A Visit with Tipi Sapa and Sunka Kuciyedano, Low Dog, a Little Big Horn Veteran, 1926-1927.
In the fall of 1926, we lived in the little town of Mobridge, South Dakota, just across the Missouri River from the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. When the school opened in the fall, I went to the local school to enroll. I had never been in a school like that one, being more familiar with the Indian Mission Boarding School at St. Elizabeth on the Reservation.
On the first day, I walked up to the school and entered a big room like a lobby. I noticed doors leading into several different rooms, a broad stairway leading to an upper floor, and a stairway leading down to a back doorway.
Soon a bell rang, and all of the students disappeared into the rooms, and I was left alone in the lobby. After standing there for a while, I walked to the back stairs and descended to the lower level, and since the door was wide open, I walked out and returned home.
I enjoyed attending that school, but after a week, I quit making the fruitless walk and remained home. After some time, my Tunkasida, my grandfather Tipi Sapa, Philip Deloria, said, "Tokoja, I notice you around the house lately. Aren't you going to school?" I said, "No, grandfather." He nonchalantly said, "Oh," and that was all ever said.
As I've shared with you before, that was the winter that old Lala Low Dog came in October and stayed until April. This is what we call "An Indian visit!"
Of course, it was my duty to always be at my grandfather's side, as he had great difficulty getting around due to a stroke he had suffered a year and a half earlier.
Well, I spent that entire winter in the company of those great old men, listening to them reminisce. I heard many great old stories of our Dakota people in their glory days. It seemed that every story had to be accompanied by a good song. We would sit together until very late in the morning.
Lala Low Dog would share stories about Custer and the fight at Greasy Grass and how Custer's arrogance led to the 7th Calvary being wiped out. Custer said," Give me the 7th Calvary, and I will ride through the Sioux Nation. He was only half right.
I would shave the hard tobacco and mix it with kinnikinnik for the Pipe. Then, from time to time, while they were visiting, my Lala Tipi Sapa would say, "Chanupa." So I would fill the Pipe and hand it to Lala Tipi Sapa. He would then hand it to Lala Low Dog, as he was older and our guest. He would take some puffs and then hand the Chunupa to Lala Tipi Sapa.
Lala would then hand it to me, and I would take some puffs, clean it, and prepare for the next round.
Sometimes, they would stop talking just like you turn down a radio. And then one of the would say, "And then, I rode South." I thought I must have fallen asleep until I realized my grandfathers had been talking to each other without words. They were simply turning the volume off and on from time to time.
Lala Low Dog was slim and short, but he walked on his heels with great force, thump, thump, thump. If you didn't see him and just heard his footsteps, you would think he was a big man, six feet tall.
My Unchi would offer him a bed to sleep in, but he would say in Lakota, "Hiya, no, Hanka, sister-in-law, I want to sleep on my mother's breast. If I am on a bed, she can't hold and heal me, if needed!"
Late in the spring, after Lala Low Dog left, my Aunt Ella Deloria returned home and noticed me around the house daily. She took over as my Ena, mother when my mother, her sister, died from TB when I was 5, and my father left. Of course, the inevitable question had to pop up, and I had to tell the truth.
Aunt Ella then questioned Grandpa about my school status, and he said, "Yes, he has been with me every day, and this time with me will be more valuable in his life than the time he would spend in a school that my grandson doesn't understand the first thing about. I am an old man. My grandson is just a young boy. The things he has learned and will learn here with me, he can never learn in a school."
As he said, I learned more that year than I would have learned in any academic situation. There are so many things to learn beyond academics that enrich our lives.
Lakota Chiefs: My Hunka Great-Grandfather Pizi-Gall, Crawler, My Great-Grandfather, Sunka Kuciyedano-Low Dog, Running Antelope, and Rain in the Face.
