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The Road To Your Name Podcast series grew out of a program started by Aboriginal Legal Services (ALS) in 2016 that helped people going through the justice system and their families to strengthen and deepen their cultural connections. Host, Lisa VanEvery, examines many aspects of Haudenosaunee culture and teachings with a wide range of guests.
RTYN Season 05 Ep 10
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[00:00:00]
lisa: Welcome to the Road to Your Name podcast Joha Day and on today's episode, we're joined by a youth. It's been a long time, I think, since we've had a youth on the podcast, and I like to associate with the youth every once in a while. On today's podcast, we have Cody Looking Horse, and Cody is a youth from.
Six nations of the Grand River, but his ancestry is Six Nations, is Hoda, Noone and Lakota. And I'll let him introduce himself further. But welcome to the podcast, Cody.
cody: Hello everybody. It's nice to meet you all.
lisa: And just introduce yourself a
cody: bit more. Okay. So I would like to introduce myself in and it's something I usually do when I go public speaking places or when I'm meeting people through Zoom meetings.
So[00:01:00]
Six Nations Confederacy. So what I said was, the translation to that was Shake your hand with a good heart. I come from the Six Nations Confederacy. I am 24 years old. I am from the Shine River two tribe of South Dakota. And I am, and I'm hoping your guys are all having a great day.
lisa: Wow. It just warms my heart to hear the youth speak their language.
I'm such a language advocate, let's say that. Yeah. I'm learning my language too at my age because my grandparents didn't teach me when it was time to teach me when I was young, and we all know why that was, but I just hope that more youth. Learn their language, even a few words. [00:02:00] How did you begin to learn your language?
cody: I think through ceremony and grassroots events and organizations that my mom worked for, and I was always surrounded by ceremony, either a lot on my father's side when I would go to Sundances with him. And I would hear these songs, these beautiful Lakota songs, and I would watch the men sing and I told myself, I want to be like that.
When I grow up. I want to be like them. And I started my interest in the language really young. I just learned, and my cousins, my tahi and my aunties and my uncles would teach me just Lakota words when I am visiting in the summertime. And then I do want to go to college for it. That's why I want to go to college in South Dakota.
There's a really good Lakota language program out there. I read about them all the time, but I have so much good opportunities in [00:03:00] Canada. A lot, you know, just a lot of. The groundwork that I do with my company is in Canada, so I'm always just visiting. But visiting South Dakota, I always feel like there's a whole other culture that I need to reclaim, and so that's why I know a lot of Mohawk, but I just felt like there's just feeling of reclaiming a tongue.
That, that I can speak very well and I just want to fulfill my dreams of becoming a dancer or a singer for my people and mm-hmm.
lisa: Oh wow, that's really great. And the more youth need to discover that, that there, that they do have, A language of their ancestors and maybe start to reclaim that. Cody is a facilitator and a public speaker and an influencer.
I'm really excited to hear about all of that. [00:04:00] I don't know too much about being an influencer, but we'll talk about all of that. Now, let's talk about, first, I guess I have seen you on social media and. The first time? No. Let's go back a ways. When I first met you when you were in elementary school, I remember that.
I don't know if you remember that. I didn't
cody: know. Was it through Gok? Yes.
lisa: Okay. Yeah. I think you were at Go the immersion
cody: school. That's where you seem familiar
lisa: from. Yeah. Lori Galin. I came, came into the schools and did projects with the kids and we paired you with elders. Yeah. Remember? And then you interviewed
cody: elders and we a.
Arne General was my
lisa: elder. Oh yeah. And then we developed a book of the stories that the youth gathered. So yeah, that's the first time I met you. That was like, oh my goodness. How many years ago was that? It was so long ago. Yeah. So long ago. And then I would see you on social media and you [00:05:00] would be writing in the Dakotas in a blizzard.
On a horse and it was a ride that a lot of people did. Could you tell me about that?
cody: Yeah, that would be the Dakota 38 ride and we ride to honor our ancestors that were hung December 26th, the Dakota Chiefs by Abraham Lincoln. And we, it's month long ride and we ride from lower rural South Dakota to Manka, Minnesota in remembrance in honoring our relatives and our ancestors that were passed away.
On that day and making our pain into medicine, into strength for our next seven generations.
lisa: And how long is the ride between those two dis those two places?
cody: Probably it's a month long, so it's. We start around December 1st and we ride until December 26th. Wow. [00:06:00]
lisa: And it's pretty cold at that time of the year in that part of the, of Turtle Island,
cody: isn't it?
Yep. And we, you know, it happened not too long ago. It happened 1862. We weren't seen as human beings to the native people. And this is a part of the Dakota Rising and, uh, revolution of colonialism. And genocide, and this is a very big act of Abraham Lincoln. He freed the slaves, but he hung he was responsible for the largest mass execution in America to this date, and he wasn't a good person.
And that's why a lot of people in the schools try to make him out to be a very good person. He freed the slaves. That's not a very, that's decent. But he didn't appreciate the people of the land that we had so much to offer. And we did make treaties with the colonial government and they broke everyone.
They [00:07:00] broke all the treaties. I remember the Fort Leman Treaty and we were supposed to get food education and shelter and they. Gave us none of that. They didn't follow through with it. And all they wanted was our land. And they forced us by starvation to sign these treaties that they've never upheld and they broke every single one.
And we just had to deal with that. And then residential schools came out and it really messed up our people. But we are the generation that are picking the pieces up.
lisa: And how many times have you done this ride?
cody: We've done it about. Personally. Yeah, I went on it from I was 13 to when I was about 18. Wow.
And I would do the W Knee Massacre ride. Some years we would go back and forth because the W Knee massacre is the largest. Massacre to our Lakota people and that was [00:08:00] 1200 women and children and there was no men there. And they said people, it was a battle, but it wasn't a battle. It was a massacre of, it was a genocide of our people and there was just elders there.
So I really feel like there were stripping us of our language, our culture identity, our land, and we are still so strong. If we look at the youth we. Really did win on our youth are so caring and want to see our people thrive. And I work with youth almost every other day. Every single day facilitating, and I'm very proud of our people, of how loving we are, how nurturing we are still because we went through, our grandparents went through genocide and my father went through genocide because my father was a part of the boarding school.
And, uh, he didn't have a name. He was, uh, number seven for a long time. [00:09:00] And that's the way they treat animals. I'm the first generation away from that and I have to deal with the self-esteem issues. The, my sister, for a very long time, she couldn't go to the bathroom by herself when she was a young girl and she thought somebody was gonna come get her, and I just really, you know, looked it over my shoulder and just was there and kept her company.
But I. Come to realize doing the work that I do. And my mom brought that up and I was like, yeah, I had to stand outside and wait for her. And the more I read about residential schools, they would take the kids away and do really bad things to them. So I feel like that's just the aftershock, it's a blood memory.
And I feel we still, that's the type of things that we don't look at, you know what I mean? And that we can. Still remember these things, even though it didn't happen directly to us, it happened to our grandparents. But I've come to [00:10:00] realize how horrible that was to comfort. I'm comforting my sister, that's just a just one generation away from boarding school.
It's still very well in us and they get a lot of these programs. A lot of people try to make our native youth very bad, but I feel like we're just really misunderstood.
lisa: Yeah. It's really interesting though the way that the young people now, some of them don't even know about residential school, but yet still affected because residential school affected entire communities and entire nations of people.
cody: It put us into a depression.
lisa: Yeah. And into a depression. A trauma, traumatic depression. So let's move along then and talk about the next time I met you, which was just recently in the wintertime, in the work I do [00:11:00] in the justice system. So can you talk a little bit about
cody: that? Yeah, that was really interesting.
Yeah, that just little short bit of my life there, just my consequences catching up to me and it's just driving charges, but something to learn from and I feel like it just, this whole thing just is. Got me to sit still and really, I always felt like I was going through life just really fast and at a fast pace, and I feel like this is a creator's way of just chill out.
It was really interesting. I'm going to the gym. Like almost every day I got a full-time job. And at that time when I did get in trouble, I wasn't happy. I was in a very toxic relationship. I was on welfare. I was. Did not have hopes and [00:12:00] dreams. I, my mental health was not great at that time. My decisions that night, I thought that were the best decisions and turned out not to be.
Luck runs out and I feel like we all just need to grow up and realize. Build foundations, and that's what I'm doing now.
lisa: What happens to you That you can get off the track a little bit. Right. And And that's what happened to you and that was your first experience in the justice system. Yeah. And what did you think about the justice system when you were going through there?
cody: I thought it was really difficult. And it, I felt like I felt between the cracks a lot with services that were supposed to help me. Not having a status card was a lot of it. I couldn't get help, I couldn't get funding. But luckily I got a really good job with the organization now, so [00:13:00] I don't have to worry about that kind of stuff.
But yeah, I felt like. I really, until I met my judge was probably the best to me ever. She was super nice
lisa: to me. You have your own personal judge.
cody: Yeah, I know. She was
lisa: awesome. The justice, my judge, no.
cody: Yeah, like I was very intimidated. I did not know what was gonna go on.
lisa: Yeah, because that's an intimidating place, especially for a youth, a courtroom, right?
Yeah. Because they're all speaking a different terminology, language, and they all know what they're talking about, but the person who's coming in doesn't know what they're talking about. Yeah. Right. And you, you decided that you wanted a circle in your process, and we can do that in this. Part of Turtle Island in Brantford, where we have indigenous people's court and they do have indigenous people's court in other parts of the province of Ontario as well.
So you experienced a circle [00:14:00] and what was that
cody: like for you? Yeah, it's something that I wanted to talk about and I feel like it's really good that we have that. And my dad was really surprised when we walked in and he's seen the judge get off her pedestal and come sit down with the eagle feather and smudge and get on our level and talk about our feelings.
And a lot of they don't have that. And. The states, and I think that my cousins don't experience that when they go to jail, if anything happens, they go straight to jail. A lot of my cousins, I feel like, need better support systems. Yeah. I was really lucky to have that.
lisa: And did you feel like when it was over, did you feel that they listened to you, your voice was
cody: heard?
Yeah, very much. It was definitely heard. I felt compassion from my judge and the crown [00:15:00] and it, I didn't feel like it was an unsafe place. So yeah, I felt it was okay and it was a hard time, definitely. I just went through a breakup before that, like days before that, and then I was like, it was just a hard day, but.
Could have been worse. And I feel like I'm really grateful the way it played
lisa: out. Yeah. It's difficult to go through that and access those feelings in such a foreign place. Yeah. But, but I think the feeling there was that we're all on your team. We want you to succeed. Mm-hmm. We want you to get back on the right track, and it seems as if you have gotten back on the right track.
So tell us what you're doing now. With your new job and,
cody: and Yeah. I'm doing so much. It's crazy. So my days are looking like meetings from nine to five. I work at home, I [00:16:00] facilitate a digital program, and I will be. Might be facilitating in Digitech, I just do icebreakers and activities with the youth. I get my friends that are facilitators from all over to come in and speak to the youth about a Lakota winter count or the language or smoke dancing the art.
Their artwork, they're, whether they're a physical artist or a lyrical artist or a poet, we're allowed to bring artists of all kinds. And the digital program is a two month program, and I'm a TikTok marketing influencer now for them officially. And I'm a part of the social media team, the marketing team, and we did some videos talking about the in digital program and.
That got that. Got a lot of views, got a lot of likes, but like overnight like that, we had a meeting the next day and my social media manager said [00:17:00] that we had five more participants sign up for our digital program since we posted it. So that was really good. That made me feel super good. It made me feel like I was doing something right again, and I get to facilitate sometimes and they want me to talk about topics or pieces and it's either indigenous issues.
I'm making safe spaces for the LGBTQ or anything they want me to talk about and talk with the youth about either hard topics like missing and murder, indigenous women, youth suicide, indigenous issues, um, whatever they want me to tackle. I'm their guy that let's indigenous and can talk about it with our indigenous students.
Yeah, I got a new puppy and that's keeping me busy. So I'm su I go to the gym almost every day. I just, I'm so busy with the meetings and then the gym, walking my puppy between meetings and um, and what's your
lisa: puppy's name? His
cody: name's Bear. Oh, okay. His name's [00:18:00] Mato. That's Bear in Lakota.
lisa: Oh, okay. And where is the puppy
cody: he's at?
He's at school. He's at, he is gone till the end of the month. I miss him so much. Oh, he's gone
lisa: to learn how to
cody: be, he's a really big dog. He's huge. German Shepherd. He's like really huge for 12 weeks and that's what those people said. I feel He's as spar training camp. To learn to sit and not bite people and jump on people, basically.
Okay. That's why my mom sent him and he's a really big dog, so we just want him to have good manners. He has a thing with men too, like with women, he don't mind, but I just find like when like plumbers or like people like, come on. He just goes crazy and just,
lisa: okay, okay. Maybe he's maybe a good
cody: guard dog, but.
Oh, that's where I got 'em. I'll feel safer if I get a, if I get a new car. Cuz you live on the res, right? Yeah, [00:19:00] that's always when I like worries. I was like, what if someone just gonna like smash out my like tires and then now I got a dog. So it's the best security. I don't gotta worry about nothing on my property.
lisa: Yeah, dogs are great security. Tell me a little bit more so I can understand just what an influencer is. I've heard that word before. Yeah, but I'm not really sure what that entails. I
cody: don't either. A lot of influencers don't like the word influencer. I don't really know what it means. I've looked it up, but it's still, I need a better.
I feel like being well known is all right, but that's pretty, like, it just gives materialistic vibes. But like at the same time, I am a content creator for my work and also I've always been a content creator. I am, I did a lot of activism when I was younger, so, mm-hmm. It all started with a standing rock in [00:20:00] 2016, and I was just about 17 years old, and I started working with that.
I started working with indigenous. International Indigenous Youth Council, and it was an organization that led a lot of non-violent direct actions and I started becoming a part of that clique. And then I started traveling with them and just, you know, working with them, getting my platform up. And then, yeah, I started getting a platform on Facebook and.
Just, I would post my modeling content. I'd do some acting and modeling and just all the stuff together people follow. And yeah, it really comes in handy when you're, I went on a missing and murdered indigenous women's ride because my cousin went missing and murdered that year, and we were doing something about it.
And we would run outta hay and we would run out of like funds for our horses and I just put a, a [00:21:00] call out and put up a GoFundMe and a lot of that money lasted us the whole ride. And we would sell shirts. We would sell merch. So the activism stuff I do with traveling, like it really helps out when people are there to support you.
On your mission or your journey.
lisa: So if I were to ask you, which I'm gonna ask you, what does Cody looking horse stand for? What would you say?
cody: I would stand for indigenous issues, indigenous sovereignty, self-love for mother earth, mother earth rights, individual rights, sovereignty for our nation, and we're getting mobile sovereignty with my company.
So I'm learning a lot about that, but that's not me. But I'm gonna be teaching it soon. But yeah, sovereignty, data sovereignty, yeah, that's something that we're gonna be talking about. But what do I stand for? I stand for peace. I really, [00:22:00] I. Would like Mother Earth to be at a well decent state. We have global warming, which is crazy and nobody's doing nothing about it, but I stand for peace as well, so I don't try to get caught up in all of that, and I stand for our next step in generations.
I'm always making sure that my, uh, my extended family, my relatives, my young, my younger brothers and sisters are doing okay. You know what I mean? I stand for, in inspiring people, facilitating. I stand for, uh, getting our people to be their best selves. They're au authentic selves without being afraid of being who they are.
You
lisa: stand for a lot. Yeah, I talk
cody: about this a lot with the work
lisa: I do all good things though. Yeah. All good things.
cody: Yeah.
lisa: It's really been gratifying for me to listen to you talk about, [00:23:00] World issues, indigenous issues and things that you are striving and working for to make better in the world as a youth?
Yeah. I'm really blessed. We need, we need more youth to be doing this type of work. I
cody: think there is a lot of youth and different organizations I'm meeting that are working towards this. But I really feel like that I have a youth council and they're, they are influencers. There's a girl with a bachelor's degree in the language, bachelor's in architect.
This guy, this one guy. And they're all just really deadly people that these youth that I really feel like that are gonna lead are young ones. And I feel like we need more programs to get more youth engaged and active in their communities. And I see a lot in different ways. There was a conference that I was able to set up a booth at.
It was called the BE Conference. And my [00:24:00] organization, my company asked me to go there, set up a booth and get engagement with the youth. And I'm part of the, I'm on the engagement board and I'm basically the number one person, just basically one or two people that they send, and it's me to go engage with the youth.
The indigenous youth to send into reservations and mm-hmm. My boss told me he's, he has plans for me to go to VU and all these secluded reservations and talk about in digital, in our programs, and just basically get engaged youth with our programs. Mm.
lisa: Okay. So if some youth are listening and they wanna become involved in peaceful activation, Yeah.
Oh. And if they wanna become involved in peaceful activism, you can share with them what you do. How would they reach you on your social media?
cody: My social, my Instagram is wolo Cota with two A's, and that means peace. And [00:25:00] there's a big teaching my dad has on Wolo Cota fighting Wolo, COTA in your life, in your heart, on your journey.
And I just always looked up to that. And. Yeah, I had some lady tell me my spirit animal was a deer. Like long time ago, and I guess a deer stands for peace, so I've always just took that name upon myself and nobody told me no. So I just took it on my Instagram name and my Facebook is Cody Chenko Wata. And it means looking horse and Lakota and I think like Facebook is, cuz that's my biggest platform.
And there was like a couple years ago because I think it's just ridiculous about how much likes and shares you can get and then people just get so jealous. Or my family started treating me weird, so I put my NA last name in Lakota so people wouldn't find me, but people still [00:26:00] find me, and I still get a lot of engagement.
But it's cool, like it's there when I do activism or if I send out a GoFundMe, people will donate and that's what it's for. And it's not, I'm not a clout chaser. Never really wanted to be like, I think that my dad's really famous. And I, it's always intimidated. Me being famous always scared me and that's why on Facebook I stopped posting a little bit just cuz I, I like things so private in my private life and when I date people, that's why I don't post 'em.
And it's cuz you know, I'm really private and I don't feel like I need to share you with my 2000 followers on Instagram that don't even know me then that they're in a whole other country or whatever.
lisa: So you keep your personal life and your private life separate. Yeah. And a lot of people do that. Yeah,
cody: I would like to.
It's way better. And I've done it before and it's nice. It's cute. But what do other people's [00:27:00] validations have to offer? I just want to be sure about who I'm with, and I don't really need no validations from anybody else. I feel like, yeah, I've always been like that. I give people the one year trial before and sometimes it doesn't last that long, and sometimes they're not the one before I make any serious decisions, and it's not really shallow because you don't really know somebody.
Until when you see them at your worst. So I feel like that's just from experience because there's been relationships where I just jumped into it and you find out who they really are and it's not pretty. I really, I try to give people one year and I try to see them at their worst and their best and you know, and try to love them through it.
And if I can't, if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. I'm not gonna hold any grudges. I have a lot of trust issues, but I don't hold grudges. I, I don't want my neck getting sore, looking at the past, like I'm gonna move forward like our buffalo [00:28:00] cause we're the buffalo people
lisa: and relationships are very complicated, sometimes.
Very complicated. Especially when you're a youth. Yeah. Yeah. Anything else you'd like to add before we say .
cody: Thank you guys for stopping by. This has been a nice visit. Yeah, let's do it again sometime and Okay. I'll be up to way more stuff
lisa: too. So Yahweh for joining us on this episode of Joha The Road To Your name podcast.