Tatanka
The Buffalo Nation!
Rapid City, South Dakota.
25th Sept- 2nd Oct
$1249 per rig, based on double occupancy
solo price $999
additional person $400
...To the people of the Plains, the buffalo was everything; a generous provider of food and clothing, shelter for their homes, weapons, utensils and fuel. The buffalo was, and for many still is, sacred, the embodiment of spiritual and ceremonial symbolism. It was the White Buffalo Woman who brought the Buffalo Calf Pipe to the Lakota people and the Seven Rites in which to use it that became the soul of the nation, a bond between man and every aspect of Wakan Tanka.
Join us on this special rally and experience the present day thunderous thrill of the buffalo stampede
Tuesday evening: Dinner at the Holiday Inn, Rapid City, SD for an orientation about the trip to come.
Wednesday: The Journey Museum provides a crossroads at the clash of cultures on the We begin by entering He Sapa Wakan - the Heart of Everything That Is - the sacred Black Hills, holy land of the Lakota people. At Wind Cave, the place of the Lakota genesis, learn the real story beyond the mainstream geology presented to tourists; how the trickster Inktomi first convinced humans into coming above ground. At the Place of the Thunders - Hinhan Kaja Paha known as Harney Peak we look to the highest point in the Black Hills upon which Black Elk experienced much of what embodied the story of his life as told in Black Elk Speaks. Dinner at the State Game Lodge.
Thursday: We start our day at Kevin Costner's own place 'Tatanka', in the hills near Deadwood. We stop at the Vore Buffalo Jump - said to be one of the most significant archaeological sites in the Western United States where between 1300 and 1800, bison were stampeded over the rim of a "jump" into a deep, natural sink hole, as the most effective means available to the pre-horse Indians to procure the buffalo they needed for their existence. We learn of The Racetrack - the tribal explanation for the red earth so prevalent to the area and stand before Mato Tipila (known as Devil's Tower) and hear of its mirror-image in the stars; how the seven little girls escaped the bear to shine eternally as Pleiades.
Friday: Traveling to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, with sensitivity and respect we hear in situ some of the history and culture of the Oglala Lakota people. You will visit Pine Ridge Agency and learn about the workings of tribal governance, the Red Cloud School and Museum for its outstanding Lakota Art gallery and the true story of the Wounded Knee Massacre is told so you will leave the reservation knowing much of the real history and the contemporary realities for Lakota people today. We hope to have Chief Alfred Red Cloud accompany us to see his Red Cloud family buffalo herd - his health permitting.
Saturday: The incredible landscape of Mako Sika - the Badlands - is a vast geologic wonder where erosion has carved a landscape of spectacular canyons and saw-tooth ridges to some, but to others, the Lakota, this was a place of refuge to those who knew how to survive and find the ‘Stronghold’. Hear traditional stories, learn of traditional lifeways, and wend your way through historic sites and ancient trails. Wildlife abounds even amid the barren towering, multihued precipice of sedimentary rock which stretches over 60 miles and if you are lucky you may even experience the earth-shaking movement of the badland’s buffalo - about three hundred live within the area.
Sunday : We spend our day at the Buffalo RoundUp celebration in Custer State Park. Arriving in time for the 11am Buffalo Chili cook-off, we participate in the 1pm public tasting then spend our afternoon enjoying the Native and South Dakotan artisan craft booths, Cowboy poets, musicians and native dancing.
Monday: We have an early morning - organizers request our presence at the spectator area by 7.30am ready to literally 'feel the thunder' as 1500 bison pass a few hundred feet from us onlookers. Back to Rapid City, we spend time at the premier Plains gallery Prairie Edge Trading Post, with a special tour of outstanding Lakota Art and one of the best stores you will ever find for Native subject/written books. Dinner at the Alex Johnson Hotel.
Tuesday - Depart
" Doleful in teardrop eyes, they squint into the wind. Be they stampeding, plodding or idly ruminating, they always seem to face the wind. Their scraggy beards begin artless two-steps in rhythm with chewing cud as they wait for passengers to land on their back and peck out fares of ticks and flies.
Flapping languidly, shaggy pantaloons make them look weary to the trot. the lethargy accentuated by each of the wooly heads that step after step bob along as if dangling from a puppeteer's strings.
Suddenly their tails rise and a herd of gingerbread and chocolate humps skim like fins through waves of prairie grass with lanky red calves dodging follow the leader between thunderheads of dust and hooves. The blind leading the blind in unforeseen panic to the bow and lance, then insatiable gun... "
Serle Chapman - Beyond the Powder River Country
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