Spirit in Action
Wounded Knee & Healing Spirit - A Visit to the Pine Ridge Reservation
Guest host today is Robert Wolf of American Mosaic and Free River Press, and he takes us on a visit to the Pine Ridge Reservation, a place of poverty and Spirit, and site of Wounded Knee and the stand-off with the American Indian Movement.
- Broadcast on:
- 27 May 2012
- Audio Format:
- other
[music] Let us sing this song for the healing of the world That we may hear as one With every voice, with every song We will move this world along And our lives will feel the echo of our healing [music] Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helpes Me. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives Of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, Creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them In their service, hoping to inspire and encourage you To sink deep roots and produce sacred fruit in your own life. [music] Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world That we may dream as one With every voice, with every song We will move this world along We've got a special treat for you today for Spirit in Action I'm going to turn things over to Robert Wolfe in a moment And he's going to take you on a visit to Pine Ridge Reservation of South Dakota To learn firsthand about the experience of life and spirit on the reservation Robert Wolfe did the interviews at Pine Ridge as part of the radio series He does called "American Mosaic" But Robert does much more than radio programs And I'll have him back soon as a guest talking about some of the books he's written And the change he's trying to make in the U.S. land and culture scape I'll be back next week, but for today I'm pleased to leave you in the hands Of a spirit in action, Robert Wolfe, as he pursues more spirit at the Pine Ridge Reservation I'm Robert Wolfe, welcome to "American Mosaic" A production of Free River Press Tell me your story That makes you apart Of a great conversation Tell me your heart American Mosaic is a weekly half-hour compendium of writings, interviews, and music To take us across country, from Midwest farmhouses to Mississippi Delta cotton fields From Manhattan offices to ranches on the Great Plains American Mosaic is based on writings of everyday folk Created in Free River Press writing workshops And is devoted to the search for contemporary America This edition is but one episode of the American Story A piece of the Continental Mosaic (music) (music) (cheering) (music) (cheering) (music) (cheering) (music) Pine Ridge Reservation lies in the southwest corner of South Dakota Its people call themselves "Oglala Lakota" For over a century, their history on Pine Ridge has been a record of white atrocity And indifference to suffering Today, Oglala Lakota tribal members live in a third world Of 3,468 square miles within U.S. borders No one is certain how many Lakota live on Pine Ridge Some say close to 16,000 Some say 29,000 Yet Jim Berg, Executive Director for Oglala Sioux Lakota Housing says Is closer to 40,000 Whatever number you pick, the situation is astounding Heart disease, alcoholism, and diabetes are epidemic Tribal members have, at lowest estimate, an 80% unemployment rate 49% live below the federal poverty level Median income is $6,286 The Pine Ridge Casino draws so few gamblers That if tribal members were to share its profits, each would receive 15 cents a month Among the countries in the western hemisphere, only Haiti has a lower life expectancy than Pine Ridge Oglala Lakota men average 48 years, the women, 52 70% of Pine Ridge students drop out before high school graduation With all these problems, it is no wonder that the tribe's teen suicide rate is 150% higher than the national teen average How did this once great tribe that hunted over vast buffalo lands become reduced to such extremities? Mike are many horses, chairman of the board of directors of Oglala Sioux Tribal Partnership for Housing And the Lakota Nations Ambassador to Western Europe Is also an unofficial tribal historian I met with him in his office at the Tribal Partnership for Housing And asked him what life was like for the Lakota before they came to Pine Ridge A person's principal responsibility in life is to take care of their younger children to provide for them And to put that in jeopardy was one of the greatest misgivings that a leader could do So consequently, everything was held communal Our leaders knew when the buffalo would migrate When they knew when the animals and deer were plentiful They knew what time of the season to take them They knew when the land would provide food Whether it be herbal or berries or whatever When they were available So consequently, that's what their life revolved around A recording engineer Carl Cooley and I are in South Dakota driving up a highway on the Pine Ridge Reservation To the site of the wounded knee massacre It's a warm July afternoon On our right, the land slopes up with a church atop the hill I recognize this is the site of the massacre Two pillars with an arch closer to the road marked the gateway to the mass grave On our left is an asphalt parking area for tourists We pull over At a nearby stand, three or four Lakotas are selling beaded jewelry When I don't see anything I want, one of the Lakotas tells me to follow him across the parking lot To another stand where he has some jewelry I buy a pendant from my wife and we begin talking His name is Larry Thunderhorse, a tall, lanking man Dark skin with a ponytail wearing a yellow t-shirt and jeans Larry's friendly and likes to talk In fact, he's almost an unofficial dosing for the wounded knee massacre site On his table, loaded with beaded jewelry and other items Is a large photo album with photocopies of newspaper clippings of the 1973 siege of wounded knee When federal marshals and FBI shot it out with members of the American Indian movement The other man at Larry's table is his brother Frank Bear chested with two braids falling over either side of his chest Frank Thunderhorse has the noble classic looks of his forebears It doesn't speak much I ask Larry to tell me about Chief's Bigfoot in Red Cloud At the events leading up to the wounded knee massacre [Music] He came here for protection, shelter and food for the winter months And he also came to Chief Red Cloud for negotiations Chief Red Cloud had a good tongue with the white man Listen to him [Music] The year is 1890 14 years after General George Armstrong Custer and the 7th Calvary were wiped out by the combined forces of Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors under the leadership of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse The buffalo herds are nearly extinct Some estimate that in 1860, 60 million buffalo ranged across America By 1890 their number has dwindled to a mere 790 Without this food source, Plains Indians are compelled to accept the white man's reservations Some say the extermination of the buffalo is US government policy But matters are worse The US Congress is not fulfilling its treaty obligations to feed and clothe the Indians Now that their food and clothing source is gone Nor are Congress and the Army protecting Indian reservations from the encroachment of settlers and miners With a corruption of Indian agents At this time of suffering, a prophet appears among the Plains Indians, a pilot named Wovoka He has been transported into heaven, where he has learned that Jesus Christ is about to return and on his return the white man will disappear from the earth A new earth will arise, the buffalo will return, and departed Indians will reappear To prepare for the Messiah's Second Coming, Wovoka teaches the ghost dance which breads across the reservations The whites are frightened The Indian agents are frightened When General Nelson Miles prepares for another Indian campaign Short bull and kicking bear lead their people to the northwest corner of Pine Ridge They send a message for Sitting Bull to join them But before he can, Sitting Bull is arrested by Indian police and killed It is now December General Miles orders the arrest of Chief Bigfoot to the Minikonju Bigfoot and his band of 400 starving men, women and children head south Seeking refuge with Red Cloud, a friend of the whites Bigfoot, ill with pneumonia, rides in a wagon But before he can find Red Cloud, Bigfoot and his band are intercepted by the 7th Calvary and brought to Wounded Knee Creek Frank, Carl, and I watch and listen as Larry dramatizes the massacre, pointing out where the 7th Calvary troops were positioned And up here up this road, about 4 miles, you're going to come across another plaque Not as large as that one, but it's going to say Chief Bigfoot surrenders And this is where they brought it And the next morning after they disarmed the 4-4 warriors They said you're going to the 7th Calvary agreed You're going to hear a gun shot, rifle shot She had a ride above that rear director Right above the road, you could see a hill He had one Hotchkiss cannon facing, you see the encampment was at the base of this hill And there's one Hotchkiss cannon facing into And they had the little warriors lined up from east to west And they took away their pistols If you go to Pine Ridge Sioux Nation Shopping Center, ask them where the book, the native book area is, the bookstore They'll show you, by that book called "Masker of Wounded Knee" You had two Hotchkiss cannons in between on foot, you had ANI troops armed Down the side of that hill, by the other Hotchkiss cannon, you had the 38, the 38, the 7th Calvary And on this flat, north to south, you had ANB troops, foot soldiers And during encampment was right here on this side, on the south, the east of this hill Where they had lined up their tents But the many conjure encampment was at the base, their tents Mounted across the ravine which runs east to west, you had C and D II With their sabers drawn swords So they agreed after this armament If you go and hear that rifle shot, commence the slaughter So they went, after the warriors did that Fired, they mowed them down Boom, boom, boom, boom We come up with 797, 702, 4 kilo Yeah, the sign is BS I do not believe that sign, I never will Read that book, "Masker of Wounded Knee" It's a paperback book I forget the Arthur book, you read it And it got so 43 survivors that were taken, that were after four days later Were taken to Pine Ridge Episcopal Church They turned a church into a makeshift hospital And no white doctors wanted to help them So they sent for Charles Eastman up in North Dakota standing rock And they brought him down here, he's a native, he's system walked in Sioux From East River, on that side of Missouri They brought him down here, and he's the one that doctored To help [crowd yelling] [crowd yelling] [crowd yelling] What is life on Pine Ridge reservation like today? [crowd yelling] Me, I don't see it as a hard living, a hard life at all Because I made the choice to live my life here on the reservation [crowd yelling] [crowd yelling] [crowd yelling] What's it like to live out here? Oh man, it's retarded, man How so? What? That's how it's over there Alcohol is always flowing through everything Isn't it a dry reservation, isn't it? The more it never was, everybody thinks it is, but it's not What do you hope to be 5'10 years from now? Uh, working by all the rest, working somewhere else, besides you What I want to imagine is like my own company, like being an entrepreneur or something like that You think, why would you want to do that here? I know you could do it right now too, but you know everything is kind of slow down here What is that, you know, economics and stuff? That's just about it It's the way life is around here But it's not all about drinking it Yeah, it's not all about everybody always comes around this bill Everybody always comes around this bitch always telling me You know, that it's all about this, and now it's not You just got to have a good time, you know, it's the way it's going to be Because I made the choice to put down the alcohol and, you know, put down the drugs and live like a normal person, and it seems to be getting me by It's all about the choice, you know, a lot of us have choices and some of them made the choice to be drunk all day, you know What's your take on it? On living out here? Yeah It needs to be real California, it can be real peaceful, man It's more peaceful than the cities, you don't have to worry about locking your car Like, over in the cities, so And look, look, look, this is the only time it's getting wild and crazy And the people here are really giving, they like, you know, they don't want nothing back Like, if they get a bunch of money, they'll just give it away right away And not plan for the future Just spend all their money and they live like, "Oh, that's all right, we'll make it" ♪♪ Once confined to Pine Ridge Reservation, the Eglala Lakota's traditional life and culture began disintegrating at an increased pace The men's traditional roles as hunters and providers disappeared Alcoholism increased Traditional religion was threatened by Christianity All this has made life painful and pointless to many of the young Who began seeing suicide as the better alternative to life on the reservation Eileen Janus is the outreach person for Sweetgrass Youth Suicide Prevention Program on Pine Ridge Eileen is a traditionalist and much of her effectiveness with the young is due to her grounding in Lakota religion ♪♪ Well, a long time ago, the men hunted, they made sure, you know, that all the family was taken care of And like when a young baby fifth a male reached two years old, they took them to teach them How to, you know, butcher and how to preserve meat and how to do, you know, all of this, you know, to take care of the family And nowadays, the men, there's no jobs. What do we have, 80% unemployment here? There's no jobs The women are going to school, the women are getting all the benefits they can to keep the kids going And the men are just sitting there. And so like even when you bury somebody, my brother, it's a medicine man, he said, you know, men bury people The men do it, you know, not the women. And nowadays, you see women even getting in there taking the shovels and And burying, just taking all these little jobs away from them. And the men have, we've lost them So any men right now that speak Lakota, they end their sentences like a woman because there's a way a man ends it and a way a woman ends it But they speak like a woman because their grandma's taught them or their mom's taught them And they've just, they can't do that anymore and you can't just go out and hunt anymore Because now they got license and they got all this, you know, and that and that you have to follow and they don't have the money to do that So they have just given up really, so the women are the backbone and the men have just fallen out of the picture But was the Lakota always a matriarchal society? That's what they say, you know, but we still had respect, the men, it was always head men, nachos They were the ones who spoke, they did ask the women, you know, what do you think about it? But they're the ones who made the final decision on anything with the tribe or the families What where did this come from? Someone we talked to said it was a matriarchal society It is the women do have a say in it, but they're the ones that take care of the houses and, well, I mean, you know, keep it clean They had their roles and they really listened to the grandmothers, they respect them, that's what it is Because that's what the sweat lodges, it's the womb of the mother But women play a big role, but they do not take away the role of the men And many have done that, so they're running the families and also with Lakota's The firstborn, if it's a son, they're babies, you know, everything is done for them And I don't know, they just need more jobs And now the women are more aggressive and more loud where they used to sit back Like if it was me and my oldest son, he would do the talking and I would sit back And let him talk because he was the male Because his dad died, so that's why he would be the next one to talk But they don't do that anymore So women will jump up before elderly men and he shouldn't do that You know, so if you were going to say something, I got to shut up I got to listen But if, but they don't do that anymore, a lot of things are just lost We lost so much The strongest thing we can do is pray, pray that we can get back Not living in teepees and not, you know, that way, but our values and the way we should be to each other Because what we learn now from, what they took away from us was spirituality So I say, that's the first thing that went wrong Because they taught us doggy dog They taught us, we're going to throw a few crumbs out You know, the one who's the loudest or strongest is going to get the most And that's what we're taught now, that's what adults do now So that's why I tell the kids, I tell them to be around you than adults Because I said, "How many of you, you kids?" I said, "Did your parents run somebody down?" And then when they see them, they say, "Oh, why? How are you doing? Good to see you?" But help each other, don't bully, don't be like the adults Let's change this reservation Be good to each other and help each other, don't be like the adults, you know And they really, the young men really listened The girls were chatty and stuff, but the young men, I could just see them all They were just focused on what I was saying and I thought, "That's awesome!" You know, because so much has been taken away from our men We need to build them up again through our young men You know, give it back to them, their roles One girl got up and said, "One lady was just what happened to walk in" She said, "You're wrong, these kids have everything They have more than we had when we were growing up" So I looked at her and I thought, "You don't do that?" She said, "They have computers, they have iPods, they have..." You know, all these things I said, "But it hurts them, it hurts them more" They don't see the trees, they don't see the energy They pick up from the grasses and from the air You know, they don't understand that part, they've missed, they have their worst But I let her go! [cheering] You're listening to Spirit and Action, a Northern Spirit radio production And that's website, northernspiritradio.org Normally, I, Mark Helps Meat Act is your host, but today Robert Wolfe is sitting in for me Sharing material he gathered for his American Mosaic radio program Track Robert Down at American Mosaic.org and listen to all the shows he produces Today he's taking us to South Dakota, the Pine Ridge Reservation Thanks to Robert Wolfe for filling in today for Spirit and Action Back over to you Robert [cheering] There are other reasons for the present circumstances on Pine Ridge Mark St. Pierre is eloquent when he speaks to them St. Pierre, published author and NEA fellow for creative nonfiction His co-owner with his Lakota wife of a bed and breakfast on Pine Ridge St. Pierre holds a BA in community development He is passionate on the subject and the role federal policy has played in creating the present crisis on Pine Ridge [cheering] At the turn of the century, slightly before the turn of the century, the government Brought into a philosophy of the vanishing red man and the idea amongst each eastern You know, intellectuals I guess was that through miscegenation and disease Alcoholism and a variety of other ways that Indian people would vanish and that it wouldn't be a problem in perpetuity because there would be no Native Americans and so their thinking in terms of solutions was very short-term As a result of that, they never saw large Native communities You know, having an economy and internal economy serving each other Providing each other with goods and services As a result of that, there never was any thought that there should be any Transition from the traditional economy of buffalo and trading with the world In terms of buffalo pelts and the kinds of things that made Lakota people rich In the 19th century, there was just the thought that we have to come up with short-term solutions Because these people are going to disappear Well, in fact, the matter that didn't happen and so in the late 20th century, early 21st century We have large communities that have no internal economic structure We have no retail buildings We have no central sewer systems We have nothing that would resemble what non-Indian people take for granted And that has been to the benefit of border towns for 140 years And it's been very purposeful in Lakota The term for "suffering" slang today is "teche" and it comes from "Ochecheka" And it means to suffer And the suffering of the people today, the short life spans, the poverty, the stress, the constant struggle to survive Benefits to border towns And that means that every federal dollar that flows in here The police department, the hospital system, healthcare, education All those people, many of whom are Lakota, have to spend their income right off the reservation Which in richest towns like Rapid City, Hot Springs, Shadron, Nebraska And that relationship is now cut in stone And so, actually, the state of dependency is now preserved Artously by the dominant society economy By 1973, life on Pine Ridge had hit rock bottom Dennis Banks, in his memoir, "Ajibwa Warrior" describes Pine Ridge in 1973 as a scene of desolation Banks, now a successful businessman, was once a leader of the American Indian movement Most people, Banks wrote thinking back on his time in Pine Ridge "lived entire paper shacks without running water, electricity, or indoor plumbing Some lived in small, ancient log cabins with dirt floors By Banks' estimate, about three-quarters of Pine Ridge residents were without decent housing The unemployment rate was astronomical, there was not even one food store or bank A mixed blood named Dick Wilson was tribal chairman During 1972, in his first year in office, Wilson helped start a tribal housing authority on Pine Ridge He also handed out jobs to mixed blood friends and relatives A fact that angered full blood Lakotas A year later, in February 1973, three tribal council members introduced a case of impeachment against Wilson Two of the charges brought against him were nepotism and the appropriation of tribal funds for his own use To the charge of nepotism, Wilson replied, "There is nothing in tribal law against nepotism" To the anger of many, the impeachment case was closed by the presiding chair The breach between traditionalists and the mixed bloods of Wilson's camp widened Federal marshals arrived at Pine Ridge Village to keep the peace In the meantime, violence against Indians in border towns along the reservation brought the American Indian movement, AIM, to Pine Ridge Reservation AIM was an activist movement, and in 1972 AIM had occupied the BIA building in Washington, D.C. And started a riot in Custer, South Dakota, which resulted in the trashing of two police cars, damaged to the courthouse and the burning of the Custer Chamber of Commerce One of AIM's leaders, Russell Means, is a Naglalot Lakota tribal member In February 1973, Russell Means sent a tape-recorded message to Dennis Banks in nearby Rapid City where banks and other AIM members were dealing with local Indian civil rights issues Means asked banks and the others to come to Pine Ridge Trouble was brewing But ensued was a 71-day siege outside Woundedney Village at the site of the 1890 Massacre The siege was often violent and deep in divisions between travel members Opinions are divided on AIM, on the siege, and on its leaders Larry Thunderhorse, a traditionalist who lives at Woundedney Village is selling beaded jewelry at the site of the massacre which is where AIM chose to make it stand Larry has a book of news stories on the occupation This is 73, this is 73 You can read it in the caption Participants in the Woundedney stand-off line up to get their faces painted Bunkers used by riflemen during the periodic gun battle with federal officers during the standoff are part way up the hill toward the Sacred Heart Church And these are the federal marshals When you get up on top of the hill there is a flat This is them, they had a roadblock up there Every high point Yeah, armor first now carriers, U.S. Marshals shooting in with 50 calibers The government is negotiating American Indian Movement It's negotiating with Senators Yeah, forensic whatever his name is in I'm sorry George McGovern So they were here during the standoff They came in to negotiate peace Yeah, because of Richard Dick Wilson He was our tribal president who was very corrupt He was embezzling He had a force Called Goon Squad Goon means guardians of the Oglala nation Which they were not They were terrorizing Rape in young women Anybody hitchhiking They'd come and terrorize them and beat them up Especially they didn't appreciate people with long care The Goons were made up of half-breeds Part white, part of Oglala And that's who he employed He got three ranches on that He embezzled He took away our education money He took a lot away So that's why our elders got together He had a meeting and invited AIM to come and take him out AIM is a activist organization that fights for human rights Just like the Black Panthers They will fight for your human rights If you are being done wrong You call them and they'll come And they'll straighten out the gun The discrimination So that's why our elders went against him Because of his terrorist organization He was like Saddam Hussein And he was very corrupt He bought one ranch in Arizona Two ranches Two ranches in Oglala North of Pine Ridge We have On our reservation To this date, 68 unsolved murders and deaths Another point of view about Dick Wilson and AIM Is expressed by Tom Casey General Manager of Keeley Radio The Community Radio Station on Pine Ridge Reservation Thomas White A single parent with three daughters Two were enrolled members of the Oglala Lakota Tribe He has been on Keeley's payroll since 1989 Before that, he taught the Oglala Lakota College AIM tore this place up I mean, it moved a knee, I don't think It split the community, not only just the community of Oglala But it split the tribe Dick Wilson and his supporters They were called goons at the time They were totally against AIM They didn't want AIM here They didn't want AIM to celebrate Their victory in Washington, D.C. Yeah, that took place in the trail of broken treaties In the fall of '82 They didn't want that, they didn't want that celebrated They wanted to take a different path AIM was much more confrontational And they had a different way of going about it They ended up taking over Wounded Knee It was a plan, it was an accident Who knows, but it was a 71 day occupation So even in the community of Wounded Knee, there were people who supported it And some who didn't I mean, let's face it, it totally disrupted the life in Wounded Knee You know, it was an occupation Finally, after the first week or so You had roadblocks, you had U.S. Marshals, you had FBI And then you had a war You actually had war with skirmishing going on And firefights every night, even 50 caliber machine guns And at one point, they made a request To Fort Carson Army Base outside of Colorado Springs For artillery, they never got that But there are armored personnel carriers Rolling around the hills, around Wounded Knee And it went for 71 days And it was surreal, you had Flares going up, to light it up, to try and keep track of anybody coming in or out And they would fall to the ground and light a prairie fire Or fall on a building and burn a building U.S. Senators from South Dakota, James Aburzek and George McGovern Arrived at Wounded Knee to negotiate between the two sides By the end of the siege, two Indians had been killed and one FBI agent left paralyzed The government had deployed 15 armored personnel carriers Along with rifles, grenade launchers, flares And 133,000 rounds of ammunition The total cost of the government's action was over half a million dollars Larry Thunderhorse was a young boy during the siege Terrible There's a lot of "boop, boop, boop, boop, boop" mission and fire Armed aim warriors were barricaded in buildings that were shredded by government gunfire That's why the government burned down the church The museum, the store, the cabins, they had a horseback ride Seeing they employed none but Lakota They employed Indians, my aunties, my uncles My cousins, they all worked there Pumping gas, fixing tires Larry says that during the siege he lived over the hill in Wounded Knee village Our school bus driver We used to have a standby to approach over there And he had to pull up and pick us up to the school One morning he pulled up Flat tire, bullet holes all over the bus Windows busted out, he was all beat up He black-eyed, bruised his lip He said, "You fucking Indians are crazy" He said, "I don't know what got into you guys, but you guys are crazy" No school today, he said, "I'm getting the hell out of here, I'm going rapid city" Well, I still got my life He took off To beat him up Aim, aim, aim, y'all, they took over the store First thing, they took over the store and they took over a cab, that's a turn And they seen him coming so they stopped him and Shot up the bus, busted the windows, beat up our bus driver He said, "No school today, kids" He said, "You guys are crazy" Well, at the time I didn't understand what aim was about And now I understand that they stick up for Native American rights When you're getting discriminated against prejudice Whatever, something bad happened to a native Aim will be there To take up for you Not to put you down, but to take up for you To stand for your rights You're human rights You have human rights He has human rights We all have human rights That have to be respected I respect you, I respect you You're the color yellow You're the color white I'm the color red, brownskins And black represents Africans We're all created as brothers and sisters Under the eyes of the Wakantaka, the great spirit God, whatever you call him You're Messiah or whatever, but I call him What comes up with the great spirit And he will take up for us You know, spiritually we're created as brothers and sisters Under his eyes 'Cause we all bleed bread Sidney Siege bore bad and good fruit Aim had sought to give Native Americans a positive vision of themselves Which meant embracing traditional spirituality Central to Lakota spirituality are sweat lodges Vision quests and the Sundance Tom Casey Before Wounded Knee happened in 1973 The Sundance that took place on Pine Ridge Was one Sundance in Pine Ridge Village And it was a Sundance that included It was a Sundance, a powwow, a rodeo, and a carnival All at the same place, all in the same grounds After Wounded Knee, the Sundance alone Was taken out of Pine Ridge A fool's crow Took it to Three Mile Creek And that's where the Sundance started again After '73 And it became just a Sundance No recorders, no cameras Total respect for what was happening there Lakota spirituality And that's what it was A Sundance, nothing else And from that We have seen an explosion of Sundances So now instead of just one tribal Sundance Over a summer we may have 50 or 60 Sundances going on We may have a Sundance With as few people dancing as three to five people That represent a Tjoshbi So it's really a Tjoshbi Sundance And as many as 120 or 140 that come together Like a Jerome Labo Sundance So from one end to the other So 50 to 60 Sundances that take place That offer an opportunity For young Actually Lakota people of all ages But many of them are younger people Who can learn and participate In a traditional Lakota spiritual way So that's one thing that's come out of underneath That celebration, that explosion of Traditional Lakota spirituality That it's okay, not only okay That it's a great way to go To deal with To deal with your life To base your life on Maybe to deal with struggles with alcohol And drugs Or to help your family To sacrifice for those four days And in those four days to be To sacrifice and to Pray, to pray for your family To pray for your community Pray for your nation And so those opportunities I've just tremendously expanded since 1973 High Lane Janus Is a volunteer for Sweetgrass A youth suicide prevention program On Pine Ridge Sweetgrass is Like sage It helps to cleanse you So When I burn it you see the smoke When you take it and you put it over You ask Tingashilada Take those bad feelings out of you To keep you feeling good Say whatever you need to say To the kids did Curries and help them feel good And you pray for the youth Also, always pray for them Because they do have it tough And I grew up with Traditional, the sweat lodge And the teachings of that way Where When they grow up through the church They don't learn the same They don't have the same Understandings of things And through the sweat lodge you do And it's Because it's not really a religion It's a way of life So That's why I just wanted to work with youth I wanted to help them All I'm doing is teaching the kids How to pray I said I don't care who you pray to You know if it's God, if it's Tingashilah Whoever, just so you learn to pray And I tell them a tear is their first prayer A tear is a prayer And if you cry, it's okay It's going to help your body, you know But They really get on me for doing tradition Even some of the council people That have been I say brainwashed Say you shouldn't be teaching them that So then I have the medicine men standing up Saying why? That's what they need to learn And then they back off on me But Christianity has hurt us a lot Because we lost our ways Do you get any of the extras into sweat lodges? Yeah, a lot of them And I used to use like Robert the one that sings And she met yesterday We have one behind my house And so he gets a lot of the youth that Young men, mostly a lot of them That don't want to drink They're tired of looking over their shoulders From being in gangs That one day one of them, old as my son Came in and he just cried and I said Just cry, you know, let it out You're human, everybody cries, you know You don't have to be this big tough guy And he did and he said And I lean on my life I would go home, I'd be hungry I'd want this and that And he'd say They beat me up, tell me shut up You know, and he said, so I'd just go out on the street My friends say, well, let's go here Let's go there and they were the family And then they get mad at them for heavy gangs And that's the only Support system they have a lot of times But I get a lot of the young people In sweat and I really Have to give my son's credit Because It's hard to hear these stories And they both would help me On suicides and I would find them crying Because of the young person's story Of how hard they have it And I tell my boys, you know They're both I think AJ's a little bigger than Robert So they're Robert's like 62, AJ's 63, 64 Well, big guys, but They will cry in front of the kids In sweat and show them It's okay But it did take a toll on them So I said You guys don't have to You know, I don't want to hurt you Because this is hard, it really has hard Work to do with hearing all of this But they both are still there For me when I need them But it is tough on them And I always think that's so cool They help each other, you know And what happens in their stays in there So they don't go out And they don't go anywhere But with the yearning for wholeness The Lakota spirituality Has come a dark figure Are suicides, did Tom Casey tell you About the dark spirit? No When A lot of our youth went before Their attempt Or before they die They tell about this tall Tall man dressed all in black And you can't see his face And he's standing either outside the window While he's on a playground, he's telling them Come on, let's go See you and Many of them, many of them Have seen him Suicide's kind of spiritual around here And so some of the younger ones When they're in that weak state When they're in that state Where nobody loves me, nobody cares What future do I have I'm going to end up like this Anyway, you know That's when they come To get you when you show weakness And many of our youth are weak So they even brought in these Four-old men from Wyoming, from the Arapaho Who only bring out red cedar And pray with it when That happens to stark spirit Because he was in Wyoming They had a rash of suicides Oklahoma had a rash of suicides North Dakota But they only done it at their home They came here And they prayed with that red cedar And a lot of the youth Did see the dark spirit for a while But now he's back And he says he's going to take a lot with him He told the medicine men in ceremonies Different ones that He opened his coat He said look And you could see all kinds of people Inside there with him And he said These are the ones I'm going to take But our youth from all over the razz Have seen it Even some older people have seen it So they take their kids and they go pray with them and everything But there's a dark spirit out there So he's called Wichunte The Death Spirit So that's why this sage On eaglebone whistle And the pipe Will keep him away So whenever we have a gathering of youth Always try to just burn it at different places To keep the Place safe And the kids really feel it too They know they're okay But there's so much to this You know? Sorry to sum it all up So there is today even today Which is like 38 years After Wounded Day What were the benefits of Wounded Day What came out of Wounded Day And there's definitely people who say nothing Absolutely nothing And there are other people who take a Bigger picture of you and say No, there's a lot who came out of Wounded Day I mean, it was part of the Native American Process of standing around there Two feet and saying Hey, it's time that we did it And we made decisions It's time that we decided How we were going to live Or decide what values are important And the stress and things like that You've been listening to a special edition Of Spirit in Action With Robert Wolf of American Mosaic.org subbing for me Thanks to Robert And the many guests who shared On this visit to the Pine Ridge Reservation Of South Dakota May their spirits and yours May be next week here For Spirit in Action The theme music for this program Is Turning of the World Performed by Sarah Thompson This Spirit in Action program Is an effort of Northern Spirit Radial You can listen to our programs And find links and information about us And our guests on our website NorthernSpiritRadial.org Thank you for listening I am your host Marc Helpsmeet And I welcome your comments With the stories of those leading lives Of spiritual fruit May you find deep roots To support you and grow steadily Toward the light This is Spirit in Action With every voice With every song We will move this world Home With every voice With every song We will move this world Home And our lives will feel The echo of our healing You