(gentle dramatic music) - [Rebecca] I'm Rebecca Crawford Foster.
I have my doctorate in psychology.
I'm Siksikaitsitapi and Dakota from here in Montana.
I grew up on the Blackfeet reservation, and I am the mother of several, several kids, and happily the, a grandma, too.
- [Dan] I'm Dan Foster, also psychologist, Western Band Cherokee, in addition to being mental health care providers.
- [Rebecca] Dan and I have been together for almost 30 years.
We've devoted our life to working with our native people in the field of mental health and continue to do so.
- We've also been traditional practitioners in the Dakota Lakota Way, and so we brought up our, our children ceremonially.
- [Rebecca] I was really closely connected to my grandfather and my grandmother, my grandfather particularly, who was a Dakota from Fort Peck.
We grew up with, surrounded by love and a lotta, a story, and tradition and also with the idea of education being extremely important in order to help the people survive and to continue to grow.
(music increases tempo) I had finished my undergraduate, and I was leaving to go to do my master's degree, and I was loading my little car, and our two daughters, older daughters, to, to leave, and my grandfather was standing outside, and I was talking to him and I said, "You know, Grandpa," I said, "Nobody really wants me to go.
"They want me to stay.
"They're afraid that when I leave, "that it's gonna be that I'm gonna be changed too much."
"In the old days," he said, "There's, "they used to have societies and, and in the societies, "each one of 'em had a job to protect the, the people, "to make sure that the people were safe."
And he said, "We don't, we don't have that now.
"And there are people on this reservation "who could never survive off the reservation.
"Their job is to keep the traditions, "the language, and the ceremonies alive.
"You young people, your job is to "protect them," and he said, "The, and the way that we do that now "is to get an education.
"When you get an education, "you're the one that's gonna stand, "be able to walk in both worlds "and stand to prevent that from happening.
"So, when you go to school," he said, "That's true.
"You're gonna come back, it's "you're not gonna be the same."
And he said, "But you're going to be the modern warrior."
He said, "You're, you're gonna prevent "our people from having everything taken "and not being here any longer."
(drum beats) - [Dan] We live because the people that preceded us lived, and they live through us, literally, genetically, and the people that aren't here yet.
We live so they'll live, not just as human beings.
As human beings with a specific way of seeing and engaging and understanding and relating with the world.
And so we, we delight to be a part of the continuation of that.
(gentle music)