Indigenous matriarchs rising in leadership and community care

RAPID CITY – Matriarchal societies have always had to adapt to survive, and for the Lakota that adaptation has meant continually redefining strength, leadership, and kinship in the face of ongoing change. At a recent weekly session at the Oyate Health Center, held in the Oglala Room and attended by thirty people in person and online, Lily Mendoza spoke powerfully about Indigenous matriarchs and their enduring role in shaping communities. The event, sponsored by the Great Plains Tribal Leaders Health Board’s Tribal Opioid Response Program, offered an inspiring look at how women’s leadership has sustained families and nations through crisis after crisis.

Mendoza is a leader in the restoration of Indigenous women’s roles in wellness, leadership, and land stewardship and is the founder of the Red Ribbon Skirt Society, a grassroots organization based in Rapid City that supports families of missing and murdered Indigenous women.

In her Power Point “From Evolution to Revolution: Indigenous Matriarchs Rising,” Mendoza traced the evolution of matriarchs from the early twentieth century to the present day, following their impact across Turtle Island. She explored how Indigenous women have moved from traditional roles in warfare and protection to today’s “modern warrior” existence—fighting for education, political voice, community health, and especially the survival of the tiospaye.

Mendoza is a citizen of the Cheynne River Sioux Tribe. Her father is Mexican and mother is Lakota. She didn’t have a lot of matriarchal influence in her life, which is a shared experience for many tribal members as a result of the Christian patriarchy which enforced Western gender norms in their effort to limit women’s roles. She spoke fondly of the stories her mother would tell her of her grandmother baking bread. Mendoza later drew on those stories during a difficult time in her life, turning a simple idea—baking organic bread—into a home-based business.

Mendoza shared her own family story, tracing a line of matriarchs from her great-grandmother Julie through her grandmother, mother, and sister. In her telling, a matriarch is not simply the oldest woman in a family, but the one who holds the household together when resources are scarce, keeps track of relationships, history, and obligations, carries stories, language, and ceremony, and becomes the person everyone turns to in times of crisis. “These are the individuals that we go to and ask questions, we listen to their stories, and most importantly, if we can, we should record those stories so that we have them.” In Lily’s family, her sister has taken on the role of historian, writing down names and stories so they are not lost. “She knows everything about our history, when we grew up in El Paso, our aunts taking care of us, and then coming back to South Dakota.”

She said it is also an act of resistance to erasure—documenting a lineage that colonial systems were never meant to preserve.

Mendoza widened the lens to talk about matriarchs of the community, women whose impact extends far beyond their own bloodlines, and who made an impact on her. She named figures such as Elle Deloria, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, and Ada Deer. She said that matriarchs are often the ones who found and sustain programs, mentor young people and emerging leaders, stand at the forefront of cultural and educational work, and provide stability where institutions have failed.

One very influential matriarch was Harriet Skye, a Hunkpapa Lakota from Standing Rock. Skye was a pioneering Native American journalist, TV host, and advocate for Native American education, and served on the North Dakota Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. “She was one of the first commissioners in 1971 and I remember her because my parents, my mother, my aunties, really talked about her because they were so proud of the work that she was doing. I remember her and the work that she did across the United states. She was pretty amazing.”

Mendoza spoke plainly about the burdens many women are carrying today. Colonization disrupted traditional family structures and cultural teaching, contributing to poverty, addiction, and violence. Today, many matriarchs are raising children and grandchildren, working, supporting relatives in crisis, and carrying cultural and community responsibilities at the same time. As a single parent, Lily’s story of doing this largely on her own reflected a broader reality in which women are expected to be endlessly strong in the absence of men—yet at conferences, the question she most often hears from men is, “What are you doing for the men?” Her answer is, “That’s you’re responsibility to figure that out, because we’re going to still going to move on and do what we need to do. I understand the struggle. I’ve been here in Rapid for forty years. I know that with that role that was taken away from the men as warriors, I understand that whole historical part of it. But at some point, you have to get it together. I don’t know how that’s going to happen.”

Matriarchs should lead also as environmental stewards and have a responsibility to protect water quality, challenge pollution, and support the work of tribal nations and water protectors. Mendoza lives off the grid. “I chose to do that because it’s a simple life. I can say simple, but it involves things like hauling water, so it takes some planning. But I don’t need a lot. I’ve also started to grow my own food.”

She said she likes making daily choices that reflect cultural teachings about care for the land. For her, this is not a separate environmental cause; it is an extension of matriarchal care. Protecting land and water is part of ensuring that future generations inherit clean water, living land, and a relationship to place rooted in respect rather than extraction.

Looking ahead, Mendoza urged women to form circles and groups where they can study women’s teachings and ceremonies, share stories, grief, and practical knowledge, and build networks of mutual aid for single mothers, grandmothers, and caregivers. “Parenting and caregiving,” she emphasized, “ must be shared responsibilities, and healing and cultural teachings must be available to men as well as women.” The goal is not to demand that matriarchs be even stronger, but to restore balance so that women are no longer carrying everything alone

Mendoza said matriarchs are not only figures from the past; they are here, right now, shaping the future. “When you see an elderly woman, just shake her hand because she’s had a long, hard life, and she’s still there, helping community.”

(Contact Marnie Cook at cookm8715@gmail.com)

The post Indigenous matriarchs rising in leadership and community care first appeared on Native Sun News Today.

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