His People's Wisdomkeeper -- Lakota Elder Works For Unity Among Races
When Lakota elder Dave Chief was driving to Seattle from his home in California last week, he phoned his niece Sioux Swanson here when he got to Portland.
"How's the road?" she asked, concerned about driving conditions.
"Oh, black, two yellow lines down the middle, shiny," he replied.
His response is typical of a traditional Oglala Lakota - the Sioux band based near Pine Ridge, S.D. It contains humor, but also a message on how to view the world: positively, with trust in Tunkashila ("Grandfather," the Creator).
"China, Japan, Germany, Russia, France now have people doing Lakota rites, learning Lakota," said Chief. "But all Indian voices have to come back - all. Everybody's equal. All nations. All people can teach one another. We have to work together, the four colors."
Chief, 66, says people must be more spiritual and less involved in material things, in getting and keeping for their own gain. That's what's poisoned the land, air and water.
He and his relatives talked of this in Washington, D.C., at an August gathering to honor elders.
Chief - a family surname - is here until Thursday for private ceremonies and public talks. For information on his appearances, call 1-206-348-6943.
As a full-blood who walks a sacred way, he can conduct sweat lodges, pipe ceremonies and other rites a person called White Buffalo Calf Woman gave the Lakota centuries ago.
He also lectures about Native-American history and the
ownership and treatment of the Black Hills - which Lakota consider the heart of their nation.
ONE OF THE `WISDOMKEEPERS'
He and six others are featured in an HBO special, "Wisdomkeepers," to be aired the next few months. In his segment, he talks for two hours and sings about what's sacred, at Devil's Tower in the Black Hills.
Chief was with the group that lobbied for the Indian Religious Freedoms Act in 1978. He spent several years in prison for his part in the 1972 takeover of the Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters and confiscation of treaties.
"I've been doing this about 10 years," he said in his powerful baritone. "Helping the people. It's not for me I'm doing this, it's for the people. For Tunkashila."
He accepts pay for lectures, but accepts none for ceremonies.
"You can't charge for ceremonies," he said. "You can't sell our grandma (the sweat lodge, the womb of grandmother earth). There's people charging $1,000 for a sweat lodge and $3,000 for a vision quest."
He shook his head and dragged on his cigarette.
"People like Black Elk and the guy who wrote the book for him? ("Black Elk Speaks," by John Neihardt.) The white man got the money for that. A lot of stuff in that book was added by that man. But the visions are real."
Chief should know: Black Elk is his relative. Chief also is related to Crazy Horse, and to Arvol Looking Horse, keeper of the Sacred Calf-Pipe in Green Grass, S.D.
His mother attended the famous Carlisle School in Pennsylvania in the early 1900s. It was designed to "Europeanize" native people.
But his family raised Chief the traditional way: He was born with the help of a midwife - his aunt - in a tent during a family shopping trip via wagon to Rapid City.
He was not touched by a doctor or a man, so he was wakan (sacred). He grew up speaking Lakota, learning English during three years at a mission school. He hunted, ate natural food such as berries, deer, prairie dog and wild turnips, and followed Lakota's seven rites.
He also learned respect for elders, children, all creation - to which we are related, he said.
Chief and his wife, Winyan, (Woman) are bringing up their children that way so their power will remain intact.
"People go into a trading post and buy food, or buy medicine, that takes the power away, because you pay money for it," Chief said.
Money is a big concern. Chief says greed is tearing apart the nation, poisoning land and water, and hurting people, particularly on reservations such as Pine Ridge.
"The government, they want to give us $105 million for the Black Hills, but it's not for sale," he said, adding that payment to each tribal member would amount to very little.
"The Treaty of 1868 still stands. The people, the full-bloods, would have that land forever. But the government took everything - water, coal, gold, timber. Now they want to pay us. But we don't want the money."
Government and people must go back to respecting each other with actions that back up words, he says.
REFUSED TO FIGHT
Chief was drafted in 1950 with other Lakota men and sent to Korea - contrary to the Treaty of 1868, which he said bans Lakota from fighting another nation. When he was asked to kill, he walked to China.
"My grandma told me, `You don't have any enemies.' Koreans are people just like everybody else. It's governments that are fighting."
Chief defends religious freedom. The Lakota practiced their own ceremonies in secret although the sundance and other rites were banned for decades.
"But they don't give us real freedom even now because they control the (eagle) feathers," he said.
He said the challenge is how to bring people together again. Not only Indian nations, but all races.
"How can we mend the sacred hoop (circle of life), and know we'll get help for Indian people this time?"