A raw and transparent conversation about Buffalo and land restoration with Dakhóta/Diné mother, teacher, and artist Randilynn Boucher-Giago
Is our tribe ready? Community level, we are ready.
“When I think of Dakhóta/Diné motherhood, I think of kinship obligation.”
When a child comes to this earthside, they are adorned with culturally significant items. Beaded cradleboards are a way for mothers to show how much they cherish their children. On the Pine Ridge Reservation, a mother has devoted her time to creating cradleboards since the birth of her first daughter, and three others since.
This mother, Randilynn Boucher-Giago, contributes to her community by passing on the traditional knowledge of Indigenous motherhood. Through the tradition of adorning her child in motherhood, Randilynn discovered her identity and place in art. “I don’t like to say I’m an artist, but rather a relative.”
Boucher-Giago is from the Bdewakantunwan and Sisítȟuŋwaŋ bands of the Dakhóta and Diné people. Her communities are Hard Rock and Big Mountain from Arizona, and Sisseton and Santee from South Dakota. She has spent the last nineteen years living on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota with her husband’s community where she is an educator to children. Randilynn’s dedication to healing, connection, and tradition in her work has had an immeasurable outcome on the young women, girls, children, and people alike in her community.
Much like motherhood, being a deep-rooted relative is about protocol. In the Lakȟóta language, there are terms used to address one another according to relation. These kinship terms are a way for people to establish connection and trust with one another. Randilynn speaks to the importance of using Lakȟóta kinship language with a visceral understanding of the obligation it holds. She has seen a shift in kinship terms being used without fully enacting the kinship obligation the term represents.
“This is what actually creates community” expresses Boucher-Giago. “With my own girls, when they say Iná (mother), I know that every day that I wake up, I am their Iná. My responsibility to them is to guide.”
For the Lakȟóta, there are protocols to be followed with all relatives, human and non-human. The Buffalo were the first teachers of how to navigate the land. Traditionally, the Lakȟóta based their locations on the migration of the buffalo.
The Buffalo followed the stars and the Lakȟóta followed the Buffalo. The Lakȟóta are not able to exercise this protocol in the same way today. With the near extinction of the Buffalo by the United States government and the forcible relocation of the people to confined reservations, the tribe has had to spark new ways of introducing these traditional protocols to the current generations.
As an educator, Randilynn knows that schools across the reservation are not utilizing this knowledge – traditional Indigenous pedagogy. Boucher-Giago declares that “Today in Lakota society, different aspects of our community today are addressing certain parts of Buffalo restoration. But in a full effect, it’s not quite happening yet.”
Land Connection in Education
Boucher-Giago believes that the first step towards Buffalo restoration is to reconnect the children back to the land. Part of her educational mission is to physically have her students out on the land learning. She deems modern day comfort as a disconnector, referring to the way the Lakȟóta traditionally conducted themselves in reciprocal kinship with each other and to the ecological world. Looking at the dynamics between these kinships of self and land is integral to creating a deep understanding of place-base (understanding of self in connection to place) in the world.
“Our children then see first-hand the significance of our traditional medicines, plants, and ecosystems. Once they understand the relationship of the Buffalo to the land, and our relationship to the land and Buffalo, only then do they comprehend why Buffalo are medicine.” Boucher-Giago does a thoughtful pause… “Buffalo are medicine.”
The Lakȟóta language shapes obligation in kinship with all the relatives of the land. This view of education calls for children to know the plants and animals, what they represent, what their purpose is, and how they can be used. For example, Randilynn teaches her students about the kinship that exists between non-human relatives. Poison ivy protects čheyaka (mint), they are both needed to support one another. When there is a disease outbreak, ants’ social distance to protect their community. The Buffalo put the children in the center if there is danger. These are just a few examples of a vast set of traditional ecological knowledges that guide an innate connection to the land.
Before Buffalo Restoration: Prairie Restoration
“We talk about what our Buffalo relatives need – they need a prairie ecosystem.” – Boucher-Giago
There is worry among Lakȟóta communities that to bring back the Buffalo under improper land conditions is to dishonor them. To combat this, Randilynn urges proper preparation to happen through prairie restoration and education about kinship to the Buffalo and land. If these entities can be incorporated successfully into the tribal agenda, then Randilynn believes that there is a real foundation for fostering a Buffalo Nation in kinship with the Lakȟóta once again. She brings up the popular phrase that a Buffalo will only grow as big as the space you give it.
As of right now, there is no tall prairie grass growing on the homelands of the Očhéthi. Šakówiŋ, and still there is no prairie restoration happening on the Pine Ridge Reservation. One learns kinship and protocol by watching the land with intention. Randilynn wants our societies to reimagine our normal and envision what is possible for our future lifestyles. We must envision what is possible through the coming generations; What can we leave them?
Randilynn warns that if we don’t educate the children, if we don’t educate the community, stepping towards prairie & Buffalo restoration doesn’t happen. If we start to educate our children on that process and start to show them what prairie restoration looks like, into the future we’re teaching them all the steps of what the Buffalo represents - this ultimately will bring the Buffalo back in an honorable way.
Authentic sovereignty of the Lakȟóta tribe is not possible without proper Buffalo and prairie restoration, for how can you rely on a seed from a ground that is not ready. Prairie and Buffalo restoration are about restoring ancestral kinship to the land.
Looking forward, Randilynn wants the communities of the Pine Ridge Reservation to collectively work towards creating centers for this knowledge to cultivate in the minds of the children. These facilitates must differ from the American education system and have the liberty to function on traditional Indigenous pedagogy. She offers the lasting words, to rebraid a different way of being.
“Is our tribe ready? Community level, we are ready.” Concludes a driven Boucher-Giago.
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