Transitional Story

Old Camp, New Camp

When we were talking about the strategy at the university, I was wondering how do a group of people transform, and how does that transformation come about? What’s the story? So, as I thought about oral narratives of knowledge, I came upon the one that we use. That was the Lone Chief story about moving to new camp. So how did we move to new camp and include the environment and everybody that we were related to? There were three camps involved: old camp, present camp, and new camp. How did they all move and change, and how did those three concepts come about? New camp is what we always tried to get to, because we’re always at present camp, and we all came from old camp. When I was listening to the story, there was an old-timer and an old lady one time who were in present camp. When the group decided to move to a new camp, they were getting to the age where they couldn’t haul their stuff, and they needed help. Everybody got ready and started moving. The scouts had already gone out to find someplace safe where they could temporarily camp until they got to the new camp. So the old man and old lady were caught being last. And in them days, they travelled with dog travois. One of their dogs, a female, just had pups, and they couldn’t take the pups with them, and they couldn’t use the female on the journey, so they just left them there. They took what they could—their tipi and all that—and left whatever else was there. They then followed the whole camp to the present camp.

When they all got there, the old-timer was thinking about his dogs. “I left my dogs and some of my stuff at old camp,” and he was talking about relatives and how he let them down, how he couldn’t look after them, and so on. He felt bad about it. So the next morning he told the old lady, “Well, we’re going to be here a few days, so I’m going to go back and see if I can find the dogs and some more of our stuff, and they can come back.” So he went back to old camp. When he got back to old camp, all that was left, and all he could see, were the tipi rings of the lodges in the camp. He knew where his lodge was, but there was just the tipi ring left.¹

So it was in the evening, and he called his dogs—the female and the pups—but none of them was around. So he made a fire and made himself something to eat. He said, “Well, I’m going to sleep where I used to sleep. Even though there’s no tipi, it’s a warm night. I’m just going to sleep outside.” So he had something to eat. Then he left some food out for the dogs in case they came, and he went to sleep. In his sleep, he dreamt that he was in his tipi. The tipi was up, and he was home. And this young man came in, and he said, “Lone Chief is inviting you to a feast and a dance.” And the old man said, “Okay, tell Lone Chief I’ll be right there.” And then he went out, and he thought to himself “I’m too tired. Maybe I’ll skip this one.” And he lay down again. Then another young man came in and said, “Lone Chief’s inviting you.” So four times he was asked. In our way, if you’re asked four times, then you have to go. So, after the fourth request, he said, “Oh, okay, I guess I have to go, because there’s four of them.” And that’s where that cycle of four was represented.

He followed the last young man, and came out of his tipi, and walked across camp. All the other tipis were up. He followed them into Lone Chief’s camp. When he went in, it was a big camp. Lone Chief sat up front with his wife, and all the other young men were on each side. He went in, and Lone Chief asked him to sit beside him. He sat up at the front beside Lone Chief. Lone Chief said, “All these young people came together to help the old people. The ones who are having a hard time. You should have asked us. When you guys were going to move, you should have told us that you didn’t have help. We would have given you help.” And then he said, “But now, tonight, we’re going to make it formal. We’re going to have our relatives come in.” And the relatives were all the animals and plants. “They are going to come into this lodge, and we’re going to put together a framework of an organization, a society, so this society can go with your camp, and we use it [the society] to help all the old-timers.” So they formed what they call the Brave Dog Society. They talked about how they would dress, how they would use paint, what kind of rattles they would use, and how they would sit in a circle. They talked about who would become the leader, who would be the communicator, who could look after logistics, and who would be the members. All that organizational structure comes from an oral tradition. Each time they came together in circle, they sang the song for their society, and then Lone Chief gave that song to the old man, and he accepted it.

The [ceremony] went on all night, and then they had something to eat. And then the old man said, “Well, I’m going to go back to my camp. I’ve got to rest because I’m heading out to new camp” or what will become present camp. And then he left the old camp or Lone Chief’s camp. He went across to his own lodge, and he fell asleep. And the next morning he woke up, and just the fire was there. There was no lodge. He was out in the open, and he was sleeping inside the rock circle of his tipi, but the dogs were all back. The pups and the female were all back by the fire. So, anyway, he picked up what he needed. He picked up the pups, and then he started hauling them back from old camp. The female followed all the way back to “new” becoming “present-day” camp. As he was walking back to this camp, he heard these brave dogs singing their song. He then realized that he had put the pups in a bag and thrown them over his back. They were singing. He listened and learned those songs all the way back. He finally got to the new “present-day” camp, and everybody came back out. They said, “Somebody’s coming into camp.” So the scouts came out, and here they recognized “That’s the old man who was here and left already.” So they were glad to see him. And he said, “Don’t touch me, because I went through a transformation.”

Lone Chief was actually a dog, and the young people in this camp were all dogs, and he told his people, “They transferred to me the strategic plan for the Brave Dog Society. So now I’m a member of the Brave Dog Society. You can’t touch me. You need to build a sweat lodge for me. Once I have come out of the sweat, you can touch me.” He said, “The young people in camp have to build the lodge for me.” So the scouts went back, and they brought all the young people out, and they built a sweat lodge for him, and he started telling them the story. He started transferring to the leadership of the Brave Dog Society. He organized them all into that framework, and then they prepared a sweat lodge for him. He went in, and the leaders went in with him. He transferred the society framework to them, and then they became Brave Dogs. So, every time they make a sweat lodge or a smudge inside a camp, the leader of Brave Dogs would say, “Okay, I’m making this smudge. I’m transforming all of you into dogs. You’re all related. You are all relatives now: grandparents, older brothers, younger sisters, and so on. In this circle, you become the Brave Dog Society relatives.”

He shared this new framework with the rest of the camp, and other young people wanted to join this new society. So, when they were planning for new camp, and how to get to the new camp, they said, “We’ll have an extra society that’s going to help all the old people move.” So, when I thought of that story, the old camp was where we looked for stories [when developing the University of Calgary Indigenous Strategy]. We consulted with everybody, and we met with the Elders and the university. So that was the knowledge that old Chief had. Before he was inviting this old man, he was collecting all those stories. When he brought the stories to present-day camp, he said, “Don’t touch me until I go through a ceremony of bringing home the stories.” When you bring home the stories, you have to analyze them. And, as he was analyzing them, that’s when he made the framework for the new society to follow and transform into. And the seasons were part of that group. So then there was an annual visitation to that ceremony so that they can have it four times.

And that’s how they moved to present-day camp. But they’re using that as a framework for new camp when we’re planning for new camp. So, when we say we’re going to always be in transition, that means we’re always going to be moving to new camp. We need to develop these [frameworks] at present-day camp and practise them as we [transform]. . . . Then they [frameworks] will work for new camp. So that was going back to an oral narrative of how we would look at oral systems of building strategies and transforming people to move ahead. But, at the same time, the environment and life exist all the time. It’s going to be rotating all the time. And that new camp is always in that future rotation. You’ll be always working toward it.

Oral Teaching, Piikani Elder Dr. Reg Crowshoe