- [Voiceover] This is a production of South Dakota Public Broadcasting.

- The Mission South Dakota story begins with the story of the Rosebud Zoo Reservation, which is tied to the story of Sicangu Lakota chief Spotted Tail known as Sinte Galeska.

The welfare of the Sicangu Lakota was most important to Chief Spotted Tail.

To avoid conflict, he signed the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868.

It set aside land West of the Missouri River in South Dakota and parts of Nebraska as the Great Sioux Reservation.

That year, Spotted Tail moved his people to the Whetstone Agency near Fort Randall on the Missouri River, but disappointed by the scarce game and Congress failing to fund treaty obligations, Spotted Tail and other Lakota chiefs went to meet with President Grant in Washington.

They also met with other officials there too.

He expressed his desire to settle in the White River country further to the West.

Over the next few years, he continued to press for better conditions.

Spotted Tail agreed to tour Oklahoma Indian country, but refused to sell his people on the idea of moving there.

Over the next decade, he returned to the capital negotiating with Grant and his successor President Rutherford B. Hayes.

He was known as a shrewd mediator and though he didn't win every fight, in 1878 Spotted Tail and the Sicangu finally secured the Rosebud.

The agency was named for the wild roses that grew on the banks of Rosebud Creek where it flows into the little White River.

A forward thinking leader, Spotted Tail implemented a tribal system for hauling freight from a port on the Missouri River West, creating an effective jobs program for his people too.

He promoted education, inviting government, and religious schools to the reservation, but he always resisted efforts to erode Lakota culture.

With a name adopted from a nearby school, the Town of Mission was incorporated as a town many years later after the formation of the Rosebud Reservation.

And over the years, Mission has become an important center of tribal government, commerce, and culture.

Sinte Gleska University in the Antelope community just outside of Mission continues its namesakes belief in education as a stepping stone for tribal youth.

So come along with us as we tour Mission.

Welcome to Dakota Life and greetings from Mission.

(bright music) - [Voiceover] Support comes from Sinte Gleska University, providing education through the Lakota way of life for over 50 years.

And by Golden West Telecommunications cooperative, we're everywhere people connect, like Mission.

- In 1883, a German migrant named E.H Kimmel moved from Michigan to the Rosebud area.

He married a Lakota woman named Lucy Bonsers.

The couple are said to have started the Mission Town site.

They started it as a place to market beef raised on their ranch.

And while the name of the community came from the Mission School, St. Mary's Episcopal School for Indian Girls.

Mission was incorporated as a town in 1932.

The Works Progress Administration, the WPA, built a town hall six years later.

In addition to the Sicangu Lakota, portions of the Rosebud Reservation were open to settlement in 1904, drawing more people of European descent to this Mission area.

For a small town, Mission has produced a number of notable characters.

Charles Everest, the father of Senator James Everest, owned a general store here.

Long time "Price is Right" host Bob Barker recalled hardships as well as fond memories of his childhood in Mission.

There was no municipal government, no water system, no sewage disposal, no electricity, and most of the time no doctor.

He wrote, "We called it the Paris of the Prairie."

Barker recalled many days skinny dipping after school in Antelope Creek.

His mother, Matilda Tarleton was a school teacher and the author of "Our State", that green back South Dakota history book that many of you may remember from grade school.

Another Barker from this area, Virginia Barker, married a Lakota man named Narcissi McKenzie.

Their daughter Veva Dale McKenzie was one of the leading Native American activists behind the original 1964 occupation of Alcatraz Island.

Ben Reifel, the first Lakota US Congressman grew up in a log cabin not far from here near Parmley.

an award-winning Sicangu Lakota rapper, Frank Waln was raised on a nearby ranch.

Mission has grown in population from 200 at the time it incorporated to over a thousand today.

Mission has a strong Native American majority in that population and many community leaders attended Sinte Gleska, and they're proud to promote the opportunities for youth like their Boys and Girls Club.

The playground renovations underway for the community pool and plans for an art alley similar to that one in Rapid City.

Coming up, we're gonna see how horses are helping local youth overcome adversity.

Learn about the development corporation, Sicnagu Co, And one of its initiatives called Food Sovereignty and we'll explore local history and culture at the Sinte Gleska University, Sicangu Heritage Center.

But first, meet Mission native, Tashina Red Hawk, Miss Indian World.

- [Narrator] Growing up on the Rosebud reservation, Tashina Red Hawk learned a love of the land, a love of family, and a love for competing in pageants.

- I think pageants started with my natural DNA of leadership.

Where I live is actually my grandmother's land, and she was known as a song composer, as a medicine woman, I also come from great leaders in chiefs, and so I have that natural Lakota value of leadership.

And when I was a little girl, I got involved in 4H, and so that was one of the very few things for me to do on the Rosebud Reservation.

And so through that, I started with my county's vice president to president to all of a sudden I started with Little Miss Rosebud Rodeo.

- [Narrator] Tashina would go on to become Miss Rosebud Rodeo and South Dakota High School Rodeo Queen, a title she would hold twice.

- [Announcer] And your 2021 South Dakota High School Rodeo Association Queen, Tashina Red Hawk.

- So that was an amazing time.

It was definitely a bridge building moment between my Western way of life and my Lakota way of life.

I got to incorporate both worlds by decorating my horse in full regalia and coming in grand entry, carrying the stars and stripes.

And so that year was really the foundation to this title I have now.

I'm the 2022-'23 Miss Indian World.

I had this little joke going with my parents that, "Okay, if the crown and sash is like light blue or any shade of blue, I have to have it."

And so we didn't see the crown and sash prior to coronation.

So we're walking into the Colosseum and they're getting set up and across the way, all the way across the arena floor, I see this crown and sash.

When coronation came, it was all like, all the static of emotions came, the room went black.

I can tell you that when I was crowned, I didn't see anything.

That was just a moment of shock.

I don't think I can ever get that feeling back because I just remembered feeling so proud and so many people from back home were there that day.

- [Narrator] With the new title comes new responsibilities.

- So I am a Goodwill ambassador.

I get to travel across the country and go to powwows, go to conferences, schools, and basically promote my platform.

So my platform for this year is cultural preservation and identity and education.

And so that's where I'll go to schools.

I explain to our youth how important it is to maintain your cultural identity because that too defines us as a native person.

And so basically I'll get to spend the rest of my year traveling and connecting those bridges between our communities.

- [Narrator] Tashina is doing all of this while being a college student, attending SDSU, working on her pre-veterinary science degree.

- I think all my life, my parents have told me live life to the fullest.

And I can tell you I'm doing that now with my Monday through Friday being classes for my pre-vet.

And those are all classes that I get the homework for before Friday gets here.

That way when Friday comes, I can travel on the weekends to these different communities.

I always run on a daylight, but I'm living the life that I've always dreamed of when I was a little girl of getting to travel and meet people, try the different foods even, see the different cultures, but also pursue my degree in veterinary medicine so I couldn't ask for anything better.

- [Narrator] While Tashina wants to inspire people across the country, she really wants her mission to have an impact back home.

- To be the Miss Indian World coming from Mission, coming from the Rosebud Reservation is something that I may not have thought was possible a few years ago, not because I didn't believe in the possibility, but because I've never seen the title before.

I've never had somebody from home go out and get such a leadership role.

So to be that someone for our future generations to see doing this and that it's possible, it fills me with so much heartfelt feelings.

I have senses of pride and honor and still the humility that my mother taught me.

To give up the crown is something I'm almost not ready to think about yet.

I am currently halfway through my reign and so to think that within six months or less that it'll all be over, the crown will be over.

I'll be passing on the crown to a next young woman who is ready for this title, but the representing, the being a young Lakota woman, the speaking for my people, or the healing of my animals, that'll never be over.

- There's no shortage of vision and leadership in this community.

Chief Hollow Horn Bear became the second leading spokesman for the people of the Rosebud.

He fought to preserve treaty rights, stood up for Lakota railroad workers, and was an advocate for more investment in education.

Albert White Hat was the grandson of Hollow Horn Bear.

He carried on that educational legacy with a focus on preserving the Lakota language.

See, as a young boy growing up in the Spring Creek community, White Hat spoke only Lakota.

When he attended boarding school, his native tongue was not allowed.

And for a time, he lost touch with his heritage.

In the 1960s, White Hat reconnected and began to see Lakota language as inseparable from Lakota Life ways.

He said, "When we speak Lakota, there is a different way of thinking, a Lakota way of thinking."

When he began teaching Lakota language at Sinte Gleska University in the 1970s, Congress had not yet passed the American Indian Religious Freedom Act.

Boarding schools had suppressed Lakota language and culture for decades.

White Hat lobbied the Todd County School District to start a Lakota language program.

He said, "They laughed at me, but eventually they relented."

And his efforts began to bear fruit.

White Hat had developed an orthography of the language.

He published the first Lakota textbook by a native speaker.

His translation work for Lakota dialogue in the film "Dances with Wolves", brought renewed interest to Lakota language inside his community and far beyond.

And he led the Lakota Studies Department at Sinte Gleska University.

Although Albert White Hat is no longer with us, his movement continues to inspire.

Lakota language immersion schools are popping up, including one here in Mission.

Sage Fast Dog is the founder and director.

He started the school in 2020 after 13 years of teaching in the Todd County School District.

Marlies White Hat, Albert's wife continues to contribute to the community as director of the Sinte Gleska bringing the Family Back Together program.

It's an equine therapy program.

Next, we're going to see how trained horses are helping young people face their troubles and grow stronger.

- [Narrator] Tiwahe Glu Kini Pi, bringing the family back to life is helping to heal a generation of Native Americans that have been traumatically affected by Western colonization.

This equine therapy program in and around Mission is not only helping the youth with their mental health, it is bringing them back to a way of life their ancestors once lived.

- There used to be a lot of societies and we wanna bring that back.

So we work with children ages three to 18 and our purpose is to work with all of creation to improve the lives of children and families.

- [Narrator] It is a society of care that provides a crucial service to the children of the Rosebud Sioux tribe.

- We provide equine therapy and other activities for community members, for children in the summer, we do horse camps.

Some of the tribal programs come out and do staff development, spend time with the horses, learning about the horse culture and Lakota culture, and just developing a relationship with all of creation.

Tiwahe Glu Kini Pi is a children's mental health center that's been in operation for 13 years now.

We started with a SAMHSA grant, a system of care grant, and we kind of immediately renamed it a Society of Care Program because system has some really negative connotations for native people.

- [Narrator] Although it builds therapeutic bridges with youth, anyone is welcome to take the reins of one of their many therapy horses.

- I've seen this over the years that we've been in operation, that the horses have a lot of healing powers, they have gifts.

And when we utilize the horses with children and with families, we see a lot of good healing taking place, and we're just trying to restore that relationship with (speaks in native language).

with the Horse Nation.

- [Narrator] According to White Hat, relationship is the foundation of the Lakota philosophy, (speaks in native language).

- We have a good relationship here with the horses.

We're all on the same level.

There's no hierarchy and it just works.

Yeah, we see children getting help and families getting help and that's the goal.

My husband and Albert White Hat Senior and Sam High Crane who helped us start this program when they were children, they had horses.

They didn't have therapy programs, but they had horses.

And they've all shared stories about when they were sad or missed their dad or they were lonely or they came back from the service, the thing that really helped them recover was the horse.

They would go off, head out on their horse into the canyons and cry and get angry, and when they let that out with their horse, they were able to let it go and that really helped them recover.

- [Narrator] Sam High Crane is a Vietnam War veteran.

- [Marlies] Sam especially talks about that coming back from Vietnam, a lot of his relatives that were in Vietnam came home and just drank themselves to death.

But he was fortunate that he had his horses and so he worked with his horses and they really brought him back to life.

- Spotted Tail's band spent nearly a decade on the move before finally settling on Rosebud Creek.

Of the many reasons they held out so long, one was pretty basic, they needed a reliable food supply.

The buffalo were disappearing and treaty obligated beef rations were often less than sufficient.

Spotted Tail recognized the importance of food sovereignty and he argued against trader monopolies that could fixed food prices, and he bargained for livestock, horses, and implements for use in farming and ranching.

He established a Lakota run freight hauling operation to control the transport of rations from the Missouri River to the reservation.

He even personally supervised loading of wagons at the port called Rosebud Landing.

In his time, Hollow Horn Bear advocated for replacing beef rations with live cattle to build up ranches on the reservation.

The issues that Spotted Tail and Hollow Horn Bear were attempting to address are relevant today.

In the 1990s, the term food desert added our lexicon describing areas with little or no access to fresh, healthy foods.

And today, supply chain issues have put food sovereignty front and center in communities all around the world.

Sicangu Co, a force behind Sage Fast Dog's Lakota Immersion School is also preparing the ground for food sovereignty.

- So food sovereignty, there's a more general term of what it really means.

Really making sure that the community or the people itself is able to define what their food system is for them and how that food is grown and where it's produced.

And so we're really doing that here is really defining like what are we gonna be growing here?

How we're gonna do it?

And so I would say as Lakota people, we weren't traditionally farmers and so we're really trying to take up farming and really applying the way of life of caring for our land and really building that relationship with the land in how we grow our food.

- Matte Wilson directs the Food Sovereignty Initiative on Rosebud.

It started in 2014 after food issues were identified in a community needs assessment.

- People really wanted to see more local food access.

People wanted to see community gardens and farmer's markets.

And so that's really how we started out of that process.

We took out this one acre of land and it was just a hillside of Canadian thistle at the time.

And we, throughout the years, really grew up to where it's been to where it is now.

And we were able to get some infrastructure here.

We have like a waterline, we have a greenhouse behind me.

And so it really just grew from a teaching garden to more of a teaching and production farm.

So our goal is really to teach people how to grow their own food.

It isn't just enough to provide them with food.

There's a lot of food insecure people here in Rosebud.

So we're trying to balance that with food sovereignty, which is really making sure people have the knowledge to be able to support themself do more self-sufficient and independent.

And so one of the ways we do that is through this farm.

We invite families up here, school groups, and then we also have our farm apprenticeship program really aimed at increasing the amount of trouble food producers here.

You know, we only have this one acre, which is a pretty decent size, but now we're trying to get the community into thinking that you can grow this in your backyard.

You can grow a lot of food in just a sixth of an acre.

And even when they come up here, they're just excited to see all the food that we got grown here.

Even going in the greenhouse, especially there's tropical plants that aren't native to this area but it's really great to see like it's growing here on Rosebud.

Yeah, so our food really grows into direct to consumer markets.

So we have a seasonal farmer's market that runs from May through October, and that's located here in Mission.

So that's what one of our biggest avenues.

But we also know that some of our biggest challenges to accessing food in general is transportation.

So looking at Rosebud, there's 20 communities across Rosebud, and only three of them have access to a grocery store or a community store and so we launched a mobile market.

So we have a cargo van that we gather our produce and other produce from other local vendors and we travel around to those communities to give them access to some of the food that we grow.

- Food sovereignty also includes reestablishing a buffalo herd on Rosebud, but with the same intent to harvest food and educate in the process.

- We are able to apply our cultural values into our organization as well.

One of the biggest concepts that we really follow is (speaks in native language).

which is really the idea that we're all related and that there's an interconnectedness that kind of connects all of us, and so that's how we view our work.

It isn't just food sovereignty, it's also language revitalization.

You know, it's ecological, caring for the land, and so that's like really how our Buffalo Project started.

I knew I wanted to help heal my community and I thought that was through healthcare.

And I was fortunate to be able to see Redco starting this, Sicangu starting this program.

"Cause at the time I wasn't living here and I see the work that they were doing with community gardens and farmer's markets and wild food harvest and my spirits calling to me telling me that I need to go back home and be a part of that.

- In Albert White Hat's video relatives, he recounts returning to his heritage through stories told by Medicine Man.

But in those days he said, "I used to listen to them talk about different sites, different places of ceremonies with a sad note saying, 'We used to do that.'"

Well, he said, "That really bothered me because the more I learned, I began to wonder why we couldn't do that now?"

Every June, Marlies White Hat and others pilgrimage to (speaks native language), the stone maker to gather stones for use and ceremony and by doing so, they provide an answer to that question posed by Albert White Hat.

They can do that now because despite the prohibitions, the stories never stopped.

You see, it's like certain creeks, they disappear underground, but their flow doesn't stop entirely, they emerge downstream later as if coming out of nowhere.

Albert White Hat was a keeper of this kind of knowledge.

There are others, the kinds with stacks of carefully indexed records, microfilm, and videotape, the Lakota Documentaries Project at Sinte Gleska University's Lakota Studies Center is one such place.

It has digitized video recordings of conversations with Lakota elders that were compiled by tribal historian Don Moccasin.

These recordings are just a small part of a vast multimedia epic that has outlived the attempt to erase it.

So let's go across Antelope Circle from the Lakota Study Center Tepe for a tour of the Sinte Gleska Heritage Center.

- [Narrator] This log building serves as the central repository and archive for the Sicangu Oyate, The Rosebud Sioux Nation.

The main floor is filled with displays preserving and celebrating the history of the tribe.

They're organized in a way that lets visitors see the culture as it was from cradle to grave.

- They will see a theme of when children are born, what type of materials, artifacts could be used in regards to children and then adolescent adults, and then even the community, what they might expect to see in a community setting.

- [Narrator] A highly feathered headdress, for example, isn't just for show.

Every detail symbolizes an accomplishment a display of leadership or an act of kindness.

- Those would be things that that person earned throughout their life.

Whether it was good deeds, maybe they helped a family that was in starving need.

- [Narrator] The Sicangu Heritage Center was established in the 1980s and has occupied this building since 1989.

- Our mission is to collect and preserve all objects, papers, sites that have to do with the Sicangu people and to share our history and education with anybody, our tribal members, and anybody that's interested.

- [Narrator] Visitors will learn the most basic facts about the Sicangu Oyate.

- When they leave here, they'll understand which band the Sicangu come from.

We are an individual band of tribe that is related to several other bands that speak the same language dialect.

- [Narrator] And learn about the meaning of how the tribe became known as the Burnt Thigh Nation.

- Once upon a time there was a great fire, it was a great plains fire, and our people got trapped and we had to run through those flames to get away from the fire.

And at that point, a lot of us had gotten burns from that grass fire, and then we became known as the burnt thigh people.

- [Narrator] There are a lot of old artifacts in the Center's collection but they're not necessarily the main focus.

- Mostly we're seeking to collect newer things.

We did have the Smithsonian come out and work with us and they said the one hole that's kind of missing is current artists and getting the best of what's out there right now.

- [Narrator] Printed materials in the archives include church records, birth certificate, photographs, and census records, valuable information for people working on genealogy.

- The other thing is under our auspice as a cultural center is that we provide technical service to anybody literally that wants to continue preserving their photographs and their personal papers.

- [Narrator] Like other native tribes, this one has seen its share of trauma from the forcible transition to reservation life to the soul killing era of boarding schools.

So much was taken and that's recognized if not always emphasized.

- Well, I think we're just a beautiful, vibrant culture.

We're a living culture.

We're a growing culture.

- [Narrator] The Sicangu Cultural Heritage Center is open to the public year round and admission is free.

- Spotted Tail and his band of Sicangu spent a decade as exiles in their own land.

They endured harsh winters and broken promises holding out the hope for a better piece of land and a better future.

They finally arrived at the confluence of Rosebud Creek and the Little White River.

Later, a tiny town named in honor of a local boarding school grew into the reservation's educational and entrepreneurial heart.

A hub for Sinte Gleska University, the Sicangu Community Development Corporation, and the Lakota Language Immersion School.

The Turtle Creek Regenerative Development Project, a planned community with housing, retail, communal space, and nature trails is ready to break ground.

There are challenges for any small community in a rural state like ours, maybe more when cultural identities are at stake too.

But what a difference visionary and caring leadership can make?

From Spotted Tail and Hollow Horn Bear to younger leaders today that are indigenizing food production, harnessing the power of education, and maintaining a long suppressed cultural heritage.

Mission has many missions, but seems poised to continue moving forward while looking back.

You can revisit stories about Mission and all of the other communities we visit at sdpb.org/dakotalife.

Thanks for coming along.

I'm Larry Rohrer.

For all of us at SDPB, thanks for watching.

(playful music)