Lakota Woman (27 page)

At a recent Sun Dance a friend of ours, Jerry Roy, an Ojibway Indian, underwent a different kind of self-torture on every one of the four days of the ritual. On the first day he pierced in two places on his chest and broke loose. On the second day he made flesh offerings from both of his arms. On the third, he dragged twelve buffalo skulls behind him. And on the last day he again pierced in two places on his chest and had himself hoisted to the top of the tree. He hung there from his breast muscles for a long time until finally some men grabbed his ankles and pulled him free.

At the same dance, Leonard “danced” with the tree. Instead of just tearing himself loose, he only pulled back until the flesh on his chest stretched out about six inches and then made the heavy cottonwood tree sway to his motion, which must have hurt him badly. He told me later, “I danced with the tree. It talked to me. Along and up those rawhide thongs I made a collect call to the Great Spirit. My body wasn’t believing it. My mind wasn’t believing it. But spiritually I believed.” At another Sun Dance, Leonard had himself pierced in four places, two in front and two in back. Thongs were fastened in his flesh and tied to four horses, which were then driven off into the four directions.

I watched a young man dancing. He was a winkte—he was gay. He was as graceful as a young girl. He was standing between four upright poles. Rawhide ropes fastened in his flesh in front and in back had been tied to the poles. The young man had little room to move. His way of piercing had always been considered the most painful because he could not tear himself free by a sudden run or jump backward, but had to work himself free agonizingly slowly, bit by bit. He was swaying back and forth languidly, almost like a ballet dancer, his eyes
closed, his face expressionless with just a trace of a smile, swaying back and forth, back and forth, the blood streaming from his wounds.

I even saw young boys, ten and eleven years old, having themselves pierced and, after the dance, proudly showing off their scars. Some anthros say that the dance expresses the macho side of Sioux culture, and I think that subconsciously some young men are competing with each other as if to prove that they can endure more than anyone else. But one has only to look at their faces, their eyes, to see that they are dancing in a trance, that they are unaware of anything but the sun, the sound of the eagle-bone whistles; that each is wrapped up in his own vision, that they are truly “out of this world.”

I watched sixteen-year-old Bobby Leader Charge. He did not dance to brag about it later. He was dancing for the release of his brother from jail. He was dragging six heavy buffalo skulls. He ran and ran around the circle but the skulls would not come loose. At last he was too exhausted to run anymore. His older brothers and cousins grabbed Bobby under the arms, dragging him along as fast as they could. Still he could not break free. Finally three little kids sat down on three of the skulls like on sleds and their weight finally pulled the thongs out of Bobby’s back. That was in 1977. We had eighty dancers that day. Now we always have close to two hundred.

I pierced too, together with many other women. One of Leonard’s sisters pierced from two spots above her collarbone. Leonard and Rod Skenandore pierced me with two pins through my arms. I did not feel any pain because I was in the power. I was looking into the clouds, into the sun. Brightness filled my mind. The sun seemed to speak: “I am the Eye of Life. I am the Soul of the Eye. I am the Life Giver!” In the almost unbearable brightness, in the clouds, I saw people. I could see those who had died. I could see Pedro Bissonette standing by the arbor and, above me, the face of Buddy Lamont, killed at Wounded Knee, looking at me with ghostly eyes. I saw the face of my friend Annie Mae Aquash, smiling at me. I could hear the spirits speaking to me through the eagle-bone whistles. I heard no sound but the shrill cry of the eagle bones. I felt nothing and, at the same time, everything. It was at that moment that I, a white-educated half-blood, became wholly Indian. I experienced a great rush of happiness. I heard a cry coming from my lips:

Ho Uway Tinkte.

A Voice I will send.

Throughout the Universe,

Maka Sitomniye,

My Voice you shall hear:

I will live!

Epilogue

T
he rest of the story is quickly told. I am thirty-seven years at this moment. Leonard is fifty. I’m not all that skinny anymore and he got heavier. He used to be a champion hoop-dancer, jumping through seven swiftly moving hoops. He can’t do that anymore. I have borne Leonard three children: two boys, Anwah and June Bug (Leonard Jr.), and one girl, Jennifer. Leonard’s daughters Ina and Bernadette also have babies of their own, making Leonard a grandfather.

Old Henry died six years ago in his late eighties. He and his wife spent their last years in a regular tribe-built house with running water, a bathtub, and a flush toilet. So, belatedly, he made the jump from the nineteenth into the twentieth century. Up to the very last Henry could still run a Native American Church meeting, ride a horse, and chop wood. He often used to say, “I am the last genuine aborigine left.” Now he is gone. They found him lying in front of his door. It looked as if he had fallen asleep but it was the sleep from which one does not awake. A year later Grandma Mary Gertrude followed him to another world.

My own mother quit nursing, went back to school, got her degree, and is now teaching school at Rosebud. Now that I am a mother myself, I have more understanding of what she went through trying to raise a wild kid like me. Finally we are friends. Barb has married Jim, a good man, one of the sun-dancers. He is a carpenter and right now is fixing up my mother’s house.

Pedro just had his nineteenth birthday. He has become a yuwipi man. He runs meetings and puts on sweat lodges. He is a good singer. He has pierced many times as a sun-dancer. The youngest child of our close friend Jerry Roy was stabbed to death by a member of a motorcycle gang. The poor kid was still so young, real sweet and friendly. Everybody called him Teddy Bear. Pedro has made a vow to hang from the tree at the coming Sun Dance for Teddy Bear’s ghost.

As for those who were at Wounded Knee with us, the AIM leaders and the once young kids, they have calmed down considerably. Dennis Banks was for a number of years a university professor at Davis, California. At present he is running a limousine service in Rapid City, South Dakota. He has not lost his sense of humor. Russel Means is at the moment married to a Navajo lady and lives at Chinle, Arizona. He is one of the founders of a new, multiracial party. He was running for president or vice-president a while ago, but Ronald Reagan was too much competition. There are also rumors that he wants to establish an all-Indian bank. John Trudell, whose family was destroyed in a mysterious fire, has made a new life for himself as musician and song writer. I hear that he is very good. Those are the survivors. Many of the former brothers and sisters are dead. Some were killed but most died from natural causes. I think that the wear and tear of the long struggle just burned them up, ruined their health and took years off their lives. The best always die young.

As for wear and tear: Having four children, being a medicine man’s wife, cooking and cleaning up for innumerable guests, most of them uninvited, listening to countless woes and problems, became just too much for me. I was going under. So a few years ago I panicked, packed up the kids, and simply ran away. My flight stopped at Phoenix, Arizona. Of course, Leonard found me. We made up.

We are now back in Rosebud, where we still have the yearly Sun Dances at the old Crow Dog place. Archie Lame Deer has taken the place of Uncle Bill Eagle Feathers as intercessor. He puts on the dance together with Leonard, runs the sweats, and does most of the piercing.

Everybody still comes to Leonard with their problems. We have been heavily involved for years helping the traditional Navajos and Hopis fight their long battle of Big Mountain. During the 1988 drought, white farmers in Ohio asked Crow Dog to perform a rain ceremony for them. He did, and the rain came down. He also performs sweat lodges and pipe ceremonies for Indian prisoners in America’s penitentiaries. Wherever Native Americans struggle for their rights, Leonard is there. Life goes on.