeah , so I don't have an answer .

them from the government and we fund them , no strings attached . But you've got to be aware and I know some of them are that the money comes from our legislature , 12 members , and that is not always a unified group and , in my view , some of them , and some of them , as we do- me are not always in a rose garden .

, see that .

But we've got to have alternatives , and this is what I'm talking about . I don't mean alternative newspapers . I mean alternative methods of communication methods communication right with you .

We have tens of thousands of abandoned wells and many of them are orphaned , which means no one knows who owns them because they're all 1920s and so forth . Craig is the administrator under Jan of another federal grant to plug these orphaned wells which are leaking . But the amount of ? We have a lot of hope that this will continue .

I think you'll find that interesting that we are doing the well plugging even though we're not getting hardly any money from oil production or gas production . That's mostly gone really yeah . So what

they've left us is tens of thousands of abandoned wells . So when we bought that 43,000-acre ranch and put it into trust , one of the delays to put it in trust is the federal government said well , we can't take it in trust , it's going to be under our name , united States of America .

In trust , that means environmental laws can come on to us and force us to clean up . And my response was well , it happened under your watch during the 1920s , 30s , 40s , 50s , 60s . You allowed all this to happen , and now we want to put it in federal trust . Get out of the state of oklahoma's breach . Um , you've got to , uh , work with us on this .

But they are plugging tens of thousands of wells but sometimes one of these wells can cost over $100,000 . That's the worst case scenario , over $100,000 . That's the worst case scenario . But the bonds that were posted under the leases through almost to now was $5,000 . If you want to do an oil and gas lease , you go .

Okay , I'll post a bond according to federal regulations , $5,000 . If I pull out , my bond will pay for the cleanup . That normally doesn't cover it . But just go ahead and ask Jan about it if Craig's not there about the well-plugging program , because that again it shows that crazy contradiction of relations between the federal government and the tribes and industry .

It's just nuts . It's really fascinating . It's really fascinating . Keeps it interesting .

And this one of the Osages had all that money . Yeah , under the 1920s money , yeah , wow , look at that . But here's the family . These are all in my drawer . One of our employees made copies , so I just donated them to look at that see that's family , family lunch . When are we talking ?

yeah , here's another one , I wonder , late 1920s yeah , I wonder , how much else do you carry that sense of your ancestors in what you do and how has it shaped what you do ?

So you see certain words and stuff and we're all familiar enough , because that generation is my grandparents' generation . So we heard it and we knew some of the words and we know some of the words . But as we get further and further into it , we have a lot of resources , a lot of recordings .

it . We're very fortunate to have a good record .

a big fan of mine well , you know it that's why I tell everyone just yeah you know , it . I mean , you're human and you know she's a lot more positive , she's younger , she's the future . Go get them .

. And then , about the same time , I had the 45 of Nancy Sinatra . These Boots Are Made For Walking . Well , I went from there , the Beach Boys to Jimi Hendrix , and that was quite a leap . And the Cream , yeah , and Blind Faith , and yeah , just the whole thing .

Join us , get additional stuff and help keep the show going by heading to the website or the show notes and following the prompts . Thank you . Next up we meet with Dr Jann Hayman , the Nation's Secretary of Natural Resources , for another fascinating conversation about what all this means on the ground , through her lens and her musical hand too .

The music you're hearing now is Regeneration by Amelia Barden . My name's Anthony James . Thanks for listening . Thanks , Jason , you're welcome . Real pleasure , pleasure meeting you . You're a listener to Mitch Ryder of the Detroit Wheels .