The Black Hills Land Claim::

Sovereignty, Identity and the Black Hills

Sovereignty underpins all discourses of land and land reclamation in Lakota Country. Few are in doubt as to the current relationship between the tribal and the federal governments, which is based on imbalance and inequality. One Oglala man is emphatic:

"[Some Lakota people] may think they are, or […] aspire to be sovereign, but […] we're not sovereign because we're wards of the federal government. Once you made the treaty you became a ward, so that was the dilemma. There's two ways to view things: the way of Crazy Horse and the way of Red Cloud. Red Cloud signed the treaty, Red Cloud established the reservation system, Red Cloud established our systematic relationship to the federal government. Now we're under their care. Now, if you oppose that idea, then you're considered hostile, and you're considered like the people of Crazy Horse - so we're outsiders, […] we never gave up. Those divisions are still maintained today."

For many Lakota this recognition of the diminished qualities of sovereignty under US rule in no way undermines the fact that inherent Lakota sovereignty still exists. Each Lakota has his or her own definition of sovereignty as each focuses on a particular aspect of it, but each revolves around the central axis of Wakantanka. For one young man, "sovereignty means that you have authority over your own life, control over your own economy, militia, you have your own boundary. You're a nation. Tribal government takes the standard definition from the dictionary […]". A member of the Black Hills Sioux Nation Treaty Council, described it as "inherited sovereignty" - sovereignty that is "God-given", that begins with the individual self, then expands to include a whole society and then a nation and its entire, God-given, land-base. When a territory and culture are stripped away, sovereignty isn't taken away also. This is because "[s]overeignty is a basic human right given to us by our Creator" (an Oglala elder). The fact that no one but Wakantanka can give and take away this basic right to land and culture, gives the Lakota notion of sovereignty a supernatural, and thus eternal, quality. For the Lakota, 'sovereignty' goes beyond rhetoric. At a meeting of the Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Arvol Looking Horse defined sovereignty as a total way of life:

"We as people, we are sovereign. We've always been a nation. Many nations have seen us and recognise us. As long as we practice our ceremonies, we know the Great Spirit will allow us the future of our children. We have to remember we live according to the way of life - the good and the bad. It goes back nineteen generations, when the Sacred Pipe was brought. As long as we commit ourselves to these ways, there's no person who can tell us the Black Hills have been sold and doesn't apply to our ceremonies. […] Generations back, this Turtle Island was occupied by ceremonies. These ceremonies and this nation have always known each other as bothers, sisters, relations, because, when people go back to their ceremonies and keep to them, we know there is respect and honour amongst our people. […] We are a way of life, not a religion. Religion applies to the people with whom we made the treaties. Their religion and treaties brought us war" (1998).

Within the overarching rubric of divine right, the Black Hills land claim and the fight for sovereignty is embedded in the context of cultural reclamation. Reclamation of land, ceremony, traditional values, traditional laws, language and other cultural systems go hand in hand for the Lakota. Many land claim and treaty activists, the majority of whom are over forty or elders, try to live as traditional a life as they can. Often this means living simply and sustainably on land that is treated with care and with as little chemical interference as possible; learning or continuing to speak Lakota; conducting or participating in ceremony; forming traditional governments and tiyospaye; reinstating traditional men and women's sodalities. Where land is concerned, politics, culture and spirituality can never be separated.

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