Kenneth R. Madsen, Salt Lake City, Utah: an interview by Winston Erickson, February 5 - 8, 2001: Saving the legacy tape no. 178 to 182

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T R.MADSEN s inducted into the tribe that there was a very delicious dinn r pr par d th itl b eftaking the place of buffalo. Those dear old men they attended ry th depositions. It was just like having-you would turn around and see the back ofth r ju t lined with these old Indians and I mean they were old. I wonder how old some ofth m They had very interesting names like "Dog Chewing Bones", "Riding at the Door Dog aking Gun" and "Yell ow Kidney". Those were their official names. The time I spent deposing them which I did, almost every one of them, that was the name that went into the government records. It was the name of the person I was taking the deposition of. Now I'll skip ahead to a hearing involving the Blackfeet Indians. I was there and a government attorney was there with a clerk and a representative of the government who was kind of a claims administer. Anyway, he took the place of the judge in presiding at the hearing and I was questioning one of these old men. I had to have interpreters and, so, I asked a question-I've forgotten what the question was, but the interpreter translated it to-I used to remember the name of the witness, but I don't now. He started to answer the question and he went on, and on, and on answering this question. After he got all through-and I'm sure he talked for ten minutes at least­the interpreter turned to me and the government commissioner, who was the government lawyer, and he said, "No." and that's all. I don't know how long it takes to say "no" in Blackfeet, but I was impressed and so were the government attorneys and the representatives of the government because the next day at the hearings they had a recorder and they recorded every word that was said for the rest of the hearings. Ultimately, those answers were all translated by government translators and I never 95