Community is the only truly sustainable thing

So I've almost completed my first week at my service placement, how strange. I have really run the gammut of feelings and responses to a new place this week. Sunday, as I wrote, I was just thrown into the new culture full on, and it was exciting. Monday I started to understand how long I was here and feel a little overwhelmed by the new culture, and then I started to feel a bit homesick. It is a little hard knowing there is only one other person in my program right now and she is 4 plus hours away having a totally different experience on a totally different reservation.

I spent monday reading, reading, reading about BraveHeart society, cultural resouce managment, establishing a tribal historic preservation office, stuff Brave Heart and the cultural committee has done in the past, etc. There was a lot of information and I was kind of lonely reading alone all day (my host mom was at a tribal meeting only members are allowed at) but it was OK I learned a lot of valuable information. Monday night we briefly went to a corps of engineers meeting regarding land use around the Missouri river basin, really interesting stuff for someone like me. It was interesting to see how many different groups were there all with stakes, histories and interests in the same land: there were sport fishermen, hunters, people from the National Park service, Faith and I representing the Native interest of course, and people from the Corps of Engineers. There was one guy, a rancher named Less who is reallly an advocate of the Native people of the area. He spoke up and said there should be a visitors center in the recreation area that tells the story of the indigenous people that live on that land and Faith was really happy about that. Then she showed me a Tipi they constructed by the information center for the Ft Randall Dam recreation area and we are thinking maybe one of my projects could be to make some story boards to put around it and see if Less can help us out.

Tuesday my host mom left for a VERY important tribal court case in Minnesota. The federal government is trying to diminish the land holdings of the Yankton Sioux nation (traditionally they are known as the Inhanktonawan Dakota). This is a huge deal because this is their ancestral land, and they have already been so disposessed and abused by the government. My host mother becomes extremely emotional talking about it, so I have not asked much about it or brought it up. I figure after we win the case and it is not so scary I can ask more. I can't believe that indigeneous people in the US still have to deal with that kind of stuff, hasn't there been enough damage? Tuesday I spent getting a 605 area code cell phone that works here and kind of settling into my new room and relaxing. I also read a ton more, did some other errands and worked on a grant application.

Faith and I are writing a grant to get money from Honor the Earth for a community garden we want to start in Lake Andes. We are asking for five thousand dollars to plant, publicize and have a summer farmers market. I wrote most of it tuesday and wednesday and we are finalizing it tomorrow.

I spent tuesday night alone in the house (which I am tellin ya, is in the middle of nowhere) and that was a little rough, but I figure it is good for me. There are spirits in the house that kept me company. I have been sick with a cold all weekk, and wednesday I was not feeling so hot so I slept in and took it easy all day. I finished the grant, and then read more on THPOs and made a check list of what we need to do to get ours. There is so much!! The Ponca tribe of Nebraska has a good model but man are there a lot of details and nitty grittys! I read through their proposal to get some ideas for ours, and Faith was really excited to come home to that check list. We are going to start working on the THPO app soon I think, which is overwhelming but I am looking forward to it.

Faith got home late wednesday night and we had diner and watched some TV together. I went ot bed early cause I was still feeling so sick! Today I got up late again because Faith had left at like, 5 am for another court case and took the day to get some schoool work done, which is hard to get back into the groove of! I read an article by Winona LaDuke and did an analysis of it. It was really good, talking about restoring a sacred balence, breaking uot of a culture of colonialism, etc, and building community. She says that community is the only truly sustainable thing she knows of, and I think that is such a beautiful and true statement. It is also very very true for Native communities in America and I see it here in Yankton. Without keeping community there is no way to sustain culture and without sustaining culture there is no way to truly sustain life. Cultural revival and understanding brings about healing in Native communities.

This week has been somewhat lonely and for one of the first times in my life I am experiencing pretty intense homesickness for cincinnati, or maybe just a city in general. I miss my friends and family a lot, but I know they will all be there when I return. For a while I was overwhelmed and second guessing myself, and to some extent I still am but I am promising myself right now that I will make a conscious effort to only manifest the positive and to be here now where I am

A friend from work that I was talking to today told me that not many people get this kind of experience so I need to embrace it and he is right. All of my friends have been extremely supportive, my host mom has been great, and my parents back home have been so great as well. I realize the only thing holding me back is my own apprehensions and fears, etc. I need to just be here right now in the moment because I know this is a valuable, once in a lifetime experience that I should be fully embracing.

first day at site

So I arrived in Lake Andes around 2 o clock sunday, but I suppose there was miscommunication and my host mom wasn't prepared for my arrival. it was OK though, I went down to the Lake Recreation area and played outside / went running for a couple hours. It's actually a Bald Eagle sanctuary as well and one flew right over my head while I was standing by the Missouri River. It was soooo beautiful, and it was a gorgeous sunny day! I took many pics, to be uploaded later.

Then I went back to my house and we cleaned for a bit and I settled into my room, which is so cozy. Apparently there is a spirit of a grandfather in our house, but he is friendly and I am not really afraid. He lives upstairs. After we cleaned we headed over to the weekly sunday night language group that gets together. They meet and speak Dakota and work on reviving their language and therfore an integral part of their culture is restored as well. I listened and participated a bit, it was fun. Everyone was so friendly, and Faith (my host mom) leads the groups because she is fluent in Dakota and very traditional. Even the children participate; I am going to take notes next time and work on learning as well. After the language class everyone talked about the up-coming court case in which the Yankton Nation is fighting the federal govt bc the fed wants to diminish their tribal lands. It is very emotional for a lot of people, including my host mom who was tearful when she was talking about it. Thats how important and sacred the land is, a gift from Wakan Tanka (the creator).

After some discussion there were many prayers offered for this court case to turn out well for the Yankton Oyate (yankton people) and ceremonial prayer songs with drums and singing. Then one of the men (Gary) blessed the saced Chupa (pipe) and we all smoked it. It was very solemn, and i was really nervous to be a part of it at first, but I was made to feel very welcome and it was a great experience.

By then it was almost midnight! Faith and I drove home and we were both so tired! It was a great first day. Now I am prepared to start working on a Grant application for the Braveheart Soociety from Honor the Earth, an indigeneous envirnomental group. It was started by my favorite author, Winona LaDuke. Better get to work.

Travel Week!

SO this past week was an intense week of traveling around the state, from Brookings all the way to Rapid City (the other side of the state about 7 hours away) and even a trip into Wyoming. There was so much to see and experience, I am overwhelmed at where to begng writing about it. Every night I would process what we learned and saw, everything from such a different perspective than I am used to, and everything was so powerful to me. Starting from the first day, this is everything that happened!

1. Monday!
The trip started out with getting our fill of hoaky South Dakota tourist traps, AKA THE CORN PALACE. What young woman from a city doesnt want to experience such a place? Carly could not wait, and I was just kind of indifferent. It was what you expected...a palace made of corn. The only one in the world though. Oh, South Dakota.
Next we headed down to the Yankton Dakota Reservation where we met my host family for lunch at the Yankton Casino. I am so exicted to move in with them sunday! It sounds like I am going to be more than busy and involved, which I am completely ready for!
The rest of the day was spent driving from the eastern part of the state to the Western part of the state, crossing the Missouri river. We ended our evening in Wall, South Dakota, named so because it is "the window to the west", where the literal geologic wall of the badlands begins. Hence, Wall, South Dakota. Unfortunately it has become a tourist trap and its just a hoaky little "western" town full of places to shop. We simply ate dinner then went to our hotel.

2. Tuesday!
We got up SUPER early and headed out by 8 am to get our day started. We began at Badlands National Park, which was such a beautiful place. It is literally so different than any natural place I have ever seen - it looks like the surface of some other planet, or the moon. We drove a scenic byway through there, looked at some fossils and spent some time at the nature educational center. It was interesting, and I got some awesome pictures. After that we headed to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and Wounded Knee. This was an experience I won't forget. The second picture up there is a little museum thing at Wounded Knee, and other than that and a little plaque describing the events of the 1890 Masscre that is all that is there. Standing there was an intense experience. I was overwhelmed by the events that happened there and how tragic it was, how it literally embodies the genocide that the USA is founded on. Standing outside a mass grave of murdered Lakota women, children and men I could feel this was a hallowed ground, a place that isnt the same as most place. Also, knowing that in 1973 AIM activists occupied Wounded Knee and stood up to the US governments continued mistreatment of indigenous people was intense because I have learned so much about AIM in my studies at school. If you are reading this and do not know the story of Wounded Knee please look it up and read it. Its too long to type but extremely important to know.
Then we saw Pine Ridge, what is considered one of the poorest communities in the entire country. It is a dry rez bc of all the alcohol abuse and subsequent problems related to it, but I found out there is a town of 22 people right on the border of SD and Nebraska that makes ALL of its money off selling alcohol to the people of pine ridge that can walk there. I think that is completely disgusting, and I was sad as we drove through that little town. My teacher and I discussed how if those people didnt have the almighty dollar in their eyes the people of pine ridge wouldnt have access to alcohol so readily and problems may be alleviated.
We had lunch at the Pine Ridge Casino then headed to the Red Cloud Indian School and saw a museum there which has some gorgeous Indian art and artifacts. I enjoyed that, I am a fan of art.
Then we finally made it over to the Black Hills and drove the Wildlife Loop in Custer State Park. We saw many deer and buffalo! One blocked our car for a while as if he was in a stand off with us. I swear we made eye contact. I love Bison. They are definitely my favorite animals. The Black Hills are absolutely gorgeous and we drove through some really intense parts of them. I got kind of car sick, but it was worth the view. We drove past mount Rushmore but it was a total bust, and none of us really cared about it, ahaha. After this LONG day we finally FINALLY made it to Rapid City, had dinner and just crashed in the hotel. Long but wonderful day.

3. Wednesday!
Saw Bear Butte and Devil's Tower, two places sacred to Lakota people and many other Native Nations. These are beautiful places used for ceremonies, sweat lodges and Vision Quests.
Also saw the Crazy Horse Memorial today, which I have extremely mixed feelings about. It is not the Native way to build something new, especially to blast the sacred Black hills to commemorate a leader that didn't really ever want his identity known...but the center is a non-profit that has many humantarian aims that they pay for using the admission fee to the monument, and it does make a statement about the native history of the US. We had dinner at the Mongolian Grill, went back to the hotel and crashed once again after a long long day.

4. Thursday! Last day of travels
We spent the morning shopping at Prairie Edge, a shopping place, bookstore and lovely place. Then we went to the Journey Museum, pretty much a museum of the history of the Black Hills, people that live there etc. Then we drove ALLLL the way home. and I slept a lot.

Now I am tired of blogging. Keep reading!

Wacipi Pow Wow Weekend!

We spent most of our weekend at the Pow Wow put on by the South Dakota State University Native American Club. This was such an unforgettable experience!

Upon arrival we were really excited and everything was really new to us. The way it is set up is that there are drum circles from different nations in a circle around the main dancing area, and an MC type guy in the front that orchestrates the whole thing. There is food and people selling crafts and such. Members of tribes from MN, IO, SD, ND and NB were in attendance, perhaps elsewhere but I didn't catch everything. The whole experience is very busy and exciting, full of color, family, friends, drumming, singing and of course, dancing. At the begining of the celebrations an important man from one of the Nations spoke and he said something that stuck with me - he said that "as long as we keep our childen around the drum, we can preserve our culture". That just goes to show the importance of ceremony and tradition in keeping American Indian cultures alive.

And while I am on the subject, I think the pow-wow is such a beautiful testament to the power of a culture to survive. I mean, for the longest time American Indian peoples were not even allowed to practice their own ceremonies, spirituality, religion, etc. The Sun Dance, sweat lodgest, pow-wows were outlawed. For the longest time Indian children were literally kidnapped from their homes and sent to boarding schools where they were taught their traditional cultures were savage and wrong, and they were beat, or worse, for speaking their languages or refusing to cut their hair. There was a literal genocide and an attempted cultural genocide in this country and amazingly, American Indians have had the will, beleif and power to sustain their culture throughout these and many other forces against them.

The pow-wow begins with a grand entrance, and then there are different types of dances and the dancers compete with one another. Saturday it began at one, there was a community dinner provided at five and it went on until nearly midnight! Being just a spectator all of it can get just a bit redundant and hard to sit through, but we stayed for eight hours!

Today (sunday) we stayed for about 5 hours and it was much of the same as saturday but it was just as beautiful, exciting and inspiring. It was so cool to see a celebration that was truly ,ulti-generational - babies dresses in traditional outfits dancing the same dance that the eldest person in the room was also dancing. It was such an insight into the power of community, ceremony, tradition of American Indian Cultures.

I was reading something about the pow-wow, and one of the stories was about an outdoor pow wow that was rained out. They all put away their clothes and all the other stuff, and simpy had a drum they protected from the rain. They danced adn danced in their regular clothes to the beat of that drum, and the author said thats when she knew what it was about. its about the dance, the sacred beat of the drum, that spanned centuries and generations that kept her culture alive. and as long as they kept dancing, drumming and remembering, they would keep their culture.

I am really glad I experienced the pow-wow, and I am looking forward to more experiences like this that my family might bring me along to.

Another Day

So there isnt much to report from today. We were in the classroom all day, learning so much information. In the morning sessions we heard from Dr. Brewer, a recent graduate from ASU PhD program. His background is actually in American Indian Law and tribal resource management, just like I am interested in, so it was good to meet him.

After lunch we spent the rest of the afternoon in the classroom with Dr. Woodard, a long time faculty member of SDSU, discussing Native American Literature. He is actually good friends with N Scott Momaday and has co-written a book with him that I would love to read soon. We learned a lot from him as well.

Its cool because even though there are specific subjects we discuss with each of our teachers there are always greater life lessons we gain from all of them, and much other stuff we discuss as well. Soon I will post some of the poems prof Woodard gave us.

One interesting thing we did discuss was that there is a great deal of racial seperation in South Dakota between Native and Non-Native people. There are a lot of misconceptions still today and its evident in the way society works and people interact (or don't interact). I would like to learn more about this.

Tomorrow we are traveling to Sissiton, about 3 hours away, and visiting a Boys and Girls Club and meeting Carly's host family. In the afternoon we are learning to cook a traditional Lakota / Dakota meal. This weekend we are volunteering to help make food for and set up for the annual Pow-Wow put on by the Native American Club at SDSU, so I am looking forward to that

It is supposed to snow over 8 inches starting tonight, so that should be interesting! There is much reading and work to do, so I am off to get started on that. Keep reading!

Dakota History , People and Place

Today was a really great day. I am feeling VERY greatful to be here, and really feeling like I made a great choice in this program. I feel as if I am exactly where I should be right now, and learning so much thats is going to stay with me forever and help me in my future career.

Today we spent the morning in the classroom learning about the Dakota conflict and exile. The Dakota people originally lived in Minnesota. They at first lived peacefully with the settlers, making kinship ties with fur traders, etc. However, eventually, the settlers and government wanted their land. They signed the Treaty of Traverse-de-Sioux, giving up some of their land for reservation land, annual annuities (food, monetary payments) , aid with education, etc. However, the whites did not fulfill this promise, and the Dakota lived with no money, no hunting rights and no food. Eventually they were told they had to give up even more of their land, and the BIA manager of the area said if they were starving they could eat grass. The money promised never made it to the Native people, fur traders took it all because it was arranged that it had to go through them first. Eventually, there was a conflict. Many whites and Natives died, but it was seen as a brutal native attack on white settlers. Little Crow, a Dakota Chief, did not support the fighting but he said he would die with his people. Throughout his entire life, despite many bribes, pressures, etc, Little Crow never abandon his culture, changed his way of life, dressing, or his spirituality. Finally, the Dakota people had to flee; some went to Canada, some to Nebraska, Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota. Today the Dakota people are in all of these places, never able to return to their ancestral homeland in MN.

After the conflict 300+ Dakota people were sentanced to death for crimes against whites during the conflict. Some of these men had actually protected whites at certain points. Lincoln was suppposed to sign the sentances, but did not want to condemn that many men. After demanding much more research, Lincoln only signed the death sentances of 38 men. They were all hung together, it was the largest mass execution in US history, the day after Christman. Lincoln signed the sentances the same day he signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

After the morning in the classroom and learning this sad story, we visited the grave of Little Crow. It was in a small roadside graveyard in eastern SD, no pomp and circumstance surrounding it or any effort to memorialize him for the heroic person he was. Chief little Crow was killed by a farmer while he and his son were picking berries, attempting to return to MN to face what would befall them there. At the time, there was a bounty for killing native people, $75. The farmer who killed Little Crow was given $500 more when they realized who he was. Then, the body of Little Crow was on display in the state of MN, until he was finally laid to rest in 1973, over 100 years after his death.We spent a while there, discussing such things, paying respects, etc.

Then we visited an Indian Boarding School, one of the only ones left, run by the BIA. We had earlier discussed the disastrous cultural affects of Boarding schools as they were in the late 1800s, attempts to assimilate and squash the culture out of Native children. Eventually this changed, and this boarding school is of course not like that. American Indian children come from all over the country to get an education there. The school has a partnership with SDSU in hopes that the students will continue their education.

Then we drove to Pipestone, MN. This is the site of Pipestone National Monument, run by the NPS. This is the nationally known place where the stone used in making sacred pipes is found. Some of you may know these as the peace pipes, which is what white settlers called them because they only saw them used in times of peace making. The pipe was actually used for much more than that and has significance in almost every native culture in the country. Although it is run by the NPS, Native people that get permits are allowd to still dig for the stone there, and we saw where that happens. We hiked there for a while. It was a beautiful, sunnny day, probably at least 50 degrees, so we were lucky there!

After pipestone we traveled home, and tired after a long day I will probably go to bed shortly!
Sorry this was a long one. I like recapping what i learn for two reasons. 1) if people reading this do not have a background in American Indian history they can learn it and 2) it helps me
remember it!

PS the picture is Chief Little Crow

Classroom Days

Today was mostly classroom discussions and learning. We started at nine, and spent the morning discussing the program in depth and answering any questions. The classroom setting is actually just me, Carly and our various professors in a small conference type room, discussing readings, etc. I really like that is small and comfortable.

Valerian and our other professor we met today, Dr. Branum, have so much to teach us. We discussed a variety of topics today including early contact with settlers, cultural appropriation, myths and misconceptions surrounding indigenous people, tokenization, American Indian spirituality, American Indian etiquitte (sp?) and tons of other stuff!!

Thats pretty much it for today, lots of information and books to read, and the course work for the 15 credits is pretty hefty, if I was worried about being bored I am not now. It is a little overwhelming knowing I have all that school work plus service placement work plus registering for my senior year classes, researching my grad school, figuring out when to take the GRE, writing my speech for Western graduation and finding time to keep in touch with my friends and family! Its going to be an intense but fulfilling semester, I can tell.

After class I took Carly downtown and she experienced her first midwestern town (she is from Boston and has never been to the midwest). We had fun and went to goodwill. Now we are going to dinner and later tonight I will begin much reading and work!