i feel like all of us are starng to see what the problems in this country are. i think plenty of people are opinionated. i don't think there's many forums where you can really express yourself or try to make a difference or anything. i mean...wha'...whatdo... what do i do, ya' know? the only people that i'm able to affect are the people who care about what i have to say.

there is something you can do, but i'm sure it wouldn't be, uh...easy. different man: i get angry about it, but it's like... ya' know, in my own apartment. [laughs] the state of california. we want to call upon our crater to be with us this evening. stand with us for a few moments. when we believe in a creator, we believe in prayer, we do not separate church and state. to us as indians, this is one in and the same. we include our crater in our celebrations, songs, ceremony. -- we include our creator. 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.