At the dawn of the 20th century, the Lakota's 1868 treaty territory had been reduced to only 10% of its original area. All remaining territory was placed under federal ownership and the US government asserted a trust responsibility over Sioux property. By the late nineteenth century, Pine Ridge Reservation was the second largest Indian reservation in the US.
An American physician, James R. Walker, arrived at the reservation at a time when Lakota culture and religion were being suppressed and the government was determined to pursue its policy of assimilation. Traditional religious practices were banned and the speaking of the three dialects of the Sioux language - Lakota, Dakota and Nakota - was discouraged.
Lakota children were being sent to federal-run boarding schools, day schools and mission schools, where the intention was to 'civilise' them into being 'good' Christian individuals who would eventually be able to assimilate into mainstream American society. Boys in the mission schools were taught carpentry, blacksmithing, baking, shoemaking, cattle ranching, farming and dairying. Girls were instructed in cooking, hand and machine sewing, weaving, spinning and embroidery.
On the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota in 1998, during a period of anthropological fieldwork, one woman in her forties told me:
"My grandmother went to Carlisle [Boarding School]. They literally took kids away from their parents and drove them off to school whether they liked it or not. There was a lot of parents who would hide their kids, down in a creek. Like my grandma, she took her youngest daughter and ran down in the creek with her, and wouldn't let them take her. […] On the reservations a lot of parents didn't have a choice - they had to send their kids to boarding schools [because the nearest school would be so far away]."
At school, children were forced to cut their hair and dress in stiff uniforms. Often they were beaten if caught speaking their language. This situation continued until the 1970s. Today only a third of Pine Ridge Reservation residents can speak Lakota, although with the institution of Lakota language teaching in tribal schools since the 1980s, this percentage is gradually increasing.
The effects of enforced assimilation in schools had serious psychological effects. An Oglala man in his fifties, from the Pine Ridge Reservation, told me about his experiences of being repeatedly whipped on the hand by a ruler whenever he tried to speak Lakota at school. He said:
"What the government did was they taught us cultural self-hate. I got to a point where I hated being myself. I hated being an Indian. I hated my language. But then I couldn't do anything about it cause I had to be meek."
Like so many others, this man turned to alcohol for solace, but, unlike so many others, put himself through treatment and got himself clean. A major part of his treatment was a self-induced re-immersion into Lakota culture. This process began in 1970:
"So in 1970, my grandmother said, 'Start preparing yourself for the Sundance, the four-day ordeal.' She said, 'That means one year you have to stay physically and mentally clean.' And it was pretty hard. I'd try and then fall off the wagon, go get drunk."
He died in 1999, but before he did he was completely clean, spoke Lakota better than he did English, and had spent most of his sober adult life fighting the government in court for the return of the Black Hills.
Though the Lakota religion was banned, it never disappeared. It simply simmered beneath the surface, went underground. The annual Sundances carried on year after year in the small communities, away from prying ears and eyes. The elders, the grandparents, ensured that the old ways never disappeared. They kept the language, the stories, the rituals alive in the remote districts. Today, books have become another source through which people can re-learn the culture. Books by the Lakota men Black Elk, Lame Deer and Standing Bear are regularly read. And the Walker texts have made their way into the classrooms of many reservation schools.
Physician James R. Walker took on the role of anthropologist on Pine Ridge, at the turn of the century. He made a systematic study of traditional Sioux beliefs and customs and most importantly, he wrote them all down in the original Lakota language. The holy men who were Walker's informants saw in Walker a chance for Lakota traditions to be recorded for future generations - a way for Lakota knowledge and practices to endure. I will draw on some of his work in other articles on LakotaArchives.com.
During the 1920s and 1930s, Lakota sovereignty was delivered a further blow when Indians everywhere were forced to become American citizens. Traditional governments were completely dismantled and quasi-sovereign, pseudo-federal tribal governments were established on virtually every reservation in the United States. By the 1950s, Congress was seriously considering the total legal termination of the Lakota Nation.
© 2002 by Bornali HalderSite, Page and Article © Copyright 2002 by Bornali Halder