SPECIAL CELEBRATION MAKES CULTURAL CONNECTION

Freeman Academy partners with Department of Tribal Relations to offer area students, public at large, a unique look at what makes us different — and the same

The Freeman Academy campus has long been connected to rich musical traditions, with the sounds of four-part harmony, orchestral instrumentation and education a central part of the culture on which the school was founded almost 125 years ago.

Dance? Not so much.

But dance was front and center — literally — as the auditorium inside Sterling Hall on the school’s campus became a platform for singers and dancers from the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Tribe, located on Lake Traverse Reservation in northwest South Dakota, to share their own culture and traditions with nearly 700 people, mostly white elementary and high school students from five area schools.

The traditional American Indian song and dance — and, importantly, the stories that went with it — was the central element of the Indigenous Peoples’ Celebration held last Wednesday morning, Oct. 18 hosted by Freeman Academy with exclusive cooperation from Secretary David Flute and the South Dakota Department of Tribal Relations — a state government agency.

The 60-minute program wove together various dances with the rhythms and sounds of tribal voices surrounding a war drum in the center of the space, as well as stories shared by Sec. Flute.

“My friends, my relatives here around this drum, we enjoy sharing our culture with communities because so many times there’s a disconnect because of a lack of good communication,” Flute told those gathered, which included several dozen community members attending. “We’re here this morning to give you and share with you just a very, very tiny piece of our culture — a very beautiful culture that’s right in our backyard here in South Dakota, of the Indian people that were here for many thousands of years.”

Flute used the analogy of a handful of sand scooped up from a shore.

“All that we’re giving you is one little granule,” he said. “There’s so much of this beautiful culture.”

Origin story

Last Wednesday’s Indigenous Peoples’ Celebration wasn’t part of some traveling show or ongoing and organized programming but was instead developed organically after the Department of Education hosted a series of tours for educators and asked the Department of Tribal Relations to help facilitate a cultural presentation through song and dance.

Among those attending was Karla Rupp, who leads Freeman Academy’s Grades 1-2 classroom and reached out to see if Sec. Flute and the agency he leads would be willing to do something similar at her school.

“I wanted to do this because of the work they did to host us,” Flute said of Rupp and the team around her who managed the multitude of logistics that led to the event. “That’s how it all came to be, but it also gives testament to (all) our community members here in South Dakota that want to learn more about the Indian Country and our Indian people, and that can be tough to do sometimes because of the political landscape.

“It’s just a blessing to have a community put politics aside and not care about anything other than sharing a culture.”

Show and tell

To that end, last week’s event was as much education as it was performance, something that Freeman Academy Head of School Brad Anderson appreciated — especially considering the wide reach it had. Freeman Academy students were joined by peers from Freeman Public, Marion, Menno and Scotland, which all accepted invitations to attend and helped fill the Sterling Hall bleachers.

“It’s great to have so many neighbors here and to be able to show hospitality,” Anderson told The Courier after Wednesday’s performance of song and dance. “It’s wonderful to have this kind of an authentic cultural experience, and how fortunate we are in South Dakota to have so many wise people of other cultures to share those with us.”

Those attending watched four champion dancers from the Dakota Dance Club, which is part of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Tribe, perform a number of distinctive dances, including a traditional men’s dance, which represents the movement of looking for tracks on the ground and is often performed in powwow circles.

There was the Grass Dance, which Sec. Flute spoke about extensively.

“I’ve heard different stories about this dance,” he said, explaining that, long ago, before grasses were cut for lawns and hay fields, Indians would use the natural cover as camouflage in anticipation of combat.

“They would stuff long grass in their belts or their breechcloths and around their legs and their arms so they could have the upper hand against whatever enemy might be coming — another tribe, Westerners or people of bad character,” Sec. Flute said. “Being a part of the military, a common thought is that when the U.S. Military was in these battles with Indian people, they saw how we were dressed, and thus came the birth of the ghille suit used now by Navy Seals, Green Berets, Sniper Seals, Marines, and other special ops — all like grass to blend into the environment.”

The Grass Dance choreography also belongs to a society whose purpose is to prepare the ground for ceremony and prayer — or another kind of event where the grass was tall — and 30 to 40 dancers would stomp the grass down.

Another dance featuring a Jingle Dress was developed as a healing dance — or medicine dance, Sec. Flute said.

“The story that has been passed down for a little more than 100 years is that man’s wife or daughter was sick and couldn’t be healed with roots and medicines,” he explained. “So he started praying to God and had this vision of this dance.”

The sound of the “jingle” on the dress was originally produced by crawdad shells and later chewing tobacco cans formed into cones by a needle-nose pliers, by various tribes across North America.

“Jingles represent the sway of the waters and how those waves crash along those shores,” Sec. Flute said. “You see those white caps — a special connection to our elements. We respect and we credit and give thanks and honor to the tribes that have these dances that have shared them with us.

“This is a very special dance,” he continued, noting that often times the dancer may be thinking of somebody — “somebody in their family that might be sick. Or they’re thinking of maybe a challenge in their life. Maybe they’re getting ready to go law school. Maybe they’re getting ready to take the ACT test. Maybe they’re getting ready to go to college, or the military. Sometimes these dancers will be thinking of these things in a very humble way, but in a way to also respect and recognize God and the many great blessings he has given to us and ways to believe in him. And this is one way our Indian people believe in God. We are a very spiritual, prayerful people.”

Finally, those attending last Wednesday’s celebration were treated to the men’s Fancy Dance and the story that goes with it.

Sec. Flute explained:

“When Buffalo Bill was taking his Wild West show across the ocean in Germany and France, people were excited to see the ‘wild Indians’ they had read about in the novels and newspapers.”

But the dances weren’t being presented as portrayed in those stories, Sec. Flute said, so Buffalo Bill said, ‘if you don’t create some kind of a dance that gets the crowd excited, I’m going to leave you there.’

“Our Indian people, never having seen the ocean before, were told that,” Sec. Flute continued. “And so, the story came to be that they came up with some songs and this dance.

“Try to put yourself back then, and how (the dancer) is kicking himself and spinning around; Imagine all the dust that would be kicked up. It became one of the most exciting dances in all of Indian Country. It’s kind of a sad story, but it became that dance that is here today.

“All the dances in all Indian Country are special, but the audiences seem to like the Fancy Dance the most.”

Other elements

The Indigenous Peoples’ Celebration included additional remarks and insight from Sec. Flute, including a tribute to the elders in attendance.

“For me as an Indian person, when we see older people — our elders — they can do anything they want because they are our elders,” he said, asking all attending to stand and show their appreciation. “They are the wisest people that we have here today. I want to acknowledge this group; you are a blessing and I honor you.”

Sec. Flute also took questions from the students in the audience and then, after the younger classes were dismissed, spent about 10 minutes speaking directly to the older students.

“It’s really important that each and every one of you, as students, take school very, very serious,” he said. “There are times I wish I could go back to my youth and not be a class clown — not be the one that didn’t want to study for the test. Don’t be that guy or don’t be that girl.”

He encouraged the students to be responsible with technology and “harness yourselves as an individual so it doesn’t clutter your mind” — to “get to know yourself better than anybody” and not to let social media own you.

Sec. Flute encouraged the students to work, “and working doesn’t mean to just get calluses on your hand; it means to callus your brain. Take all this knowledge your teachers, your school administrators, your elders and your community — take all that in and find a way to keep it and to figure things out for you.”

He foused on the word “foundation,” which is part of the bible verse found in 1 Corinthians 3:11 that is written on the west wall of Sterling Hall: “For no one can lay any Foundation (‘mind you that’s capitalized’) other than the one already laid which is Jesus Christ.”

The people in the community laid a foundation, Sec. Flute said. Ancestors laid a foundation.

“That’s why we’re here to share our culture with you,” he said. “Our ancestors wouldn’t want us to feel sorry for ourselves because of what happened in the past. Who wants to live in the past? I don’t look too far ahead in the future, either, because God gives us the day and we need to embrace it and enjoy it and love it and take everything that’s good from it.”

Finally, he told the students, it’s important to the Indian people that their culture is shared.

“We need to build stronger communities,” Sec. Flute said. “There’s always going to be those people that want to be bad actors in all communities — in all races — but that doesn’t mean we have to be.”

After the celebration

Following the public presentation inside Sterling Hall, Sec. Flute met privately with Freeman Academy students at the American Indian display located inside Heritage Hall Museum & Archives. He read to students in grades 1-4 the children’s book “The Medicine Quilt,” by Margaret Doom, which draws upon a true story between the Freeman Network for Justice and Peace and Wagner Horizons whose mission is to facilitate multi-cultural relationships as a way toward reconciliation.

He also met with Freeman Academy’s high school government students and explained more about the Department of Tribal Relations, and he answered additional questions from both groups.

“It was a really good day,” Sec. Flute told The Courier prior to leaving the community for his home on the reservation. “These kids had some really good insight and a lot of questions, and — again — that brings me hope that these presentations will open and expand a young person’s mind to want to learn more, not just about Indian people, but about everybody in their community.”

And, days later, Rupp summarized the impact of the event.

“No matter what way people experienced the celebration, as an audience member or one of the many planners, it touched peoples’ hearts in ways that I never expected,” she told The Courier. “Even after 48 hours had passed, most folks (including myself) couldn’t talk about the gathering without glassy eyes. For me, that’s evidence of the connection and learning that we were all leaning into.”

Rupp said people of all ages are already asking if there is a plan to have another celebration next year, which she takes as a good indicator of the interest and enjoyment.

And, she said, “the day after the celebration, Sec. Flute reached out to say that he was ‘in awe of the experience, the kids that asked really good questions, (and) the reception we received from the community. It was all just a blessing on a blessed day.’”

Indiginous Peoples’ Day was made possible thanks to financial support from Dr. Rolf Olson, vocal music instructor at Freeman Academy; Dr. Anne Waltner, a member of the school board; and Shane Vetch of Modern Woodmen.

It was also supported by the faculty and administration of Freeman Academy, the participating schools that accepted the invitation to attend, by Heritage Hall Museum & Archives, and by the Freeman Network for Justice and Peace.

Sec. Flute was joined in Freeman by Director Fred Osborn of the office of Indian Education and Dani Henkel, information specialist with the state of South Dakota.