As I step into the circle of the drum, I feel a real homely
feeling as right away Gordie Waste’ste busts out a wicked joke. I sit at the
drum waiting to sing and the announcer with his loud voice yells for our drum
group. “Elks Whistle bring in our grand entry boys!”
We start singing and I can feel the excitement of all of us
boys sitting around the drum together and singing. I come to realize I am
singing with a legend, Angelo Waste’ste. Feels good to sing with this guy, but
during the grand entry song they pass me the second lead and my stomach fills
with adrenaline as I take the lead.
After the grand entry the drum beside us sings for the Girls
Fancy Shawl. As they are singing we are thinking of what song to sing for the Girls
Jingle. So Gordie comes up with one of my favourite songs from the Young Bear
singers, and did we sing the heck out of that song.
So as our drum and the other drum go through the categories
of dance we get to the Boys Chicken and this is my category of dance. I start
to sing one of my favourite tunes from Blackfoot Confederacy to Gordie and he
says, “yep that’s the one.” He teaches the rest of the boys the song and the
chicken dancers come out, and we give them that song. It was a great experience
for me because I never really get to sing chicken songs because I’m always
dancing to them, but this time it was very worth it.