HONOR THE TREATIES

Tateya Topa

I am still on Pine Ridge, in the middle of the biggest shoot of my life, one that will go on for most of the summer until late August with 8 weeks of work in total.  I want to start this series of entries with positive commentary, but I have to admit to you that this assignment, and my role as advocate for the Lakota still scares the shit out of me.  There are great expectations that I do not know if I can possibly meet.  There are many mistakes to make with skin as white as mine.   I am just a photographer.  I didn’t plan for this to go so far.  For that reason there have been many missteps and I am sure there will be more to come.  I promise to you all to do my best.

Next week I am supposed to go to a sweat with a community of people I know from Manderson, and lead by a medicine man named Richard Two Dogs, a man for whom I have a great deal of respect.  I am supposed to ask for guidance.  I am supposed to bring tobacco and say the prayers.  Ramona says she will teach them to me in Lakota.

I have already seen too much darkness, and it has only been 3 days.  I saw Travis Lone Hill in prison, through the thick glass.  I sat with his pregnant girlfriend.  It was very much like the movies.  I put my knuckles up to the glass and told him to be strong while he held back tears. 

I wont go into the darkness today.  There is already so much.  I will try to tell you about the strong, the grounded, and the resistant.

I will leave you with a series of texts that were sent to me at 1:30am a few days ago.  Sent to me by a young woman who is trying to start a new resistance movement here.  Expectations are high:

Maybe just maybe it is true what the ‘old ones’ say…we are the generation to light the 8th fire. You must here everyone’s visionz while your hear…Collectively many have dreams… Seek them through prayer…ask the ancestors to guide you to the appropriate people….

BOOM BOOM BOOM, it will start to happen…. The story will unfold. You are here for a reason, maybe we can heal our nation through the story of your Pictures….

Heal our nation… Whoa!!  Simply through the telling of a story… That is it. For one, we as lakota people learn through ‘visual’ and grasp Things, ideas, teachings, etc more effectively through visual, thus you have a gift to heal through pictures. An opportunity, if u will.  An opportunity to partake in the ‘spark’ of a nation, many nations across our earth mother.  

 You are here for a reason, trust that. I just want you to know that tonight my prayer is for you to become a hollow plant stem…open and free„, Imagine being ‘rooted’ on a hillside with a light breeze passing through you, as you embrace being this hollow plant stem.  

When you are in this state, than tateya topa (the 4 winds) can pass through you. They will carry and filter out what may stump the ‘healing process’…

Through the wind. Along with that they will bring the prayers and dancing spirit of our ancestors on the ‘other’ side. Embrace this and trust and believe that You are exactly right where you are supposed to be at every moment of every day.

Hecetu ksto (that is the way it is)

And so I wait for Tateya Topa.

Aaron Huey

Pine Ridge, SD