Dakota Exiles Ride

12/29/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1GfqMRa1bm/

🌿We need to listen to our Elders in these times of exponential technological acceleration. There have been many unchecked quantum leaps in human innovation (cars, nuclear power, social media, etc.)—and with dire consequences.

🌿Are we going to repeat this cycle again with A.I.? Or are we going to temper our evolution with wise guardrails to protect our children and grandchildren from serious harm. There are seen and unseen ramifications to A.I. that are vast for our bodies and minds and worlds.

🌿We are bringing together Indigenous Elders for a two class lecture series to weigh in on this important topic in hopes that we can remind hearts and minds about Natural Law and the importance of walking humbly on the earth.

🌿In this lecture series, you will:
-Hear from Indigenous Elders about their cultural perspectives on A.I.
-Participate in moderated Q&A sessions with invited Elders
-Have the opportunity to join breakout sessions, reflection exercises, and other processes for integrating their wisdom and messages

🌿Course Schedule:
Sunday, 9AM-10:30AM Pacific Time, January 25th, 2026
Sunday, 9AM-10:30AM Pacific Time, February 1st, 2026

🌿Lecture series cost:
This lecture is available on a sliding scale basis $1-$∞. There is a suggested $20-$40 donation for access to the live zoom link, q & a, and discussion board. 100% of net proceeds from ReHuman tuition is invested in Indigenous-led ecological restoration projects, with over $22,000 invested in bison herd revitalization so far!

🌿Course Location:
Via the same Zoom link each time
(Course recordings available for days you miss)
You will receive the Join Link and Discussion Board after registering

🌿Register (link in bio): https://www.rehuman.earth/offers/Y9SEZuFQ/checkout

12/29/2025

Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota men on the Lake Traverse Reservation in northeastern South Dakota - circa 1889
*L-R: Chekpa, Sam Housong, Henry Hopkins, and Canka.

12/29/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/17nDfW4myX/

12/29/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/17yzf25jGd/

Waziya Winter-Wind Celebration: Dakota Winter Teachings is officially part of the Saint Paul Winter Carnival!

Dakota communities were key guests in the earliest Winter Carnivals. Auguste Louis Larpenteur invited Dakota families to the first one in 1886, and Dakota villages continued to take part in 1886, 1887, 1888, and 1896.

Even after being exiled from Minnesota, Dakota families from my own reservation, Spirit Lake Dakota Nation (Mni Wakan Oyate) in North Dakota, traveled by train back into Minnesota to reconnect with our homelands and take part in the 1896 celebration.

Early accounts share the depth of our presence and diplomacy:

"One year a war dance was demonstrated after which representatives from the Dakota invited representatives from the visiting Ojibwe tribe to share a peace pipe. Many members from the various marching groups purchased authentic Indian moccasins from the Native American women."

These stories remind us that Dakota winter knowledge, ceremony, art, and community helped shape the Winter Carnival from its earliest days. Our visibility was not symbolic: it was lived, creative, and central.

By bringing Wazíya Winter-Wind Celebration into the Winter Carnival today, we're continuing that legacy in our own way:

Dakota winter teachings, Indigenous artistry, winter games, snow sculpture, storytelling, an Indigenous market, delicious food & teas, and free skiing & kicksledding.

A celebration of winter that honors where we come from and who we are today.

Join us:
📍 Battle Creek Recreation Center, Saint Paul, MN
📅 January 24, 2026 • 11AM–4PM
🌬️ All ages and backgrounds are welcome

We're still here, still creating, still celebrating, just as our ancestors did in these same winter winds~

12/29/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/17tUieMUTN/

In 1864, the U.S. Army forced thousands of Navajo people (Diné) onto the Long Walk, a brutal series of marches from their homeland to Bosque Redondo, New Mexico. Entire families were ordered at gunpoint to leave the canyons and mesas they had lived in for generations.

The journey covered as much as 400 miles.
Many walked in snow.
Many walked without shoes.
Many never reached the end.

Amid the chaos, fear, and hunger, Diné women made a choice that shaped their people’s survival.

They hid the ceremonial bundles.

These bundles, containing pollen, sacred stones, feathers, medicines, and symbols of the Holy People, were essential to Navajo ceremonies and to maintaining hózhǫ́, the balance and beauty of life. Soldiers confiscated weapons, blankets, and food. They burned hogans, orchards, and livestock. But the women understood that if the soldiers found the bundles, they might destroy them, just as they had destroyed everything else.

So they hid them under their skirts and blankets.
Sewn into waistbands.
Wrapped against the skin.
Carried quietly, secretly, step after step across the frozen ground.

Some women swapped positions in the marching line so soldiers wouldn’t notice the careful way they walked. Others took shifts carrying the heaviest bundles so pregnant women or grandmothers wouldn’t collapse. They risked punishment, imprisonment, even death.

But they never let the bundles fall into the soldiers’ hands.

When the Diné finally reached Bosque Redondo, they found a place of hunger, sickness, contaminated water, and barren soil. Many thought their people might not survive.

Yet at night, inside makeshift shelters, the women unwrapped the bundles.

Ceremonies continued.
Songs continued.
Prayers continued, even in a place designed to break them.

These ceremonies helped hold the people together through four desperate years. And when the Diné finally returned home in 1868, after signing a treaty that allowed them to return to their ancestral lands, they carried those same bundles back into Canyon de Chelly, Shiprock, and the sacred mountains.

The people had survived.
The ceremonies had survived.
The identity of a nation had survived, carried in the arms of women who refused to let the sacred be taken.

12/24/2025

Dakota Exiles Ride 2025
Santee, NE to Mankota, MN

The Riders and crew have safely arrived in Mankato and are settling in. 🙏🏾🐴✊🏾❤️

12/22/2025

This is posted on our Dakota Exiles Ride FB group.
Its link is here and over to the left side of this FB page:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dakotaexilesride

Send a message to learn more

12/21/2025

Wanic’okan Wi is known as the winter solstice (December 21) shortest day of the year
🌑🌘🌗🌖🌕🌔🌓🌒🌑
Wi kin wiyakpa owatohanyan kte
. collectively, starts the preparation for spring and summer ceremonies … cutting of the c’ans’as’a (red willow tobacco)… Ohunkakan Wic’ooyake (telling of stories)…
Lakol Wic’oh’an … lakota way of life

Life is a cycle
Hokahe!
Hec’etu welo!

C’an has’a (red willow); pictured
H’esapa SD (Black Hills)