Word: lakota
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Forty young Lakota warriors stand in prayer at the edge of a South Dakota pasture. They bless themselves with sage smoke and thank the spirit of the buffalo that is about to give up its life. A few bison look up from their grazing as a pickup truck churns slowly across the field. Then the crack of a rifle scatters the herd: Rocky Afraid-of-Hawk drops a yearling bull with one clean shot. The teenage warriors, dressed in Fila sneakers and No Fear sweatshirts, scramble in for a closer look as the older men skin the carcass. Later...
Like most campers, the Lakota teens swim and toast s'mores over the campfire. But these kids, most of them recruited from troubled reservation towns, are trying to break a grim cycle of alcoholism and despair by living as their forebears did: sleeping in teepees, traveling on horseback and learning their once forbidden language and ceremonies from tribal elders. "This camp is more than a camp," says Gregg Bourland, chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. "In a way it is the rebirth of the Great Sioux Nation...
This may be a heavy agenda. But for the Lakota--what the western Sioux tribes call themselves--and many of America's nearly 2 million Native Americans, the situation is critical. Tribal health-care specialists say that on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation, an area about the size of Connecticut where 10,000 Lakota live, 85% of the population between ages 12 and 35 binge on alcohol and other drugs; child abuse is rampant; and gangs like the Crips and Bloods have been offering a brutal form of sanctuary for lost or neglected kids...
Members of the new breed of elected tribal leaders hope the youngsters will return fortified against that mess, with traditional Lakota values they can inject into their communities, such as respect for the earth and the connectedness of all living things. "We call it seventh-generational thinking," explains Bourland. "Seven generations ago, our ancestors loved us so much that we are still here as a people. We have to create a world not only for today, but for seven generations to come. The young people from this camp are going to be the messengers for the future...
...Missouri-born, Princeton-educated Bradley (Rhodes scholar, 1965-67) has also been a pretty good team player. He worked hard for his state and was a determined if quixotic battler for such causes as tax reform, equitable water distribution in California and retributive justice for South Dakota's Lakota Sioux...