Giago wanted Indian Country to have a voice

RAPID CITY— Born on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1934, Tim Giago spent most of his childhood at Holy Rosary Mission, and long before he became the foremost Native American journalist of his time, it shaped the heart and soul of the man he was to become. From the priests and nuns, he formed an operational understanding of the world at large most reservation boys did not. He developed a love for reading, writing, for creating, and coupled with a fierce determination to make something of his life, it set him on a path that would take him many places, and he would wear many hats. He operated from a unique niche in this world, a compelling perspective, but it was hard won— the boarding school experience had wounded him deeply, and he would carry those scars all his life, and they both impeded and ennobled him.

North Rapid began was a collecting point for the downtrodden, mainly three groups: white families who had lost their farm or livelihood to the economic depressions of the 1890’s or 1930’s, and Indian families from the surrounding reservations, and these Indians often mixed with migrant Mexican farm workers who had made the long journey north to work the beet fields of the northern Black Hills. Tim Giago found himself here as a teenager, and at this point he was a lost soul, taken in by one relative, and then another, and it seemed his fate would be much like many of the other Indian boys who had now called North Rapid home, and who would grow to be marginalized, shattered adults, sleeping under shade trees and train trestles.

But there was one place all the Indians of the North Rapid community came together, the Mother Butler Community Center, and this is where Tim met many of the people who would become his lifelong friends. Mother Butler was a safety net that caught young Lakota like Tim long enough to give them a chance to make a better life. It was fitting, then, hundreds of people would come to the Mother Butler Center last Monday to give thanks for the life of Tim Giago. Cousin Joe Giago opened proceedings with a prayer in Lakota. The pounding drumbeats of the Wambli Ska Drum Group reverberated resoundingly off the gymnasium walls. Gerald Yellow Hawk gave the invocation, and then, one by one, family members gave their eulogies.

This was not the original Mother Butler Center from Tim’s childhood. That facility was destroyed in 1972 by a terrible flood, and this new and expanded center was moved a mile north, to higher ground, but on this day all the memories, the ghosts, of that long ago time, came up from the old site, and were expressed in their living descendants, who filled the rows of chairs, some of them having shared most of the 88 years Tim Giago made a mark on their world.

One of these people was Mark Lonehill, a long time Rapid City Indian Community advocate.

“(Tim) was a great influence in Rapid City,” Lonehill said. “He was able to get our Native American voice out there, he was able to get the message out there and relay it to the people, and we appreciate him for his ability to do that through all these years. He’s known my father (Hobart Lonehill), they grew up together. At the old Mother Butler, down at the creek that’s where they met, I’m sure. My dad would go down there and play basketball, and my dad wasn’t even Catholic. A lot of Indians went there in the old days. The Fathers opened it up for athletic events for the Indian kids because they couldn’t play anywhere else in Rapid.”

One person who shares much of Tim Giago’s unique heritage, is Art Zimiga, long time Lakota educator and another community advocate.

“Back in boarding school days at Holy Rosary,” Zimiga said, “(Tim) was an older boy. He was really a giving person, and I’ve known the Giago family all my life. So, at 82, that goes back some time. I saw in him, at that time, a passion for words, and looking at values. He was a very insightful individual.”

Zimiga wrote articles for Tim’s papers: “He would say, why don’t you send me another one? He was always open to a discussion. He wanted discussions from the people at the grassroots level. He wanted to create that, for us to have a voice.”

To understand the grassroots level, you had to come from the grassroots level, and Tim went through many developmental stages, and from each stage he retained an essential knowledge, and setbacks did not discourage him—they were lessons learned, that armed him to tackle the next stage. His nephew, Dave Clarke recalled one of the early stages of Tim’s life: “When I was in junior high, we lived up on Willsie Street, and every time my Uncle Sonny come home (Tim was called Sonny the first half of his life, because his dad was called Tim), he would stay in me and my brother Jerry’s room, and no matter what the weather was outside, he always had his feet sticking out the window. That’s what he used to do on the ship (in the Navy during the Korean War) because it was so hot.”

Clarke continued: “And then I went to work for him at the newspaper he started, and he was so proud the day we printed the first color edition, and I still have a copy of that.”

After some beautiful flute playing from Sequoia Cross White, there was a slide show presentation, old pictures from the pre-WWII reservation, and in the adult faces were etched the daunting struggle of that harsh time, but in the face of Tim and his siblings, the promise of many good years to come. Then came pictures of Tim as a young man, holding a tiny daughter on his lap, and then Tim in his newspaper entrepreneur prime, his dark hair greying at the temples. Finally, the editor emeritus stage, his hair gone white, all of his accomplishments tucked satisfyingly behind him: Indian Country Today, a Harvard Neiman Fellowship, the coveted HL Mencken Award, and being a co-founder of the Native American Journalists Association.

Even from his hospital bed, in the days before his death, he was still planning, still offering advice, and whatever faults he had in his life, disappeared. There was just the kind, considerate mentor remaining. Tim was not an especially brave man, with two exceptions: he would do anything to defend the voice of the people, his newspaper, but the last and best memory those who loved him will have of Tim Giago, was how bravely, and calmly, he faced his own death. He had but one last request, to be wheeled outside into the sunshine, to look down across Rapid City one last time. Sadly, this request could not be granted, but after he passed, on the morning of July 24, 2012, his spirit made that journey as mahpiya hanzi, the shadow of a cloud, gliding over the dark mountains and buffalo grass prairie his people have forever called their home.

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

 

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