♫ Flute music playing ♫
My name is Fern Naomi Renville,
and I am a Dakota storyteller.
This is a cedar flute that
 I am just learning to play.
I'm going to tell you a story about it, 
and how it came to be a part of
The Dakota people's cultural expression.
Many generations ago during 
the early days of the Dakota Nation.
During a hard long cold winter. When
the people in the camps were hungry.
A young man who lived
 in a Dakota village.
This young man was very kind,
and very generous, and very observant.
And he was always noticing what 
those around him might need,
and helping them.  Now 
this young man was not
known as either a great warrior
or a particularly skilled hunter.
But he was kind and generous as I said, 
and also hard working and determined.
And sometimes hard work and determination
 actually matter more than talent.
Now this young man, as I said 
he wasn't the world's best hunter,
but he wanted to bring food back for
his people in the camp.
And so he took his buffalo robe,  a little bag of wasna, which is dried meat and berries.
Food to keep a hunter 
fed while tracking game,
and his bow and arrows 
of course and his knife.
And this young man  set out
 in the deep snow and the cold.
Before long he came across elk 
tracks in the snow and he was excited.
His people would eat well if he 
could bring home an elk.
And so he followed those elk tracks
through the snow all day long.
And even though it seemed he 
was growing closer and closer,
he never quite caught sight of the elk, 
always remained out of sight.
Until late in the day when 
the young man realized,
that the elk was leading him into the woods.
Now the woods are darker 
and the day was ending.
It was very hard to see
the tracks in the woods.
And so the young man decided 
that he would make camp right there.
He would make camp, and in the 
morning when the sun came up,
he would set out and 
 track that elk again.
The young man found a tall
cedar tree to shelter under.
And he found a stream that
had just a little ice on it,
that he could break and
have fresh water to drink.
He ate his wasna and had his thirst
satisfied with that good water.
And then he pulled his warm
buffalo robe around him,
and settled back against that cedar tree.
He had never spent the night
in the  woods alone,
but he was a brave hunter right?
There were some strange
 sounds that he didn't recognize.
He thought that might be a coyote. 
That was an owl for sure.
He pulled his robe around him, 
he started to relax,
he started to fall asleep. 
When he heard a sound,
unlike anything he had ever heard before.
♫ Plays flute ♫
What was that sound?  It was
mournful and scary and yet
made him feel full of yearning as well.
He pulled his robe around him tighter
and fell asleep listening to that sad song.
♫ Plays flute ♫
The young man fell asleep.  
And in his dream,
he saw a woodpecker overhead on a branch.  
He saw it had bright red feathers on his head,
and he heard it! It was beating, 
(Woodpecker sound pecking on a tree)
on the branch of a cedar tree that it sat on.
(Woodpecker sound pecking on a tree)
That woodpecker said to the young man.
Follow me young man, and I will show you
something special.
Now the young man slept 
deeply and when he woke up,
he was awakened by the
sound of a woodpecker,
(Wood pecker sound pecking on a tree)
overhead in the branch,
(Wood pecker sound pecking on a tree)
and he saw the bright red feathers,
on its head.  And then that woodpecker
flew away to another tree nearby,
and he followed those bright red
feathers.  He got up and he followed
that woodpecker.  It went from
one tree to the next until finally,
he heard a sound!  He heard a sound!
♫ Flute music playing ♫
Oh, that was that mournful sound again, 
and he saw that the woodpecker was now
on the branch of a cedar tree 
that was very old, and had
many woodpeckers had come
to its branches and were beating
on the wood with their beaks drilling.
He saw that they were making
the holes in the branches 
(Wood pecker sound pecking on a tree)
and the wind.  When it came though 
(Wood pecker sound pecking on a tree)
the branches blowing.  
(Wood pecker sound pecking on a tree)
♫ Flute music playing ♫
Oh, the woodpecker had created a
beautiful instrument for the wind to play.
The cedar tree had given it as a
gift.
The young man knew that even if he had
no elk to bring home to his village
his people would love to hear this beautiful instrument.
The young man thanked the cedar tree 
and the woodpecker
and said "But you don't need this branch.
Let me take it and you can make another.
i will bring it to my people." And so the
young man went and got his knife
and he cut that branch down 
and took it back to his village.
The people came around to see what this object was.
What is this thing?
[difficulty playing the flute]
The young man waved it in the air he
blew on both ends. [blowing]
He tried covering all the holes. [blowing]
And then none of them. [blowing]
But he couldn't get it to make the sounds that the cedar had made.
And so the young man realized he didn't have the knowledge that made this gift valuable.
So the young man
returned to the source of that gift.
He went into the sweat lodge and
purified himself
and then he fasted and prayed for 
four days and four nights
and on that final night he fell asleep.
He fell asleep and had a dream.
And on this night the woodpecker reappeared,
and this time he transformed into a man 
wearing a beautiful red headdress made of feathers.
And that man, that Woodpecker man, said,
"Come with me, young man.
I will show you where the best cedar trees are
and how to make this flute."
And so the young man followed the Woodpecker man.
They went and found the cedar tree 
that was best for this kind of flute.
The young men learned which branches to harvest. Where to harvest them.
Should you choose the beginning, the middle, or the end?
How should you cut it? Should it be cured?
Were there prayers to say?
There were things to learn that he didn't know.
Just to make the flute, and then to play it,
 why that was a whole other thing.
Well the young man listened carefully to
everything that the Woodpecker had to teach him.
And then the young man returned to his village,
this time with the gift and the knowledge to share
and he played for them
[♫ Plays flute ♫]
I'm just learning to play.
Now the people were still hungry. Their bellies were still empty.
But the music was beautiful and haunting 
and fed the spirits of the people.
And from that time the flute has been an important part of Dakota ceremony.
The flute also became a significant part of our courtship rituals.
Now they say that this young man, that like I said, 
he wasn't a great hunter. He wasn't wealthy.
But he did learn to play that flute 
and the songs that he played for the people
got the attention of young women. 
They say that a young woman in a neighboring village
heard his music and wanted to be his wife
and that they ended their days quite happily.
Now one thing about the flute that Dakota people still do
is we always have a little red around the neck of our flute
to honor and recognize the Woodpecker.
And of course we also honor the gift of
the cedar tree.
Now I am also a wind instrument,
just like this flute, which you could say
is kind of like a long whistle.
[♫ whistles ♫]
My mouth is a wind instrument.
Have you ever gotten a piece of grass and
blown it to make a whistle?
So humans, we are wind instruments too, 
just like the trees, and just like the birds.
We had the gift but the knowledge came to us from the woodpecker.
