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In 2008, Indigenous Elders gathered, beginning a process of conversations that would culminate in the Oceti Sakowin Essential Understandings (OSEU), first published in 2012. Since that time, many Elders have been interviewed, many lessons have been created and many resources developed, all housed on the Wolakota Project website since its inception in 2013. This video brings together the voices of three of the original Elders involved in the writing of the OSEU, Duane Hollow Horn Bear, Victor Douville and Dottie LaBeau. The Oceti Sakowin Essential Understandings and the voices and wisdom of Indigenous Elders are at the heart of the Wolakota Project and will continue to carry us far beyond this ten year anniversary.
Elder and co-author of the Oceti Sakowin Essentail Understandings, Dottie LeBeau, discusses the thinking and the objectives of the Elders during the writing of the Essential Understandings. **With deep gratitude to Dottie LeBeau for providing funding for the Lakota translation of this website.
Why Focus Our State’s Attention on the Oceti Sakowin Essential Understandings?
1) So that the people of the Oceti Sakowin (via their elders) to understand their definitions of themselves, something that has not been the case, historically. Non-native definitions and ways of being in this region have been diminished because of a history of non-listening. Native definitions and ways of being in this region have been stifled through the silencing of historic oppression, separation and targeted, forced assimilation.
2) To open up a deeper understanding of the natural environment of South Dakota by listening closely to the experiences and stories of those who have been here longest, and whose traditional culture and way of life were shaped by and within this environment.
3) The Oceti Sakowin Essential Understandings are a beginning place to which all of us, native and non-native, can bring our full selves around the circle (placing doing in service to Being) so that the algorithm of our interacting can expand understanding rather than diminishing it.
4) The process of coming to understand my neighbor is interwoven with the process of coming to understand myself.
2018 was the 150th anniversary commemoration of the signing of the 1869 Ft. Laramie Treaty. The WoLakota Project team was honored to be invited to this gathering to document some of the addresses. The following playlist contains some of the footage gathered there.