Too often, when hearing of Indian reservations, outsiders think of negative or sensational things—substance abuse, poverty, gaming. But there are inspiring projects happening on reservations across Indian Country too. I recently visited the Center for American Indian Research and Native Studies (CAIRNS) on the Pine Ridge Reservation and witnessed young people learning in a way that perhaps could only be possible in a reservation setting. I thought I’d share my experiences with you.
The CAIRNS campus at Pine Ridge
The Pine Ridge Reservation was established in 1889, after 38 years of warfare, land grabbing, and broken treaties. Pine Ridge was originally known as the Red Cloud Agency, a U.S. bureaucratic unit of the Great Sioux Nation, established around the Oglala Lakota leader Red Cloud and his band. 
Coming onto the reservation from the north, on route 73, you know you’ve crossed into Lakota country when you see a sign: “You are Entering the Land of Red Cloud/ Pine Ridge Indian Reservation/Home of the Oglala Sioux Indian Tribe.”
Red Cloud (1822-1909) was the leader of the Oglala Lakota during the period known as the Plains Wars (1862-1880).
He was also known as a proponent of western-style education, even as he insisted on that education being consistent with the preservation of Lakota culture.
Red Cloud, circa 1880.
Delphine Red Shirt, a Lakota writer who lived at Pine Ridge during the stormy 1970s, wrote a poem in her youth about Red Cloud’s educational message:
“He points to the road, but he refuses to lead.
He spoke these words to them:
Do not walk backward for you will surely fall.
Learn from what is past, but look to tomorrow’s dawn and follow the sun.
Walk frontward and learn of the white man’s ways, of his writing, his books and his language.
But most important, learn to walk side by side with him, as a friend.” (from Bead on an Anthill*)
At CAIRNS last month, I witnessed this side-by-side learning. In this case, non-native students from Washington and Lee University were taking a course called “Land in Lakota (Titonwan) Culture, Economics, and History.” It was led by Joseph Guse, a professor of Economics, and Harvey Markowitz, professor of Religion.
Harvey has a long association with the Lakotas, going all the way back to his days at the University of Chicago, where he was a graduate student. He came out to the Rosebud Reservation in 1975 for a few weeks of research that stretched into years. He was invited to live with a Lakota family and he taught at the local school. Now he is working to bring that experience to his own university students.
The students and instructors of Washington and Lee’s “Land in Lakota (Titonwan) Culture, Economics, and History.” (CAIRNS)
The day I sat in on the class, the students were learning first-hand what Indian allotment means. CAIRNS is nestled at the edge of a draw on a 640 acre allotment. Craig Howe, its founder, organized the young people into groups and set them about looking for the survey stakes driven into the property boundaries in 1910. After they found them—coming back muddy and tired in their realization that 640 acres is a long walk—the students plotted them on the old allotment map Craig has in his office. It was hands-on learning at its best and the students went to bed that night exhausted but full of good cheer. Before we said goodbye for the evening, we all formed a circle, shaking each other’s hand in succession, saying, Toksa ake wacinyankinkte”—the young women adding yeah to the phrase, and the young men, yelo, as is customary in Lakota. It was a stirring moment, when community, respect, and learning all came together to make us whole.
Waste yelo!
