It was a sunny day in October when we set up the tipi at my tribe's camp, the Ihanktonwan (Yankton Sioux) in the Oceti Sakowin camp. I had asked them what they needed and they told me tipi poles. They had a cover, but no poles. Driving through the camp, I spotted an entire set of tipi poles lying next to the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe's camp. When I asked if I could purchase them, they invited me to drink coffee and eat stew with them and we talked about all sorts of things for a couple of hours. Finally, they decided it was time and four of the men loaded the poles up on a flatbed trailer and drove them over to the Yankton/Lower Brule camp. There, the Lower Brule chairman, Lewis Grassrope helped us tie the poles together.

It was a good day to put up a tipi, sunny and beautiful, but this week, seeing the snow that has blanketed the camp, I often wonder now how the tipi is doing.

When the cover went on I was surprised—I hadn't realized it was painted with the seven council fires. The sight of those seven fires blazing, the very image of the Oceti Sakowin (Seven Council Fires) that we all had gathered to see reborn from all our suffering this past 160 years. As we prayed over the prayer flags, I told a family story, an Ihanktowan story, from the time just before the Americans came. It's about a boy named Matowi (Red Bear) and a horse that could not be tamed and the last visit of the White Buffalo Calf to our people. My Lala had told it to me growing up. When he would finish telling it he would tell us that it was our family's duty to tell the story to the people, so they would not lose hope and would be able to make it through this long winter of our people. As I told the story, I hoped it would do what he said it would, and help our Dakota people today make it through this literal winter, the first in a long time we have camped together as one Oyate (nation).

I thank you all for your donations in helping me return to see this tipi. I look forward to returning next week with my son, Joneya Matoska (White Bear)—who at 13 years old is about the age the boy-hero Matowi was in the story when he did his miraculous deeds. Pidamaya ye (thank you) to all of you for helping to make this happen for myself and for all of the Oceti Sakowin.

Photos I took from the tipi-raising at the Ihanktonwan camp:

The poles being loaded at the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe's camp

Bringing in the poles.

Tipi poles converging.

The Yankton Sioux Tribe flag!

Here is my latest article at Indian Country Today: We Are Still Wounded by Wounded Knee.

I wrote it in response to all the moving social media coverage I was seeing on Facebook and Twitter and Youtube about the Dakota 38 riders retracing their ancestors' path back to their homelands in Minnesota and commemorating the hangings of 38 Dakota men, the largest mass hanging in U.S. history for the Dakota Sioux Uprising in 1862.  If you want to learn more about this ride I highly recommend this documentary about it:



This contrasted greatly in my mind with the lack of coverage of these important events in our people's history nationally by the mainstream media.  As I say in the article,

There are always things happening in Indian country that never make it into the mainstream news, and we Indian people are accustomed to it. We never expect the issues near and dear to our hearts to be covered 24 hours on CNN or to trend on Twitter or on Buzzfeed. And yet, this year, I felt it more than usual.

And then, three days after the Dakota 38 riders made it to Mankato, Minnesota the site of the hangings, a tweet about the Wounded Knee anniversary featuring a photo of the burial of the Lakota victims with my twitter handle attached began filling up my twitter feed.  I clicked on the photo only once but the image remained burned into my mind.


Not the kinds of things the rest of America was thinking about during the holiday season.  In fact, what was on TV that day was 3 and half hours of the Washington Redsk*ns losing yet again.  Yes, a football team in our nation's capital with an ethnic slur against us got all the coverage.  Yeah, this guy's team:



I couldn't help but to think about the stories I'd been told about about both the Minnesota Sioux Uprising and Wounded Knee.  In my family, we have a personal story about each of them.  The first has to do with my grandmother's great-grandfather Owl Man.  The Santee Dakota were refugees and fled Minnesota and came to our people, the Yankton Dakota Sioux in South Dakota.  We took them in, but Owl Man was forced to make a terrible sacrifice to protect the people from the wrath of the U.S. Military.  He had to kill one Santee to save the rest and our own people from mass slaughter.  It was a decision that haunted him for the rest of his life.  Here are some photos of him taken during his visit to Washington DC in 1867 as part of the Yankton Delegation.  In the photo taken with President Andrew Johnson at the White House he is the only one in an eagle feather headdress.

Owl Man

Yankton Sioux Delegation at White House, 1867

It also made me think of my grandmother's uncle the Rev. Charles Cook who was the mixed-blood Yankton Dakota Episcopalian minister at Wounded Knee during the massacre.  She told me how he had turned his church into a hospital during the massacre and with Dr. Charles Eastman, another Dakota worked tirelessly to save the lives of their people.  She told me he died two years later of a broken heart.  He was only in his 20's at the time.  Funnily enough, in the HBO movie done about Charles Eastman's life he is portrayed by a balding, middle-aged white man.  However, Eastman is more accurately depicted by Canadian Saulteaux actor Adam Beach.

Actor Adam Beach (and as Charles Eastman)

The actual Dr. Charles Eastman

Scene from HBO's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee of Rev. Charles Cook's church being used as hospital with holiday decorations still up and a banner "Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men."

Delegation from Yankton, Santee, Upper Missouri Sioux, Sac and Fox, Ojibwe, Ottawa, Kickapoo, and Miami tribes posing with President Johnson on the steps of the White House, February 23, 1867.

Chief White Swan (Maga Ska), Yankton Dakota

I often think about the fundamental differences between the culture of my own people and that of the culture that found its way across the ocean from the Old Feudal World.  When I was Sundancing, the old men used to talk to us Sundancers a lot about the Lakota concept of being Ikce Wicasa; that is free, simple people.  It was a concept that took pride of place in our culture and stands in contrast to the Feudal system with the Lords on top of the pyramid and the multitude of Serfs on the bottom.  Their description of Ikce Wicasa reminded me a story my grandmother's Uncle Vine Deloria, Sr. used to tell about what Yankton Chief White Swan: it concerned the difference between being a Soldier and being a Dakota Warrior.  Soldiers follow orders in contrast to our Warriors who were truly Ikce Wicasa.  We didn't build great monuments or enthrone a few in gold, but we lived authentic lives as people and I believe that is the secret of our success as human beings as Dakota and Lakota.

Here is the story of "Soldiers versus Warriors" as told by Vine Deloria, Sr. from Remember Your Relatives: Yankton Sioux Images, 1851 to 1904 by Renee Sampson Flood and Shirley A. Bernie:

"You know . . . after the Minnesota Sioux War  [in 1862] . . . a lot of refugees [the Santee] came to live among the Yanktons [my dad's tribe].  The government had issued orders to General Sully to visit the Yanktons and remind them of their Treaty obligations.  He was to tell them that since the [United States] government was an ally of the Yanktons, the refugees should be treated as enemies.  General Sully held a council with the Yanktons and told them, 'I'm going to be gone about four months.  When I return I want you to tell me that they're gone.'  The Yanktons told themselves that these refugees were their relatives.  Why should we drive our own people out, they thought.  Later, Sully came back and said, 'Well, did you drive them out?'  The Yanktons told him they did not.  Then General Sully told them, 'Well, I'll tell you what I'll do.  I think that the President (Lincoln) is asking too much.  I'm going to be gone again, so during that time if you shoot one of these refugees, I'll report that theYanktons are allies.  They have killed the Isanti.'  Struck by the Ree came to my (great) grandfather (Francois des Lauriers) and asked him if he would do this.  My grandfather said, 'Yes, I suppose.  I've killed two Sioux and this will make a third.  I had that in a dream.  I saw four purification lodges in my vision.  At the end was a great big, black hawk.  And on the side was a big, white owl.  And they stood there.  They told me that by passing those purification lodges, I was going to kill four of our own people.  I've killed two and here is the third.  I'll kill him.'  So, he did.  When Sully returned, he came with two mule teams and a driver.  He sat up there on the back.  He said, 'Well, did you shoot one?'  Struck told him at had been done.  Then, Sully asked 'Who shot him?' Struck told him Deloria had shot the man.  Sully told him, 'Oh, I meant for one of you full bloods to do it.  Deloria is half French.  I'm going to go back and bring my soldiers to attack you.'  White Swan walked up to him.  He said, 'Tell this monster to get down.'  So Sully got down.  'Sully,' said White Swan, 'You're a fighting man and I'm a fighting man.  When your boys go into battle, you're on top of a big butte back there with your field glasses on, riding the fastest horse.  When there are enemies coming, I go without asking anybody to join me.  And my warriors look at each other and say, 'Get on your horses.  That darn fool will get himself killed.'  So they come thundering from behind.  When your soldiers are getting beat, and they try to run, you have them shot.  When some of my warriors get scared, and run, that's alright.  Maybe they'll be braver some other time.  So you select any gun, any weapon that you want and give me fifteen paces, and with these two knives, I'll dodge you all the way, and chop you Allll up.'  Then Sully told him that he didn't mean anything by what he had said and White Swan said, 'I don't know how you meant it!'  White Swan bluffed Sully down.  THAT was White Swan."

The authors add the following description of Chief White Swan

"After the war ended White Swan expressed his concern about what would be done with the captured Minnesota tribes.  When visitors came to his lodge, he kept them up half the night talking about current national events such as the Civil War.  Many of these people, both Indian and white, came away from their visits with him impressed by his keen intelligence and wit."

So, for Veteran's Day I had my children read this story passed down in our family for 150 yeas.  My dad served in the Army but had no love for it, reserving his true dedication and love for us, his family.  He was a lot like White Swan, who was the head man of the village our family was from.   A village that was later put under water by the dam at Fort Randall.  This summer, I took my children there and with their cousins they played in the water by the shore of the dam.  Life goes on, our people persist.