(soft instrumental music) - [Narrator] You're
watching a production of South Dakota
Public Broadcasting. (lightning and thunder crashing) (soft flute music) - Sometimes we feel that maybe we don't exist. We don't exist in the actual
world which we live in. - American Indian perspective,
place is always central. Place or space. - We didn't have a voice
until we started to write our language ourselves. - It is just so simple. It is just respecting
all of life, the universe, every
drop of water, every grain of sand and ourselves in that process. (soft flute music) - One man told me, he said, "We're the best kept
secret in this country." - [Narrator] This is the land
of the Oyate, the People. We call them the Sioux. They call themselves
the Lakota, the Dakota and the Nakota, an alliance of friends. They are one people
of an ancient culture. A culture that today
continues to possess an ancient knowledge. They are the Oceti Sakowin, The People of the
Seven Council Fires. (Native American chanting) For 600 hundred
years, as a nation, we have lived with
the misconception that Columbus
discovered America. What he did was
stumble upon a land already occupied by many
people and many nations. In the center of that vast land were people who
refer to themselves as the Oyate, The People. From the very first
encounters with Europeans there was misunderstanding and miscommunication. - The French trappers came
into the Great Lakes area in the 1600s. When they ran out
of fur and pelts they moved further west. And one of the Dakota divisions, there are four divisions
in the D dialect east of the Missouri. They came upon one of them and they told them, they said, "You can't come any further." So they went back to
the Ojibwe and the Cree cause they'd been
working with them and they said, "Who
are those people?" And the old man
they asked, he said, "Who are those people?" And he went nadouessi one night, so the interpreter said snakes, they're snake people. So we've been tagged with that. And in French, the Frenchmen
took that nadouessi and in the French language, some words if you pluralize it you add OUX. So they added OUX to Nadouessi and it's Nadouessioux and eventually just the
word Sioux come out of that. What he was making
reference to was they're from the
snake-like river up in Minnesota,
Northern Minnesota. But in those days we
relied on translators so when they saw that motion
they said, "Oh, snakes." And that happened a lot
with the early translators, they kinda guess
what you're saying because there was
a language barrier. A lot of things
were misinterpreted and created a lot of
misunderstandings among us and that's one of them. - The Lakota people, the Sioux people seem to
have accepted that name and really not
understanding what it was, except that when two people
don't understand each other all they could do is
just trust the other, you know, in what ever
communication they get going and it soon became
a common name. Now I see a lot of tribes,
now more than ever, saying no, we don't want
to be known as Sioux, we are the Oyate, it's Oyate, it's not Sioux, that
never belonged to us. (ceremonial drums and singing) - [Narrator] Who
are these people? (soft flute music) Where did they come from? How did they get here? Have they always been here? What has changed for them
over the last 500 years? To understand them as a people we must first know
their history. (soft flute music) (flames crackling) When they first encountered the native people
of the Americas, Europeans considered
them to be uncivilized. Savages with no
organized society, today we know better. American Indian tribes had
highly developed social and spiritual belief structures which were not
entirely dissimilar from other societies
and other cultures. The people the
French called Sioux were organized
into three tribes. Lakota, Dakota, Nakota, three divisions of one people related by customs, beliefs, language and blood. They once inhabited
a large portion of the North American continent and gathered around
the Oceti Sakowin. Oceti Sakowin literally means
the Seven Council Fires, Oceti or the fires,
the council fires and sakowin is seven,
the number seven. So those Oceti Sakowin, again based on the literature, the documentary literature, is that Oceti
Sakowin were formed from the beginning
of the people. This is based predominately
off of work of James Walker. He was a physician who was
on the Pine Ridge Reservation around 1900, around that
time period right there. And some spiritual leaders and medicine men,
Oglalas took him in and taught him a lot. And then he took all these notes and then out of that have
come a series of books, four main books, that are
based upon information that he collected back then. But according to Walker the oldest of the Oceti
Sakowin, our peoples, were the Mdewakantonwan,
the spirit lake people and so they were the
first and the original. And from them came
these other six, what we would now call tribes, so that we end up with seven. And so the first one
would we Mdewakantonwan. And then the second
one were the Wakpekute. And then the third one
were the Wahpetonwan. And the fourth one
were the Sissetonwan. And those first four
are the Dakotas. So we have the
four Dakota tribes and then the fifth one
was the Ihanktonwan and the sixth one
was the Ihanktonwanna and those two are the
Yanktons or the Nakotas. And then the seventh
tribe were the Tetonwan and those are the Lakotas. So those are the seven that comprise the Oceti Sakowin. The Mdewakantonwan, Wakpekute, Wahpetonwan, Sissetonwan, Ihanktonwan, Ihanktonwanna, and Tetonwan. Those are the Oceti Sakowin. (soft flute music) (flames crackling) (soft flute music) - [Narrator] Scientists in
fields as diverse as linguistics and anthropology
have long argued that these people have settled in this region of the continent
as recently as the 1700s, moving into the area from as
far away as North Carolina. Many of the creation
stories of the Oyate claim otherwise. In them the people
have always been here. - Oral history tells us
of the creation story of Maka, the earth
was created first and it was one land base
and one body of water. I mean it was half-and-half and coming from blood of
Iha, we're all related. So we have a very simple
phrase addressing that, all my relatives, so we address creation
as a relative on earth and the universe. In the beginning the
children of Maka, the earth, worked together as relatives
and were very happy. But as time went on they began
to call names of each other, argue, fight and they
started killing each other. And next thing you know
they began to hurt the earth and the earth sent out
warnings that they should stop and they didn't listen, the children. So the earth cleansed
herself by shaking. When she shook they
said the land base broke and islands come, separating the children to give us another chance. And after that in our
own little islands we were back to that all
my relations concept, but as time went on the
same thing happened, fighting, killing and
then abuse to the earth and again the earth
sent out warnings that they should stop. And the children didn't listen so she said, "Come inside,
this is the last time." So when they went inside of her she shook herself
to cleanse herself. The land base
opened and swallowed and closed all over, opened and swallowed and closed. When she got done shaking
we were inside of her and we have a
trickster called Iktomi who tricked the
people back to earth. This trickster came out and
turned himself into a buffalo to draw the people out and when the people came out
of Wind Cave in the Black Hills and there's a process
that took place after that for settling in this area. So according to our oral history
we have always been here. - They differ a lot in details. But to me the real significance
of those origin stories and you'll find that there
are many parallels too because throughout North America there are many peoples
that describe themselves as having emerged from lower
worlds, beneath this world and one could take that
literally you know. I myself I don't
interpret it literally, I like at it as
more like emerging from one level of
consciousness or understanding into a different level
of consciousness. And to me this is really that which elevates
or enables people to achieve a higher
level of consciousness, just like in this case of the Lakoti
emerging from a world beneath this world
into this world. So it's just like you're going
from a place of darkness, a place of restriction into a place of light,
a place of beauty, a place of color and sound. (flames crackling) (soft instrumental music) - [Narrator] While every
human society on earth has its own origin stories and those stories do not always support the
scientific explanation of how they came to
be on this planet, they do form the core of
their spiritual beliefs. Spirituality has been
at the center of life in the Dakota, Lakota world since before the arrival
of the European cultures. - It seemed you know
in Lakota society and I think in Oceti
Sakowin society, kinship is everything, relatives are everything. So as that original, if we
go with what Walker said, that the Mdewakantonwan
were the original people then as they grew in size and other peoples split
off for various reasons, they all maintained
those relationships of being related. So even though they
might not see each other for long times they still
knew they were relatives and then ideally once a year
every one would come together and that would be probably
during some major ceremony. The rest of the year these
were very independent peoples. So it seems probably the
purpose of Oceti Sakowin is to maintain relationships between these geographically
dispersed peoples that all have a common origin. - Typically people
break into groups, familiarity has a
lot to do with it. Who you're best
friends with you know and your best neighbors, throughout history it's
always been that way. Our particular group here, there were 22, what
we call Tiospaye. O spaye is a group, Ti means a small group
that lives together. So it's called Tiospaye. And to be a member
of a Tiospaye, number one you have to
be of the same bloodline. You marry into it or you are
adopted into that system. Today anthropologists
call it extended family, but a Tiospaye is all based on
blood, adoption and marriage. - As Lakota people
we took care of, not only our own, but
others in the camp. That's always been
demonstrated throughout time by the providers of the camp making sure that everybody
in camp had enough to eat. The hunters came back and those young men
that went out hunting that had no families, they would provide for
the elders of the camp, for the children of the
camp that were orphans. Nobody was ever left out. Now in that sense, you
know we were living a life, a holistic life of a circle. (crickets chirping) (soft drum music) (soft flute music) - [Narrator] To fully
understand the mindset of the Dakota,
Lakota, Nakota people in all their
complexity is simple, everything in life is a circle. - [Ione] If you
see a bird's nest, it's usually round in a circle, just kind of
encompassing the young and nurturing the young
within that circle. Well we learn from the animals exactly how we set
up our own homes and teach our own children and nurture our own young. And with that learning from
our other relative nations the animals and so forth, then we began to live that
holistic life as two-leggeds and in that way we
set up our villages, we set up our own
homes in a circle and looked after
everyone in that circle. (Native American chanting) - [Narrator] First
of all the hoop is the world's most
pervasive archetype, in other words no matter
where you go on the planet, the symbolism of the hoop
will pretty much resonate or be the same. So the hoop, what
it symbolizes is, it represents peace,
it represents unity, it represents balance, harmony, it represents continuity. It represents beauty. Everything in this world is a physical manifestation
of a spiritual reality. Of course you know
the spiritual worlds are beyond the capacity of
human beings to fully grasp. But yet using this principle we can understand
that everything here is a counterpart to something
in the spiritual worlds above. And so therefore
the Lakota people would study this
creation in detail because it would offer insights
into spiritual reality. So basically the
most pervasive form that we can see in creation
is the hoop of life, it just permeates
everything, the hoop of life. So this is a very
important symbol, it represents the sign or
the mark of the creator, Tunkashila Waken Tanka
on this creation. (somber drum music) (soft flute music) - [Narrator] Even
the great Bison herds on which the Lakota nation
depended for their very survival moved in a circular migration and the Lakota followed. For their cousins to the east the Dakota and Nakota, life
was different for a reason. Lifestyle was
dictated by the lands on which they chose to live and the plants and
animals of that region. - For us the Nakota
people it was different than for Lakotas, cause the Lakotas
were plains people. In our area we had a
tremendous amount of richness. Both fur bearing,
we had the deer, we had the elk, we had antelope, we had fish, we had
fowls of different kinds so we didn't have
to really migrate. Dakota homelands is
Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, South Dakota, Canada. This whole area. The Dakota had a rice
that they harvested and they had maple that they used as a sweet
drink or a sweetener. So there are things
that we didn't do as cultural differences but basically our
prayers were the same. Some of our ceremonies
have to be the same, we have to get married. And we have to name our children and so many of those ceremonies were human thing. - [Narrator] Because the
Nakota lived in an area with many lakes and rivers, it did not have to depend
on the bison for survival. For the Lakota people, living west of the Missouri
river in much drier lands, life was very different. For them the bison
became a moveable feast, a way of life. - The buffalo
became our brother, he became the main
source of life in the lifestyle of the people when they came from
wind cave to the plains. He gave of himself so
that we would have food, clothing, homes, tools, every part of the buffalo became a way of life for the people by every thing that
was provided for us through him. Even in the lifestyle
that the buffalo lives, we learn. - The buffalo is central and being a plains people and we use the
word nomadic people the buffalo is what
allowed that lifestyle because the buffalo moved,
the people could move and as long as you had buffalo you had everything
you needed to live. So wherever the buffalo were, you could live. (ceremonial drum music) - The buffalo is also spiritual because it keeps us
alive physically, mentally and spiritually. And there's also a
legend, our story, that the buffalo
brought us, our people, way back when, you know a tool, I guess it's a spiritual tool through which we can pray
to the great spirit god or you know through
the peace pipe. So the buffalo was the
being that brought us that type tool, so that's
the spiritual connection we have with the buffalo. - We want to teach our people to take on a characteristic
of that buffalo and to be able to, they always tell the story
about a blizzard coming and the buffalo will face
the blizzard you know. They'll head the storm head on and that's what we want people, that's our walk of life
here, the Lakota people. (Ceremonial drum music) (soft flute music) - Pre-European, the
Lakota lifestyle was totally in balance
with the environment, with the plant nation,
the animal nation, the universe. Because we lived in such a way that we depended on the
environment to survive, to live. We respected that
which gave us life which was the water and the food and the buffalo
and everything else that allowed us to
live, we respected that. Because of the respect we
had for the environment and the universe
our spirituality was very, very strong. Our language
consisted of nothing but the words of the environment and the spirituality
that came with it. - We went through many,
many different things and our walk here, you know
we're still in existence today and it was because of
the buffalo and the horse that kept us alive so we really, you know the animal nation, we really hold
them in high esteem because they brought us
to this point here today. (horses neighing) (soft flute music) - I hate to use the word animal because we don't
have any concept of
animal in our culture, in our language. We call them living beings
of the earth or nations, coyote nation, deer
nation, buffalo nation, because we know they are
in tune with creation and they're the ones
that help us live so we just take what we
need and we work with them. This is one thing the
older people taught us that you know,
just remember that they're just like us and they're the ones who
taught us how to live. - [Narrator] Life was
good for the Oceti Sakowin before the coming of
the Waaí, the whites. With plenty of buffalo,
Lakota numbers grew as did their position in
the Seven Council Fires. - In Lakota society and again, by extension I would
say Oceti Sakowin, things aren't random
and there's no chaos, that it's very structured,
there's a reason for everything. (drum music and chanting) (ceremonial drum music) (bells ringing) - [Narrator] The circle of life for the Lakota, Dakota people has always been, and
remains even today, both simple and complex. Woven into their society
is a system of song, dance, storytelling,
beliefs, ritual and language that serves them well
through good times and bad. - We tell the next generation
so that they will remember and I think it's in the songs, in the songs. My Auntie Nellie and her
husband, Matt Two Bulls they saved many of
those old songs. And every now and then
when I go over there I say Auntie Nellie
could you sing this song and I make sure I
have my recorder on because those are the last
ones that are the ancient, that has the ancient songs
that has the memory bank. Many times our
songs carry history. - I think a lot of
times in our current use of the arts, you
know music and dance it's people automatically,
it seems like automatically, put it in a category
of entertainment. But you see the native people,
I say indigenous people or Lakota people or any
tribal people you might say, they use the arts the opposite
purpose, opposite reason, totally opposite. In other words you use the arts when you want to
connect with reality, connect with something
which is true, which is real, which is genuine. I think the Lakota
people in particular have utilized the
arts in this way. So then these four instruments
they're related to that so that like the drum is
the sound of the thunder. It can be the heart beat, it can be the voice
of the ancestors but it's also the
sound of the thunder that stirs and shakes and
summons everything back to life. And the rattle is
the sound of rain, the water of life
that comes down, that most essential element. Then of course, like it could
be a whistle or a flute, this is the sound of the wind, the wind that purifies but also the wind that
breathes life in this world. And then the voice
is the lightening, which of course speaks
when the thunder comes up but it's actually that
lightening, that force that puts the charge
into this world, you know electrifies and put
the life-force into this world. (soft flute music) - [Narrator] To the
old way of life, prayer, ritual, dance and music were all part of
the dance of life. It was also a way to keep the
history of their people alive through their oral tradition. (speaking Lakota) - If we're going to
do something we ask and we pray for truth in
how we're going to do this. Then the messengers, friends
from the spirit world say,"I'll give you a song "and you need to learn this song "when you do something important "then you sing that song." then you start to
have long oratories, beautiful oratory, in terms of
two, three hours of teaching and talking about history, talking about many things. This is where we
get our knowledge is through oratory, when
people over the years telling us these things. Myself I've memorized
many, many sun dance songs. I don't have to
have a song book, you just sing it. I mastered all these prayers, I can sing many, many prayers or for talking I could be here
talking in my own language for two, three hours at a time. So those are the
things, the skills that our Indian people have. Not only hunting
and being a warrior but having knowledge
and how to teach. (drum beating and chanting) - The reason why we
have traditional songs is to give a memory
to that body. Body memory has a lot
to do with healing. If you went astray and came back and you heard that
old song again, singing's like your home. You feel like you're
part of it again, that body memory
and that vibration would bring it back. So some songs we can't change and we share some
of the melodies, we share exact words
with other tribes, not necessarily
Dakota, Nakota, Lakota, other tribes have
the same melodies so that's why we have
those grand gatherings where now we call them
inter-tribal songs they belong to all tribes. - [Clifford] These deep thoughts are our ancient wisdom knowledge that comes from our
grandfathers and grandmothers. That's our wellspring
of knowledge, so anytime we talk about
something that is already there then we just reform it to
make it more meaningful to ourselves. We need to describe
that and say that this is Native American,
ancient knowledge. (Native American singing) - [Narrator] While
some of the details of spiritual
ceremonies may differ between the tribes
of the Oceti Sakowin, the seven basic rituals
have not disappeared with the coming of
the European religions and governmental suppression. Most if not all
are still practiced in one form or
another to this day. If particular numbers appear
to be important to Oyate it is because in their
belief numbers are sacred. - The two most important
numbers in Lakota society would be seven and four. Seven structures social things, so the ideal is to
have seven social units or to use the number seven
to do things socially, that's why the Oceti Sakowin, the Seven Council Fires, and of those seven
one are the Tetonwan. They are subdivided into seven and then of those are
the Oglalas for instance and ideally the Oglalas were
divided into seven Tiospaye, so you see sevens
and sevens and sevens as far as social organization. Then the number four is ritual, we see the four winds right and ritually things
are done in fours. So those seven and four
are very important. Then you combine those
or multiply them, four sevens gives you 28 and that's one of the
most important numbers, this idea of 28. So in sun dance lodges there'll be 28 divisions
around the circle. In a month there's about
28 days, in a Lakota month because it's a lunar month, so you have 13 months in
a year, there's 28 days. I've read that there's
28 ribs on the buffalo and that in a war bonnet
there'll be 28 feathers, so there's this idea of the 28s as this combining the
ritual and the social. So those numbers,
four, seven and 28 are very important, also even in the sevens we see the seven broke down
into four, two and one, just like with we
had four Dakotas, two Nakotas and one Lakota. So the number seven isn't
just seven by itself, but it's usually seen
in four, two, one. The four directions, four, up and down, two, and
then the center, one. And together that makes seven
and usually when people pray then they address
those seven directions. So we think the combining
of four and seven and then the break down of
seven into four, two, one. - [Narrator] One of the
seven sacred rituals is the Hunkakaga ceremony,
The Making of Relatives. - Lakota society is
really based on kinship and making of relatives and that's one of
the seven ceremonies, Hunkakaga, where
you make relatives and those relatives that
are Hunkakaga relatives supposedly are stronger,
that relationship or connection is stronger
than a biological one. Biological one, we don't
have any control over, but one that we choose to
make brothers or sisters that Hunkakaga relative is
then seen as very, very strong, that relationship, very strong. It's the making of relatives where you adopt
someone as a relative, it might be as a
father, as a mother, as a son or sister,
brother, whatever. Those two individuals choose
to make the relationship. If I adopt you, make
a Hunkakaga brother then my family treats
you as a brother, as a brother, just as a
brother, no differentiation. That's how it was and
that's one of the values that has continuing now in contemporary Lakota society, Hunkakaga are still being made and I expect they'll
always be made. (Native American singing) - [Narrator] The circle
of life for the Oyate has been centered
around the Tiospaye or extended family. Each person had
a role to perform in keeping the circle whole. - The social structure
of the Lakota went that the man took on
the roles of the protector, the provider and the
leadership roles as well. And the women's roles were
to maintain the house, the household and to keep
order within the one household. The women's roles were
that of nurturers, of nurturing the young, nurturing the spirituality
of the people, nurturing the
lifestyles of the people and they are presently called
the backbone of the nation. The educators of our people
were in fact the women up until a certain age and then the boys would
go under the mentorship of a young man or grandfather
or uncle or father. And the young women would
stay under the mentorship of the women, a mother,
aunt, grandmother. And it was the grandmothers
that actually were the educators of the very young. - The women own the house
or the teepee, the lodge. And their roles were anything
associated with the house and the household. Men hunted, provided
food that way and the councilors and
the governmental leaders, civil leaders were
almost exclusively men and that's how the
people will continue. So this idea of kinship, the
idea of speaking the language, the idea of knowing the culture, the idea of respecting
relatives and the environment, all of the values
that we've heard about or that we've read about I think, ideally we're
trying to perpetuate and to varying degrees, but even those long ago
peoples were not perfect, humans are not perfect, so there's always this
striving for the ideals and Lakotas have
some great ideals and they guide everyday life. We rarely if ever achieve them but they give us
something to shoot for, something to aim
for, that's the goal is to be a good relative
or a good Lakota. (speaking Lakota) - Lakota as near as
I can figure out, means, when somebody's a Lakota he is a man or woman of peace. That's what the term implies. You're a man of peace, you live in balance
with creation and you address all
creation as a relative. - [Narrator] Of all the sacred
objects and Lakota beliefs the sacred pipe is
perhaps the most revered, even to this day. The story of how the
people were given the pipe and sacred instructions
for using it is perhaps as
important to the Oyate as the story of Moses and the Ten Commandments
is to Christians. - This is the story of
the maiden from heaven, her name was Ptehincala Ska Win, which means the white
buffalo calf maiden. Ptehincala is the calf, ptehincala is the
word for buffalo calf and then Ska is the white and then the ending
win is the woman, so Ptehincala Ska Win, the White Buffalo Calf Woman. She was commissioned
or authorized by the Tunkashila,,
grandfather above, to convey a token of his love and his teachings. This maiden appeared
to two scouts, the people were at that
time in great need, they were starving or
something was occurring that necessitated these scouts to venture far out
from their home, they saw something approaching and then as it got closer
why then this one scout, I guess he was kind
of the embodiment of a lot of the lower or
animalistic tendencies, he told the other
scouts, he says, "It's a woman, let's
go attack her." The other one said,
"No, no, no, we can't "this is a holy appearance,
something sacred." and as she approached she spoke, this woman said, "That
what you wish to do, "now you may fulfill that." (speaking in Lakota) You know, what you want
to do, now's your chance. So anyway that one, that
scout who had all these you know, you might
say animalistic
thoughts or tendencies rushed forward and then
a cloud or mist descended and when it lifted why then
just his bones were there and then she spoke
to this other scout, "Your grandfather above
has this great abiding love "for his grandchildren." meaning the people
of this earth. And so therefore he
wishes to convey this love and these great teachings and then furthermore
she says that, she has been authorized to
convey this on his behalf. She gave that scout
the assignment of returning and
gathering the people and that in four days
time she would appear and present this message, this message from heaven. The oral tradition states
that she did appear and that she spent as much as
four days amongst the people imparting these
different teachings. The token that symbolized
all the teachings that this maiden
brought was a pipe, the calf pipe,
Ptecincala Chanunpa. So then the person
who received that, the Ptecincala Chanunpa,
on behalf of all the present and
unborn generations was a man who by some accounts his name was Tatanka Wslanagi, the buffalo that stands upright. So then he received that
on behalf of all the people and he received the teachings. And so it's just come
down the line now up to today and that to me this
is the most important story, it's not necessarily
an origin story but it does, in one sense, it is an origin of the people
spiritual consciousness, their awareness of
themselves as a people, as a kindred who have
a destiny before God and who have something wonderful
to bring into this world. I think this is a
very important story because you know
so much of history the Lakota have had a
great impact on history and I think continue to and
will have a great impact in the future. I think that really
the sense of purpose, the sense of destiny
started at that point there when this woman
brought these teachings which is really the covenant,
she renewed this covenant, this relationship
between heaven and earth, and within that covenant
she brought spiritual laws which are immutable,
they're changeless you know. They're the same, the spiritual
laws that she presented are essentially the same as the basis of Christianity, the basis of Islam, the basis of you know all the
different world religions. (somber instrumental music) (flames crackling) - [Narrator] In the early
days before Columbus life was, for the
most part, good. After the arrival of
Europeans on this continent in 1500, American Indian
culture in the East changed drastically. Life for the people
of the Oceti Sakowin remained pretty much normal until the march of
westward expansion reached them in the late 1700s. The overwhelming numbers
of white settlers moving into the land
of the Oyate and beyond brought with them
massive change. (train whistle blowing) Treaties were made,
treaties were broken. Lands were set
aside for the Oyate. Lands were taken away. War was inevitable,
sudden and brutal. The Lakota knew how to fight to keep their lands
and their way of life. They were the last of the
American Indian tribes to resist the United
States military and the onslaught
of white settlers. (Native American singing) But the odds and the
numbers were against them. The old way of life for the
people of the Oceti Sakowin was over. A new way of life was begun. Some would say the
circle was broken, others would say it
has only been tested for the past three centuries. That it has not been
broken, only weakened. Regardless, life had
changed for the Oyate in a drastic way. - When the reservation
act was enacted our ancestors were
put on reservations and then the Dawes
Act came into play where certain pieces of land
were allotted to ancestors, to the heads of family and
then they were told to farm it. Well, farmers we were not, we were hunters, we were gatherers, we were not farmers. We did not know
anything about farming. When the reservation
system came in, at the same time certain
institutions came in to the reservation. One of them was the
educational institutions and they formed
boarding school systems and the Catholic
school systems here. Now when that happened
families were taken apart, the Tiospaye system
came to a shaky place. We were taken apart and
different roles came into play. The role of the hunter/provider
was then taken from our men. The role of the gatherer, the nurturer was almost
taken from the women. Their children were taken away and put in the boarding
school systems. The men no longer had
the buffalo to hunt, other things came in to the
lives of the Lakota Oyate. Other things such
as the alcohol, the drugs, probably that came just a
little bit after the alcohol, but I know alcohol was the
dominant thing or force that came into our lives when the reservations
were first started. When the reservations
were first formed it created a dependency. We were at that point because
our subsistence patterns were no longer there and the buffalo, especially,
was no longer there. It took away roles, it
took away responsibilities. The buffalo was
replaced by rations, so now we became totally
dependent on the government and the ration
system that we had. And our oral tradition
almost came to an end because we had somebody
else teaching our children. We had somebody else
disciplining our children. You know, we had somebody else
providing for our children and protecting them. - My mother wouldn't let me
go to school for a long time and I never knew why. I found out that it
was against the law to be Lakota. From 1880 to 1978, this country outlawed our ways, our philosophy, spirituality and language. They had people arrested
for practicing it. Missionaries, when you die and if they know you practiced
any of the traditions or spiritual ceremonies, they will bury you
outside of the cemetery telling your family
you're burning in hell. If you're five years old and your favorite
uncle is buried there, it's gonna put a lot of fear
in the rest of your life, cause you don't
want to go to hell. It was really bad here,
back in the 50s and the 60s. By 1950s, practically 100% of our people denied their Indian-ness, they were scared
of our ceremonies. They spoke Lakota, but they're
either Catholic or Episcopal. The churches
learned the language and acculturated them
and assimilated them into these churches,
but that's all. So you put the two together and they have a deathly
fear of Lakota spirituality. Thinking it was evil, it's bad and that was the whole focus
of the education system, right from the beginning. Take this Indian out of here and fit into this. And in order to do that you have to break that
child from family ties, family influence
and the language. So that's what the boarding
schools were established to do. I was very fortunate, I didn't get into a boarding
school system until I was 16. When I walked in
there I was shocked because all my peers, because of my age they put me
in with the eighth graders, and most of my peers
were already killing me because I was Indian. And all the students there
were Indian students, found out many years later that they had been in that
institution since they five, so by the time
they were teenagers they already had been
conditioned to deny
their Indian-ness. And when you don't have that,
you don't care about yourself I'm no good, so I don't care. But if you know who you are there's pride in it and you want to keep that. - What you see today among the Kota people,
or Lakota Nakota, alcoholism, disease,
lack of education. All of those came as a
result of the disruption of a highly civilized culture. (flames crackling) (soft flute music) - [Narrator] For the Dakota,
Nakota, Lakota nation the changes to their way of life over the past 130 years
have been drastic. The free roaming
buffalo herds are gone, but the buffalo remains
a part of their lives. The freedom to move villages
at a moments notice is gone, but the people remain free,
on and off their reservations. The change brought
poverty, disease, alcoholism and lost hope. But the Oyate persevered. (Ceremonial singing and drums) New generations have been born into this changing
world of theirs. Sometimes lost,
sometimes confused, but often energized
to make changes to their new way of life. - You know we really do want
to start with the children, and there's an emphasis
on starting with children and trying to teach a
more rounded or more, accurate history
is what I argue. I think we've really
been taught inaccuracies or there's these huge
omissions of history, so we just won't talk about that cause it's too painful or it doesn't paint
us out in a good light we're not gonna teach about it. American Indians have a
phenomenal drop-out rate from the time kids start school to how many actually
graduate high school is appallingly, a small number. So something's wrong,
something's not working and hasn't worked. So that's a huge challenge for those in the education field and maybe broader
than education. So the American Indian things
get relegated to the past and that's the ideal. So we're working against, we're a following
people from the get-go. And so rather than
talking about culture, if we talk about history
then we're on an academic and a school, educational
footing that's equal. So we're gonna look at history
and there's a long history before non-Indians get here and it's a great history. From all of the tribes here, that's a heroic history and it continues all
the way up to now and it's still a heroic history. Bring it up here,
through termination, through the Indian
Reorganization Act, through allotment, through
the Black Hills case, teach about history,
American Indian history as it relates to this
day, we can do it and that'll give us
all the same footing. - When you get back
to the language, the word for children
they say wakanyeja, wakanyeja and the root
of that word is Wakan. I don't know, there's
not really agreement as to how to exactly to
define this word, Wakan, but it has a lot to do with
sacredness and holiness. It has a lot to do
with something that
has a heavenly origin and so that's a beautiful
frame of reference with which to view the children. You know as people
within the community, you know it behooves
us to strategize and figure out what
we can do to create a nurturing environment
for these little guys. Just like Sitting Bull,
the great Sitting Bull who's buried just
right out here, just outside the house here, well a couple miles from here. (laughing) He says, "Let us put our
hearts and minds together "and see what future we
can make for our children." (soft flute music)
