Speaker 1: I've been blessed with the opportunity to share conversations with
each and every person who has appeared on NBC's The
Voice from twenty sixteen to this present day. We now
have it all on one podcast, that Voice. It's on
ARO dot net A R R O E dot Net.
Speaker 2: Hi.
Speaker 1: How are you doing, Angie?
Speaker 3: I'm doing great.
Speaker 4: Good morning.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. I'm very inspired by this book
because I grew up in the state of Montana, and
I got to tell you, when they took out the
name Custer at Custer Battlefield, I knew that life was
going to change for people around the world. And then
to pick up your book, all I see is violence.
This is amazing in the way of taking a story
and educating a new generation because we cannot go back there.
It's got to be about growing forward. But in order
to grow forward, we have to know where we've been.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with that in totality. I'm trained as
a historian and I'm a mother, so I wanted to
make something engaging for my children.
Speaker 1: Essentially, what did you feel inside your heart? Was it
influenced by an elder? Because I mean, this is a
book about a war for land, identity justice. I mean,
there's something going on here, but at the same time,
inside my heart and it's because of my love for
the soil of Montana, I just feel like there's still
something missing. What did you feel in doing this and
how can we identify that.
Speaker 2: I was told the story by Cheyenne elder, and for me,
it was bringing forth that knowledge because that's sort of
you know, that's hidden knowledge that's not in the public domain.
And so I feel by sharing it, we're all able
to connect to it. And that's going to be the
way forward, right is acknowledging what happened, integrating it, and
moving towards, you know, a sense of community.
Speaker 1: So when you talk about talking with a Cheyenne elder,
were you down in Wyoming or were you up there
around the prior mountains of Montana? When you when you
sat down.
Speaker 3: You know, I was actually out at a feast held.
Speaker 2: By the Musklam which is on the northwest coast of Canada,
and there is a whole gathering of elders and so
they have these little gatherings, well I'm not going to
say little. They have these like pretty magnificent gatherings all
over North America and you get invited to them.
Speaker 3: Oh sorry, continue, No, no, what happened?
Speaker 1: I mean, because I mean it's for you to be
able to sit down with an elder. Blows me away
because the last time I was with Chief John George,
I mean he looked at me and he goes, why
why why? He says, I need to have the young
ones of this generation to be able to tell the story.
And did you run into a why and have to
explain what you were up to, Angie?
Speaker 2: No, So I'm engaging this as well. So I'm originally
from the Northwest Territories and they identified me from a
very young age as a wisdom keeper, and so this
information is shared with me very openly. And so one
of the elders that also kind of took me under
his wing was the co Dayevish carver or Simon Charlie.
And so I'm actually carved on the bottom of a
couple of totem polls.
Speaker 3: As a will folding a copper tablet.
Speaker 2: That's a huge honor, yeah.
Speaker 1: Because because to me it is it's passing the generation forward.
And I love that you went through that experience because
without it, we've lost a major chunk of what this
nation is all about, or what this land is all about.
Because you dive into so many subjects here that really
involved almost two hundred years of history.
Speaker 2: It was complex and very intricate to put together. But
we're essentially dealing with.
Speaker 3: Multi generational trauma, and so, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I think it was a dishonor to just focus
on one area because.
Speaker 3: It reverberates through time and we're still.
Speaker 2: Dealing you know, we're still we're still obviously dealing with
this history as impacting our present situation.
Speaker 1: How did you deal with what your book was bringing forward?
Because there it took me a long time to get
through Buried at Wounded Knee because I was having some
some real big heart problems in the way of I
wanted to have empathy, passion, compassion for the warriors, for
the people of the land, and man, those people that
invaded it didn't think like I was thinking.
Speaker 2: I think, like, like experiencing the grief of what has transpired,
you're ultimately, you know, you're experiencing unconditional love, and that's
a universal experience that's irregardless of ethnicity, race, Like that's
something we can all come together, like we all want
a quality of life that's reflective of love. And so
I wanted to make it acceptable to anyone, not just
you know, not from this like really but we But
at the same time, I wanted to bring forth the
truth because it would do a huge dishonor so the
information shared with me, not to ground it in facts.
Speaker 1: Well, no, you're doing it. You're doing a great job
of d because I mean, the world of TikTok has
embraced you in a way, and I can't help us
sit here and smile and really get involved in it,
because I mean, you're reaching people that probably had no idea,
but they're willing to change.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that's that's you know. By making it accessible
and we have this shared experience, we can you know,
we honor what happened, we can move forward because your
perception is changed, and you know, I would like that
change to be.
Speaker 3: For everyone's highest good, not just the indigenous people.
Speaker 1: So now, who is Little Wolf And why is it
growing up in the state of Montana and being up
in the Pacific Northwest? Why is it? This was not
in my history books and we're talking about it right now.
Speaker 2: So Little Wolf was a fictional character loosely faced off
of different accounts of the Battle of Washida, or I
guess it's not really a battle, the massacre of Wasshida.
So what happened was General Custer snuck up on a
sleeping Cheyenne camp and they, you know, they they murdered
them all for most of them, and those that they
didn't murder were you know, a handful of women and children,
and the women they've been beautiful. So they took them
back to the camp and they essentially raped them. And
so you know from that Custer brought forth illegitimate child
outside of his marriage.
Speaker 3: With the chief's daughter.
Speaker 2: I wanted to incorporate that in.
Speaker 3: The story because that's actual, but.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to use actual character that had been
there because of the gravity of that situation.
Speaker 3: But through through my archival research.
Speaker 2: You know, it does appear that a Cheyenne female warrior
murdered killed General Custer on the battlefield.
Speaker 3: And so that was a story that was told to
me by the Cheyenne elder, but he didn't have a
name for her.
Speaker 1: Boy that sure doesn't match that picture when you go
to the Battle of the Little Big Horn National Monument,
does it, And it certainly does not.
Speaker 2: And so you know, it's really interesting because that's you know,
it's pretty apocalyistic for the Indigenous people at the end
of the nineteenth century, and so they're kind of face
they're getting relocated, they're being forced to see their land
and to see.
Speaker 3: You know, us the land is sacred is something that's
an integral part of our culture, identity, or society.
Speaker 2: We lived off the land, and so to move is
being to lose everything. And so not only were they
moving them, but they're forcing them onto reservations, where then
they're completely dependent on the government for everything. So this
does end up eventually happening. And so then you know,
you have one hundred years.
Speaker 3: Of subjugation through these reservations.
Speaker 2: And then they take the children and they place them
in the United States to call them boarding schools. And
then in the nineteen fifties they start.
Speaker 3: Shutting down and.
Speaker 2: Trying to force people off the reservations and into urban environments.
So you have like a seventy.
Speaker 3: Percent relocation of Indigenous people.
Speaker 2: Into urban environments with the education they received in residential
and boarding schools or a lower standard of what everyone
else is receiving. So and then they pulled all the
resources and so that's where you have the American Indian Movement,
which I tied.
Speaker 3: Into the story.
Speaker 1: See, you're bringing all of this history together into one
where we have a full picture of what's going on. Now,
I'm going to ask a question and you can tell
me to take this out and I will. And that
question is when you talk about how they're taking them
off from the areas that they lived and try to
incorporate them into the public. Right away, my mind goes, well,
look at what they're doing today. They're giving them casinos
and they're thinking we lived happily ever after. That is
not true. There's no way. And that's why we need
books like this that say wake up, it's still going
on and we need to have people come together to
help as a community.
Speaker 2: I agree with that again in totality like that, where
I'm from the best territories, there's no casinos.
Speaker 3: There's very little resources, and there's a lot of poverty.
Speaker 2: And with this, we're overrepresented in every category presently, you know,
in substance abuse, domestic violence, sexual violence, like you know,
Indigenous women are going missing in North America.
Speaker 3: At unprecedented levels. Nobody investigates it.
Speaker 1: Now you're going into an area that I've I have
done so many conversations over the past two to three
years on this and I and I and it's gonna
it's got to get bigger and bigger and bigger. First
of all, let's identify the book. All I see is
the violence. And when you say that it is getting worse,
there is a huge thing that is unspoken in this
nation right now, the disappearance of Indigenous women. And it's like, oh, well, okay,
and then nobody's doing anything about it, but yet it's
happening over and over again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, and you know often when they do find
the women, they've been brutaling the it so as an
Indigenous woman, that's obviously, and I'm a mother of daughters
and I'm an auntie of lots of nieces, and you know, it's.
Speaker 3: Interesting, like when I go.
Speaker 2: Home, that's the biggest grievance airs to me, is like
how dangerous it is to be an Indigenous woman. And
you can see that this is this tone is set
historically by what they did to the Indigenous women, the
United States armies, and so you know, there's this disregard
for human.
Speaker 3: Life and it's you know, it's it's it shouldn't be.
Speaker 2: Happening at this point in time, Like we.
Speaker 3: Should all be enlightened enough that.
Speaker 2: Every live matters.
Speaker 1: I don't know how that you or your family members
can handle when you're watching a movie that's on a
big screen or a flat screen and there's an Indigenous
woman that's part of a story that's in the community,
and it's like, you know, it's it's like a martial
artist trying to watch a martial artist movie. That's not
really how it goes on. And I have a feeling
that's what movies are for you as well as that
it's like that that's not true, that's not the way
that it really went down.
Speaker 2: No, I agree with that as well, Like there's a
grotesque misrepresentation. Wow, And it's you know, and like I
where I come from.
Speaker 3: So my mother was forcibly taken and sent a.
Speaker 2: Residential school and she was abused there, and so then
I was forcibly taken from my mother and placed into
social services. So like to contend with what we have
to contend with as Indigenous people to make it where
I've made it, like, it's it's incredibly challenging. So you
you know, you.
Speaker 3: Have a delusion of any voice.
Speaker 2: And to go into the arts, like as an indigenous person,
like that.
Speaker 3: Was challenging too.
Speaker 2: And so I started out, you know, in university and
I was you know, I have degrees in creative writing,
English literature and Indigenous history.
Speaker 3: And so for me, like the truth was very freeing,
Like I was able to let go a.
Speaker 2: Lot of you know, kaijuices, hostility and anger just by
you know, kind of getting.
Speaker 3: A broader picture.
Speaker 2: And one of the schools I attended was in England.
Speaker 3: So had the opportunity to travel the world.
Speaker 2: And to just get a broader sense of you know, this.
Speaker 3: Kind of shared experience of humanity.
Speaker 1: So how what was your reaction with the Martin Scorsese
movie from about a year a year and a half
ago when it when it came to telling the story
of the Mid American Native Americans or the or the
or the different groups of people, Because because that opened
up my eyes to where there was money in the soil,
money was to be made, but by God, there were
people on the outside that wanted to get in there
and change history.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you had the same like I.
Speaker 2: I liked it, Like I there was I thought a
few shortcomings. I think it would have been better if
they had, you know, the female characters were stronger, yes,
and more.
Speaker 3: Essential to the story.
Speaker 2: But I mean that's I mean, that's Martin Scorsese magnificent.
So that was that was my one. But I mean
it was shot beautifully. They pulled it together nicely. Flowers,
what is that, Killer Flower, Killers of the Flower.
Speaker 1: Move, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: And so that was a fantastic book written by the
journalists who research it, like like the thorough research and
a very you know, comprehensive view of what transpired there.
Speaker 3: But also the Cherokee were very wealthy.
Speaker 2: Like many of these tribes when they started dissecting them
and going after them, had like you know, they had written.
Speaker 3: Languages, they had multi story.
Speaker 2: Buildings, they had complex social systems. Like it's it's not
it's not like they portray it, sort of like almost
like some sort of like degenerate being that they were attacking,
and like they did them a favor.
Speaker 3: They didn't. They took them down a notch. They took
all of us down a notch.
Speaker 4: Please do not move. We'll be back with Angie Alida
Newell coming up next. The name of the book. All
I See is violence. From Angie A Leita Newall. In
holding the book and really getting into the story. There
are two different sides of this that I'm feeling. Number One,
you know, you sat down with a with an elder
from the Cheyenne Nation, which which is unbelievable that that
they they're speaking with you so openly. And number two,
I always I can't help but feel like that that
you were chosen to do this. The medicine man came
to you because they knew that what you would do
with your words would help heal people. If you know
where I'm going with this. So it's it's it's almost
like you're on two sides there and you're helping out
the families in so many different directions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I think they saw that in me
because I you know, that's just my nature. I can
pass people like that's not that's not.
Speaker 3: The way forward.
Speaker 2: And so yeah, that's and and so that's a real
tradition within indigenous communities, like they identify a children's strengths
like quite young, and then they sort of mentor.
Speaker 3: Them in that direction. And so in all I see violence,
like when I got into how.
Speaker 2: Warriors kind of manifested like these these individuals are trained
from about seven eight onwards. Yep, yeah, because men and
women and so what was interesting as well? So the
women are sort of you know, omitted from history because
the United States Army didn't like that they were being
invested by females, and because you know, we're talking at
the late eighteen hundreds is a very different world view.
Speaker 3: Than today, and so they.
Speaker 2: Fought in a different manner as well to compensate for
size and strings.
Speaker 1: One of the things that the History Channel has really
really dove into is is basically true crime. Do you
see this story as being a moment where it's like, Okay,
admit it, true crime did take place here. We need
to uncover it and keep talking about it and keep
it out here in our conversation.
Speaker 3: Oh definitely, Yeah. I love the History Channel, So.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure that somehow got into my zeitgeist.
Speaker 1: So where can people go to find out more about
what you're doing, Angie, because there's got to be a
lot of groups that are coming together that say, look,
this is unbelievable. Let's let's keep this growing.
Speaker 2: I you can find me on my website at Angieleidaneuell
dot com, and I'm on Instagram.
Speaker 3: At Angie Leidaneuwell.
Speaker 2: And I did.
Speaker 3: I am being acknowledged for my work.
Speaker 2: I was the recipient of this year's IBBA Award, which
is formerly known as the Benjamin Franklin Book Awards.
Speaker 1: So do you find yourself putting this books at these
at these at the National Monument museums, because I would
love to go into the Battle of the Little Bighorn
and see your book in there.
Speaker 2: No, I've never even thought of that, but thank you,
I will contact them.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I mean because this time of year,
especially here in the Carolinas, there's also a lot of
festivals of the horizon as well, you know, when it
comes to the seasons that are taking place right now,
we're celebrating the harvest. So I mean it's like that's
where your book needs to be, is where the people
are and where a lot of newbies or wannabes are
stepping into the circle learning, wanting to learn even more.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with you, and I think this book's
a good place to start because it's accessible, it's engaging,
it's factual, like you can I do archival research for my.
Speaker 3: Novels, which isn't required because.
Speaker 2: I'm in fiction that it took me about two years
of archival research as well as the foundation of indigenous
elder stories before I proceeded, so I could give an
annotated bibliography.
Speaker 1: What was the total animal that your mother or your
grandfather gave you? Or basically, you know when you were
given birth and then did it change as you grew
through the years.
Speaker 2: I was given the eagle at birth, and then I
was given the wolf as well, so I'd been.
Speaker 3: The combination of the eagle and the wolf. So those
are some of the most powerful turt of animals you
can be gifted.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's land in sky. And you know
with the wolf, I mean, a silent wolf is somebody
who stands back in watches, observes, activates, and then brings change.
Speaker 2: So what's the elder that gave me the wolf? He
told me, he said a.
Speaker 3: Wolf can change the course of a river.
Speaker 2: And so what a wolf can do right by attacking prey,
it can actually change like how a river goes.
Speaker 1: God, it's so fascinating this, I mean, this is such
my book and it's it's like, how do we get
this book out there for other people to embrace it
as well? And see because there's such an experience here
and I just I just can't thank you enough for
bringing it to us in the language that you have,
because I can feel your energy in those paragraphs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you so much. I went. I ended up
partnering with the independent publisher Green Press. So what you're
reading is like, that's my work. And so if you
do go with a bigger publisher, they have the right
to change your work and you don't.
Speaker 3: Choose the cover as well.
Speaker 2: So I worked with the graphic artist Neil Gonzalez, and
we came up with the cover together. So what you're
seeing on it, the skulln Hydrans is actually sitting Bull
who was murdered at Wounded Me massacre.
Speaker 1: You just brought up Wounded Me that you know that
those of us that know of that, we just took
a second breath. There we went. You know, it's like,
oh my god, Now let me ask you this question.
Only in the way of marketing the book, will there
be a place because there had to have been some
sort of spiritual tools used in bringing this book forward
to protect you to feel like that you were safe
to field, because I mean, because I have I have
walking sticks, I have different spiritual tools inside this studio.
And it's all because when you really truly study the
purpose of why people sat down to create these, then
then you understand that even the dream catcher is not
about purifying your dreams. I don't know why they go there.
Speaker 2: I just worked with like a couple different elders to
guide me through the process to make sure we were
anchored in a higher understanding that it didn't and they
just they perform ceremonies around me.
Speaker 1: Wow, you are in such a blessed place, and I
cannot wait to have a conversation with you again in
the future because I just love where you're growing. Are
you working on a second book, another chapter of this history?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: How are you working your words? Because you've now set
this free.
Speaker 2: I am going to the apaches. I am right now
in the middle of a narrative about Geronimo. The medicine
woman lows in and the medicine man not still climb.
And so we have a couple of the same characters
that made it through the Battle Little Bighorn, like General Krook,
who you know he fought at the Battle of the Rosebud,
which is a few days.
Speaker 3: Before Little Bayhorn so he wasn't at Little Bigcorn, so.
Speaker 2: He lived to see another day. But he gets sent
down to bring.
Speaker 3: In Geronimo, who has a thirty year standoff with the
US military.
Speaker 1: This is you know, you bring up the Battle of
the Little Big Horn and right away I'm taking to
the greasy grass which is throughout the state of Wyoming,
and that that how important the land was to the
people that lived on that soil. And it's like you're
You're stirring up so many memories and those of us
that have walked those trails.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's that's extraordinary, Like we need.
Speaker 2: To remember like where where our roots are?
Speaker 1: Yes, well, that that's what it's all about. But now
how you know light Like John George told me, and
that was how do you get the younger generation to
tell the story like you? So, how do you inspire
those younger people to pick up their writing instrument and
get that story growing about their family?
Speaker 2: I'm not too sure. Hopefully they're just inspired. I can
actually see just shrowing different people who have contacted you
that I that I didn't know previous to them engaging
with my book, that they're starting to you know, it's
sparking like oh maybe I should tell this story. And
so I think it's just opening the door and seeing
what comes through.
Speaker 3: But someone had to open the door, and that's a
hard door to open.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because Angie, the one thing that I've learned in
sharing stories and talking with authors and stuff like that
there's such a big push right now in this country
to get readers to see themselves.
Speaker 4: On those pages.
Speaker 1: There aren't too many stories about Native Americans out there
right now, and a book like this at least opens
the door to where people can say, Okay, this is
where we were, where can we grow?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree with that as well.
Speaker 2: Again, like it's you know, there aren't like the US
military and government switched to a policy of extermination as
they get frustrated with their failure of relocation. So like
our numbers are way population wise, like they managed to
murder a lot, So there's not many Indigenous people to
begin with in comparison to the rest of the population.
So to like get through like all these different hurdles
incredibly challenged. So I hope myself and my work inspire
other people and challenging circumstances to know that you can.
You just gotta keep going, Like Moggason's on the floor.
People like keep going forward.
Speaker 1: When you speak of moving around like that. That's one
of the things that a lot of people do not
understand is that it was a moving around situation. Because
I've been with people here in the South where the
cro Nation came traveling through this area, and they relied
on the arrows of the people that were living here
in order to survive because they didn't know how to
make the arrows out of the soil down here in
the South. So therefore, I mean, and that would be
such a wonderful book. How did people survive by using
another nation's tools in order to keep growing forward?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's actually pretty amazing when you do get into
that sort of information, Like the adaptation of technology by
indigenous people is astounding, even how they became mounted on
horses and started using gun, and the mastery that they
had of those two things was far superior to that
of the military they were up against.
Speaker 1: Well, they always said that the Crow Nation was absolutely
the best when it came to riding horses. My god,
and then when you see it happening, it's like, oh, yeah,
they got that down right, And.
Speaker 2: You know, it's really fascinating too, like like the crow people,
like all the nations that were mounted the Apoche to
see the Cheyenne, Like.
Speaker 3: They didn't have stables, so they just like truckted.
Speaker 2: The horse where hang out, and they.
Speaker 3: All had whistles for their horses, and the horse would
just come.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine, like my dog doesn't even listen that.
Speaker 1: Well, now, when you talk about your next book being
about the Apache, you know, Hollywood has totally destroyed that
picture they have. Hollywood has its own image of who
the Apache is. So I'm very excited about you going
to do this because it's going to open our eyes
and give us a clearer picture of the true history.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It it was actually challenging to get through those
recurs or even set like even for myself, I had to.
Speaker 3: And so the Apache, I'm I'm.
Speaker 2: Lively Q and I'm from the Northwest Territories, but that's
the broader name for that.
Speaker 3: Is Danny, and so like.
Speaker 2: The Apaches are like our cousins. So this is this
is very exciting. Near Tay for me is.
Speaker 3: Like coming home.
Speaker 1: Do you ever get over to the Prior mountains to
study the wild animals over there? Because I've always believed
that is the closest thing to where we once stood
in this nation as a people, is the fact that
it is still so wild there and that you know,
I mean, because that's where a lot of people went
to get their horses.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2: Actually, in twenty twenty two, we drove across the United States.
So I'm a mother and two daughters, and we used
to do homeschool in their formative years, and we traveled
all through the country and it's just magnificent. And so
we had a travel trailer and we just we went
into some really rural, like just spectacular places.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: And so I got to travel through the mountains of
Geronimo as well, and that was when I was still
gathering information.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 4: Wow, Wow.
Speaker 1: You got to come back to this show anytime in
the future. There's there's just not enough time here. And
the more more we have conversations, the more we can
create conversations for others to start sharing.
Speaker 3: I would love to thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: Will you be brilliant today and thank you for all
I see is violence. Do not judge this book by
its cover. Go into it and learn something and see
where we are and how we can become even a
stronger group of people as a community.
Speaker 2: I wish. I wrote that on my cover jacket.
Speaker 4: Thank you be brilliant today.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, thank you so much