Mark Munger
It is the season of remembering the dead, and in so doing, reflecting on life. This past week on the Omaha Reservation in Nebraska, there was a celebration of the source of life, water. What you hear beneath my voice is the working of a water facility newly commissioned after more than a decade of planning and work. One of the project leaders, Jerry Henscheid, emceed the ceremony.
Jerry Henscheid
We'll get started here in a little bit. I'll just kind of explain what we're going to do. The drum group's going to sing, and then Malcolm's going to do a blessing, and he's also going to bless the grounds. But we're going to remain here while he goes around and blesses the ground, and then he's coming back to bless.
Mark Munger
Malcolm Tyndall prepared to bless the new facility, the sun shone on the Omaha land. The project, built on top of a hill, offered what seemed an endless view.
Jerry Henscheid
I think we'll get started. Our drum group, the Omaha Rough Riders, are going to do the flag song. Right now, Malcolm Tyndall is gonna say the blessing for us.
Malcom Tyndall
This morning, I say good morning to each and every one of you. Nice day. We're gonna use this water. We're gonna use this water every day. I was looking, looking down, down home down there, where all this water, and we go to our community, our children, our relatives who can use this water. That water is good medicine. The old people say. We use it. So today I'm going to bless that this building here. Say a prayer for the Omaha people.
Mark Munger
The replaced water system had been problematic for years. At times, requiring maintenance that left the people without running water for a couple of weeks.
Calvin Harlan
My name is Calvin Harlan, C-A-L-V-I-N-H-A-R-L-A-N. I serve the Omaha Tribe as the chief of tribal operations, which is basically in the Western world, it's CEO. Right now, we're at the, we're at the brand spanking new water plant here, just west of Macy, Nebraska, and we're here doing a grand opening here for this facility for our people. The water, as Malcolm described, is good medicine. Being without that water then is being without that medicine.
Mark Munger
As Calvin spoke about the new system, the cultural meaning and the historical meaning were as important as the utility.
Calvin Harlan
You know, we we're grateful for this for sure. I know, as a part of the administration here today, I'm really grateful that we have this because this is one less headache we have to look at. You know, when you look at things in terms of outside there, outside there, just outside the reservation here in the Western world, water isn't an issue. You know, you go to any community, you know, they have a pretty sustainable water system that's dependable. You know, here on reservations and others, water is is hard to hard to come by, and we have a different take on water. We don't we don't take it for granted, you know. Water is our first medicine. You know, it's what sustains us, keeps us alive. There was a a man that told me one time. He said, "Man can go 40 days and 40 nights without food and live, but a man can't go 10 days without water; he'll die. So this water is life-giving, and we look at it from that perspective. But you know, our people are changing too. You know, I think I can honestly say this is that, at the at the end of our days, Pierre and I, you know, all that teaching and education that we received on a traditional side will be gone. So, so when we look at this, it's it's a changing of times again for our people, and once again we'll be walking at assimilation road.
Mark Munger
....were there practices with water that you were taught as a child?
Calvin Harlan
Oh yeah, yeah. You know, like even with the sweat lodge, you use water because it's life-giving. It goes into it, goes on top of the rocks, gives the rocks the life that they need to to permeate yourself, mind, body, and spirit. You know, to take care of you, to cleanse you. You know, and that's that's a real big component of healing is cleansing. And so when you pour that water on there, you know, the steam, it comes to everything, comes to life, you know, and water is life.
Mark Munger
I'm thinking of you're saying that, you know, water could be turned off for a couple days before, and I, you know, if I'm not just thinking of it as say something to drink or to bathe in, but that has a spiritual element.
Calvin Harlan
Yeah, cut off from that. So you're taking the spirit out of them homes, you see what I'm saying? That spirit of life. You know, our people a long time ago they believed that just like what my father-in-law did here, made a prayer here. So we run all of these things off of prayer. Ask God to look down upon them and provide that blessing, that blessing of being here 60 or 70 years, that blessing of of the water continuing to run for our people, a blessing of that water reaching those homes and taking care of those families, mind, body, and spirit. What I mean is the food that you drink, the water that you drink, you know, the water that you bathe with, the water that you take care of your your homes and your families with. That spirit permeates to that and takes care of our people that way. But our younger people today don't see that concept, or it's new to them, or it's just something that's taken for granted, you know. And so it's it's the value, the worth of it is gone. You know what I mean? It's just there.
Mark Munger
It's just there.
Calvin Harlan
Yeah, yeah. I'll get a drink of water. Wait, hold on. I'll just I'll grab a bottle of water. You know, even that. You know, my wife says her grandfather, she was raised by her grandfather, and he told her. He said, "You watch and see. There's going to come a time and day where you're going to have to pay for water." And we're like that today. You know, we have a case of water sitting on our floor at home that we we have yet to to utilize, but it's coming, you know, and we paid for it, and so we're changing too. As older people were were not looking at things in terms of even 10 years ago, 20 years ago, you know, we used to look for springs, fresh water springs around here. There's a few just over the hill here. There's the sweat lodge down here, and around that lodge right there, there's seven water springs that come from there that that make that place sacred, because our people believe that with the water, the springs, there's a keeper, there's a caretaker, there's a a guardian, and it could be a snake. It could be a big animal like that. That they stay there, take care of the water, and make it a real sacred place. Kind of, kind of scary sometimes too, with some of the things that happen, you know. And yeah, so you know, we come from that. We come from that sacredness. This water comes from that.
Mark Munger
So it is a good project, but I see the sort of the melancholy that's can be associated with it.
Calvin Harlan
It shows the changing of times. You know, back in my day when I grew up out here, you know, take my horses out and go find that spring, and and drink the water fresh out of out of the ground. You know, you can't do that no more. So that's come from here.
Mark Munger
Nobody else will have that memory.
Calvin Harlan
Yeah. I tell my kids that, my grandkids that, and they they think I'm I'm teasing them. You know. Ah. But you know that's that's changing of times. Yeah.
