May You Emerge Safely On The Other Side

The First To Arise, a wetplate photograph by Shane Balkowitsch, 2016. 
Uŋmáčhetkiya Yakpáptapi Kta Héčha
May You Safely Emerge On The Other Side

By Dakota Wind

Tȟokéya Inážiŋla tókhi éyaye hé? Thíyata oníčilapelo. Uŋmá ečhíyataŋhaŋ iyáye. Waŋná Čhaŋkú Wanáǧi maní. Čhaŋkú Tȟó maní. Tókša akhé waŋčhíyaŋkiŋ kte. 

Where have you gone First To Arise? They have called you home. You have gone on to the other side. Now you walk the Spirit Road. You walk on the Blue Road. I will see you again for certain. 

Lekší Kevin Locke loved the land. When he was home he regularly ran on the prairie steppe above the floodplain of the Missouri River, overlooking Lake Oahe. His home, in the community of Wakpala, S.D. overlooks the water. Day or night, light from the sun or moon stretches across the water and illuminates his home. During the darkest nights and coldest days of winter, his home is filled with earnest love for family and land.

One of his favorite places to run was at an old Sahnish (Arikara) village site close to his home. He wondered if it would be a good place to camp in the old days and looked at the site as though for the first time. Lo! There, he saw the evidence of a village from days gone by. Depressions in the ground where once stood great earthlodges. Time, erosion, and development took much of the old village. Thereafter, when he ran there he imagined running through a living village filled with laughter and singing in the air. The wind that swirled about him at the same time when he ran there, was the same wind that swirled then and there in a different distant time long ago; this same wind carried the smell of joy and prayer across the water and into the sky. 

Lekší loved to dance. He refused to contest dance. The only one in competition for excellence he danced against was himself. He was renowned for hoop dancing, storytelling, and playing the traditional northern plains Indian flute. Kevin cultivated excellence in others too. When he saw the best in others he would say so, and further, he would tell others. 

Lekší would say he was not a singer, yet he frequently sang. He loved and shared the songs he heard and learned from the elders of his youth. He listened to the mystery of creation. Swallows would swoop by and let him know he needed to brush his hair. Western Meadowlarks perched outside his home and sang in the New Year each spring, and each fall fond wishes for a safe emergence on the other side of winter. We just have to stop and listen for revelation in the quiet moments of creation. 

Lekší believed that it was important to sing. Song renewed one’s identity and connection to the landscape. Song renews cultural identity. There is an exchange of energy, like electricity, between people who sing together. Long before Scientific American studied choirs and discovered that people who sing together their heartbeats synchronize, the Očhéti Šakówiŋ made this natural observation. Kevin explained it simply as: Lowáŋpi čhaŋná čhaŋtiyapȟa akhÍptaŋ hečhé, or “When they sing together, their hearts beat as one.” 

Lekší would say he was not a singer, yet he frequently sang. The singing voice is the most precious instrument of the Očhéti Šakówiŋ. As an instrument of the Great Plains, the singing voice is known to carry several miles and still be understood. In an arid landscape with the near constant presence of the wind, the Lakȟóta language was a language of the wind. The rattle is the essence of hail; the drum the essence of thunder; the flute the essence of the wind; the voice the essence of lightning. The Lakȟóta singer’s voice carries where English falls apart. 

Day and night. Equinox and solstice. Month and year. He saw the heavens and landscape in a constant state of renewal. In late summer of 2017, a solar eclipse washed over the Beautiful Country. The Očhéti Šakówiŋ last saw one in 1868. They believed that what was in the world here below was reflected in the heavens above. The Húŋkpapȟa lit sage and smudged. They brought out their pipes and prayed. The children of the sun and moon shone from their places in the heavens and life was wondrous and mysterious. The most beautiful thing about this moment was sharing this experience with family. For Kevin it was a profound moment of renewal. Even as the sun “died” it emerged moments later victorious. 

It was important for Lekší to experience the Beautiful Country. Looking out upon the landscape to distant summits gives one a sense of atmospheric perspective, that is to say, that from a distance sites and summits become like a dream and take on a blue color. That distance, that blue color reminds the Očhéti Šakówiŋ observer of a long abiding presence of Niyá Awičhableze, or the Enlightening Breath Upon Which All Life Returns. 

The Enlightening Breath is said to arrive on the Northern Plains in the spring, but all that lives and breathes draw upon it throughout the year. The Očhéti Šakówiŋ natural observation of atmospheric perspective is perceived thusly: Tȟéhaŋtaŋhaŋ táku tȟotȟó kiŋ tȟó atȟáŋiŋ, or “That which is green, from a distance becomes blue.” It is this sacred blue perspective that reminds the observer to treat the very land and air with the same respect as one treats home. 

Lekší Kevin’s favorite conversational topics were language, culture, land, and how these each serve as metaphor for renewal and must be cultivated each and every day. The Missouri River is central to life in the Beautiful Country. The Mnišóše, or Missouri River, begins at the confluence of three rivers. This great confluence is known to the Očhéti Šakówiŋ as Mnitȟáŋka, or “The Great Water.” This Great Water flows and becomes the Mnišóše, or “The Water Astir.” It grows and turns about the landscape south, until it concludes its long journey. There it once again becomes Mnitȟáŋka. The journey of the river and its flow south is reflected in the Spirit Road of the night sky. 

A favorite topic of traditional story was that of Wičháȟpi Hiŋȟpáye, or “Fallen Star.” In the last narrative of the cycle of Fallen Star stories, this traditional hero heard his father’s voice in the heavens call out for him to take his place in the sky. The people were camped at Pahá Makȟásaŋsaŋ, what is today White Butte, and gathered in a great circle to send off their beloved hero. With his Kȟolá, Fallen Star ascended the White Butte and embraced his brother, lay down on the summit, and there he died. But his story doesn’t end there. He transformed into light and rose into the sky. From there he sends rays of light and hope to his people below. 

It is now fall. A Western Meadowlark flew by me and cried out, “Tókša akhé.” At that moment, the sun seemed to shine a little brighter, the air was filled with the intoxicating smell of spring or heaven, a breeze swirled and a little whirlwind danced and dissipated into the sky. In one breath I smelled and tasted sage. It was a holy breath. An Enlightening Breath, one filled with the promise of renewal. The Western Meadowlark said so. 

We may not see you in the here and now, but you are as close as our next breath, as close as our dreams, as close as shadow in the prairie grass, as close as reflection in the water. 

Akhé waníyetu ú. Akhé kičhíč’iŋpi kte. Ohómni wótheȟike ečhéča takómni uŋmáčhetkiya yakpáptapi kta héčha. Mitȟákuye Owás’iŋ.

Again, the winter approaches. Again, they will carry each other. Although surrounded by adversity, nonetheless, may you safely emerge on the other side. All my relatives. 

The Red Road and Other Narratives of the Dakota Sioux, A Review

Mniyo, Samuel, and Robert Goodvoice. The Red Road and Other Narratives of the Dakota Sioux. Edited by Daniel Beveridge. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2020. Hardcover. $75. 304 pages + xxvi. Contents, photographs, figures, maps, appendices, glossary, notes, bibliography. 

I grew up on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation hearing about the Red Road. My lekší Kenny struggled with alcohol and chemical dependence issues for years, and when he was clean we had some of the greatest philosophical discussions about the purpose of life, existentialism, and even the Red Road. He frequently questioned “why” about life, church, and traditional ceremony. I learned about the Socratic method of argument and the introspective meditative philosophy from him long before ever hearing about Socrates or Descartes. 

When I heard about the Red Road, it seemed to be a spiritual philosophy for people recovering from chemical and alcohol dependency. It was inseparable from recovery. I’ve had more than few, but I never let it become a lifestyle. Talking about the Red Road always seemed removed and distant. Conversations in school with friends about the Red Road immediately became quiet or turned to a discussion about becoming holy. 

The Red Road and Other Narratives of the Dakota Sioux was published in February 2020. I knew I wanted to read it after reading the title. It’s costly, and I waited for my local library to get a copy in so I could read it, but that never happened. I turned to the North Dakota State Library and did an interlibrary loan request, and a copy came in a week later from Nebraska. I hope that the University of Nebraska Press publishes a softcover edition soon. 

The Red Road is a duology of Dakhóta narratives which serve as a spiritual history of the Dakhóta people and by extension, the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ. Samuel Mniyo and Robert Goodvoice articulate an oral tradition of the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ that reaches back to a time when the Council Fires were not seven, but twelve. 

The Red Road is not a history book in the sense that it’s filled with footnotes, endnotes, and bibliography. It employs oral tradition that reaches into time beyond living memory, further back than winter counts can recall. It’s a pre-Columbian oral tradition without ever referencing that it is pre-Columbian. Historians who rely on the written record may struggle with these narratives. This reader suggests that this should be treated with the same respect and seriousness as one would treat the Holy Bible as history. 

The narratives in The Red Road takes readers to a time and place when and where the Twelve Fires traveled and occupied land that stretched from the eastern seaboard in the east, and the Gulf Coast in the south, to the Rocky Mountains in the west. The narratives don’t fully articulate why five of the Council Fires removed themselves, but it was during a time of great struggle when the people fought themselves over resources. 

The Seven Council Fires that remained united faced a great existential crisis in their search for ultimate truth. They searched for generations for the elusive Hill of Truth. Their travels took them across the great prairie steppe. Some stayed in areas to live their lives. Others remained nomadic in their generations-long pilgrimage. Mniyo goes so far as to suggest that this great quest was to prepare the Dakhóta to receive the biblical word of God when the missionaries arrived. “The promise of Oúŋ [Life] wasn’t really a lie. It was really the voice of God that spoke to our ancestors, but it was misunderstood. Oúŋ was not land [the Hill of Truth] but salvation in Jesus Christ, who went to Calvary Hill and paid for our sins.” (Mniyo and Goodvoice, 2020; 124). 

This retro understanding of Dakhól Wičhóȟ’aŋ (the Dakhóta Way of Life) removes the agency or sense of self-determination from the Dakhóta people and embraces pre-determinism, the very kind of thinking that colonizers and settlers embraced to justify missionizing the indigenous and taking their land. Mniyo’s philosophical approach to the arrival of missionaries is echoed in Pope Benedict XVI’s paternalistic statement in May of 2007 that the church had not imposed it’s will on the native peoples, rather, they were silently longing for Christianity [1].

The narratives include what one might call mysticism. Both Mniyo and Goodvoice recall stories of a person or people walking on water. Goodvoice includes a prophetic warning to the Council Fire people's encounter with people who speak a different language in the future.

One outstanding narrative retelling by Goodvoice recalls an encounter with Iŋktómi, a traditional folk character who causes mischief and oftentimes outsmarts his own self, in which he puts aside mischief and warns the Dakhóta that an epidemic will strike them in a forthcoming winter. He told them what medicines to consume and to sequester that winter and when spring came, they survived. (Mniyo and Goodvoice, 2020; 157-158). 

I have never read such a thought-provoking book. I picked this book up and set it down so many times over the course of a month. I don’t think that Goodvoice intended at all for readers to be provoked into relating a way of papel thinking - these narratives were recorded over forty years ago - but rather, Goodvoice perhaps wanted Očhéthi Šakówiŋ to consider that we are living in the best of all possible worlds. Perhaps in modern times, we will return to self-determination through the rediscovery of language and way of life. 

Goodvoice also provides an amazing narrative of the Dakhóta war effort in the War of 1812. The English gave the Dakhóta seven medals and a cannon. Goodvoice takes readers on a winding narrative of promises and betrayal worthy of an Indiana Jones film. Think, “It belongs in a museum,” as if that makes the appropriation of historic artifacts right. It doesn’t. 

The Red Road is a path of recovery and self-determination. The Mniyo and Goodvoice narratives inform us that one doesn’t need to be a holy person but an everyday common person. The existential journey that the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ took an age ago has come back around. Who are we? Where are we going? What does it mean to be Dakhóta-Lakȟóta? Like the relatives long ago, I as an individual, don’t know those answers. The book The Red Road has certainly provoked me to ask myself, “What can I do to cultivate Lakȟól Wičhóȟ'aŋ, the traditional way of life?” 

This deserves to be read by anyone who has an interest in indigenous philosophy. This book is history if one considers oral tradition to be history. It is philosophy. It might be religious studies. The publisher labeled this book anthropology. It's all these things. Buy it, read it, and maybe share it with a relative who can't afford it.

[1]  Raymond Colitt, “Brazil's Indians Offended by Pope Comments,” Reuters (Thomson Reuters, May 14, 2007), https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pope-brazil-indians/brazils-indians-offended-by-pope-comments-idUSN1428799220070514.

Lakota America, A Book Review

The cover of Lakota America features the art of Lakȟóta artist Jim Yellowhawk (Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe; Itázipčho). A simple photo of my copy of this book. 
Lakota America, A Book Review

This Book Fuckin' Moved Me
By Dakota Wind
Hämäläinen, Pekka. Lakota America: A New History of Indigenous Power. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 2019. $35.00 (hardcover). 544 pages + ix. Acknowledgments, a note on terminology, introduction, epilogue, a list of abbreviations, notes, glossary, index, maps, photos, illustrations.

“Yet this book is decidedly a history of the Lakotas, written from sources that seek to convey their perspective, often in their own words. An extraordinary archive makes this possible to an unusual degree. Lakota communities traced the passage of time by drawing on a buffalo hide a pictograph of one memorable event for each year. Lakotas call these calendars waníyetu iyáwapi. They draw attention to the mundane and reveal the sublime. Perhaps most important, as a body of historical record, winter counts capture what fascinated Lakotas and what mattered to them most. Lakota America makes the fullest use yet of this Indigenous archive in writing Lakota history.” (Hämäläinen, 2019; 8)

Thus begins Hämäläinen’s Lakota America, a post-colonial contact history of a people referencing their own historical records, and in this process, treating these pictographic records with a serious care and careful regard that these primary resource documents deserve. Most histories regarding the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, Seven Council Fires (or “The Great Sioux Nation), are constructed primarily from colonial records (i.e. explorer journals, trader records, and missionary accounts). Hämäläinen embraces the indigenous record as a concurrent history, complemented by the colonial record.

I felt a deep sense of gratification reading this beautiful work.

Hämäläinen paints a picture of a people occupying a known and busy landscape inhabited and shaped by other indigenous peoples from trade, war, disease, and expanding colonial empires, to displacement, removal, imprisonment, and survival in a post-reservation world.

The story begins not with conflict, but with the arrival of Thiyóškate (Plays In The Lodge) on a diplomatic mission to Montreal to secure peace in the interior of North America. Conflict spread west threatening to invade Očhéthi Šakówiŋ homelands for beaver pelts in a trading system that left indigenous peoples dependent on iron wrought trade items.

There are many books about the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, among them other notables including Royal Hassrick’s “The Sioux: Life and Customs of a Warrior Society,” Thomas Mails’ “Mystic Warriors of the Plains.” Nearly all western history books agree that the horse arrived in the mid-1700s. Hämäläinen breaks from academic consensus by informing readers that the horse arrived on the northern plains following the Pueblo Revolt of 1682. (Hämäläinen, 2019; 55)

The chapter, The Lakota Meridian, explores the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ in the context of world history. Hämäläinen reconstructs the setting of the interior of North America following the arrival of the horse, the gun, and smallpox epidemics which obliterated or weakened so many other first nations. The Lakȟóta secured and manipulated trade to their benefit. The Arikara War of 1823, the first American military campaign against Plains Indians sees the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ side with the United States, years after refusing “to be discovered” and acknowledging the United States as sovereign. (Hämäläinen, 2019; 140)

Lakota America is not a conflict history of the American West. It is closer to a biography in tone, but not on any one individual or few of Očhéthi Šakówiŋ leadership. It is not so much a cultural examination either; there are other resources for that. This work is like a study of the character of a people throughout several generations. Hämäläinen briefly articulates the cultural story of the White Buffalo Calf Woman and the Gift of the Sacred Pipe but reimagines this ancient narrative as a story of new urgency as the Lakȟóta ventured west from the Mnišóše, the Water-Astir (or Missouri River). (Hämäläinen, 2019; 164-165). He does reiterate throughout his work that Očhéthi Šakówiŋ identity is evidenced by virtue of practice and language. 

The image above was drawn by Sitting Bull's own hand. In his later years, Sitting Bull and his own people, the Húŋkpapȟa, identified him as a medicine man or spiritual leader. 

Očhéthi Šakówiŋ homeland is determined by occupation of waterways, in particular, the Mnišóše and all his tributaries. Boundaries are determined by the waters, and those boundaries were recognized in both the Fort Laramie Treaties. Hämäläinen carefully determines and explains how those boundaries were set through conflict and diplomacy. Their villages moved from valley to valley across the plains. The traditional Očhéthi Šakówiŋ recalls that the people moved from stream source to stream source across the plains.

Hämäläinen explores Lakȟóta political philosophy in their own terms as well as they dealt with the decline of the great bison ganges and the arrival of more fixed signs of American occupation. Iwáštegla, meaning “moderate,” “gentle,” and “easy,” but for also for the greatest maximum benefit, that which is “wašté,” or “good,” for the people. “Lakotas still expected wašíčus [sic] to compromise more than they did: after all, most of their interactions took place in Lakota territory. In this charged moment one can glimpse something essential about Lakotas’ ability to accept new realities, adjust to changing governing conditions, and yet remain indigenous.” (Hämäläinen, 2019; 300)

Lakota America has many strengths. Meticulous research is one, but what makes Hämäläinen’s work stand out is that he acknowledges, employs, and attributes the history (oral and pictographic) of the people he writes about, putting it on the same page as colonial records equating its importance.

Lakota America touches on the greatest conflict to shape the American West, Pȟežíšla Wakpá Okíčhize, or the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Every year there’s a book written about Lt. Col. Custer and the fate of the 7th Cavalry. Every book published about the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ includes this fight. It is refreshing that Hämäläinen does not dedicate an entire chapter retreading the last great Indian fight.

Hämäläinen does not stop his narrative of Lakȟóta history with Čhaŋkpé Ópi Owíčhakte, the Wounded Knee Massacre. No, he brings the story of adaptation, survival, and self-determination up to recent events at Íŋyaŋ Iyá Wakpá, the Talking Stone River (or the Cannonball River). A people and their history did not end at the turn of 1900. It lives and is a constant story of change. Hämäläinen gets it.

Lakota America is an engaging read. I found myself stopping several times throughout, lost in thought, and provoked to remember that indigenous occupation includes several other first nations who contested the landscape and gratified to discover how much Hämäläinen relied on Lakȟóta history to create this immensely reflective work.

My only concern, and it is a very minor thing, is that not all Dakhóta-Lakȟóta use the same term for the “winter count:” Northern Lakȟóta (i.e. Húŋkpapȟa) and Iháŋkthuŋwaŋna (i.e. Wičhíyena, or “Upper Yanktonai”) refer to the pictographic records as Waníyetu Wówapi, which means, “Keeping an Account of the Winter.” The Dakhóta and Lakȟóta who were placed at Fort Peck refer to winter counts as Hékta Yawápi, or “Counting Back.”

Lakota America has earned its place on my bookshelf. Get your copy as soon as you can to add it to yours. 

Winter Solstice Is Sacred Time

The Long Night Moon at White Earth Butte. The crescent represents the moon or month. Above the moon, appearing upside down at the top is the landscape profile of White Earth Butte as seen from the south looking north. 
Winter Solstice Is Sacred Time
A Time To Carry One Another
By Dakota Wind
The longest season of the year was winter on the Great Plains. On the traditional Očhéthi Šakówiŋ lunar calendar, the year consisted of two spring, four summer, two autumn, and five moons or months. The word for "year," in fact, is “Waníyetu,” meaning “Winter.”

The first snow was celebrated. Men put on their snowshoes and danced in the fresh powder. The snow made for ease of hunting. The Lakȟóta explained the changing of the seasons as an epic battle between two brothers: Wazíya (The North) and Okáǧa (The South). As one retreated, the other gained ground. When Wazíya won, his breath blew across the landscape, and for as deadly and sharp his cold breath might be, he brought a blanket of snow under which Uŋčí Makȟá (Grandmother Earth) slept.

The cultural genesis of the seasons aside, they remembered and shared real events from winters past. The High Dog Winter Count recalls the year 1800 as one of the most challenging years to survive. The summer heat was unbearably hot. The great gangs of bison went away, and hunting was poor. Flowers disappeared from the landscape, and the wind drank up the water. The birds refused to sing too.

A punishing winter followed, as remembered in the White Bull Winter Count.

Winter came, snow and ice were everywhere. A group of Lakȟóta decided to move winter camp from the bottomlands of one river to that of another. As they moved over the high plains, a blizzard caught them. Gradually some of them began to succumb to the cold and fell. As one person fell, another lifted and carried him or her for the rest of their journey. Kičhíč’iŋpi keúŋkiyapi, “They say that they carried each other.”

The Lakȟóta used the long winter night to share stories like that of Wičháȟpi Hiŋȟphaya (The Fallen Star; also called “Star Boy”). The story of his mother, Tȟapȟúŋ Šá Wíŋ (Red Cheek Woman), and father, Wičháȟpi Owáŋžila (The Star that Does Not Move; “The North Star”) is fairly well known and told in books and various online media.

The Lakȟóta share Ohúŋkakaŋ (stories from the distant past) and Wičhówoyake (stories, legends, myth) during the five lunar months of Waníyetu (the winter season), and during this moon especially, they share stories like the Fallen Star narrative. 

Sometime during the Long Night, the Fallen Star rises from the highest point of White Earth Butte. As the heavens turn, or as the earth rotates, the constellation gradually moves counter-clockwise until most of it gradually disappears past the northern horizon. Fallen Star, or Capella, dips down past the horizon, then majestically rises, bringing hope to the people. 

According to Ronald Goodman’s work in his Lakota Star Knowledge, Fallen Star was renowned among the Lakȟóta as “the Protector, the bringer of light and higher consciousness.” After becoming a father, Fallen Star ascended “a hill at night with a friend,” and told him that he was going to return home. Fallen Star laid down upon the hilltop and died. His spirit was seen as a light that rose into the star world. “At some time in the past, all Lakȟóta acquired the gift of light he brought them.” (Goodman, 2017; 32)

Goodman discusses an ancient central symbol strongly associated with the heavens and the world. This symbol is referred to as Kapémni (“the action is swinging around and around,” as with a warclub or bull roar), and resembles an hourglass. One half represents all that is heavenly, the other half represents all that is worldly. What is in the heavens is also present in the world. In the pages of Lakota Star Knowledge, this “mirroring” is demonstrated in a map of the Lakȟóta constellation Čhaŋgléška Wakȟáŋ (The Sacred Hoop) which demarcates the locations of landmarks in and around the Black Hills.

In 1967, Helen Blish published her thesis A Pictographic History of the Oglala Sioux, featuring the works of Amos Bad Heart Bull (~1868-1913), a noted Lakȟóta artist, amongst of what was a map of the Black Hills and other features including Pahá Ská (White Butte). White Butte is noted as being north of the Black Hills.

It is a general map; not everything matches up perfectly, in fact, maps of the landscape were concerned with lineal cohesion rather than over-exactness. Matȟó Thípila (Bear Lodge), or Devils Tower, is not actually within Khiíŋyaŋka Očháŋku (The Race Track), the edge of the Black Hills. The Race Track is the “mirror” of the Sacred Hoop, just as Makȟáska (White Earth Butte), or White Butte, is not a part of the Black Hills, it is north of the ‘Hills. It is a real butte. It is also the hill upon which Fallen Star made his journey back to the sky. 

Like Devils Tower, White Butte appears to be in the narrative of the Sacred Hoop in Bad Heart Bull’s map narrative, though it is not so in actuality. Yet according to the map of the Sacred Hoop constellation in Lakota Star Knowledge, a star commonly known as Capella, the brightest star in the constellation Auriga appears as part of the Sacred Hoop.

Referencing Bad Heart Bull’s map and tracking the sky from the Sacred Hoop to the North Star one “sees” the stars associated with the constellation Auriga “pointing” or “reaching” towards the North Star. The constellation Auriga appears to be Kapémni, or "mirror" of White Butte and the immediate landscape surrounding that beautiful plateau. 

Fallen Star returns to the sky to be with his father. He sends rays of light and hope to the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ people. 

As Capella is the Fallen Star I’d like to suggest that Auriga is his constellation. At about 6:00 PM on the longest night of the year, this constellation appears upside down. Twelve hours later, at about 6:00 AM, which is at the tail end of the longest night, the heavens have rotated 180° counterclockwise, and have become right side up. The Fallen Star “rises” from the horizon, it rises from the top of White Earth Butte.

Long ago, before the reservation era anyway, the month which some might call December today, was known by some Lakȟóta as Waníčhokaŋ Wí (The Midwinter Moon). They might not have known the exact time (it’s 10:19 PM CST) but could reckon the subtle shift in daylight when there was a little more of it and could track the general date with counting sticks; they knew it happened in the Midwinter Moon.

According to Vi Waln, “I believe the real day of prayer was observed on the winter solstice by the people with ceremony, food, and family.” Further, “Nature and the stars were monitored carefully to help with preparation for whatever time of year was upon the people.” And lastly, “Many Lakota people will offer prayer in much the same our ancestors did so on the Winter Solstice.” (Valn, Winter Solstice Is Sacred, 2011)

There are five winter moons in the traditional Lakȟóta calendar. After the Winter Solstice, it was time to gather red willow (eastern dogwood) to make čhaŋšáŋšaŋ, traditional tobacco made from the inner bark of the red willow, and used for ceremony.

In the heart of winter, in daylight, there sometimes appears the sundog. The Lakȟóta call it Wíačhéič'thi, which means "The Sun Makes A Campfire [For Himself]," and the story associated with this event holds the promise of light, that it returns. Sometimes, during the winter nights, they see a ring around the moon, also called Wíačhéič'thi, only this is interpreted as "The Moon Makes a Campfire [For Herself]." The Moon has vigorously stirred her pot and light has spilled about her lodge.

The New Lakota Dictionary lists the Winter Solstice as Waní-Wí-Ipȟá (Crest of the Winter Sun). The Húŋkpapȟa might call the same Haŋyétu Háŋska (The Long Night) as they called this traditional month Haŋyétu Háŋska Wí (The Long Night Moon).

However it is called this day, or this month, these things are certain: gather close together with family in observation or prayer, eat together, share stories, and carry each other.

Dakota Moon Counting Tradition, A Poster

Above, a screen capture of the Dakhóta moons throughout the year.

Haŋwíyawapi Wičhóh'aŋ Kiŋ
Dakhóta Moon Counting Tradition

Bismarck, N.D. (The First Scout) (Updated) - The Isáŋyathi, Dakhóta-speaking people east of the Red River of the north, east of the Big Sioux River, follow a twelve-month calendar. 

Their calendar system is much like that the moon counting tradition of the Thítȟuŋwaŋ, the Lakȟóta-speaking people west of the Missouri River. There are sometimes more than one name for the month, but each month reflected a deep relationship with that the people have with the environment. This informs us, that there was a long occupation and a record of observation for the people to survive and adapt to the landscape. 

Feedback from Spirit Lake informs us that the Dakhóta did, in fact, employ a thirteen-month traditional calendar. The twelve-month calendar indicates assimilation. Philámayaye Lekší. 

The historic Očhéthi Šakówiŋ held a world-view perspective that was south-oriented. Taking this into account, then the rotation of the moon and the rotation of the earth around the sun would give us a moon calendar layout that looks like the poster above with the cycle of the moons and the phases of the moons "read" in a counter-clockwise manner.

Of course, the Očhéthi Šakówiŋa would never have laid out images like this, rather, they kept track of the moons with counting sticks.

Get your copy of this 36"x48" poster of the Dakhóta Moon Counting Tradition for FREE. Share this with others and your classroom today. 

Historical Record On Beaver Creek

WA NA TA, THE CHARGER, Grand Chief of the Sioux, by Charles King Bird.
Missing Narrative In North Dakota
Historical Record On Beaver Creek
By Dakota Wind
Linton, N.D. (The First Scout) – There is a great long gradual rise on the vast open prairie between the Mnišóše (The Water-Astir, or “Missouri River”) and Čhaŋsáŋsaŋ Wakpá (White Birch River, or “James River”). The Iháŋkthuŋwaŋna (Little End Village, or “Yanktonai”) who occupied this region for hundreds of years call this rise Ȟé Mníšoše, the Water-Astir Ridge. The French called it the Coteau du Missouri.

The Očhéthi Šakówiŋ often know places by two or more names. An everyday name for everyday things like hunting or gathering. A site may have a special or spiritual significance. The Middle Dakhóta called the Water-Astir Ridge, just that, when they hunted and gathered. When they prayed there, when they put their relatives to rest on the coteau, they called it Wanáǧi Tȟamákhočhe, or Country of the Spirits.

For the Dakhóta, the Water-Astir Ridge begins in the north by Šuŋk’óthi Pahá, or Wolf Den Butte, which is today called Dogden Butte. The coteau reaches southwest to a point near the North Dakota-South Dakota border by Forbes, ND. A creek across the border meanders across the plain and serves as a natural boundary of the coteau. This creek has two names in Dakhóta, and if that weren’t enough, it has two designations in English. 

The Battle of Whitestone Hill, as it appeared in Harpers Weekly, October 31, 2863.

A gulch six miles west-southwest of Forbes, ND is known to the Iháŋkthuŋwaŋna as Šúŋka Wakȟáŋ Wičháktepi, or Where Their Horses Were Killed, in reference to the horses that were wounded in the 1863 Whitestone Hill Conflict carried survivors to this point and laid down to rest.

This creek is known by the Middle Dakhóta as Wíŋkta Wakpána (Hermaphrodite Creek) or Dakhóta Núm Wakpá (Two Dakota Creek). The Corps of Discovery called it Stone Idol Creek. The modern population in the vicinity of Pollock call it Spring Creek. This stream originates about nine miles south-southeast of Ashley, ND.

Another stream that bears re-examination is Čhápa Wakpána, or Beaver Creek. It rises at Bdé Čhápa, or Beaver Lake, and flows out of the coteau about 108 miles west to join the Mnišóše by the Beaver Creek Recreation Area by HWY 1804.

In the fall of 1839, Waná’ata, the Charger, led his band of Dakhóta to make their winter camp. It was his last winter. The camp spread out for miles along the creek. The Charger was a veteran of the War of 1812. He was commissioned a captain by British Indian Agent Col. Robert Dickson. The Charger led several hundred Dakhóta people at the battles of Fort Miegs and Fort Stephen in Ohio. He was so influential on the field, his bravery so renowned, that President Martin Van Buren met with the Charger and commissioned his likeness in a portrait. The Charger also met with King George III. Was the Charger an important and influential figure in the history of the American West? A president and a king seemed to think so.

In 1818, at Fort Snelling, the Charger became a devoted proponent of the United States.

The Charger led a command of hundreds of Dakhóta and Lakȟóta warriors in the first ever punitive campaign against a Plains Indian people, the Arikara, in the Arikara War of 1823. 

U.S. General Land Office Map, No. 12, 1878, details Grant's executive order extending the boundaries of Standing Rock Agency into present-day Emmons County.

President Grant extended the boundary of the Standing Rock Agency in his Executive Order, dated March 16, 1875, from west of the Missouri River, east of the agency along Beaver Creek to about where 19th Ave SE, Linton, ND is located, and south into North Campbell, SD. This boundary set aside land for the Iháŋkthuŋwaŋna Dakhóta people. The people who fought on the side of the United States were recognized for their service and dedication by the federal government and the president set aside land for them in perpetuity.

There’s plenty of cultural and occupational history in Emmons County. If only there were some kind of in-depth historical Class III survey that could document these significant events.

Lakota Territory Poster

Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (Seven Council Fires) Territory Poster, above, shows several maps, all of which show an occupation in the heart of North America.
Očhéthi Šakówiŋ Territory Poster
Traditional Homeland Of Great Sioux Nation
By Dakota Wind
Bismarck, N.D. (The First Scout) - Over 1800 places across the Great Plains have been pinned on a Google Map, drawn from oral tradition, books, journals, historic maps, to create a resource that reflects a historical and cultural occupational history of the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (Seven Council Fires, or "Great Sioux Nation") over the past three hundred years. 

The Google Map, called Makȟóčhe Wašté (The Good Country, or The Beautiful Country), has over 1800 places in the language of the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ people. Over 24,000 geo-referenced pins on over two hundred historical maps using Google Earth and the David Rumsey Map Collection at the Stanford University Library were employed to create a map history detailing the historic and cultural occupation of the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ in the heart of North America. 

The Makȟóčhe Wašté Map demands a lot of computer memory and bandwidth that it is best accessed online via desktop computer. This poster was created to provide viewers and educators a general view of the Great Plains as the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ saw it, with a south-orientation. A screen capture image of various points shows not just occupation but far reaches of inter-tribal trade. The map is updated as placenames are shared or revealed. 

Three historic maps drawn by Iháŋkthuŋwaŋna Dakhóta (the Whitestone Hill Massacre Map by Richard Cottonwood guided by Takes His Shield) and Húŋkpapȟa Lakȟóta (the two maps of the 1876 Little Bighorn Fight) are included. All three are south-oriented. A Google Map overlaps the various historic occupations (blue is Dakhóta; purple is the Middle Dakhóta; red is Lakȟóta). 

Also included are two historic trader maps, one by John Pope when he was a trader before the 1862 Minnesota Dakota Conflict, and the other by Joseph Nicollet. Both of these maps demarcate the landscape with hundreds of placenames in Dakhóta. 

An explanation of the south-orientation worldview perspective can be found here.

Lastly, several Lakȟóta names appear in large, bold, red text which recalls how they referred to the Great Plains, and by extension North America. This poster measures 36"x48". Download your free Lakota Territory Poster and share it. 

Revisiting The John K. Bear Winter Count

Drifting Goose, chief of the Húŋkpatina, a winter count keeper, along with his people were placed onto the Crow Creek Indian Reservation. 
The Drifting Goose Winter Count
John K. Bear Winter Count Revisited
By Dakota Wind
In 1976, James H. Howard published his Yanktonai Ethnohistory And The John K. Bear Winter Count in the Plains Anthropologist. Howard counseled with native informants from native communities in South Dakota. The strength of his work is determined by two things: his informants and his scholarly research. Howard genuinely cared for the subject and people he wrote about.

There are a few things which must be revisited in Howard’s work: the arrival of the horse is one. This is important because it establishes the earliest record of the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (the Great Sioux Nation) encounter with the horse, its location, which places the Iháŋktȟuŋwaŋna (the Yanktonai) at the mouth of the Čhaŋsáŋsaŋ Wakpá (the James River), and a date of 1692.

A few things must be re-interpreted. An example is the 1841 entry regarding Thamína Wé (His Bloody Knife). Howard calls this record an “anomaly,” and assumes this entry is in regard to the Arikara US Indian Scout, Bloody Knife, a friend of the infamous Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer, from whom the latter learned how to converse in Lakȟóta, Sahnish (Arikara), and the Plains Indian Sign & Gesture language. This Bloody Knife is the Iháŋktȟuŋwaŋ chief, not the Arikara scout.

I’ve employed the LLC standard orthography in this “update,” and have expanded or amended some of Howard’s entries. Howard’s general format will be used: Numerical year in the Common Era, original text, the text re-written using the LLC standard orthography, a word-for-word translation, a free interpretation, followed by cultural/historical narrative.

Some biographical information about Maǧá Bobdú (Drifting Goose) can be found at American-Tribes.com. Go visit this website for its great forum on the subject of American Indian history and culture.

Download the PDF document of "Revisiting The John K. Bear Winter Count." 

For whatever odd reason, the citations didn't carry over when I converted the doc to PDF. Please contact me if you'd like a copy of the original document. 

Dakota Wind is an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. He is currently a university student working on a degree in History with a focus on American Indian and Western History. He maintains the history website The First Scout.

Terrible Justice, A Book Review

Whitestone Hill, this image appeared in Harper's Weekly, based on a pencil drawing by Gen. Alfred Sully. 

Terrible Justice, A Book Review

No Detail Too Grim Left Out

By Dakota Wind

Chaky, Doreen. Terrible Justice: Sioux Chiefs and U.S. Soldiers on the Upper Missouri, 1854-1868. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. 2012. $39.95 (hardcover). 408 pages. Illustrations, maps, photographs, bibliography, and index.

Chaky’s Terrible Justice begins with the Ash Hollow conflict of 1854, as settlers migrated across the Great Plains to better lives on the west coast or in the Rocky Mountains. Her research was sparked after participating in an archaeological survey at Fort Rice, and she soon realized that as much as the story of adventure belonged to the soldiers, it was a story that ultimately belongs to the Sioux. She was not satisfied that so little was published about the military’s role in Manifest Destiny there at Fort Rice and across the plains.

An example of an outstanding feature in Terrible Justice is Chaky’s use of Little Crow’s actual name, which is Taóyate Dúta (His Red Nation), and her continued use of his real name throughout her book. She doesn’t mince words in her description of the punitive military campaigns – Generals Sibley and Sully were sent to make war, take prisoners, destroy food resources, and secure Dakota Territory for white settlement.

Chaky carefully constructs the 1863 Sibley campaign on the orders of General Pope and his orders to secure Dakota Territory from President Abraham Lincoln. Sibley’s march is an invasion, and the conflict between the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (the Great Sioux Nation) and Sibley's command began when his campaign left from Camp Pope on the Minnesota River, not when a young man from the band of Íŋkpaduta (Scarlet Point) shot and killed Surgeon Weiser.

Terrible Justice isn’t an apologist’s narrative. Chaky describes in great detail the gory violence and destruction committed by men, native and non-native; scalps taken by soldiers and warriors. But, she draws close when she includes brief remembrances of Pvt. Phebus, Sgt. Martin, and acting Gov. Hutchinson, several years after the Whitestone Hill massacre.

Federal “Indian Policy” has always been one of dispossession and displacement. As settlers advanced west into Indian Country, tensions erupted in an escalating conflict until the military came in to secure the peace by forcing first nations to sign treaties (land cessions and reservations). Treaties were generally signed by a majority of grown men, sometimes not even by that (ex. Treaty of New Echota).

The Sibley-Sully campaigns were pre-emptive. The Yanktonai, who, at that time yet lived in their homeland, were killed, imprisoned, and forced west across the Missouri River without ever signing a treaty to cede their lands. The land between the Missouri River and the James River is still unceded Yanktonai territory.

Chaky signed my copy, “Dakota, I hope I’ve represented the Sioux properly with this book. I enjoyed doing it very much. Doreen Chaky, 7/28/13.” It’s a book that’s not hard to read, but it’s straight content and elaborate description make it hard to read. These are my people. Chaky began her narrative that this was “the story of the Sioux.” A quick review of her bibliography reveals six recognizable works by first nations, and one hopes a second edition of Terrible Justice would draw on more the surviving oral tradition. 

Recognizing that there are many, many books available for purchase on the subject of the Little Bighorn conflict, Chaky brings her work to a tidy close, by barely mentioning that fight (one sentence). Wounded Knee receives no mention. That’s all right, not every history book about the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ needs to include that tragedy. Chaky focuses on the conditions of peoples, native and settler, of the Great Plains. 

It's a good book. Go get yourself a copy. The maps are a great visual aid.

Dakota Wind is an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. He is currently a university student working on a degree in History with a focus on American Indian and Western History. He maintains the history website The First Scout.

Grandmother Flower, First Flower Of Spring

The Prairie Crocus opened her petals as the sun broke through the overcast. 

First Flower Of The Spring
Grandmother Flower Returns
By Dakota Wind
Mandan, ND (TFS) – I awoke to the distinctive call of Tȟašiyagmuŋka, the Western Meadowlark, outside my window this morning. Last weekend I went out looking for what the settlers called the Pasque Flower, or the Prairie Crocus. The Lakȟóta have two names for the same flower: Hokšíčhekpa, or A Child’s Navel; Uŋčí Waȟčá, or Grandmother Flower. My search was unsuccessful until today.

I hiked on a trail located at a recreation area in the rolling hills of Heart River Country. The sky overhead was overcast with gray clouds and teased the possibility of rain. A light wind blew in from the west and picked the cold up off a lake yet frozen. Last year’s grass was matted from the weight of this winter’s snow; banks of snow lie scattered about the prairie steppe in protest of the coming spring. 

It's easy to see the Prairie Crocus against last year's brown grass.

I stepped off the trail and ascended the north face of a hill, stepping between brush and broken sandstone outcroppings, until I stood on the top. The scree of Čhetáŋ, a hawk, and the honking of a lonely Maǧá, a goose, echoed off the icy lake. I imagine their conversation for a moment, the solitary Maǧá honked, “Tuktél huwó?” and Čhetáŋ screed out into the sky, “WótA!” Maǧá asking where his flock was, Čhetáŋ replying that it’s time to eat.

Škipípi, Chickadee, flitted among the trees and brush whistling, “Alí,” an inquiry if spring has indeed arrived. Wakíŋyela, Mourning Dove, cooed an announcement to all that surely a rain was due. Ištáničatȟaŋka, the Horned Lark, sang out, “Optéptečela, optéptečela!” thinking that perhaps another snow was coming instead. Of all the birds to sing in the spring, it is Tȟašiyagmuŋka whos whistle rises above all, “Oíyokiphi! Ómakha Théča!” or, “Take pleasure! The new year [season] is here!” 

I had to manually focus my camera on the Prairie Crocus' golden heart. 

I reached the top of the hill and fell into step with another trail that took me along the plateau edge and straight to Uŋčí Waȟčá. Her purple robe is outstanding amongst last year’s brown grass and shattered sandstone. Last year’s prickly pear shown bright red against the grass, little bulbs of Missouri Pincushion sat in little round clumps, barbs from both still sharp, but it wasn’t cactus that brought me to the hills.

They say, a long time ago, that a young man went to pray on the hill at the end of winter. It was cold, lonely, and dark, and the young man drew his robe tight about himself. As he did so, a little voice called out in gratitude for the extra warmth. Over the course of the young man’s time on the hill, the flower assured him that he would have his vision. The young man eventually left after his quest was finished, and the flower shivered in the cold. Creator looked down on the flower, and offered gifts of her choice. She wanted a robe of her own, and said that she enjoyed the colors of the mornings and the warmth of the sun. 

From the side, one can see the "fur" of the Prairie Crocus. 

Creator bestowed upon Uŋčí Waȟčá a purple robe and painted her heart gold. She’s the first flower of the new year and as the first moon passes, her robe opens less and turns gray. The first flower sings courage to all the other flowers of the new season and reminds them not to fear their time, but to rejoice because their spirits will go on to color the rainbows. Once in a while, however, the robe of Uŋčí Waȟčá is white, which indicates that a bison drew its last breath in that spot.

The urge to pluck the soft fuzzy flowers is strong, but I can’t take from the earth without leaving a gift in return, so I leave all the Uŋčí Waȟčá as I found them. Long ago, the Lakȟóta gathered and used the whole flower from root to petal in treating arthritis. Someday, as the pain increases in the knuckles of my hands, I may return for these gentle flowers. 

One of many Prairie Crocus growing on a south-facing bluff.

The sun broke through the clouds as I prepared to leave the south-facing hillside, and the flowers began to open. I snapped a few more pictures as I made my way back to the trail. A Kaŋǧí, or Crow, let loose a raucous laugh I felt was at my expense. I was dressed as though it were a summer day, and it was still spring. Kaŋǧí laughed out, “Kȟá!” as if to say, “[You] should have [dressed for the weather]!” I stood and stretched, stiff from the cold, and walked back to my car wishing for my coat.

I thought I was by myself this morning, but in the midst of creation, Makȟóčhe Wašté, the Beautiful Country, was laughter, whistles, and songs that filled the air, and even the wind let up when I passed by the frozen lake.

Dakota Wind is an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. He is currently a university student working on a degree in History with a focus on American Indian and Western History. He maintains the history website The First Scout.

New Moon, New Year In The Moon Counting Tradition

Settlers called the first flower of spring "Prairie Crocus" or "Pasque Flower," but the Lakota people know it as Hoksicekpa, A Child's Navel, or "Wanahca Unci, Grandmother Flower. 

Moon Counting Tradition
New Moon, New Year: 2017-2018
By Dakota Wind
Great Plains, N.D. & S.D. (TFS) – Waná wétu ahí, Spring as arrived. Maǧá, the geese, have returned over the past month from their sojourn in the south, Wakíŋyela, the Mourning Doves, greet the mornings in the Missouri River valley with their queries of possible snow, and Škipípila, the Chickadees, whistle their queries into the wind if spring has indeed returned. Tȟašíyagmuŋka, the Western Meadowlark sings to all, “Oíyokiphi! Ómakȟa Tȟéča yeló!” “Take Pleasure! The New Season [Year] is here!”

The Lakȟóta moon counting tradition calls for incising a notch on a willow switch, a stick would suffice, with the passing of each moon (month). At the end of the year, one should have thirteen notches. The new month in this new cycle is known by a few names: Pȟeží Tȟó Alí Wí (The Green Grass Moon), Maǧá Aglí Wí (Moon When Geese Return), or Wakíŋyaŋ Aglí Wí (Moon Of Returning Thunder).

The 2017 spring equinox occurred on Monday, March 20. Many Lakȟóta journeyed to a special place in Ȟesápa, the Black Hills, to participate in an annual tradition reaching back thousands of years to welcome the Thunder. Some Lakȟóta call this special place Hiŋháŋ KáǧA Pahá, the Making Of Owls Peak. For many years, this highest peak of Ȟesápa, was known as Harney Peak, which some now call Black Elk Peak, in honor of the Oglála holy man.

When spring arrived, not all Lakȟóta made the journey to Ȟesápa. When winter camps broke, many took to the open Great Plains to engage in the first big game hunt of the Ómakȟa Tȟéča. This kind of hunt is called WanásA. Spring was also the time when the Húŋkpapȟa journeyed east to Čaŋsáŋsaŋ Wakpá, Creamy White Tree River (White Birch River; the James River), to trade with the Iháŋktȟuŋwaŋna (Yanktonai). One rendezvous point was where the Íŋyaŋ Iyá Wakpá, Talking Stone River (the Cannonball River) converges with Mníšoše, another rendezvous point where the Oglála met with the Iháŋktȟuŋwaŋ (Yankton), where the Čaŋsáŋsaŋ Wakpá converged with the Mníšoše.

In the Lakȟóta calendar tradition, the year is referred to as Waníyetu, or Winter. It was called such because winter was the longest season of the year, typically lasting five moons. Wétu, or Spring, lasted two months. Blokétu, or Summer, lasted four months. Ptaŋyétu, or Fall, lasted two months. The Lakȟóta calendar tradition may need to be revised in the future to reflect a change in weather. Deny climate change or acknowledge it, the growing season in North Dakota since 1879 has lengthened twelve days.

Since the equinox, a light rain fell, even as blankets of snow still linger on the landscape. Some might even say that the Thunders stayed on over the winter. Indeed, lightning and thunder was present at Standing Rock. The Mníšoše, the Water A-Stir (the Missouri River), has been breaking for a month now. Geese gather on and around the sandbars to feed before taking flight north.

This morning, in Heart River country, where the Heart River converges with Mníšoše, light wisps of clouds stretched across the eastern horizon and caught fire in the first rays of morning. Fog enveloped the Missouri River valley over a still Mníšoše, so still as to be a perfect mirror. The air is cool and crisp enough to leave whorls of frost on car windows, and a wind so light as to be barely a whisper.

One more sign by which the Lakȟóta know and celebrate Ómakȟa Tȟéča is by the blossoming of Hokšíčhekpa, A Child’s Navel (Prairie Crocus; Pasque Flower), also called Wanáȟča Uŋčí, Grandmother Flower. It is the first flower to appear and the first to take her journey. She sings songs to the other flowers, that their time will come, and not to worry when it does, for their spirits come together to make the rainbow. The entire flower is medicine, used to treat dry skin and arthritis. Her petals are purple and furry like a bison robe, and her heart is golden like the sun, though once in a while Wanáȟča Uŋčí emerges with a white robe which indicates a spot where a bison breathed his or her last breath.

I hiked the rolling hills in Heart River country over the weekend searching for Wanáȟča Uŋčí, but my search bore no results. I found dried and weathered prairie aster from last summer, hard and wrinkled prairie rose hips my grandmother would have called SákA, and lichen ranging from grey and green to brilliant orange and bright red on sandstone jutting out of the hillsides. The Lakȟóta call lichen Ziŋtkála Ipátȟapi, which means "Bird Embroidery." I’ll check again in a week’s time.

The Lakȟóta waníyetu, year, will last until March 16, 2018, which is 354 days. Or, as some would have it, the new year began on Monday, March 20, 2017. Ómakȟa Tȟéča yeló!

Dakota Wind is an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. He is currently a university student working on a degree in History with a focus on American Indian and Western History. He maintains the history website The First Scout.