Interview with Ryan Buffalo

SENECA CHARTRAND: Hi, this is Seneca Chartrand, we're in Beausejour Manitoba, at the Two-Spirit Gathering, it's August 5th 2018, with, and do you want to introduce yourself?

RYAN BUFFALO: Ryan Buffalo.

SENECA CHARTRAND: Okay, is this your first time at the gathering?

RYAN BUFFALO: No, it's not my first time I'm at a gathering, this is my-- I think it's my third international gathering or fourth international gathering, and then I go to the Montana Two- Spirit Gathering every year, about every year I'll try to go.

SENECA CHARTRAND: What are your experiences like at the gatherings?

RYAN BUFFALO: My experiences at gatherings are very comforting. It's really nice to be around other two-spirited people, in a healthy spiritual environment. It's 00:01:00really rejuvenating because we can be ourselves and not have to fit into general societal norms. It's more of like ... I come here to rejuvenate myself from everyday life that sometimes isn't accepting of two-spirit culture.

SENECA CHARTRAND: Where did you go for your first gathering?

RYAN BUFFALO: My first gathering was in -- I think it was in BC [British Colombia], I think it was Gambier Island or some ... it was one of the islands just off Vancouver.

SENECA CHARTRAND: What was that like?

RYAN BUFFALO: It was a really great experience. I was kind of overwhelmed 00:02:00because I had never been around that many two-spirited people before. I identified as two-spirited before that, but I didn't know what that meant. For my first time being around people who self-identified as Two-Spirit, it was really refreshing and it was actually really ... they gave a lot of knowledge and stuff that I knew, but just needed to be confirmed.

SENECA CHARTRAND: Where are you from?

RYAN BUFFALO: I am from Maskwacis First Nation in central Alberta.

SENECA CHARTRAND: Can you tell me about your community?

RYAN BUFFALO: My community is -- it has it-- well its ... Maskwacis [laughs] it's very ... it has its problems like every other reserve that happened with 00:03:00colonialism, and suppression of our culture, and our people. So there's a lot of suffrages, a lot of addictions, there's a lot of violence. But there's also a lot of good things, there's a lot of culture and tradition. I was raised with a very cultural family. My Nimosom [Grandfather in Cree] was very ceremonial, so I wasn't really ... I didn't really have the influence of the church, it was more influence of how our grandpa, well our Nimosom wanted us to be raised. There 00:04:00wasn't really too many problems with addiction in my family, well direct family.

SENECA CHARTRAND: Was he the one who raised you?

RYAN BUFFALO: No, my parents were really young; they were eighteen. When I was young, I thought they were older [laughs] but, now that I think of it, eighteen is super young. It was kind of like a family group raising, like for the most part my mom raised us. My parents split up from when I was five years when I was younger. So I went from like my aunties and uncles to my mom's to my dad's, just depending on -- it was just more convenient to who was able to watch kids at the time, and while one of the other parents worked, or if my dad had to go 00:05:00somewhere, or mom had to go somewhere. There was that understanding that they needed to watch the kids first. But I did spend a lot of time with my Nimosom, almost every weekend. All my cousins, we were all raised that way too, we were all raised together in a big family unit.

SENECA CHARTRAND: How was it growing up as a two-spirit person?

RYAN BUFFALO: Growing up as a two-spirited person? That is ... it was a blessing and -- a struggle at the same time. I'm really grateful because my parents were really ... weren't really rigid with how they expected their young son to act, so I was ... I got to run around in these big pretty dresses that my little 00:06:00sister-- well actually my older sister, who is a year older than me had, but it was me running around and spinning around in them and getting them all dirty [laughs] while she played with my boy toys and I played with her dresses and Barbie's [laughs]. So it was good and then as I got older, the expectations of being a man kind of was there. But I think my parents always knew that I was two-spirited, so I never really had to come out to them because there's always those signs as you grow up that your kid is two-spirited right? I was always very like -- I don't want to say I was -- I was just very fluid in how I 00:07:00appeared. I was this young boy, but I looked very feminine. But I was not trying to portray this femininity. It was just who I was. It was a balance between both, and it made people feel uncomfortable, but it was who I was. The struggle there was trying to accept myself for who I was and not really care what other people thought.

SENECA CHARTRAND: Can you tell me a bit about your journey as a two-spirit person?

RYAN BUFFALO: My journey as a two-spirited person? Well I didn't really ... I always knew I liked ... I always knew I was gay. I remember I had a crush on G.I. JOE [laughs], I had a crush on Ariel's prince [laughs] from the cartoon. I 00:08:00always liked to help my mom with cooking and cleaning, but I always liked to help my Nimosom cut wood and stuff. It was good in the aspect I was unknowingly filling both of these roles of the female side and the male side and not being judged for it, because I was so young but it was more of convenience because they needed help with these things and I was willing to do it. And even as they got older, I would help sew things, and cut wood, or hunt with my parents. It was more of a convenience aspect than actually identifying as two-spirited, but even though that was my role. As I grew up, I identified as gay for, well I 00:09:00still do identify as gay, two-spirited, but I didn't really fully understand until ... I always knew the term was there, but I didn't know what the term meant or any of the teachings behind it until I was about twenty-six. And then, at that point, always yearning for the information and the knowledge of what two-spirited people do and how they were and how their roles were in society. I didn't really fully get that full grasp of that until I went to the two-spirited gathering in Vancouver, the international one there, and I got to meet all these people with their different stories, and their different teachings on two-spirited people. Then that's where I met some Cree people that I'm friends 00:10:00with now, told me about old Cree people from my area that told me about the two-spirited teachings in our nation, our Cree nations, where we're from. And from there I've just been slowly learning about our roles, our expectations, and even learning beyond that about -- just how our society as aboriginal people worked and how we fit into society and how they're kind of all intertwined. You can't have one piece of the puzzle and expect to have a full picture. So it's always grabbing those pieces, and trying to put things together. So yeah, it's been a really good leaning experience.

SENECA CHARTRAND: Where do you feel most safe?

RYAN BUFFALO: Where do I feel most safe? That's a really ... I guess the place I feel really most safe is ... because I'm the older brother in my family and I'm like the older male figure now, right? So it's more for me in that aspect that where do I feel, that my family would be safe, like where would I feel comfortable with my younger siblings where they feel comfortable with them, 00:12:00where do I feel safe, where do I feel like they would feel safe. But I guess for me, my always safe place is -- in the mountains, that's where I feel home, where the connections is. I think that's because that's what I was told that's where all our stories are at. And I do feel like I come to these gatherings for two-spirited people and that is such a comfort, it's like someone just wrapped a blanket on you, and you're allowed to hear that it's okay, you are who you are. It's a really good feeling to be around this place and it's a really secure, comforting feeling. So when I'm done here, I can go out for another year and do what I need to do and come back and get that secure safe feeling again.

SENECA CHARTRAND: Is there anything that I haven't asked or that you haven't mentioned that maybe you want to talk about?

RYAN BUFFALO: [long pause] No, not really.

SENECA CHARTRAND: Okay, thank you.