Support possibilities

Donations

donations of material goods

other possibilities

What happens with the donations in short words?

Which is not possible

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Donations

As already mentioned in the article is the Horsemanship a non profit organization.

The Sunka Wakan Na Wakanyeja Awicaglipi is also how many other non profit organizations dependently on the generosity and help of people from all the world.

A monthly contribution would help very much.

Every still so small donation can cause very much. The more donations come they are be able to take more children and teenagers along on their rides like the Crazy Horse ride or Little big horn ride and others – to take care of them and for food.

There will be travel expense as food, vaccinations of the horses and much more, which is quite cost intensive. They carried out first aid courses with the children and youth as such as excursions and workshops.

To continue this work with the children and youth in Pine Ridge, we ask for your support.

Thank you

(http://www.gfbv.de/index.php?change_lang=english)

Donations account in Germany:

Postbank Hamburg

GfbV

Keyword: Pferdeprojekt (Horseproject)

Account-#: 7400201

Rt. #: 200 100 20

Donations account in USA:

Sunka Wakan Na Wakanyeja Awicaglipi Incorporation

First National Bank Gordon Nebraska,

Rt.#: 104102 781 Account #: 566144.

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donations of material goods

- horse accessories any type -- medicine, ointments and care products

- Making things material for the children and teenagers for the workshops

- First aid sets

- School material, pins, writing pads, coloring books

- The children and Youth would be pleased about presents from Germany also at Christmas and Easter.

Please, you consider that the costs for the postage to the USA are very high.

Mail Address in USA:

Sunka Wakan Na Wakanyeja Awicaglipi Incorporation

P.O. Box 2021

Pine Ridge, South Dakota

57770 USA

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other possibilities

You can also support us very much by using and distributing our flyers, make reprints or requesting them from me.

FLYER

At the purchase of this book you also support the Horsemanship organization

Das Herz der Sioux (The heart of the Sioux)

- Reise zu den Ahnen.- (Travel to the ancestors)

from Peter Marsh

Thank you to Peter for his excellent help in this place and continious support

lila pilamaya ye

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What happens with the donations?

The donations flow in:

- several memorial rides in the year: Crazy Horse Memorial Ride, Little big horn Horse Ride, Sobriety Ride, Laborday Ride, Big Foot Ride and more.
The costs contain: gasoline costs, to pick up all the children and Youth, freight of
the horses, catering the children and horses as well as accinations of the horses.

- different courses: First aid course, plants and herbs courses and more
The costs: Course charges, catering, gasoline costs and material.

- workshops: Making bridles – work with wood and producing picture-frames, making chains, painting, manufacturing traditional arts and crafts, and more..!
The costs: Gasoline, catering, material like wood, leathers, pearls, tool for the respective workshops.

- - excursions Fundays - Visit of a museum, visit ranch, rodeo, cinema,
Crazy Horse Memorial, Powwos and more,
The costs: Gasoline, catering, partly entrance moneys.

Weekend camps as well as Survival camps. Costs: Gasoline, catering, equipment just like at the Memorial rides.

- care of the horses, they are provided for the children and teenagers for the rides and for hay, vaccinations and travel expense to the rides.

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Which is not possible

- For financial reasons the organization can not offer traineeship places.

- If you still have questions, please feel free to send me an e-mail info@andreac.de or call me at Tel.: (0049) 621 801116

Many thanks in the name of the organization

. lila pilamaya ye

Andrea

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>Meetings with the Sunka Wakan na Wakanyeja Awicaglipi Inc. Organisation <

Report by Gaby Usemann from 2004

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Report by Meta and Edi Schroll

August 2006

During our trip to several National Parks and Historic Sites of the West we spent
six days on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

We found a good place for our mobile home at the Singing Horse Trading Post near Manderson. And we were lucky staying here during the Pine Ridge Powwow – a unique
and colourful happening – and during the Sobriety Ride, which is annually organized
by the Horsemenship.

Dolores, the wife of the Horsemenship’s President, Wendell Yellow Bull, took us out
into the prairie. Here, in this extremely hot (40°C) and dusty place, the young
participants of the Ride had spent the night. They were now preparing their horses as
well as themselves for the third and last day of the Ride.

All of the riders, the kids and the young people, were standing in a circle, listening to
the prayers and good wishes from their elders for the upcoming ride. The words were spoken in Lakota.

Then, Wendell Yellow Bull approached every rider and every horse, fanning sage
over them. The atmosphere was solemnly, and we enjoyed being there, despite the heat,
the wind and the sand in our eyes and mouths.

The ride began as anywhere in the world – some of the riders took the lead and
stormed ahead, most of the participants rode in the middle, and some remained at the
end of the group, they had to cope with their bucking horses.

The view of the approximately 50 riders gave us an impression of the once great and
proud Lakota horse nation. Confidently and full of pride, they were sitting on
their horses, many of them using a saddle, some of them only a blanket, and a few
of them without any blanket or saddle at all. But all of them mastered their horses
equally and were riding enviably well.

Some hours later, we were sitting in the middle of the route somewhere in the open prairie, waiting for the tired and thirsty young riders, which nevertheless were happy and proud. Cheering and shouting they were coming up to us.

Everybody got a bottle of half a litre of water, which was shared between the riders
and their horses. During this stop the horses were grazing the withering grass on the prairie. No horse in Germany would have ever accepted this grass for food.

The ride went on through the prairie, over hills and through valleys, without any shadow.
The temperatures were still rising.

At some time in the afternoon the exhausted riders and their horses reached the Pine Ridge Powwow place.

All could see how proud and happy they were to reach their goal after sitting in the
saddle for three days and for eight hours a day. They had endured heat, wind, thirst,
hunger, and some of them even suffered pains from crashes and from smaller accidents
with their horses.

This is what gives those children, which mostly come from socially weak families, a deep confirmation and self assurance.

Being together with like-minded people, working with the horses – all this positively
influences the physical and mental development of those young people.

These are good preconditions for the daily fight against the lures of alcohol and drugs.
Wendell Yellow Bull and all members of the Horsemenship are working hard before and during the ride as well. They are whole-heartedly committed to the organisation of the Ride and take most seriously their responsibility for the Kids and the horses. But the efforts taken pay off multiple times.

Looking at the Lakota kids working with their horses opens one’s heart. We were
honoured and we were thankful for being there and seeing the kids and the horses
acting in an inherent unity.

We strongly feel that this organisation should be supported by all means.

Meta and Edi Schroll

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Report by Birgit Klee (June 2006)

You will probably rarely see such happy kids of the Pine Ridge Indian reservation. The people living here do by no means have an easy living. They have to fight with poverty and the resulting problems like alcoholism, crime and violence. So one could think, these problems are well-known in many other places. Right.

But those people rarely get any help. They live in their own land, on a reservation. Not much is known on the other side of the reservation borders.

Fortunately, there are people taking on the responsibility to help them with much enthusiasm. And personal devotion. This way, the Lakota Horsemanship Organisation has come into life. This organisation is working to find a real alternative for the kids and youth grounded on their own native identity, taking nothing for itself, but giving anything to them.

When we were on the reservation during our holidays, we could see this with our own eyes at an event organised by the Horsemanship. As one can imagine under the naming “Horsemanship”, horses are in the centre of the interest. We were glad to meet more than 100 kids at the yearly Crazy Horse Memorial Ride.

This ride goes from Fort Robinson, Nebraska to Pine Ridge, South Dakota, and lasts five days.

We took part in the ride for some days in one of the accompanying cars. We could see the joy and the pride in the eyes of the participating kids. We felt happy seeing these kids full of joy. And their happiness infected us as well. I was lucky to take some photos of those kids and their joy.

This wonderful event has nevertheless to fight against many difficulties, which the Horsemanship has to solve. It is always difficult to raise the money for the events, and the organisers do not only put on the huge work, but also help with their own financial means. Money is never enough to bring those projects for the kids into life. So the Horsemanship is always asking for financial support, regardless of which amount! Not only traditional rides are supported by the Horsemanship, but also workshops, where the kids can learn more about their own culture.

During our stay we were living at the “Singing Horse” Trading Post of Roswitha Freier. This was our salvation, otherwise we would have been blown away by the wind, staying in our tent. We could rent a log cabin from Roswitha. Not of high comfort, but quite right for us. Roswitha told us about the Horsemanship and the current events on the reservation. She is one of the organisers herself. Her Trading Post is a very good help when you´re looking for contacts with the Lakota. If ever you will be near, find out whether you will have the opportunity to visit a Pow wow or a memorial ride. This would give you a real impression of the mentality of the Lakota. You could see their love to nature especially in their dances. But I am getting too enthusiastically here, so I´ll better stop.

But last but not least, I would like to ask you, whenever you can spare some money, please help the Horsemanship. The reward will be happy and bright kids eyes, maybe only for a short time, before they will have to get back into reality.

Kind regards, Birgit Klee

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Meeting the youth and kids of the Lakota Horsemanship

from Gaby Usemann 2004

From my early childhood I have been looking for role-models among the Northern American Indians, those proud and noble people who have been living for many centuries with deep respect for nature and with the deep and simple truth of the natural way of the circle of life, death and regeneration.

I admired the Indians, because – contrary to the Europeans - they kept their souls free from the greed for possession and courage, bravery, honesty, modesty and generosity were the most important values for them, which they were following constantly in order to ensure the inner peace of the community and to serve the well-being of all.

It seemed obvious to me that the Indians were seen as the so called “Noble Savages”, a cliché that once was created by the German author Karl May and which was completely reversed by Hollywood.

During my stay on the Lakota Indian Reservation in Pine Ridge/South Dakota I have learned that both in former times and today there were and there are many Indians who would meet this cliché quite well.

One of them was Tashunka witko, known by the White people as Crazy Horse, the legendary Lakota warrior who lived up to those values in his fight for the land and the freedom of his people as merely anybody else did and who became a danger to the white society and its Christian beliefs because he was well ahead the white civilisation in his thoughts and his deeds.

More than once I have been told to forget the cliché of the Noble Indian and to face the reality – this sad and hopeless Reservation reality, which causes many Native Americans physically and mentally to perish, for they - instead of being able to take care of their families - have to rely on the alms of the American government, thus being condemned to a life in desolation and abject poverty.

Like many other Indian Nations in Northern America, the Lakota are the sad example of a people being oppressed up to our days – a once proud and great people of hunters and warriors, who have been fought by the Americans in a war of destruction right up to the 20th century.

Deprived of their land, their way of life and their culture, the ancestors of the Lakota, already broken physically and mentally, were forced into dusty and dry reservations, where hundreds of them were dying of hunger, illness, alcohol and the weapons of the white soldiers. They were banned into the most barren regions of the Middle West, where no white man would have been able to survive.

But thanks to their values, their spiritual power, their unity and their belief in the spirit of Crazy Horse, the Lakota survived as a people, and their values and traditions, their ancient culture of the warriors and hunters survived as well.

Like Crazy Horse told the Lakota children about the values and traditions of his people; this is done today by the women and men of the Lakota Horsemanship, both traditional as well as progressive people. They pass on their knowledge of the ancient Lakota horsemanship to the youth, and along with this they pass along the old values and the legacy of Crazy Horse, who is still a leader for them. Every year they honor this noble and exceptional warrior with a Crazy Horse Memorial Ride to Fort Robinson, where he surrendered with his followers in May 1977 and where he was murdered only some months later, on September, 5th. The white people had plotted against him and stirred up his own people against him, so he had to die rather young from the bajonette of a white man.

During our stay in Pine Ridge we have spoken to many Lakota people who told us that Crazy Horse still today is a role-model and a hero for them, because he stands for the traditional values and for their way of living, where the reputation of a person is measured by his or her contributions to the well-being of the whole community.

One day Rosi Olsen told us about the Crazy Horse Ride and the Lakota Horsemanship, which are honouring the memory of Crazy Horse. She suggested that we watch a horse race organized by the young riders of the Horsemanship during the Pine Ridge Powwow.

So we drove right through the hills in the old pickup of Lamoien Pulliam, to that place behind the Powwow place, where the horse race should take place and left our dust-covered pickup among the other cars, which were standing dust-covered as well in a long line side by side on the top of a hill. Following the example of our neighbours we climbed up on the loading space of the pickup, leaned against the roof of the driver’s cab and waited patiently for the riders.

It was quite a hot Saturday afternoon in August 2004. The ubiquitous prairie wind whispered with its mysterious voice over the hills and pushed the clouds like a herd of fleeing buffalo over the wide, deep blue sky. While standing on the pick up and looking over the endless grasslands, it came into my mind how free the Lakota once must have felt in their country – so free, they even did not know a word for this feeling, because it was as naturally as the changing of the seasons, as the sun, wind or rain on their skin.

Again I fell for the cliché and I saw images of young, tall, lean and sinewy riders with brown skin, whose long black hair was waving in the wind, as they were storming over the rolling prairie hills. These images were so perfectly beautiful, that they were just doing good to my eyes and my soul –images of a cliché that supposedly was never true and therefore should have been banned from my head.

But then the spectators got restless and suddenly the cliché turned into reality before my eyes.

I saw a scenery that my imagination would not have been able to paint more beautiful. A group of young horsemen stormed over the hills and fused before the blue sky to a black silhouette – a silhouette which must have been seen once by the American Soldiers, if unexpectedly a group of warriors emerged at the horizon. In stormy gallop, the young Lakota rode sequentially in a long row. The wind blew their pitch black long hair and the tails and the manes of the horses. When they had reached the foot of the last hill, they changed their positions and formed a line side by side. They waved and rejoiced the spectators to, who answered them in the same way with those typically high and shrill tones.

When the young horsemen and their horses stopped in front of us, I noted that some girls were under them as well. Many of them had painted their horses with typical Lakota signs. Some animals had white circles around their eyes or a yellow or white hand impression on the rear, other were wearing a feather in the mane or the symbols of hooves or dragon-flies on their breast.

Although the young horsemen were wearing jeans and t-shirts, it seemed to me that they would by no means differ from their age companions of past centuries in their joy and pride of being outstanding riders, “horsemen”, and they would differ not at all from the Indians of my cliché imagination.

One girl, I think she was called Vicky, draw the attention of the spectators. On the one hand, her brown horse was especially beautifully painted; on the other hand she led a small foal that pressed itself closely to his mother mare. I was so impressed by the view of the young Lakota on their lovely painted horses that I uninterruptedly filmed, until a Lakota of middle age came and asked me, what I would do here and why I would film the children. Obviously he asked because he wanted to protect the young people and because he had a healthy mistrust against white tourists. I feared, he would send us away from here, but after I had explained, that we were Rosi’s guests and that she had given us the advice to watch the horse race, he became more friendly. And after we told him, that we financially support the Horsemanship as well as some other projects and that we had given fifty dollars to Rosie today, for her fund-raising campaign, to ensure that Vicky, one of the best riders, could participate in a contest outside the reservation, he excused himself repeatedly, whereupon I told him that I could understand his caution and mistrust against white people - in the end least of the white people would be doing something without having their profit in mind.

After the discussion with us, the Lakota opened the competition.

It was incredible how skilful the young Lakota were. After every succeeded horseman stunt, they paraded with eyes flashing black from joy and as proud as successful warriors in front of the enthusiastic spectators. At the same time there were no difference between the male and the female riders. Their delight in riding and dealing with horses was written them all into the face. It seemed to me, as if in these moments they would be entirely Indians again and I involuntarily thought how proud and delighted Crazy Horse would have been to see these young Lakota, in which his legacy is living on and which are not less horsemen, than he was.

At the end there was a long distance race, that was won by Vicky, as expected by the spectators. You could tell by the faces of the boys that the victory of their female competitor gnawed at their pride. Yet they respected, that she was the fastest and recognized her victory with hand signs and incidental knocking on her shoulder.

The event ended how it began, with a cliché, that from my experience is actually none – with a group of young Lakota, who with shrill triumph shouting and long blowing hair galloped from here, like a squad of proud and courageous warriors, who decisively will stand up to any battle or challenge.

They stormed over the prairie like a herd of untamed Mustangs, whose desire for freedom could by no means be bridled, and again a comparison to Crazy Horse came into my mind, of whom the medicine man Black Elk once said: "He was like a wild Mustang – with a free body and spirit and nothing and no one will ever break him."

Something from this seemed to be awakened within those boys and girls, for they seemed to be proud of their heritage and to be proud to be Lakota. With the help of men and women just as traditional as modern, these young Lakota are led back to their roots and they are prepared for a life, in which the traditions of their tribe are a firm component of the modern everyday life.

Thanks to organizations like the Lakota Horsemanship the magnificent culture of the Lakota will not extinct, in spite of all adversities and negative influences from the western civilization, and can be transmitted to the coming generations in the future.

The people and the children of the Lakota Horsemanship do carry the Spirit of Crazy Horse in their hearts and it is up to us to help them to ensure the survival of this spirit, for it is the soul of this maltreated people.

Out of long-time experience, I can assure that each yet so small contribution; every cent benefits these children directly and helps them in their still continuing battle in the white world.

Please support the Lakota Horsemanship – let us give this magnificent people something back – because they have already given so much of themselves, so many beautiful clichés, so many brave heroes who became our role-models and dreams that accompany us through our childhood and sometimes through our entire life.

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Information appointments

(Appointments are updated regularly)

Fees as well as all donations go to 100 % to the SWnWA Inc.Org.

Radio Interview 30.March 2008 on the Radio Station

RPR1 Rheinland Pfalz - Ludwigshafen, from 10 am till 13 pm

Topic: "My Adventure" The Lakota (Sioux) Country and People today Introducing the Lakota Horsemanship etc..

http://www.rpr1.de

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More Info- and Contact addresses you can get in German or English at:

Board of Director

Chairman: Wendell William Yellow Bull

Vize Chairman: Charles Brewer

Treasurer: William Brewer

Secretary: Roswitha Freier

Members: Eugenio White Hawk, Bryan Deans, Bennett Sernia

Contact:

Sunka Wakan Na Wakanyeja Awicaglipi Incorporation

P.O. Box 2021

Pine Ridge, South Dakota

57770 USA

Bank conection in the US

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Person to contact in Germany:

Andrea Cox

E-Mail: info@andreac.de

Lila Pilamaya - Thank you for your interest