PINE RIDGE, S.D. – Fifteen months have passed and a group of people calling themselves the Grass Roots Oyate still occupy the Red Cloud tribal building and advocate for the same goals.
Nothing has changed, the occupiers say, even though a new president and council have been selected. The people are still not benefiting from the federal programs and money, Oyate leaders claim.
But tribal President John Yellow Bird Steele said he doesn’t know what the group wants, even though he has met with the members a number of times. “I don’t know who’s the boss down there.”
Steele and the group were scheduled to meet March 14, but the session was canceled by the group. Marie Horn Cloud, an elder and pipe carrier for the group, said Steele came to an earlier meeting of the group unannounced and was told not to do that again. “We will meet when scheduled. He was not nice to the people.”
Steele said he had no idea what she was talking about. “I went there, the pipe is there, and I am honest and tell the truth.” He said he would not pursue prosecution against those in the building. “The building is only material to me, I’m concerned about the people.” He said he didn’t know who was in charge.
Actually the elders are making consensus decisions. Recently the people who are left after some dissension in the ranks, formed a working group to plan future actions, raise funds to maintain the building, raise money for basic supplies, food and organizational expenses, said Robert White Mountain, who joined the group from Standing Rock. He also said the working group will be involved with economic development for the membership.
The working group will take care of the business side of the operations, he said.
At present the bills are mounting up on heat and electricity for the Red Cloud building. Steele said he was told by a Nebraska utility that the bill had reached $10,000. Steele said funds could not come from the tribe’s indirect-cost pool, because the tribe was not using the building. The money would have to come from the general fund.
Millie Horn Cloud, keeper of the 1868 pipe present in the building, said the grass-roots group was being harassed by the tribal council. She didn’t give specifics, but elders in the building said the original seven members of the Grass Roots Oyate, who were the most vocal in the early days, were now on the tribe’s payroll and were causing problems for the group. Again, there were no specifics.
Oyate members said people were using them. Others can access a post office box to which supporters across the country are sending donations. “We don’t see the money. People are using us, we are not here for that,” Horn Cloud said.
The group continues the argument against the IRA or Indian Reorganization Act government established by the act in 1934. A more traditional government, based on Oglala culture and spirituality, is desired by the group.
“The group now running things has been doing that for 67 years and it’s going nowhere. This is still one of the poorest counties in the nation,” White Mountain said.
“We want to bring back honesty and power to the people. We want complete honesty and through the sacred pipe it keeps us honest. The IRA replaced honesty with dishonesty.”
With a traditional government in place, economic development would not be abandoned, the group said. “It is here now, but doesn’t filter down to the people,” Marie Ann Red Cloud said.
“A traditional government would help everyone. The IRA government only helps a few who are in the system. It’s who you know that gets you jobs.”
In simple terms, the group works for a return to the Oglala cultural values that will divide the benefits equally among the tribal members and to “replace dishonesty with honesty in government,” White Mountain said.
The traditional government would be made up of the tiospayes with headmen chosen and medicine men advising. However, the federal government needs to work with a specific leader, said Jaimie Aruba, accountant with the tribal finance office.
Aruba is attempting to retrieve computer equipment used by the finance office that has been in the building and unused since Jan. 16. He told the group he needed the equipment to properly organize the finances of the tribe. Horn Cloud said he couldn’t have it until the elders met to decide what to do.
The group’s demands have not changed since the first day of the takeover. The main complaint was with former tribal Treasurer Wesley “Chuck” Jacobs. The demands were that he be removed from office. He was not reinstated as treasurer in the new administration. The group demanded the audits of the tribe’s financial records, which are under way.
The most-mentioned demand however is the return to a traditional government and removal of the IRA form of government. Aruba advised the Grass Roots Oyate that the federal government would not work with each tiospaye, but would require at least a designated person for government-to-government relations.
A fear of the group is the fact that at any time, with the Republican conservative administration in power, termination of all American Indian nations is a possibility, Oglala Russell Blacksman said.
“I want to see a time when we don’t rely on the federal government. We have our own land base and we can use solar and wind energy. Our ancestors were visionaries and we have to find that. We are the ones that will carry on,” he said.
Blacksman added that the Oglala nation would have to have something to fall back on if termination occurred.
Aruba assured the group the federal government could only terminate the reservation, the government, not the tribe itself.
