"As a child, he would walk with his grandfather across the prairie and along rivers on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation of South Dakota.

Winter, spring, summer and fall, a young Joseph Marshall III walked beside his grandfather, who wore a funny hat.

"'Look back at the way we came,'" his grandfather would say, motioning toward the trail behind them. "'You need to look back at the way we came, because one of these days I'm going to send you back down that trail by yourself. And if you don't remember the way, you'll get lost.'

"The past is that trail," Marshall said.

Marshall, a Lakota author, told more than 500 people at the sixth annual Chief Standing Bear Breakfast on Friday that it's important for all people to remember the sacrifices of their ancestors, including Ponca Chief Standing Bear. In 1879, Standing Bear made history after being declared a person before the law during a trial in which the U.S. government tried to prosecute him for leaving his tribe's Oklahoma reservation."

Get the Story:
Kevin Abourezk: Lakota author: Remember your ancestors, your past (The Lincoln Journal Star 5/21)