Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Twenty years ago when I first decided to put the bottle away, I sat down with an elder in Tulita and this elder and I were walking in Tulita along the streets there and the elder was talking about some of the old people that passed away in our community. The elder bent down on the ground -- it was during summer -- picked up the dirt, put his hand in the dirt and the dirt started falling out. The elder told me, he said, “this dirt,” he said “that’s my relatives, it’s in our blood,” he said, all the dirt falling out of his hand. I didn’t understand what the elder was talking about. The elder was Fred Andrew Sr. The elder was telling me that our relatives that go back into this land, this is our land and that’s where our blood is.
Mr. Speaker, before I came here last Sunday -- we have ceremonies in our communities on Sundays, ceremonies in some of our communities that we go pay respect to the elders and people who passed away over the years in our communities. Some of the elders teaching say that it’s a special day because the angels come on Sunday and they come into the birch trees. That’s where the angels come and that’s where our relatives come to visit us. Sometimes we make fire. Sometimes we cook out there and make offerings to the fire for our relatives.
Mr. Speaker, over the last year in the Sahtu we lost about 16 people, 10 of them were elders. In Deline we lost Jimmy Mackeinzo; Mary Therese Mackeinzo; my uncle, Adrian Menacho, my auntie, Jane Neyelle; and Margaret Kenny. From Fort Good Hope we lost Eileen and Alfred Orlias, Dorothy Cotchilly -- she raised a blind son by herself, this old lady -- Charlie Gully. We lost some young people also: Tyler Harris, Michael Pierrot, Alana Boniface and Kenda Shae. From Colville Lake we lost a really good elder, Joe Martin Oudzi, and a young trapper named Tommy Kochon. In Norman Wells we lost a young man, Joe Richie.
Mr. Speaker, I want to pay respects to these people and give my condolences to all the people in the Sahtu for their loss and that we pray for them, and that these people here left us some good, strong messages to continue on our life. Mr. Speaker, I want to say to all the other people who we have lost, people in the Northwest Territories, we certainly pray for them also. Mahsi cho.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
