Beloved Child: A Dakota Way of Life

Harley and Sue Eagle

I first met Harley and Sue Eagle at the 2006 Dakota Commemorative March. They drove down from Canada in a station wagon piled high with suitcases, the faces of their two young daughters, Danielle and Emma, watching from the back windows with wide, curious eyes. In the gymnasium at the Lower Sioux Community Center, where we would sleep that night, they quietly set up a small family circle, dragging foam mattresses, unrolling sleeping bags, and unpacking books along with pajamas. In the morning, we woke before the sun came up, dressed quickly in the dark, and made our way to the prayer circle outside. A layer of frost covered the long grass with a white iridescence that glowed in the first rays of sunlight. After the prayer, with our breath rising like mist in the cold November air, we began to walk. The lead car rolled at three miles an hour, emergency lights flashing, its trunk full of wood stakes tied with red prayer ties. Phyllis Roberts, the elder who carried the canupa, the pipe, walked in white canvas tennis shoes and a long black skirt. She told us the canupa needed a space kept open behind her. Several steps back, a young Dakota woman followed Phyllis, carrying a staff with thirty-eight eagle feathers in honor of the thirty-eight warriors who were hanged at Mankato in 1862. Sometimes the men would forget that this March was organized and led by Dakota women. They would take charge of the eagle staffs, setting a fast pace that pressed too close to the canupa. They too were healing, remembering in their bodies how it must have felt to be separated from their wives and children after the 1862 war, how they could not protect them 43 Harley and Sue Eagle 02_Layout 1 6/6/2011 10:18 Page 43 44 Beloved Child from what came afterward. So they tried to lead the group, pouring their own grief into movement, into action. In the long days of walking, patience and compassion were the rule. But on the last day, the seventh day, after walking nearly 150 miles, the men were asked to move to the back of the group. The women, once more, would lead this unsica, pitiful, group of survivors to the concentration camp that waited for them at the edge of the Mississippi River below Fort Snelling. WhileSuedrovetheircarinthelongcaravanthatfollowedthemarchers, Harley walked quietly with his daughters near the back of the group, maintaining a respectful distance well behind the canupa. He answered Emma’s questions with patient good humor, sometimes leaning down to listen to Danielle’s softly spoken words. Often they simply walked in companionable silence, feeling the presence of prayer that comes with walking. When we stopped at each mile marker to place a wood stake in the ground, offering prayers and tobacco to the original marchers whose names were written on each side in Dakota, Emma and Danielle stood in line with Harley and Sue. When they grew tired of walking, they rode with Sue. She drove cheerfully, one foot riding the brake, as we walked from sunrise until an hour before sunset. While the younger kids ran through the ditch alongside the road, laughing and playing, forgetting where they were, Danielle and Emma stayed close to their parents. They watched as people wept, sometimes overcome with grief as they recognized the name of a relative on a stake. They listened at night when we talked in circle, sharing our thoughts and feelings. One morning, I walked several miles with Harley, talking about the challenges of healing from trauma like that experienced on the original march. It was Harley who first told me of the ceremony of the child-beloved described in Ella Deloria’s novel of pre-contact Dakota life, Waterlily. The reason why we lived as we did as the Oceti Sakowin Oyate, Harley said, was to raise beloved children. Later, our small group stood near the side of a gravel road that followed the course of the Minnesota River, a wide, slow water visible through the cottonwoods and oak trees that lined its banks. We could hear the sharp 02_Layout 1 6/6/2011 10:18 Page 44 Harley and Sue Eagle 45 bray of a pheasant in the woods and the sudden rustle in the underbrush as a rabbit scurried out of sight. We could smell wood smoke drifting lazily on the breeze...