To perform the ritual, Stiffarm removed his watch, rings and glasses.

“We need to be as naked as when we came to earth, but we don’t take off our clothes anymore,” he joked. “Normally, we sit touching the earth as we do this. But, it you all reach down and touch the floor with your right hand, making a circle from left to right on the floor, that will count.”

Different plants are burned in smudging for different purposes. Cedar is used to address the “traveling spirit.”

“When we go to our grandmothers’ homes or other long trip, or when our basketball teams travel, we use smudging to bless the tires of the vehicles to ask the animals to share their space with us so we don’t run into each other as we’re driving through their country.”

As part of the ceremony, Stiffarm told the students, “You are no longer from Dodson or Harlem or Lodge Pole. You’re in the circle, we’re all one, no one greater than the other with the Creator in the center, equally close to each one of us.”

The students were also taught about gender roles, etiquette and healthy relationships. The day began with students from several reservation elementary schools packing into the Harlem Elementary gym, the boys on one side, the girls on the other.