explaining the pine ridge reservation

[BlackHillsBob]

their maybe one or two people who might want to know the pine ridge ogalla sioux reservation. so i will explain it as a elder explained it to me. their are four section of note on the rez. pineridge, the town is composed from the early days with mixed bloods. lots of mexican cowboys with native wifes, lots of white soldiers with native wives. buffalo bills and custers decendents. and many outlaws of all colors of skin settled their also. west of pine ridge is french native mixed bloods who fought with american horse. north of pine ridge is all the different tribes, and their many of them, who fought with the sioux. to the bad lands is the real sioux, the sioux who followed crazy horse. so if you ever visit pineridge, now you know what the layout is. gerald one feather was a good friend of mine as was nellie two bulls. you can easily find them on you tube. they taught me alot. i know burial places of famous historical sioux, they showed them to me, im probably one of a few who know these things. thats it for my dialog on pineridge to day.

 

[Kansas Jake]

I haven't been there in many years. I was there once before the church was burned and once after some years later. The last time was probably more than 35 years ago. The second time we drove through the area as a family. I wanted my young girls to see it.

 

[BlackHillsBob]

thanks for the reply, pine ridge has a lot of history. one fact many dont know. ive shot dozens of prairie dogs over their, couldnt poss. count them. the hawks and eagles used to follow me and my son as they ate for several days with out hunting when us two left pineridge. those are one smart bird. 30 in one day was nothing.

 

[crankshaft]

Res life is very different than the life of many Indians,( Native Americans,) than where I grew up in NE Okla . These folks were mostly intermarried, and many folks were 1/4..1/16 or some degree of native. We mostly didn't know who was native and who wasn't, and didn't care. The natives assimilated well and had the same good jobs as others, teachers, lawyers, etc. Acquired my merit, not EEO or AA. My family has a number of natives.
My wife taught on a res up north, a shithole. Be glad you were not born and raised on a res.

 

[BlackHillsBob]

you have it right, im one of those mixed bloods. dna test 2 years ago showed it. im part cree and also part mongol, attilla the hun. always thought i was part italian, no the cree and atillia the hun blood makes me look southern europe. our county here is mixed like that. lots of french indian ranchers and the other people here are decended from confederate deserters who got tried of that war and came here and claimed some land and are now really big ranchers.average ranch size here is 10,000 acres. we are like you guys here as in oklahoma, mixed up ameriacans and proud of it.

 

[Kansas Jake]

When we went there years ago with the kids, we were entering the reservation around noon and hadn't really made plans for something to eat. We stopped at a local grocery/trading post/quick shop type of place to buy some food before going further. I asked about driving through the area as I had some concern about taking my family through the area. This was about 6 or 7 years after the 1973 Wounded Knee event. The man operating the store just told me to not pick anyone up otherwise no problem. The poverty seen really stuck with me. We as a nation have not done well by native people.

 

[BlackHillsBob]

thanks for your reply. it is true what you said. years ago i was going out past wounded knee to see a couple of patients and when i got to wounded knee a huge hail storm came over the area. it was soft hail and not hard hail, like thick mush. then a tornado funnel came down a couple miles out. then the funnel went up and the hail stopped. their was so much hail that no one could drive on the road for a hour. strange things happen at wounded knee. that valley hasnt been normal since wounded knee happened. a lot of death in that valley.

 

[Dale Lilly]

My wife is mixed-blood Cherokee. Her mom was born in an all native American town [Grits, OK] that no longer exists. Unfortunately she was never taught much about her origin; I probably know more of native American history than she does. However, old as we are, she looks great in her doeskin wedding dress and loves to bust a few caps with me. To my knowledge there are few ML enthusiasts in this area [I don't include those who use the abortions]. My 62 year old neighbor had never seen a traditional ML gun until he saw mine after we moved here a few years ago. I just gifted him a CVA Hawken pistol to display [or use]. It is strange. We have a fairly large rendezvous about 90 miles from here and none of our friends in this area had ever heard of it. Oh well Polecat [ Note the butt of a TC by Li'l Sparrow]

 

[Stony Broke]

I have always wondered what the situation is like since the shutting down of Whiteclay. Whiteclay was a major supplier of beer for the reservation as far as I know.

 

[Old Hawkeye]

I have always wondered what the situation is like since the shutting down of Whiteclay. Whiteclay was a major supplier of beer for the reservation as far as I know.

Whiteclay is just across the Neb./S.D. line south of the Rosebud Res., if memory serves me correctly. Not sure if the Pineridge Res members went there for beer. Always heard the Pineridge & the Rosebud don't get along too well. Regardless, that ugly place is pretty much abandoned, since the only thing there, the beer stores, were outlawed by Nebraska. Haven't heard much on the news about the "beer" problem since the big fight over the shutdown of sales there. I'm sure someone has found a way to supply the beer & make money. The exploitation continues.

 

[Stony Broke]

If my memory serves me correctly, I think the Pineridge is just north of Whiteclay. I spent a lot of my younger years in Nebraska, including college at Chadron....but I never was in Whiteclay. From what I understand it was not a good place to stop at when you were traveling through anyway. I know the reservation folks sure did enjoy their liquor though. I remember going to a bar in South Dakota, not too far from Pineridge, that only served 3.2 beer as they could sell it to anyone over 19 years old then. You would walk into the bathroom, and there were always indians in there offering you a drink out of their whiskey bottles they snuck in to the bar.

 

[pat i.]

Shot a lot of prairie dogs on the Conata Basin years ago when they had prairie dogs. Used to love going to the general store in Scenic. Drove through the rez a lot just site seeing but never felt comfortable enough to stop anywhere except the church and mass grave. Sad lonely place at the time and cant see it changing much in the present tense.