Land Treaties Dust to Dust

Friday, January 23

After a week of spring with temperatures in the 60s, I awoke to snow and a temperature of 14 degrees with a bitter prairie wind. I drove the van this gray day to Kyle, SD where we visited Lakota Funds http://www.lakotafunds.org/ and Lakota College http://www.olc.edu/
We drove to Betty's Kitchen for lunch. This restaurant is literally in Betty's Kitchen! I've been listening to KILI radio while here. You can stream it online so check it out - http://www.kiliradio.org/

When we returned to the retreat center I helped pick up kids for children's hour. I drove all over Pine Ridge and came to dread those treacherous speed bumps. Let's just say you'd better slow down or say goodbye to rear suspension.

It's been a long day. We had the evening off to do what we wanted. Tomorrow I head to the Black Hills, the birthplace of the Lakota people, the holy lands so to say. Only these holy lands have long been taken from their chosen people. Today, I looked at three maps based on three treaties that the U.S. government made with Lakota people about the designation of tribal lands. http://puffin.creighton.edu/lakota/index_treaties.html It shrunk dramatically when gold was discovered in the Black Hills. Greed over land is such a painful sin. It is so wasteful.

I keep thinking about Leo Tolstoy's story "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" A man who is desperately land-hungry makes a bet for a lower price that he can have all the land he can walk from sunrise to sunset as long as he returns to the spot he began at. He walks and walks trying to attain more and more only to realize his mistake too late and makes a mad dash for the starting point. He makes it just as the sun sets and everyone cheers while the man drops dead from exhaustion. They bury him in an ordinary grave, only six feet long. Thus answering the question.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. What are we doing in between?