Hello. My name is Jesan Sorrells, and this is the
Leadership Lessons from the Great Books podcast, episode
number 125. This is
our big 100 and 25th episode. That means that we are
25 episodes away from a 150 episodes, and
that also means we're 75 episodes away from
200 episodes. I don't know what we're gonna do for our 200th. We did
a panel discussion for our 100th episode. I don't know what we do for 200th,
but we'll worry about that when we get there. And,
so with our book today, a book that
is a
it's an extension of some of the information that we
covered in, the episode number 79,
where we talked about Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee with Dee
Brown. This book that we are going to
talk about today and the individual who is talked about in
this book is, as it says on the back of the book, an iconic
legend, particularly in American
history, but also for all of our international listeners who may not know anything
about American history, was very important to the
settling and the resistance towards the settling
of the American west.
This book is written from the perspective of an
individual 3 generations away from
this iconic legend. And one of the things that jumped out
to me today, and I'm gonna talk with, Tom about this today,
it is an attempt to write the ship
of legacy, for not
only this individual and not only for his family,
but also to attempt to write the ship of legacy
for future generations, before time
runs out. So the book that we will be covering
today, and, yes, we are recording this on Indigenous
Peoples' Day or as some folks still know it in the United States, Columbus
Day, so it's ironic that we are recording
this today. The book that we will be covering is Sitting
Bull, his life and legacy. See it on
the video there by Ernie Lapointe, the
great grandson, proved through genetic testing, by the way, in
2009, of Sitting Bull.
And, of course, today, we are going to be joined in our conversation
around the legend of Sitting Bull and the life and legacy of
Sitting Bull with our regular cohost, Tom Libby.
How are you doing, Tom? I am doing fantastic today. Hey,
son. Alrighty. So
you will be happy to know, by the way, that I did indeed once I
finished reading this book, I went and cross referenced whatever Dee Brown had been talking
about. Yep. And I was like, oh, that's where the gaps
are. And so we could talk about we could talk about the gaps in
Dee Brown's sort of research, which Ernie Lapointe does address a little
bit in here, but that's not really his main focus. So we can talk a
little bit about that today. And, of course, you know, what does it mean
to have an oral tradition actually actually written down?
There's another one too by, Robert Utley that was decent as well. I
don't know if, people I think that was printed in 2008 or something
like that. There was Okay. There was a decent book as well. So between the
3, I think the 3 books paint a a decent picture.
Yeah. Pretty well on picture. And it's really hard to kinda get
ahold around, Sitting Bull for
a whole variety of reasons.
And, and I think it starts with understanding
I think it starts with understanding who Sitting Bull was and sort
of how he earned his name. So I wanna wanna start
with that because, his name is not Sitting Bull.
That is not that is not his his
what's the appropriate term? Is that his native name? I I I don't know what
the appropriate term is there because in in African American culture, we call it something
else. Yeah. So Sitting Bull Sitting Bull is is Sitting Bull is a is a
translation. Right? So his Okay. His actual his actual name and,
again, part part of it is because, and this happens
even today in in translation. Like, when you hear the words, you know,
lost in translation, there's a reason that that phrase exists
because a lot of times, there are either words or grammatical
structure or just the, you know, the ways in which
we, the way in which we
we talk just changes certain things.
Like, I so I I was, you know, I was very adamant
with, like, with my name that people didn't reverse it. So my
name in my language, keep up with
that that con is legit, like, literally eagle
rising, and everybody wants to reverse it because the way of the
way that the English sentence structure is, they naturally wanna
say rising eagle. Right? Like it's like a it's like a natural thing, and that's
kinda happened a lot throughout history of of the native. So you're right.
His his official, his actual,
name is not Sitting Bull. It's a that is an abbreviated
or, what is the term I would
use, paraphrased, I guess. Like, it's it's simplified,
version of his of his actual. And you can you can read you can read
the actual right out of the book, I would imagine, or you already I don't
know if you already know it. But I I well, and I didn't. And
so getting the book and reading it, that was first sort
of the first sort of leapfrog, I guess, I had to make
over it over over over a number of different things in the book. But How
about how about his birth name? Because his birth name wasn't Sitting Bull either.
No. Because we're doing sensible. And that's and that's something that people don't
understand about the the native culture either is that your name
can change throughout your life, and it's usually dependent on,
something again, on your birth, it's something that somebody in
your family as an elder sees in the brand new
baby that some sort of, you know, spiritual component
or physical characteristic or something like that that they named the baby out of
right out the gate. And then you develop into an individual,
a person that, they may rename you because that
name doesn't apply anymore. Like, the name doesn't you know, it's not it's
not relevant to you or your personality traits or your
accomplishments have given you a higher level of respect
or a higher, you know, status symbol that
requires a a more appropriate name of of sorts. So if
you I don't know. If you wanna read them, I know, like, you know, his
his birth name is different than his his name after, his,
10th or 14th. It's either 10th or 14th
birthday where Mhmm. He was really recognized as, you know, becoming a
man and that kind of stuff. So it was Yeah. We're gonna let's let's get
into that part because that's that's sort of where we I think we should start.
So I'm going to pick up directly from Sitting Bull, His Life and Legacy
by Ernie Lapointe. And I wanna I wanna talk about the provenance of this book
too and sort of how it came about because I think that's all very important
for leaders to, to know. And, of course, as usual,
we will find the leadership lessons that are in
this this, this this man's
life. Alright. From Sidney Bull, his life and
legacy by earning the point.
The life of this Lakota Sundancer began back in 18/31.
This is when the Bad Bow Band of the Hunkpapa tribe of
the Tietunwa Lakota nation was camped on the banks of the
Elk River, now known as the Yellowstone River in Montana.
Tiantunwa means looking for a home site. These people travel
over vast areas pursuing the buffalo and roaming freely through
immense open territories. The whites mispronounced their name and
called them Teton. The child was the 2nd of 4
children born to her holy door woman and returns again and was
to be their only son. His older sister was good feather woman,
while his younger twin sisters were called twin woman and brown
shawl woman. Returns again was very proud
of his newborn son and gave the infant his childhood name, jumping badger.
In Lakota culture, the young boy received his first name from
something his father had seen or experienced. His adult
name was given to acknowledge a noteworthy deed he accomplished
in his adolescence or adulthood.
Now going to make another point here, then I'm
gonna skip to where he gets his his name changed. Jumping
badger was different from other boys his age. Where the others
were adventurous, eager, and often reckless, jumping badger always held back
thinking before he leaped. If he had lived in this century, he would have
been considered a gifted child and would have been praised for his self discipline and
for always analyzing everything before he acted.
His own people, though, misunderstood thinking his behavior was
hesitant and feeble. They gave him a nickname. They started calling
him Hunkensy. No. Sorry. Hunk Kesne.
Sorry. Slow moving or weak.
Now in Lakota culture, when a boy reached a certain age, his father would approach
either a brother or a brother-in-law. He would give this trusted man a gift and
a filled pipe. Then the father would ask for his help in sharing with his
son the Lakota way of being. Through example and stories, the uncle will
show the boy how to be a man, a warrior, and a provider for his
family. For a Lakota boy, while his father was a familiar
figure for whom he might feel great affection, His uncle was
an authority, a person to be respected and admired. A
boy would listen to his uncle.
Now I'm gonna pause there. That's the first thing that jumped out to me,
primarily because, oh, in our postmodern
culture, one of the massive challenges we have with masculinity, and it is a
gigantic challenge that no one wants to talk about, is we do not
have any transitional
traditions for young men. If you look at any
tradition rights of passage. Rights of passage. Exactly. If you look at any traditional
culture, particularly traditional religious cultures, I always I often think
of Judaism. Right? Sure. You know, they're going to have,
you know, the the what is it called? The word
now now I'm gonna lose the word. But they're bat mitzvah. There you
go. Bat mitzvah. They're gonna have a bat mitzvah or a bar mitzvah for,
bat mitzvahs for the girls. They're gonna have a bar mitzvah. Well, e even there,
they're going to have a transitional ceremony for for a young man.
Mhmm. But in African American
culture, in majority, Caucasian culture,
in particular in our postmodern times where we don't value tradition,
we've abandoned these transitional steps. I mean, yes, you transition
from high school to college. You know, that's a major transition that a lot of
people celebrate. But at the end of the day, for a
young man, there's no markers or there's very few in our
society and culture. And that was one of the first things that jumped out to
me about this book, and about the value
in telling Sitting Bull's story and
relating that story. And it describes in
detail his transitional, experience
going from being a boy to being a man.
So one of the questions I wanted to ask you before we really fully fall
into this is, did you have a transitional experience in going from being a
boy to being a man? And if you didn't, why didn't
you? Because I didn't have one. I just my mom was
just like, Hey, congratulations. Go pay your bills.
Get out. Well, I mean, that's terrible. It wasn't nearly like that.
It, I, I, I shouldn't throw my brother on the bus like that. It wasn't
nearly like that, but there wasn't, there were no significant
markers to say you've hit this spot in the road. There were
no benchmarks as we say in sales. Right? To say you've hit this spot and
now you can go accomplish another goal. And for me, that's
something that I've struggled with or I did struggle with for a long time,
even going into even going into my
adulthood. So let
me I I I I wanna clarify, a couple things
real quick before I answer the question. So number 1 number 1,
just as you read this and just remember, you
know, Sitting Bull was Hunkpapa, Sioux or Lakota
rather. Sorry. It was a Sioux and, speaking, tribal
affiliation out in the western part of our country. So,
my people where I come from is in here in the northeast. So
my people would have been, in Southeastern Canada, Northeastern
United States, so Nova Scotia, along the main
coastline down to about the northernmost part of Massachusetts
around Salisbury, Gloucester, that area. And
so the although there are some universal
thinking, there's some universal
kind of stereotypes that get thrown on us.
The actual there were actual cultural differences, right,
between the northeast here and and the the western part of the country.
Yeah. Today, that gap has slowed or
shrinking, shrunken just because of the advent of modern
technology. Like, we can see what's happening in, with our brothers and
sisters out in the western part of the country very easily. We have the Internet,
things and so and so and so forth. All that being said,
I also wanna remind our listeners here that,
although I was when I was younger and born,
and I was told very early on that I was native, but my biological mother
who raised me was not native and did not subscribe to
any of the culture or teachings, as such.
I didn't meet my biological father until I was 21 years
old. And already knowing I was native, I just
started asking a bunch of questions about how, who, what, where, how, why,
whatever. Like, what does this mean for me? So I've spent the last
30 years catching up, or at least I felt like I've been catching
up over the last 30 So to answer so to answer your
question, now so no. I didn't have any of that
either. I didn't have any of that coming of age, kind of situation
at at in the traditional way. What I did have,
though, was and, again, I have no problem throwing
my biological mother under the bus. Your mom sounds like a wonderful human being, and
I would encourage you not to do that, Ehsan. And I have never met the
woman, but she sounds, from what you've told me, very nice. Anyway, my
biological mother, on the other hand, I actually remember the day
to the day. I remember the actual day, and I won't bore everybody with
the, the actual logistics. I will just tell you that
I remember the day that I went into my mother and I asked her a
question, and she had zero answer for me,
and I had to go figure it out on my own, and I did. And
once I figured it out on my own, I realized I didn't need her anymore.
I was 11. So I was 11,
just about turning 12, and I I felt like I needed
her for this particular thing. And, again, I'm not going into logistics because you don't
need Sure. And I also don't need listeners thinking it's a sob story. It's not
Yeah. Yeah. That's not the point of it. My point is that that coming of
age thing for me actually did happen, but not in a traditional
sense. It was a very postmodern sense. Like, it was Yeah. The
very thing where I I went to her and I said I need help. I
was in charge of my brother and sister. My brother and sister were younger. Mhmm.
I wasn't I wasn't sure how to handle a particular situation. I went to her
for help and guidance. She had no response and not even a care
enough to try to help me find the right answer.
So I felt like I had to figure it out on my own. I did.
And once I did and once I realized that that what I learned and what
I figured out was right enough
I'm just being very careful with my words here. Absolutely. Yes. It was
right enough that it wasn't that it that that it made me able to move
forward with my life. Mhmm. At that point, I literally
stopped asking my biological mother for help. I stopped asking her for
advice. I stopped asking her for guidance.
She was of no use to me at that point other than
an adult body that I needed. And I did need her adulthood because I I
couldn't sign documents at that point. Right. Yeah. But when I, you know, when
it when I when I had to when it meant taking my brother or
sister to the doctor or understanding what their medical
needs were, I literally just needed her there to sign the document at the end
of the day. Otherwise, it was all on me. Right.
Right. Yeah. Mhmm. Okay. So, I mean,
that so, again, that lack of transition.
Right? That lack of you know?
And I think a lot of people I don't think your story is unusual. I
think a lot of people have that experience. I
agree. I also think that a lot more people have that experience
than what we actually want to acknowledge. I agree with that too.
Because I don't think
that and I'm gonna particularly
pick on America. I don't think that American culture has done a particularly
great job of providing those
markers for people because American culture didn't think you needed them
overall. I also
think that well,
traditionally, there's a lot of weight put on Christianity and religion to
kind of provide these markers and these pushes forward.
And, you know, traditional Catholicism, orthodox
Protestantism will indeed do
some of that. But at the end of the day, to your
point, it's gotta come from family. And I think this is reflected in
Sitting Bull's story. It has to come from family and what he says about or
what they what Ernie Lapointe says
about the Lakota way of being. Through example, in stories, the uncle
would show the boy how to be a man, a warrior, and a provider for
his family, which I found that to be interesting as well because we don't
actually talk a whole lot about extended family. Like, I was raised by by extended
family. Right? Like, I grew up with my grandma. And
so I was aware that,
well, I was aware that there were other people other than just my mother and
my father in the world. Right? And I think with
the atomization and the individualization of American culture,
a lot of people aren't getting that. Right? They're getting it's it's
it's mom and dad, the kids of this unit, and then they're and they're cut
off from the community, and then there's none of these transitions that take place. And
so how do you how do you navigate that, you know, in a in a
really, quite frankly, complicated environment? And I think that's why some many
families one of the many reasons why families are floundering and have been for quite
some time. Well and and I I I think the other thing too
and and this we can talk about this probably all by itself. I hate this
particular topic because within one generation of
parenting, I've seen just drastic differences. Like, if you ask
my my all of my kids are in their early twenties. Right?
Actually, I lied. 1 of my sons is 29. But aside from him, they're all
in their they're in their early twenties. And if you ask them what their
childhood was like in the extended family sense,
Extended family to them did not stop at aunts, uncles because
it wasn't a blood thing. It was more like you know? So, like,
I I my my son will be very quick to tell you the difference between
today. Like, if he was at a powwow when he was 5 or 6 or
7 years old, every single person on that field had
something to say about what he could or couldn't do. Like Right. Whether they were
whether they were blood family or not, if they were on the powwow field and
he got yelled at by one of the elders, he was
hesitant to come back to me to tell me what was going
on because he knew that if that was an elder
that I respected and he did something to offend them or to hurt their
feeling or whatever or irritate them or whatever, that that was
gonna be the end of his day. Like Right. Yeah. You know, like, there there
was gonna be some severe and swift and cruel pun swift and
cruel punishment because that and that's how he
developed that understanding that the elders matter. Right? Like,
because, Right. Now he looks at kids showing up to powwows
today, and our generation looking
at these kids going, hey. Hey. Don't do that. And the kid flipping us off
or the kid saying go f whatever. My son's sitting there
going, oh my good lord. I'd have been dead. Like, I would've somebody would've killed
me if I did that in my and that's one generation. He's only my the
one I'm talking about. My youngest son is only 25.
He's he's 25, and he notices he noticed that dramatic
difference between when you know, 20 years ago when he was 5 versus
today in a 5 or 6 year old. It's insane to to to
him to to see that difference. The whole it takes a
village to raise a child is out the window because you're not
willing to have somebody else teach your
child a lesson of right and wrong Right. Because because of
why? Because I don't understand. Like, if if if it's because you don't
agree with their right and wrong, but that doesn't mean that you don't
take it as an opportunity to teach your child that there's a there's
also a difference of opinions, and people that have different opinions than
you still matter. There's other lessons to learn there.
So I I don't under I don't you know, I see it my
nephew my nephew has a daughter. She's almost 3 years old, and I see it
even with him. And and her she was at my house
yesterday, and she went to throw some little temper tantrum at the, you know, 2
and a half year old's throw. And I went, oh, no. No. Not in this
house. And, you know, my nephew's
reaction was, oh my god. What's the matter? Are you alright? What
are you thinking right now? She's 2a half. Just tell her to cut the crap.
Well, you know what I mean? Like, don't So is this and so this is
a this is something that,
African Americans have long noted about, and I'm gonna I
hate to do this to you folks, but I'm gonna make a racial distinction here,
that African Americans have noted about about Caucasian parents.
There are all kinds of things that they will do
that are, quite frankly, racially and culturally
based that if the skin color were different, those kids
wouldn't be getting away with it. They did. They just, they just wouldn't.
Now what's interesting is as I've
gotten older, I attribute that less to race and more
to class because I see classes of people doing different
things regardless of race that other classes
won't do regardless of race. Right? Yeah.
And so I don't know how you I have no
idea. I I I mean, to your point, like, I
I have no idea how
I have no idea how you preserve tradition and culture,
walking up ill against everything that you see in
the dominant structure. Right?
Because to your, you know, or maybe not to your point, but the fact
is, like, all all kids, regardless of ethnic or
racial makeup, all have access to iPhones. They're all on the Internet.
Yep. And so the great flattening,
that occurred or that began to occur in our generation has just
has just continued to steamroll, you know, across the,
across the generations, which I think that's one of the reasons why
Erna Lapointe, wrote this book or or maybe dictated
this book, and I wanna talk a little bit about that. But I also think
that it's why he considered it to be very important
to get this down, because
there's there's something to be said
for it being in the written word versus being in an oral
tradition because an oral tradition could just fritter away as oral traditions, by the way,
have done across the globe, because once the people's voices
are gone, then then what is there left to,
what is there left to say? Right.
Okay. Back to the book. Back to Sitting Bull, his life and legacy. I wanna
pick up a little bit with, earning his name. So,
and I'm gonna refer to him as Sitting Bull just for the for the for
the moment here. Well, jumping badger, actually. I'm going to I'm gonna do this.
So returns again is jumping badger's, father,
and returns again approached his brother 4 horns. 4 horns
took jumping badger underneath his wing at around 7 years
old, And then jumping badger had
a number of different experiences, that demonstrated
his compassion, and his wise behavior both with his
peers, and with into the space of
hunting, which was important to the, the Lakota,
and in engaging with, his mother,
which I'm gonna talk a little bit about the the family structure here too, but
engaging with his mother and his teepee, by the way.
Jumpy badger, later later Sitting Bull,
when he got married, I marked that chapter up extensively.
And I was talking with my wife about it, and I said,
I said, this is why this is why polygamy, regardless of
culture, does not work. I don't I don't care. I mean,
like, I know you don't wanna read the, the
Caucasian man's book, but read their book because it doesn't work out in their
book either. It doesn't it doesn't work out. There's a reason
for this.
And so, so he's got this compassion.
Right? And he's got jumping ball. He's got this compassion. He's got this generosity.
And,
well, it's important how all this factors into getting his name. So in the chapter
earning his name, it says this returns again, Jumping Badger's father was
a deeply spiritual man and had the ability to communicate with the 4 legged.
One time, around the time Jumping Badger killed his first buffalo,
returns again was part of a scouting group looking for buffalo. The
group had camped for the night when a big white buffalo bull suddenly appeared at
the edge of campfire. The scouting party was startled, and they scattered
except for returns again. The
buffalo bull reared up on its haunches and bellowed as he stomped down
on his fore hooves. He did this 4 times and then turned and disappeared
into the night. The rest of the scouts returned to the fire
wondering about the reason the bull did this. Returns again said the bull had come
to give him a gift. The gift was four names the buffalo had
bellowed. The first name was Tatanka Iotake. The
second was Tatanka Ska. The third was Tatanka Wajila.
The 4th was Tatanka Wijuha Naji.
The names were Buffalo Bowl Sits Down, Sitting Bowl, Jumping
Bull, 1 Bull, and Bull Stands With Crow. I'm sorry. With Cow.
Not Crow. Bull stands with Cow. Returns again told his friends this
was a special blessing and a gift from the Buffalo Nation, and he
took the first name for himself. He said, from this day forward, I will
be known as Tatanka Iotake. And
so this is sort of how jumping
badger sort of wandered I shouldn't say
wandered. Sort of, this is this is the providence. That that's the
term I'm looking for. The providence of, of Sitting Bull's name. And,
he has to go through a series of trials in order to
be recognized as a warrior. And,
he also has to I won't say live in the shadow of his
father, but he has to he has to
become more than what his father than what his father
is. And he's going to do that in a in an
interesting, in an interesting way.
He's going to become a leader. Right? He's gonna become the leader of the Strong
Heart Society, and he was elevated to a
position in his twenties, because of
how he led and because of how he positioned himself. That was
unusual for a young man of his age
and experience.
Now there's a challenge
here,
that allowed,
that allowed to talk to
develop a support system around him and not really a challenge, but
an opportunity that was given to allow him to develop a support system around
him, and that is related here.
So in the chapter that says jumping ball, and I'm gonna quote directly from this.
This will set up my next question here for Tom. In the late 18 fifties,
an important event occurred in the family life of Tatanka Iotake. The
Strong Heart Society traveling north of the Missouri River encountered an asinero
an Assiniboine camp. It
was a single family camped on the riverbank, and the Strongheart Warriors surprised the family
members. The family attempted to defend its camp, but it was no match for the
warriors who wiped out the whole family except for one young boy.
He was about 11 years old, still with only a child's bow and
arrows. Even so, he kept attempting to shoot at the warriors.
The warriors decided to wait for Titaka Iotake to arrive and let him
decide the fate of this bold and desperate child.
When Titaka Iotake arrived and dismounted his horse, the
young hohei, seized his only chance to survive. He ran to the strong
hearted leader, embraced him around the waist, and pleaded with him saying, big brother,
save me. Though the boy could not have known it, he spoke
directly to the heart of Totanka Iyotake. He just finished
warning the death of his firstborn son. In addition, he himself was
an only son. He did not have any younger brothers. Totake
told the warriors he wanted to spare the boy's life and that he wished to
take him as his brother. The
request to make the little, his
brother was brought in front of the elders since it would require a
The purpose of the Hunka Yaw Bay is for the Lakota to make relatives among
warring tribes, to eliminate wars, and create peace among the
nations. Because of this, it is a serious undertaking. Those
who have a Hunka relationship have deliberately chosen to be responsible for each
other. Their ties are deeper and even more important than the relationship between
blood kin. The elders examined and debated the issue to make sure both
Tatanka, Iotake, and the young Asseniboine
desired desired the hunka. And so they go
through the ceremony,
and, and they become, they become bonded
together. And
the and after soon after this
happens, Tatanka Iotake's,
father passes away and they engage in the ceremony
of what's called the keeping of soul.
So the reason I'm bringing this up is because
we're talking initially about passages and transitions from
childhood into into adulthood. But then there's these other
passages that are marked in, to talk
to your talk his life that set him up
for
well, I can't really tell. I can't really tell if they set him up for
for future success or future failure. Like, I can't. Actually,
you could probably make the argument of both. Okay. Yeah. So that was one of
the that was sort of my question is is there's
a sense of and maybe it's because I know the history and I know what's
going to happen next. Like, I know what the clearing at the end of this
path is. And so I'm not coming to the material pure. I mean,
we've read bury my heart and wounded knee. We know what happens. Right?
But there's a sense of, I don't know,
tragedy to to to these transitions.
And is that something that I don't know.
Is that is that what is that the appropriate kind of sense to
take from from from thinking about these
transitions, or or is there something more there?
I think it's a lot deeper than just
simply success and failure or tragedy or, you
know, comedy and tragedy, so, you know, whatever. So the the theater versions
of it. But I I think it's a lot deeper than that. I think that
you know, because there are
there are versions of that ceremony that are throughout the country. I mean, they're called
a little bit different depending on which tribal affiliation you're talking about, but the sentiment
is always there. And every just about every tribal affiliation across the
continent has had some form of that ceremony.
Mhmm. For me for me, that ceremony, I believe,
goes way deep. It it's it's almost
like removing the barriers of emotion
altogether from an from from a person. So somebody alright. I'll give you
an example. Like Mhmm. You and you and I have known each other a couple
of years. Yeah. The level and depth of which we've known each
other has increased just through our interactions.
Right. Yeah. If we ever got to a point where we wanted to go
through the ceremony, then we would have to be willing to take down all
of those emotional walls all at once versus going through
this over the course of however many years that you and I are gonna be
connected in this way. Right? Whether, you know, you and I, I we've
we've been going on 2, 3 years at this point. Right?
Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. So if some
event or something pushes us
together more rapidly. Mhmm. The the death this
particular case, it's the death of somebody. He does it later in life where,
he moves his entire village across the Canadian
border, and he goes through a very similar circumstance with,
an enemy tribal affiliation that they were warring with for
generations, but he goes through it with the leader of that group in order
to essentially save his entire village in the move into can into
Canada. I'm oversimplifying, folks. I I understand. So if you've read the book,
hopefully, you don't under you you know what I'm trying to get at here. But
it's these events in life that that are catalysts for
this particular ceremony. Those events
matter. It's so in this particular case where you have a young boy
who's essentially trying to save his own skin, but
he's doing it in in what we would consider the right way. To your point,
he he goes right to the the person that they're thinking is the leader.
I, I call you brother now at this point because I got nothing
left. And now I expect you know, my expectation of you is
different than what your expectation of me was when you first drove up. Right? When
you first drove up. So if
if you're looking again, I I I take this back to our relationship and knowing
each other for a few years. If some catalyst were to happen to
push us closer together more rapidly, and we
wanted to go through this, this ceremony, you would have to be willing or
we would have to be willing to allow all of those guards that we typically
put up on a very regular basis, even with our own family, by
by the way. So you you may have you may have you may wanna go
through this, ceremony even with a cousin or an
uncle or something like that because you want the walls removed. You want
the closeness to be more, deeper than just
superficial or just surface level. So it's
it it it kinda goes back to I remember hearing
when I was a kid a lot of people talking about, this thing like blood
brothers. Right? You cut each other open. You become blood brothers.
And what does that mean in that sense? I
have no idea, but I know what it means in our sense here as an
in the native community, And I wouldn't I wouldn't just go do that with
anybody. Now now knowing now knowing
what I know and and and forget all the, you know, blood borne pathogens
and all that other BS that can possibly happen. I understand that's a different
a completely different, you know, conversation. But the reality of it
is that is also the level of trust you're putting into that person
if if you're going through some of these, ceremonies. And and there
are are parts of the country that it's not a simple passing of a pipe.
There are sacrifices of flesh. There are sacrifices
of, monetary values. And I don't mean literally
you're handing somebody a $100 bill. I'm talking about personal monetary
values, whether it's, your own, I think there
was a a a part in Sitting Bull's life where his father
gifted him a buffalo shield that was Yes. Originally his. So
Yes. You know, so that that kind of right right right of passage.
I believe it was the same time frame that he gave him his first eagle
feather. So, if I'm remembering correctly, so when I
say, you know, monetary, that's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about
personal monetization where you're giving and or
gifting somebody something that's of extreme value to yourself.
Giving somebody you know, if if I were to
give somebody one of my eagle feathers, I
think that would have to there there would have to be something significant
to happen for me to give one of those away. So Yeah.
So, again, in these types of environments, if I'm gonna go through that process though,
if I found somebody that I wanted to go through that that ceremonial
process with, giving up my eagle feather would be very easy for me to
do. That's that's kind of the point I'm trying to make here, that some of
those guarded things, some of those things that you keep so close to the
vest that you would prefer not anybody know them about you at all,
those things go away when you go through these ceremonies. And both parties have to
be willing and open to take the, all the good with the bad
because it's not all just, you know, you know,
roses and and, you know, rainbows and roses. You also take on some
of the baggage for that person and you share the the pain of of
whatever is going through with that that person's life and, you
know, in future. Like, you take on a lot of future things. This
is this is not a simple thing. I just wanna really just try to emphasize
to the people. Yeah. This is not a simple thing that you just
pass the pipe, smoke the pipe, everybody's happy, and you go out. Now we're brothers.
No. It's not that simple. It's much more in-depth than that, and you
have essen essentially make yourself extraordinarily
vulnerable to that person. So you have to make sure you
understand what you're getting yourself into before you say yes on both both parts,
on both parties' sides. So
in thinking about
these types of ceremonies or these types of not even the ceremonies, but these types
of transitions. Right?
If you're going to engage in something like that, you have to meet it. You
know? And not only do you have to meet it, but you have to meet
it at a level that is more than just a casual
transactional level. Right? For sure. This
is not buying a pack of gum at the grocery store. This is
not, It's also not not borrowing a tool and never
returning it. Right? Like, they were you know, you you might lend
somebody you might lend somebody a tool or money. And
if you get it back, great. And if you don't, you're okay with it. You're
not gonna let it ruin your relationship. Right? Right. It it it's
it's way beyond that too. Like, it's it's it just goes way beyond
the simplicity of what we're thinking. It's it's
it's it's
it's the principle of family, but but at
a at an even more grounded level than
that because and and English is terrible for these kinds of terms,
for for what it is that we're For sure. We're seeking to get. You know?
The, you know, the thing I always I always say, and I don't know. It's
been a while since I've said it on this podcast, but, you know, we have
one word for love in the English language, and yet that covers
a multitude of sins. Right? We have one
word for family, and yet that that's supposed to
cover a multitude of meanings as well. And it doesn't because it's
it's it's it's hyper it's hyper contextual,
and it's hyper engaged just as you as you just
said. That's why we add words to it. Right? We have our family.
We have our extended family. We have, like, we add words to it to try
to make it mean other things. Other things. Yeah. Or to try to or to
try or not even just try to make that mean on things. Try to try
to bolster it. Try to give it some some meat on those better define it.
Yeah. Better define it. Right.
There's also this idea, and this is something that that cuts through
not only all of what city bowl experience, but
it it cuts through even what we read about in episode number
79 and bury my heart at wounded knee. There's
a sense of interweaving,
among native tribes
and native tribal cultures. That is
sort of an anathema to people who are industrialized.
Like we live, we live in an industrial we're well post we're post
industrialized culture. Right? So scientific materialism,
whether you like it or not has won the day.
And so we
and by the way, scientific materialism has won the day for a whole variety of
really good reasons. Like, it gave us antibiotics
and it gave us cell phones, and it's given us this
ability to record this podcast. Now the
downside of that is it's also given us things like,
pornography and seed oils and all of our foods that make
us fat and sick. You know? Well, I'm just quoting my
wife here because this is what she would say. And, you
know, and and all these other negative things. Right? Nuclear warfare. You know? I mean,
like, it's given us the these are the downsides, right, of,
of scientific materialism. But no one no
one seriously, anyway. You have a lot of activists who will say a lot of
things, but no one seriously is talking about
regressing backwards to something that is,
you know, pre modern, like, deeply pre modern. We're we're all
expecting we're all expecting some apocalyptic thing to happen to bring us there.
We're not gonna do it on purpose. Yeah. No one's gonna do it on purpose.
Right. We're waiting for the left shoe to fall before you know, we're just gonna
end up there. Yeah. And we're just hoping that enough people are ready for it
and understand how to live through it that we that we survive. Right. Because we
don't wanna fully commit to the pre modern thing because we know how we recognize
in our souls how hard it's going to be. Exactly.
But the challenge or the struggle and you see this not only in
in in Ernie Lapointe's rendition of, of his,
of his great grandfather's life, but you see it in a lot of other different
places in our culture. The fact of the matter is
we want to go back and get some of the traditions from those pre modern
places and, and bring them forward. And yet
we can't because the underpinnings, the
the things that allowed those, those traditions to
exist have passed into history. And so
maybe that's the, the touch of tragedy that I'm
feeling. You know, when I read,
when I read this this story and I read how
this how this is laid out for,
for Sitting Bull. There's also
a sense and it's it's something else that I picked up from the book. And
I wanna talk about wives and children in a minute. We're gonna gonna talk about
that, and then we'll get into you know, I I wanna talk about his vision
quest, which I made some notes on that,
and, and talk about his first encounter with the Americans today.
But one of the points that Ernie makes
and let me see if I marked it here.
Let's see.
I almost did this, podcast with Mike Estawi on 2, by the way.
Oh, well, that would be
that'd be awesome. I was gonna wear it today. There we
go. That's awesome. I was gonna wear it, and then
I decided, nah. Everyone's seen me so far in my regular clothes. I'm
just gonna keep it simple. Just keep it simple.
Oh, where is it?
Yeah. Talked about enrollment. Hold on. I'm trying to find
the point that he makes about the ancestors because
it's it's here we go. Yes. Here we go. So it's at the
end of the book. And La La Pointe says this, and it's sort of
in the, in the afterward called living the legacy. And this was one of the
things that jumped out at me. Right. And he talks about sort of
the reception, not sort of the reception that he has received,
from standing rock reservation, which we've talked about. We've talked about sort
of the the the challenges of reservations, to
put it moderately, in American culture.
And, he talked about how or he talked about how he had
submitted, Ernie did, an application for enrollment at Standing Rock
in 1997, and then there was some
dispute. And it was not a dispute between,
Ernie and, you know, the federal government or something like
that. It was a dispute between the standing
reservation government, I guess,
and Ernie, and talking about who Sitting Bull
was and what he was. And it says here at the
end, in those years, and I quote,
that was when Ernie decided there would be no way to heal the anchor at
this time. He has said repeatedly that he is still open to any of the
hostility, but it will require an apology for those who have wronged his great
grandfather. When a Lakota takes the life of another Lakota, he is
banished from the tribe. If this individual survives the elements and the
4 legged and he returns to the tribe, he returns with gifts to the family
of the person he killed. He also will bring a bladder full of
water because that is the amount of tears that will be shed. Then he takes
the place of the person he killed, but he is also required to take care
of his own family. What he did will create a difficult life for this
individual for the rest of his life. Most people do not survive after they have
been banished. In those years when the Lakota accepted the
role of being Sioux Indians as was as in the case of the betrayers
of Tatanka Iotake, they were not banished. What
they did is this is it. They cursed their descendants.
This curse is 4 generations long. Their descendants cannot
perform the sacred ceremonies nor have, kanupa that
is Wakan. It is simple to ask for forgiveness of what their
ancestors did, yet they find it hard to do. Either these people do not
know of this curse or they are just ashamed of their ancestors. The spirits
say these are the people with quote unquote blood on their hands. And if they
do not ask for forgiveness for their ancestors after the 4th generation
is gone, they cannot ever perform the sacred ceremonies.
This is one of the reasons the Lakota culture will cease to
exist. It has been said before the healing begins,
you first have to feel the pain.
And I wrote in the corner there, Jesus said, repent
and be saved, not
I'm just gonna give you forgiveness. No. No. No. You gotta repent first,
and repenting is always about pain.
But we'll leave that point aside for just a moment.
This idea of, and it gets back to this, to what
we were talking about, about, the
binding of people together. It's not just the binding of the people together of
1 generation. We're talking about intergenerational ideals. Talk a little
bit about that because again, we don't have, we don't really have
a, we don't have a conception of that. That blows away the postmodern mind because
we're individualistic along with being scientific materialists or
individualistic. Like I don't have any.
Would it be nice if my mom clapped for me all the time or to
your point, your mom? Sure. It would be nice. But at the end of the
day, like, I'm an individual. Right?
Like, I gotta be responsible for my family. And then when I'm dead and
gone, that's it. Like, the door is just closed.
Right? I can do as much as I could possibly think of
doing for my children in my time when I'm alive.
But I know that in 2 generations, my name is gonna fall out of their
memory and 4 generations forget it. Like, I
don't ever think about my great great grandfather. Like, never.
And I know the person existed. I don't even, I will be blunt. I don't
even know his name. He was for sure. A slave
probably in the early
19th century, probably somewhere in
what at the time would have been the,
the Kentucky Ohio territory, probably somewhere
there. But beyond that, at least on my father's side, on my
mother's side, who knows? But I don't, I don't, I don't know that
person's name. I have zero connection to them.
So walk me through sort of how this works, because those bonds seem to be
a lot tighter in not just in Lakota culture, but in
Native American culture overall. So we
I don't think I don't think what you're saying is
far off in in one sense, which
is it's not about so
for me, it's not about my name. Right? Like, so generationally
speaking, it's not about if if
we're taught that we are responsible for the next 7
generations. Right? So we're we're taught that. So my responsibility
goes deeper than to just my kids. It's their
children's children's children, so on and so forth. So but
by to your point, by the time that 4th generation pops
up, they're not gonna remember my name. I don't feel
like that's as important as if they remember
the teachings. That's more important to me than them
remembering my name. Okay. So so for it's
it's it's kinda like and I
I I don't have grandkids yet, but
to your point to your point a few seconds ago, you know, teaching your kids
it's not just about teaching your kids simply. It's
about teaching your kids well enough that you feel it's it's a it's a
let's let's bring it back to the leadership lessons from the great books here for
a second, Asan. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's not about teaching them
the this one. It's about training the trainer. Right? Right. You're basically
you're essentially so the way I look at my kids and my
responsibility is to get them to the point where they can
do these things so rhythmically. The muscle memory
is so easy for them that it's going to be easy for them to teach
the next generation to do the same things. Right? Okay. Yep.
Take a ceremony, for example, a particular ceremony that we find valuable.
It's my responsibility to make sure that my children know that
ceremony well enough to teach their next generation, to
teach their next generation so that that culture just doesn't
that ceremony will never die. I need to be able to go to my
grave with a a heart
knowing that at least for the next 7 generations, that ceremony
is not gonna die. And if I do my job right, it's never gonna die
for an eternity because my my children will
feel the same way I feel, which means the 7 generations
from them will feel it and so on and so forth. Right? So
it's Okay. It's a it's a it's a connection
to it's a connection to the,
the that whole I the whole concept of you're
not it's not just about you. The whole individual
thing, yes. I get it. Individually, it's up to
me to learn it. But non individually, it's also up to me to
teach it. Right. So it's like so I it's the
it's it's my responsibility as a individual to learn it.
It's my responsibility as a community member to teach it.
So that's where the the the separation actually happens. So,
again, going back to the whole train the trainer thing,
if you're training somebody to the if you're
training somebody to the point where you want them to go and do
a task and you're you're teaching them how to, you know,
pick this up and move it over here, and you're feel comfortable that they that
they they get down the the the functionality of
of picking this up and moving it over here, and you're good with it, fine.
Do you think they could train somebody? Maybe not
because they don't have the trainer mentality. Whatever excuse you give yourself in the back
of your mind, well, that's the part that we wanna train. Right? We wanna
train the trainer because we want them and expect them to be teaching other people
to do this. It goes beyond just yourself. And the
again, the difference in corporate America is you get paid to be a trainer. We're
not paying you to teach the next 7 generations. That's a responsibility
that you take on the day you're born whether you like it or not. Right.
Yeah. That's just part of the that's just part of part of the cultural responsibility.
Now, that being said, I guarantee you there are tribal members that walk away
from that. They don't feel they're responsible. They don't feel the the
they don't feel the connection to the responsibility. Then they they leave the
reservation or they leave their family units with the or they leave it up to
somebody else. Right? So I have 5 I have 5 children. I guarantee you. I
promise you. At least one of them don't care.
They don't care about passing it along. They don't care about keeping
it intact. At least one of them. I think there's
2 of them that absolutely care, and they take
it they take it beyond the the the sense of
responsibility. They take it to the point where it it's a part of
who they are. Right. And then the other 2 are probably somewhere in between.
They feel it. They're not sure about it yet. I think their minds will shift
as they get a little older or they're you know, they they start having kids
or whatever. Something will happen that they'll decide one way or the other on
what they're gonna do. But I definitely have 2 that it is just part of
their soul. It's part of their being. I can already see it in them. They
already they already have 2 of my kids have already
been invited to do lectures at colleges. They've been invited. So I
know that that's in them, that they want to be there to to be up
upfront teaching people, you know, and and getting that that level
of, in-depthness to to move forward. So,
you know, it's it's it's a matter of it's
the way that we talk about it is just different than saying,
oh, we have a family tradition that every year at Thanksgiving,
uncle Ronnie is gonna carve the turkey. Right. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's deeper than that. Like I said, it's
it's it's it's it's part of it it it follows
the arc of the
binding of a random person to you at
a deeper level than just merely friendship. Like, it it follows the arc of all
that. Like, one thing layers into the one thing layers into the
other, and then it also
tracks to, oh, what Ernie Lapointe
is trying to do with talking about,
his, his great grandfather and laying
out the
the truth behind the tradition.
Right? Laying out the truth, as it
has been dictated to him, behind
the, the legend, right. That has grown up,
around. Sitting bull. Right.
So one thing follows from another it's it's it's not, it's
not logically incoherent, nor is it
inconsistent. It it kinda it kinda it's sort of where you would wind up in
a clearing at the end of the path. Right? Like if you're gonna go down
that you're there's a certain clearing you're just gonna wind up at if you were
committed to, to going down that, to going down that path. So no, it doesn't,
it doesn't sound it doesn't sound odd to me. It doesn't it
doesn't ring false. It rings it rings absolutely true.
So let's talk a little bit about those generations and how you get them. Let's
talk a little bit about wives and children. I gotta admit this this
chapter here made it it made me crack up. It did
just for a whole variety of reasons, and I'm going to talk about them maybe
a little bit here.
Back to the book, back to Sitting Bull, his life and legacy by Ernie
Lapointe. Hitaka Iotake showed a maturity and understanding of
life that far exceeded other young men his age. His level of responsibility was
also much higher. He was required to care for his people at many levels. His
position also required him to make wise decisions on behalf of the group, and he's
responsible for their overall well-being. That's leadership, by the way,
folks. Chitanka Iyotake needed the help of a wife
to fulfill all the duties of caring for the people. As a result, he was
married while still in his twenties. This was unusual for Lakota men of
that time since they did not consider marriage until a man was in his thirties
or even his forties. The woman he chose to become his wife
was light hair. Now just gonna
pause here for a second. I find it to be interesting that as a culture,
we are transitioning to people getting married later and later.
But not necessarily men because men have always
gotten married whenever they wanted to get married. That's not been a real
thing. We're transitioning into women getting married later and
later, which has, which has interesting implications for
childbearing and creating the next, the next infertility and creating
the next generation. Alright. Back to the book.
Living arrangements were made for the married couple living
arrangements for married couples among Lakota were based on the fact that the women owned
the teepee. Women were in charge of the shelter of their families and everything that
went with that. Only if a woman asked a man for help, could he take
a part in these tasks? And when and then he was limited to limited to
a few things like helping put up the teepee or helping with such household
chores as gathering wood or hauling water. When to
Tonka EOTAKA and light hair married, she owned their
home and she would be completely in charge of it. Pause for just a moment.
That's feminism, by the way, that's even more important than voting.
We can get into the whole, so most people don't realize that, you know,
again, they were a matriarchal society except when it came to
essentially one thing, which was war. Which is
war. Right. Well well, for for very
well, anyway. Yes. Yes. And that is something that has
that jumped out to me, and I'll talk about that maybe in a in a
little bit of your context here coming up. So light hair,
and to Tante Yotake got married. Light hair
bore him his first child, a son. She did not
survive the birth of her son.
And then when a man with a young with young children loses his
wife, you know, immediate family members among the
Lakota, would be there to help care for him and his children.
Now the whole
village would come together to take help, take care of these children.
And,
but that did not not end. That did not prevent the the
man from getting married again, and Tatankay Otake did
marry again. And he chose a woman named Snow on her.
She bore him 2 daughters, many horses, born in 18/65, and walks
looking, born in 18/68. The Tanki Iotake, a man who
loved children, was very fond of his daughters. And now this is
where then I started laughing. In 18/66, he decided to take
a second wife. He chose to marry a red woman, and this
is where this is where I chuckled. It was one of the few times in
his life that Tatanka Iotake made a mistake in judgment.
The 2 women did not get along. Usually, when a man chooses multiple wives,
they were sisters so they could work together in harmony. The first wife, usually
older, was senior and usually held a slightly higher position.
Snow on her was not happy to have the assistance Red Woman could provide.
Instead, she was extremely jealous of the new wife, especially since the 2 of them
were the same age, reducing her natural authority over the other woman.
Further, the Tanki Yotake seemed to show a market preference for Red
Woman's company. Snow on her became bitter and hostile. She caused
great disturbances in camp with her anger towards red woman.
And then I, I laughed at this one too. Her displays of emotion were most
unseemly and shocking to everybody within the
village. Instead of promoting her husband's position within
the tribe and providing example of a harmonious household, snow on her caused
considerable social disapproval. The Tanka Iotake, for
all his peacemaking skills, was not able to curb his bad behavior by his wife,
And to make matters worse, he really did prefer red
woman.
And I go back to my original assertion. This is why you
don't get to stop. 1 one woman. One woman
is enough. That's gonna give you all of the challenges you could
possibly need. And by the way, I've said this to Mormons. I've said
this to traditional folks in other
religious spaces that tend to tend to favor polyamory
or or polygamy, actually not polyamory. Sorry. Polygamy,
Muslims. I, it doesn't work. I've never heard of a
time when this actually worked, where there's less conflict because you married
multiple women. I've never heard of it. There's never been a
time. I got no opinion on this.
No. I I I agree. Be I I go I I
always go one step further in this, Seisan, too, which is, like,
when you're married like, I don't even I don't even understand of having that, like,
the the the side piece. Right? Like, you you're gonna you're cheating your
wife with some girl that nobody knows about. Even if you're trying to hide it
from your whole family, whatever. I I have a hard enough time
keeping one happy. Why would I wanna add why would I wanna multiply
this? I don't understand why anybody thinks that they can get
away with this to any kind of positive light. But now that
being said, again, I'm not gonna say anything bad or negative
about my brothers and sisters out there in in the Lacoda world. I I
think if that's, you know, if that's if that's the way they did it, that's
the way they did it. And I I I I do understand that there's
I I I I I understand. I I don't know what I don't know. Let's
put it out. Well, I understand. I I will
I understand that I don't know what I don't know, and I've never
heard of a time because who thinks it'd be true at the same time? I've
never heard of a time where it works out. 2 things can be true at
the same time. Yes. I agree. I agree.
You know, aside even I I think back even
back in the like, think about before modern medicine, before modern
medicine. Right? I would understand if you had
a wife. You've tried to have children several times, and she was never able to
carry. You marry another woman that can have children, and they're all
okay with that. Okay. Now you have children, and
now the whole house is responsible for raising those children.
But, again, that that's a very particular circumstance.
I I'm I don't know. I I just My name is
Paul, and that sounds like a you problem. You you know,
I just I don't I
I will say this. I have never,
I cannot conceive of a potential upside to any of this.
It seems as though all of the challenges that you would
have with authority, with
understanding another person, with understanding
the various intricacies of another person's emotional life,
You compound these,
with a with with marrying multiple
women. And and by the way, I'm talking from the man's
perspective, from the woman's perspective, it's a problem too. Because
really, how well could you know a dude? Like, I don't care how matriarchal
your society is. Really? How well can you know a dude? Like,
really? So let me, let's be real
here. So my, my, my
observation of this is yes. This was
the time when he made a terrible mistake at judgment
2, I get, I guess at a, at a cultural
level, why it was deemed necessary to sort of
follow this path, but it doesn't seem as
though he was browbeaten or forced into it. It seemed
like he had choices and had options.
And because he had choices and had options, he could have chosen to
not, you know, go down that road,
and instead, he
he chose the way of pain. Well, familial pain. And so
from this, just speaking about leadership, this is this is it's something that
I tell entrepreneurs, and Tom's heard me heard me tell entrepreneurs this, and I even
tell this to entrepreneurs who I mean in real life. You've got it the the
only negotiation that you have actually, I don't the first sale you have to make
is a sale of your wife or your partner or whatever you've got going on
in your house. Period. Full stop. If you don't make that
sale, all the rest of the sales, you could become a billionaire. You
could become and I always pick on Elon because he's the most popular person right
now. Elon Musk has been married. Married. Has been
married twice, I think, and has been in, like, 4 different relationships and has produced,
like, 8 kids. And the man sleeps on
the floor of the Tesla Gigafactory because he can't go home.
How good a salesman could he be? Can't sell a
woman? What? One of them?
Not that one? Right. So
Tom's being because he's conspicuously quiet on this. He's letting me talk, which is fine.
He's letting me hang myself. That's fine. I'll do it. It's my podcast.
Bury the one woman, the one time, figure out your house
first, and then you could be a better lead. That's my that's my own.
What's next? Ah, Tom
goes suspiciously silent.
There there's been again, if you look in the course of history, again, from a
cultural perspective, there's some things that that happened
that there there's been I've seen and heard of people taking
multiple wives, but their wives in the sense
of visibility but not not
relationship meaning so, like, you you go something
happens to your brothers something happens to your brother. You adopt his family
as yours. Technically, you marry his wife so that she becomes part of your
family and you can take care of her, but there's nothing there. There's no,
like, there's no physical relationship. There's no sexual
tension. There's no there's none of that. There's a level of responsibility that you have
just adopted Mhmm. Because of that, but it but that's
where it ends. And and and that you do willingly because that's
the the the honorable thing to do, to to take your brother's family
in and and and, you know, and and help them manage along. You
gotta remember, we're not talking about a time where the woman could just
go, oh, I don't have a man anymore. I'll just go get my own job.
And also, that's not how it worked. So somebody had
to buy Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Somebody somebody had to go out and
provide meat and whatever. The teepee though. Like, she's in charge of
the teepee. You're gonna tell me that that doesn't Not in that sense. In
those circumstances where where you're you're you're adopted in the
family and because of a a death or because again, you you
read something earlier where if I killed somebody,
now I'm gonna be responsible for their family. Right. You know,
like, that there's no hierarchy there in in wifehood. You're
only married to one wife. You're married to the other family.
So it's a different it's a different it's a different term. It's
the same term, different definition, I guess, is the the better way to
say it. Now in this particular case, again, I'm not defending Sitting Bull
here. In this particular case, that was not the case. It was where
he just felt like he wanted another wife. I I you know, whatever. And by
the way, if he were alive today, we were to ask him, I'm not so
sure he would say that it was the one of his biggest mistakes. That that
might just be us judging him at this point.
We don't know what what Sitting Bull was thinking at that point. Okay? You're right.
We have we have no idea. We cannot speak to the mental
capacity of the person that's not in the room to defend himself.
K. Sure. So We're
stating opinion, not fact. I'm just saying. Grant you that. You're
correct. We are stating opinion. We have no idea the
facts of the case, but we do know what
was actually done. Like, we do know what And we do know how his great
great grandson feels about it because he wrote in the book saying it was one
of his mistakes. There you go. That's right. So We'll take it. We'll take
we'll take his word on that. How's that? Yeah. There you go. Ernie Ernie has
an opinion. Okay.
Get your house in order, entrepreneurs. Alright. Now the the
other the other thing I'd like to
focus on because we have a limited amount of time left, and and I would
recommend getting this book, City Bowl, his life and legacy. Pick it up.
It's, like, $15 on Amazon. I think I got it for, like, 7 or
something, because I got it used. But pick it up, read it.
I would I would encourage you to read it,
alongside bury my heart at wounded knee, just to see the
gaps between what Dee Brown, says
about Sitting Bull and what, Sitting Bull's great
grandson actually says, you know, about, about Sitting
Bull. There are some, there are some there are some interesting
differences, there.
What are the requirements of a leader of the Lakota
was to go on a, what's called
a, a wee wong was
CP, which is a gazing
at the sun as you dance or abbreviated for white culture, a
sun dance. This is a powerful ceremony.
That's similar to, I I use the term
already vision quest. That's sort of where my brain went.
One of the things that I noted was there's no psychedelics attached to
this. However, there are,
again, acts of not acts of benchmarks,
right, that that move you forward in the ceremony and tell you where
you are and what you are doing. And,
and so the made a commitment to perform this
ceremony. To do this, he first performed, by the way, sort of the book,
Sitting Bull by Ernie Lapointe. To do this, he first performed the
INIPI, the sweat lodge ceremony used to purify the soul.
Then he undertook the, I'm not gonna be able to pronounce that crying for a
vision through the night or vision quest seeking guidance from the spirits.
And then once he did that, then he went on into
the, we won the wasippy ceremony, which is
a ceremony an individual performs for the health and welfare of the people.
It is also a fertility ceremony for the continued existence of the nation. The
pleasure dances while staring at the sun and offering prayers through the Eagle
bone whistle. Now I highlighted,
the steps in the ceremony and there were about 6 or 7
steps, in the ceremony, which were all very interesting to
me. And at the, towards the end of
it, it, it frames it out this way.
The pleasure and that's, that would be, to Tonka
commits to extensive suffering for his people and allows his upper body
flesh to be pierced by sharpened bones or sticks.
Piercing bones are attached to leather ropes that are connected to Buffalo skulls that the
pleasure will drag around the circular arena, or they may be attached to
the wee Wong was a PP pole that is in the center of the grounds.
In either case, the gazer, the dancer gazes into the sun, blowing
on an eagle bone whistle and pulls against the piercing bones until they tear free
from his skin. Tatanka Eotaka committed to be pierced
on his back and chest and to be suspended above the ground, hanging by the
skewers that impaled him. The pain was tremendous, and he
went into a shock induced trance state. In this trance, he
envisioned himself as a young boy resting by a tree. And then it
talks about the vision that he said that he had,
including The grasshoppers the grasshoppers falling from the sky. Yes.
The grasshoppers falling from the sky. Exactly. Yep.
And then at the end, when he had finished, the
Wakasa walk and said, your honor is great, but your responsibilities
are greater. And that was sort of the big thing that he pulled
from his ceremony, that his responsibilities to his people,
would, would be great, would be even greater than
his than his honor. And it is from that chapter then
forward that we talk about or Ernie talks about
encountering the Americans, Arrow Creek,
broken promises,
the battle of the greasy grass, which is also
known as Little Bighorn. Little Bighorn, right,
with a long hair Custer, and
then moving into military custody and
dealing with the Canadians. This is where the long downhill slide
begins, for the Lakota people, and I don't think I'm
being too dramatic when I say downhill slide.
Well, some would argue that the downhill slide hasn't stopped yet.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I could definitely there's I I would definitely
most people don't realize agree with that argument. Yeah. Most people don't realize that if
you took the Pine Ridge reservation and you put it anywhere
else on the planet, it would be considered a third world country.
Right. There's level of poverty and everything else that goes
along with it. Most people don't have a concept
of that within the United States. Right. I think of if you live in the
United States, you're you're doing okay. You may not be great. You may not be
rich. You may not be wealthy, but you can at least survive on a, you
know, a norm on under some sense of normalcy and not have
to, you know, kick and scream and fight on a daily basis for your own
existence. In the Pine Ridge Reservation, there's a lot
of people that feel like that is their struggle every day.
So
I so okay. So I am
well, let's do this. So because we only have 4 minutes left
because I've got I've got an appointment, and you've got things you gotta do.
And this is a much longer conversation, which we'll probably pick we are gonna pick
up a part 2 of this because there's other things I wanna talk about this
because we only we barely touched on the surface of of all of
this. So
walk me through the
the the the reason for let's introduce this
idea. The reason for the rejection of Sitting Bull
by certain individuals in the Lakota
nation. Like, what is the what is the reason for that?
Because Ernie lays out some things in here, but he's not very clear. He does
talk about the 2009 DNA testing that proves that
he is, oh, the, the great grandson
of, of Sitting Bull. I do recall when we were talking
about bury my heart at wounded knee, you talked about,
the identification situation, with, with native
Americans and tribal identification and sort of how if the
federal government says you're this thing, I believe this was the point you were making.
If the federal government says this thing, but the tribe says
that thing, what the tribe says goes. Is that correct?
I mean, for the most part. The other thing too is it's not even it's
it's a little even less complicated than that. So the the federal
the government, they don't really care. The government doesn't care one
way or the other, honestly. Right. Okay. They they leave it they essentially leave it
to the tribal governments to determine their
their their their,
membership or roles Right. Their their
population. Right? Population. Yep. So but what they the way in which
the federal government kinda gets involved in this is saying,
you you as a tribal people have this allotment of
land. Mhmm. It's gonna be divided equally
amongst your people. Each family each family is
gonna have a certain parcel. So and what we have think
about it, like try to think of it in a smaller scale. Think of it
like your say you have 2 acres of land in your home, and
you have 4 kids that live on it. You die. Now
you wanna leave the 2 acres a half an acre each to your
kids. Now they have kids, and they're
leaving their half an acre to 2 kids. So
now each one of them have 2 and and so on and so on and
so forth. So now if you have been if you have not had anything
to do with this tribal affiliation for
3, 4, 5, 6 generations, and now all of a sudden you're trying to claim
claim ownership to your tribal affiliation, now the tribal
affiliation government has to look at this and go, we let them in.
Whatever family they belong to gets diluted. Right.
Yeah. So so, essentially, the
it the way that the US government gives the power to the tribal
government to determine who their population is,
they they give it they do that in a way that makes it
not advantageous for them to open up the doors for people,
which so which just so your just so our listeners
here understand this Mhmm. I am fully
qualified, and I can prove absolute without a doubt
my tribal affiliation, I can actually go to our tribal
government and get that tribal card recognition.
I choose not to because I think it's an atrocity the
way that the federal government has allowed or has
implemented a processes in which we alienate our own
people, just for benefit of the people that are on the
on the reservation. Right? Yeah. So in in the one sense, the tribal government
looks like they're from the inside looking
out, it looks like the tribal government is trying to protect their own. From
the outside looking in, it looks like the tribal government is trying to gatekeep
something gatekeep something they don't need to gatekeep. Because I'm not
looking to get take land from our people. I'm not looking I don't want I
I I own a house. I'm sitting at my house. I own I own 2
acres of land right now. I don't need our tribal land for me to survive,
but but it's up to the but but because the way the federal
government writes those treaties, they're required by their tribal government to
allot me something that I don't need.
We but and then the US government won't let them change
those parameters. So Right. Again, until
we're allowed to govern ourselves in a way that that makes sense for our
people, then I'm not gonna bother with that with that tribal recognition at
at all. I I don't Yeah. I know who I am. I don't need the
federal government or anybody else to tell me who I am. And I think that's
part of what Ernie's talking about, at least from his perspective. And he
has DNA evidence that he's actually a direct descendant. That's
I I don't understand how you can dispute that. Right? Like, this is that doesn't
make any sense. Now that being said, whether or not Sitting
Bull's descendants should be allowed in, that's a tribal government
issue. That's not my issue to fight. So Right. Whether whether he
should or should not have been allowed in based on who Sitting
Bull was, what his actions were, how he treated the tribal government,
all that stuff, that is a completely different and separate issue. Because
that is something that could be a determining factor on whether or
not you're you know, if your family was basically
disowned by the tribal government, then you're not being allowed in for a
reason. There's nothing there's not a lot you can do about that, but I,
couldn't fathom a reason why Sitting Bull would be excommunicated
for, you know anyway. But Well, we're
going to we're gonna revisit this because we need to begin to the leadership lessons
from Sitting Bull, which I wanted to get into as well. And, unfortunately,
tragically, we have run out of time today. So,
we're gonna pick up part 2 of this. Probably be episode 126.
So we're gonna pick up part 2 of this. So look for that, coming
in the next couple of weeks. But for the moment, this is
the Leadership Lessons from the Great Books podcast, and Tom and
I, well, we're out.