My wife Leslie and I recently went on an extended trip to Wyoming and South Dakota in our Roadtrek. At this time in my life I am happiest when the two of us are together; me driving and Leslie reading a guidebook out loud and finding lots of interesting places to go.
After seeing Mt. Rushmore and spending the night in Custer State Park in South Dakota we drove on to the Badlands National Park. With a name like “Badlands” you just have to see it! The route was circuitous, and we were too late to spend the night there, so we went to a private campground just outside. In the morning, watching the light as the sun rose on “the wall,” we took the scenic tour drive. In the afternoon, driving with the battery powered house air conditioning keeping us comfortable, we went to the southern part of the Park, the part that is at least partially within an Indian reservation. I also wanted to see, just outside of the park, the Wounded Knee Memorial site.
We stopped for lunch, in the hot sun. The actual temperature in the unshaded parking lot of the White River Visitor Center (at the southernmost entry to the Badlands National Park) was 102 degrees. We ate lunch and then took a nap, blissfully enjoying the air conditioning. We were the only car in the parking lot, and having been there for quite a while before emerging, we drew some attention. When we went in we met a young ranger who was Lakota. We were also the only people in the visitor center and he was really eager to tell us what he knew.
At one point we were near a window that looked out at the parking lot and he asked about the red nose on the front of the Roadtrek. I responded, as I usually do by putting the red nose on me and saying that it was a design feature to match my face. He laughed loudly, and I had a chance to talk about Fools Mission and Tricksters. Native American societies are rich in these too; I mentioned particularly the Coyote. The Lakota tricksters are the Coyote and the Spider. He told me the Lakota creation of life story:
It seems that Coyote and Spider were bored with playing tricks on the animals above the ground, so they went into a hole in the ground and found humans living below. They created an appearance of beautiful clothes so that the humans would take them seriously and convinced seven humans to go to the surface with their families. They told the humans about how beautiful it was above; warm, plenty of food, just a great place to live.
When the human families came out they were shocked. It was becoming winter, they had no shelter, and animals were scarce. So, they decided to go back down. They were disappointed to learn that the hole had closed off and they could not get back. With things above getting desperate they fell to their knees to pray. The supreme being answered their prayers by turning the remaining people below into Buffalo and releasing them to the world above so that the humans would have something to eat and could protect themselves from the elements with the hides. The seven families appreciated this but understood their relationship to the Buffalo and promised to treat them with dignity and preserve them.
Each of the seven families started its own tribe, and the result was the creation of the seven tribes of the Lakota nation.
The young man at the visitor center also taught me how to say Coyote in Lakota. He went behind the counter and pulled out a Lakota/English translation notebook. Remember, it was never a written language, so the words were written phonetically. Coyote is spelled “sungmanitu” and pronounced “shug-mon-EE-tu.”
We had a conversation about teaching Lakota in school. They are trying, but because communication in indigenous languages was prohibited in school and in public by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the language was almost lost entirely.
Just after we left, less than a mile down the road, a Coyote ran across the road not more than 100 feet in front of us. This is the closest I have been to a Coyote for a long time. It seemed appropriate.