This is a production of SDPB.

I understand where we can be so divisive and especially if we don't know each other, and to be able to share things with the broader community, or even on a national level, that maybe helps people to understand that we may have a different cultural background, we may look different, but we really are the same in many, many ways.

I think that's important.

Aho!

Greetings!

[speaking in Dakota] Greetings from Agency Village to 159th annual powwow Join our crew as we make a portrait of Agency Village.

Wow!

Greetings from Agency Village.

Greetings from Lake Traverse Reservation.

Greetings from Toka Nuwan or Enemy Swim on the Lake Traverse Reservation.

Greetings from the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate.

Greetings from Agency Village.

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From the land we know today as North and South Dakota grows a sovereign nation called the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate.

Their tribal headquarters lies in the heart of the Lake Traverse Reservation.

And among their most valued artifacts, we sat down with former legislator and longtime tribal archivist Tamara St.

John.

Everything begins for me with genealogy And I found that genealogy really is something that's so all encompassing.

When you're researching your family, you're also having to understand history, culture, and even language.

Working for the tribe as a researcher.

I found that, like a lot of tribes, we didn't have the genealogical society.

that I think we really need.

you know, we really set out to provide those things for our membership in the process.

I found that sharing our history, whether it be through storytelling or tourism, I think it's very much a sovereignty thing to ensure that your tribe story is told by you.

We have our origin stories.

History didn't begin when Columbus arrived.

We've been here for time immemorial.

And to start with the land.

Our history is on the land, and in the archeological sites.

Things like burial mounds or stone features, And then I think it's important for people to understand the timeline of any movement of the tribe.

And that would include any legislation or treaties.

removal period and even extermination And then from that era, we move into assimilation and the reservation era we move into self-determination, self-government.

I always say that's really a game changer We know who and how and what our people need.

Who better to administer those things than us?

When I do tours, like to show people the picture that's in the council chambers, the mad grandmas.

They were a part of an era of great change during the 70s, and I was told by a former tribal leader that if you wanted to get anything done on the Lake Traverse Reservation, it had to go through those women.

They were knocking on doors, they were calling meetings.

They were making council act like a council.

They expected them to behave as a sovereign nation when I became a legislator, when I think about the first time walking on to the House floor I was told that the desks were placed there in 1912.

I would not, as a woman, been able to vote, And as a tribal member, I wouldn't even be an American citizen.

So the idea that this place was not built with me in mind, As matriarchs, women in our culture are very powerful.

the women controlled the household or they owned the lodge, so I think for women like the mad grandmas, they truly made a difference in who we are.

they stepped into roles that maybe they didn't imagine.

Just like I didn't imagine ever being a politician.

I have found that in some of the most controversial parts of history, when we examine it together, I think we're all better people for it.

You know, when I look at this person, I see an incredible leader who carries forward history and shares it with others.

Thank you for sharing with us.

And here is a portrait of Tamara.

Wow!

That is incredible.

Art has a way of connecting people.

We now meet an artist who has made a career out of doing just that.

origin stories and family stories and just for fun stories.

And she was very dramatic they just made an impression on me.

And then I'm a descendant Charles Eastman.

And so we had his writing in our home.

And there are stories like Hen of Wahpeton, The Slim Buttes Raccoon, the Grass Mountain Mouse.

There are several stories like that.

And that's where we first started learning to read and write in the language.

And that was Riggs orthography.

So that's what I was first introduced to, and that's what I'm most comfortable with.

But since that time period, several communities throughout the Oceti Sakowin have developed orthographies.

To date, no community has sanctioned just one way of writing.

It's still in development, but so that's how I got interested in writing from a young age, I'm a longtime member of what was called the Oak Lake Writers and is now the Oceti Sakowin Writer Society.

I've been a practicing artist since the age of four, I'm told, and also a traditional and jingle dress dancers since a very young age.

And I also am a textile artist where I make my regalia and I also do beadwork.

And then I'm a visual artist.

I'm an alumni of the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

it was so evident that there was just such a cultural bias in the arts.

And I knew it wasn't true because the arts was such an important part of our family.

You know, we had family members who were singers and people who participated in ceremonial life and sang songs and composed songs.

And so I knew it wasn't true.

But I also knew that there was a deep bias, that as a child, I didn't understand really where it came from.

I knew some of it came from boarding schools.

And there And so I knew society just really didn't understand the desire going or tribal people or the original people from this country from the beginning, I was growing up in a time where there was changes because when we'd go to ceremonies, we drive way out in the fields.

And I would be wondering why.

No, this is spiritual and people want privacy for their ceremonial life, then I didn't realize until 1978 that was still against the law to be having those ceremonies.

now there's a resurgence and an awareness.

But then, you know, the last few years there's been the back steps again that, you know, Kristi Noem didn't want tribal history in the public schools and that's the loss for society, because the more you understand about human experience and human achievement, the more it contributes to everybody achieving and rising.

And that I think arts really help people to think and interpret their world, whether it's music or visual arts or dance, that I think human expression is really important.

it's something that can really draw people together, the more we understand about other cultures and their achievements, the more we can as human beings, rise together and make those higher achievements and improve the global communities, that Not too far away.

Greg Beesley introduces us to a man improving his community, one design and one mentorship at a time.

One of Derrick McCauley's life passions is helping the youth of his community.

I've always been involved with youth since I was like in high school.

Like when I was a senior, I used to go eat lunch with the kindergartners, and when I was a junior, sophomore, I used to go down and be like a sub teacher for them and help them out and all the rest of the stuff.

So I'm at working with kids is something that I've always done.

Another passion sports.

I think like most kids grown up on a reservation I mean, sometimes that's our outlet, you know?

I mean, we no matter what it is, from baseball to football to basketball, I mean, it's a lot of stuff that, you know, it kind of goes hand in hand.

I would say.

As the director of Agency Village's youth center, Derek gets to combine both his passions into a career.

The fact that sometimes I don't even think I get to work, you know what I mean?

Because, I mean, it's all like, I really enjoy coming here.

Like I've enjoyed it ever since day one.

And, you know, I got kids and I've always wanted this place to be a place where, like, as they got older, in a place that if they had kids that they would want to come.

Derrick took his own mantra and dared to fulfill another dream.

Designing jerseys for sports teams.

I always had the idea of always like when you see something on TV and it's like, well, I could do it better, you know what I mean?

I mean, just having that kind of mentality.

So it's always been there.

Derek then started reaching out to Sioux Falls area teams.

It was.. I think most people might see it as daunting.

It wasn't really like that.

I mean, it's almost like if you don't ask, it's always no.

Right?

So we were just kind of curious about it.

It's just kind of reaching out and then, you know, creating contacts, creating a good network, telling them, like, hey, this is what we had in mind.

I mean, these kind of jerseys represent us, not only us as a tribe, but kind of us as as natives.

So I think it's really amazing.

I mean, just to kind of put your, your imagination, you know what I mean out there.

Finally, Derek's jersey designs would see the hardwood with the Sioux Falls Skyforce.

We started with the Sioux Falls Skyforce.

You know, we the story goes like we used to go to the Skyforce games, and we used to sit in the bleachers and, you know, we'd see them.

And I think one time we went there was like a Jersey specialty night.

And they had like cornstalks or they had something on their jerseys, you know what I mean?

And it was like, that's kind of cool.

You know, that sublimation process was coming into the picture for everybody.

And we thought, well, why can't we do that?

You know what I mean?

A lot of the kids were like, hey, those are cool.

I said, oh, you guys can design those.

And they're like, no, we can't.

I'm like, yeah, there's nothing really stopping you, you know?

So after that, we they just kind of took off.

So it was like once we let them, once we showed them like, this is you can do this.

It just made everything easy.

After becoming the kings of the court, Derrick wanted to take his designs to the diamond.

Baseball was our new venture to where it was like we seen, like, a lot of opportunities.

So we were like, you know, a lot of kids haven't been to baseball games and all the rest, you know, and as a child growing up, it's like, how many times can you go and watch, like some kind of professional baseball?

You know what I mean?

You get the swag with it.

You get like the crowds, you get the mascot, you get all that kind of stuff.

You know, most people don't realize like, that's a really good it's a good feeling to be around that kind of stuff.

So it opens up your imagination, I would say.

So.

I meant when we did it last year and we were like, hey, this is kind of what we have on the table.

We've done this kind of stuff in the past with basketball.

Why can't we do a baseball?

And they were like, all for it.

So we thought it was cool.

The kids of the Youth Center even got to leave the bird cage with the jerseys that Derrick designed, prompting what's next?

And for Derrick, that's always helping the youth of his community grow.

That's always been our goal.

It's like whatever we could do to to help our kids to get better using their imagination.

Like, that's exactly what it is.

Now, Jackie Hendry takes us across town to another place using imagination to help kids.

Curtis Bissonette wants something different for kids growing up like he did.

I was in foster care from the time I can remember till I was 18 years old.

I've been through foster homes that I can't even count.

Some good, some bad.

He spent some of that time in a local group home called Adolescent Residential Center, or ARC.

It closed about 20 years ago.

So when I was in ARC we had it was a dorm like setting.

It was a brick building and we had metal doors.

And so when we walked in, you know, you could hear the metal locks locking all the way down.

I think there's 3 or 4 locks.

And then and it felt like I was being institutionalized.

Years later, he was elected to tribal council.

We've heard stories over the years that, you know, our kids have been taken and being placed off the reservation all over in the state of South Dakota, even out of state.

And so one of the things I wanted to do is I wanted to bring that back because I felt like our kids could thrive here better, knowing that they were surrounded with the community and the family they knew.

He proposed the council used some Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs money to build a couple new homes.

I went to council and request if I could buy two homes and they granted it, which came out to be about 400,000.

And so we needed a place for the office, too.

So I went back in and following month and asked them if I can get a two bedroom to make that into an intake office, slash counseling room, slash visitation room.

And they proved that too.

So all in all, I spent about half a million dollars.

His third request was an operating budget.

I said, we're in the process of getting it licensed due to State of South Dakota.

And if you guys can give me this, I will be I will get it done within that year.

And so they granted me a little over 800,000 for the budget for the year to hire staff, get them trained and hire a director.

And so that that was to me was easier than I thought it was, because I thought I was going to have to fight for every dollar I was asking for and requesting what they saw, the need to.

They were in agreement that we didn't need the facility again.

By mid June of 2026.

The team had earned state licensing through the South Dakota Department of Social Services by meeting state requirements for safety and staff training.

The home also receives state funding.

Not only that is that we will be working with the state from here on out on kids that that that belong to our tribe, and they would bring them to our facility and pay us to keep them there.

So with with whatever plan they need.

So we have all of that documentation there.

We only have eight beds for the girls and the boys, so 16 in total.

But now we have other tribes that kind of got wind of us opening it.

And so now they're reaching out, wanting to send their kids here.

So I think on day two we were already at capacity of beds.

So which tells me that there's a serious need out there.

One of his next goals is to build additional homes to expand capacity.

But every step of the way, Curtis wants to ensure the space feels different from the kind of group home he experienced.

So when we talked about the group home, I told him I wanted to get away from that setting and and build the houses like they would live in a regular house, living room, kitchen, you know, their bedrooms, stuff like that, basically a home away from home.

And so that was the vision I kept and that was the, the, the route I went.

And I can honestly tell you that we had already two kids, a boy and a girl that did not want to leave the facility.

That made me feel good, but it made me feel sad that they didn't want to go back, you know?

So it was it was kind of mixed emotions.

So but I wanted to stay away from the institutions and just build them a home.

That feeling of safety and home inspired the facility's name.

The reason why we came up with a group home name is because of the light always being on.

For a safe place for children to go kind of is what we came up with.

So and then we translated that into Dakota.

Don't ask me how to pronounce it, because I'm still learning.

So so that was kind of the original intent of The Lighthouse.

There's a lot of factors that go into this.

It is it is probably the best thing we could have done is to bring that group home back, because I think with the right management, the right workers, we can see this thing taken off a lot and we can help a lot more people, not only our community but other communities that are struggling.

Events and Matt's our griller, man, and we grill buffalo.

People love it and people don't even know it's buffalo.

And then they're like.

This is buffalo.

And we're like, yeah.

And they're like, it is really good.

And I didn't think I liked it.

The Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate Bison farm was started back in 1992 with just 40 animals from Wind Cave.

In 2014, we started a second herd, and we took 25 animals over there to start with.

Today we have 2600 acres of pasture.

We have about 450 animals here, give or take on the calf drop.

At the other farm, we have about 185 animals, give or take on the calf grow.

The tribe opened its processing plant, which strictly does buffalo Rght now, it is currently only available to tribal members.

However, down the road we hope to expand and open it up for everybody.

I just started visiting with the boss and he asked if I was interested in coming up and working with the program, and I said, sure sound interesting to me.

So I thought, well, we'll take up on it.

And I've been here since May 19th of 97, so I've been here a few years.

The late Alva Quinn senior was a founding member of the Inter-Tribal Buffalo Co-op, a national organization that restores buffalo to tribal lands.

He worked alongside elders to bring buffalo back to the tribe.

He's well known across the United States to almost every tribe.

He helped with advice, with equipment, taking our crew there and helping other tribes round up their buffalo.

And he's just a great guy.

His heart was into all of it.

And taking care of the land in the buffalo and our people.

So seeing him do that, I want him to keep it going.

Well, it's really worked for me because I love being outside and I enjoy working with the buffalo and I like doing mechanic work.

So we have breakdowns.

We just fix our stuff and just keep on going.

So and it's a lot of work.

Ain't just anybody can do it, that's for sure.

It's a lot of work.

I just love doing it.

I mean, I grew up doing it, you know, until I was probably 10 or 12.

Scout and check buffalo in the morning and go on and get to the hayfield or, you know, cut some hay down, watching fences, making sure the fences are staying good.

And if one ever gets out, you want to get there and get it back in right away.

Because what happens if one gets out.

The rest follow.

They'll all be out So we want to get there right away and get them back in right away.

So yeah, that's one of the things for sure.

It's a unique job because we kind of get three responsibilities.

You have to take care of animals.

You have to keep them alive and healthy.

You have to take care of the land.

That's by rotating the animals before they, you know, the guys are good at watching.

When they go out and check fences every day, they check and see how tall the grass is.

If they should be moved, they move.

So by doing that, they're taking care of the land and you're feeding the people.

You're taking care of your people.

It's healthy.

Did get meat back into two schools.

We're working on a couple daycares and Head Start to see if we could get it on their menu.

The thing that Alva always said that sticks in my head was he heard from one of our tribal elders way back.

You get everything from Walmart back in the day.

We got everything from the buffalo.

I meant the teepee, our shelter the teepee came from the hide, the the fire makers was dung and you know, the spoons.

The food.

Babies teethers were the bones.

Every single part was used by our people.

So there's three important parts to it and we gave be part of it.

It's great.

protect their nation through military service.

And while some stories of bravery and sacrifice are well known, We now learn of He was good dad.

Yeah.

Humble, hardworking.

Honest.

Kind.

He had his little witty ways about him, because he was really quiet, you know, he was real.

was modest.

He was humble.

that's true character.

I was ten years old when my grandpa passed away.

And when we go down home, what we call, you know, it's we call it down home, where we always eat every Sunday and we have family dinners, talk about politics, talks about drama, what's going on.

Grandpa Winfield, he would always call me [Dakota name] I mean, that's what I remember.

All the best times was when we played 31.

We're all gamblers.

that's what we do And he was the luckiest person, My cousin.

always said, I think it's because he's so lucky.

Because he had it so hard.

Wireless family has many fond memories.

There's one part of his life they knew nothing about.

I didn't even know that he was a prisoner of war.

You he never talked about I mean, until later on They recognized him for, you know, POW I think that's the only interview he ever had.

But he never talked to his kids about what he went through.

my daughter just did a research paper last year for English and she looked she was like in disbelief of what he went through, you know?

when he joined in 1941, he was 26.

Yeah, 26.

Him and his brother both joined the same time.

One was in Germany.

And he went to Manila, Philippine Islands.

That's where he was stationed.

When Winfield reached the island of Luzon, his tank battalion joined Philippine forces and prepared for the encroaching Japanese Empire.

Hours after the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese attacked forces in the Philippines as well.

The following ground invasion forced American troops to retreat to the Bataan Peninsula, where months of intense fighting ensued.

Surviving on limited rations in harsh jungle conditions.

Diseases like malaria and dysentery spread quickly, and many men became weak.

Hoping to spare the lives of the remaining 78,000 troops.

The US general surrendered, and what happened next is considered one of the most horrific war crimes of World War Two.

Japanese soldiers forced prisoners to march through brutal tropical heat to their future prison, some 90 miles away.

They beat or killed those who slow down the group and those who tried to get water.

Of the 78,000 who started the journey, just 54,000 would reach the prison camp.

This is where Winfield Thompson would spend the next three years and five months.

His family down home would only receive scant information about his struggle to survive until 1945, when the island was liberated and at ten word, telegram homesimply said, "Am okay and in Manila, on my way home.

Love, Winfield."

They said he came walking down the hill down home.

You know, that would be like seeing a ghost.

Our grandmother had a great big feed.

And what else?

A pow wow?

They said that they butchered two cows and, and that thing went on like for about a week that his celebration down there I guess they said After the celebration.

A full pension and full recognition didn't come for decades, even after his passing, An effort to more fully honor his service turned up never before seen documentation.

some of his original kind of entry forms and exit forms.

Some of the original telegrams I remember tearing up kind of reading it, seeing it the first time.

you know, I think he went into the service in the Army weighing about 170 pounds.

And when he was liberated, his kind of initial health check was like 90 pounds.

I mean, it took us, gosh, I think five years and multiple inquiries and kept appealing it to the next level.

and finally got somebody high enough up to listen to Senator Rounds, and our team and to the family and to serve the way he did have the strength to persevere and stay alive.

He's he's worthy.

In 2024, Sergeant Winfield J. Thompson was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart.

he spent those years trying to forget.

And I really, truly believe that because all the stuff that he endured, he never put that on any of us.

But the end of the day, we are still our family because of this man.

He survived all of that for us.

Thank you for watching Dakota Life.

If you've missed any of our stories here in Agency Village, or just want to go back and take another look, you can find more at SDPB.ORG/DAKOTALIFE.