Lakota matriarch carries on traditions
Lula Red Cloud and Harry Burk
CRAZY HORSE – As the time comes for her to take part in welcoming the seasonal arrival of the Wakíŋyaŋ to Black Elk Peak, Lula Red Cloud also is preparing the third of four annual commemoration services for her late husband Harry Michael Lee Anukansun Hokshila Burk Sr.
A Northern Arapaho nicknamed Billy Jack, Burk took his journey to the spirit world on March 20, 2018, at the age of 92. His ashes are scattered here at Crazy Horse Mountain, where Red Cloud invites friends and relatives to “a small giveaway and feed” beginning at 1 p.m. on the same date this year.
“I do this memorial in the Lakota way for my husband,” Red Cloud told the Native Sun News Today, recalling Burk’s observation, “You may have lived a long time, but even at a very old age, you have lived only a buffalo’s breath in winter.”
Born Jan. 18, 1926, Burk was a World War II combat veteran. “Once a Marine, always a Marine,” he was fond of saying. He kept a commitment to the warrior’s tradition as a Sun Dancer, Traditional Dancer, and a Southern Gourd Dancer. He was a lifelong cultural preservationist.
Among Burk’s unflagging passions were protecting bears in Utah and mountain lions in South Dakota; he supported Best Friends Animal Sanctuary of Utah, Custer Humane Society, and Battle Creek Humane Society of South Dakota, according to his obituary.
Moreover, Burke was a champion of civil rights and religious freedom. His lifetime achievements include defending the rights of workers as a labor union representative for the Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers, now, the United Steel Workers Union.
He was a member of the American Indian Movement-Denver Chapter. He and Red Cloud started the AIM-Salt Lake City Chapter. He was the leader of an activist group that successfully lobbied the state of Utah to build a sweat lodge inside the prison for Native inmates.
His causes ranged from support of the Crazy Horse Memorial since 1996 to the Standing Rock Water Protectors’ 2016-2017 fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Red Cloud is the great-great granddaughter of Chief Red Cloud, or Makhpiya Luta, an Oglala headman who signed the 1868 Ft. Laramie Treaty to retain a swath of ancestral Lakota Territory under control of the Seven Council Fires of the Great Sioux Nation.
The elder matriarch of the lineage, she is one of the preeminent Lakota quiltmakers. Her star quilts have found their way into such prestigious venues as the National Museum of the American Indian’s George Gustav Heye Center in New York.
In 2020, after the family procured a museum’s return of a bonnet worn by Makhpiya Luta, Lula held a ceremony presenting a head dress to his great-great grandson, Henry John Red Cloud, entrusting him as this generation’s headman.
Henry John is an award-winning pioneer in off-grid renewable source power technology, renowned for conducting energy independence training on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
At her home in Hermosa, where Burk spent his final hours on earth, Lula holds a monthly Lakota elders’ talking circle to fortify traditions. She hopes to one day convert the location into a mutual self-help center with healing and support systems targeted at different population sectors, not only elders, but youth, as well as jobseekers, and special needs clients.
Contact Talli Nauman at talli.nauman@gmail.net
The post Lakota matriarch carries on traditions first appeared on Native Sun News Today.
Shared by: Native Sun News Today
March 12, 2021