Details

Storyteller: Michael
Tribe: Lower Brule Sioux Tribe
Created: 2018
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Transcript: I am close with my family which consists of my mom dad and brother. We are from the Lower Brule Tribe of South Dakota and have strong Lakota ties. A lot of my family are Lakota and we are strong people. We stick together like a coyote pack and have faced a lot but are still overcoming things to this day.

I have lived in the Dakotas and Minnesota. I use to live in the Black Hills which is a sacred spot for my people. I am proud to live where my people use to live and as I learn and get to know information on my past it makes it that much better to visit culturally significant places and areas.

Since I was young, I can remember attending pow wows and historical sites all over the Plains. We are open to talk about culture and not forgetting it. Most of it affected me in a positive way and we are not afraid to talk about it. In my eyes the trickster (coyote) and my people have a similar relationship. For years the U.S. government spent funding and supplies on wiping out coyotes to try and eliminate them from the wild. The same way they took out wolves, bears, and many bison herds can be lined up with the way the tried to wipe out Native culture. For years the extermination went on but as my people survived, so did the coyote. I may not have lived in the most difficult time for my people, but I still read, see and experience things that affect our communities.

I can point to my family ties as to why I am strong and why our cultural values have held together for so long. You can try and take the wild out of a horse for only so long because the fight always comes back stronger. No matter what force or government action came face to face with my tribe, we have always held strong to our cultural ways as much as we could. Same with ole coyote, the harder the government hit, the more widespread and larger the pup liter became.

I have always believed without my family or past events, things would be forgotten. When you have a long, significant historical past you have more to be proud of. Lakota families are strong and on my mom’s side they are also big. There are a lot of relatives in the family like a pack. My close and immediate family is what I know most, and they are the strongest. Wolf and coyote packs are only as strong as their weakest members are, so they are in tip-top shape. Nobody is left behind. The strongest members of the pack stay behind and make sure everyone is keeping up.

My family does a lot together. We travel, go to events, hike, and as of now live together. I have learned a lot from my mom and still am to this day about life and culture. I try to follow as closely as possible, so I don’t miss a beat. I went to college one year with my brother, but he is currently in Wisconsin finishing his degree. Every now and then he comes back, just as coyote families will come and go. Coyotes can either live alone or head back to family groups when food is scarce, like in the winter. My dad takes me hiking, to parks and pow wows which we still attend to this day.

Coyotes interact with each other and families may grow. I have Shelby in my life now and I teach her as much about my tribe and culture as I can, and she is willing to learn about them. Someday I wish to have a family so my culture and story can go on. I am a direct descendant of Meriwether Lewis, and I am proud of that and want my story and his to go on also.

After all these years my tribe and my family are still going strong. We have persisted and survived government onslaught as did the coyote. You are as strong as your family is and we are powerful.