Remembering Phil Baird

 

Phil Baird coming out of the gate astride Boots, a Pete Long Brake horse.

Wanblí Wichásha Wókiksuye
Remembering Phil Baird (Eagle Man)
By Dakota Wind

Wanblí Wicháshala tókhi éyaye hé? Thíyata oníchilapelo. Uŋmá echíyataŋhaŋ iyáye. Waŋná Chaŋkú Wanágxi maní. Chaŋkú Txó oówaŋyaŋg washté ománi. Tóksha akhé waŋchíyaŋkiŋ kte ló.

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

Anyone who has met the late Dr. Phil Baird left their conversation with him with a deeper appreciation for horses, bison, education, and the Lakota Way of Life. A wonderful listener, the flow of conversation was never about him. Lekshí Phil cultivated mutual interests in art, music, the pursuit of higher education, and history most of all.

Lekshí loved family. He spoke of his daughters with soaring pride and held his grandchildren with such a great abiding affection his warmth was like a fire. Lekshí loved making relatives. If anyone knew him a winter or longer, he was happy to call one friend or family. His self-assuredness was not boastful. The respect he held for others was like the very Breath of Life he shared with horses, somehow wild, electric, sudden, and forever.

Lekshí loved horses. Everyday lekshí carried the same energy, excitement, and mystery as the day the first horse entered the circle and became part of the Lakota Way of Life. There are many variations about the first horse encounter, but all have one thing in common: a genuine respect for the mystery of creation. Lekshí carried that deep respect and understood that the bounty and prosperity of the Lakota Way of Life worked hand in glove with our relationship to the traditional homeland. He was a lifelong cowboy Indian. In service of his love for horses and history, Lekshí was a founding member and longtime president of the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame.

Lekshí loved bison. He was an undaunted advocate of land management and restoration. Lekshí believed that the health of the people was directly tied to the health and stewardship of the land. He recalled the promise of the bison to provide for all the needs of the people and believed in the inherent value of bison as a keystone species; the eternal bison cycle nurtured a healthy landscape and people. Lekshí had a dream of an educational bison management plan, a holistic and ambitious call to a modern yet natural way of life.

Lekshí was a strong voice for education. “School is always in session,” he frequently said. Lekshí was called to a lifetime as an educator. He held administration positions at both United Tribes Technical College and Sinte Gleska University. Lekshí had a shared history and leadership with the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC), the National Indian Education Association (NIEA), the National Congress of American Indians, and more.

On Monday, Sept. 25, 2023, the relatives built a fire on the other side and called Lekshí to return and take his place among them. He goes home to a vast open sky filled with unbounded light and joy. He waves his hat in the Enlightening Breath, a wind upon which all life returns, that has carried across creation since the first days. His voice joins a great song sending encouragement from the fires of heaven to the people below.

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. 

Comanche Empire, A Book Review

As if to belie the fact that this is a history book, the cover features a modern studio photograph. 

Comanche Empire, A Book Review

First Nation Recognized As Colonial Power

By Dakota Wind

Hämäläinen, Pekka. The Comanche Empire. New Haven, CT; Yale University Press. 2008. $40.00 (hardcover; out of print). 512 pages + viii. Introduction, abbreviations, notes, bibliography, index, illustrations, maps.

Taking a page from the late Vine Deloria, Jr. (Standing Rock), and what he said regarding native peoples making a cameo in American western history – of making a dramatic entrance and then fading away into the manifest destiny of colonial expansion, Hämäläinen makes the Comanche nation the focus of his work, which includes an inter-tribal narrative from the perspective of the Comanche people, and a narrative of the Comanche as seen from other first nations and the colonial empires.

The Comanche nation rises from quiet encounters with the Spanish at the turn of 1700 to a powerful dominate power of the American Southwest (the Spanish North?), a fiercely protected territory called by the colonial empires, Comancheria. The Spanish, Mexicans, Texans, and Americans at one point all sought aid from the Comanche on their terms, or fought long, desperate, costly campaigns against them.

The agent of change, that which made the Comanche nation, is the horse. The Comanche broke off from their relatives, the Shoshone, because of a dispute over game, but also to escape an epidemic, and to acquire the horse. Then they invaded the plains. Before the horse, the main agent of change was primarily reactionary to a changing environment (drought, the Little Ice Age). The last major agent of change was the gun.

Hämäläinen regularly describes the movements and advances of the Comanche as invasions, but how else to describe an expanding nation than an invasion? The Comanche turned west into Ute territory, but rather than invade and displace, they learned how to survive and adapt. Clearly their agenda didn’t mean the subjugation of other first nations. At that time.

Much of the premise of Comanche Empire is establishing Comancheria as a nation, recognized by Spain and the Mexico. As a nation, Comancheria did as the colonial empires did: expand or invade, displace indigenous, appropriate the landscape through military example, and absorb pacifist nations in a melting pot. In fact, because of Comancheria’s manifest destiny, because of deliberate Comanche planning, the region stabilized. They reached out to old enemies, even as natives were displaced from their homelands back east during the Indian Removal Act.

Mexico and the United States used Comancheria as a middle ground to trade. Mexico invited Americans into the region, but instead of trading with the Mexicans, they brought their trade to the Comanche. Americans moved in and discovered they wanted, needed, the landscape for its resources, resources that they didn’t see before, and after their war with Mexico, Texans turned an imperial eye to the landscape.

Comancheria was a real first nation State. Comanche Empire includes maps of this real State. Because Hämäläinen focuses on the development, invasion, expansion, and economy of this State, his work, by necessity, concludes with the collapse and deconstruction of Comancheria. In this, Hämäläinen does not carry through with a study of the Comanche Nation as a federally recognized domestic dependent nation headquartered in Lawton, OK.

There are other books out there that touch on the Comanche after the reservation era. One almost hopes that Hämäläinen decides to write a history of the Comanche that does just that. Comanche Nation. The Comanche were forced onto reservations in New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and Chihuahua, Mexico. It was the only way for the United States and Mexico to deal with a powerful first nation. I’d buy that book too.

In the meantime, get yourself a copy of Comanche Empire. This is an investment for American Western historyphiles.

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.

A Horse Appeared When Lightning Struck

"When the storm had cleared, on a great rock close by the village was plainly to be seen the hoofprint of a great horse. It is there to this day for all to see." From this summit, on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation, one can make out what appears to be three great horse hoof prints.

A Horse Appeared When Lightning Struck

Thunder Horse

By Óta Kté (Kills Many), Luther Standing Bear

GREAT PLAINS - Luther Standing Bear’s “Stories of The Sioux,” was published in 1938. Standing Bear was an Oglála Lakȟóta. He attended the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania, worked in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, appeared in twelve motion pictures, and authored six books. “Thunder Horse,” appears in Standing Bear’s “Stories of The Sioux.”

The Thunder Dreamer knows that in the sky swell the warriors of Thunder[1] and Lightning,[2] for he has seen and spoken to them in his vision.

These warriors ride wildly about on the black clouds astride their handsome horses, holding in their hands the lightning-sticks which flash during a thunderstorm. Everyone has seen them flash as the warriors dash about in the stormy sky. Whenever the hoofs of the horses boom the lightning-sticks flash blindly.

One day the Sioux[3] were all in their tipis[4] waiting for a thunderstorm to pass. The Thunder and Lightning warriors were dashing back and forth across the sky. Their horses ran madly, for the noise from their feet was deafening. Mingled with the noise of trampling hoofs were the frequent flashes from the lightening-sticks. Great drops of rain fell and ran off the sides of the tipis. The women threw cedar leaves on the fire, and everyone huddled closer.

Suddenly the noise increased to one awful roar. Two lightning-sticks came together, for there was a blinding flash of white light. The tipis shook and the people were fear-stricken.

Two warriors had rushed together, and their horses, losing their balance, fell to the earth, where they struggled for an instant, then dashed back to the sky. When the storm had cleared, on a great rock close by the village was plainly to be seen the hoofprint of a great horse. It is there to this day for all to see.

---

[1] Wakíŋyaŋ, Thunder.

[2] Wakȟáŋgli. Lightning.

[3] Očhetí Šakówiŋ, the Seven Council Fires, is how the “Sioux” refer to themselves.

[4] Tiíkčeya, is the proper word, thípi, or tipi is also used.

Horse Appears In Village One Morning, A First Encounter

"The head of this strange animal was not shaggy like that of the buffalo," illustration by Herbert Morton Stoops, as it appears in Standing Bear's "Stories of The Sioux."

The First Horse In The Early Morning

Šúŋkawakáŋ: The Holy Dog

By Óta Kté (Kills Many), Luther Standing Bear

GREAT PLAINS - Luther Standing Bear’s “Stories of The Sioux,” was published in 1938. Standing Bear was an Oglála Lakȟóta. He attended the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania, worked in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, appeared in twelve motion pictures, and authored six books. “The Holy Dog,” a chapter of Standing Bear’s “Stories of The Sioux” details a first encounter with the horse.

GREAT PLAINS - In the olden days the Sioux[1] did not have horses. They had never even heard of one. Their travois[2] were dragged along by large dogs,[3] and when the camp was moved these big dogs served as pack animals carrying tipis[4] and household goods, and dragging the travois. Dogs were indispensible to the Sioux, and they had great numbers of them.

The Sioux dogs were big shaggy fellows, strong and intelligent. They had lived with the Sioux in this country had been his companion, for a long, long time.

In those days the Indians lived peaceably with all animals. Even the buffalo[5] would often wander into the camp of the Sioux and eat the grass that grew within the circle of the village. They would usually come during the night, and when the Sioux awoke in the morning there would be the buffalo feeding on the green grass. When the smoke began to rise from the tipis and the people began to stir about, the buffalo would move away. It was as if the Great Mystery[6] sent the buffalo, so that if meat were needed it would be there at hand. In fact, many times if there was need for meat, a buffalo could be had for the morning meal. Those were the days of plenty for the Sioux.

One morning the Sioux came out of their tipis and there were the buffalo close by feeding as usual. Soon they moved away, but still feeding around was a strange looking object such as had never before been seen. It seemed very gentle, not heeding the people, who stared at it curiously. No one ventured near it at first, for the animal was too strange, and no one knew its habits. They did not know whether it bite or kick or run. Everyone stared, but still the animal fed on, scarcely lifting its head to look at those who began to walk closer for a better view. The head of this strange animal was not shaggy like that of the buffalo. Its eyes were large and soft-looking, like those of the deer, and its legs were slender and graceful. A mane flowed from its neck, and its tail reached nearly to the ground. The beauties of this strange animal were greatly praised by first one and then another.

Then some hunter got some rawhide rope. Maybe this animal would permit being tied, for it seemed so gentle. The rope was thrown, but the animal escaped, for it raised its head on its long slender neck and raced around a short distance, not in fright nor in anger, but as if annoyed. How handsome this animal was when it ran! It did not resemble the buffalo, nor the deer, nor wolf, but was more beautiful than any of these.

The rope was thrown again and again, and at last it was on the neck of the animal. It seemed only more kind and gentle, and stood tamely while some dared to stroke it gently. Now and then it nibbled at the grass as if aware it was among friends. Admiration for the lovely animal grew. All wanted to stroke its neck and forehead, and the creature seemed at once to enjoy this extra attention. Finally a warrior grew brave enough to mount upon its back. Then all laughed and shouted with joy. What a wonderful creature! It must have come straight from the Great Mystery!

The people did not know that in later years this animal was to come to them in great numbers and was to become as great a friend to them as the dog. Both the hunter and the warrior came in time to think of it as an inseparable companion in peace and war, for it faithfully shared the work of the long-time friend of the Sioux, the dog.

The Sioux loved their dogs, their daily companions in camp or on the trail. And liking the strange lovely animal so well, they could think of no better name to call it than the Holy Dog.

So to this day the horse to the Sioux is Sunke Wakan, “Holy Dog.”[7]

---

[1] The “Sioux” refer to themselves as the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, the Seven Council Fires.

[2] Hupáwaheyuŋpi, lit. “Poles Pack-things-up-to-travel,” or travois. When using English this writer has heard the travois referred to as a “pony drag.” Šúŋk’ók’iŋ is the dog travois. Waŋžíkšilá is the type of travois that was employed by a person, a one-person travois.

[3] Šúŋka is dog. Khečhá refers to a long haired dog or a shaggy dog.

[4] Tiíkčeya, is the proper word, thípi, or tipi is also used.

[5] Ptéȟčaka is the traditional Lakȟóta term for bison. Tȟatȟáŋka, bison bull, has become the common term for bison.

[6] Wakȟáŋ Tȟáŋka (Great Mystery; Great Spirit) and Tȟuŋkášila (Grandfather) are used to address prayer to the Creator. Wawíčhaȟya is "Creator."

[7] Šúŋka Wakȟáŋ, lit. “Dog With-Energy.” Wakȟáŋ is often translated as “Holy,” “Sacred,” or “Mysterious.” 

Bird Brings Spotted Black Horse To The People

Light and shadow fall on a horse made of light and shadow. A spotted black horse grazes on fresh spring grass along the Long Soldier Creek, near Fort Yates, N.D. Photo by Dakota Wind.

Little Prairie Bird Brings Prosperity

The Gift Of The Horse

By Ella Deloria

STANDING ROCK, N.D. & S.D. - The Gift Of The Horse appears in Ella Deloria’s “Dakota Texts.” Deloria refers to this story as Ohúŋkakaŋ, as something that is regarded to be true, and that it happened to our people in comparatively recent times, perhaps in the lifetime of the aged narrator’s grandfather or great-grandfather. Ohúŋkakaŋ are only to be told after sunset. 

One winter the people lived without want, on the Powder River[1] where buffaloes were abundant, and everyone was happy; and then, now that spring was here, about the time of the Sore Eyes Moon[2] (March), the cry went forth from the council-tipi[3] that the people were to move about, visiting other parts. So everyone broke camp, and soon they were gone.

Only one man and his wife were left behind. The reason was that they owned one horse, a mare that was not much good, and with it they could not hope to keep up to the pace of the tribe, and hence, they stayed behind.

They went from campsite to campsite, picking up what they found, of discarded bone[4], or bits of meat; and to the south, there was a lake, so they walked around it, gathering wood.

A spotted black horse along Long Soldier Creek, on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation. Photo by Dakota Wind.

Then the man ascended a hill, and sat down to rest and view the surrounding country, when he saw something come up over the horizon, in the spot where the sun rises, and advanced towards his direction. When it was near enough to be observed, it proved to be a beautiful black spotted horse which was coming to drink at the lake.

After drinking, he stopped under a tree, and stood rubbing against it, and then he lay down and rolled, and then he rose and went back the way he came. Then, a tiny grey bird[5] flew to the man and sitting down next to him said, “I’ll bring you a horse.[6] Go home and make a bridle and apply this medicine to it, and hang it, in the form of a noose, from that tree where he rubs himself. When his head becomes caught in the rope, chew this root, and apply it on yourself, and catch him. Rub some of this medicine on the mare which you already have.”

So the man went home and carried out the orders in detail.

Now the black spotted horse was again coming, so he caught him and blew some of the medicine on his nose, which made the horse stand still and permitted himself to be held. He stared at the man every second and yet he did not try to get away, so the man stroked him and took him home.

A brown-grey hermit thrush. Photo by Tom Grey.

Again the little grey bird talked to him, “The days of your hardship in the tribe are now over. By and by this black spotted horse is going to sire many horses; he will thus multiply himself, but on both sides.”[7] So he allowed the horse to stay with the mare he already owned, and the following summer, there was a colt, as beautiful as, and marked exactly like, the black spotted horse. It was a male. Another year and then a female colt was born. Again the following summer a male was born. So from that horse which the bird had brought him, the man owned three horses, exactly alike, possessing inconceivable speed.

In the tribe they became famous, and the man who owned them was now far different from that poor man he used to be; now his name was held high in the tribe.

During the night he used to picket these horses in front of his door; and one night, someone crept up to them, planning evil against them; but the first black spotted horse spoke, “Wake up, and come out. Someone approaches with the intention of causing our death.” He said this while neighing[8] and his master heard it and came outside.

This is what he [the master] said, “I do not keep these horses in order that you shall insult me through them. I keep them for the sole purpose of bringing good to the tribe, and in that spirit, I lend them to you to hunt meat for your children, as you know; you have used them freely in war and, as a result, have achieved glory. These horses are here to serve. Yet when I tied them for the night and then came in to rest, someone sneaked up on them causing them to run home. You see then it is useless to anything  to them secretly.”

A spotted black horse grazes in an open area between thick brush. Photo by Dakota Wind.

That man understood the speech of the horses, they say. Then the first horse spoke this way; so his master announced it, “In order that you in this tribe might be fortunate in all things, I and my young have multiplied; and from that, you have benefited in the past; yet now, because an evil thing has entered the tribe, this source of good shall stop. You must go back to your former state when things were hard for you, all because that one who tried to kill us has by his act brought it upon the entire tribe.”

In that way he spoke, so his owner told the people. The horses now lost their power to run as of old, and no more colts were born, until at last that entire breed became extinct. In that way, this tribe which was so fortunate, took a backward step to their former state of hardships. That man who owned them and permitted the tribe to rely on them was named Táya Máni U (He always Walks Guardedly, as in free of pitfalls).

He was pitied and caused to have good fortune himself; had he so wished, he might have enjoyed it all alone; but that was not what he wanted. He caused all the tribe to share in it; and then, regretful fact, one, through jealousy perhaps, brought ill fortune on them all.

Keúŋkeyapi. (They Said.)

---

[1] Čȟaȟlí Wakpá translates as “Charcoal River” or “Gun Powder River.”

[2] Ištáwičhayazaŋ Wí translates as, “Sore Eyes Moon.” Deloria says: “In that part of the country, the sun shining very brightly while the snow is yet on the ground causes snowblindness. March is given its name for this reason.”

[3] Thípiyókhiheya translates as “Council Tipi.”

[4] Discarded bone, if still green, can be pounded and boiled, and the grease that rises to the top is skimmed off to be used later in pemmican, and other rich dishes.

[5] Waǧíyoǧi, the Hermit Thrush is possibly what Deloria mentions. She says: “A bird resembling the common prairie blackbird, and which the same habits of staying around buffaloes and cows, but with a grey instead of a black coat.”

[6] According to Deloria, the bird “uses the un-contracted term for horse, šúŋkawakȟáŋ, mysterious dog. In songs, and formal speech and religious language of the old days, this form was always used when the horse was spoken of with the respect due it.

[7] Deloria wrote, “…the black horse was destined to sire a breed through both a male and female line.”

[8] The Dakȟóta sometimes hear things in the utterances of animals. Once, a man heard a person wailing, far, far away; and stood listening intently, wondering who was dead, and what it was all about. He thought he understood the words, telling who was dead, when he had died, and the details of his death. Then he found that he was listening to a common fly, which, very near his ear, was trying to free itself. All the same, in due time, the message came that so and so had died, and that friend of the dead man had gone wailing, using the words he had heard. Old people used to say the wolves told the future, when they howled at night. Anyone, with or without supernatural power, can understand the meadowlark. Its song is not indicative of impending evil; only amusing, and a welcome note of spring. 

Traditional Lakota Horsemanship Lives

A spotted black horse keeps a watchful eye on visitors.
Šhuŋg Nağí Kičhí Okižhu

"Becoming One With The Spirit Of The Horse"

Traditional Horsemanship On Standing Rock

By Dakota Wind

Fort Yates, N.D. – I met Jon Eagle at the Sitting Bull College right outside of Fort Yates on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation. It was a bright spring morning, a few distant clouds hung in the sky, not enough to provide shade, nor heavy enough to promise rain. Meadowlarks flew boldly through a light breeze carrying short sweet songs of courtship.

Jon had taken me to his niece’s land just south of Fort Yates near the wačhipi (pow-wow) grounds. We followed a short bumpy dirt road, more trail than road, and the pickup kicked up a small cloud of dust which dissipated with the quiet wind. Suddenly we were there, where we saw his horses grazing along the meandering Akičhita Haŋska Wakpa (Long Soldier Creek).

The sun shown clear and true, but not hot, at least not yet, not in the spring in the land of forever. The snow had all but melted and only in the shade of the bends of the creeks was compacted snow still holding out. Tips of trees and ends of bushes bore small tight buds, a sure sign that spring had arrived.

On the drive to the horse range, we spoke of family lines. I had heard him refer to a lekšhi (uncle) of mine as lala (grandfather). To one another, however, we addressed each other as théhaŋšhi (male cousins) and it seems comfortable to do so as we are closer in age than in generation. In knowledge, Jon possesses practical, experiential traditional knowledge handed down to him and he’s quick to acknowledge who and where he acquired it.

“When a horse shares breathe with us, that’s a sacred thing.”

Jon brought me to the horses to talk about them in front of them, and it was far better to speak about the return of traditional horsemanship on site rather than back in the confines of an office. The talk bounced between ancestral or genetic memory, traditional stories of the horse, Lakĥóta societies of history and the recent Black Spotted Horse Society, and traditional horsemanship which is based on developing a relationship versus the western dominion of horse-breaking.

We stepped out of his pickup and onto the floodplain of the creek, a gentle steppe above a wandering waterway that’s quietly shaped and cut a path at the bottom of the valley floor over thousands of years. Horses circled around the little steppe looking for fresh green spring grass and found it shooting up through last year’s brown remains.

Jon stopped us perhaps twenty feet from a mottled brown and white pony as we continued to exchange pleasantries about the day. After a while the mottled pony came over and shared an affectionate greeting with Jon, and introduced herself to me. I held my hand up and she sniffed and huffed at me for a few minutes and tolerated the touch of my palm to the bridge of her face. “When a horse shares breathe with us, that’s a sacred thing,” explained Jon, “They’re sharing their spirit with us.” The mottled pony made a final quiet non-committal huff of me, took a few steps back into the grass and put her nose back to the ground.

A horse made of shadow and light on a bluff along Long Soldier Creek.

In the cool breezy morning air under a now cloudless azure sky our conversation began in earnest about the horse and the return of the practice of traditional horsemanship by the people of Iŋyáŋ Wosláta (Standing Rock).

“The horses have a language of their own, and a natural social order,” explained Jon. With domestication of the horses, humans have interrupted the natural order according to Jon.

The pony that brought herself over to Jon and introduced herself to me, is “untouched” explained Jon. “She’s never known a halter, she’s never been saddled, and I’m trying to preserve that in her.” Indeed, there’s a spirit of equality that emanates from her as though we’re brother and sister, rather than man and animal. It feels as though she would let me ride on her back at her prerogative rather than mine.

...a telling quality of spirit, a gentle quality found in their eyes.

Jon says that he looks for a telling quality of spirit, a gentle quality found in their eyes. “It tells me that they’re intelligent and that she’s trainable, that I can develop a relationship,” he says. For Jon, horses are friends to develop a relationship with, not merely a domestic work animal for breaking, pulling and riding. When people ask him how to learn how to ride a horse, he says that’s something that he can’t teach. In fact, he insists that one needs to develop a relationship with the horse. If one can’t develop a relationship with a horse, one can’t ride a horse.

It’s a lifelong lifestyle for Jon Eagle. He was born into a horse ranching family who rode along the Snake and Grand rivers in South Dakota. In those days, not so long ago, before ATVs, ranchers depended on horses to ride the range and cross the steppe. “We wanted what we called an ‘All Day Horse.’ A horse that could go all day and could get the job done.”

Jon and one of his spotted horses. Our interview commenced after her careful inspection and approval of me.

Jon’s children take an active role in horsemanship. They water and feed the herd, venture into the field to repair fence line, anything that puts them in direct field contact with their horses. They ride some of their horses and are equally practiced in saddle and tack as well as bareback riding. Jon doesn’t push them into the field, but rather lets his children determine their own time with their horses. “I want them to enjoy this. It’s a way of life,” said Jon.

I asked Jon if he rides bareback, a question which he graciously answered and led us into discussion about western horsemanship and traditional Lakĥóta horsemanship. “I can’t ride bareback,” he said and then recounted an incident back in 2000 when he rode a two-year old mare all summer then put her away for the winter. When spring returned, he corralled her and when he rode her, she “clicked,” doing everything he wanted her to do as though he had ridden her only yesterday. Feeling rather enthusiastic about his mare’s recall, he took her out in the field when she began to behave unfavorably. Thinking that Jon had to “correct” his mare he directed her to a run.

“I realized that our cowboy way of horsemanship was disrespectful and abusive. We broke them and they resented that.”

“I was 5’11” when I started that day, and became 5’10” by day’s end. I had shattered my pelvis and fractured by back,” recalled Jon with a distant gaze in his eyes that told me he wasn’t just looking over my shoulder down the dirt road, but was looking back in time. The incident humbled Jon. He was raised as a cowboy and was trained to have dominion over the horses, to break them. “I realized that our cowboy way of horsemanship was disrespectful and abusive. We broke them and they resented that.”

In the time Jon was laid up in recovery, he began to rethink his approach to the horse. He picked one of Monty Roberts’ books about natural horsemanship which talks about the concept of “join up.” Jon then brought his horse into the corral, and after she read Jon’s body language, she became comfortable with him again and approached him after a short while.

In another version of the horses' arrival, the horse came out of a swirl where the James River converges with the Missouri River.

Jon contacted his théhaŋšhi, Greg Holy Bull, in Red Scaffold on the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Reservation and heard the story of the Lakĥóta story of the horse. This, Jon graciously shared with me:

A long time ago, the people traveled west to some mountains, then turned south where they encountered a camp of people whom they had never before met. In that camp, they noticed too, that there was an animal that they had never before seen. Unfortunately, enthusiasm of first contact swiftly broke down and violence broke out. During the conflict, the horses broke free and scattered. Warriors went into the new enemies’ camp during the fight and stole women thinking to make wives of them. The people, the Lakĥota, made a run north with the enemy in hot pursuit. Gradually, it happened that the enemy lost heart and turned back. The people slowed their flight in response the enemy retreat and to their wonder, encountered the harras. Warriors wanted these horses and tried taking them without success. In the evening, after camp was established, the enemy women went out in the field and sang to the horses which drew them in. With the horses drawn closer to the familiarity and soothing tone of the women, warriors would attempt to capture them to no avail. All the while the tiyošpaye kept moving. A day came when they came to a river, there they made an abrupt turn east, back to their ancestral territory, and lo, the harras followed. Gradually the horses and warriors came to an understanding and so that’s how this one band of Lakĥota came to have the horse.

Note: According to the story as Jon heard it, the enemy whom the Lakĥóta took women and horses from were the Spanish.

...singing and allowing the horse to come forward on its own accord, is the method the Lakĥota came to call Šung Naği K’sapa, The Wisdom Of Spirit.

The natural approach to the horse, the singing and allowing the horse to come forward on its own accord, is the method the Lakĥota came to call Šung Naği K’sapa, The Wisdom Of Spirit. The spirit of the horse senses the natural order of the world and the natures of men, and they respond. In the natural world, they know when thunderstorms are coming. Horses read the body language of men, and determine if they will get close or allow humans to come close to them.

Jon doesn’t teach people how to ride horses or master horses. He teaches people how to have relationships with horses. He passionately recalls the lessons of the Lakĥota people and how they look at the horse as their own nation, the Šung Wakaŋ Oyáte. That everything out there is a nation unto itself. That everything has a spirit.

This natural and spiritual approach to horsemanship leads Jon to be able to harness and ride his horses without ever having to go through the traditional “breaking” or bribing of the horse. “I can actually get them to come walk over and stick their head in that halter, and it’s all because we’ve established a meaningful relationship based on trust,” Jon explains.

Jon has carefully examined the meaning of the Lakĥota word for horse. A search online, and in person among various Lakĥota communities have yielded different words and even different meanings. Šhuŋka Wakáŋ, which many give a contemporary interpretation as “Holy Dog,” but which Lakĥóta elders render in the traditional sense as “pitiful,” not in the western mindset of downtrodden but as “beautiful, innocent and pure.”

Part of the Lakĥota word for horse, wakáŋ, reaches back to creation. When Iŋyáŋ, Stone, let his blood flow, his blood which ran blue and became the waters of the world, his blood was Kaŋ, full of energy with the potential for destruction and to give life. When the Lakĥóta say Wakáŋ, it means something with energy, energy with good and negative potential. Taken altogether, Šhuŋka Wakáŋ means Beautiful Pure Innocence With-Energy.

...Šhuŋg nağí kičhí okižhu, which translates as “Becoming one with the spirit of the horse.”

Jon described traditional horsemanship with the Lakĥóta phrase Šhuŋg nağí kičhí okižhu, which translates as “Becoming one with the spirit of the horse.” The Lakĥóta people say it’s a way of life, and breaking a horse or having dominion has no part in building a relationship with people, nations and creation. Jon notes that with a natural spiritual relationship with horses, the horses put people in a place of honor, čhatkú, a middle place between the natural authority of the mares and the sires. It’s a place that is earned by trust, which is not so different from how one earns friends and holds them in esteem.

Before I felt it, morning became noon, and before we left Jon’s horses he related one more story with me, a story that came to him from Mr. Albert Foote Sr. who heard from his Lala (grandfather) the origins of the horse:

A long time ago, Thuŋkášhila [Grandfather, in reference to a higher power] had an omníčiye [a gathering] of all the nations in one place. There, Thuŋkášhila told them there would one day appear a two-legged, that’s coming. “They’re going to be uŋšíka [pitiful]. They’re not going to be able to see as good as you. They’re not going to be able to hear as good as you. They’re not going to be as strong as you. And they’re not going to be as fast as you are. So, who amongst you is willing to help them?” said Thuŋkášhila. After this question was posed, one of the šung wakaŋ took off running. Thuŋkášhila then sent Waŋbli [the Eagle] after, “Talk to him. And ask him if he’ll help the two-legged.” The eagle caught up to the horse, “Why are you running?” The horse replied, “They’re going to be a burden to me. They’re going to ride me and they’re going to want me to carry their things.” The eagle alighted on the horse’s rump and said, “This is how much of a burden they’re going to be.” But the horse kicked that eagle off of him. Eagle went back to the gathering and told Thuŋkášhila what transpired. Thuŋkášhila said, “No. You must go back and convince him.” Eagle returned to the horse, but by then it had started to rain and horse had been running for a long time and was sweating profusely. Again, eagle said, “Let me show you how much of a burden they’re going to be,” and again alighted onto horse’s back, and shook himself, and as eagle shook himself, his center plume came out and came to rest on horse’s back. Horse began to protest with wild bucks back and forth, but because he was sweaty from running and wet from the rainfall, horse could dislodge the feather. Eventually, horse relented and said, “I’ll be the one. I’ll be the one to carry their burdens.”

The sun shone true and fair upon us, a few clouds hung high in the azure sky and rambled slowly eastward. I carry no watch, and I didn’t see one on Jon’s wrist either, only the growl in my stomach let me know it was about midday. The horses had wandered across Long Soldier Creek to graze on the fresh dark green grass there. Jon had finished his coffee long ago and sat patiently on the gate of his pickup and gently tapped his empty paper cup against the palm of his hand.

There are no roads either, only the tell-tale ruts of the travois...

For a moment I imagine Jon in another time, sitting on the back end of a travois, tapping the rim of a hand-drum about to break into song. There are no roads either, only the tell-tale ruts of the travois that show how we arrived here. The lofty clouds are the same that floated here three hundred years ago, in a sky the same blue, above a quiet wandering creek just as hauntingly quiet then as now. The same breeze grazes me and cools me.  

I am brought out of this reverie the moment we step into Jon’s pick-up. We barrel up an incline back onto the lonely dirt road that brought us here. It’s my turn to open the barbed wire fence gate. The dirt road gave way to gravel, then blacktop. We drove back into town and into the twenty-first century. The efforts of traditional Lakĥóta people carried the tradition of the horse culture into a new age.

Jon Eagle Sr. is Húnkpapĥa Lakĥota and Isáŋti Dakĥota, his wife Martina is Sihásapa Lakĥota and Ihaŋktĥuwaŋna Dakĥota.  Together, they have seven children and two grandchildren, two cats, two dogs and twelve horses. They enjoy traveling to celebrations all over Indian Country and enjoy a rich and beautiful life.

Visit Šhuŋg Nağí Kičhí Okižhu, Becoming One With The Spirit Of The Horse for more information.

Waniyetu Ehanna, Sung Noni Ota Kin: A Long Time Ago, They Saw Horses, 1692

A horse emerges from a swirl in the river according to the story, as pictographed.

Waniyetu Ehanna, Sung Noni Ota Kin

Long Ago They Saw Many Horses, 1692

By Dakota Wind

BISMARCK, N.D. - A few months ago I was asked to draw a pictograph of the arrival of the horse. I was also working on a short essay about the sense of place that the Dakota and Lakota people have for the Northern Great Plains. I want to share with you reader the picture I drew on ledger graph paper.

It is more than just a picture. The words on the top right say, "Waniyetu ehanna, Sung noni ota kin." In English this means, "A log time ago, They saw many horses." The text is lifted from the John K Bear Winter Count, a Pabaska Ihanktowana (Cuthead Yanktonai) Dakota winter count. The year that they saw horses for the first time was 1692.

The words on the left half of the picture at a nintey degree angle are a prayer, the Lord's Prayer:

Ate unyapi Mahpiya ekta nanke cin, Nicaje wakanlapi nunwe. Nitokiconze u nunwe. Mahpiay ekta nitawacin econpi kin, he iyecel maka akanl econpi nunwe. Anpetu ihohi aguyapi kin, anpetu kin le unqu piye. Na tona ecinsniyan ecaunkicinpi wicaunkicicajujupi kin, he iyecel waunhtanipi kin unkiciajujupiye. Na taku wawiyutanye cin ekta unkayapi sni piye; Tka taku sice etanhan eunklaku piye; Wokiconse kin, na wowasake kin, na wowitan kin hena ohinniyan naohinniyan nitawa heon. Amen.

Here's a link to the article and my pictograph as it appears in this magazine. The other articles are worth reading too. The majority of the content of this issue of the On Second Thought magazine focus on the current changes facing the western half of the state and the impact of the oil development there.

See it online at: On Second Thought [A Sense of Place], Spring 2012.

When The Horse Arrived On The Northern Plains

Inyan Woslata, or Standing Rock. Legend says that a woman turned to stone. There are three variations of the story of how she turned to stone, as well as three stones to commemorate her. This one is located in Fort Yates, ND.
The Horse Arrives on the Northern Plains
An Examination Of Oral Tradition And Pictographic History

By Dakota Wind

FORT YATES, N.D. - When I was growing up on the vast open plains on Standing Rock, under an equally broad blue sky, I listened to stories of horse-stealing raids, heard songs to honor the equine spirit, saw meticulously carved and beautifully painted horse sticks, and I’ve heard at least four variations about how the horse came to the Lakota people.

My grandfather was a minister, an Episcopal priest, in Fort Yates. He was once a professional baseball player in the Great Depression, a World War II and Korean War veteran, a railroad worker, and a bus driver. To me and my brothers and sisters he was our “Lala.” “Lala” in Lakota is “grandpa,” and that’s what we called him.

A map of the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation. It straddles the North Dakota and South Dakota border, and is one of the bigger reservations in North America. Check it out on Google Earth. 

My Lala was often invited or called upon to go to different parts on the reservation, sometimes off too. He and my grandmother would often take me and my younger brother to go with them. We’d gas up at Tim’s and get a Coke before the drive to Cannonball, McLaughlin, Wakpala, Kenel, Bullhead, and sometimes to Whitehorse, or wherever else my Lala was called to be at. 

On those drives, no matter how long or short, we rarely listened to the radio, and only then to hear how the weather was going to be. We’d always listen to AM radio too, which rather irritated me because the music and sound quality sounded old-fashioned. On the drive home we’d listen to Paul Harvey tell the rest of the story.

As my Lala drove us to wherever he’d always have a story to share. Sometimes he’d tell the same stories about places we visited and for that I’m grateful because sometimes I didn’t pay attention or fell asleep. If only I’d had the interest then as I do today. Twice, at least twice that I remember when I was paying attention or was awake, he told about the horse.

I regret that I didn't readily have a picture of the those flat topped buttes south of Fort Yates, but I found this one on the Standing Rock Water website. At some point I'll take a descent picture and post it. 

The Crow came one year and stole horses, or stole them back, south of present-day Fort Yates. You, dear reader could stand on Golf Hill (Boot Hill, or if you want to be culturally correct, The Hill That Stand Alone as the Cheyenne knew when they lived there three hundred to two hundred years ago) and look directly south, there in your field of vision on the far horizon are some flat topped buttes, is where this horse incident took place, so my grandfather told me.

When he was a young boy himself, raised along the banks of Wakpala and Grand River, he was riding horse, bareback, when his horse became spooked by a rattler. His horse reared bucking my lala off its back, but his foot became ensnared in the bridle during his fall, and as his horse broke into a gallop it drug him four miles in all across scrub, rocks, and cactus (Missouri Pincushion its called) before his horse came to stop. My lala was seen by the reservation doctors who proclaimed they could do nothing for him. My great-great-grandmother, Emma Creek, at this point stepped in and used traditional Lakota medicine on brought my lala back from the knife’s edge of death. So my lala and my aunts and uncles told me.

A horse pictograph. On stone, they're called petroglyphs. This one looks to be the latter and painted scarlet too. 

And I wondered about the horse.

The Lakota didn’t always have the horse, in fact, when it did come to us we called it Tasunka (Big Dog), Sunka Wakan (Holy Dog), even Sunka Hehaka (Elk Dog). But there are cultural experts better and greater than I who can tell you about the high horse culture which flourished on the Great Plains. There are books on the subject of the changes in warfare and trade on the collective American Indian culture.

Growing up on Standing Rock, I heard that the horse came to the Dakota-Lakota people out of the Missouri River, Mni Sose (Water A-Stir), as we called it. The story, at least this version goes, we were breaking camp and as we crested a hill, there below us coming out of the river itself was a herd of ponies.

A picture of Nakota horses running in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. The horses hae a rough history in the park there, being they were going to be culled or removed at one point. The Nakota Horse Conservancy was established and took in as many as they could. This breed of horse is said to descend from the Hunkpapa herd of horses which were taken from them after they returned from Canada. A beautiful horse, look up the conservancy for yourself and see the images on their website. 

On Standing Rock, there is a prominent Ihanktowana (Yanktonai Dakota) elder, Mary-Louise Defender, who has a different take on the tale. According to her oral tradition they broke camp one morning long ago, along the Missouri River. They were traveling over the prairie and as they came to the top of a hill, some scouts who’d run ahead were excitedly calling everyone to hurry and see something. As the tiyospaye, the band or extended family, came to the hill top, they looked down to the river, and as they watched, strange creatures drew themselves out of a great swirl of water and came to the shore where the people were. They saw that one of these creatures was wearing a rope, and they knew that these creatures, these Sacred Dogs or Elk Dogs, were meant to help the people. And that’s how the horse came to the people. Ho hece tu welo (That’s the way it is). This, of course, is my brief summarization of the story by Unci Wagmuhawin (Grandmother Gourd Woman).

Here's the cover of one of Mary-Louise Defender Wilson's CD. Visit Makoche's website and gratify yourself with a copy today.
Some say the horse came with the thunder of a storm. Others say the horse appeared in camp when they woke up in the morning. 

According to the John K. Bear Winter Count, the horse entered the Dakota-Lakota culture in 1692. The story goes they were camped along the river, where the James River converges with the Missouri River, today that area is called Armidale Island near present-day Yankton, SD. 

Horse stealing quickly became an art of war as evidenced in the 1706 entry of the Brown Hat Winter Count. 

An exquisite example of the Lakota horse stick in the collections of the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC. 

Regardless of the story or variation of the horse’s arrival, one thing is universal: the horse is a sacred gift, a part of the mystery of creation, and should be treated respectfully.