COVID-19 claims three tribal elders

RAPID CITY— Despite tribal lockdowns, social distancing, and shelter-in-place policy, COVID-19 deaths continue to impact every reservation. Three Lakota

of note were lost to COVID in the past week.

Seymour Young Dog, 77, of Batesland entered the spirit world on December 14. Young Dog was a stellar distance runner at Pine Ridge High School, being graduated in 1963. His younger brother Myron Young Dog is one of the three best distance runners South Dakota ever produced. Seymour had a knack for mathematics and after being graduated from Haskell University in 1965, he spent the next forty years specializing in electronics for many high tech companies including NASA. While working for Martin Marrieta, Young Dog said he “worked on the instrument calibration projects for the Viking Lander space probe.”

Born into poverty on the family allotment at American Horse Creek, Lakota was Young Dog’s first language, but after teaching electronics in Philadelphia, he said, “For seven years I didn’t hear my language spoken.” In 2005 Young Dog came home and settled on the family allotment where he put up a horse barn and corral. He was on the board of the tribal nursing home. His final words in a 2019 Bennett County Booster article were, “Everything I ever did wasn’t easy…but it was worth it.”

Former standing Rock Tribal Chairman Jess Taken Alive also passed on from COVID-19 on December 14. He was 65 years old. Taken Alive first served in tribal government in 1991. He was Tribal Chairman from 1993 to 1997. Until his illness, he taught Lakota language and culture at McLaughlin.

“On a map it is called McLaughlin,” Taken Alive said in a 2015 Wo Lakota YouTube video, “But we like to call it Bear Soldier Community. Bear Soldier is my late father’s Lakota name, so it’s dear and near to our heart.”

Education has always been an important part of the Taken Alive Family, and Taken Alive was no exception, attending Black Hills State. He continually stressed the value of a strong family: “I’m really fortunate to be raised in a home, along with my siblings, where there was no alcohol or drugs. I consider myself to be one of the luckiest Lakota because we were brought up in that way.”

Regarding his contributions as a teacher, Taken Alive said, “To hear young people speak our language and phrases, sentences, to come up and greet you in that way, is very, very humbling, brings a lump in my throat.”

On December 13, former Oglala Sioux Tribe (OST) Tom Poor Bear, 66, also passed on from COVID-19.

“I still can’t believe Tom has left us,” former OST President Bryan Brewer told Red Nation News. “It’s a bad day for the Tribe, and a bad day for his family.”

“Tom was my hunka brother and I have known him since he was a small boy. He still had much to contribute to the Oglala Sioux Tribe and he left us too early. I will miss him very much,” said Tim Giago, Publisher of Native Sun News Today.

Characterized as an activist even in his youthful days, Poor Bear developed his public service skills to a highly effective, politically savvy level. He became a stable, reliable standard even when tribal government was awash with corruption about him. After a shakeup in tribal government it was Poor Bear who was appointed as Vice President of the Tribe in his last act of public service,

 

(Contact James Giago Davies at skindiesel@msn.com)

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