Impoverishment and Peace for the South Dakota Lakota Tribe

Photo: Hamner_Fotos

Far from a domicile name, Avrol Looking Horse leads a Laktoa Tribe in trying to change mankinds appetite toward peace.

He met with Desmond Tutu as well as with a Dali Lama. He spoke upon universe assent as well as eremite leisure during Harvard, Yale as well as Dartmouth. He traveled to Iraq to urge for global healing. He carried his concerns to a United Nations. He perceived a key to a city of New Orleans. He was a guest during a Wiping of Tears rite during a World Trade Center bombing site in New York.

The list continues.

He said:

We have been a watchers. We have been a witnesses. We see what has gone before. We see what happens now, during this dangerous impulse in tellurian history. We see whats going to happen, what will certainly occur unless we come togetherto restore assent as well as assent as well as balance to a Earth, a Mother.

His reason up focus has been a commitment to work toward peace, eremite freedom, as well as a survival as well as revival of his culture. His name is a single we substantially have never heard: Arvol Looking Horse.

Reservation Life

Avrol Looking Horse

To get to a Cheyenne River Reservation, we can take a craft to Pierre, a capitol of South Dakota, as well as lease a automobile for a two-hour expostulate northwest.

The people upon a advance booking welcome tourists, particularly because they need a income which tourists bring; a population of 8,000 has an stagnation rate of 86%.

Arvol Looking Horse was innate here in 1954. When he was usually twelve years old, be became a nineteenth generation Keeper of a Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe, a single of a many critical Lakota de! vout pos itions. He was a youngest in his clan to reason this duty, as well as he continues as a arch as well as devout personality of a Sioux tribe.

Looking Horse said:

We have been a usually species which is destroying a Source of Life, meaning Mother Earth, in a name of power, mineral resources, as well as tenure of land, using chemicals as well as methods of crusade which have been doing irreversible damage, as Mother Earth is apropos sleepy as well as cannot sustain any some-more impacts of war. we ask we to join me upon this endeavorto urge as well as meditate as well as commune with a single another, thus promoting an appetite change to heal a Mother Earth as well as achieve a concept consciousness toward attaining Peace.

I see Native American spirituality some-more as an orientation in reason up rather than a eremite practice, in which an individuals middle reason up purposely develops to connect with a incomparable reality. Arvol Looking Horse does not see himself as a eremite person, but as a devout being; a spirituality which breathes reason up into his amicable structure as well as his culture.

He has regularly lived upon a reservation, working towards assent as well as a enterprise to save a planet from drop by humankind.

Visiting a Plains

Photo: Sebastian Bergmann

As we gathering north from Pierre towards a reservation, a land was flat as well as a sky huge, meeting in a rough line upon a apart horizon. Pulling over to a side of a road as well as branch a automobile off, we could hear a level breeze gently hook a weed which surrounded me.

After a couple of moments, listening really carefully, we discerned a faint, apart thunder which slowly grew louder as well as louder, as a earth beneath my feet began to tremble. Suddenly a immeasurable flock of bison appeared, a cloud of dust following in a wake.

North of Eagle Butte, a tribal headquarters of a Cheyenne River Sioux, there is H2O rivers as well as gullies as well as hilly, weed lonesome rock. The advance booking is abundant with running water, bordered by a Missouri River upon a eastern edge, a Cheyenne River upon a southern border, as well as a Moreau River runs through a core of a reservation.

And nonetheless this republic is a single of a many bankrupt in a United States as well as does not have an efficient H2O complement to support a residents.

The people living upon a advance booking contingency rest upon groundwater which is of extreme bad quality. This H2O supply exceeds sovereign standards for maximum levels of impurities, as well as containing unacceptable amounts of iron, sulphate, as well as dissolved solids. The enamel of childrens teeth is shop-worn by a high thoroughness of fluoride in a water.

Looking into a eyes of these children, we saw both a unapproachable history, as well as many pang as well as suffering. But when their faces pennyless into spirited smiles, ready for fun, they looked similar to young kids anywhere. The adults however, have been different; hopelessness is etched upon any countenance.

Extreme Living

Photo: Jerry7171

It isnt a Black Hills or a Badlands which we design when we think of South Dakota. My daydreams regularly return to a plains, a rolling land, a grasses, as well as a bison.

Ive never visited South Dakota in a winter for great reason. The snowstorm of Jan of 2010 is a undiluted e.g. of a extremes Mother Nature can lambaste us with. The Cheyenne River Reservation suffered a snowstorm in Dec 2009 which dripping up their complete bill for plowing as well as sleet removal.

In Jan a whirlwind struck, breaking off energy lines similar to they were straws floating in a wind. Then a big snowstorm struck, as well ! as cut o ff H2O supplies. Imagine 42 degrees next zero with no running H2O as well as no electricity. Wearing your woolies to bed just wont do it.

When open again arrives as well as a prairies have been green with brand new weed as well as glowing with wild flowering plants blooming in pinks as well as yellows as well as blues, it is tough to hold a harshness of winter could strike again. Yet, nonetheless a land is breathtaking in summer, reason up upon a advance booking is oppressive all year round.

The Sioux have regularly believed which everything collected should be shared equally, as well as which survival requires a cooperative bid upon a partial of all. They hold which humankind is unable to find assent because in assent there is no need for power. Unfortunately, a tellurian race has not nonetheless schooled to live but power.

They hold which humankind is unable to find assent because in assent there is no need for power.

Chief Looking Horse, substantially a many famous Native American devout figure today, continues to speak not usually for his pang people, but also for humankind, as well as many importantly, for a survival of Mother Earth. Though Ive never had a opportunity to meet Looking Horse, he amazes me.

In a really middle of a United States, there is a republic of peaceful people with a devout personality whose concerns have been not usually about his home, but, generously, about everybody everywhere, worldwide. And during a same time, his republic is a single of a lowest in a horse opera world, with an strange rate of alcoholism as well as depression, as well as a top teen self-murder rate in a nation.

Do we think humankind will ever learn to live but power? Share your thoughts below.