Lakota People Analysis

For the Lakota Indians, stories were passed down through the generations as a way of teaching lessons. Their creation story places an emphasis on maintaining a balance between man and nature. This balance was broken for the Indians when, after violating the Dawes Act, a treaty that gave them full rights to their sacred land, white men pushed them out of their homeland and forced them into a society that they never wanted to be a part of. In doing this, their culture was greatly diminished, along with their hope of a better future. Today, the Lakota Indians face poverty and other challenges that all stem from a time when their rights were violated, peace broken, and stories forgotten.

The Lakota, an Indian group of the Great Plains, established their community in the Black Hills in the late eighteenth century (9). This group is an example of an Indian community that got severely oppressed through imperialistic American actions and policy, as the Americans failed to recognize the Lakota’s sovereignty and ownership of the Black Hills. Jeffrey Ostler, author of The Lakotas and the Black Hills: The Struggle for Sacred Ground, shows that the Lakota exemplified the trends and subsequent challenges that Indians faced in America. These challenges included the plurality of groups, a shared colonial experience, dynamic change, external structural forces, and historical agency.

Who really are the Cheyenne Indians? According to historians, they were Indian people who became nomadic and moved to the Great Plains in the 18th century (Berkin 366). Another tribe, the Souix, developed the name of "people of a different language" for the Cheyenne. Some people said that the Cheyenne did not exist until the mid-1600s or at least this is when the earliest known records were found. They are one of the most famous and prominent Plains tribes, too.

The book “Lakota Woman,” is an autobiography that depicts Mary Crow Dog and Indians’ Lives. Because I only had a limited knowledge on Indians, the book was full of surprising incidents. Moreover, she starts out her story by describing how her Indian friends died in miserable and unjustifiable ways. After reading first few pages, I was able to tell that Indians were mistreated in the same manners as African-Americans by whites. The only facts that make it look worse are, Indians got their land stolen and prejudice and inequality for them still exists.

The Lakota Indians, are sometimes known as the Sioux, but they call themselves the Lakota, which is translated as ‘friend’ or ‘ally’ in their native tongue. Their description of themselves make sense when looking at their seven virtues that they live by, “These are Wóčhekiye (Prayer), Wóohola (Respect), Wówauŋšila (Compassion), Wówičakȟe (Honesty), Wówačhaŋtognaka (Generosity), Wówaȟwala (Humility) and Wóksape (Wisdom) (“Lakota Today”). A culture’s idea of the most importance qualities a good person should have gives a good idea of what kind of people they are. The Lakota’s virtues all revolve around a general concept of respect for everything, compassion, humility, and honesty. These things can either refer to their fellow man, or

            Virtues are usually taught through the eyes of the wise, also known as the elder. In the book The Lakota Way, by Joseph M. Marshall III, his tribe teaches virtues though story telling. The virtues of the Lakota tribe and those of my family are more similar then I had anticipated, although we do have our differences.

Spring: The Dakotas tribe were returning to their camps when Spring had arrived. They got straight to tapping the maple trees.They would use the syrup for sugar and hard candies. They would also use the syrup for geese and duck bills.They would trade the syrup for other goodies .They would hunt muskrats,otters, beavers,minks, and martens. The muskrats were used to feed hunters.

Though obvious to the name, the American Indian Tribes had much to do with the growth of what we now know of as the US. Long ago when the english settlers came over with Columbus, on the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, they had found that there were people living there, were very different from “the white man”. But the American Indians have been located throughout the states from the very beginning and are still thriving, in some cases. One of the more commonly known, American Indian Tribes is the Cherokee tribe.(WKU Meteorology; Dr. Greg Goodrich)

In the cooler weather, they wore buffalo skin for warmth. The Mexicans eventually influenced their style of dress. They began wearing vests, white tunics and more colorful clothing made from cotton.Storytelling is very important to the Apache Indian culture. Since they were not governed by any set of laws or rules and there were no jails for poor behavior, the Apache relied on passing down a code of conduct orally, from one generation to the next.The Apache were talented in arts and crafts. They were known for their beadwork in which they used shells, glass, and turquoise. They would often sew good luck beads onto war shirts. Basket weaving one of the Apache's oldest known forms of art . The burden basket and bread basket were the most common baskets. They also made jewelry, necklaces, earrings, and barrettes. Both sexes liked to wear shell jewelry.In the early 1800's, the relationships with the first white men to enter the region were solid. By the 1850's things had changed and as the Apache were being driven out of their homes and hunting and gathering was becoming scarce, raids and scalping began to take

Social class has always been around, whether it is the present time or the past. It is a way to group people into a set of hierarchical social categories. For this reason, social class is something that will never go away. No matter how hard we try as a society, there will always be people pushing hard to keep these groups alive. The rich, high class, will never be ok with sharing a table with the poor, low class. Social class affects not only our outward appearances, but it plays a factor in what schools we can attend, our health, what jobs we can get, who we can marry, and the treatment we receive from police and courts.

In 1868 the Lakota tribe signed a peace treaty with the US government giving the tribe all the

Ever changing, the world promised a comfort of shared misery and remained reliable. Brutal truths are instilled, early and sudden, as lasting lessons always present and impossible to ignore. When bold questions slither into a mind as to why anything is and what may be the reason for the continued existence, people find or create places of unjustifiable magnificence. Paha Sapa, “the heart of everything that is,” is this place for the Sioux. The War of the Black Hills between the Sioux Nation Lakota and the U.S. Americans has lasted for more than a century, and continues in the courts, in the lives of its warriors, and is protested through stone.

For years, the Americans and the Native Americans have been battling for the richest land in the area. It all began when the Americans decided to move onto the already inhabited land of the Natives. Instead of following peace treaties, the Americans used forceful tactics to remove them. There was a small piece of land that they did not take and that is now called the Lakota. The University of Nebraska did a study on Lakota reservation life and they stated that the United States was not very concerned about the land; they even said it was worthless. (Benjamin Jewell pg. 3) To the Indians, this land meant everything to them, even if the land did not produce much. The land the Indians attempted to have agriculture on was called, the Pine Ridge Reservation.

Looking back on my Belmont experiences, I believe the most influential experience that taught me the different perspectives of the world is when I participated in the study abroad program in South Dakota to study the Native American Culture. We lodged at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (Lakota: Wazí Aháŋhaŋ Oyáŋke), which is the home of the Oglala Lakota Native Americans.

Erik Homberger Erikson was born on June 15, 1902 in Frankfort, Germany. Erikson was born to his Jewish mother Karla Abrahamsen, and his biological father who was an unnamed Danish man who abandoned him before he was born. During his school years, he studied art and different languages instead of chemistry and biology. When he graduated he was interested in becoming an artist. During the 1920’s he decided to travel Europe, where he had to sleep under bridges. After traveling around Europe for a year, he decided to enroll in an art school back in Germany. He stayed at the art school for several years. Then he began to teach art and other subjects to American children who came to Vienna for Freudian training. Erikson was admitted to the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute. In 1933 he moved to Boston, where he filled a position at Harvard medical school as America’s first child analyst. While he taught at Yale and Berkley, he did his famous studies on the modern life of the Lakota and the Yurok. Erikson is known for being a prolific writer. He has wrote many books and essays such as Childhood and Society (1950), Youngman Luther (1958), Youth: change and challenge (1963), Etc. Erikson went on to teach at a clinic in Massachusetts then back to Harvard before he retired in 1970. In 1994 Erikson passed away at the age of 92.