It is said that everything has a beginning. This is true for every kind of being and every nation on the face of Grandmother Earth. Now and then there is more than one beginning. This is certainly true of those who once called themselves the Buffalo Nation. But we should not overlook the story behind the name.
Long, long ago, before the people called themselves the Buffalo Nation, they lived in the earth. How and when they came to the place they would eventually call the Heart of All Things, no one can remember. It happened so long ago that it is beyond the reach of memory, so long ago that it is on the other side of memory. Also lost in the mists of the past is the reason the people had become dwellers beneath the earth in the first place. There are some who think one of their ancestors, a young man, married a young woman whose people lived beneath mountains that rose from the prairie floor. Those mountains were sacred to the people, a place exceedingly beautiful to behold. From a distance the pine trees covering their slopes appeared black, so the mountains were called the Black Hills.
However they had come to live in a cave in the Black Hills, those-who-lived-in-the-earth had a good life. Other beings also lived in the cave but the people shared the place with them. Everyone in that underworld lived on the myriad of plants that grew there, near the creeks and around the springs, which were plentiful. All the beings, including the people, wanted for nothing.
Change comes in the most unexpected ways, however, and sometimes when it is least expected. One day one of those-who-lived-in-the-earth happened to be curious about a path that led upward, and he followed it. There were many great caverns, and a wind came in from some mysterious place and went out just as mysteriously. It was the wind that led this young man to a narrow passageway. He followed it up and up, listening to the sound of the wind. To the young man it was as if the earth itself was breathing, in and out.
After a long, long climb, the passageway narrowed until it was not much more than a low crack in the rock, and the young man had to crawl to fit into it. Suddenly, he was nearly blinded by bright light. Resisting the urge to flee back down into the cave, he covered his face until he could see again. Looking around, he saw strange sights and colors, and he nearly did retreat into the cave. But he was an adventurous young man and his curiosity overcame his fear.
Stretching before him was a meadow covered with grass and dotted with small groves of trees. On a distant slope were tall, dark trees through which breezes sighed and whispered. Over it all floated thin, wispy clouds beneath a sky of bright blue. In that same sky was a brilliant, glistening orb that seemed to beckon to the young man. He wondered if perhaps it was the reason for a kind of warmth he had never felt in his life.
Time was not important in those days on the other side of memory, and certainly not for a person who had spent his entire life beneath the earth where there was no sun or moon, no sunrises or sunsets. The young man wandered across the meadow to one hill and then another, staring at trees and plants and things he had never seen before. Here was a place he had heard of only in stories—stories he thought were only bits and pieces of old people’s imaginations.
He wandered around gazing, gawking, and touching, almost as if he were a child again, discovering new things. The light was fading when he remembered he was in a place not his home, so he hurried back to the opening in the ground. Deep in the caverns of the cave he excitedly told the elders what had happened. He told them of the things he had seen beyond the opening at the top of the cave.
Some of the elders were angry with the young man. They scolded him for his impetuousness. Nevertheless, the news spread quickly. There was a different place—a different world—if the young man was telling the truth.
One thing was certain: curiosity was something everyone was born with—it was the way to explore life. In spite of the elders’ warnings and advice that the situation should be approached with care, some begged the young man to take them up to the new world. After preparing food and filling water containers, they followed him to the opening. But not all of them were ready to make a bold leap. At the crucial moment, most of them gave in to their fears and stayed behind. Only three went out.
Those who stayed waited below the opening, sitting inside the narrow space and looking toward the light. The young man and the others had disappeared into that light. Impatience turned to apprehension as the four did not immediately return. But after a while the hesitant ones fell asleep, and suddenly, it seemed, they were being shaken awake by the four explorers.
Like the young man who had gone out first into the outer world, the three with him were excited, all trying to tell their stories at once. Their enthusiasm spread. The elders listened and suggested a plan. Eight of the ablest men were to go out and explore as far as they dared, then return to report.
And so it was done. Outside the eight men went in pairs in different directions. After a few days they returned. They brought with them a variety of plants and a container of water from a flowing stream, and they described everything they had seen. Most wondrous of all was the sun coming up in one place, traversing the sky, and going down in another.
Again the elders devised a plan, perhaps the most important one in the lives of their people. It was a simple plan: to leave their underground world. If all went well they would never again call themselves those-who-lived-in-the-earth. So it was that the people packed all their belongings and their tools. After one final gathering and a meal in the great, high cavern that had been their meeting place, everyone trekked upward toward the light. Everyone, that is, except for one woman.
Nothing that anyone said could entice her to change her mind. She simply and steadfastly refused to leave. Two of the elders stayed with her awhile—the oldest man and the oldest woman. They could see that she was at peace with her decision to stay behind. The elders knew that everything happened for a reason; life had a purpose and there was a power that had made the world. So they honored the woman’s wish to remain.
The first days on the surface were full of uncertainty. Everything they saw, touched, tasted, or smelled was new, and they were overwhelmed by the sheer size of the landscape and the endless sky. Some of their all-but-forgotten stories told how they had once lived in this world that was new to them now. But even the oldest among them could not remember.
Little by little they grew accustomed to the new surroundings, adjusting to circumstances and conditions day by day. Occurrences such as wind and rain were a shock, and thunder and lightning were outright terrifying. But under the steady influence of the elders, the people learned how to get along on the surface. There was one unfailing truth: the sun came up each day, sometimes hiding behind different manners of cloud, it traveled across the sky, and went down. Sometimes another kind of light filled the night sky. Its light was not as bright nor as reliable as the sun’s, but it was another reality for the people to embrace. Over time the people would come to understand those great powers in the sky, but those days were yet to come.
The people were not unused to cold and hunger. As gray clouds filled the skies and the breezes blew colder, the elders directed shelters to be built and food stored. Their wise counsel served the people well as the snows and cold of their first winter above the ground came. It was a deep cold they had not felt, but they knew how to build fires, and somehow the days passed and warmth returned to the land.
Over the warmer days of spring and into that first summer they explored the great mountains. They learned what manner of plants grew where, and there was enough bounty to feed them well, though they had to share it with other beings. By the next spring they were looking to the unknown lands stretching away beyond the edges of the mountains, their curiosity rising once more.
The elders knew they could not keep the young men back, no matter the weight of the wisdom and depth of the reason with which the old ones spoke. Young men were always most intrigued by the unknown; they could not resist its allure. So as the seasons went on, several young men—and it could be said they were both foolish and brave—turned their footsteps toward the distant horizons. Some went north, some east, others south, and still others west. Not all of them returned, but those who did told of a world that was endless: of mountains, valleys, gorges, prairies, and of rivers great and small.
Not all the people were ready or willing to leave their great mountains, a place of beauty as well as plenty, a place that became for them like the heart of Grandmother Earth herself. There were those, however, who yearned to see what waited beyond the far horizons. After generations of living within the limits of a cavern beneath the ground, they did not want to stop moving. So they became wanderers, never staying an entire season in one place, moving their dwellings often. Some young men captured wild dog pups and tamed them to be friends and companions, and to carry loads as well.
Years passed. The elders who had led the people out of the cave passed into the spirit world, and others took their place. The new elders did not feel the connection to their old world as their predecessors had, and they forgot that one of their people had stayed behind. Now no one went back to that world beneath the ground to visit her. As the years passed, anyone who did remember her assumed that she had passed into the spirit world as well.
Life was good. The people learned to adapt to the seasons and whims of the natural world, learning from the animals who long preceded them there. They learned that it was necessary to do more than planting and gathering to have enough food to survive. So they learned to hunt, again following the examples of the animals who hunted. The power that had created the world and everything in it also gave them the ability to reason and adapt. So they did.
One night a man, a thinker and a philosopher, had been gazing at the thinnest sliver of waning moon. Suddenly he envisioned a weapon in that shape. Cutting down a slender ash tree, he whittled and carved it to look like the waning moon, and thus the bow was born. Next he adapted the lance, making it slender and shorter to fit the bow. Then he showed the moon’s gift to his fellow hunters. With the new weapon the hunters became more effective at procuring food for their families.
Nevertheless, as often happens in the natural world with its whims and cycles, circumstances changed. Less snow fell one winter, followed by fewer rains in the spring, which meant that the summer and autumn were dry. When it happened again, plants that were the source of sustenance for many animals did not grow. After the third or fourth cycle of dry seasons, the lack of water spelled doom for everyone and every thing.
Since the people now relied mainly on hunting to procure food, they had no choice but to range far and wide after the animals they hunted. And the animals in turn had to travel great distances to find food and water. Yet no matter how far the animals and the people searched, the land was dry and food was scarce. People and animals starved and died of thirst.
In times of need and distress, it is a primal force in everyone to yearn for home, and those who were still strong enough struggled with their last vestiges of strength to make their way back to their mountains and their cave. Not all survived the trek. The very few who did were met by the Woman-Who-Stayed—who was still alive after all—and her heart was broken by the news she heard. Her people were suffering and dying.
The woman left the cave and went out over the land and saw for herself. Dried-up creeks, plants, and trees withered from too much heat and not enough water were testament to the change that held the land and its inhabitants in a merciless grip. The woman returned to the shelter of the cave, her heart torn, her spirit feeling the pain of her people. She wept.
True desperation and heartache have a force. They are honest and primeval expressions that cannot be ignored. So as the Woman-Who-Stayed wept for her people, not knowing what to do to help or comfort them, her anguish reached the Power that had created everything. Something entered her awareness then, something like a whisper but carrying the power of thunder. There were no words she heard, only a sense of what she had to do.
After preparing herself according to her vision, the woman left the cave. In the open between two mountain ridges, she performed a simple ritual. Singing a song, she walked in a circle, sunwise, that is, in the direction the sun traveled across the sky. Once, twice, three times, and on the fourth circle she became a different being, one never seen on the face of the earth. She stood on four legs, taller at the shoulder than a man, her back curving up into a hump. Her hump sloped down into a great head with two black horns that curved upward, one on each side. She stood on four legs with black split hooves, and she was dark brown in color. The once all-but-forgotten Woman-Who-Stayed had turned into the most powerful creature on the land.
Not only did she become a different being, she was turned into many. As she continued to circle—as she had been told to do by the Power that entered her spirit—her song became a bellow that echoed across the land, and as she completed each circle another being like her appeared. Each of those new beings danced in its own circle, creating itself over and over again. By the time the sun had gone down, there were so many of these new beings that they filled the mountain meadows.
As the sun rose again, the wondrous new creatures left the great mountains and scattered themselves across the land. There were so many that they came out of the mountains in seemingly endless streams.
Hunters among the people were the first to see them. They were afraid because they had never seen four-legged beings so large. Wisely they hid and watched. They realized that the new creatures were not hunters. Hunters among the animals had fangs and claws, and their eyes were on the front of their heads—like the great cat and the wolf—while these beings’ eyes were set on the sides. Furthermore, the new creatures nibbled on what little grass there was.
After days of observing the new creatures, the hunters devised a plan. Working as a group they took one down. Many arrows were necessary, but their hopes were realized because the flesh of the creature provided so much meat. Soon word spread across the land and hope was rekindled. Hunters took meat home to their families and the people were saved from starvation. Not only that, they were reinvigorated.
Elders among the people sensed that the appearance of the large four-legged creatures was much more than a fortuitous turn. Whatever had brought it about, for them it was nothing less than the gift of life. Not only had the animals appeared at just the right moment to save the people, they had appeared in astonishing numbers. There was certainly a wondrous mystery to it, something profound that they could not yet fully understand. As if in affirmation, the rains returned and when winter came the snows fell again. Even the land itself was reborn. Grasses, shrubs, tree, and berry thickets flourished anew, and creeks and rivers filled again.
Since the obvious reason for the reprieve was the great animal that seemed to arrive out of nowhere, the people turned their efforts to knowing it as well as they could. Because there were so many of the great beasts and their main food was grass, they were not hard to find. Their domain was the great prairies. Scouts were sent to watch them, day and night, and it was not long before they became familiar with the habits of the largest four-leggeds on the prairie.
These animals that had saved them now became the main source of the people’s livelihood. In addition to being so plentiful that they were difficult to count, their sheer size was astonishing. One could feed a family from one new moon to the next. But as the days and seasons went by the people saw that there was more to these creatures than a source of food. There was more than the power that comes from strength and sheer size. They also symbolized the very spirit of survival and the ability to thrive on a land that separated the weak from the strong.
Various names arose to refer to them. One was the High-Backed Ones, which aptly described the high hump on their backs. Another was the Great Grass Eaters, because among the grazing animals they were the largest of all. Those two names, and others, eventually evolved into the Great Ones, a simple name that aptly described what they meant to the people.
The Great Ones roamed across the land in herds, some larger than others. Some herds were so numerous that it would take a day for them to cross a river. The people saw that each herd established its own territory and wandered throughout it, going where the grass was good. Every spring their young were born, their coats a reddish brown, so the cycle of the moon when the calves were born came to be known as the Moon of the Red Calves. No beings were better at surviving the deep snow and cold of the harsh prairie winter than the Great Ones. With their large split hooves they could dig through crusted snow to the grass beneath. Their hair grew long and thick for the winter, protecting them from intense cold. And when enemies came, though they had only a few, the Great Ones formed circles with the young in the center, making a protective wall of heads and sharp horns that nothing could breach.
The Great Ones were strong of body and spirit, virtues that the people knew they could take for themselves along with the sustenance. In time there was very little in the everyday lives of the people that did not show the mark of the Great Ones. They had discarded the old lodges made of brush and wood in favor of a new kind made from a few of the Great Ones’ hides scraped and sewn together. From the rawhide they made containers of every sort, for food, clothing, and household items. With the hair left on, the hides were warm sleeping robes. But there was much more. The people fashioned cups and spoons from the horns, toys from the backbones, and sled runners from the long rib bones.
Among the elders, some harbored a secret worry that the Great Ones might one day leave. They had come and saved the people. What would happen if they were to leave as suddenly and as mystically as they came? It was a question that could not be answered. But every elder knew that if the Great Ones did leave, circumstances for the people would change. Perhaps they would suffer again.
There arose another thought. Without the Great Ones the people might never have recovered from the extreme hardships that had befallen them. They might have all died of thirst and starvation. To some of the elders it was as if the Great Ones had been sent to save them, perhaps by the Power that had made the world. Especially since such an animal had never been seen before.
The truth came with an old woman who arrived at a summer gathering one day. She was one of those who had returned to the cave in the mountains during the darkest days of hardship. She told how the woman who had stayed in the cave was heartbroken by the pain of her people, so heartbroken that she could not be comforted, but offered herself to the Power that had created them all to stop the suffering. Though she was not certain that anyone would believe her, the old woman described how the Woman-Who-Stayed sang and danced and turned into the great animal that had saved the people.
Among the elders there was no doubt that the old woman’s story was true. One of them pointed out that among the great herds it was the cows who led; it was the mothers among them who protected their offspring so ferociously. The elders were awed and humbled that the Woman-Who-Stayed had been so selfless. The wisest of them suggested that they might establish ways to show that they were grateful. Another suggested that they must honor the great animals for all that they meant to the people. At the same time, the elders knew that they had to acknowledge the realities of the world around them. Not to do so would be to invite imbalance.
One reality was that the Great Ones had to be killed in order for the people to realize the gifts of life and comfort. The Great Ones had become the primary source for the basic needs of food, shelter, and clothing, gifts that were given after the sacrifice of life itself. So after much contemplation the elders devised rituals to honor that sacrifice.
They were simple rituals, but the elders advised, indeed begged, the people to perform them with humility and respect. First was the Calling Ceremony. Young men were chosen to be scouts, and it was their task to know where the herds were at all times during every season of the year, but it was an older man, one humble and respected among the people, who was charged with calling the Great Ones when it was time to hunt. The caller humbled himself and prayed to the spirit of the great animals to make themselves available, to bless the people with the gift of life.
The other ritual was one of thanksgiving. Every hunter was instructed to carry red willow bark and water with him on the hunt. After one of the great animals was taken, the hunter was to beg forgiveness for taking its life, then leave the bark and water as an offering.
Furthermore, no part of the animal’s body was to be wasted, and the people were to always think and speak of the Great Ones with respect. Over time many of them began to think of themselves as People of the Great Ones, since the great animals’ strength of spirit and the sustenance derived from their flesh had made the people a strong nation. The Buffalo Nation.
Thus on the great prairie lands that stretched as far as the eye could see, the Great Ones flourished, and so did the people. From west to east, from north to south, numberless herds covered the land, so numerous that when they ran, the earth shook.
In time the people would know hardship again, but this time it was due to a weakness that caused imbalance. A weakness that occurred because the people forgot who they were and where they had come from. As before it was one of the Great Ones who came and guided them back onto the proper path. She appeared in the form of a white cow and taught the people how to strengthen themselves and to remember who they were. She taught them important and necessary rituals in order that they could remain strong.
One of the rituals was known as They-Look-at-the-Sun-and-Dance. Men who participated in the ritual would literally stare into the sun and dance while making a sacrifice of pain and selflessness on behalf of their people. If any ritual could define the spirit of the people, it would be this, because it symbolized the importance and necessity of selflessness and sacrifice, and to remind the people that it was those realities that had saved them and then made them who they were.
Wiiciglusna
(wee-ee-chee-gloo-shnah)
Selflessness or to let oneself fall, to give of oneself
TO LOOK AT THE SUN AND DANCE
No tradition or ceremony is more readily associated with the Lakota people than the Sun Dance. Non-native people tend to characterize it as archaic, primitive, pagan, and even barbaric, based on misinformation or a sense of superiority or something in between. But these reactions obscure both the overall purpose of the Sun Dance and the core reason for the aspect that the misinformed most object to: the piercing done to the actual Sun Dancers who are the crux of the ritual. In so many words, the Lakota Sun Dance is the very representation and demonstration of selflessness.
Sun Dancers, who are male, willingly and intentionally undergo the piercing in the upper chest area, through the skin and into the upper layer of the pectoral muscles. To be pierced means to experience pain on behalf of the people. To be sure, the entire experience of dancing for four days on rough ground in bare feet, from sunup to sundown, while staring at the sun, is not exactly pain-free. In many cases the participants do not take food or water during the day.
In pre-reservation days, Sun Dancers pledged many months ahead to do the Sun Dance. In the months leading up to the ritual, under the guidance and instruction of medicine men, they participated in ceremonies and rituals to prepare them. When the time came, therefore, they were ready mentally, physically, and spiritually to honor and demonstrate the tenets of selflessness.
Selflessness was obviously a necessary value in pre-reservation Lakota society, and it is important to understand why. What did selflessness mean in that day and age and what impact did it have on the everyday lives of people?
The story in this chapter, “The People of the Great Ones,” is part of the answer. If it had not been for the total selflessness of one person, the people would have died during the hard times of drought and starvation. The Woman-Who-Stayed became pte—the bison (or buffalo)—after she offered herself to Wakan Tanka to end the suffering of her people. It is no secret to those of us Lakota who are aware of our history that the buffalo were the backbone of our lifestyle and culture on the northern plains. Practically speaking, they were the source of food, shelter, and clothing. There was also a long list of tools, utensils, weapons, and household goods made from their flesh and bones. That physical connection led to a symbiotic and spiritual relationship. In the eyes and hearts of our ancestors, the selfless generosity of the buffalo defined and enabled who we were as a people. So much so that we called ourselves Pte Taoyate, or the “People of the Buffalo”—the Buffalo Nation.
There are, of course, slight variations in the story of how the Lakota people and the bison formed such a symbiotic relationship. But the basic realities of the relationship are true. The bison were a source of sustenance and spiritual strength. And we Lakota do still think of ourselves as Pte Taoyate, and one of our oldest stories tells us we were created because of one individual’s selflessness. Therefore, because we believe that we owe our very existence to selflessness, it is a value that is part of our cultural identity and essential to our spirit as a people.
In pre-reservation Lakota society, selflessness was such an essential value that it was an integral part of expectations for a small segment of the community. Though everyone was expected to be selfless, a certain group was expected to set the example for the rest. Those were young men selected to be Shirt Men.
The elders, on behalf of the community, decided which young men were eligible. They had to be of exemplary character and building reputations as leaders in the community. Though selections were sometimes influenced by politics or pressure from prominent individuals or families—since being a Shirt Man carried a certain amount of prestige—for the most part young men of good character were selected.
At a public ceremony after the young men accepted the honor (now and then a young man did decline), a wise old man told them of their duties as Shirt Men. Part of what he said to them was this:
To wear the Shirts you must … help others before you think of yourselves.
Help the widows and the orphans and those who have little to wear and to eat and have no one to speak for them.
Do not look down on others or see those who look down on you …
In other words, anyone given to arrogance and a self-serving attitude need not apply, because to be a Shirt Man was to constantly give of oneself for others’ good.
No privileges came with the status of Shirt Man and certainly no authority, only the responsibility to live a life of service. The old stories say that not all young men given the distinction lived up to the expectations the people had, but most did. Interestingly, the last time Shirt Men were selected by the Oglala Lakota was around 1865, and one of those in the last group was an up-and-coming warrior leader by the name Tasunke Witko, or “His Crazy Horse.” He is known to history simply as Crazy Horse.
Though Crazy Horse is known mostly for his exploits on the battlefield in the turbulent history of the northern plains in the latter part of the 19th century, there was another side to the man. As reckless and courageous as he was in battle, he was quiet, shy, and humble in all other respects. There were many Lakota men of the day, young and not so young, who were brave in battle. Because combat was the best way to build a record of achievement, and hence a strong reputation, on the way to attaining leadership, many men wanted to be known as formidable men capable of being leaders. Crazy Horse, on the other hand, did not turn his back on the responsibility of being a Shirt Man. Given what we know about his character, he would have been selfless without that status.
Suffice to say that his herd of horses was always smaller than other men’s, because he regularly gave horses to those who needed them. Likewise, he and his wife, Black Shawl, did not hesitate to give away their own food to families in need. Consequently their food containers were always nearly empty. But selflessness involved more than material generosity. By all accounts Crazy Horse treated everyone with courtesy and respect and did not expect preferential treatment because he was a leader. As a matter of fact, he consistently and actively demonstrated that a leader’s first responsibility was service to his community.
Crazy Horse’s selflessness was also demonstrated on the field of battle. He was consistently the first to charge the enemy—also part of the Shirt Man’s creed—and he was the last to leave the field, always leading the rear guard. Any man who followed him on a military patrol knew that Crazy Horse did not leave anyone behind, alive or dead.
To be sure, Crazy Horse was not the only person who acted selflessly. In a culture where actions were much more important than things, giving of oneself ensured that no one was left behind, or went cold or hungry, or was forgotten because he or she could not pay a material price. Each and every time the sacred tradition of the Sun Dance is conducted, it serves as a powerful reminder that the buffalo gave of themselves to make us strong.
Selflessness is a virtue that cannot be legislated. Its value and impact must be learned firsthand. The best way to learn it is to benefit from someone else’s selfless action. When we do, we learn that selflessness needs little more than sincere effort to have an effect.
In our time, however, it would seem that the world teaches us not selflessness but self-indulgence, primarily because technology makes things easier, perhaps too easy. As far as I am concerned, there is a point at which technology crosses the line between making life easier and teaching us to be lazy and feel entitled. The consequence of being lazy and feeling entitled is helplessness.
The telephone, for example, made voice communication easier, initially with the help of an operator who had to connect calls. Then rotary dialing enabled local calls without operators and we had to remember numbers (or write them down) and dial them on the phone. Dialing became punching when buttons replaced the rotary dial, but it still required us to perform the task. However, when “speed dial” was invented and telephone numbers could be stored in the phone’s memory and all we had to do was touch four to call Aunt Mary, then we began to feel powerful and entitled. Now we program numbers into our cellular phones and hit “Okay.” No need to even remember Aunt Mary’s number now. But there’s a consequence overlooked in the excitement over how innovative and convenient such a technology is. It seduces people into losing self-reliance. And self-reliance, in my humble opinion, teaches selflessness.
In the early 1950s I lived with my maternal grandparents in a log house on a grassy plateau above the Little White River on what was then the northern part of the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation. Our house had neither electricity nor running water and I had no definitive idea that such conveniences existed. Light came from kerosene and gas lamps, and my grandfather had dug a shallow well from a natural spring in a nearby gully. We took water from it in buckets and poured it into a large wooden barrel. We burned wood for heating and cooking. For transportation we used our own feet or a horse-drawn wagon.
My grandfather plowed in the spring, walking behind a single-bottom plow pulled by two large draft horses. After he pulled a harrow over the large windrows of turned earth, we planted potatoes, corn, squash, pumpkins, green beans, and watermelons. Once those crops were growing, we had to cultivate them. One of my least favorite chores was picking potato bugs off by hand. If we did not, they would have eaten everything. We hauled water in barrels on a sled from the spring to water the rows of crops. All this in addition to the water we needed for drinking, cooking, washing, bathing, and doing the laundry.
Chopping and splitting wood was a continuous chore, but first we had to gather it. In late summer and early autumn we walked the draws and wooded areas along the river to pile downed branches. Later we returned with the horses and wagon to haul the wood back to our place. Larger branches had to be cut with a saw and thinner branches chopped to the proper length with an axe or hatchet. Later the thick pieces were split lengthwise.
Late fall meant harvesting the garden, picking wild berries, and digging prairie turnips. Whatever was not designated for giveaway to friends and relatives or trade at the grocery store in town, we prepared for drying or stored it in the root cellar. A successful deer hunt meant transporting the carcass back home and butchering it, which my grandfather did. After that my grandmother sliced the meat—whatever we did not consume immediately—into thin strips for air-drying.
The last bit of warm weather in the fall was the time for re-chinking the log walls of the house with mud or plaster, sealing windows, doing whatever repairs were necessary to the wagon, and oiling the leather harnesses the horses wore to pull it. Late autumn was also the last opportunity to haul wood. Cold weather did not necessarily mean more work, but some chores were different and done sometimes under daunting conditions. Keeping the open, shallow well from freezing over meant breaking the ice every day.
Everything we had or enjoyed, even the simplest necessity, was produced or obtained with some amount of effort. There were no dials or switches we could turn. When I was six or seven, my chores and tasks were not as difficult as those either of my grandparents had to do, though they were just as critical. Trimming the cotton wicks on kerosene lamps was not heavy work, for example. But it meant that they gave out steady light without smoking. Also making sure that the hot-water reservoir on the cook stove was always full meant that my grandmother could heat water whenever she needed. This was a period in my life that laid the foundation for the values I would learn and live by, and if there is one that stands apart from the others, it is self-reliance.
And in my opinion, anyone who has learned self-reliance has already learned selflessness. Self-reliant people know firsthand how much effort is required to live life, to make a living, to accomplish anything day in and day out. They know how to make that effort. Therefore, doing for others, directly or indirectly, is not out of the norm for them. And doing for others is a necessity that many of us do understand, especially given the state of the world at the present time. Much of that state is mired in need.
The fact of the matter is there is always someone in need. No economic system in any society ensures that we will all have what we need materially. Furthermore, not all of us have everything we need emotionally or spiritually. Pre-reservation Lakota society knew and understood these realities—as did other societies and cultures throughout time the world over. And over time ways, means, and values were established to mitigate the realities of want, need, and insufficiency. Meeting need could be as simple as a bundle of food, a drink of water, a sympathetic ear to listen, or a shoulder for someone to cry on.
All of my grandparents, and my parents, not only explained what selflessness was, they showed me. And the list of ways I benefited from their selflessness goes on and on. They, of course, have not been the only people in my life to help me. Others have given of themselves with time, money, understanding, advice, sympathy, and many instances of propping up when I needed it. These are the gifts I will never forget, yet the greatest gift of all is the lesson of selflessness. When I am able to return the gift, I do it to honor the memory of my grandparents.
The world is far from perfect. Wars, famine, rape and genocide, natural disasters, poverty, disease … you name it, we got it. All of these, and more, shout the need for selflessness. No nation in the world, affluent, powerful, or otherwise, is immune from hardships within its borders, the kind of hardship that suppresses hope and tests human resolve. People of every race, creed, and age group face a daily crucible of hunger, homelessness, and despair. Politicians, sociologists, clerics, and others may debate solutions for the problems, but answers cannot come fast enough. While sincere and constructive debate in and of itself is necessary, acting swiftly and appropriately to mitigate problems is critical, too. And it is more often than not the people closest to the problem who are the first to act, usually those who have the least to give materially but do not hesitate to give of their time and effort. Those are the people who help in food kitchens and halfway houses, distribute meals and blankets, and man the phone lines for suicide prevention programs. They exhibit the kind of selflessness that should be an example for politicians and others who are more concerned with image and political compromise than with making decisions and taking action. Selflessness is alive where it is needed, but we need more of it.
The vociferousness of history sometimes drowns out simple lessons that would serve us well, if we could only remember. And selflessness on the part of leaders is just as necessary now as it was in pre-reservation Lakota society, if not more. The fact of the matter is, it worked then and it can work now. Anyone who wants to be a leader or wears the title of leadership, especially at any level of government, should perform his or her job and live up to its responsibilities selflessly. All leaders, especially those who are responsible for seeing to the welfare of others—such as senators, congressmen, cabinet secretaries, governors, mayors, city council members, presidents, and so on—should understand and have demonstrated selflessness in private life before winning the offices or being appointed to the jobs they hold. We cannot afford leaders who learn selflessness on the job, because when that happens it is always for political expediency and gain, and not for selflessness’ own sake.
The Lakota Sun Dance has seen a resurgence in popularity in the past few decades. On one level it is an affirmation of identity, an assertion that enough of a culture rooted in antiquity still exists to give meaning to that sacred ceremony. But to understand its real purpose, as far as I am concerned, we need to realize that it is not, or should not be, done as a source of prestige or recognition for those who “look at the sun and dance.” Indeed, participants should not seek recognition at all, because that is what selflessness is. I know that many of them do look at the sun and dance for their families, their communities, their people, their culture, and for the world at large.
To look at the sun and dance is one of the most physically, emotionally, and spiritually demanding commitments there is in the world. Any Sun Dancer can tell you that one of the reasons they dance is the hope that their sacrifice of pain will continue to be the inspirational lesson in selflessness it was meant to be.
As a people, we Lakota are not obviously the same as our ancestors were. Our lifestyle is much different as a consequence of the interaction with Europeans and Euro-Americans. Gone are the villages of buffalo-hide tipis (tee-pee; from otipi meaning “they live in” or “something to live in”) that dotted the endless prairies, and gone are the vast herds of the Great Ones, the very beings that symbolized selflessness. They no longer blanket an endless line of hilltops or fill entire river valleys with their sheer numbers, and Grandmother Earth no longer feels the thunder, the rhythm, and the power of their motion.
But it is, I firmly believe, necessary to remember that the buffalo are still here. Their numbers are nowhere near the same as they once were—in the tens of millions. But the fact that they have survived into the 21st century should remind us that what they were and the essence of what they meant for us—the lesson and gift of the Woman-Who-Stayed—are still here as well. If we Lakota do not heed that lesson, shame on us.