Tag: native american

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Animal Wisdom Stories

By Bernie Hunhoff


Mark McGinnis has a reputation as an artist who isn’t afraid to mix politics and paint. Nuclear weapons, socialism vs. capitalism and foreign policy are issues he has dealt with throughout his career.

So you can understand his friends’ surprise when he started a series on animals — buffalo, coyotes, mice, frogs and the like.

It developed almost by chance. In 1991, McGinnis was finishing a series on explorers. As usual, he found a controversial angle. He was comparing the explorers’ textbook reputations with his own expression of their lives based on historical research.

“One of the paintings was of Balboa and his dog, Leoncico,” says McGinnis. “To my surprise, I found painting the dog to be very enjoyable. I had never painted animals before.”

A year later, contemplating his next series and weary of confrontational art, he remembered the enjoyment of doing the dog and decided to create a series of animals based on Greek fables.

He soon changed the focus from Greek to Lakota/Dakota. “I thought it would be foolish to do a series on Greek fables when I was sitting in a homeland rich in animal stories of our own.”

As with all his projects, McGinnis began with extensive research. He studied Native American animal legends in turn-of-the-century books about Indian life.

At the same time, he became active in the South Dakota Peace and Justice Center and agreed to interview members of the Lakota and Dakota tribes for a newspaper project. He met many people on the reservations who knew similar animal stories. He also developed an even greater admiration for the Native American culture. “The people I interviewed really opened my eyes to the wonderful diversity of the Indian people and the wisdom that is there.”

When he visited with Indians about the animal stories, he found many knew the tales. “Sometimes they had a slightly different version, but I was amazed at how many had heard the stories before.”

Although Indian literature has historically been passed on orally rather than in written form, McGinnis says it has been preserved, and his goal is not to educate Indians about Indian stories. “This project is structured primarily for the European-American audience. I hope it gets some exposure to the Native Americans in the state, but I don’t think of myself in any way as a person who is going to teach them about their culture.”

Though McGinnis’ previous artistic subjects seemed foreign to South Dakota, he is not. Born and raised in Aberdeen, the son of a Milwaukee Railroad worker, he studied art at Northern State College. He received a master’s of fine arts degree from the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana and was working for an Indianapolis art gallery when Northern State offered him a teaching position in 1976.

He came home and taught art for 30 years. McGinnis is now retired from teaching but he’s still making art, specializing in acrylic, black ink and watercolor in Boise, Idaho.

The Meadowlark and the Rattlesnake

Once upon a time, there was a mother meadowlark. She had some little baby birds, but they weren’t quite ready to fly yet.

While she was sitting there with her little ones, a big rattlesnake came and coiled around her nest. She was very frightened. She feared for her little ones. She didn’t quite know what to do. She was shaking. Her heart was beating very fast. She had to think real fast about what to do. So she said,”Oh! Your uncle is here, your uncle almost never comes, finally came today, so I must cook for him!”

She turned to her oldest little one. She said,”Go and borrow a kettle, cause I must cook for your uncle. He must be very hungry. Hurry back with the kettle!”

So she sent the oldest one on. Pretty soon, he didn’t come back for a long time, so the snake waited there and kinda moved around a little bit and squeezed the nest a little bit tighter. And she got scared again so she told the second to the oldest son, she said,”You go find your brother, he must have got lost.”

So the next one [went]. She was just sitting there just talking, trying to keep the snake occupied. She ran out of things to say and the snake got restless because they didn’t come with the kettle. He moved closer and closer and coiled up his head.

She said to the youngest.”Go find your brothers! They should have been back. Maybe they both got lost. Bring the kettle cause your uncle is very hungry. I gonna cook for him,” she said.

So the youngest [ran] out of the nest and left. So now she had all the young ones out of the net, she flapped her wings and she flew up out of the nest as fast as she could. She said,”There, sit there and wait for whoever is going to cook for you.”

— Buckskin Tokens: Contemporary Oral Narratives of the Sioux by R.D. Theisz, editor (1975)

The Eagle and the Beaver

Out of the quiet blue sky there shot like an arrow the great War-eagle. Beside the clear brown stream an old Beaver-woman was busily chopping wood. Yet she was not too busy to catch the whir of descending wings, and the Eagle reached too late the spot where she had vanished in the midst of the shining pool

He perched sullenly upon a dead tree nearby and kept his eyes steadily upon the smooth sheet of water above the dam.


After a time the water was gently stirred, and a sleek, brown head cautiously appeared above it.


“What right have you,” reproached the Beaver-woman,”to disturb thus the mother of a peaceful and hard-working people?”

“Ugh, I am hungry,” the Eagle replied shortly.

“Then why not do as we do — let other folks alone and work for a living?”

“That is all very well for you,” the Eagle retorted,”but not everybody can cut down trees with his teeth or live upon bark and weeds in a mud-plastered wigwam. I am a warrior, not an old woman!”

“It is true that some people are born trouble-makers,” returned the Beaver quietly.”Yet I see no good reason why you, as well as we, should not be content with plain fare and willing to toil for what you want. My work, moreover, is of use to others besides myself and my family, for with my dam-building I deepen the stream for the use of all the dwellers therein, while you are a terror to all living creatures that were weaker than yourself. You would do well to profit by my example.”

So saying, she dove down again to the bottom of the pool.

The Eagle waited patiently for a long time, but he saw nothing more of her; and so, in spite of his contempt for the harmless industry of an old Beaver-woman, it was he, not she, who was obliged to go hungry that morning.

— Wigwam Evenings: Sioux Folk Tales Retold by Charles and Elaine Eastman (1909)

The Raccoon and the Crawfish

Sharp and cunning is the raccoon, say the Indians, by whom he is named Spotted Face.

A crawfish one evening wandered along a riverbank looking for something dead to feast. A raccoon was also looking for something to eat. He spied the crawfish and formed a plan to catch him.

He lay down on the bank and feigned to be dead. By the by, the crawfish came nearby.”Ho,” he thought,”here is a feast indeed, but is he really dead? I will go near and pinch him with my claws and find out.”

So he went near and pinched the raccoon on the nose and then on his soft paws. The raccoon never moved. The crawfish then pinched him on the ribs and tickled him so the raccoon could hardly keep from laughing. The crawfish at last left him.”The raccoon is surely dead,” he thought. And he hurried back to the crawfish village and reported his find to the chief.

All the villagers were called to go down to the feast. The chief bade the warriors and young men to paint their faces and dress in their gayest for a dance.

So they marched in a long line — first the warriors, with their weapons in hand, then the women with their babies and children — to the place where the raccoon lay. They formed a great circle about him and danced, singing:

We shall have a great feast

On the spotted-face beast, with the soft smooth paws:

He is dead!

He is dead!

We shall dance!

We shall have a good time

We shall feast on his flesh.

But as they danced, the raccoon suddenly sprang to his feet.

“Who is that you say you are going to eat? He has a spotted face, has he? He has soft paws, has he? I’ll break your ugly backs. I’ll break your rough bones. I’ll crunch your ugly, rough paws.” And he rushed among the crawfish, killing them by the scores. The crawfish warriors fought bravely and the women ran screaming, all to no purpose. They did not feast on the raccoon; the raccoon feasted on them!

— Myths and Legends of the Sioux by Marie McLaughlin (1916)

The Little Mice

Once upon a time, a prairie mouse busied herself all fall storing away a cache of beans. Every morning she was out early with her empty cast-off snakeskin, which she filled with ground beans and dragged home with her teeth.

The little mouse had a cousin who was fond of dancing and talk but who did not like to work. She was not careful to get her cache of beans, and the season was already well gone before she thought to bestir herself. When she came to realize her need she found she had no packing bag, so she went to her hardworking cousin and said,”Cousin, I have no beans stored for the winter, and the season is nearly gone. But I have no snakeskin to gather the beans in. Will you lend me one?”

“But why have you no packing bag? Where were you in the moon when the snakes cast off their skins?”

“I was here.”

“What were you doing?”

“I was busy talking and dancing.”

“And now you are punished,” said the other.”It is always so with lazy careless people. But I will let you have the snakeskin. And now go, and by hard work and industry try to recover your wasted time.”

— Myths and Legends of the Sioux by Marie McLaughlin (1916)

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the September/October 1993 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Plants with a Purpose

By Katie Hunhoff

Linda Black Elk and members of the Brave Heart Society from the Yankton Sioux Tribe hold a festival every spring to help young people learn the stories and traditional remedies of their ancestors.

When Linda Black Elk’s family members felt sick, her grandma would go outdoors and collect plants to make medicine.”She never went to school but knew everything about plants, their names, uses and what ate them,” Black Elk recalls. She also taught her grandchildren about nature’s gifts.

“Later I realized my grandma was a scientist,” says Black Elk, who followed in her grandma’s footsteps and today is an instructor at Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, North Dakota.

Black Elk spoke about her grandmother’s plants at the Waterlily Storytelling Festival, held at the Andes Central School and Marty Indian School last March. This year marked the festival’s 13th anniversary. Faith Spotted Eagle of Lake Andes helps organize the festival, which is named after the book Waterlily by Ella Cara Deloria.

“Waterlily is a landmark book that describes the life of a Dakota girl growing up in the 1800s,” explains Spotted Eagle.”Ella’s oral histories recorded in her written stories were like many of those told to us older ones in our growing up years, as that is how we learned our values and ways of being. We became painfully aware that many of the younger folks had not heard the stories we grew up on, so they could not pass this crucial information on.”

To preserve the stories, the grandmothers and mothers of the Brave Heart Society (a traditional Dakota society that was revived in 1994) began hosting the four-day storytelling event each March, when there was still snow on the ground.”After that,” says Spotted Eagle,”we go out and learn from nature.”

At the festival, Black Elk taught groups of teenagers the importance of identifying and using native plants. Her talk was titled”How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse with Common South Dakota Plants.” The zombie hook was clearly designed to entertain, but Black Elk also explained a catastrophe is possible.”The United States government has a zombie action plan,” she began her lecture. (It’s true.)

Black Elk recommends that we balance modern life with traditional knowledge. Here is some of the plant knowledge passed down from her grandmother and other ancestors.

Be careful when beginning to identify plants. Several are poisonous, so don’t take chances. Ideally, you should find an experienced plant hunter to help you get started.

Bee Balm or Wild Bergamot

Bee balm’s beautiful purple flowers grow across the entire state. Black Elk notes it smells like Listerine. Bee balm, in the mint family, is a powerful anti-bacterial and effective at treating wounds. It is also a calming aromatherapy and can be used to soothe sore throats, congestion or fever (place in a piece of cheesecloth and hold under hot, running water). Bee balm tea also calms a variety of stomach ailments.

Yarrow

Black Elk recommends yarrow to stop bleeding.”Crush up leaves, put it on a cut and it will stop bleeding immediately,” she says. In Greek mythology, Achilles carried yarrow to treat his warriors. Yarrow is one of the easier plants to identify, with flat leaves, which also make good salad greens.

Plantain

Black Elk says all botanists have an amazing story about plantain’s success in treating burns. Her favorite occurred when she was at a sweat lodge. An 11- or 12-year-old girl slipped when she was leaving the lodge and her foot made contact with burning, hot rocks. Black Elk grabbed plantain leaves, scrunched them up and applied to the burn. Seconds later, a blister formed. The girl stopped screaming and crying.”Yarrow immediately cools off burns,” says Black Elk.”It took the pain away instantly.” Because the girl’s pain was gone, Black Elk and the others decided to finish the ceremony and then head to the clinic. But when they came out of the sweat lodge 45 minutes later, the girl was running around barefoot and playing.

Stinging Nettles

While stinging nettles can cause a smarting rash, it is also a pain reliever, due in part to its ability to reduce inflammatory chemicals in the body. Black Elk had a friend who suffered horrible arthritis in one shoulder, and could hardly lift her arm. Black Elk asked if she could do a stinging nettles treatment.”Every day I whipped her shoulder with the plant for 20 minutes, twice a day. At the end of the week she had full range of motion,” Black Elk recalls.

Rosehips

You can absorb more vitamin C and omega 3s by eating three rosehips (small reddish colored rose berries) than from any other plant, or even from eating a grapefruit. Remember to remove the seeds — they have hairs on them. The flowers can be ground into a tea, or eaten fresh or dried.

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Over 700 Years in the Making

Good Earth State Park at Blood Run, South Dakota’s newest state park just southeast of Sioux Falls, is one of the oldest sites of long-term human habitation in the United States. Rebecca Johnson, our special projects coordinator, visited the National Historic Landmark recently to hike the trails. Here are some of her photos.

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Native Patriots

Our May/June issue includes a story on our Native American residents’ rich history of military service. Bernie Hunhoff visited the Standing Rock Reservation to visit with its veterans and their descendants. He took several photos on his trip — too many to print. Here are some of his extras.

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Heartbeat of Mother Earth

By Ried Holien

Dancers relate to winged and four-legged relatives through bones, quills and feathers that adorn their regalia. Photo by Greg Latza.

A pow wow is a living celebration of everything it means to be Native American. It would be difficult to find a cultural celebration that commands more meaning, history and devotion. The spiritual atmosphere of the pow wow is as pervasive as that of a Lutheran potluck dinner. The music and dance keep ancient traditions alive, and dancers prepare themselves with as much care as seniors for high school prom. Participants honor tradition at pow wows, but concede to modern life by driving there in cars and trucks. For non-Native Americans, imagine attending a family wedding, partying with hundreds of friends and family all dressed up in their finest clothes, dancing for hours, eating until it hurts. Then, when everything is over, you head to the next town to do it again next weekend. To repeat: pow wows are unique.

The history of American Indian dance and music stretches back thousands of years, but the pow wow as we know it is less than a century old. Pow wows slowly became organized events much like old displays of cowboy skills eventually evolved into rodeos. “Pow wow” is an Algonquin word referring to a specific medicine man dance. Whites then misapplied the word. “This term is far from universal,” writes Bernard Mason in Dances and Stories of the American Indian. “Many tribes regarded the word as foreign to them. [However] in the popular parlance of today, any Indian dance or gathering is apt to be called a pow wow.” In South Dakota, you may hear “wacipi” (translated as: “the people’s dance”) instead of pow wow.

There was a time, however, when neither term could be used. When United States soldiers forced Native Americans onto reservations, our government essentially banned American Indian culture. “They [pow wows] were outlawed for many years,” said Earnest Wabasha, hereditary Chief of the Eastern Dakota Nation. However, Wabasha says, “There was no way they could’ve completely eliminated pow wows. The people just wouldn’t let that happen. They would get together. They knew where secret places were and they let each other know by word of mouth and they would all show up there. Our culture and our traditions and our spiritual life, well our whole way of life, kept going that way.”

To fool authorities, these meetings were sometimes disguised as celebrations of “white” holidays, like Independence Day. The Sisseton-Wahpeton Pow wow has occurred over the Fourth of July for 150 years, making it one of the longest running events in South Dakota and among the world’s oldest established pow wows. Now, however, the date has more to do with the three-day weekend than with any secret agenda.

In summer, a pow wow takes place every weekend somewhere in the Midwest. Legions of dancers, singers, concession-stand vendors and fans follow this ” Pow wow Circuit.” Every weekend becomes a sort of family reunion where you see old friends, and make new ones — all the time reveling in a positive atmosphere.

The Drum

“One of the most important things in the life of a Native American is the drum,” says Paul Gowder, who maintains the Pow Wow Dancing website. “Our whole culture centers around the drum. Without the drum and the singers around it, the Native Americans could not have pow wows. The drum brings the heart beat of our Earth Mother for all to feel and hear. Drumming brings everyone back into balance. Whether dancing, singing, or just listening, people around the drum can connect with the spirit.”

The drum sets the pace at the Flandreau Pow wow, echoing the heartbeat of the sacred buffalo. Photo by Chad Coppess/S.D. Tourism.

Strict rules are followed around the drum, whether it is a typical band bass drum or one with a traditional wooden frame and head of leather. The Head Singer enforces drum protocol. “Being Head Singer is a great honor,” says Gowder. “The Head Singer has the first and last word and has complete control of what goes on at the drum. Songs are started with a lead line sung by the Head Singer. This lets the drum group and the dancers know what song is coming. After the lead line, the second (another person at the drum) will take up the lead line, and everyone will join in. At this point the dancers beg in to dance.”

“Few non-Indian people recognize the importance of song to the American Indian,” says George P. Horse Capture, author of Pow Wow. “Fewer still can detect the structure of our songs because they are vastly different from the European or ‘American’ ones. To the untrained ear all Indian songs may sound alike. One can understand this situation better by comparing ‘hard rock’ to ‘disco.’ To the untrained or unappreciative ear, they too sound alike; but their individuality is readily distinguished by connoisseurs of those styles. And so it is with Indian songs.

“Indian songs have few words; most songs have none. Years ago only the Sioux people favored wording. Most tribal songs use vowel-like sounds such as ‘hey, yah, lay.’ The exact ‘vowels’ are not as important as their tones or notes in the musical scale.”

Historically, Sioux songs told stories of honor and bravery. Even without words, songs can still speak of legends in the feeling expressed. Other songs resemble modern pop music, simply pushing one to dance, dance, dance.

“Indian people have a unique musical system,” says Horse Capture. “There are no set rules of composition, no teachers and no concerts. Yet, like many aspects of our culture, the music has endured for many thousands of years.”

Dancing

Centuries ago, when warriors returned from hunting and battle, they stopped outside their camps to make sure they looked their best. They wanted to arrive like the heroes they were. Later, they acted out their exploits in front of others. They performed certain movements to show hunting buffalo, stealing horses or killing an enemy. Eventually, these movements became accepted steps, and dancing evolved.

Dancing connects the young to ancient traditions. Photo by Tom Nelson.

Today’s pow wow dances harken back to these ancient traditions. Men perform a grass dance, which is reminiscent of when warriors searched out new locations for campsites. At that time, tall prairie grass grew everywhere. Before setting up tipis, the grass had to be matted down, so warriors stomped and swayed in a grass-flattening dance. Those steps are still performed on the mowed grass and hardwood auditorium floors of modern pow wows.

Other dances arose from spiritual stories. A century ago, a medicine man at the Mille Lacs Reservation in northern Minnesota was told in a dream to put his gravely ill daughter in a dress decorated with chimes and to have her dance around a circle. The girl had to be carried the first time around. On the second loop, she walked with aid. On the third rotation, she was healed. This dance survives as the Women’s Jingle Dress.

A jingle dress is made by rolling the lids of chewing tobacco cans into cones, then tying them onto the dress. A skilled dancer gets the cones clinking from knees to shoulders, making a sound like soft rain.

Men and women perform different dances. Men’s categories are: Grass, Fancy, Straight and Traditional. Women perform Buckskin, Cloth, Fancy Shawl and Jingle Dress dances. Dancers are judged on their ability and regalia. They are grouped by sex, according to age, from seniors to “tiny tots.”

All dancers, regardless of style, must stop precisely on the last drumbeat of the song. Dancers must be knowledgeable to sense when the end is coming. Bernard Mason points out that some dancers, ìhave an individual and distinctive way of ending a dance, a sort of personalized sign, a rhythmic signature. Knowing when the dance will end, they stop precisely on the final drumbeat, each with his own little flourish. With no song to indicate the ending, a louder beat of the drum can be used as a signal that in eight counts the drumming will stop. Each dancer then starts to write his signature in rhythm.”

At most pow wows you will see a special dance called a “giveaway.” Native Americans judge a person’s value by what they give away, not by what they accumulate. Giveaways honor a person by giving gifts to others in the honored person’s name. Personal milestones, such as high school graduation, provide reasons for giveaways.

Regalia

Don’t call what a dancer wears a “costume,” in the sense that they are donning their clothes for a performance. Circus performers wear costumes. Dancers wear “pow wow dress” or “regalia.”

Dedicated dancers on the pow wow circuit train like Olympic athletes in order to perform at top level every weekend. Still, they must pay as much attention to their regalia as they do to their muscles. Dancers constantly mend their dress because beads fall, buttons fly and feathers jostle while performing.

While each dance style requires specific regalia, there remain some common characteristics. Men wear a headdress called a “roach,” made of porcupine quills. Around their necks are chokers, and on their chests are breastplates, both made of hairpipe or dentalium. Some prefer mirrors to breastplates. Dancers apply facial paint in a particular color and pattern to honor ancestors, or to accentuate personal power. Although some wear Nikes and Reeboks, beaded leather moccasins are preferred.

Women rely on one of two basic dresses: buckskin or cloth. They wear chokers or shawls around necks. Most carry fans or purses. Belts, colorfully beaded or shiny with brass tacks, hold traditional items like knife cases and pouches.

Men must be in full regalia to dance; women need only wear a shawl. “Perhaps the greatest area for creativity,” says Horse Capture, “is their shawls. Spread across the back, the shawl is held by the ends.” In geometric and floral patterns, women decorate shawls to express devotion to a reservation, a club, a symbol, a color, or an animal.” It is mesmerizing to see all the girls do the same dance, but doing it with their own flair and own look.”

All dancers share one characteristic: bells. “To the dancer, bells are well-nigh indispensable,” says Mason. “Bells on one’s ankles reinforce the drum. The custom goes back for we know not how long. Before the white man came the ‘bells’ of the dancing Indian were the dewclaws made of hoofs, often attached to turtle shells for louder sound. But once sleigh bells were to be had the Indians reached out for them avidly. Few things that the white man brought were received with such enthusiasm.”

Grand Entry

Grand Entry marks the beginning of every pow wow, and it reflects the wonderful warrior entrance of old. A time of pomp and circumstance, the audience stands as all participants enter in order of importance. First to enter are veterans carrying flags. The Stars and Stripes is always there, usually next to an “Indian flag,” which is a curved staff wrapped in buffalo hide, adorned with eagle feathers. Elders come next. Dancers, dressed in full regalia, enter led by Men’s Traditional, followed by Men’s Fancy, Women’s Traditional and so on until, after around 30 minutes, everyone has entered.

Once everyone is in place, two songs are performed. The first is patriotic in nature, and may be “The Star Spangled Banner” sung in a Native tongue. The second is an honor song done in respect to the event. After an invocation by an elder, and sometimes a speech by a politician or a pow wow princess, the fun begins.

Pow wow Committee

Ice cream transcends all cultural boundaries, and sharing food is an important part of the social gathering.

Each tribe appoints a committee to make sure the pow wow runs smoothly, and to extend hospitality. “We feed everyone at least one meal a day at no charge,” says Lillian Wanna, board member for the Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota Nation’s annual pow wow. “We feel that when people come to an Indian home they shouldn’t go hungry. We want to take care of everyone who is our guest. Thatís why we feed people. We want to be good hosts.” Both host and guest feel good, then, when everyone gets stuffed on roast beef, hot dogs, corn on the cob, buffalo or ethnic specialties like soup, Indian tacos, frybread and wojapi (a fruit pudding).

“It takes all year to organize our pow wow,” says Wanna. “We start right away after the last one. The grounds need upkeep. We register and organize dancers and vendors. We make posters. And, of course, we raise funds. We do lots of raffles and dances and such. We might have almost 1,500 dancers and over four thousand people in the audience. That’s a lot of mouths to feed, which means a lot of money to raise.”

As tribal council secretary, Kenita Taylor handled nearly everything associated with the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Fair and Rodeo. Held annually over Labor Day, it features a four-day pow wow. “It takes me nearly six months after each pow wow just to pay the bills and post them and finish all the paperwork,” says Taylor. “Then, right away, I start working on next year’s event. I handle all the purchase orders. We order the oil cloth to label each dancer with numbers. We contract out portable toilets. And we handle camping. It fills up pretty well at the grounds. And, of course, we have to handle the arrangements to feed all the people.”

The pow wow committee must also select their Master of Ceremonies. The emcee makes the event move along, provides running commentary, relates background information, reunites lost kids with parents and tells jokes. Each emcee has a different style: some are like history professors, and others like stand-up comics.

The most important decision a pow wow committee must make is whether to have a Contest or Traditional Pow wow. At contest pow wows, judges rule on dancing skill, regalia and song-knowledge, awarding money to the top-ranked participants. Prize money can be sizable. The nation’s best competition dancers, such as Jonathan Windy Boy, make more than $50,000 a year by competing every week. A traditional pow wow offers day money (about $50) to all dancers and singers. Participants still perform their best, but the event carries a more laid-back feel.

Editorís Note: This story is revised from the July/August 1999 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Dancing in the Sacred Hoop

By Jerry Wilson

Kevin Locke plays a courtship melody he learned from Lakota elders on a traditional cedar wood Lakota flute.

He enters the powwow circle, and like a magnet draws all eyes. He is vigor and smile, a muscular man in long black braids. He wears an aqua ribbon shirt, beaded moccasins, a breechcloth over shorts. A duffel bag balances on his shoulder. He strides to the center and slides his load to the floor as the master of ceremonies announces his name: “Ladies and gentlemen: Kevin Locke.”

The audience stands and claps as Locke opens his bag. He extracts a traditional Lakota cedar wood flute from its leather wrap and begins to play. The song is a heart-opening courtship melody that Locke inherited from generations of elders, an intricate piece that softens the heart, mellows the spirit.

The tune comes to its end and tenderly he lays the flute aside. From the duffel bag he withdraws a big handful of four-colored hoops — red, white, yellow and black. He arranges the hoops on the floor before him. Four men around a big hide-topped drum begin to play. Locke picks up the beat of the drum, and the dance begins.

If the wistful notes of the flute had calmed the soul, the blood is riled to boiling by the dance to come. A whirling dervish, the veritable soul of a whirlwind, Locke scoops up the hoops, one by one, with his toe. They spin about his ankles, rise to his knees, then to his hips to meet his hands. Clockwise he spins, but in the blink of an eye his motion reverses. Around and around he whirls to the beat of the drum, the throbbing nucleus of the circle of humanity of which he has assumed the center.

The figures Locke creates in his dances are constructed of red, white, black and yellow hoops, symbolizing the interrelatedness of the human races.

Above his shoulders a delicate flower blooms from the hoops, only to metamorphose into a fluttering butterfly, then stars and moon and sun. As the dance goes on an eagle extends its wings, madly spiraling, calling forth the love, courage and intelligence of our hearts.

Long having passed the normal bounds of human endurance, the final movement of Locke’s dance at last begins. In this final symphony, a fabulous interlinked structure defines itself, the flower, the butterfly, the eagle and the heavenly bodies evolve to an orbiting globe of human diversity — 28 interlocked hoops, a picture of the unity of humankind.

The dance at its end, Locke bows low and thanks the audience for its thunderous applause. Carefully he extracts his body from the structure he has built and presents it to his audience on the floor. Though he is wet with sweat, his incredible stamina and athleticism belie his 46 years and his 20 years on the road. Hardly winded by the 20-minute, non-stop performance, he projects the words that his dance has spun.

The four-colored hoops represent completeness and unity, he says, the four human races, four directions, four seasons, four winds. “God wants us to reach,” he explains, “reach for more light, feed our roots and blossom. We are all branches of the great human family tree. We can soar like the eagles, give off fragrance like the flowers.” But we can realize our beauty and our potential only as we set aside our divisions, our distrust, our prejudice and fear of one another, he says.

His homily ended, Locke drags another 70 hoops from his bag and spins them across the floor to the people who form the circle. They step forward to embrace the hoops — Indian girls in jingle dresses, grandmothers in shawls, men in feathers and beads, others in jeans or suits — and the enchanted assembly joins the dance.

When that dance is done Locke gathers the hoops again, thanks the dancers and drummers, and offers thanks to God/Wakan for holding us in the palm of his hand as we walk with strength this beautiful road of life.

This is Locke’s second of three performances this day — the work around which his life has revolved for two decades. His performances have helped to revive the traditional Native flute, and he is among its top players in the nation, with 11 recorded albums of his music. And he is perhaps the premier living hoop dancer, having performed in 70 countries around the world.

Firmly rooted in Lakota culture, Kevin Locke has become a missionary for human harmony and global unity. Though South Dakotan by birth and by choice, he is also a cosmopolitan citizen of the world. But Locke didn’t plan to spend his life dancing around the globe. In fact, his formative years were passed in close communion with an elderly traditional uncle, Abraham End of Horn, who spoke Lakota and trained the boy in the traditions of his culture.

Locke grew up near Wakpala on the Standing Rock Reservation. When he left home in the early 1970s, it was to pursue a somewhat standard professional career. By the end of the decade he had completed the course work for a doctor’s degree in education at the University of South Dakota and was planning to study law. But then his calling came.

Locke projects an image of human harmony with this whirling chain of interlocked hoops.

A North Dakota brother, Arlo Good Bear, offered to teach Locke the hoop dance. Kevin would travel many places, meet many people, be an emissary from the Lakota people, his friend told him. Good Bear offered one lesson now, and promised more in the future. The two got together and Good Bear introduced Locke to the dance of the sacred hoop. A week later, Good Bear was dead. Locke was among the men who carried him to his grave.

Back to the traditional career in education or law, Locke thought. But then the dreams began. Not once, not twice, but again and again, he met his friend in his dreams. And there were others too, people from across the generations, people from around the globe, from many other tribes, Europeans, Asians, Africans. In the dream, Good Bear danced designs of nature, birds, flowers and rainbows. Locke saw that his brother had kept his promise. The lessons were continuing, and with them, a clearer definition of Kevin’s role. He saw that he must carry this thing forward, create patterns of beauty that would unite peoples around the Earth.

As his dreams foretold, Locke has traveled and lived among the tribes and peoples of the world. His heart has sponged the spiritual visions of all, his mind their wisdom. He has studied the spiritual quests of man, and conclusions have grown: At bottom, and properly interpreted, the great spiritual visions of humankind are the same. They lift our spirits, give us hope, unite our dreams, extend our arms around each other. This unifying vision Locke has found best expressed in the words of the 19th century prophet Bah·’u’ll·h.

Locke grew up under the influence of both Christian and Lakota spiritual traditions. But his personal vision coalesced when he found the teachings of Bah·’u’ll·h, a Persian nobleman in Iran who in the middle of the 19th century gave up the comfort and security of his princely life to seek and teach a vision of global unity of humankind. Bah·’u’ll·h taught that there is only one God and only one human race, and that all religions have been stages in the revelation of God’s will and purpose for humanity. “The earth is but one community,” he wrote, “and mankind its citizens.”

For Locke, the Bah·’i Faith is a logical extension of the teachings of Lakota culture. The family and tribal unity symbolized by the sacred hoop of the Lakota is broadened to include the entire family of man. Bah·’i incorporates the missions of transcendent visionaries such as Krishna, Moses, Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad, finding unity instead of conflict in these separate visions. Now humanity has come of age, endowed with the collective capacity to see the entire human spiritual panorama as a single evolutionary process. It is that which calls Kevin Locke to be a global wanderer, an international envoy for peace, a prophet of unity.

Locke helps Lakota youth learn traditional songs and dances every summer at Milk’s Camp, a retreat on land that once belonged to Chief Milk in Gregory County.

Thus Locke has embraced the challenge of the new millennium we have now begun. “We must create a circle of humanity,” he says. “We must move out of our ‘boxist’ mentality, our tendency to categorize each other. In a hoop or a circle,” he notes, “there is no back row. Everybody has a front row. We must work to strengthen ourselves, links in a mighty circling chain, to overcome violence, addictions, racism and hate. ” More than the world’s most renowned hoop dancer, more than a leading reviver of the classical Native flute, Locke is intermediary for unity to the world, Lakota ambassador, proclaimer of peace to humankind.

“Global unity is inevitable,” he says. “Peace is inevitable. It’s a rendezvous that we have, and there’s no getting around it. But at the same time, potent forces of disintegration and chaos confront us. Our challenge is to connect ourselves with each other and with the powerful forces of cohesion in the world. The Bah·’i community is committed to random acts of kindness, to senseless acts of beauty,” Locke said. “But it’s systematic, a way of life.”

While Locke labors for unity and peace on the global front, he has not forgotten his native state. “I’ve seen a lot of progress toward racial reconciliation in South Dakota,” he said. “Of course it’s frustrating sometimes. I’d like to see things move faster. But there is movement, toward sobriety, toward recognition of spiritual unity, toward validation of our unique individual contributions. Today is part of a process, and hopefully we can measure progress as we move systematically down the path to reconciliation, from darkness to light.”

Watching Locke dance, absorbing the sweet melodies of his flute, listening to his uplifting words, it is hard to imagine pain behind his smile. Yet, like everyone else, Locke encounters negativity and conflict. “But I try to be non-confrontational,” he says. “I seek a positive avenue or attitude, and negative things evaporate and disappear.”

Watching the power and elasticity with which he dances, it is also hard to imagine that he will ever stop. Yet, at age 46 he knows he can’t maintain this pace and speed forever. “I plan to continue this particular spiritual mission as long as I feel I can make a contribution,” he said. “Or until I see a different path for myself.”

Kevin Locke gathers the last of his things, brushes back the strands of graying long black hair that have worked their way loose from his gyrating braids, and offers his hand. He is off to his third performance of the day, for a group of children at the middle school. Probably they’ve seen him already, on public television’s “3-2-1 Contact.” But they are about to encounter in person a man they will not soon forget. A man whose vision for their future could alter their lives.

Editorís Note: This story is revised from the January/February 2000 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Second Chances

Seldom in life do we get second chances. And the prospect of it happening 161 years after a calamity? Very rare. But our Nov/Dec 2016 issue has just such a story. It happened when Paul Stover Soderman of Colorado discovered he was a descendant of General Harney, the man responsible for a massacre of Lakota men, women and children in 1855 at Blue Water Creek in Nebraska. The killings happened after Harney rebuffed Chief Little Thunder’s extended hand. A few years ago, Soderman befriended the chief’s descendants.

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Traditional Tea

By John Andrews

Native Americans have long recognized herbs, flowers and roots as an important component of their diet. The founder of the Native American Tea Company heard elders explain their origins and wanted to ensure that future generations knew the stories. He established the Native American Tea Company in 1987 on the Crow Reservation in southern Montana. When he moved to Aberdeen, so did the business. Now under the guidance of Tom Aman, the Native American Tea Company distributes blends to stores, museums and national parks around the United States.

Each tea is created with a specific story in mind. In traditional Crow culture, successful horse raids were celebrated with Victory Tea.”The Victory Tea has herbs that the camps would take with, like hibiscus and wild cherry bark,” says Joe Moore, the company’s vice president of sales and marketing.”They would bring them for their quick energy, nutrition and light weight.”

There are blends for work and relaxation. Warrior’s Brew combines cinnamon and orange peel for a steady stream of energy, while Teepee Dreams contains valerian root, which soothes and calms.

The company donates 5 percent of profits for scholarships at Sitting Bull College, a four year tribal school based in Fort Yates, N.D., with branch campuses in McLaughlin and Mobridge. Aman has a long relationship with the school and the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. His parents met at a pow wow near Little Eagle in 1926. Since then, the family has encouraged economic development and education on the reservation.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the January/February 2015 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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The Story of the Grass Dance

By Michael Zimny

Adrian Primeaux brought the art of the grass dance to an international audience with his appearance in a video called”Stadium Pow Wow,” by A Tribe Called Red, a Canadian music group that blends elements of hip hop, dubstep and First Nations traditions. The video, directed by Kevan Funk, features a montage of”day-in-the-life” scenes of Native life in different locales.

Primeaux’s scene was shot in the Badlands of Pine Ridge, where he was raised. We spoke with Primeaux about the story behind the grass dance, how elements of his regalia tell the story, and how a new generation of Native artists is taking indigenous art forms into the future. Here are his responses, in his own words.

The Story Behind the Grass Dance

The story stems from a young boy who was crippled. He told his grandfather that he wanted to run and ride horses and dance like all the other kids, to basically be normal. And his grandpa said well, you can be. We have certain ways and certain spiritual beliefs that would guide you to be that way. So his grandpa told him to go to this sacred area, a fasting ground, and to seek guidance and to fast and pray there, and to sing for four days.

So this boy went to a patch of sweet grass where our people would go for these types of sacred ceremonies. He fasted there on this bed of sweet grass for four days. And through that he was tested by elements, and on the fourth day he was about to give up, and there was a big storm that came. Within this storm he was approached by different elements and different beings. And just about the time he was about give up he was approached by a deer. This deer walked up on him, and this boy being deprived of any kind of food or sustenance for so long, I guess he had to dig deep within his spirituality to kind of maintain his composure.

He was able to have some kind of communication with this deer and this deer was speaking to him through his mind and he was telling him,”Hey what are you doing here? Why are you all alone? As a young boy, why are you out here?” This boy was like,”I can’t run and dance and play like the other kids, so I am seeking guidance. I am seeking help from the Great Spirit.” So this deer started talking to him.”Ok I see that your intention is pure, I am going to give you something. I am going to give you some songs.”

And so he was shown some songs that talk about a story of a buffalo in a storm. Whenever a buffalo encounters a storm, as hard as it gets, it keeps going forward, because the buffalo knows that at the end of the storm there’s always going to be a rainbow. There’s always hope at the end of the storm. So this boy endured, and he was given some grass dance songs. So he took these songs back to his people and this boy, he told his grandpa about these songs and he sang them for him. And little by little, he was able to move his crippled legs. He moved his left and did the same on his right.

Pretty soon he was able to dance. Everything he did on his left, he did on his right. These songs, originally, they were healing songs, and the dance was originally a healing dance.

How the Grass Dance Story Lives Through the Dancer’s Regalia

On [the boy’s] outfit he put these buffalo [hide] and gourds. So on my feet, I have red fluff on my feet. That’s symbolic of the buffalo who’s able to weather the storm. The bells are symbolic of the lightning and the storm that the boy had to endure, the sound that it makes.

On my arm I have deer tail armbands, and that’s in remembrance of the deer that spoke to the boy whenever he was instructed and gave him these songs. The rainbow [beadwork and designs] represents the rainbow after that storm that the boy endured. It symbolizes hope, so every grass dance they have a rainbow design. The hoop is the hoop of life, the circle of life.

The grass is symbolic of the sweet grass from where he was fasting. Everything that this boy had to endure was basically incorporated into this outfit. Each of my dance moves is symbolic of balance.

On Being a Millennial and Indigenous Artist

A generation ago, there was a lot more intergenerational trauma that was a little bit more widespread amongst Native peoples. Boarding schools left a really far-spread impact on Native culture. We were never encouraged to dance, to grow our hair long, to use our language, a generation ago. And now we come to 2016 and we have this new generation: people who are creating bands like A Tribe Called Red, people who are creating movies like Avatar — a movie that’s promoting indigenous people.

This generation now, we have a deeper sense of pride. We have our own unique voice as far as dancing. We have a unique voice as far as music. We have a more unique interpretation of dance compared to how it was maybe 20 years ago.

We take some of the core of those old dances and incorporate them into something new, into something that modern people can appreciate. [A Tribe Called Red] takes old elements of what we appreciate as music — the drums, the pow wow songs and they incorporate it into a new style of music. A lot of new generational Natives, and non-Natives as well, can appreciate this Native music. They can appreciate the Native dance. They can appreciate the indigenous lifestyle, and its old elements incorporated into something new.

Along those same lines, my style of dance is the same. I have these old elements of dance, these old appreciations of the nature, the grass, the balance, the life cycles within my hoop, the old appreciation of the walks of life, the animal nation, the plant nation in my dance. Then I incorporate it into a new style, in my own mind — what I see as a young Native man, what I am seeing as beautiful. I also see neon colors as beautiful. I have a plaid base on my outfit; I see plaid clothes as something fresh and new, whereas times ago they would use maybe a buckskin cloth and a beaded vest. My outfit is made from plaid Hollister shirts and neon ribbons. I try to carry the old styles of our cultural ways and incorporate them into something new.

Michael Zimny is the social media engagement specialist for South Dakota Public Broadcasting in Vermillion. He blogs for SDPB and contributes arts columns to the South Dakota Magazine website.