Delphine Red Shirt. Photo by Rich Luhr / Flickr

A great moral void exists because of the gap between Christianity and traditional beliefs
By Delphine Red Shirt

In 1968 Congress passed the Indian Civil Rights Act which allowed freedom of speech, press, assembly and religion. What is less known is that the act allowed tribal governments to determine the official tribal religion.

At Pine Ridge, it had always been Christianity and so throughout the sixties everyone in the BIA schools had religious instruction on a weekly basis during the school year. This meant taking an hour or so each week and allowing every denomination on the reservation to come and spend time with the children to instruct them in Christian ritual and belief.

We all know that the commandments, all ten, were an important, if not, a foundational part of that belief system. Anyone who is born in that time period can probably recite all 10 commandments. They taught beliefs about what is right the behavior and what is wrong behavior.

If you stay in a hotel in certain parts of the United States a bible is available to you. If you open it up these moral commands tell you to worship only God, honor your parents, keep the Sabbath day holy (don’t work on Sunday), no murder, no theft, no adultery, no blasphemy (disrespect shown to God or something holy), no dishonesty, and the last controlling your thoughts so that you don’t envy others. At least that is the way, I understand them.

Until 1978, when the American Indian Religious Freedom Act made Indian religious practices legal, those of us who grew up during the era when religion was an important part of our education knew these religious moral imperatives. After 1978, the federal government acknowledged our right to our traditional religious practices, and in addition gave us the right to have access to our sacred sites outside the reservation. In many ways, like all government policy, when something is taken away that should have stayed in place (our religion) and is later restored the damage may be too great (with the exception of the return of land which is never a consideration on the part of the government).

When that happened several things happened at Pine Ridge. The first is the return in force of the Sundance which occurs only once a year. The second is the lessening of the stronghold that Christianity had on the reservation. Third is the revival of some of our practices such as the inipi, the isni ti ceremony for young women, and the vision quest for young men, among others. Fourth is what should concern all of us on the Pine Ridge reservation (and throughout Indian county), and is this: the gradual decline of any religious or moral instruction for our youth, those born in 1978 and thereafter.

This thought is not original to me, but was expressed to me by a man who lives on the reservation and on a daily basis and still teaches Christianity through a private religious institution or school. I was attending the annual Sundance and he and I had this conversation. His question was what happens in the other three hundred and sixty-one days when the Sundance is over? Who teaches the youth, the Lakota religious beliefs?

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Today, as I think about the GEAR UP scandal, the suicides, high incidence of drug use, the high incarceration rates for Indians, among many issues that confront us in our communities in South Dakota and elsewhere on other reservations in the northern plains region, I think of that conversation. Looking back, since the 1978 Religious Freedom act, if you were just coming into your formative years then, or were a young adult, about to have children, those children would be in the range, birth to age 24 and beyond that are most affected by these issues.

A great moral void exists because no established institution stepped forward to fill in the gap between what Christianity had offered our generation and what our traditional beliefs teach. Most of the teachings in 1978 and through those early years went to adults who participated in the Sundance or inipi; often these were converts from other tribes or were non-Indian or who were not from the reservation. Many times, the children were forgotten.

If we are to take the necessary steps today to fill that great moral abyss, a hole so deep that it feels like we cannot measure it accurately but is there, an empty space, left when Christianity exited and our traditional beliefs were supposed to be restored after 1978. What is the solution? What can we do today?

If we point fingers of blame we might as well point to our religious leaders of that time period in 1978 including today, those who should have taken into account the children, the generations to come. The youth needed and need today, those important teachings.

What are those teachings? Traditionally, they are in our language, and can accurately be viewed as mirror images of the 10 moral imperatives which may be why we Lakota could accept Christianity in the early part of the reservation years. An example is the command not to steal; manu, we say, to take possession without ownership. Among our people it was considered a heinous (very bad) offense. Everyone knew it was so bad that no one did it, except maybe children who didn’t know and the very stupid who didn’t know any better. But no one in his or her right mind who was capable of thinking would ever do it; wamanupi sni, no one stole.

Murder was seen in the same way as well as adultery; young men could not be in the traditional akicita societies if they committed these acts. All these things were taught very early so that young people knew that they were not to speak their minds until they were mature and instead listened to this type of instruction and observed it.

One of the acts that demonstrates how they lived is when old (male) friends met after a long separation they would put their put their arms over each other’s shoulders (unlike an embrace) and greet each other by placing their elbows on each other’s shoulders in an affectionate way. It’s time to remember these things and to practice them. To speak the language, to fill the void and to teach our children the way to live again, in the right way: wamanupi sni ye, in the female language, waunsilapi ye, have compassion because when we make the choice to be selfish, it affects every one of us.

(Delphine Red Shirt can be reached at Redshirtphd@gmail.com)

Copyright permission Native Sun News