My Lakota Friend

By Bob Gariano

Two decades ago, we were on a fly-fishing trip and camped in the Angostura State Recreation Area in South Dakota. This magnificent woodland is 60 miles south of Rapid City. It is in the middle of the sacred Indian lands of the Black Hills. The camp sites are adjacent to the Cheyenne River that runs through the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands. That river is a vital waterway for the Native American people who settled in this area more than a millennium ago. Along these shores, Cheyenne, Lakota, and Blackfeet hunters killed buffalo and other game to support their families.

During our trip that year I met Albert and two of his sons. Since that first introduction, I have been privileged to meet a number of other people in his extended family. Albert lives in the Silver City area north of Mount Rushmore and he and his family trace lineage back more than two hundred years to when the Lakota first came to these prairies. Today Albert, who owns substantial acreage, runs a successful ranching operation. He also manages his father’s real estate business. Over the years I have visited him often during my trips and he and I have established a long distance friendship.

Five years ago, while having lunch with Albert in a diner in Deadwood, the charming little town that was made infamous by the eponymous television series, my friend asked me about the Lake Forest High School hoodie that I was wearing. Instantly embarrassed, I began to apologize for the logo on my chest and told him that my local public school had this logo because their mascot was an Indian scout. Albert smiled at my concern and said a single word, “Hunkpapa”.

Albert went on to explain. “Do not be embarrassed. Be proud. Hunkpapa means scout in my ancestral language. The Hunkpapa is one of the seven council fires or clans of the Lakota tribe. We do not say Sioux because that word means enemy and was only used by our rivals, the Blackfeet. But we are very proud to be scouts. Hunkpapa were the most stalwart and dependable of the Lakota people, the word Hunkpapa having the same meaning to us as Spartans or Centurions might to you Mediterranean people.”

“Hunkpapa literally translated means the “head of the circle”. You see, we were a nomadic people. The Lakota camped in a circle with women, children and livestock in the middle. The circle of lodges was open at only one point and that is where we Hunkpapa, or scouts, set our teepees. No interloper could enter the encampment as long as it was guarded by our clan.”

“We Hunkpapa also scouted the terrain when the we moved our tribe through the flat valleys of the Platte and Big Cheyenne Rivers. My great grandfather was a renown Hunkpapa warrior. He knew Sitting Bull, Gall, and Running Antelope, all of whom fought against Custer at the Little Big Horn battle. When the Oglala Sioux formed an alliance against the settlers, they made sure to include the Hunkpapa scouts. These Lakota scouts were known as the most courageous warriors.”

Albert is a man who has both physical and intellectual power that is hard to miss. His raven dark hair, high cheek bones, and broad shoulders give evidence of his distant ancestors who came to this continent from Asia. These were the warriors who ruled the steppes and who later would establish the largest empire of the middle ages. They were the people that Marco Polo said were the finest light cavalry in the world. The Lakota and many other Native Americans trace their heritage to that same people that historians call the Mongols.  

Sitting over lunch at the little diner in Deadwood, I could still imagine Albert’s Lakota ancestors scouting the way for their tribe as they hunted buffalo on this prairie. My embarrassment turned into pride. Albert went on.

“Several years ago someone in Washington announced that the land around Black Hills would be repatriated and returned to their indigenous owners. I bet it was some city person who did not know our history. We were worried. The Lakota had taken the Black Hills from the Cheyenne in a bloody war in the middle of the 1800s. Some of my acreage is on that land. For a while, we thought our ranch would be taken away and given back to the descendants of these Cheyenne people. Fortunately, this plan never materialized and we kept those acres in our family.”

Before we ended our lunch, I offered Albert my other Lake Forest sweat shirt that was packed in the back of our SUV with our tents. He grinned broadly and seemed proud to get this gift from his city friend. I watched him as pulled it on over his head and broad shoulders. Then, with a wave, he got into his big muddy diesel pickup truck and headed back to his ranch and his family. I headed out for some afternoon fishing.