Our Water Walkers

Michael Smith Jr. graciously shared a traditional teaching about the origins and purpose of copper with the Nigaane Bizindamoo-Makak production team.  In this episode he speaks to the role of water walkers and protectors of the earth and how they utilize copper in their work.

What is The Waterers?

a series of stories and reflections shared across generations. These episodes were created by young artists seeking to honor stories shared with them by family members across the state of Minnesota.

Speaker 1: 00:00

Our water walkers, our treaty protectors, our treaty defenders, they use these tools, these to help protect our water, to carry it from one place to another, to purify it. And there's prophecies that speak about a time when that water would become undrinkable, the medicines would be unusable, and everything would be you couldn't use it. And what those prophecies are talking about partially is that time of the black snake. We know that now as the pipeline. That snake, that Ganabeg, the Makadee Ganabeg, that black snake, and Chee Ganabeg, the Esquabeg Ganabeg that they fight, that some of that poison, that medicine that she put in there didn't want to go away, and so it turned itself into something like her.

Speaker 1: 01:06

And so she still will chase that around.