WEBVTT

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So, as some of a line from
my poem Wi'-gi-e, which means

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prayer in Osage, was used as
the title for David Grann's book

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and Martin Scorsese's movie,
Killers Of The Flower Moon.

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The line in the poem reads,
"during Xtha-cka Zhi-ga Tze-the,

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the Killer of the Flowers Moon."

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After attending the Osage
Nation premiere of the film,

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I had the chance to spend
time with Lily Gladstone.

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Lilly portrays Mollie
Burkhart, whose family

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was murdered during the Reign
of Terror, 1921 through 1926,

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a tragic period of
American history

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when outsiders killed the
Osage for their oil headrights.

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My own Tallchief family lived
in the small town of Fairfax

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at this time.

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What's so funny?

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[LAUGHING]

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[CLEARS THROAT]

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After Killers of the Flower
Moon, Lily Gladstone confides,

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she wore my great
grandmother Eliza's blankets

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in three scenes.

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I don't remember my great
grandmother, though,

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in a photo, aged 90, she
holds me in her arms.

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The actress plays
Mollie Burkhart,

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who lived down the street
from Eliza in Fairfax.

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Hands out wide, Lily says,
"Eliza had a broad wingspan.

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She pleated the wool
broadcloth several times.

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Through an open window,
wings outstretched.

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An eagle owl looms
toward Mollie's mother,

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dying from poison.

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My mother told me that owls and
trees wailed the windswept night

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before her father died.

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Wrapping my great
grandmother's striped blanket

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around her shoulders,
Mollie asks her husband

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during a downpour not
to close the window.

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Be still, she says,
and listen to the rain.

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Eliza's blankets fold
and unfold stories

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into every pattern
I fly back home.

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The Osage replaced hide robes
with Dutch traded blankets

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in the mid 19th century.

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I stop breathing during
the night of film

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when a murderer calls
Osage women blankets.

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While her husband injects
Mollie with arsenic,

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each sister is shot,
poisoned, or bombed to death.

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A woman in a voiceover
foreshadows this blanket

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is a target on our backs.

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In the quiet after Mollie's
obituary is reported,

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I only hear rain.

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Outside the theater,
silent thunderbirds

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overhead spread dark,
cloud spattered wings.

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Outlining circles
across a broad cloth.

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Inside each target
a hole in the sky.

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[APPLAUSE]

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