Who does not like to camp out in the beauty and freshness of Nature? To wake up in the morning, start your campfire and get that coffee on before you start anything else is an urgent task, but a pleasant one. To smell that coffee brewing while you go about preparing breakfast is an experience you just don't get elsewhere. It is so fun to be able to camp out like this at least once a year in your favorite "get away spot". However, when you pack up and get back home and have to unpack and clean all this "stuff" you enjoyed so much while camping is another matter altogether. "Why do I do this year after year?", you grumble to yourself while breaking your back with all the cleaning of items you need to store properly for the next campout. Then you set back with a cup of coffee later and smile and say to yourself: "Ya...it was worth it. We all enjoyed camping this year. The sunsets were beautiful, the lake was warm enough for swimming and sitting around the campfire making Smores was so fun."

Well, have you ever thought of how it would be to live like that all the time? Not just once or twice a year would you set up a "nice little camp" or pull your trailer into a shady spot by a picnic table near the lake, but every day of your life would be spent doing hard work to make sure your family had food to eat and a warm, safe, dry spot to sleep in at night. There was no Super Market to shop at. You would think very different if you had to hunt down a deer, skin it, cut it up, pack it back to your tipi and have your wife preserve it for meals to last your family for awhile. And then scrape the hide of the deer, tan it and cut it up for clothing, moccasins, etc. That is how the Native American peoples lived in the pre-reservation days. Of course, it was not such a tremendous burden or chore to them, it was a way of life.

I am currently reading a book titled "The Ways of My Grandmothers" by Beverly Hungry Wolf, a member of the Blackfoot Nation. The chapter I just finished last night left me feeling inspired to learn more about the chores and daily life of the Indian women of the past. Those ladies worked hard! They did not seem to think of it as hard work, though. The harder they worked the more praise they got from the tribal members and the more praise they got the better they felt about themselves. It was very important to the Indian woman to know that she ran a good household and was admired for the ways she learned from her Grandmothers.

The woman's Tipi, and it definitely did belong to the woman, not the husband, was her household and contained everything she needed to provide wholesome meals and comfort for her family. It was not an easy or simple task to set up the Tipi. There were strict guidlines to follow as to where to set up the sacred bundles, the husband and wife's bed, the children's beds, and where to store clothing and foods. The fire pit had to be in the exact right spot. The draft to pull the smoke up away from the fire and through the top of the tipi was a matter of thinking like a meteorologist. The proper way to seat visitors at meals and how to serve them and who to serve first were all things a proper Indian wife had to learn at an early age. To not do it properly would bring dishonor and embarrassment to her and her husband. I have gained new respect for the Grandmothers of our past.

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