Keith Bear

with Milt Lee

[audio:https://www.wisdomoftheelders.org/s2_progs/205_cr.mp3]

Arlie Neskahi :
Among many tribes, the earth is female in respect to the sky and wind, which are male. In this way, the Native wooden flutes are related to the wind and the birds who travel through sky man’s world.

In many northern tribes, the flute was used in courting, to win the heart of a loved one. Today, on Contemporary Rhythms, Milt Lee talks with Keith Bear, a Mandan Hidatsa flute player from New Town, North Dakota.

Milt Lee:
Generally, when I record a musician, I get to pull into the driveway, meet the man on his doorstep, scratch his dog. Due to circumstances though, this was not the case with Keith Bear, a Mandan Hidatsa flute player. We talked long distance in a phone interview and I was forced to rely on the tone of his voice and the sound of his recorded music. It was enough.

Music:
Keith Bear
Pumpkin Seed
Earth Lodge
Makoche Records
It is clear that the Native American flute has shaped and defined this man over many years.

Keith Bear:
I was born, well my mother lived here on the reservation, and I spent the first couple of years of my life over in Montana with my father and the family over there and then after he passed on we moved back to North Dakota.

After that ah, I guess I kind of started life as a Sioux boy and ended up being raised bi-culturally, Sioux Mandan with my mother and my relatives here, emphasizing the Mandan/Hidatsa part.

And then in first grade, shortly before first grade I was placed in my first foster home.

Lee:
In twelve years of schooling, Keith lived with fourteen non-Indian families. Trying to put the two very different worlds of Indian and white together was a constant struggle.

Bear:
I could speak better Indian than I could English and so, then when I went away to my first foster parents, you know, my grandparents would say, “Just be quiet and listen, you know, think about what’s being said and think about what you’re going to say.” Then I went to the foster homes and when they would ask me a question, I would look at them and think of my answer.

They would say, “Well, what’s the matter, why don’t you talk?”

So now I have another question to answer. Well, why ain’t I talking? So I think about that answer.

And they’d say “You’re just not being cooperative.”

Music:
Keith Bear
Warriors Return
People of the Willows
Makoche Records

Lee:
Like many people, the pain of personal and historical loss was medicated with alcohol. As a young man, Keith Bear began down that same road. Bear:
No, I didn’t think I would make it past 35 like most of my relatives, those with drug and alcohol problems, you now, and that’s what I figured I would be, you know. I might be a drunken cowboy, I might be a drunken whatever but I figured alcohol would be a part of my life and I would probably pass on because of it at a young age but, fortunately, when I gave that up for my children, you know, it really made a big difference.

The story of transformation for Keith Bear begins with his love for his family-and a Native American flute.

Music:
Keith Bear
Mandan Welcome – Warrior Return Song
Earth Lodge
Makoche Records
Bear:
I purchased my first flute through a trade with Sonny Tate Navacloya from Oklahoma. We worked in the oil field together in Cody, Wyoming area. And I watched him carving on a stick one day. Finally I seen it getting rounded and started to be complete so I thought it was a pipe.

“Oh no,” he said, “This is a flute.” And then he showed me the holes and popped the holes in there and by the end of that evening he was playing this, you know, kind of sour note, but it made a little whistle and the next morning when I came into the quonset, there was this beautiful, beautiful sound.

Music:
Keith Bear
Morning Star Flower Song
Echoes of the Missouri
Makoche Records
Lee:
Keith did a tough trade with the flute maker giving him a star quilt because he wanted that flute. You know the story, sometimes a person wants to play the flute-and sometimes the flute wants to play the person.

Bear:
I didn’t have any idea how to play it. But I carried it for two years and I would show it off and finally I decided I wanted to change my life for my family, my kids cause I knew I had a drinking problem and drug problem then and then I wanted to change. That’s why I left Wyoming.

And I ended up in Flagstaff, Arizona and then, so I went up on a cinder cone behind our house and stayed up there for three days and three nights. The wind blew through the flute the first night and made a kind of real low tone.

The second night the leaves of the little brush that was there and the grass would kind of sway over those holes and it sang a little bit.

And that was kind of scary, but I believe in the Spirit, you know. So I thanked them for being there and for comforting me with that song. And then when I did come down, it took me about maybe a week of making a lot of ugly noises on that thing. But then I got my first song.

Music:
Keith Bear
Mandan Warrior’s Calling Song
Earth Lodge
Makoche Records
But then I learned that song and then kind of expanded on it a little bit, kind of improvised a little bit, and started listening rather than trying to play the flute, and pretty soon it started to sing to me. And it was fascinating because my fingers would be moving. My mind would be thinking something else. And here is this beautiful music coming out of this thing, and I wonder, “Where did that song come from?” “Where did it go now?” (laughs)

Lee:
Three nights on a mountain, a flute beside him, and life took a definite turn for Keith. In 1984, he produced an album for Makoche Records. Since that time, Keith Bear has become a flute maker, traveled the world, and played with nine different symphonies and orchestras.

Music:
Keith Bear
Mandan Heartbreak Song
People of the Willows
Makoche Records
In 2001, Keith Bear was nominated for both a Grammy and a Nammy and won a Nammy from the Native American Music Assoiciation for Best Traditional Album – all this from a man who doesn’t read sheet music.

Music:
Keith Bear
Warrior’s Return
People of the Willows
Makoche Records
Bear:
And so to receive it like I did, you know, it’s very humbling and it still is. But it is such an honor, you know. It’s not me that they’re honoring. It’s my relatives who gave me the songs. It’s my ancestors who made the songs and stories. I’m just the one they get to look at, but there’s a lot of other people that are out there. So I am proud to be the one that they see getting these things, but it’s very humbling that I’m the one that has to get it.

Lee:
Sometime, when you’re listening to the wind play across the land, pay attention. Listen. You may be getting a song from the Spirit world.

Music:
Keith Bear
Track 3
Earth Lodge
Makoche Records
Bear:
It’s a journeying thing, in the mind and the heart for the player as well as the listener. So those flutes, they have a very beautiful spirit. It’s just we’re the heartbeat and we’re the breath for them and the spirit of that flute and that song and that person will come out as long as they believe. It’s amazing, yeah.

Lee:
For Wisdom of the Elders, I’m Milt Lee.

Neskahi:
Contemporary Rhythms is written and produced by Milt Lee of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe and his wife, Jamie Lee, who live and work in Rapid City, South Dakota. Check out their website, realrez dot com for more of their work.