Indigenous Peoples Day has me in a super good mood & I already railed against the travesty that is Columbus last night, so I thought I would celebrate my ancestry.

I am Oceti Sakowin, Dakota/Lakota from the Great Sioux Nation & a member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Sioux Tribe.

My real name is Cankudutawin, it translates to Scarlet Way, or Red Road Woman. I received the name in ceremony from grandma Stella Pretty Sounding Flute in Crow Creek in front of 100s of family & friends. The 1st Cankudutawin, an ancestor, was at Little Big Horn. Here’s Stella.

Stella was a great Dakota woman & pipe carrier. She taught me a lot about plant medicine & how to be a traditional Dakota woman. It’s not what you think either. The 1st time she saw me with my husband I got scolded for walking behind him. She was an activist too, even in old age.

Here’s my grandparents, Jerry and Mabel. Both Dakota/Lakota. They had an arranged marriage. My grandmother was the prize. She was well respected & schooled in the old ways. She only spoke Dakota. She came from holymen & wagon burners in the Sisseton band. My grandpa is a WWI Vet.

This is Standing Buffalo. He was Chief of my grandmother’s Sissetonowan (Sisseton) band of Dakota after the Dakota War when we were exiled from Minnesota. The uprising happened because the government broke our treaty & tried to starve us & we refused to lay down & die.

My grandpa Jerry draws most of his ancestry from the Mdewakanton Dakota. We are descended from the Wabasha Heredity Chiefs. Pictured: Wabasha I (Red Leaf), Wabasha II & Wabasha III. Wabasha II fought with Tecumseh & lost an eye playing lacrosse. Wabasha III died in SD post exile.

My Dad, Uncle Tom, Uncle Emerson, & my Aunts Geraldine & Mamie. Tom & Emerson were WWII Vets. Geraldine was a principal & Mamie was a WWII nurse. All boarding school survivors. Emerson took beatings to keep the language & taught it later. My Dad is A Korea & Vietnam Vet.

My dad is the last of his family still living. Besides being a Vet he was also a Tribal Judge, Chairman & Minister.

There are so many ancestors I have no pictures of, but I carry them in my heart & in my veins. They live on through me. We beat genocide. My life is their victory over death.