DAKOTA 38+ 2 MEMORIAL RIDE - 2022

Hello, It is December 18th, 2022, and the final Dakota 38 + 2 Memorial Ride is in it's ninth day. This is the ninth webpage of the Ride.

I have added the different years Rides pages at the bottom of the webpages where the other links are, so that those of you who are new can see them.

The background of this page is of Little Crow's grave in Flandreau, The photo was on loan to the Little Feather Center, by our friend Michael, he also added the red pole when he danced to the grave from Hutchinson during the summer. He does this every year. On the grave is a sentence that Little Crow said in 1862, 'Therefore I'll die with you', Michael took those words and changed it for himself, saying to Little Crow, 'Therefore I'll dance with you'. which he does every year. The other things around the grave were left by relatives. I returned the photo back to Micheal before I left to return to England in 2011.

Little Crow's grave in Flandreau where the Riders go to pay their respects this morning
Little Crows page I made a couple of years ago. (2018)
http://dragonflydezignz.50megs.com/Dakota-38-plus-2/day82018LittleCrow.html

As of Dec 16th, we have reached 9,000 members in the group. The most we have ever had.

Sadly less than 2% of that number are visiting the web site.

This section will stay here all along the Ride to enable people to get calendars no matter what day they come in first.

I am making some different calendars this year. The first one is of the horses through the years, the second one will be of unusual, beautiful, photos that have been taken through the years. They will be $5 each payable to the Go Fund Me page for the Ride expenses. The 3rd one I am working on is a Historic one, of the Dakota 38 and 1862. That Calendar will be FREE. Years ago I was given permission to use these photos from the MN Historical Society as long as I didn't charge anyone for them. So the Calendar with those photos will be free. Same proceedure. Gloria (Admin)

https://www.gofundme.com/f/dakota-38n2-wokiksuye-horse-ride-2022
I hope this URL works OK.

If you want a Calendar, please email me at dakota38@dragonflydezignz.50megs.com ASAP

Let me know which you want and I will email you a PDF file so that you can print them out yourself. As usual I will need an up to date email address from you, or it/they won't reach you, Thanks, Gloria

FYI: You get a PDF file in your email, you can then print your own calendar, I do not mail the actual calendar out to you. As I live in England that would be a bit expensive to do!! It does work as I made the calendars for a number of years a while back and as far as I know everyone managed to print one out.

For those of you who have ordered calendars, you are on my list and the PDF's will be sent out as soon as I have them tested. Keep an eye out in your email, also the junk mail just in case! Thanks - Gloria

Prayers for the day from
Mo Nichols 2017
Morning prayers and smoke up!
May the "seeds" that were planted in Jim Miller, continue to flourish thru all, continuing to be the beauty of healing and reconciliation between all!
Riders, you are sacred teachers and messengers for us! Much gratitude, honor, and respect.
May the fresh beginning of today find you surrounded by spirit above, below, and within.
May every step of your day be protected, loving, honored, and respected.
Love and blessings to all
A'ho

Here are some good wishes for the Riders that came in since yesterday.
Once I have collected your post I will like it. If I haven't liked it I won't have got it on my file yet.

Day 8/9

Thanks Everyone for your kind words

Little Feather Center, Pipestone Minnesota.

Quarrying and Tradition 2009
By Chuck Derby (1941-2010)

"The quartzite is the world’s second hardest rock. Fortunately, there are numerous cracks and seams in the quartzite." - Chuck Derby

Tradition to us means that which has been handed down through the generations or through a culture. In the case of the Pipestone quarriers, most of us have had the tradition, that is cultural, handed down to us thru our family.

Quarrying for the Sacred red stone, Catlinite, is a dying occupation. It is very hard to find people who are dedicated to the old ways and who will work for basically nothing to keep the Pipe alive. There are very few quarriers today and the majority of those live in Pipestone and carry on the traditions of their family who have been birthing the Catlinite for at least 6 generation, since prior to 1862..

"I would go to my father's quarry where we spent so many hours each fall, the north half of the Spotted Quarry. I often stopped for a while and would toss out some of the smaller rocks that had been thrown into the pit or had slid down from the debris pilings." - Chuck Derby

We respect the tradition and we respect what the Pipe stands for. Sometimes we are told that we are doing wrong by our own people, they say we are disrespectful of the Pipe. We say that we were the ones that kept the Pipe alive during the time ceremony was banned by the government. We continued during that time to quarry and make Pipes and other articles so that when the ban was lifted in 1976, we knew how to quarry and reach the Catlinite for the many Pipes that were needed for prayer, and we knew how to carve the stone. We continue that Tradition today.

The way to reach the stone is hard and can be dangerous. It is thankless work and very tedious. However the rewards are in the knowledge that you are working with something so sacred; the energies of the ancient quarries, and that without you a timeless spiritual tradition would be gone. We all believe that to shed our sweat and blood to reach the Sacred stone and to touch something that has been asleep under the quartzite for many millennium - allowing that sleeping entity to awaken by our hands - is a great honor.

"Quarrying for pipestone is a labor intensive and time consuming task. The proverbial phrase, ‘Sweat, blood and tears’ would be appropriate for this endeavor." - Chuck Derby

We would like young Native people to acquire a better knowledge of this ancient tradition that is so sacred to many Tribes around the land. They may be on a reservation, or they may be in a big city, living like the rest of America, trying to make enough to keep their head above water. However the one thing they have in common is their heritage and their ancestors watching them from afar. If you are one of these young people or you know someone who would be interested in learning this tradition please contact us we will be only to happy to teach the way of reaching the sacred red stone. Once the older generation of quarriers have passed on there will be very few who will be able to reach the Catlinite, no stone = no pipes = no ceremonies.

"Our ancestors would have encountered the same process and tasks as the modern quarrier does." - Chuck Derby

The younger generation are urgently needed to continue this traditional work. We hope that we can find enough people to train with our traditional quarriers before they have passed on thus leaving a void that no-one can fill, with the learning lost forever. This has to be done now.

Young people are needed to birth the sacred Catlinite so that pipes can continue to be made of this traditional stone, so that Prayers can still be sent to the Creator through this Sacred, Ancient, way.

"A physical description of how the sacred red stone lies in earth and quartzite rock would best be described as the vein of pipestone which is sandwiched between layers of quartzite rock" - Chuck Derby.*

The tools used to quarry Catlinite

Minnesota Flag

The Dakota Spirits riding on the Ride will be home again. This time it will be for good and they can rest.
'Mitakuye Owasin' Dakota for 'We are all related', well it means a bit more than that but most people know it as those words.
It is said as a prayer.

Today the Ride goes 17 miles (174) into the Dakota Homelands Minnesota. (Weather permitting)

The Horses get taken care of at The Pipestone Fairgrounds

Lodging will again be at the Royal River Casino & Hotel, Flandreau.
Or the floor of the Little Feather Center

Breakfast will be at Eastman Hall with the Chuck Wagon

Lunch will be with the Chuck Wagon

Dinner will be at the Little Feather Center, Pipestone. With Alice (Dakota and my sister-in-law,)
She has had a team of relatives and community members helping her with the food since 2008.

Thanks to all of those who are assisting with the food. It is much appreciated.

The Little Feather Center, as it was pre 2011. The 2 feathers by the door, depict friendship,
the Pipes depict Spirituality within the Center (where some were made by Chuck),
The Medicine Wheel depicts the residents of the World who came to the Center for Education,
either personally or via the Internet in later days. Chuck and I painted the depictions ourselves, a work of love.
When he passed in 2010 the Dakota Community decided to paint over them, so now there are no paintings on the building.

There were 2 Museums located in there when Chuck was alive, he and I ran it as an Education Center.
One Museum was about the Dakota people locally, the history of the Pipe, Petroglyphs, and a small library.
We called it 'Ancient Tracks.'
Little Feather Center
The second one was about the feats that Native Women of different Tribes, had done through the years, including Wilma Mankiller, Lori Piestewa, The La Flesche sisters, and Poison (100 year old Cheyenne woman).
It was to honor them. I was the Researcher, curator and web designer of Ancient Voices

I know that some Dakota from 1862 came to Pipestone to quarry, including the Derby families own great great grandparents. They were riding back from Pipestone to the Upper Sioux, when they saw smoke on the horizon, when they got closer they realized that the buildings had been set alight. They buried the stone that had quarried, somewhere near their village, and tried to get away from the fighting. They ended up at Camp Release with many other Dakota. They returned to Minnesota eventually, back to the Upper Sioux area. (From a translation by Fred Pearsall, White Eagle. Chuck's Grandfather 1877-1958)
Gloria Hazell-Derby (Admin)