bear with me a few moments. i stand before you as a pitiful man. i am full of mistakes. i pray for help tonight from you that we would be able to recognize some of the heroes and our community. those selfish ones that put themselves before others. we thank you for the legacy of our native american people as we stand before you. we come from one nation, one

country. you put us here to take care of mother earth, to take care of one another, to teach our little ones, to help our elderly. to provide the necessities to our infirm, those that are sick. creator, we ask you to be with us this evening. our dancers, singers, the ones that will receive the award and those that will present these awards. be with each and every one of your people that stand before you from the oldest to the youngest. all of these things, [speaking foreign language ] at this time, we will call upon

our native american in aids project. we are ready for you now. dancers, please make your way. and ladies and gentlemen, can you please stand one more time. [inaudible] come on, dancers. [music playing] the eagle staff, the first flight of this land. before the california state flag, but for the city of san francisco.

this is the first flight of this land. carrying the staff is this young man. let's give him a round of applause. from the northern plains, representing our relatives from the north, the blackfeet, the lakota. behind them are the seven dancers representing our relatives from the kiowa, the muskogee. our southern women.

behind our southern women, our number women. -- our number womorthenrn women. and the little ones. thank you, thank you very much. that is and gentlemen, boys and girls, we have a lot of answers.

here they come. if he would bring the fly right in front of us. -- flag right in front of us. there are many veterans among us tonight. we appreciate you standing while we honor them with a flag song. many of our tribes have our own flag song. we are calling on them at this time to render our flag song for

each and everyone of us. and these have led our warriors into battle to defend this great country, our motherland. we did not come from another country, we did not emigrate to this country, we were here and the creator put us here. he gave us the songs to remember our ancestors, cheese, grandmothers, grandfathers, and our relatives of this homeland of ours.

[music playing

>> thank you. now let us honor our veterans of the victory song. as the eager stands before us, remember, those warriors that paid the ultimate price for our freedoms, let us remember that freedom is not free. there is a cost for freedom. our warriors paid that price that we could enjoy the freedom that we have tonight together to assemble, to honor, to sing and dance. we thank our warriors, our receipt advance -- veterans.

>> hornering all branches of service -- honoring all branches of service, tonight in this veterans song, remembering those who served the united states army, the united states marine corps, united states navy, united states air force, the merchant marines.

the clothes that we wear, these are warrior clothes that they wear, the regalia of the eagle feathers, the buckle. these are the uniforms of our american indian men, the warrior societies, before those service branches of the united states government forces. thank you. you may be seated. thank you very much for standing. a long opening ceremony. we appreciate it. right now we're going to have some exhibitions. why don't we go ahead and post that stamp. do we have a stand for that? ok. you can stand to the side, if would you stand. it won't be long and we'll have it out for us. let's get another round of applause. we're going start with our

little once -- ones. our little girls. why don't we have the children, we have a bunch of jingle dress dancers, if you would, come out. we're going to start with the friendship house drum. two starts on the jingle dress dance, if you would. this dance has a very beautiful history. this is a healing dance, a healing dress. one of our elders among the chip with a people had a young daughter that was sick and he thought that she was going to die. he called up on creator. creator came to him in a dream, a vision, and told him to prepare this dress in this way, make this dress, gave him the songs that go along with that dance, she was made healed. she was made well. so we dance the jingle dress dance for you this evening. a dance of healing. when you're ready, singers, give us two starts. how about a round of applause for them?

all these beautiful young women and little girls, thank you. as they make the music of the jingles, they bring the healing to all of our people. the wellness and balance that we need to sustain life. ♪

>> how about a round of applause for our jingle dancers. all right. thank you. how about that? all right. the jinglers category. this time we're going to call up on our women, traditional women and girls. traditional. women and girls traditional will go to the native american aids project, san francisco. both northern and southern style. southern plains and northern plains. we'll have you dance together tonight in the interest of time. two starts again, if you would, singers. traditional women and girls. the old style. back in the day the women did not dance full circle as they do today. they danced for their fathers to honor their fathers, their brothers, their uncles. they danced the honor song, the victory song.

today it's very beautiful and colorful, the old style, the very dignyified style of dancing. old style traditional. our southern ladies coming across on the southern side. our northern ladies and southern ladies combined come in on the southern side. thank you, ladies. very beautiful. very dignyified. we are proud of our women. we hold our women in very high regard in all of our cultures. they are the keepers of our culture, the teachers of our language.

all right. give another round of applause. thank you, ladies. oh, beautiful. very beautiful. now we'll call for the men traditional. northern and southern will be going to the friendship house sobriety drum. two starts on that again. again for the societies of the northern and southern plains. our warriors, northern and southern. let's give them a round of applause as they make their way past you. our traditional dancers. the first homeland event, our native american american indian warriors. [speaking foreign language]

>> all right, there you have it. how about a big round of applause, our men traditional dancers. thank you very much, gentlemen. next we're going to bring out another society of men and boys, another healing society of the grass dancers. and they are from the northern plains, the northern regions and the northern south dakota, montana, all the way up into canada and we're going to call up on the native american aids

project for the grass dance song. michael is the lead singer. when you're ready, michael. grass dancers, let's give them a nice welcome. our grass dancers.

>> all right, there you have it. our grass dancers. how about that? all right now we're going to go into our contemporary style of dancing. that's our fancy men's dance and we're going to start with our fancy shawl dance category. we have a couple young ladies, three of them that are going to come out. this is a modern style, contemporary style. it evolved into 1950's to present and they danced with a fancy footwork style of dancing. sometimes called the butterfly dance. so we're going to go over to the san francisco sobriety drum. let's give them a welcome. our young girls. shaul dancers -- shawl dancers.

>> all right. how about that? our girls fancy shawl. we're going to go to the men's war dance. this is a little earlier than the women's. it was back in the 1930's in oklahoma. came all the way to california so we're going to go to the native american aids project for a men's fancy war dance. pick it up, men's fancy. how about a round of applause for our war dancer? a lot of fancy footwork.

all right. there you have it. fantastic. all right.

all right, ladies and gentlemen, all good things must come to an end. we're going to retreat the eagle staff with our dancers. let's give them one big round of applause. all of our dancers, thank you very much. friendship house, if you would, take them out. appreciate you guys being here. give them a retreat song, exit song and we'll take them out and go into the awards part of our program this evening. so when you're ready, friendsship house, sobriety drum. retreat song. take out the eagle staff for us this evening. can we stand one more time, ladies and gentlemen, as the eagle staff makes its way out. thank you. let's give him another round of applause and thank you.

from the black pee nations. thank you, dancers. thank you for being here. add to the heritage the culture that makes san francisco the beautiful city that it is. with all the beautiful colors, all the beautiful races, all the beautiful tribes, thank you. our dancers represent the black feet, the die with a and others.

alaska natives. thank you. thank you, dancers. thank you for being here. thank you for celebrating with

us. how about a round of applause for our singers? san francisco sobriety drum. native american native project drums. thank you, thank you, you may be seated. thank you for standing one more time. how about a round of applause for our drums? san francisco friendship house sobriety drum and american native aids project singers. thank you.

at this time as we go into recognizing our heroes, our local heroes, there are some individuals that are very deserving of being nominated and selected for this very high award and honor among our indian people and if gavin newsom, the mayor, is here, we certainly want to acknowledge him. so please let me know if -- when he does arivene. we will give him special due recognition and thank him and the city of san francisco. let's do that now. a nice big round of applause. for mayor gavin newsom. city council. and all of the programs and departments of this beautiful city government. thank you. this time i'm going to call qwona to the stand with me.

we're going to recognize someone that is well deserving and long overdue for recognition. it's my pleasure to introduce our first honoree, lehman brightman. i've known lehman since i first arrived in san francisco in 1962. if fact, he got me my first shore side job when he was a director at the san francisco indian center. and he is a very upstanding individual, he's a member of the sioux and creek tribes. he was born on the cheyenne river sioux reservation in south dakota. he's the father three boys, lehman jr., gall and qwona here with me. he currently lives in pinot, california. he's the founder of the national president of the united founder and president of the national united native americans incorporated, a

nonprofit indian organization formed in 1968 to promote the progress and general welfare of american indians. in his capacity of president of u.n.a., mr. brightman has testified in two u.s. senate hearings on the deplorable conditions of indian boarding schools and hospitals on reservations. he's also led investigations of seven indian boarding schools, three indian hospitals, due to the poor service and abusive treatment of indian people. he's a former football and track star at oklahoma state university where he has earned a b.a. degree. he has an m.a. deling from -- degree from the university of california at birkly. mr. brightman is an ex-marine, served one year in the korean conflict where he was wounded in action. he was a disinterested student going through the motions during high school and college in order to play football. however, when he joined