Latest / Upcoming Trial of Nathan Chasing Horse April 14, 2025 / An unhealed performative indigenous soul becomes a danger to themselves & others
Transcript
- Marina Crane: We're talking about that Facebook post where that young woman posted about me being a pedophile. Yeah. Okay, well, it's the lady who took the photo of her Facebook friend that, like I said, she had a... What was the purpose of her showing me that and not even reporting it on Facebook? Good afternoon, it's Marina Crane again from Suchana First Nations on the outskirts of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, a city of a million people. ⁓ I have previously recorded this and ⁓ I just thought it's adding to the whole dynamics of how I believe Indigenous women are perceived or just the need to educate younger Indigenous women. Like she had no empathy for me or how I was going to process things. Didn't even apologize to say, I'm sorry I sent that to you and that you like it hurts your feelings. And she and she did make a comment too, because the young, the like my granddaughter who works with in the same organization as this woman, this woman says, ⁓ she shouldn't be posting stuff like that on Facebook because of where she works. about lateral violence and just the perception of how throughout history we've been raised and born in a system of systemic racism. And this is a comment that I've had on discussion before, so I hope you enjoy this. Now, she was, and again, why is she saying that when she was the one who sent, who sent me the photo? If it was so disturbing for her, she could have reported it. Just like, you know, when we were talking and you found out that that article was about me. See? Yes, I know. I'm grateful we had the conversation because she couldn't even call me and say what you're saying to me like it was devastating. You got it? Did it sound? Yeah. Okay. So what today? What's the date today? It's Sunday 12th, I think. Okay. So yeah. So, you know, like what we're talking about is emotion and just like how, how like people are just, there's almost some sort of negativity in the air or how I don't know if it's negativity. think, I think it's people. She was just out there wanting gossip and my sister said that she said, Marina, I warned you about her. said, I don't remember her warning me. I just said to her, I had to come to that decision myself. You know, and there's a lot of people that like I've, tried to keep my life private and I'm consciously doing it now. I don't know if I was doing it earlier, but I have, there's changes happening and it's really hard for people to change. Like I was saying, I was talking to a couple of people about change because I had, even my sister calling yesterday and I said to her, we have a... you know, trying to keep my boundaries. I don't know if it's an excuse to not gossip or just to be open with my life, not realizing that this lady that I've decided to not be around has probably been saying a hell of a lot of things about me. And I've been in denial all these 20 years because going to start the box with me was I was like, okay, so here's a woman that I'm working alongside of, we're trying to make differences in the indigenous community and now I'm reading this garbage. And people don't realize that goes past just being Gothic. That goes into the area of our ethical space. Because when I'm in an ethical space, I feel safe. And as a social worker, I'm supposed to be an element of change. Yet when we have stuff happening like this behind our backs, stuff that is not rooted in truth, it's a big problem. And that's like for me, when a reporter asked me, why do you think it took so long for people to catch snakes and chasing horse? Or I forget what I just said to them, what took you so long? But the reality of it is like, I was talking to one of my relatives yesterday. said, 20 years ago, this woman, who sent me those photos. I said her daughter was ⁓ having problems. Her daughter was like 14, 15 and she had been pregnant. But you know when young people get pregnant it's sort of like an epidemic and other girls sort of think it's okay to get pregnant. And suicide and pregnancy is the same thing, right? Yes, it's all about like that creative energy. It's either creative or destructive because it's tied around identity. when she was talking to me, because she was talking to me, so I became the technician and I organized these Wai'ipi ceremonies because Nathan Chasing Horsehead said he was a youth worker. And because I had known WIP ceremonies were healing, I thought this will give an opportunity for the moms and daughters to bond together because it sounded like the moms and daughters were not getting along, fighting, and because the daughters weren't listening to the moms. And these were like teenagers, like experiencing high risk behavior. So the point is like when a child is in high risk behavior, they're a danger to themselves and others. So if they're without even the mums knowing that their own daughters is becoming dangerous to other young women, it was only appropriate that I support, create some sort of support system in the sense that they can depend on each other, especially in ceremony. But it didn't work out that way. In fact, well, in some ways, after 20 years, I think it has. But it took a hell of a lot of time. The problem though, 20 years ago is when the disclosure, when I had the disclosure of Nathan being sexually active with a child, I approached this woman and other women and they did not do anything. The woman says, but he's the only man that my daughter ever felt close to. She feels like he can see right through her. she feels that he can read her thoughts. Like Marina, she says, ⁓ you know, this is hope for my daughter. Now, how can, again, I'm only reflecting this because now I can step back and I can say her mom was a danger to her daughter as well. Because the mother is narcissistic and Machiavellian. So as Indigenous women, when Like when we're traumatized or a victim and we talk trying to deal with whatever is happening or suppress, actually it's actually suppressing our emotion by trying to project our shit onto somebody else rather than dealing with the change. That's why when I talk about change, and you know, if I'm in tears or something, I said, no, that's because I'm feeling it. I'm bringing all that. from the bottom to the surface. And that's why as an elder, I say it's important to deal with things when you're younger, because by the time you become an elder, life isn't gonna stop changing. Life's gonna still keep going and how we process, how we feel is determined by our past behavior. So that is the result of it is that even like the incident that happened with Nathan chasing horse, 20 years ago, when I went down to Las Vegas, I said to my traveling companion, I'm not letting anybody know I'm going. Not even my siblings. said, nobody from my community. I just told, like, I think I told you and I told a few people in the city that I was going. And I knew you were considering it. Yeah, so anyway, when I... The problem is, and when I was talking to my cousin last night, see the problem is too, like even with that post on Facebook, my own granddaughter was supporting this woman. And my sister said to me yesterday, says, Marina, that's our granddaughter doing this to you. And I said, yes. I said, all those people who belonged in the cult, was Nathan Chasing Horse. They just assumed I was this woman, like this man, this man, man, man. What they call it when women chase men like a cougar or a mastiff? you know, like this cougar when you're older, right? Yeah. But that's where I want to go back and remind you. I said, by the time if we are a healthy elder, our days. of being a womanizer or a man chaser or a cougar or we've already laid our demons to rest. And if we have not laid our demons to rest, we have no place being called an elder. Exactly. But see, even then too, when an elder still has... narcissistic Machiavellian tendencies, there's not a damn thing anybody can do to change that behavior because they, that behavior or that, like it's a, it's a self-defeating behavior that when, when would it ever be eliminated? If say, for example, I might die tomorrow or five years from now or 10, I haven't eliminated myself, defeating behavior, then, then how am I behaving as an elder? because like this woman who took the picture, she passes herself off as an elder. And I said that to her employee. The employee and I had a discussion because the employee saw me with my traveling companion having tea. And she made a comment to the lady who sent the photo. She says, yeah, Marina was having tea. And then the lady says to her, Marina, she told me that she called you when you were in Las Vegas. And I said, no, I didn't let nobody know. I don't know why she's fishing around. Knowing her for 20 years, if she had any questions, why didn't she just call me and say, you were meeting with somebody having tea? See Karen, the issue for me as an indigenous... cares? That's like me going to your house and having tea on your patio. Who cares? Well, apparently this is where I'm coming from. Apparently because my traveling companion was a white man. It has even more of a stigma, like a stigma. Like, for example, I had this lady come in while the traveling companion was visiting me, cleaning. she went into my bedroom. I closed the door for her privacy. She left and she got an Uber. I didn't mean to ignore her, but I did pay her. I, since then I've been trying to contact her to come and do some more cleaning and I pay, like I told you, I pay up to $200. And she hasn't. And the only reason I think she hasn't is because I had a white man in my house as an elder woman. Who cares? But see, I have to find a housekeeper now. When people have a mind like that, and I'm going to say an old term, a dirty mind, they cannot understand that people can be friends with the same sex and not be in a queer relationship, or they can't have somebody from the opposite sex and not be having sex with them. That's the thing where people need to change their thinking. That's why, that's why, yes, I agree. That's why When I talk to people as an elder, said, for me as an elder, I didn't grow up using pronouns or nouns. I said, but as the decades have come by, I said, I've been more open to people just about my sexuality, what to me is healthy human sexuality. And like I've had older women say, Marina, what you tell people. And I'm just saying not just white men, people in general. When I tell people about my sexuality, she says, that's too much information. I'm going, no. When I tell people, like when we talk and I tell you about my sexuality and how long ⁓ I've abstained. That to me, like I'm letting you know or whoever I'm talking to, that I'm a sexual being. And when the conversation is very like open, like on things and people ⁓ make some sort of comment, I'll say, well, you know, because I'm not sexually active, I talk about sex. I said, you can't get away from... Like you can't, what I've learned is even though I've abstained, I still have to talk about sex. You know, I'm not actively doing it, but like talking about it, we're human beings. can't shut everything down. But do you think you're also helping people that are in the same situation that you're in? Well, I, you would like for me that yes. It is because I'm educating older people that just as young people find life hard to find love. to find like a good relationship. You have to identify your sexual orientation because people can be so mean, especially when you're young and you find somebody attractive, either the same sex or whatever. It's the courage that young people have to be open, even using the word ⁓ situational ship. There's no definition of like it's a romantic or ⁓ physical or just how having a conversation. The relationship is a situational ship. And so, and it's always evolving, this new terminology, because of the use of ⁓ nouns and pronouns and how young people address themselves. And see, for me as an elder, when they say elder Marina, like I'm trying to define how I define myself in terms of sexuality as an elder. Because, you know, like young people are doing it. And if as an elder, if we haven't been doing this our whole life, like you said, that dirty thinking, you know, up, growing up, I'd hear, he's a dirty old man or she's a dirty old woman because because of that thinking. Yeah. Well, I remember my brother's. They were doing like they were doing the wake part. And it was like a really clash of Métis versus First Nations. It was really like a difference because we laugh and we talk and we try to make it like a celebration and like First Nations are much more, tend to be much more quiet. So the elder says to me, can you tell your brothers to be quiet? And I said to him, I said, I can't because that's the way that they're honoring their brothers. And I said, but I'll try. So I went over and I talked to them. And then I came back and he said to me, I remember you like 50 years ago, because you were this little cow girl in your cowboy boots, your cowboy hat. And he goes, and you didn't like to listen. And so I looked at him and I smiled and I said, and I remember you. chasing all the women. And I said, so I hope you put that one to rest. And he started laughing. And I said, you see, that's, that's what we do. We go over good memories. go over changes. Yes. Right. Because we don't see everything the same anymore. Yes, that's right. are different. Yes, things are different. Yes, and that's why like when we're talking about my brother's friend and how I just rake him over the coals, that's because we're older, we're different. He doesn't deny his behavior when he was younger. Exactly. You he's embracing it. Yeah, sadly but truly. You know, if we could talk about more of these things more openly, talk about proper dating, talk about etiquette. talking about how to treat a young woman, how to treat a man, know, we would, treating two people of the same sex, we would be in a different situation that we currently are in. Because it's all about respect and honor. Yes, that's the word respect. See, and that's the whole thing, like even in some cultures, they don't talk about it as love, they talk about it as respect. because, you know, just to just for two human beings to live together. And and I think, you know, we hit it on the nose because, know, like I was talking to my cousin yesterday and, know, she had an affair with a married man for like 17 years. And I and like I was saying, you know, I was just off the top of my head, I was just saying, you know, I I don't know why people assume things of me when I've tried my whole life to like when I when I didn't know any better like and I took what people said about me. I took it seriously. It wasn't like you said, it's none of their business. And. And so that's why I said to her, when I went down to Las Vegas, I said, I told my traveling companion that I wasn't telling anybody, but I was sort of, ⁓ like I said, when I was younger and I was sexually active, I said, if I wanted to, would go out and I'd find somebody, I'd have a sexual encounter with them. And... And with him, he said, he told him it was sort of like, ⁓ you broke their hearts. And I said, I said, no, it both ways. I got what I wanted, they got what they wanted, and that was it. But see, said, the thing about it, I said, is I didn't tell anybody what I was doing. I just went out and did it. Nobody knew, in nothing. I said, as an elder, now I'm going, There's so much controversy or so much performative around Nathan Chasinghorst. I don't want to be perceived as being performative. So I'm not telling anybody anything because just the whole jury part of it. Like I'm looking at my receipts of what I spent. Like one of the times I was trying to travel, it was canceled. I lost $1,400. from experience and just how people can be nasty asking me questions. And so that's why I just thought, no, I'm not gonna say nothing. Because it was already, even when the delegation of Suta went down, the amount of people from my community who were calling me, asking me if I knew anything. And I thought, where were these people 20 years ago? Now, where were these people who, you when I was asking and when I was informing people, they didn't want to hear anything. They were more concerned about, well, no, my daughter, my daughter this, my daughter that. One of the ladies, too, she passed away and she says, she says, ⁓ I was told to forgive men like that. And I thought, and then the next thing I know, she's given her daughter up to him. And her daughter lived with that man for over 15 years. All those women who belonged to his cult. And I asked them, said, how did this name, the circle come about? She says, just, she says, we were just talking as women, she says, and now we form the circle of support. She says, that's how the name came about. But she told me too, she said, all those years, Nathan Chasing Horse would tell them not to Google his name because my blog was on Google. And that all those women like outside the courthouse that came up and shook my hand out of respect, out of respect. for me to come back and to say, I had said to the ladies down there, like in Las Vegas that, I said, ⁓ you know, I knew he despised me. I knew he was telling people lies about me. I said even my own family. see, it goes right back to that photograph again of that article that said I was a pedophile and that my own granddaughter. didn't even defend me and my sister said that Marina she didn't defend you and I said that's my point or her mom. Where did that come from? I don't understand that. Where did that photo come from? Where did that accusation come from? Well, it came off of Facebook. Like I said, that lady who I decided not to be friends with after 20 years, it came from her Facebook. She's the one who sent it to me. I can't imagine somebody trying to do that much damage to somebody and that much hurting. As an elder, what are we about? We're about truth. We are about, sometimes about being quiet, but being loving. And we're not about hurting other people. So, you know, and our younger people, our younger generation have to know that they're also held to that, that we don't do things out of spite. We don't do things out of malice. Well, I think a lot of times women who've been traumatized, who are sort of, we'll say, ⁓ fatigued, going through battle fatigue, just trying to live a life. think that performative, that performative part of it, like using social media really ⁓ creates a negative that creates negativity because you look at that woman, like you said, she has 7,000 followers on Facebook. I don't even have that many followers. Right. So she's feeding her audience what they want to hear. And that's why I said I didn't want anybody to know I was going. Good for you. Because that whole need to perform, Whatever I say or however I express it, that's coming from my own personal experience. That's why when I've talked and I've had Indigenous young women come up to me and they'll say, my mother went through the same thing, this lateral violence in our Indigenous communities, like it's alive and well. Even talking to my cousin last night, you know, I said to her, ⁓ that need to always find that dirty mind. I've struggled with that my whole life. Even when I tell people my sexual orientation, my healthy human sexuality, said, however people perceive it, I'm trying to let them know no matter what you try and pin on me, that I've had an affair with a married man or that I'm chasing after younger men, whatever the narrative is of the dirty mind. I said, I haven't practiced that. I said, my whole life, you know, how many years? I said, a lot of people don't realize that. For me to be sexually healthy is to talk about healthy human sexuality I don't I don't practice being sexual like as like physically I but I do practice it emotionally and and spiritually that's that's the key thing I think I think the separation of the like the Ideology like some people say ⁓ well, you know, it's hard to fight it. Yes. It's hard. I don't think we're winning the battle If we were winning the battle, won't be so many murdered and missing Indigenous young girls. Because that's why, for me, with this whole experience, just to try and have some sort of curriculum for Indigenous young girls. talking about the history, Bill C-31, like even from the Métis perspective, if it weren't for the government trying to kill us off, there wouldn't be such people as Métis people. Do people in Canada know that? ⁓ They don't. And yet, do our young people know? No, they don't. So all this history of how... will use the word white men have tried to create what indigenous women are is all based on government policy. One day I will give you the opportunity to record on your podcast my experience at least three times where I could have easily been missing and murdered. And I wasn't even living a high risk behavior. Wasn't doing anything wrong. Just simply being a young, indigenous woman. And that's what we need. Like we need like more people like yourself. Like was like, just lacking in so many areas where, where people are like, ⁓ you can't talk about that. Or, you know, like when women are menstruating, ⁓ you're sick. No, you're not sick. That shows a sign that you're healthy and you can have a baby. But it's all of these little ⁓ myths that we have and the way that the rest of the world perceives us, because you talk to white men and they've got these whole different thoughts about what Indigenous women are. Like the one lady that I talked to quite a bit, she says, I can't help it if my father's racist. Not can't help it, she didn't put it that way, sorry. She said, my father is racist, he'll be racist until the day he dies. And that's her father and her mother is Inuit. You know, she's lived with a father who is racist, who has an attitude towards indigenous women. And that's what I try to say to people. I have white uncles too. I've seen this. It's how society sees Indigenous women. the reality of it is like as when you're growing up as an Indigenous child, like you have decisions to make. Do you go into a relationship with a racist? Why? Is it because the person is safer, can protect you better than an Indigenous man? And then the myth of it, the mythology of it or the creation of it. When we've talked about it, ⁓ when she talks about her father and that her mother has suffered so much in society because she's Indigenous, hasn't had help, hasn't had help with depression. no support. And now she's, her mother's around my age and has very little capacity to take care of herself. She has to depend on her brother to look after her. And so she says, this is my mother. And that's why I try to explain to white men. I said, you know, when you marry an indigenous woman and you have an argument and you go divorce them and you take your children with you and you raise your children. to be non-Indigenous, they're gonna come back and they're gonna look and want to know who and where they come from. It's called activism and it's part of that. about battle fatigue because they've experienced racism. Like she says, I can't change the fact that I'm indigenous. I'm living like in the city of Calgary my whole life and people treat me different because I'm indigenous. And yet the indigenous community is not accepting her. And I said, yes, because of systemic racism. I said, we're promoting such a negative. ⁓ image of what it is to be an Indigenous woman because like when I was talking to this white man, said, I said all this stuff that white men take away from Indigenous women because they've been in a relationship with an Indigenous woman affects society at large. I said in our communities, we have like social, we have child and family, we have social services. I said we have health centers. I said, but those aren't governed by sovereignty. I said, those are governed by government money. I said, we don't have, we're trying to have the capacity to establish group homes and group shelters for children, like of different age groups. I said, because when a woman, a single woman, when she has children, whoever the fathers are, these women have children who are living in our communities. When that woman dies, Her children are put into the foster care system in the city. I you look at Sixth of Co- How many thousands of their children are in the foster care system? And then you look at the reality of like the average age for our children being trafficked is 14 years old. And yet the government is just sponsoring like homes and shelters in the cities. You know, we as indigenous people. It's a reflection of how the government sees women. Because with women, it's just like the first industrial school. They tried educating the indigenous boys, and most of the indigenous boys were fair skinned. it's in Parliament, there is a piece that's been recorded in Parliament where they're discussing... these indigenous boys growing up becoming ranchers and farmers and that they'll move back to their indigenous communities and the girls are going to marry indigenous girls and those girls are going to convert them back into savages. That even though those industrial schools died out and ⁓ indi-indian residential schools were created to have both boys and girls be converted into the civilized, unsavaged children. It's still, we're still in 2026, we're still being portrayed as being savage. And that's what I'm trying to say to my own peers, talking about healthy human sexuality. Why is it that that dirty mind has to come into play when I'm talking about even traveling with a companion to the United States who's non-Indigenous? See, I said to the lady who sent me the photo, I said to her employee, I said, all she had to do was just call me. She said, well, Marina, she she called you when you were in Las Vegas. I said, no, she didn't. I said, why is she lurking around trying to dig up stuff? I said, for her to even throw me that Facebook article to hurt me, because what? I have money to go to Las Vegas? Why that I have have, ⁓ you know, somebody who's traveling with me, like who am I to deserve a traveling companion? See all those questions without her even realizing that she's not asking what kind of person is that who's I've been in friendship with talking about her, her sharing her personal life, me giving her advice for her to treat me like this. And again, why did I, why? It's people that are not healed, people that are not healthy. That's why I always say to people, so this is the way I am. In my home, if you are a true friend, and it takes a while, because I'll say to you in a bit, I'll say, Marina, come to my house for a barbecue. So it's going to take a little while, right? Because it's snowing out still. But. You come to my home and you've been to my home and you've ate food, you know you're a friend. You know this is somebody I trust. If I've known you for 30 years and you've never been to my home, you're not a friend. You're just simply somebody I know. There's a difference. We have to be careful who we call our friend. We have to be careful of who we trust. So when I, like I was listening to you and I just remember this. When I worked for, I was in a partnership with the Calgary Board of Ed and my late friend, she said to me, Karen, 12 years old, that's the age you watch for because that's where children make the decision that they're gonna go the right path or they're gonna go the wrong path. And at Children's Services, as a supervisor, I learned at the age of 14 is when kids come back and they start looking for their parents. And so whenever I apprehended a child or children or whatever, I would say to the parents, Mom, you're always going to be a mom. Dad, you're always going to be a dad. But here's the thing, your children are little. You know, like they're seven, eight, nine, two, a newborn, whatever. But when your child reaches the age of 14, they're going to come looking for you. So where are they going to find you? Are they going to find you healthy and clean? Or are they going to find you on the same path that you're currently on? Because they're going to need you. And if we think our Indigenous children do not come looking, ha ha, that's a big mistake because they come looking. But if they come back to a reserve or the settlement or the city and they're looking for their family and everybody's already gone, they've been lost to addictions, they're in prison, whatever, then what does that say to the child? You know, like a lot of children personalize that and think that that love that that they didn't even matter that no matter what their parents didn't care enough to change their life. So we have to stop. You know, like I've talked to grandma's. I'm a grandma. I've talked. I've got eight beautiful grandchildren. I've talked to mom. And what do we intend to do? is we try to hide what our children or grandchildren are doing. And that doesn't help anybody. So when we're looking at all of this pedophiles, when we're looking at all of this negativity, if we're trying to hide it, we're not helping anybody. We're actually making sure that our next generation lives with the same perverted system. And that's why like when an Indian residential school, did, you know, I mean, I was talking with a crowd of PhD people at the University of Calgary. I made a comment about my mother when she first had, was pregnant, she thought she was gonna have a litter of puppies. When I said that, this one white woman starts laughing. And I addressed the whole crowd, not her, just the whole crowd. I said, the reason why my mother thought this is because there was no love. They were treated like animals. They were treated like dogs. Why would they talk to a dog about human sexuality? Why would they even hug or, you know, well, some dogs get treated better than human beings, especially in Indian residential school. said, you know, like I said, she, she wasn't that that love was not there. That trust was not there. That was broken. There was, you know, that that whole scenario of like, thou shalt not, thou shalt be, thou shalt forgive. See, that's the danger is that a lot of children went into those residents came out of those residential schools thinking that thou shalt thou shalt forgive even to forgive the unforgivable because of you how they were indoctrinated how they were groomed and trafficked to behave a certain way so that you're to work and be productive in society become a rancher lawyer not even a lawyer was mostly menial work but the the reality though is like with my mother I couldn't have conversations about sexuality. None. But if I talked about anything sexual, she would say, I didn't think you thought that way, Marina. So, you know, and I'm coming from experience here. I'm talking about my late mother, how I took care of her, how the things that she was struggling with, even as an elder. And that's why, like, I can't comprehend. unless a person actually has dealt with and talked with their parent and that you talk about things that they feel taboo about. though, and because if I hadn't, I wouldn't have known that this wasn't, this was a way she was raised, not by her parents, not by her aunties or grandmas, but by white people. And you know, and that fear of white people. because I take her to the hospital and the doctor says, you can't come in the room. And I said, no, my mother's afraid of white people. I said, if you ask her her pain threshold, and I know her pain is at eight or a nine, because you're a white man, she's gonna tell you that her pain threshold is three, because she's afraid of you. I said, do you understand? I said, do you understand the, like I can't say the psychology of it, but I said, do you understand? I'm here. to be with my mother so that I can understand what she's dealing with. But she trusts me, but she doesn't trust you as long as she's worked and been around white people because of the trauma she experienced as childhood. And she grew up with like her sisters. The majority of her sisters, the ones who went to Indian residential school, like they married white men. Why? Because it's, you know, at least like it seemed or deemed safer. But yet, you know, my white cousins, they haven't come to my home to even visit me. So, so my having conversation with ⁓ a woman whose father is racist, like for me is a breakthrough because at least I'm having a relationship with somebody whose father is white, who's racist and who's talking about it. Because my first cousins won't do that. They won't because they're family. And yet that's the whole point of what government has done, what society systemic racism has done with indigenous kids or with indigenous children in society. Like this lady says, I grew up in the school systems in Calgary. She says, you know, I'm not passing off as a white person. They know I'm indigenous. She says, but yet where's my community? Who's helping me? And that's why when I talk about Indigenous women wearing their skin, like you said, you could have been one of the murdered and missing just because you weren't living a high-risk lifestyle. See, and for me, I lived a high-risk lifestyle just for, like, not even five years, not even, I'll say maybe three years. Like, I've, know, since I was 25, You know, I just like, I know it's shocking to people, but you know, going on 49 years of not being sexually active, like how much fear or how much responsibility does it take for me to protect myself without a companion, whatever color that companion's skin is, for me to walk into the city and to feel safe and to trust people. that nobody can clean up. My mom, I remember one day my husband, so he's Chilean. He, I said to him, I'm at work. I cannot take my mom to get her blood test and to get her x-rays. And he goes, ⁓ I'll take your mom and then I'll take her out for lunch. And I was like, great. ⁓ I said, just, you know, tell me if I need to get a prescription or what I need to do. So he left my mom for like an hour at the blood place and he comes back and he looks around the room and everybody's changed. And so he says, you know, he, he calls my mom. got, he goes, you know, Mrs. Why are you still sitting here? And she said, well, I guess there's lots of people. All the people came and he goes, yeah, but now all the people are different. So he walked up to the front and he goes, why isn't my mother-in-law? Why hasn't she been seen? And they look at him and of course he speaks with a thick accent and immediately my mom was taken into the back because in that moment they thought she was a Spanish speaking woman, not an indigenous woman. So the next place he took her to was to get her x-ray. And he went up and he did the talking. He said to her, you know, miss, just sit here and I'll, I'll do your paperwork. And they immediately took my mom in, had she went up, she wouldn't have been seen first. She would have been somewhere way back in the end. And that was the time where it was like a real eye opener for my husband. He goes, so these are the first people of the land and this is the way you guys are treated. So I took him out to Massachusetts. So I'm talking, so what are we 2025? So I took him out there. Let's say I was born in 65, 75, 85, 1985. I took him out to Massachusetts. He said to me, he goes, ⁓ this is so beautiful. This is so beautiful. And he kept looking in the ditches and there were all these new trucks that had been totaled and all this terrible stuff. And I said, well, I said, you know, the government gives out money for family, for child, but they don't do any education about how to take care of the people. And my husband looks at me and he says, but isn't this the way the government gets rid of your people? And I was so angry at him for saying that to me, but it kind of resonated with me for quite some time. And I was like, is he right? Is this why they do these things? Why they don't do any teaching? Why they don't prepare us for it? And then it was probably. Two years later, we went to another place and he said to me, Karen, you know, he says, I first landed in Winnipeg and Winnipeg, all the people are indigenous and they're dying on main street and it's horrible. And he goes, but here, like, look at these people, like, look how, look at your people, like your people are amazing. And so I took him into the room and I. Introduced him to another young fellow that I knew that was a lawyer and also spoke Japanese and my husband was absolutely floored and he said when I came to Canada, I thought you all lived in teepees equals in ten so So that's the mentality that people come, so in 1978, when my husband came to this country, he thought we still like, live like the John Wayne movies. Well, even when I lived in Utah, had foster kids and Native American foster kids. I don't know if it was ignorantly or like, I don't know if they were just in denial. They were indigenous themselves. They come up and, do you still live in teepees? And this is an indigenous person talking to me. And I thought, what are they teaching you in your foster home? Like what, what even like this whole being white and delightsome in the Mormonism. You know, when I talk about all, forget how many, thousands of indigenous ⁓ Native Americans, they graduated out of that private university, they indoctrinated them. You know, like they used to have one of the highest ⁓ church leaders, he was a Navajo, ⁓ Elder Lee, they called him. And they eventually excommunicated him, believe it or not. Like really, because they use a lot, they used him as propaganda to all these children who were raised in foster care, like in the placement program, and then they went to high school, and then they went to the private university. And the reality of it is like everybody, when they go to church, because I went to church with these people, you know, like they were all brown skinned people, Polynesian, Hispanic, Native American. And they would talk about the Latter-day Prophet was going to be indigenous, was going to be, they called them Lamanites. So a lot of the indoctrination of Native Americans in the United States was that eventually there was going to be an Indian prophet that was going to lead the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when Jesus Christ was coming to the Americas. So when Nathan Chasing Horse came to my home, into my community, You know, my brother, my family is Mormon. I like, I don't practice. And, ⁓ but, but I, but I do, you know, I, when people ask me about Mormonism, I'm quite open about, you know, talking about Indian placement program and the systemic racism that I experienced there. But he also, you know, knowing like Brigham Young had all these wives and, and the fact too is like, is like for decades, even when I was a kid. all these white people forming cults to recruit Indigenous people. Like my parents belonged to this organization called Moral Re-Arnament, which was a cult in itself, which also was the basis of the Oxford group that established the 12-Step Program. So all these psychological, we'll call it collective holistic ways of healing, were basically observed from non-Indigenous people to apply to their own non-Indigenous people. Now, here's Nathan Chasing Horse coming into my community, meeting my so-called Mormon family and them talking to him. I really think that he had met so many Mormon people coming to his sweats and ceremonies throughout the United States and Canada that by the year two, by the time he left here 20 years ago, he like he openly started being a polygamist. When I spoke to some of the survivors who'd known him 24 years, some, you know, when he was a teenager, they, you know, they're, they're talking about, you know, how, how they saw him evolve. And I said, well, no, he, gravitated to my family because my one brother was making a large amount of money. Like this man would gravitate to Native American people who had a lot of money, you know, to take the money from them. And he, and, my poor, shouldn't call them poor. My brother's still paying the price of having associated with Nathan, racing horse, also his own behavior, which there's no, it's unforgivable. But the reality of it is that it stemmed from all the stuff that he was allowed to from my community. Every ceremony was five to $6,000. They paid for the two girls that left. They paid for their rent. You know, I had a family threatened with their jobs if they didn't pay these children's rent while Nathan Chasing Horse was, you know, living with them because, you know, he promised they were going to be like supermodels or like, you know, become, you know, famous. He was using his position as having a past, you know, status as from Hollywood. Yet, you know, by the time I met him on Bury My Hearted Wounded Knee. He was already washed up, but he manipulated people to believe that he was in charge of this non-charitable organization in California called Pipe, that all these people were supporting him. then again, every month my older niece would collect tithing from the members who were following him here in my community every month, like how the Mormon church collects tithing. And he, know, down in Toronto, they had this girl that disappeared the first year I lived down there and her name was Nicole. And ⁓ I always, I always used to think about her and I always used to wonder what happened to this girl, Nicole. So my oldest daughter is Nicole, not named after her, named after somebody I went to school with. And I was looking at this young girl, she was a sports person, like she was in school, she was running. So you can just Google her name now and you will see it. so the guy that actually killed her walks in and he's carrying an eagle feather. And that made me absolutely sick. I couldn't finish the rest of it because I cannot take people that use culture in a perverted way. And I don't care who they are. And that's what he did. Well, that's why when people say, well, how did you know Nathan Chasinghorse? I'm going because my relatives, you know, my mom has a first cousin. His wife got her degree like as a mature woman in Native Studies, and she came back to the community, a Dakota community, and she said to the people, we're going to revitalize the sweats, the willipi, all this. We're going to do this because she's getting all this information out of textbooks, academic textbooks. So she starts taking her husband to Sundance and having sweats. Now, you have to fast for four days prior to Sundance. And he made a commitment to go to a Sundance in the States. So they staked him out in their community with a buffalo hide. staked him to the ground and you know like you're not supposed to have water or food for four days and you're supposed to you know be meditating and having these vision quests. Well his his wife went to go and check up on him because you got to check up on them once a day to see if they're you know and needed medical help or anything. She went there and he vanished. They had to they had to look around they were looking around wondering where he went to and And the guy, my mom's first cousin, ended up at the doorstep, at our doorstep, knocking on the door. My mom opens the door and sees him. You know, and he's carrying this briefcase, because I don't know what it is about men and briefcases, especially uneducated, Indigenous, older men that have to be perceived as being academic. He asks my mother if he could stay. And with him... was a young, blonde, non-Indigenous woman. Must have been about 23, 24, like she was young. And so my mom, you know, had them come in and they stayed. She had to pay for their bus ticket to go back to the next, to Manitoba. And then, and then even that too, his wife had to go and... because he didn't fulfill his four day sweat. She had to go down and pierce herself at the sun desk because she made a commitment. Now get this, she even had her husband climb up on a tree or the top of a roof or some high place. And she had an audience at the bottom and she would yell at her husband, fly, jump off and fly, turn into an eagle. You can do it. You have the power to do it. And the silly uncle, he jumped off and he broke his ankle. Like to the extent, you know, I've had, I've had uncles like when they were younger, like when I was like maybe 50 years ago, who, you know, notorious, notorious. You know, like they drink and they drink with their teenage nieces. of course, you know, like they became sexual. But they also knew they were going to get in trouble with the law. So they stopped and they started doing sweats, Sundance, and they were using it to abstain from like that dirty mind that, you know, like to any activity that involves unforgivable acts. Now those girls, those girls, became academic, one's a professor, the other one has her master's in social work. I even met Indigenous girls who were victim of a girl, a woman who was a victim of incest, who became ⁓ an engineer for Parks Canada. Total denial that she had suppressed her emotions about being an incest victim. And it's the same thing with these academics. You totally suppressed that, you know, they had incest within their families. And that's why I talk about, you know, a lot of non-Indigenous women, white women, who had left, who had lived really high risk behavior from ages of 12 to 15. Like the one says, I hitchhike. She says, I remember being in a truck with this guy and he was taking me someplace. She says, I don't remember how I escaped. She says, but I'm not, she says, as old as I am now, I'm not going to visit that. And I said to her, know, my mother, I said, when we talk about sexual assault in those residential schools, she said there was one incident she talked about this big fat white man sitting beside her in the classroom has no, you know, I'm sorry, has no business sitting that close to my mother. My mother said she doesn't remember anything after that. And I said to this white woman, I said, I said, my mother couldn't process that, that deep. deep buried sexual assault. said much like- That's what happened. I've spoke to so many First Nations women and men and they all have the same story, just like what you're talking about. They can't go that deep. They don't remember. and the ones that were lighter skinned or had lighter eyes, lighter hair, had a different experience. Yes, that's why when it comes to this Dunxton Indian Residential School, the five major leaders in the Treaty 7 area were the Indigenous men like ⁓ Senator James Gladstone. He had light skin. ⁓ we had people from our community they had light skin these were light-skinned boys So any any kind of indoctrination? Blackfoot, right? Yes. Yes. Yeah. He's you know, he's like that's what people don't get He may have passed like for white men, but the man spoke blackfoot That's what I people. I have I have sue relatives my great grandmothers like my grandmothers They could pass for white women, but they spoke sue Well, I actually just posted a picture of him yesterday. So that's funny that you're bringing him up. So on my page, we have 14,000 followers. And people were like, ⁓ he was a lawyer. he was Blackfoot. He wasn't from Manitoba. And I was like, well, yeah, I know that. But this is what the articles are saying about him. But you know, in all honesty, wasn't light skinned. He just knew how to do what people liked. Like I remember, because my dad, he went out to the reserve, your reserve, when I was a little girl, probably about seven, eight years old. And he said, ⁓ I'm thinking about connecting my daughter to the Indian rodeo. And he was told by two different elders, your daughter does well enough. People think that she's, they don't know really know what she is. So don't bring her in being indigenous. You don't want that for her. So I think a lot of our people like Senator Gladstone, he just knew the right moves to make. And that's why people accepted him because he was super smart. And I'm sure you've had the same experience. You're super smart. I love listening to what you... When I listen to you, I learn every single time. And so I think that gives you and Gladstone and other people like that, it gives them a different experience. Well, I- You don't talk. You don't have an accent. Yes, I know I always say to people, even when I was eight years old, I was in the Charles Kempsel Hospital and I was in isolation for three months. I almost died there. And I reflect back and I think, why was I protected? Well, because the people that were looking after me were white teachers, was a white teacher with his wife. My parents were in South America and so the white doctors and nurses put me behind the nurse's desk. So I had very little contact with the rest of the Indigenous community in the hospital. It was only about a week before I was going to be discharged that they put me in the main dorm. And it was there that I experienced like, I, like violence. ⁓ This one young Cree girl, must have been maybe a year old, she could have been 10 years old, 12. She came up to me arguing with me and she says, tell this, tell this girl to stop crying. She was a little girl around my age. She says, tell her to stop crying. I said to her in English, stop crying. And the girl said to me, no, tell her in Cree to stop crying. I said, I don't speak Cree. And she says, yes, you do. I heard you. I never experienced jealousy like that. But again, at eight years old, I could speak English well enough that I know I intimidated this child that I was acting as if I were white. Even when I've... When I ran away from home when I was 17, I turned 18 in Vancouver a few months later and meeting other Indigenous people and then them telling me that I, like I was acting white. And some of my relatives who ran away to Vancouver and met other Indigenous people from across Canada, they would always comment on Sioux-Dinan that we were acting white. And it's not because we were ashamed to be Indigenous, it's because of the way we spoke. We had no accent. And even to me, like growing up when I lived in Utah, my roommates used to say, Marina, let's, you know, we'll call up so-and-so and you, you know, act like you're, you know, you're interested in them. Like she says, you have such a sexy voice. So even too, when I was here and I was looking for volunteers, one of the... ⁓ men, military men, he says to me, call, call sergeant so-and-so. He's in charge of ⁓ distributing, ⁓ like ⁓ donating. Maybe he can rent you out tents for your youth program. I said, you want me to ask him? He says, yes. He says, you have a very sexy voice. So I called him, explained the situation. Sure enough, the doors open and I got those tents. But again, that's because my father, when I was growing up, he appeared on radio, he appeared on TV, he was a rodeo announcer. Even my mother talks about my ⁓ grandmother's father. My great grandfather had an ability to talk. So I know it's genetic, but again, too, because now it's modern age and, know, like, this is my great grandfather. My mom said when he come into a room, was like six foot four, like he's a tall indigenous man. She says when he opened his mouth and he talked, she says, just the, just his presence. And that's like, like I, you know, I'm, grateful for these stories. These, these moments that I, that I hear about, like, like my whatever I'm contributing, you know, to, remember. Indigenous women and Indigenous men have different experiences. In what way are you? And so I went to school west of the city and I was hated upon because I was Indigenous and my nephew went to the same school and girls liked him because he was Indigenous. ⁓ yes. So we have very different experiences. So we have this more, when I was in Toronto and ⁓ I was working in a donut shop, it was really funny because the police officer kept coming in and asking me to put a, kind of game thing in the corner of the donut shop. That's where I was working. And I said to him, said, listen, I said, I can ask the owner tomorrow. And this white cop kept saying to me, I know you own this place. And I said to him, actually, listen, I don't own this place. The owners are Greek. And he said to me, I know you're Greek. I know you own the shop. And then the other cop that was white, he said, she tells us the same story all the time. Just let her be. So, ⁓ It was like a couple of weeks later, I talked to my boss, I talked to his wife, I talked to the partners and they said, no, we don't want that because they use a lot of electricity. No, it's not as positive as what this cop is making it to be, you know, to tell them where to go. And they were all Greek. And so I went back and it was a couple of days later, he came back in and he said, so. Are you going to let me put my game in the corner? And I was like, no, they don't want it because it wastes a lot of electricity. And this white cop says to me, if you ever, ever call 911 from this number, for whatever reason, we won't respond. So that's the difference that we've been treated with but I noticed that my brothers my nephews my cousins like Everybody that's male is treated differently than what we are treated as female. Yes, I Know I know why I lost my younger brother when he was 35 Even when he was 18. He was he was he was big for a teenager but just the audacity of beating up my brother because he's Indigenous. And then all these young men going into the city and having these older white men beating up on them because they have to stand their ground. We used to go down, ⁓ there used to be an Indigenous bar downtown Calgary when I was younger. And during the Stampede, the, we called them once a year Indians come into the city. So we'd all hang out at this one place. And so my cousins and I, had this little dachshund and we'd all, you know, pile, like of course an Indian car, all piled in, go downtown and we came out and my younger brother and his friend, they weren't old enough to go into the bar, but they stayed out in the car waiting for us. And they were teenagers, so it wasn't like child abuse. Anyway, we came out, we bought a six, we bought, I don't know if we had, we bought out. beer or anything. But I remember we came out and there were five cars filled with white boys. Each of those cars had five white boys in them. And when I say boys, they were like either university students. Like they were, they were old enough that they had cars. And in each car, there was a white girl, a white, they had a girlfriend in each car in the back seat. So the cars were filled. And, and so we, and they were waiting for us. We didn't know this, but we got into the car. And they started calling us down, just swearing at us. And my cousins, know, like, of course, we've been drinking. And we're all women. Get this, we're all women, indigenous women. These are all white boys, all young white men. So my cousin starts standing her ground and swearing at them. And the guy comes, two of my young cousins, they're dead now. But they were like five, five, two. maybe 110 pounds, like they were tiny women. Those men, were like maybe six feet, six, two. I could just see my, here's my cousin with her little fist just reaching up, like up into the air to try and hit that guy in the face. And those white men just beating at them and they fall to the ground and my cousins would get up. And my one cousin used to wear high heels and she'd get up and she'd just fighting. And I thought, ⁓ my goodness, ⁓ my goodness. So we were yelling, you know, I said, you know, you've got white girls in your car. Have them come out and fight us. You guys are fighting women. Come out, bring your white women. We'll fight them. But no, they kept their white women in the car. This one guy came after my cousin and he was, ⁓ by that time I had asked my brother and his friend to run in and get help. By that time, all these young men came out and so they started defending us. And the one white guy had this Indian guy, this indigenous guy on the ground. was just punching him. I just grabbed that guy's hair and I just pulled it down because he was on the ground. just jumped on him with my hands and he tried to get up. Now I must have hurt him so much because the next day my fingers were just sore. He got up, started kicking at me, kicking and kicking and I had to jump back. You know, like by that time they were getting into their cars and my cousin went to grab But like she went in to hit that white woman, say, come on, we'll fight the white woman, not you white men. Those guys grabbed her hand and they took off on her on their car. And my cousin's body was just flying away on hitting the side of the car. They curved around the car and she rolled off like like stuff like that happening, you know, and that we're you know, we grew up. We grew up defending ourselves. You know, I always say to people when they try to be spiritual people, I said, when I went to school at Fairview and those white boys had a crush on me, they didn't know how to process their feelings. Instead, they make fun of me and try to fight me, you know, because they liked me. They didn't know how to, they didn't, they were just. Boys. I said, for me, I had to defend myself and I'd beat them up. Like I'd made sure they had the first punch because like I'm going, you know, I could get, I could get like, I could get disciplinary action because these are boys fighting me, a girl. And all because, you know, they, they, you know, I'm strange or I look exotic or whatever the hell they couldn't process, you know, their feelings towards, you know, whatever their testosterone. But it got to the point where I had to defend myself all the time with these boys. And it got to the point where the girls, if they started being jealous and racist to other girls from my community, they'd be bullied. And the girls would come to me and they'd say, Marina, they're saying this and this to me. And I said, who? I walked down the hallway and those white girls would just scatter. Because, you know, I had to defend myself every time. That's why, you know, when it came to being a young woman, And especially with my cousins having to fight in those Catholic schools, those public schools with white kids their whole life. You know, having all these five carloads coming around us was nothing different. You know, we still have to do it. That's why even with my late mom, I wouldn't I drive her everywhere. Even with my niece, I took care of her for seven years. Any time I'm with. other either elders or young girls, I will drive them around. I will not let them get onto the LRT or be in public because I don't know how people are going to treat them. I do that just to protect them. People want to be in denial that there's systemic racism in the city. Look at right now at all these people wanting to separate from Alberta. These people who are in denial. of like who like that they're on stolen land. This is treaty territory. Do you think we haven't been fighting? Do you think from the beginning of time we haven't been fighting to survive? That's that's what's so bizarre. Okay, Marina, I need to get going. Okay. But I always appreciated your conversation. Well, I'm grateful for the insight you have, like in the comment about the dirty mind, because, you know, it's a mental health issue that You like you said, it is important to feel, it is important to have the courage to seek help and find people you trust and heal from. Whatever change is happening in your life, that change is emotional and we need that support and we need to let people know that as you get older, it's not gonna change, but it's gonna get a little easier. The relapse and recovery of, say, lateral violence gets a little easier. on that way moving forward, we lose people. We lose acquaintances or friendships. But it's all for the better. I truly believe Creator and the Grandfathers and Grandmothers guide each one of us, no matter what our skin color is. There's a higher purpose, a higher mission. in humanity. But again, I appreciate, you know, the ability to reach out to you and just have conversation when, you know, when it's when I'm going through a difficult time too. So I appreciate it, Carrie. Have a good day. Okay. Take care, my friend. You too. Bye bye. So for my audience who have still stayed ⁓ alert and listening to the podcast, I just wanted to share the, it's important for me to have a podcast where I'm actually talking to someone that I know, someone that I've shared quite a lot of my life story with, and as well as having some common experiences with them. hopefully, hopefully, ⁓ come April 27th when I head down to Las Vegas and I meet the survivors, the people who broke away from the cult of Nathan Chasing Horse. Hopefully ⁓ it's a time for celebration and that I'll be able to have some discourse with them. They'll have a narrative and whatever they feel comfortable in talking about. But I do think ⁓ the reality of really being supportive and acknowledging to them that it's a moment of celebrating. There are moments when we have to grieve, there are moments when we have to heal, there are moments when you have to talk about things that are unforgivable. But at this time and at this space and time, all those years and decades and just the ability to have the courage to step forward and to just support each other as women, Indigenous women, it takes a lot. And for those out there who are struggling for those out there who are victims of sexual assault or just knowing that you have to be there for another person who's experiencing the same thing. Know that we're all in this, that we're all there trying to help each other heal and that ⁓ as we age and how we deal with things is vital. The analogy that I'll close with is in terms of recovery and relapse. eliminating a self-defeating behavior for whatever that behavior is. That's up to the individual to find out for themselves. However, imagine driving on a road and there are potholes, many potholes. When you first start healing, you're going to end up hitting a lot of those potholes and you have to drive away from those potholes, but you keep on hitting them. Eventually, time goes by, the more practice you have in having narrative and discourse in a group of support. When you see a pothole coming, you'll be able to drive around it, divert it, instead of going through a relapse and recovery. Those things I believe are vital. It's important as an elder for me to give hope to a lot of people, a lot of young people who, even youth who are going to school and they might not feel like it's safe to go home. ⁓ Like as my friend Karen said, you know, you'll always be a mother, you'll always be a dad, but your child is going to come home. When they come home, what are they going to experience? Are you going to be ready for them? Are you going to be strong enough and healthy enough to be supportive for them? Because we don't know what they've gone through. And it's up to us as older people to try our hardest to ⁓ humble ourselves. when we need to have help. I know there are many 100 help numbers out there and I hope you'll reach out to any resource place that if this conversation has triggered you in any way or even my podcast, whatever you've listened to or however you see things, find support, ⁓ shop around. Make sure the person that you're sharing your information with that you trust them. So with that, I'll let you be and we'll... again have another podcast. Hopefully I'll have a couple more podcasts before I start doing the podcast from Las Vegas. I do hope that the podcast from Las Vegas ⁓ will have, ⁓ well again it's up to whatever they want to share with me, but I'm just grateful that I've been able to meet them and I'm grateful that they're... ⁓ Glad that I'm coming back. Okay, I'll let you go now. Have a good, good day.