The Wind Is The Spirit Of The Great Plains

Tȟaté’káoškokpa (Canyon Made-By-Wind), or Wind Canyon, along the Heȟáka Tȟa Wakpá (River Of Elk; Little Missouri River) in Makȟóšíća (Badlands, N.D.; Theodore Roosevelt National Park).

The Wind Is The Spirit Of The Great Plains

The Sky In Word, Pictograph, And Sign

By Dakota Wind

THE GREAT PLAINS - The wind has been a constant presence on the open prairie since creation, and has shaped the landscape with its caress. It races across the open sky with the summer and winter storms, and flows about the landscape playfully, fitfully, and angrily. It is the very essence of the Great Plains.

The Lakȟóta have several words for the wind and its attributes such as tȟaté (air in motion), uyá (to blow leeward of the wind), kaȟwókA (to be carried along with the wind), ikápȟaŋyaŋ (to be beaten down by the wind, as with grass) or itáglaȟweya (with the wind). OkáluzA, or ičáluzA, refers to a breeze.

When a strong wind is present, or suddenly appears, during prayer or at a gathering, the wind might even be referred to as takú wakȟáŋ škaŋškáŋ (something with great energy is moving). A whirlwind is called tȟatéiyumni, which some regard as a sign that a spirit is present.

There is only one word to describe a windless day, ablákela (calm or quiet).

When the wind blows cold, such as it does in the winter months, the Lakȟóta refer to it as tȟatóšni. The cold winter wind had a story of its own, and in the days of legend, before steamboats and trains, before soldiers and missionaries, when the camps moved across the prairie steppe in the fall to establish winter camps, they told the story of Wazíya, that which some call a giant, or the Power Of The North. Wazíya blew his cold breath across the world. 

The blizzard is known to the Lakȟóta as Iwóblu. 

But even the wind has an origin. There are various stories about the wind, but the basics are that after creation, Tȟaté (Wind) took the daughter of Old Man and Old Woman, Ité (Face) as his wife. They had four sons, the Four Winds. Iŋktómi, the Lakȟóta trickster, persuaded Ité to begin an affair with Wí (the Sun) to gain status. 

The affair backfired, and Takú Wakȟáŋ Škaŋškáŋ gave Haŋwí (the Moon) her own domain, and sent Old Man and Old Woman to earth along with Ité. Ité was ever after parted from her husband, Tȟaté, and their four sons. Ité, however, had a fifth son, Tȟatéiyumni (Whirlwind). Woȟpá (Falling Star Woman), daughter of Wí and Haŋwí, was sent to earth. Woȟpá became the wife of Okáǧa (the South Wind) and they raised Tȟatéiyumni as their son.

They say as the summer wanes and turns to autumn, the wind changes with the weather. That change in the wind is the breath of North. The cold was and is deadly, never to be feared, but respected. The North spreads his robe across the sleeping land. The North makes hunting game easier to track. In fact, the Lakȟóta used to dance in snowshoes in the blanket of the first snowfall. They rejoiced in the weather and embraced the deep cold. 

In the spring or autumn mornings, in the early morning just as the sun rises, there appears a mist. The Lakȟóta call this Aŋptȟáŋiya. Regular fog is P'ó. 

Sometimes the winter seems like it will never end, even for people who’ve lived here for thousands of years. Gray skies smother the light for days on end. Everywhere the land is monochrome. Months without color took its toll on the people. These days it’s called Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).

For the Lakȟóta people, even the winter holds the promise of light and hope.

On cold days one might see what they call a sundog, but its not every cold day that features a sundog. The ancient Greeks called it a “mock sun.” The Romans called it a “double sun.” The English in the early 1400s said the sundog was a representation of the Holy Trinity.

This Campfire-Of-The-Sun is seen here above the Mníšoše (Water-Astir; Missouri River) and Iŋyáŋ Wosláta Oyáŋke (Where Standing Rock Dwells), the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation

The Lakȟóta call the sundog Wíačhéič’ithi which means The Sun Makes A Campfire For Itself. The story of this beautiful name for this awesome phenomenon comes to me from Cedric Good House: A long time ago the people experienced several days of bleak grayness. People began experiencing bad dreams and others became depressed. It was the bad dreams that haunted the grandchildren that moved a grandfather to leave his village to pray for an end to the grayness. When he returned he called everyone in to the center of the village and selected two groups of young men to go the east of the camp and build two campfires. They did as they were told and returned to the camp where the people prayed. A lightening of the grayness indicated that morning had arrived. The clouds broke and the sun burst through the grayness. As the sun rose above the horizon, the campfires ascended into the sky with it. The people rejoiced and sang.

Just as there are several words for wind, the Lakȟóta have some words for clouds, which are of the sky. Maȟpíya in itself is a reference to the sky, or heavens. Maȟpíya tȟó, is the blue sky. Maȟpíya šápe is dark clouds. Maȟpíya akáȟpA is a cloudy overcast. Maȟpíya naȟléčA literally “the sky tears,” is a reference to a cloud burst of rain. Maȟpíya okáksaksa is partly cloudly. Maȟpíyaya is cloudy. Čhumaȟpiya means “dew clouds” or “vapor clouds.” Op’ó is a cloud of dust or steam. OkpúkpA is cloudy, hazy, or unclear. Makȟóp’oya is a cloud of dust.

When the Christian missionaries arrived they needed to articulate the Kingdom of Heaven, and coined the term Maȟpíya Wókičhuŋze, which literally means “Kingdom of the Sky.”

The northern lights above North Dakota. Unknown photographer.

The northern lights mean something very special to the Lakȟóta. Maȟpíya Tȟaŋíŋ is the northern lights, but is literally, “Buffalo-hair Sky.” Wanáği Tȟawáčhipi, a reference for the northern lights meaning “Dance Of The Spirits,” and there’s a story, or experience, about out there but it won't be shared here. Haŋwákȟaŋ, another word for the northern lights, literally means “Night With-Energy.” It was a tradition of some Lakȟóta to burn incense, sweet-grass or cedar, when the northern lights appeared.

Sometimes, just as there is no wind, there are no clouds in the sky. There are a few ways of describing a day without clouds: Maȟpíya waníče, there are no clouds. Waŋžíla Tȟo, blue oneness or complete blueness, or tȟowáŋžiča, the sky is blue.

In the spring or summer, storms or rainfall strikes in daylight. The Lakȟóta have the tradition that the Wakíŋya, Thunder-Beings, bring the storms, but not just to bring rain. Lightning flashes from their eyes, claws, and wings. With lightning and rain the Wakíŋya cleansed the earth and destroyed or perhaps chased out the negative entities which settled into the lands. At the end of daylight storms the plains are treated to rainbows stretching from horizon to horizon, a grand arch reaching to heaven.

In the blistering summer months mirages appear on the horizons. The Lakȟóta call this shimmer of air at the edge of the earth Mašténaptapta. 

A double rainbow in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, by Travel Garden Eat.

The Lakȟóta refer to rainbows as Wígmuŋke, A Snare. It is said that the wígmuŋke, causes the storm to end by trapping it, so that no more rain can fall. No one points at wígmuŋke with their fingers, but use their lips or elbows if they gesture to it.

In the spring, the wind signals another change. The Lakȟóta call this wind Niyá Awičhableze, The Enlightening Breath. This is the first spring wind upon which the meadowlarks return. It’s the time of year in which the Lakȟóta carefully watch for the ice to break on the Mníšoše, the Water-Astir (Missouri River), the geese return, and when the bison bear their calves.

One of the names that the Lakȟóta people have for the courting flute is Wayážo, which means To Play A Flute. It is the essence of the wind. Flutes are traditionally made from red cedar. The heart of the wood, the soft red center, is removed with the intention of that space becoming filled with the flute-maker’s own heart. Breath flows through the flute and the wind carries its haunting song.

Tȟokéya Inažiŋ (The First To Arise; Kevin Locke) here with his great-grandfather's flute, shares the flute tradition with youth on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation.

In a discussion with Deacon Terry Star, enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, about the wind and the flute, Deacon Star shared that he heard the four winds were brothers who represented the four cardinal directions. The West Wind, according to how Deacon Star heard it, didn’t just bring the thunderstorms, but also played the flute.

The wind, clouds, northern lights, and rainbow are expressed in the non-speaking languages of the Great Plains too.

In pictography, the wind is represented by a series of straight lines ending in a curly-cue or wave, and more lines indicate the strength of the wind. A whirlwind is represented by a swirl of four lines spiraling outward from the center of a circle. Clouds are represented sometimes by a simple line drawing of a cloud, but generally clouds are almost always depicted with rain and lightning. An arch above a straight line is a representation of the sky above the earth.

A pictograph for northern lights may be represented by night (a darkened circle with a line running through it top to bottom; or other variant) and fire (above the image depicting night). A rainbow is depicted by a series of arches over a straight line.

Dr. Jesse Johnson (Cheyenne River Lakota), center,  in front of a thípi.

In the sign and gesture language of the American Indians, there is a sign for wind as well. In a communiqué from Dr. Jesse Johnson, Blú Wakpá (Powder River), enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, the sign for wind takes a few forms, but its most basic execution involves holding the hands up, backs up at about shoulder height, fingers spread, and moving hands in a wavy tremulous motion in the direction of the wind.

Like pictography, the Plains Indian sign for cloud or clouds is inseparable from rain or lightning. The sign for rain consists of holding one’s hands up at shoulder height and drawing one’s hands down slowly two to three times. Kevin Locke, enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, draws his hands down, backs up, and does “piano fingers” to sign rain. Lightning is signed by miming a jagged lightning pattern in mid air with either hand.

According to Dr. Johnson’s research into the Plains Indian sign language, the northern lights are depicted as “both hands, backs down, half closed, thumb and finger tips together, raised very high and spread with a sweep to indicate flashes. It should be done facing north.” Johnson adds that the sign is helped if the hands are swung apart in an arc at the highest point in executing the sign.

Wáǧačhaŋ (Cottonwood) on the floodplain of the Heȟáka Tȟa Wakpá.

The constant wind blowing across the open prairie steppe and through a vast open sky is a part of the Lakȟóta culture, or perhaps it is that the Lakȟóta are a part of the wind. They say that patterns on one’s fingertips indicate the direction the wind was blowing on the day of one’s birth. 

The Lakȟóta have the saying Takú šičá owás’iŋla kaȟwóg iyáyiŋ kte ló, which means, "All the bad things will blow away." 

On the vast open plains, grasses bow down and sway in motion as if in dance. Great cottonwood trees catch the winds and rattle their leaves in a deafening roar, like the crash of waves in the distant oceans. These ancient trees catch the smallest breeze and their leaves shush the world. 

Le tȟaté na maȟpíya tȟa makȟóčhe hečha lo. This is the land of sky and wind. 

Terry Star is an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. His traditional Dakȟóta name is Ȟé Ská, White Mountain, after Mount Rainier of which the top of the mountain bears snow year round. He is a deacon in the Episcopal Church and is currently a candidate for the Master of Divinity at Nashotah House Theological Seminary in Wisconsin. Star was raised by his late grandmother, Lillian Ironbull Martinez in the traditions of the church and the Dakota. For several years he has served as a youth pastor on Standing Rock and has frequently called on the stories he received from Lillian and her friends to relate biblical ones to the youth.

Jesse Johnson is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. His traditional Lakȟóta name is Blú Wakpá, Powder River, after Čhaȟlí Wakpá, which means Charcoal River and is the proper place name of Powder River. Johnson graduated with his Ph.D. in American Indian Studies. In his spare time Johnson teaches martial arts.

GLOSSARY:
Ablákela: Quiet, or windless, calm

Aŋptȟáŋiya: Vapor, mist that arises in the early morning

Čhumaȟpiya: Dew Clouds, Vapor Clouds

Haŋwákȟaŋ: Night-With-Energy, Northern Lights

Haŋwí: Moon

Heȟáka Tȟa Wakpá: River Of Elk, Little Missouri River

IčáluzA: Breeze

Ikápȟaŋyaŋ:To-Be-Beaten-Down-By-The-Wind

Iŋktómi: Trickster

Iŋyáŋ Wosláta Oyáŋke: Standing Rock Agency

Itáglaȟweya: With-The-Wind

Ité: Face

Iwóblu: Blizzard

KaȟwókA: To-Be-Carried-Along-With-The-Wind

Maȟpíya: Cloud, Sky, Heaven

Maȟpíya AkáȟpA: Clouds Overcasted

Maȟpíya NaȟléčA: The Sky Tears, a cloud burst of rain

Maȟpíya Okáksaksa: Partly Cloudy

Maȟpíya Šápe: Dark Clouds

Maȟpíya Tȟaŋíŋ: Buffalo-Hair Sky, Northern Lights

Maȟpíya Tȟó: Blue Sky

Maȟpíya Waníče: No-Clouds, Cloudless

Maȟpíya Wókičhuŋze: "Kingdom of Heaven"

Maȟpíyaya: Cloudy

Makȟóp’oya: A cloud of dust

Makȟóšíća: Badlands

Mašténaptapta: Sunlight-Waving, shimmer on the horizon on a hot day, mirage

Mníšoše: Water-Astir, Missouri River

Niyá Awičhableze: Enlightening Breath, spring wind

Okáǧa: South Wind

OkáluzA: Breeze

Op’ó: A cloud of dust or steam

OkpúkpA: Haze

P'ó: Fog

Takú Wakȟáŋ Škaŋškáŋ: Somthing With-Energy Moves/Moving; often contracted to Takú Škaŋškáŋ (Something Moving), or when talking about creation, simply Škaŋ.

Tȟaté: Air-In-Motion, Wind

Tȟatéiyumni: Whirlwind

Tȟaté’káoškokpa: Canyon Made-By-Wind, Wind Canyon

Tȟatóšni: Cold Wind

Tȟowáŋžiča: Completely Blue, Blue Oneness, a completely blue sky

Uyá: To-Blow-Leeward-Of-The-Wind

Wáǧačhaŋ: Cottonwood 

Wakíŋya: Thunder

Wanáği Tȟawáčhipi: Dance of The Spirits, Northern Lights

Waŋžíla Tȟo: Complete Blueness, Blue Oneness, a completely blue sky

Wayážo: To-Play-The-Flute, Flute

Wazíya: Lit. Pine, Power-Of-The-North, also a name of the North Wind

Wí: Sun

Wíačhéič’ithi: The Sun Makes A Campfire For Itself, Sundog

Wígmuŋke: Snare, Rainbow

Woȟpá: Meteor, Falling Star

An Experience of Traditional Storytelling

S.D. Nelson's "The Star People." Get your copy of this beautifully illustrated book.

An Experience Of Traditional Storytelling
Star Stories Told In The Days Of Winter 

By Dakota Wind
FORT YATES, N.D. - The Lakota people call the month of February Čhaŋnápĥopa Wi (The Moon of Popping Trees) or Thiyŏĥeyunka Wi (The Moon of Frost in The Lodge). These are names to articulate the coldest months of Waniyetu (Winter) when Makĥoče (Grandmother Earth) was at rest.

The needle dropped below zero and the only news the wind carried was that more cold was on the way. Over a hundred people gathered together over the course of two evenings at Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, ND in the heart of winter, to hear a Lakota visitor, an elder from South Dakota, share the Lakota Creation Story and Lakota Star Knowledge.

The room was filled with the murmur of raucous laughter, playful teasing and the cries of hungry babies when an assuming man entered the room and quietly prepared at a table near the front of the room. His name, Rick Two Dogs.

Two Dogs, an Oglala Lakota from the Pine Ridge Sioux Indian Reservation, began the first evening with a little exposition that the stories he was going to share were told in the lodges around the campfire long ago. These were the kind of stories that were shared by the Lala and Uŋči (Grandfathers and Grandmothers) and one can feel the weight of centuries and tradition echo in Two Dogs’ tranquil voice when he began the evening with a prayer of Whŏpila, Thanksgiving.

The attention and quiet in the room which followed was like the crack of a whip, sudden and sharp, and even the youngest of children quickly stood in quiet respect when prayer was invoked.

When the prayer concluded, a traditional horseman named Jon reiterated to the mass what many already know, that elders eat first, then visitors before the rest. Young women dashed off to the front of the line to prepare bowls of bapa soup, a traditional soup made with corn and jerked meat, wŏžapi, a type of pudding traditionally made with chokecherries but for these two evenings is made with blueberries, fresh fried bread and steaming black coffee for the elders. Everyone else formed a line and the jocular murmur of laughter and teasing among friends returned.

When hunger was satiated and thirst was slaked, Jon introduced Two Dogs in Lakota and English. Two Dogs isn’t just unassuming, he’s self-deprecating, and is quick to attribute or credit others for the stories he shared, his Lala especially, who witnessed the Battle of Little Bighorn when he was ten years old.

Two Dogs recalled his Lala fondly. He took his meals seated on the floor, speared his food with his knife and refused the aid of a fork. He would look askance at anyone who offered him a napkin, and wiped his hands on his braids. During the long winter nights, his Lala put a few sprigs of cedar on the wood-burning stove, the kerosene lamps were doused, and firelight lit the home.

When Two Dogs opened the floor to field questions, one man asked, “Why are these stories told only in the winter?” Two Dogs replied that he once asked the Lakota scholar Albert White Hat the same thing and was told that if the stories were told out of season, one would get a hairy butt crack, but quickly reminded the crowd too, that the stories were shared when the world was at rest.

The following night, Two Dogs and his wife asked everyone to imagine the room as though it were one great lodge with one entrance. They divided the room between the sexes with men on the left half of the lodge and the women on the right. Between the men and women they explained was a path, a path of wisdom. The men sat in descending order from eldest to youngest going left from the path, just as the women sat in descending age from eldest to youngest, only they sat in order right from the path. It was an exercise in tradition and order.

Two Dogs’ stories are the traditional stories of the people, and should best be listened to in person, on a cold winter night, after supper, in the natural dark.

Haŋhépi čhaŋečela héčhuŋpi (This was done only at night).

Waniyetu čhaŋečela héčhuŋpi (This was done only in the winter).

Racing To Save A Language

The beautiful vesper twilight on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation.
Lakota Language Nest, An Immersion School
Reviving Language On Edge Of Extinction
By Dakota Wind
FORT YATES, N.D. - Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation, N.D. & S.D. - It is the heart of winter on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation. Gleaming white snow blankets the landscape, the Missouri River has turned to ice and the crisp cold air somehow makes every sound sharper–the peal of a bell seems to carry an impossible distance from town–but the sounds of children playing, laughing and singing warms everything.

The children are in pre-school, ages three to four. Their high-pitched play echoes down the hall when their door opens. The pitch of little voices sounds like what one would hear in any other early child care service across the state, but listen closer and it becomes obvious that this isn’t like any other day care service. The children speak a mix of English and Lakota amongst themselves, but the teachers strictly speak only Lakota in the classroom.

I grew up learning my colors with a few different words. "Luta" is another word for red; I grew up with "Tho'Tho" for green. Here they use "Thozi," or "blue-yellow" for the color green.

This preschool is called Lakȟól’iyapi Wahóȟpi, the Lakota Language Nest. It is an immersion school still in its first year of practice and based on the language nest model which was designed by the Maori people in New Zeeland. The language nest was established to raise language loss awareness on the reservation and to raise up a new generation of first-language Lakota speakers.

The language nest is one part of the Lakota Language Education Action Program (LLEAP) designed for students to go to college and pursue language studies. Students who are in the program are given financial aid to learn Lakota and gain proficiency in the language with the caveat that LLEAP participants must teach the language. Many of the nest’s learners have parents participating in LLEAP at Sitting Bull College.

Tipiziwin Young answers a question only in Lakota.

Tipiziwin Young, a second-language teacher in the Lakȟól’iyapi Wahóȟpi program, estimates that there are about 200 fluent Lakota speakers left on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation. “A few years back, I was facetious with Jan Ullrich about who I am and where I’m from when he said to me, ‘You’re language will die.’ He didn’t say it to be mean. He said it to be real. I was moved to silence. I was provoked. The loss of my language motivated me to learn it.” Young is an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, born and raised on the reservation, and a mother to three children. “I teach here, then go home and stay in Lakota for my children to learn.”

A little boy with a mop of brown hair approaches me. In a quiet unassuming voice he introduces himself to me. Thinking to obey the rule of the classroom, I go down on one knee and respond, “Hau. Dakota émaĥčiyapi lo.” I gesture to him, an open palm when I greet him, then gesture to my heart. I place my right fist above my left fist over my heart, then gesture with my right hand–index finger–to my mouth when I say my name. I’ve seen few others use the Plains Indian sign and gesture language and the signs I made were for “my” or “mine” and for “name.” I don’t know that his little one has seen the old sign and gesture but he nods his head and smiles.

Whitetail-Cross prepares a hands-on activity with one of the children.

Sacheen Whitetail-Cross, Project Director of LLEAP and the Lakȟól’iyapi Wahóȟpi at Sitting Bull College, is preparing an activity with rice for the children. For Whitetail-Cross the greatest challenge with the language nest has been to “stay” in Lakota, “I spent a week in Washington DC, speaking nothing but English. When I came back to the classroom, during an activity, I asked a couple of the children, ‘What are you doing?’ in English. They were as shocked as I was.”

One observation that Whitetail-Cross shared about the children of the language nest is that they are showing ownership of Lakota. At a recent program, they heard a Lakota speaker, and many of them told Whitetail-Cross, “That’s my language.”

Red Bird works with a young boy on a puzzle. He answers the boy's questions only in Lakota.

Tom Red Bird, the first-language teacher on staff at the Lakȟól’iyapi Wahóȟpi, approaches a group of little boys near the window. One mischievous boy stands on a heater behind the short bookcase which was put next to the window. “Héčé šni! [Don’t do that!]” Red Bird says and gestures to the boy to get down. The boy casually climbs down as though he were going to get down anyway and rejoins the other boys.

Perhaps an indication of how comfortable the children are is use of Lakota is in their own little conversations. Two of the children, a boy and a girl are playing with Legos. They began to argue over a few choice bricks in their construction. The boy wants a brick that the girl is already using. As he reaches for it he says in English, “That’s mine!” She retorts in Lakota, “Šni! Šni! Héčé šni! No, don’t do that!” and keeps her brick.

Two children work out who can play with which brick.

A father steps into the classroom. Chase Iron Eyes is his name. His daughter Azilya (4) is among the nest participants. “I heard of this program through community members,” says Iron Eyes, “My wife and I were immediately drawn to it. We wanted her to have this opportunity.” Iron Eyes commutes each week day from Mandan, ND. “She’s not a morning baby. She fights every morning.” He believes the effort is worth the struggle.

Iron Eyes relates to me that Azilya experienced culture shock for the first two weeks then she started to like it and began to speak Lakota at home. Azilya’s older siblings have begun asking their sister and father how to say things in Lakota, and she corrects her father’s Lakota grammar.

Chase Iron Eyes, Esq., founding writer and editor of The Last Real Indians.

Iron Eyes doesn’t believe that language revitalization today equals a renaissance. “Its something that’s been building up now since the 1960s and ‘70s,” he points out, “native activists were and are proponents of language practice. It’s not a renaissance because you live it.” Iron Eyes is active with the community and engaged as a parent in the Lakȟól’iyapi Wahóȟpi program.

The children in the Lakȟól’iyapi Wahóȟpi are getting to be good speakers. “Their American accent is going away,” says Red Bird. They hold hands and pray before lunch. Little hands clasped in little hands. When the prayer of thanksgiving, the Wota Wačéki, is finished the children say together in unison, “Mitakuyé Oyasiŋ,” the traditional way the Lakota conclude prayers meaning “All My Relatives.” During lunch one of the little boys stops eating and spontaneously breaks into song, singing in the Lakota language.

Red Bird work on a project for one of the children while Tipiziwin Young engages them busy with a language activity.

After the parents have picked up their children, Red Bird deeply breathes what sounds like a sigh of satisfaction. The only relief he shares is that the language is spoken again daily. “I like it,” Red Bird says in English, “I get to speak my language all day. It feels good.” Red Bird is originally from the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Reservation, and had taught Lakota at United Tribes Technical College for several years. “Our Lakota people get lonesome to be home or go home, and language is part of that. That’s where our heart is. I go home to get re-energized.”

Red Bird has hopes for the children, the Thakoza, as he refers to them. “If this keeps going, maybe in ten years we’ll have a new group of Lakota speakers who speak the language correctly.” Red Bird is a great-grandfather and he speaks only Lakota to his great-grandson. His optimism for what can only be called a language revival pours out of him, “We have a culture and tradition, our spirituality, a land base, and our relationship with all of those is best expressed with words found only in our language. It is a sacred language.”

Whitetail-Cross offers comfort to a little boy during an activity.
Whitetail-Cross’ hopes for language revival echoes Red Bird’s, but her optimism is laced with concerns for the program, “Funding is an issue.” The Lakȟól’iyapi Wahóȟpi program received funding from an Administration of Native Americans grant for three years. The first year of programming consisted of developing preschool curriculum, training for language educators, and classroom startup. The Lakȟól’iyapi Wahóȟpi is in its second year of funding, its first year of operation.

The North Dakota Humanities Council recently awarded a $10,000 grant to the Lakȟól’iyapi Wahóȟpi program to assist the program with publication of language materials, but its not enough. Both Whitetail-Cross and Red Bird have expressed the dire need for age-appropriate language materials. There isn’t much published.

The author of this beautiful children's book, SD Nelson, contains some text in Lakota. Nelson is an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Whitetail-Cross is working with Nelson and the South Dakota State Historical Society to acquire the necessary permissions to print a limited number of language resource materials for the children.

Once a week, Red Bird will take a children’s book, translate the text, and then read the story to the children. Having extra copies of Red Bird’s translations for parents to take home and read with their children would help to reinforce that day’s language lesson. “We desperately need more language materials,” Red Bird said.

Jan Ullrich, linguistic director of the Lakota Language Consortium, shares Red Bird’s concern for speaking the Lakota language correctly. Ullrich has had a hand in the development of a standard Lakota orthography for the New Lakota Dictionary. We converse on Skype getting to know a little of one another before business. Ullrich is from the Czech Republic. As a little boy he admired the survival story of the American Indian. In 1992, he travelled to the Pine Ridge Sioux Indian Reservation and made friends with the Fire Thunder and Looking Horse families and came to learn Lakota.

Ullrich may come from the Czech Republic but his heart is Lakota. Visit his work online at the Lakota Language Consortium.

Ullrich sends me the letters t, o, k and a. He then asks me to pronounce what he’s spelled. I reply TOH-kah which can mean “enemy,” then follow up with toh-KAH which can mean “first.” Ullrich then sends me the texts Tĥoka and Tĥoká. The accent marks take a moment to get used to, but the new standard orthography he employs has me pronouncing Lakota correctly when I read it.

Ullrich’s standard orthography isn’t embraced by all Lakota speakers, nor is it the first effort at standard orthgraphy he admits. Sometime back, a Lakota man named Curly from the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Reservation developed a thirty-six character alphabet. The main drawback with this alphabet for modern Lakota speakers is that it involves learning and remembering entirely new symbols. The new standard orthography makes use of the modern keyboard and letters with sounds Lakota students learned with English, the only addition are marks for accent, aspirants, glottal sounds and glottal stops.

Ullrich is the editor of the New Lakota Dictionary, but being the editor means little to Ullrich who credits several Lakota people who've contributed to this work. Support the Lakota Language Consortium and buy a copy of this dictionary or any other of their published Lakota language materials online at the Lakota Language Consortium Bookstore.

“Missionaries did a good job of starting the process of recording the language,” explains Ullrich, “But they ‘invented’ new words in the interest of literal word for word translation, rather than translation of concept for concept.” Thousands of entries in the Buechel and Riggs dictionaries should be carefully and critically examined according to Ullrich. These dictionaries should also be praised for bringing the Lakota and Dakota languages to the general public’s attention.

Ullrich recently joined the Lakȟól’iyapi Wahóȟpi via Skype to encourage the young learners and to offer courage to the language teachers. Like Red Bird, Ullrich believes that the key to language revitalizing is learning consistently and accurately.

Young engages the children in an activity. The children enthusiastically respond with requests for pictures of various faces and feelings.

Young gathers the children together in a circle on a soft blue carpet. A couple of the children take their time in getting to the circle. Young raises her voice a little, “Inaĥni!” she says, hurry. I know the word well from my own childhood and it becomes obvious that these young ones do too. “Iyotake, iyotake,” Young commands with the strong confidence that mother’s everywhere instinctively possess. Sit down, sit down, and they do so without argument.

She takes out a pen and paper and quickly draws a series of faces with a variety of expressions. The children respond somewhat in unison, “Iyokipiya!” “Wačiŋko!” Happy! Sad! The children tell her in Lakota what faces to draw next and she obliges. When they finish this exercise, they even take time to sing happy birthday to two of the boys, “Aŋpétu tuŋpi,” Young begins and the thakoza sing following her cues. It is to the popular tune “Good morning to all” which was popularly appropriated to the Happy Birthday song, and it’s a close translation in Lakota, They day you were born.

Little voices singing in Lakota continue to echo in my mind when I leave the Lakȟól’iyapi Wahóȟpi, the Lakota Language Nest. It was spoken everyday in the days of warriors and legend. It was spoken everyday when the reservations were established.

The Bismarck Indian Boarding School for girls, 1933.

Somehow along the way between then and now the language began to die through a variety of reasons. Some speakers were scarred from their experiences in learning English during the boarding school days. Some left the reservation and never returned, their children and grandchildren grew up speaking only English. Schools on the reservation teach only in English. Lakota became a language for church or special occasion.

These thakoza speak the language in fun, in play, in prayer, and even in arguments. They can express themselves and articulate their feelings accurately through the knowledge of two languages. Perhaps English has too many words. There is a word for everything, a noun. It’s a language of things. Lakota is a language of description and relation, and that’s just what we need these days.