James Giago Davies. Photo from Native Sun News
How do we honor Lakota ancestors?
Healthy traditions traditionally adapt to changing times
By James Giago Davies
www.nsweekly.com For untold centuries, the historical Lakota moved through an ever changing world filled with threatening enemies and life altering realities. Always they adapted, they stuck together and carved out a place they could call home, whether that was far to the east in the Carolinas, up in the woodlands near the Great Lakes, or out beyond the Black Hills in Powder River country. They gave up hunting for farming, and then gave up farming for hunting, gave up walking for horseback and bow for rifle. They made new friends, forged strong alliances in the face of fresh enemies. Never did they stagnate, close their minds and hearts to alien ideas and opportunities. Eventually they ran up against a threat they could not overcome, an alien culture from the far side of a dark ocean, which overwhelmed them with aggressive numbers, a culture armed with technologies beyond their life experience. Time and again they defeated this powerful enemy in battle, by learning his ways, adopting his technology, but to save the women and children, they were finally forced to surrender at Fort Robinson in 1877. Once on the reservation all that they were was stripped from them. Every attempt was made to replace their beliefs and customs with those of the dominant culture. The people adapted to their new circumstance, like they always had, but before they had always remained a free people. Now they were boxed up on small reservations, their lives tightly controlled.
Read the rest of the story on the all new Native Sun News website: How do we honor Lakota ancestors? (James Giago Davies can be reached at skindiesel@msn.com) Copyright permission Native Sun News
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