Thank you so much. Good evening. So nice to be here. Thank you so much, everybody. All right. So we're
just going to get started. Fabian, you'll see him flying in in just a moment.
I am indebted to my Zuni people and my ancestors for all that I am. My Zuni religion and language which
is the foundation of my being. The songs of the Zuni people are passed down from generation to generation
to celebrate culture, tradition and the teachings
The songs and dances are a means of ushering in blessings and hope for the people to be lifted in spirit
and to prosper in their daily lives. May these songs touch everyone, young and old, all races, all people
throughout the world. May grandfather keep you safe and warm always.
to answer my own.
I wrote this song as an honor song and remembrance and honor song to the creation story of the Zuni
people where my husband Fabian was born and raised. They have a beautiful story of emergence. It takes
four days and four nights to tell the story of their emergence. From the bottom of the Grand Canyon
they came, from the underworld out into the world of Sunfather. It's a beautiful story. So I wrote this song.
their story of emergence.
they came out of darkness and shadow into the light of new day. Creator breathe life into them. The
sting of breath and new eyes. We opened their mouths for the first time.
First spoken words realize and they call themselves the people of the flesh. Out of the ashes and into
light. Out of darkness and into the light. Out of the ashes and into light.
Out of the ashes and into life Out of darkness and into the light Out of the ashes and into life
I don't know if any of you have been to New Mexico, but there's 19 reservations, or we like to say villages,
in New Mexico, and Zuni is the largest and oldest village in New Mexico, and that's where Fabian was
born and raised. He's also Omaha, and so the way he's dressed tonight in this outfit, his regalia, is
more representing his Omaha people, although he does have some things that he wears to represent his Zuni
family as well. Thank you so much. Thank you for coming out everybody. Thank you so much. How many people
have been to Taos Pueblo? Have people not been there? Taos people always say they're the oldest continuously
inhabited village on the North American continent. Don't believe them. Because Zunis are.
Oh gosh, reminds me of football or something. Well anyways, I wrote this next song for all of you here
today, for our family and for yours. And I think it's so important to be proud of who we are, all of
us here tonight. Be proud of who you are and where you come from. It's so important. That's so beautiful.
You know, especially we have the holidays upon us coming and we all have so many different
ways of celebrating those things.
So teach your children and your grandchildren those things, your traditions and so forth. Carry those
things down and teach them and show them and be proud of who you are. I wrote this song for all of us
here tonight. It's called Heritage.
Our fathers fought for this heritage Where the spirit wind reminds me of who I am
by my calling to uphold the ancient secret of my past. I recall the elder's stories and the wisdom in
their eyes. I must teach them to my children. I will never sacrifice my heritage.
Spirit wind reminds me of who I am. Heritage, our fathers fought for this. I can hear their distant
voices as they tell me to
We've fallen.
from all over the world on our travels is so beautiful. It's amazing how much we all have in common.
Even though we come from different places, it's a beautiful thing.
to write songs, music and songs that bring people together. Especially now these days we need that.
We need to be kind to each other and compassionate and all of that. So it means a lot to me to be able
to sing these songs to you. And to be able to do what we do, Fabian and I, I'm so thankful that we can
do these shows together. Our daughter used to travel with us and dance, but she's all grown now with
children and so she's
carrying on and teaching our grandchildren the dances and so forth. And it's just, we're so proud. We're
so proud of them. At this time, baby's, what was that? Heritage. Heritage, exactly. Thank you.
I wrote a song, I love to write contemporary native music, so I take real traditional old rhythms sometimes,
dance rhythms, and I write contemporary songs to them.
This next one is one of those. It's a double beat crow hop. It's one of my favorite old, old style dances,
the double beat crow hop. And I wrote this song so that Fabian could come out and dance. I wrote it
also for our families to encourage them to keep dancing, keep singing. It's so important that we do
that. And so Fabian, maybe you could explain to them the meaning behind the double beat crow hop. As
Shelley said, this is her most favorite song.
and dance, the style of dance. And I believe that, I truly believe that the Double B Crowhop truly belongs
to the Shorajay people of Montana. The Shorajay people actually to this day still have the Double B
Crowhop Society songs. And the drum group that's really well known, that's very old family drum group,
who knows, maybe a couple hundred or several hundred year old family traditional sacred drum group known
as the Mad Dog Sinners.
and they carry very, very old traditional double B krohop songs. And Shelly took the rhythm and the
groove and she put orchestration and lyrics to it and it came out very, very beautifully and she titled
it Faithful Feet.
spirit of the drum it calls to me it calls to me dance dance dance faithful feet shake the ground like
a thunder from the heavens from the north the south the east and the west
shape the ground. My heart beating. The rhythm of life. I am a child. I am a woman. Cover me in the
sacred smoke. My paint is red and yellow ochre. I move with grace.
Destiny
the drum it calls to me, it calls to me. Spirit dance, holy dance, ghost dance, war dance, scalp dance,
buffalo dance, eagle dance,
close to 25 years. I taught myself how to play this beautiful instrument and I love music. I love to
play. I have different instruments. I play guitar and mandolin piano and I love music and I love to
play different kinds of instruments. But I think the Native flute is by far my most favorite. This is
a medicine instrument. It's an instrument of the heart and you don't have to know how to read music or be
have special training. Anyone can play this instrument. And it's brought a lot of healing into my life.
I'm so thankful for this Native American flutes that I have. And they're in different keys nowadays.
There's contemporary flutes now, different keys, different types of wood. Sometimes they get real exotic
and real fancy. But this is an A bass flute. And I thought I brought this
to share with you tonight because it has such a beautiful sound, a beautiful tone, much different than
the other flutes that I have. And so I'm just going to play a little song from my heart on the A bass
flute and Fabian will accompany me so you can hear the sound of the Native American flute, just the
flute by itself.
I always say when I do my flute demonstrations, I try not to go on and on and play long because I don't
want you to go to sleep. It's very relaxing. This is a drone flute. This is called a drone flute. And
this is actually two flutes side by side built together. So you can play one side or both sides. And
I'd love to share this one. It has the most wonderful sound
Definitely, this one is much different than the rest. And so I'll play a little something on this one
so you can hear the sound of the drone, Native American drone flute. Okay.
going to share some hand drum songs and stories with you. I'm so proud of Fabian, but he carries the
things that he teaches me and our family. I'm so thankful. He carries so many songs from his, not only
his days with the, and travels with the American Indian Dance Theater, but he grew up in a real traditional
family in Zuni. His grandparents
created the Zuni rainbow dancers in the early 1900s. And they've traveled to many places all around
the world in order to bring native education and dances and songs around the world. And so carries many
stories and songs. So proud of Fabian. Go ahead. Thank you so much. Thank you, Shelley. Let's give Shelley
another big round of applause. I'm so proud of my sweetheart. I love Shelley.
Just to give you a little bit more about Shelly, she's northern Cheyenne, the Sista Osuna people, the
Sista Osuna people, northern Cheyenne people. They believe they come from the Morning Star, the Morning
Star people. And through Shelly, we've received numerous awards, accolades throughout the years, just
to name a few. New Mexico Music Awards, Best Female Vocal Artist, Best Album of the Year, Native American
Music Academy Awards for
album of the year, again, best female vocal artist, the Red Bronze Feather Aborigine Award. It's kind
of a tongue twister for me. Oh, as of late, August 24th of last month, the Intercontinental Music Awards
of Los Angeles, California for the American Roots Division best song, Shirley Morning song.
I want to share our grandfather's ego dance song with you all. It's a very special song to my family,
our family, our people as well, and to a handful of northern relatives from Taos Pueblo, Pickarees,
Hoka, Hwingi people. There's several northern Pueblo people that still use this song to this day in
their dance and in their ceremonies.
And it was composed for a grandfather around the early 20s, 1920s. And my interpretation of what the
eagle means to our people, to our families, could be totally different to the person to the left of
me and the person to the right of me. There's 567 recognized tribes in the United States, Canada,
and Alaska. And we all, pretty much everyone of us, believe that.
The ego carries our hopes and our prayers and our dreams up to grandfather creator, that he's been given
the power to look into the eyes of grandfather, takes our prayers, our hopes and our dreams. And he's
ever present in all our societies, in our homes, men's societies, warrior societies, and even women's
societies as well. And the song sings about how we believe that he has the power to also fly into huge,
cumulus clouds to produce thunder, lightning, and rain. And that's what this song sings about. And our
grandfather's Indian name was Young Man, cha cha na, in our language. Old man, cha cha na.
And it's funny, because when you translate it, it's like, how you doing, old man, young man? How you
doing today? But our grandpa, Merle, this is his ego dance song.
of them recorded and stored away in the Folklife Library in Washington, D.C. So I'd like to sing one
of those songs to you. Thank you. Maybe you can explain a little if you want. Grandmother went to school
in Riverside, California, Indian school in Riverside, California. And little did she know she was going
to become a singer, a soloist, a performer, and so on to make a long story short.
This was in 1917 when she graduated, and in 1919, with the help of her great-great-grandfather, our
great-grandfather, they composed a song, and they actually took it from a Longhair Society song, and
they asked permission from the elders, from the medicine people, if she could use this in her travels
and her shows, and she was given approval to do so. So they tweaked it a little bit, took out some of the,
ancient sacred actual words out, but kept a little bit of them in. And again, it sings about coming
from a very dry, arid North Plateau country in northern New Mexico. Water is very essential. This is
very sacred to many people in the Southwest. And so it sings about the thunder and the lightning and
the rain, and it's singing to the babies. It's singing to the little ones. Don't be afraid, grandfather thunder.
Grandfather Lightning and Grandfather Rain is coming.
a show years back, years ago. Somebody in the audience said, he yelled out from the audience, you remind
us of Sudden Share, they said. I said, hey, wait a minute. I think it's more like Abba and Costello.
Yeah. We always crack up on that. But he'll explain to you. This is a very beautiful old dance.
It's an open hand. It's called an open hand dance. Very old. He'll explain. I am going to attempt to
dance for you the old style of fancy war dance, also known as open hand style of war dance. I had a
big dinner. Shirley fed me some buffalo ribs, so I'm going to try my best. But it's known among the
Southern Plains people from the Southern Plains all the way up into Canada.
and points north, and it's an old style fancy war dance. And the drum group that's going to sing for
me, I have to commend these young men, especially the songkeeper and the drumkeeper for North Bear.
His name is Jermaine Bell, and I've known him since he was about yay high, sitting with his dad, his
grandfather, uncles, and relatives at the drum. And now he's an awesome young man, drumkeeper and songkeeper
for North Bear and a young father.
And his name is Jermaine Bell. He's half Arapaho and Lakota. But the song and dance is known as open
hand style of dancing to a straight song by North Bear.
I want to share with you, no matter who you are, no matter where you come, we love you all so much.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. I want to sing a song to you so we can give him a breather.
A song that I wrote is called Everything is One Thing. That means we're all connected. We're all related.
That's a beautiful thing to think about.
Like I said earlier, we come from so many different places, but yet I know we have so much in common.
And I love it when we travel, we meet people overseas and just all over, so many different kinds of
people. And I can talk to a perfect stranger for less than five minutes, five to even 10 minutes, and
we're already relating stories. We're already
Seeing the commonalities that we have talking about our children grandchildren or just or whatever,
you know It's so sweet and that's what everything is one thing means is we're all related. We're all
connected Yes, right You see so much beauty in each other Even though we come from different places
and that's what this song is about and how we're connected
Not just to each other, but to the Mother Earth, our planet that we stand on, and the stars and the
skies, our animal nation, the trees, the flowers, we're all connected.
So softly on my face I feel but cannot see A power greater than myself Reveals itself to me And I stand
where bloody feet once walked Where earth and teardrops met In this quiet place
We are one with every living thing. From the greatest to the small. To desecrate one's sacred life.
Brings destruction to us all.
Everything is one thing. Look up to the heavens to see a mystery unfold. A million stars like diamonds
with stories to be told.
Everything is one thing. Everything is one thing. Everything is one thing. Everything is one thing.
I heard when you heard and you heard when I heard.
Everything is one thing. Everything is one thing. Everything is one thing. We're all connected. We're
all related to the beautiful Mother Earth, our planet that we stand on, to the galaxies. Even our bodies
are made from the stars, the same elements as the stars.
I feel what you feel and you feel what I feel. Everything is one thing. We're all connected. We're all
related. Everything is one thing.
I just want to thank you all for coming out tonight. It's our first time here at Lotus, and we're so
impressed and amazed with all of you and everyone involved in putting the Lotus Festival together. Wow.
So many beautiful people we've met. Oh, I'm just so amazed. And everyone's been so kind and helpful.
Just everyone who's in charge of putting this together
What beautiful people. We're so grateful, grateful to be here tonight. Thank you so much for coming
out. We're gonna finish with a song I wrote many years ago, and Fabian and I, each morning, and every
morning, every morning we say our prayers in our traditional way. We go outside and we talk to the Creator,
and we talk to our ancestors, those that have passed on before us, our relatives and our loved ones,
those that have
passed on that have left us. And we talk to them in our prayers, and we ask them to continue to walk
with us, continue to guide us, show us the way, show us how to be good human beings, how to be good
parents, grandparents, how we should walk in a good way while we're here. And so we always include those
loved ones in our prayers, and that's what this song is about. It's called Return.
come back to us, talk to us, walk with us. We believe they're in that unseen realm all around us, our
loved ones. But this song is called Return.
Thank you.
walking with us in that unseen realm all around us. We're so grateful. All of our loved ones, all those
that watch over us, that walk with us.
Thank you so much. Thank you very much. I want to thank Lotus for bringing us out. Sound tech,
stage people, thank you for giving us a wonderful, helping us do a wonderful show. And again, we want
to thank all of you for coming out. And just one more thing.
Kelly and I would love to leave you with this for all of you, your loved ones, your families, extended
loved ones, your children, your grandchildren. May you all have a wonderful, blessed evening.
Good night's rest, whether your travels are near and far, when you reach your homes, may you find them
just the way you left them. And we love you all so much. Many blessings to you all. Thank you. Shelly
Mournes on another Cheyenne. Thank you all so much.