Were entering the reservation, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

So they put the natives, you kno Lakotas on it.

And the reason why they put them on the reservation is historically is to eradicate their language.

A long time ago some people call a P.O.W.

camp.

You gotta get permission to leav and it was a difficult time, but that happened after they made th So as time went along, boarding schools came after that The churches and boarding school They took our kids.

Hid them away from family.

Put them in boarding schools.

A lot of people have lost their and culture when they went to boarding schoo And the ones who survived and came home and hung onto it.

Were still speaking it.

Were still speaking that same l And to me, this language is very Weve been trying to preserve it in many ways.

And if we lose the language, we dont have a culture.

Today, were losing our language Big time.

And for the past... well, since the education systems have taken our Lakota language.

We cannot and should not let the schools teach our langu People who taught me Lakota lang probably never went to school, but they taught it to me.

They used it at home.

Waká Táka never said, “We need to have the Berenstain teach Lakota language.

” We let it happen through our own Right now, as far as Im concern Lakota language is dead.

It bothers me to hear someone sa the language is dead.

Its not.

When I was working at St. Francis Indian School in the language department, we d a curriculum that we call Living Lakota Language Project.

And the language never died, nev Its still here.

Ive been working on language fo what Im really starting to believe is that we need to move to preservation, because we dont have the numbers of speakers that are And in listening to some of the theres some tribes out east who totally lost their language.

Its become extinct.

Theyre revitalizing it through but theyre missing a lot of wor like dog, cat, animals.

So theres people who are trying to save their language with no speakers.

The language was always in the h Everybody could speak it, except for my generation, and it stopped whenever we went to kindergarten.

There is a classroom, but it was only for 45 minutes.

[Speaking in Lakota] It was there that we seen it, and kind of felt like there was a belonging space ther Then after that, you went back to your science class and it wasnt there.

Why cant we have our own schoo where we can speak Lakota there?

Our teachers can teach us math i teach us science in Lakota, teach us wówiake how this world is, all in Lakota And then when were done, if we wanna go to a college, at least we still have our langu We never had to sacrifice that.

I have a K through three curricu already written.

We had just finished our first s and next year, were going to op for 12 more students.

Help me out.

We aint going to just do this for one year.

Were gonna do this till we esta a K through five school.

K through five school.

Were teaching young kids how to and were gonna produce Lakota speaking kids.

The question comes up, once they come out of school spe who are they gonna speak to?

The problem is with all of us right here.

This is a Lakota meeting and what are we speaking at this meeting?

Were speaking English, arent w I think in this country, its really evident with the ind We dont exist in the 20th centu Its like were not even here an So when you speak about our peo its about what happened in the in the Indian Wars and like, the Lakota people defeated Custe And then when you move into the theres no talk about us.

Its like were not even there.

And then thats a deliberate pro because were a reminder to them they took this land illegally by They dont like that reminder.

During what are called the India of the 19 century, the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota p were forced to live on reservati as prisoners of war.

And then the US government crea the so-called boarding schools.

Native children of every people were shipped hundreds or even thousands of miles away from their families, where they were compelled to perform manual labor and learn English.

The most notorious of these inst was the Carlisle Indian Industri in Pennsylvania, which was founded in 1879 by Lt. Richard Henry Pratt, whose motto was, “Kill the Indian, save the man.” More than 10,000 children were shipped off to Carlisle over the 39 years it was open.

Overcrowded.

Overworked.

Abused and malnourished, many of the children died.

Instead of being returned to the they ended up buried on site, some in unmarked graves.

But Carlisle was not the only Indian boarding school.

Were here at the Sherman Indian where 70 children that attended the resid school are buried.

What this is here, right here, i evidence of genocide.

When you think about this, there were 350 Indian boarding s across the United States.

Now why were those schools estab From the United States perspect they would tell you they were d benefit of the children.

And the fact of the matter is, they were kidnapping children fr their families in order to destroy the languages, cultures, and spi of the Original Nations and peop of this continent Despite the governments efforts some of the more remote communit managed to protect the Lakota la and practice their traditions in But these communities are the ex and not the rule.

Ultimately, no community escaped For Indian people, Lakota people, language is very sacred and ver Its always been that way.

I grew up round the ‘50s and ‘60 and my first language was Lakota I had no knowledge of English wo Now of course, I got aunts and uncles and cousins that already are pretty fluent i But where I grew up, theres a handful, a real small handful of us that our first language was Lakota.

I was born back in 1949 on the western edge of our reser in a community We would used to be called Wósoso-Wakpála-Oíkpa which is Upper Cut Meat.

These are the grandparents that My grandpa Dan, my grandma Julie.

She comes from the lineage of Battiste Good, the winter count paper, and hes the oldest son of Chief I remember being the arms and le and eyes for my grandmother, because she was blind.

So whatever she wanted, water, or go to the bathroom, I would do it for her.

I would connect the word mní wa to when she pointed at the water or the water barrel.

When I was growing up, we didnt have television.

And some of us didnt have radio But we had dances, and everybody spoke Lakota.

When you were talked to in the Lakota Language it made you feel like you were a that you were belonging.

When you're called takóa, grandchild and when you're called takóa niece or sister or daughter, the kinship term itself, it really connects you.

Life was fantastic, I would say.

No worries, no pain.

And everybody just spoke Lata.

Everywhere we went, they shared everything.

And then boarding school, I and my younger sister were tak to boarding school.

And at first we were like, I don't know, maybe happy, but we didn't understand th people who were talking to us.

'cause they had a different lang And I decided I should say somet So I spoke in my language, and that's when we knew that we weren't supposed to speak at all.

We both had long hair.

When they took us to the basement of the building, of course we were all crying because we didn't know what was gonna happen.

But they start cutting our hair and at the end they poured powde which later found out that that was delousing powder.

From that day on, we knew that life was gonna be different and difficult and traumatic.

We couldn't speak our language a Even at night when we were were put to bed, we'd whisper, we'd start whispering, but it was like someone had been standing nearby to hear tha The lights would go on.

We knew what was gonna happen.

It was a painful experience.

Very painful.

This would've been Drexel Hall.

This was the dining room and the sewing room above this was where the infirmary and some of the business office And the upstairs part here would've been the cloistered area for the nuns.

And then the extended wings was dormitories were.

One Saturday night, they used to show movies in the gym.

I didn't get to go home, but they gave us apples in the dining room.

I was gonna take that in the mov This Jesuit started searching th to see if we were sneaking silve out of the dining room.

When he found that apple in my p he slammed it in my trash cans.

I want to see you at lineup.

I hid from him.

I was terrified.

When we lined up, I was thinking he forgot.

He for He came down and pulled me outta I told you I wanted to see you a All the kids went into the gym.

He took me up to the third floor at a high school boys dormitory.

He went in his room and came out with this huge wooden paddle wrapped with that canvas adhesive tape.

Drop your pants and your underwear.

How many am I getting?

50.

He wailed on me 50 times for half an apple.

You could say he' literally beat the s**t outta me I had to go bathroom.

He had to get his 50 in.

I was a total mess.

I couldn't sit down.

I couldn't lay on my back for days for half an apple.

My grandmother, she would take u to boarding school not really kn what was going on there.

And then we'd come home and visit with her and forget all the English words that we learned.

'cause grandma never spoke Engli And then we'd go back to boardin and it was punishment all over a Until one day during the summer, when we were home visiting.

We told her about what was going what was happening at the boardi And she didn't know.

She felt so bad.

Later on in years, we were all at a meeting and before any of us started to speak, we'd look back to make sure there was no one ar We all still do that.

It was something that Probably stayed within us.

And I was so afraid to teach my So I didn't teach them.

'cause I didn't want them going through the pain that I had gone And I think you will hear that a most of the elders.

Our kids wanted to learn Lakota.

I was so afraid what theyd have to go through in school.

And I held my tongue and I told my wife, I don't want this on our kids.

When they got older, “Why didn't you teach us?” I told them, I don't want you to to go through what I went throug And when they went to school, I would walk the hallways and check the classroom to see if they're okay.

And I was there most every week checking on my kids, to make sure they're okay.

And then when our daughter went to college, I was definitely scared.

So my wife said we had to make a journey to Creighton Universit almost every weekend to see if she was okay.

After the boarding schools closed in the 1970s, public schools began teaching Lakota like they would Spanish or French.

But the damage had already been Parents and grandparents stopped to their children in Lakota.

And an hour a day of Lakota in a classroo could never reproduce the kind of fluency that existed before the so-called boarding sc So primary language acquisition is basically from infancy to about 12 years of age.

If those years are only being used teaching those babies English, the colonizer's languag then the boarding school agend is still being carried out today to intentionally kill languages that have been existing for thousands and thousands of y What a horrific crime against that people When you use the Lakota language the philosophy in which the elde which the way they spoke long ag gives great meaning or deep meaning, rather than just a English translation that people would use these days When you say tukáila, oh, thats grandpa.

That's your grandfather.

The word tu is an entity, a life source, that is ancient, that is older, much, much older than I am.

I can't pinpoint how many years or centuries back, but it's there.

Ká refers to that.

Born into this way of life.

That lives in this way.

i applies relationship to me.

I'm related to this one.

La applies endearment, compassio So when you say tukáila.

It just doesn't mean grandfather The philosophy, when you do the etymology of the words and you begin to see how many different words it took to make And so yeah, it's a, it's a deep, deeper language.

I am glad to see everyone here and everybody's healthy looking and hopefully that stays that wa I was, I was joking and yet not joking about all the gray in the room.

It scares me.

And I think about it.

I'm being honest with you.

What's gonna happen for our children and our grandch I get emotional on this, because I, I think about it, it's how heavy it is.

What's gonna be there for them if we don't have a mind?

I remember 1990, they did a coun remember Lakota speakers?

Remember they did that, that big count in 1990 on Pine Ridge?

They figured they had, I think t 2,700 fluid speakers.

1990.

Now we're looking 31 years It's getting pretty, pretty scar This Covid did take a lot of those fluent speakers, took a lot of the older ones.

We've got to have movement of some kind this time.

We all walk hand in hand.

<in Lakota> We all give one another life.

Hello.

This is nasúla.

In English, its brain.

Na Here Whoops.

I give you and then Sú is a seed and la ask for more.

This was supposed to be my secre Now it's gonna be all over.

No, I'm just kidding.

When I did start taking Lakota language classes in Oglala Lakota College, my instructor said, [in Lakota] He said, “Don't be bashful.

One day you're gonna be standin up here teaching the young ones.

So Iv been there for 25 years, teaching the young people Lakota language, Lakota culture.

Sammy, did you wanna share your [reading in Lakota] Because of Lakota being their second language, when you say the word and they repeat after you, and they can write it and say it as they're writing it, that helps them a lot.

If I was to do it totally immers which I would like to do, but I can't, I wouldn't have any students at I teach language at an all girls But how I teach them is they listen to stories and I write the stories down in our Lakota language and as I talk they follow along So they're hearing the language, but they're also learning to read and write the language.

It is a oral language, but today it's important that we write it down, because about 90% of the young p that I'm teaching go home to hom that people there don't speak th are not fluent.

[reading in Lakota] [speaking in Lakota] I tell the students, once you learn your language, your culture, you're gonna know you, yourself.

You're gonna know yourself.

What we're gonna do is This basically the, what that looks like.

It's basically, we took a mat curriculum, American math curric just translated it on Lakota.

And they picked up on it.

Yeah.

And instructions are in La So then they would say like, [speaking in Lakota] 2 + 8 = So thats where were moving fo them to be able to look at it an and say a sentence in Lakota using math.

The whole school design, what is written to is that we can still meet state standard and our kids can still learn Lakota at the same time.

So, preparing it up so that when we do get accredited, we show how the state South Dako Its time for them to step aside, and let us do it.

Oh, Alright.

I take this off and I ask you gu to come write it up here.

Can you guys do that?

Come up here and write, “e” So what is she missing?

Ah her oíse.

Pick the next person.

Thinking of a, of a school that was, That was different.

That include That was inclusive of the commun it served.

I knew that was a, a heavy task.

How do you overcome a hundred and plus years of oppression and what had happened through Indian policy?

Okay, so what is the first thing I want you to do when I give you your paper Do what?

Say it louder.

Lakota studies isn't just one block thing.

It's got, it's got language arts It's got science in there.

It's got math in there.

It's got social studies in there So put it back where it belongs.

It belongs in these classes.

You don't have to have a fancy f If you have a dream and you have the backing of the you're gonna make it happen.

And so it, so that's why we star Wakayeja Ki okeyaci and it's evident that the community wanted it.

So they came and in spite of COV and we still opened up and, and we're still, we're still ope [speaking in Lakota] Theyd punish you, if we tried to sit down and speak our language in this.

We seemed to have came through a time perio when we couldn't dream anymore.

All we did was struggle to survi But those dreams are starting to come back again.

And we gotta allow our young peo to pick up on those dreams After boarding school.

This medicine man, I told him.

I wanted to give thanks.

So he took me out there.

I wanted happiness.

I wanted to find happiness.

But where is happiness?

I thought I had happiness with my friends who brought what they had so they could numb my body and my spirit.

But that was all fake happiness.

It wasn't true happiness.

All through the night cried, prayed.

I want to be happy.

That next day, the clouds were turning pinkish, sun was gonna come up.

I turned around, saw that mornin and I remembered grandpa's song.

[singing in Lakota] And that morning, every bird within hearing distan started singing their songs.

When that sun hit my eyes, I bro and I started crying.

I cried all day.

What do I do?

It came on me that I had to forg I had to forgive myself for people I used, abused, confused for my own personal gai or people who used and abused me I had to forgive them.

I had to ask forgiveness.

I had to forgive this Catholic p who whipped me 50 times for half I said, “Father Dreckman, I forg Now, when it's your turn to go and see your creator, you can explain to him why you h to whip this little Indian boy 50 times for half an apple.

It's not mine no more.

It's yours.

I give it back to you.

It is yours.

I forgive you.

That's how strong forgiveness ha We have to live it.

We have to live it.

We gotta teach these people to forgive themselves and forgiv But we've learned to harbor such In 1879, the first indigenous children, sons and daughters of Rosebud Sioux Chiefs arrived at the Carlisle Indian Industrial Schoo More than 10,000 children were taken to the Carlisle School before a closed in 1918.

Many of the kids died and were buried in a cemetery on site instead of being returned to their paren 18 years ago, my brother Russell and I went to Carlisle.

When we walked into that cemeter we didn't know what to expect.

And the first one we saw was Lucy, Pretty Eagle.

We stopped and we were looking.

She's from home.

She's Lakota.

[speaking in Lakota] So we started going and looking We got really excited.

Maybe one day we can work toward getting them back.

We made prayer with them and we made no promise to them.

That's very key in the old Lakot You don't overstep yourself because you don't know i you'll be able to fulfill that.

But we told them, we said, “Rest easy.

Sleep for a little while, and we will do what we can.

And so we had to redo our own research of the families and those children.

Everybody wanted to research and see who they were related to Everybody started doing a lot of the family trees.

And one of them was my own blood Alvin Killed Seven Horses.

I found that Luther Standing Bear in one of his books, he writes about Alvin.

And he says, “Everybody was happy for him that he was no longer here.

Why would children be happy for a child dying unless life was miserable?

During that time, we started the process with the army.

And I will tell you, it was a hard struggle.

So much that they required in affidavits and notarized copies of this and And oh my gosh.

Until finally they said, “You can come after two.” We said, “No, I'm gonna tell you something.” And I wrote the undersecretary of the army.

And in there I reminded him where he learned the ethos of never leave a fallen comrade Said, “You learned that from us.

We are not gonna leave any of our young behind.

So it took longer because we wanted them all.

This weekend, some children returned home after they were ripped from their families more than a century ago.

[singing in Lakota] This has been a journey.

All that we had to do to bring these children back.

And I'm very happy to see each and every one of you who has come forth in recognition of those that lie in that trailer.

And the recognition of the youth that said, we want them to come home.

And from the bottom of my heart and the top of it, my heart is full today.

I thank you.

Wóphila táka.

All the children are back on the ground from where they left from 142 years ago.

And their relatives are here.

The descendants are here.

Back in that time, when their moms and dads saw them off from here, there was probably a lot of sadness and a lot of crying.

And it took 142 years before they make their journey home.

But now they're home.

We're really fortunate But now they're home.

We're really fortunate to be abl to do this ceremony, to welcome them back, to be able to touch the ground.

And for the relatives to sit on the ground with them, talk to them, pray with them, welcome them home.

Coming back across the Missouri River, I felt this sense of happiness.

It was such a good feeling to be bring home a relative.

That is such an amazing feeling.

I don't know that there is a word for that.

There was a book that I like to quote from Chief Seattle and Chief Seattle says, “We know where our people lay and we respect where they lay.

The white man, he forgets where he buries his relatives and he walks on their graves.” And I thought to myself, “They're home now.

They're home now.

They don't nee that loneliness that they had.

They don't need to experience th They don't need to experience th They're outsiders in a world, in a crazy world.

They don't have to go through all that now.

It's done.

It's done.

They're home.

[speaking in Lakota] You want me to start from up here or down here?

Just...

Here, Ill work my way down.

In creating this school, I want our people, our community, to take back what belongs to the And what belongs to them is educ Education is always ours.

It's always gonna be ours.

And soon as grandma takes it back, grandpa takes it back.

Auntie, uncle, our cousins.

When we all take it back and we say our best gift is our and where they're gonna go in the future, that's up to us.

So whatever I say, you guys repe Twin Marissa and twin Karma will help you, okay?

[teaching in Lakota] In the 1800s, it was just waíu and Lakota.

In the 1900s, it was Lakota and iyéska, mixed bloods.

That was our split here because the mixed bloods were seen as having everything, the land, everything.

And they were pressing over here So says full blood and mixe blood.

I said, “Now it's 2000.” I said, “The full bloods are almost gone.” I said, “I got a card that says I'm a full blood.” But I said, “I'm gonna be gone in a few years.” I said, “What are you guys gonna I said, “Somebody comes here and see you speak in English.

No matter what blood degre you are, how you look, how dark, how light you are, what color your hair is.

If you speak English, they're go that person is English.

But if you speak Lakota, then those people will say, that person is Lakota.

So, so we want our young people to have something that they can like come and have, have something i common that'll strengthen them.

And that's the language.

because we had enough of this, you know, the internalized oppre So we want to get away from full blood and mixed blood and Lakota and waíu, and today we're a mixed cultural soc Weve all kinds of DNA in us.

And anytime different DNAs meet, new ideas come about.

Throughout the history, our people were a banned from speaking our own language.

That destroyed the internal bein So the newer generation of indigenous people, they were born with English ins of their internal building being They know they're Indians.

They're certified by the governm that they're Indian people.

We have an enrollment number, but it's only on paper.

To have our people be Lakota, they have to go back to the ancestral, the language, whatever is left.

They have to utilize it and star thinking from the worldview, Worldview from a Lakota perspect Something that's very important for these language learners today is to understand the naí.

Theres a naí inside each and every one of us.

They have to understand that all of our ancestors are inside us.

Their blood and their spirit is all inside us.

So we hold them very sacred.

That's why they call them waká You cant send them to school t verbally abused by a a white tea You have to send them to school to find out who they are.

They have a spirit.

They come from Lakota home.

Our children are very sacred, ve [speaking in Lakota] We want this language to reach the next seven generations.

[speaking in Lakota] What we do today, each one of us is responsible fo seven generations ahead of us.

So I think my tákake i is done eating, so I better shut my mouth Tuwále Tuwále