Story Provided by William Purcell www.lakotawritings.com

The sun had climbed slowly above the distant horizon in the clear blue morning sky. Even at this early stage in its path across the vast blue yonder, the air was already stifling hot and humid, the bright yellow disc itself struggled to find the strength to continue across its chosen path. The vast expanse of blue sky was without a blemish. Far below the Sun the land lay silent and still.

It seemed a tired land. The Sun had baked it hard. The heat taking all the moisture from the surface, from the river and streams, and from the distant mountains. The signs that dotted the landscape pointed to a once beautiful land. But those now living upon it, both animal and human, could not remember the last time when a cooling breeze had caressed their sweating bodies. Neither could they remember the last time when the rains had washed down from the mountain range far to the north, bringing with it both comfort and life to all that needed it, especially to the land itself.

Even the once mighty and fast flowing rivers, that bisected the land, had all become a mere trickle of their former glory. Blighted for so long, the lands on either side of these currents of life were devoid of any signs of new life. The old bodies of dead fish, which quickly rotted in the heat of the day, littered the hard baked riverbeds and showed the destiny of the dying fish around them. The white bleached bones of the land animals dotting their banks.

But not all was dead or still upon this land. A village of some 20 tipis, erected within a U bend on one such river, the Bighorn, was full of life. These were the tipis of a band of Oglala Lakota. Proof, if proof were needed, that life could survive even during these harshest of times.

The band considered this land their land, but not as in ownership, but held in sacred trust to be passed down from one generation to another. It held a special place in their hearts and was therefore considered sacred. The U bend in the river was their annual place to erect their Summer Camp. Story Continues