Honor the Grandmothers: Dakota and Lakota Women Tell Their Stories

Introduction

            1 Introduction The first time I saw Celane Not Help Him was at the Wounded Knee Cemetery on the Pine Ridge Reservation in southwestern South Dakota. It was December , , the ninety-nine-year anniversary of the Wounded Knee Massacre of . A light snow was falling and an arctic wind swept unrelentingly over the pine-dotted buttes. The Chief Big Foot Memorial Riders, descendants of those who died or were wounded during the massacre, circled the cemetery on horseback.The riders and their supporters had gathered to honor their ancestors with a ceremony of remembrance. Celane Not Help Him, seemingly impervious to the bitter cold, stood solemnly at the gravesite, where the victims of the massacre lay in a mass grave. Just before the ceremony began, I photographed Celane from afar. It wasn’t until the following summer that I saw her again. The Big Foot Riders held a gathering on Stronghold Table in South Dakota’s Badlands,the site of the last ghost dance.Fourteen tipis formed a semicircle along the ridge, overlooking the Black Hills. An assortment of canvas and dome tents was scattered in the swaying grass; children, dogs, and horses roamed free. Ron McNeil, a Big Foot rider, came to my camp to peruse the box of photographs I had printed of the previous year’s ride.He recognized Celane and offered to take me to her campsite and introduce me. When we arrived, she was busy unpacking food onto a card table. I gave her one of the photographs of herself. She told me that she really doesn’t like photographs of herself, but, much to my surprise, she appeared to be moved by the photograph and her eyes became misty. Then she insisted that I sign the back of it. We really didn’t talk much then; I simply spent time at her campsite sharing the silence. A few weeks later I attended the International Brotherhood Powwow in the town of Porcupine on the Pine Ridge Reservation. I was strolling through the powwow arbor when I noticed a figure hurrying down the hill toward me. It was Celane Not Help Him; she had been setting up camp when she spotted me. She said she wanted to talk to me, so we drove up to her campsite and sat in the front seat of my car because it had begun to rain. I had been writing articles for The Circle, a native newspaper, so I asked her if I could tape-record our conversation , and she agreed. “Since you were interested in taking pictures and writing the right stories about what happened, I was thinking, when I saw you go by,‘I want to talk to her,’but it’s not about little things but back about a hundred years ago,during that time.”Then she began to tell me the history                     2 of the Wounded Knee Massacre as it had been told to her by her grandfather , Dewey Beard, one of the survivors. She spoke softly, gazing straight ahead through the rain-spattered windshield, describing the events of the massacre as if she were witnessing them at that moment. I sat, riveted, barely daring to breathe. She spoke for about an hour and ended by simply saying,“That’s all I want to tell you.” I was moved by the depth of emotion with which she recounted the history of Wounded Knee, by the horror of the massacre, and by the fact that she had wanted to share it with me. But I had no thought of ever using the interview, and the tape languished on a shelf for many years. I continued traveling throughout South Dakota as time and finances permitted, photographing traditionalist gatherings and writing articles. It is only on reflection that I realize that those moments I spent with Celane Not Help Him marked a turning point in my life; unwittingly, during that conversation, she planted the seeds of what was to become this book. In traditional Lakota and Dakota society,grandmothers were respected for their knowledge, wisdom, and power as life-givers, healers, dreamers , harvesters, and teachers. Instructing female children in survival skills was the domain of the grandmothers,and they counseled girls on their moral, social, and spiritual responsibilities. During the lifetimes of today’s elders, Lakota and Dakota culture was profoundly affected by U.S. government policies such as the boarding-school system for Indian children and...