by Margi Bettelyoun

Created on: August 20, 2009

The Unknown Attributes

If you grew up on the Pine Ridge Reservation, you might take these things for granted, if you noticed them at all. If you grew up anywhere else and came to this reservation and stayed for any length of time, they would be some of the first miracles you notice. They will surround you and warm you like an honoring star quilt. I am speaking of attributes of the Lakota people that non-Indians may not be aware of: humor, generosity and endurance.

There simply is no part of life on the reservation where humor does not exist. There is always a joke, a tease, a laugh everywhere you go, the grocery store, the classroom, the Post Office, the hospital. Humor is what makes a very hard life bearable. Humor is what makes an acceptable life more realistic. Humor is what makes a very good life full of humility. The Lakota use humor to teach an important lesson to a willful child or an errant spouse. They use humor to brag you up or bring you back down to earth. It is everywhere and encompasses everything. I cannot imagine life here without the Lakota gift of humor.

Another gift of the Lakota is their own form of generosity. How can you give when you have nothing? They do it everyday. They live a poverty ridden life and get so used to it that they don't even notice it. Yet, when there is a death in the community, they come with their meager possessions, eager to give. If they have no possessions, they come with their food, still eager to give. If they have no food, they just bring themselves, eager to work.

The Lakota have been robbed, murdered, and lied to over and over, yet here they are. They live lives of unbelievable poverty and prejudice, yet, here they are. Through all

The negatives life throws at them, they endure. They have endurance to hold on to their culture, language and religion. They live life literally one day at a time and they endure. They have to; it might be all they have.

For centuries, non-Indians have claimed knowledge of the Lakota. They wrote books about them and taught their children to believe these lies. They made movies about the Lakota to either laugh at them or romanticize them. There are always a few non-Indians who come to the reservation and become "wannabes," thinking they know everything about them. Most of these don't stay; it seems they don't have the endurance. To cover up their failure, they forget all these people. That is okay; the Lakota endure.

No matter what the other people of the world might do to them, they are still generous; even if all they have to give is their love and compassion. And the one thing they have that will get them through is there humor.

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