Lakota Sioux Story

AN AVERAGE DAY IN THE LAKOTA SIOUX NATION

By Little Fox (Mark Sheehan)


I am Little Fox of the Lakota Sioux nation.

The rising sun’s light from the east shines though the flap of my family’s tipi, waking us up instantly. I push myself out of my buffalo hide bed. I quickly put on my buffalo robe. My mother Singing Moose makes corn cakes by pounding corn with a stone hammer and mixing it with water. Then she puts it in a skin bag. At the bottom of the bag is a large rock. The skin bag is near a fire which will make the stone hot to cook the corn cakes. After they are done my family serves themselves the hot corn cakes. We eat out of wooden bowls with spoons made from a bison horn. After the meal is done several hunters assemble outside one of our chief’s tipi. The Sioux people have more than one chief who instead of being leader decides people’s fates. Soon the hunters leave to try and catch animals for meat.

I step out of the tipi. It is winter outside and very cold. I play a game called snow snake with two other Native American children. The game is played by making a snake in the snow. We do this by digging a groove in the snow, putting water in it, and waiting for it to turn to ice. Then a stick is sent down the ice snake. Finally dogs run through the snow. The first one to grab the stick is the dog that wins the game.

Soon my father Grey Squirrel comes out of the family tipi to go out hunting. An elder tells stories around a fire such as “The Little Boy Man” and “The Girl Who Married the Star.” I run over to listen. The party of hunters returns with a dead deer.

The storyteller finishes his stories after telling about how fire came to mankind. After he finishes his stories I head back into the family tipi and take a nap. When I wake up it is lunchtime and our meal is once again corn cakes. After lunch I play a game with some morechildren where you throw a stick and try to get it before anyone else.

Now my father returns from hunting with a dead rabbit. Two Indian braves (warriors) practice shooting arrows. I go back to playing snow snake. Two people set out on a spiritual journey to the Black Hills, a sacred spot to Native Americans of the plains. We have dinner and eat the rabbit Grey Squirrel caught. I practice riding my horse named Black Horse. After I am done with this I go to bed.

The end