North Dakota Native American Essential Understanding number one is about Sacred Relatives. It states Native people practice a deep interconnectedness with the land, the resources, the water, all living things, and all human beings, land stewardship, respect for all two-legged, four-legged, winged crawlers and swimmers, and a strong belief in the sacredness of all human beings. Our key elements for our spirituality.
In this episode of Dakota Datebook, we'll hear from Kevin Locke, enrolled member of the Standing Rock Nation, in part two of “Hinhan Kaga and the Milky Way.”
Kevin Locke:
So then if you look straight up the Milky Way kind of runs north, south, but it does shift straight up overhead. Then there's a real, clearly, you can see the main band of the Milky Way, but there's a part there where it forks, there's a fork there, and the fork just trails off. So the brightest star there in that fork, I have no idea what that's called in English, but that's Hinhan Kaga Aha, right? That's right there. He's right there. So the Hinhan Kaga stands there and guards that fork. And so then when a person's coming and a person passes on and they're making that journey from afar, that Hinhan Kaga will shout out and says, who are you? Who are you?
And then as they get close to, they says, and what is your name? So then that person has to give their name at that time. Then as soon as that person gives their name, then their reality becomes manifest upon that person. And so this is why you see these pictures of these 19th century how they bedecked themselves. That's how they attire themselves in the way that they want to present themselves before Hinhan Kaga. All the markings that they use, the feathers, they represent all the good deeds, the generosity, the acts of magnanimity that they've done in.
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If you'd like to learn more about the North Dakota Native American essential understandings, and to listen to more Indigenous elder interviews, visit teachingsofourelders.org.