Remembering the first Native American Day as it continues to bring people together thirty five years later

CUSTER – The Crazy Horse Memorial celebrated the annual Native American Day with a full schedule of events featuring keynote speaker actor Elaine Miles, a performance from the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra (SDSO) Lakota Music Project with the Creekside Singers, craft workshops, and free buffalo stew to all visitors.

South Dakota was the first state to officially celebrate Native American Day. That first event 35 years ago was held at Crazy Horse Memorial and since then the Memorial has echoed the original event, growing it into a premiere event destination in the Black Hills.

There were more than fifty people attending the outside presentation, despite the chilly breeze but attendees had come bundled, prepared to stay and pay careful attention to the proceedings.

Cultural practitioner and master storyteller Darrell Red Cloud, a fifth blood descendant of Chief Red Cloud, presented the opening prayer but first wanted to say some personal words. “I’m glad that I was asked to come up here and say a prayer on behalf of the Indigenous people of this country, remembering our people, our ancestors, and continuing on with the education that we are teaching our younger generations and trying to encourage and learn our way of life is a positive thing that Crazy Horse Memorial is doing for the Indigenous people of this country.”

As the event began, event emcee Leander McDonald, President of United Tribes Technical College in Bismarck, North Dakota, and acknowledged the U.S. military service of Native Americans. “American Indians hold the title to the highest rate of enlistment and highest rate of veterans than any other race in the nation and so we recognize that today.”

McDonald (Dakota/Arikara/Spirit Lake) then introduced the keynote speaker actor, comedian, storyteller, and activist Elaine Miles. Miles has an impressive filmography, but she is best known for her role as Marilyn Whirlwind on the 1990’s television series Northen Exposure. While Miles looks and talks like her character, she is the opposite of the reserved and quietly wise Marilyn, greeting the audience with a big smile and the confidence of a veteran performer.

Miles was born in Pendleton Oregon and is a citizen of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR) with Cayuse/Nez Perce ancestry. As was the case with many Native American tribes, Miles said her family was impacted by the federal government’s urban Indian relocation programs of the 1950’s and 1960’s. “My dad was sent to Seattle, and my mom was sent to Spokane while my sisters and I stayed with grandma and grandpa.” She said they would see their parents on the weekends.

The CTUIR had experienced forced settlement one hundred years previously. Massive land cessation, forced settlement, and continued land loss disrupted the tribal lifeways based on fishing, hunting, and gathering. The CTUIR also experienced decades of federal assimilation programs aimed at suppressing their language and culture. Still, Miles’ grandparents were native speakers and so she grew up with Cayuse as her first language.

Miles recounted her grandmother’s teachings and the importance of maintaining traditional ways despite societal changes. This guidance became ever more important when her career continued beyond Northern Exposure.

Northern Exposure aired for six seasons. It began originally as a summer replacement in 1990 but became a full series that fall. It was about a small town in Alaska, but the series was filmed in Roslyn, Washington. Miles happened to accompany her mother to an audition where the producer spotted Miles and offered her the role as Marilyn Whirlwind. “I auditioned on Friday, got a call back on Monday and started work on Wednesday.” Miles was a member of the cast from the shows debut.

“My grandmother was still alive when I moved on from Northern Exposure. She would tell me to ‘never forget where you come from.’”

Angela Lee, the Director of the Crazy Horse Memorial University presented the Indian Educator of the Year for Crazy Horse Memorial to Dr. Donald Warne. “We are presenting this prestigious award to Dr. Warne, Master of Public Health, MD. He is a professor and co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health and an acclaimed physician, one of the world’s preeminent scholars on indigenous health, health education policy, and equity,” said Lee.

The Center is a key piece of the new Great Plains Native Health Hub in Rapid City which opened last year. Warne saw the necessity of establishing a site here to combine resources and traditional methods because of South Dakota alarming health disparities. In this group, people live more than 25 years less on average than the general population in the US, mainly due to preventable factors. “Warne has done so much work helping to change the framework for Indigenous health and wellness from a proactive standpoint,” said Lee.

Guests were also treated to a 90-minute performance by the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra’s Lakota Music Project with the Creekside Singers.

The day’s recognition was the result of an interview Tim Giago had conducted with then-Governor George Mickleson. Giago, who passed in 2020, was a groundbreaking Oglala Lakota journalist who started some of the first Native American newspapers, including The Lakota Times and Native Sun News Today. Mickelson had said that the hardest part of his job was trying to deal with bad race relations. Giago urged him to confront the state’s painful history by replacing Columbus Day with Natie American Day to honor the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota people.

“I think that work that’s happening here at Crazy Horse Memorial is really great,” said McDonald. “It creates an opportunity – the presentations and videos and the memorial itself – to really creating some type of draw in order to bring people here to tell our story.”

(Contact Marnie Cook at cookm8715@gmail.com)

The post Remembering the first Native American Day as it continues to bring people together thirty five years later first appeared on Native Sun News Today.

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