I am Teton Lakota; I come from the land of the seven sacred campfires from the ancient world known today as the seven stars of the Big Dipper. Our grandfather brought us from the heavens (from the Big Dipper) and put us on the earth to chase the buffalo and to protect our grandmother, mother earth. The place assigned by father sky on the sacred hoop is the red quadrant for all the red people of the earth. We were the chosen people that have taken up our position on the east quadrant of the great circle. Our ancestral assignment is to care for our grandmother, our mother earth.

In ancient times, the sky people (birds, and all creatures that live in the sky) would speak to us and tell us the wishes of father sky and mother earth. As long as we were able to hear what the sky people told us, we were provided for. Once our minds had closed to these messages that were brought to us by the sky people, our world suddenly became boxes and rectangles. We were asked to scar mother earth with the plows and to care for chickens. We were then told we did not have the aptitude to care for chickens because we could not give up our wild and free way of life, for we were the Teton Lakota.

In the late 1800’s a religion grew out of the dissolution, deprivation and starvation, which was the reservation life. The religion was the ghost dance. By dancing the world would roll up and the old ways would return. The massacre at Wounded Knee Dec. 29, 1890 was the end result of the ghost dance. On this date, the formation of the bridge shaman began. The bridge shaman were the selected elders who took the ceremonies and the religious rights underground until 1978 when some of the ceremonies and rights were again granted to the native people.

The painting “Ghost Shirt” represents a holy man, a bridge shaman, wearing his freshly painted dance shirt. He is surrounded by the sacred red sky as he is told he must remember all the sacred heritage of his people. He is to teach seven children these ways prior to his passing. Seven children will teach seven more children prior to their passing and on and on to assure the ceremonies will survive for all time.