Community

I watched the sun come up through my bedroom window. I was laying there trying to decide what I should do with the day.  I like watching the sun come up over the horizon and illuminate the still green (unusual for the middle of October) prairie.    My week had been filled with drama, complaining, and planning for Buffalo Week and also Homecoming activities.  School was dismissed early, the day before, in honor of one of the elderly in the community who had passed away. While lying in bed and watching the sun come up in the east, I decided to attend the funeral.

Iron Hawk.  Iron Hawks had fought with Crazy Horse at the Little Big Horn.  Iron Hawks had ridden with the Hunkpapas and Minneconjous through the Badlands and where with Big Foot at Wounded Knee.  The funeral I decided to attend was for Goldie Iron Hawk.   Her Lakota name was Aena Kiya Pi Win.  Her family name was War Bonnet.  Her father had been six months old at the Wounded Knee Massacre. His family had escaped and fled; returning to Cheyenne River after the massacre.  

The funeral was to begin at eleven in the morning.  The   little church at Frazier was filled to capacity.  Chairs were placed in the aisle and directly in front of the casket.  An elderly man spoke into a microphone and told those of us in the church that we were waiting for the son of Goldie.  He had gone to the cemetery because the hole had not been dug to the right dimensions and he was correcting the problem.  As we sat and waited an older Lakota man began to sing hymns.  How Great Thou Art, Jesus Loves Me, The Old Rugged Cross.  At times, he would sing the words in Lakota and other times he sang them in English.  I noticed the beautiful star quilts hung on the walls and the large piles of quilt top pillows to be given away after the funeral.  The pictures, the cakes, the flowers all a testament to how much Goldie would be missed.  The picture of Jesus and the cross above the casket attested to salvation Goldie had found in the church.

As we waited for the son to return, I recalled the first time that I had met Goldie.  It had been my first year teaching on the Cheyenne River Reservation.  It was Good Friday and I had been invited to take part in a prayer/sobriety walk.  The walk began at Frazier church and ended five mile later at the Catholic Church in Red Scaffold.  Each of the walkers took a turn and we carried a wooden cross the five miles between the two churches.  It took three people to carry the cross.  I had left my vehicle at the Frazier Church, and after the services at the Catholic Church in Red Scaffold, Goldie gave me a ride back to my vehicle.  Goldie drove a van.  Each seat was filled with a grandchild of Goldie’s.   She spoke with pride of all her grandchildren as we drove the distance back to my car. 

I was pulled back to the church by the speaker’s voice.  The son had arrived and the services were to begin.  The grandson of Goldie walked in carrying a drum followed by four of his sons.  They began the service with an honor song for their grandmother and great grandmother.  The voices cracked throughout the song as the grandson and great grandsons sang for their grandmother.  Her granddaughter read her obituary. 

The majority of the service was music.  Goldie loved to sing and to dance.  Another granddaughter sang a traditional Lakota song.  “I am crying; looking for you. I am crying; looking for you. I am crying; looking for you. I am crying; looking for you.”   My heart cried with her as she struggled with the words.  She had been one of my students my first year teaching.  As she sang, I recalled how many of Goldie’s grandchildren had been in my classroom; as well as nieces and nephews and cousins.

The music would go from gospel to Lakota and back to gospel and then back to Lakota.  The speaker kept saying this is a traditional service.  Three different men were considered to be officiating at the service.    Each of them spoke and each of them stressed that Jesus was with us and that he would care for us.  They spoke with certainty that Goldie had gone to be with her Creator.  They spoke in broken English.  Lakota words and phrases constantly appeared in their words of encouragement and condolence. 
“Religion is not only for Christians.”
Each speaker extolled the importance of accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior. One speaker spoke of the time when Goldie was saved.  He pointed to the exact pew where she had sat.    There was constant movement in the church.  Children running in and out.  Adults walking in and out.  People talking and visiting with friends and relatives that hadn’t been seen since the last time there was a funeral in the community. You could see the smoke from the fire pit in the back where they were preparing the traditional buffalo soup.  Food was constantly being carried in whenever anyone new arrived.  Young boys were riding horses around outside the church.  I could catch a glimpse of the boys on the horses as they rode past the windows.

After the casket was carried out by Goldie’s grandsons the funeral procession followed the hearse as it made its way around Goldie’s house before going to the cemetery.  Goldie’s grandchildren were all riding in the back of various pickups that were following the hearse.  The funeral procession was over two miles long.  Goldie is … Goldie was one of the few remaining elderly left on the Cheyenne River Reservation. 

The cemetery was four miles off the main graveled road.  The road led through a pasture.  As the procession was making its way to the top of the hill, a painted horse raced up the hill along side the procession.  When the horse reached the top, he faced the west and stood like a sentinel until the procession had reached the cemetery, and then he turned and faced the south.  The cemetery was in the center of the top of the hill.  Another drum group was present and played funeral songs while one of Goldie’s nephews smudged the crowd and the grave with sweet grass.  As Goldie’s grandsons lowered her casket into the grave, the twenty-third Psalm was read; followed by  the singing of  the four directions prayer song to make the way easier for  Aena Kiya Pi Win to make her journey.

Lil Manthei