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Sweet grass strengthens people as they gather to be honest in truth telling
Tobacco smoke carries the words of the people to their god.
Cedar wood protects them.
These elements are integral to Dakota religious and cultural society, but couldn't stave off pioneers as they settled on traditional Dakota lands, including the riverside prairie that became Winona in 1851.
Three years later, Americans from the East on a Grand Excursion praised themselves for opening the West to settlement, riding riverboats and railroads.
Now the Dakota people along with descendants of the white settlers will call upon sweet grass and its truth-telling powers during reconciliation ceremonies June 26 and 27 in Winona. Leonard E. Wabasha certainly hopes his people hear appropriate requests for forgiveness.
"As part of that reconciliation they really need to hear an apology for the genocidal treatment of our ancestors and a helping hand when it comes to restoring their cultures," he said.
Wabasha directs cultural resource development in the Shakopee Mdewakankton Sioux Community in Prior Lake, Minn. He is a direct descendent of the people who lived on Wapasha's Prairie in the first half of the 19th century before settlers pushed them out and called it Winona.
On Friday, Wabasha was preparing to send copies of the poster announcing next week's Hdihunipi to other Dakota people. There are no Dakota people living in Winona today, as far as Wabasha knows.
Wabasha, whose last name is really "Wapahasha," which means the one who wears the red hat, wants the ceremony in Winona to begin "a healing process."
"Not just for these two nations of people but on an individual level as well," he said.
In addition to truth telling, Wabasha wants challenging questions and answers to flow freely. The first step is to accept and use Dakota words as the Dakota people would spell them, regardless of phonetic convenience, he said.
"I want to generate questions," he said. "If we can bring ourselves to ask one another questions, reconciliation can begin to grow."
He is the son of Ernest Wabasha (Chief Wabasha VII) and so Leonard Wabasha is destined to become Chief Wabasha VIII. When whites settled Wapasha's Prairie and created Winona, they pushed out the people of Chief Wabasha III.
Leonard Wabasha said "chief" is not the right word. Tribes had many leaders, called Itancan and Wicastapi, who served as "the mouth of the people."
Glenn Wasicuna is a mouth of the people. He teaches native Dakota language at the Shakopee Mdewakankton Sioux Community in Prior Lake.
Many American Indians who cannot speak their native language suffer "pain, humiliation and embarrassment" because they feel they have let their culture escape them, he said.
"The language was given to us by the creator," he said. "We have to heal the heart."
Wasicuna, or Wambdi Wapaha (Eagle Staff), had childhood dreams of warriors fighting one another. These dreams haunted him because he believed peace was more powerful.
On March 29, he was driving with Leonard Wabasha south on U.S. Highway 61 from Red Wing to Winona. Wasicuna recorded his observations:
"The river bluffs continued for miles and being on the passenger side I almost had to look straight up to see the steep hill, the rocks and the trees. Around the halfway point, I commented to Hepan (Dakota for second male in a family), ‘I don't know what I'm looking out for and I keep expecting to see something.' To which he replied, ‘I know what you mean.'
"We were on our way for a scheduled meeting at the Winona City Council building with others to further plan this summer's homecoming celebration that will bring Dakota people back to the land of their ancestors.
"What I was feeling that morning during the drive were my ancestors to my right slowly inching their way down the bluffs not to fight but to greet a fellow Dakota who has come back to the homelands."
William Ambrose Littleghost is a cultural adviser for the Spirit Lake Dakota Nation in Fort Totten, N.D. Ambrose served in the U.S. military. Everywhere he went, people called him "chief."
He said that within reservations Indians live by many of their own rules. Outside, they face state and federal rules that can seem foreign to them.
"It's quite a change," he said. "Change is sometimes good and sometimes bad. History books only tell a little bit. Our reservations are getting very crowded. It wasn't our choice to live in those places."
He said the Dakota want the same things any people want: "to live, eat, have a home that you can live in, security for their children, education."
ABOUT THE SERIES
This is the second in a four-part series examining the first human settlers of Winona, their forced exile by white settlers and current attempts to reconcile a chapter in American history.
The event is sponsored by the City of Winona, The Diversity Foundation, Dacota Pathology and the Winona Community Foundation.
Contact reporter Jeff Dankert at (507) 453-3513 or jdankert@winonadailynews.com.
