Sioux Valley students ‘honour the buffalo’

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This article was published 08/11/2023 (1093 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SIOUX VALLEY DAKOTA NATION — One week after Halloween, kids at Sioux Valley Dakota Nation gathered near the community’s bison enclosure to offer up some treats on a frigid Tuesday morning.

Busloads of kids from Sioux Valley High School picked up chunks of cut-up pumpkins left over from last week and tossed them over the enclosure’s fence for the bison to snack on as part of an event called Honouring the Buffalo.

While the children took shelter under a nearby tent as the countryside was pelted with wind and icy pellets, Sioux Valley radio presenter and powwow master of ceremonies Bill Taylor told them that the bison thrive in those conditions.

The bison have helped take care of the Dakota people for generations, he said, and through maintaining its herd, Sioux Valley is returning that favour.

More than just a source of food and resources, Taylor said the bison have lessons they can teach the community.

He recalled that on one trip inside the enclosure, the bison bulls formed a line in front of the rest of the herd to shield them in case of danger.

“That’s how we look after each other,” Taylor said. “You need to look after one another, help one another.”

Councillor Tony Tacan, whose family takes care of the bison, said it was the first time the animals have been given pumpkins. He said he thought it was a great way to honour the bison after they have provided his people with meat, furs for clothing and bones for tools for hundreds of years.

Events like this help convey the importance of bison to future generations of Dakota and get children involved in their care.

“Everything we do is for the children going forward and the buffalo will always listen to the children’s prayers,” Tacan said. “They listen to everybody’s prayers, as you see by the prayer flags that are hanging on this fence. We’ve got people from all over coming here to say prayers and get their strength from here.”

Currently, there are 98 bison in Sioux Valley’s herd.

That includes 14 white bison, which hold a special significance in several Indigenous cultural groups like the Dakota because of the story of the White Buffalo Woman who taught people about the sacred pipe and many important ceremonies.

The first of these white bison was a gift from the Assiniboine Park Zoo in 2010. Four of them were born in the last year.

“It is unprecedented,” Tacan said. “The white buffalo has such a hold on our hearts, in our traditions and our culture. So we have to keep them safe, make sure they’re fed water. There’s minerals out there, oats. They’re well looked after.”

A member of the next generation of bison caretakers is Tony’s son, Koda Tacan.

After growing up with the animals, he now takes an active role in making sure they’re provided with what they need. He said making sure people have somewhere to come to pray on their worst days or their best days is an honour for him.

“They’re a symbol of our perseverance and everything we’ve overcome,” Koda said. “They were hunted almost to the point of extinction. Here we are now and they’re thriving and they’re growing. There was a time in history when we thought we would never see them again.”

Taking care of the herd involves hauling hay and water up to the enclosure, making sure fences are intact, tagging them and making sure they’re up to date on vaccinations.

“There’s a lot of times we’ve missed birthdays and Christmases and stuff because we had to be out here, but we do that sacrifice in return for all the sacrifices buffaloes made for us as Dakota people,” he said.

He thanked the community for being active participants in the program, volunteering their time and sharing knowledge about the animals and their history.

One of the students attending the pumpkin event and a shared meal held at a community hall afterwards was Leland Hall, who serves as an assistant junior chief.

He said living in Sioux Valley, he likes to visit the bison and that he hopes the pumpkin feast becomes an annual tradition.

“There’s a lot of history with them” Hall said. “They helped us back in (the past), so it really meant a lot to me going to see them.”

Before lunch was served to the students, a couple of community councillors and Chief Vince Tacan — Tony’s brother and Koda’s uncle — spoke further about the lessons the bison can impart and how they can be used as part of a wellness strategy.

“We haven’t really fully utilized them in the past, is my feeling,” Chief Tacan said. “Now we are in a position to start looking at how we can move forward. Mostly, it was initiated because of the crisis we find ourselves in with the drugs, the addictions, the meth use.”

The chief said the bison can be used to impart teachings and hold ceremonies, but also serve as a way of helping people deal with stress or loneliness. Sioux Valley, he said, is also looking to reconnect with horse training practices it used to observe.

He said he thought the community should look to bring back other cultural ceremonies as a way of teaching younger generations, like a coming-of-age ceremony for young women and sweat lodge ceremonies.

On top of that, he said Sioux Valley is looking to establish a healing centre in Brandon.

“If there’s an opportunity there where the federal government’s gonna help us purchase that Turtle Crossing Campground, I’m open to that,” he said of the location of the former Brandon Indian Residential School.

“We need to get moving on, number one, protecting the sites where the anomalies are, where the kids are buried, and number two, we need to start looking at developing the site, getting a physical building on-site there … whether it’s going to be detox or long-term counselling, all these things need to be ironed out.”

Chief Tacan had previously pitched the idea of establishing a healing lodge at the site during a previous term as chief in 2015

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