|
May
25, 2003 I have been gone from the reservation for more than forty years, in fact it is nearer fifty years. I graduated from Holy Rosary Mission on the Pine Ridge reservation on May, 20 1955, and went into Uncle Sam's Canoe Club that same fall. I spent the next 10 and ½ years serving our country. When I got out in 1966 I went to work for Ma Bell where I gave 28 years of my life. I married a Wasicu women and raised eight kids two girls and six boys. My oldest is going to be 42 and my youngest is 30. All those years away from the reservation were spent teaching my children about their Lakota heritage. When my dad was dying of lung cancer he came here to Wisconsin, and brought my Grandpa Roan Bear's ceremonial regalia. That was in 1973 and I have been using it ever since as a teaching aid. Some of my teachings came by way of my Grandma and Grandpa Roan Bear when I spent summers with them at the old Cheyenne Agency during the late '40s and early '50s. I went to the old boarding school a couple of years in the late '40s. Some of my teachings came by way of elders sitting under a trestle that ran across Rapid creek when I was in my late teens. We would have our feet in the water and be passing around a jug of wine. Those elders liked their wine, but they knew the Lakota ways. My grandma and grandpa Gerry lived along Rapid creek, and once in a while some of the elders and holy men from Pine Ridge and Rosebud would stop on their way to Bear Butte. This was right after the second world war and Jim Du Bray, Ben and Nick Black Elk were among those who would stop. All us kids knew was that Jim Du Bray was a cousin of our grandpa and that Ben was always at Mount Rushmore. We didn't know until many years later that grandpa Nick was the Black Elk who had a book written about his vision. Not one of the wicasa wakan introduced themselves as such. They came as ikceya wicasa, and they never passed themselves off as anything else. This whole flap about our ceremonies needing protection is a bunch of tabloka cesli. Apparently unknown to the defenders of the faith bishops Red Cherries and Looking Horse there are traditional ceremonies being done off the reservation. Just as a bit of information, there are more Indians living off the reservation than on. Some how or other the rez Indians have the mistaken idea that they, and they alone have the right to conduct our ancient ceremonies. Now these defenders of the faith are starting to tell others who is, and who is not qualified to do the ceremonies. By requiring blood quantum and language restrictions, they are introducing DOGMA into a spiritual way that has existed without it for thousands of years. By telling others how and what they must believe they are introducing DOCTRINE into our ancient spirituality. What these defenders of the faith should be doing is forgetting about the RIGHT and start using there gifts to teach their own people about their RITES. When the Christians couldn't get our ancestors to accept their religion they got the government to outlaw our ways. And now we have a bunch self proclaimed spiritual people signing a letter asking that same government to intercede for them. They have the audacity to tell people what Grandpa Fools Crow wanted to happen to our ceremonies. Grandpa Fools Crow would be the last person who would approve of this kind of petition. He wanted our ways to be shared with others regardless of their blood quantum. How else are others going to learn our ways if we tell them they are not allowed to become one of us? The 1978 Religious Freedom Act gave our ancient ceremonies the recognition that they were denied for so long. Having the government amending that document will do our people more harm than good. To the people who are trying to protect our ways I say "Our ways do not now or have ever needed protection. They do however need to be lived and taught. The spirit world will take care of those who are exploiting our ways." I know a couple of the exploiters, one is in bad health and the other died recently at an early age. Before you proceed too far down the path you have chosen remember the meaning of the Lakota symbol of the two triangles coming together at their points. I was taught that these were actually vortices or cones if you will, and the meaning is "What's in the heavens is on the earth and what's on the earth is in the heavens". I don't believe the spirit world has any blood quantum, language or rightness of worship in its requirements for entry into the after life. Hecetu
welo Mitakuye Oyasin Please go to the following pages to get the reactions of the Little Feather Center and other members. Updates
complements of the Friends of Little
Feather Center, Pipestone MN. All copy in the interviews and letters are not the work of the Little Feather Center but the authors of each piece we are just collecting them in one place for educational purposes. |
