There are two ladies, my grandmother’s mother upon being married and then widowed by Ben Cloud, her name was Katherine Cloud and then her sister Annie Dixon. And many of our family just like a lot of the families really turned towards Christianity and what not. So that hampered some of the passing of traditions on in our family. But just like in all families there were people who did carry these things on. These two ladies were the ones that really influenced me because I remember they lived up until modern times. Katherine lived up until 1981 and Annie lived up until close to the early 90’s. I can’t remember. They were born in the 1800’s so they were around 100 years old when they died.

They were one of the last ones on this reservation who didn’t speak English and didn’t write English at all. They were the last ones here and they were the last ones who dressed in the traditional way of the Plateau women everyday. Not only like us where we dress up for Powwows or other festive occasions, they dressed like that every day with wing dresses that they made.

I always think about them and the way they are always preparing for things. I remember hearing my grandmother talk about them and the kind of force that they had. They used to get up and do their work. Then after they would do their work in the morning they would sit down and make a dozen wing dresses in one day. Finally she asked them, “Why are you making so many wing dresses? Why do you need a whole stock?” She would do that almost everyday. She told them in Nez Perce the reason she was doing that was because she was preparing herself for one day when she would not be able to make them for herself because she knew that time was coming. Sure enough both of them were bed ridden and went blind and rather than put the burden on somebody else to try to clothe them or whatever they made them for that time when they were going to be bed ridden.

I think about those kinds of things too and it is important in the way I try to somehow conduct myself in terms of the creation of these things, it is kind of hard to call them art, that we use. The things I make I make them not to hang on the wall necessarily or for mere decoration but I make them to be used. When they are used, when I put on an outfit it makes me kind of feel like I come alive with all these things. That is what they are helping me do, come alive when I dance and then they all move, everything moves. That is what they are intended for, for me.