As I've mentioned, I'm publishing the inspirational stories emailed from my friend Carl who is volunteering at the Sioux Nation in South Dakota. Carl is a retired USN Master Chief (Marines), who is donating two months to the Native American Voter Registration and Education Project on the Pine Ridge Reservation of the Sioux people in South Dakota.
Kosians will remember that the Sioux Nation delivered the razor thin margins of victory in Johnson's 2002 Senate race, and Herseth's special election.
Here are Carl's earlier dispatches: Dispatch I, Dispatch II
Here's the latest:
Yesterday I met a man who creates and sells "Ledger Art." When I asked him what that was, he showed me some of his work. Ledger art, it turns out, is traditional Sioux iconic paintings, but instead of being done on hide (very expensive in Sioux economic terms) it was and still is done on used sheets of paper from ledger books. These ledger books were used by the Army, by business people and by ranchers and cattlemen to "keep accounts." Old sheets were given to or sold to Indians for their art.
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These wonderful paintings are important for two reasons: they are living history, and they portray in a subtle way the incredible cultural chasm that existed between the Sioux and the settlers. It is really something to hold in your hand a document that shows what was important to the settlers, i.e., profit to be taken from the land and the story of a people, their heroes, and what they believed in, drawn over the original accounting writing and numbers.
The irony of the conflict between these two people will always haunt me. The hardworking European-Americans with their protestant work ethic and their catholic martyr worship in conflict with a people for whom honor, ancestors and hard work were a way of life. Had they not been inflicted with the language barrier, the Sioux would have probably assimilated the European-Americans. Had they not been saddled with a stiff necked religion, influenced by greed, and cheered on by corrupt government, the European-Americans might have respected the rights of the Sioux, and joined them in a way that celebrated life on the plains.
My new friend the ledger artist and I talked about this, as well as other things. All he seems to want is for the government and its lawyers to understand that the land has always meant more to the Sioux than money. He says no one can take spiritual inspiration from money.
As I drove back to my motel down the road from Allen, the sun was setting behind what seemed endless fields of corn, hay and sunflowers. The sky was studded with hundreds of separate clouds, all puffy and gray with flat bottoms. It was beautiful enough to bring tears to the eye, and yes, it called to my spirit.