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Special Resource Report: Regarding life, conditions, and hope on the Pine Ridge Oglala Lakota (Sioux) Reservation of SD

NAYANGANAWEH
A poem by by John Eric Gulliksen.

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PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

Stephen B. Martin President of Lakota Kidz

Winter comes early to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. It seems only last week that the last snow melted from the high hill near the old pipestone quarry in neighboring Minnesota. A monster blizzard late last winter took its toll in lives, and in the hearts of many Lakota people. They pray that this winter will be less cruel.

The quarry of blood-red pipestone is sacred. They say it's the fossilized blood of the people who lived before the Great Flood, the people who perished so that Wakan Tanka (the Great Spirit) could make better people. It's the only place that pipestone can be found in abundance. The stone is used exclusively to make the bowls of the sacred Channupas (pipes) used in many Lakota ceremonies.

According to legend, only one woman survived the flood, a very beautiful woman. As she stood at the top of the quarry hill, helplessly watching the others drown, Wanblee - the mighty eagle - hovered down and let her grab his legs. It is said he carried her that way all the way to his home - a tall tree on Devil's Tower in Wyoming, the only place the water couldn't reach.

Wanblee loved the woman. Author and "Seeker of Visions" John Fire Lame Deer has explained that in those times, back when the world was new, people and animals were closer together. There was less difference between us, and more love. Anyway, Wanblee married the woman and she bore twins, a boy and a girl.

"Now there will be people again," she said. "Washtay (It is good)."

"Washtay," Wanblee agreed.

When the water finally receded, he took them down to the fresh, clean forest far below and told them to start a great nation. The Lakota Nation.

The twins grew up. He was the only man in the world, and she was the only woman, so they got married and had children. And many years later there was a great nation, a strong nation of people who lived in harmony with all of nature.

The Lakota kill in reverence, and only when necessary for survival. They were the first recyclers - what they didn't eat they wore, slept on, and fashioned into housing, tools, weapons and art. They "had an arrangement" with Tatanka, the buffalo, whereby the two races could have coexisted forever.

"Mitakuye Oyasin (We are all related)," say the Lakota. And so we all are - not only every human being on Earth, but every animal, plant, rock, and element in our global environment. But only the Lakota are said to be descendents of wise and fearless Wanblee.

Back in 1991, when J.P. Sullivan drove his first truckload of toys, clothing and blankets from Abington, Massachusetts to Pine Ridge, he simply drove into the first village he found. He had no idea that the remote cluster of 100 government shacks was, by US census, the poorest town in America.

He didn't even know the town's name: Wanblee.