Wakinyan Zi Tiospaye, Context and Evidence in The Case of Yellow Thunder Camp

The history of the controversy involving Yellow Thunder Camp, indeed the entire Black Hills, the Sioux Nation and the U.S. Government has been amply reviewed and analyzed in a considerable number of articles and books, but never related as a first-hand account by anyone: the author, Helene Hagan, lived at the Yellow Thunder Camp and attended the court proceedings in Rapid City and Deadwood; she established solid friendships with a number of the principal Lakota witnesses in that case. In addition to years of research into the Lakota culture and her thirty year friendship with Russell Means, she worked with elders throughout the reservation and was nominated by Nellie Red Owl of Batesland to be accepted as an associate member of The Grey Eagle Society of Pine Ridge Indian reservation. Hagan was consequently included in certain group visits of Black Hills sites considered sacred by the Grey Eagles, under the leadership of the President of that Society, Royal Bull Bear. The case of the Yellow Thunder Camp was particularly significant to one of The Sioux Nation seven fires, the Oglala Lakota people of Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota, as they claim ownership of their sacred lands, The Black Hills. The book focuses on the court proceedings and legal efforts which opposed a group of Lakota elders and their representatives to officials of the U.S. Government for several years in the 1980’s, and includes additional efforts on the part of other entities of the Lakota Nation to arrive at an acceptable compromise in regards to the ancestral lands of the Black Hills which were taken away from them after the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty. Offered monetary compensation for those hills in a 1980 court decision, the Lakota people have consistently refused payment for the land, espousing the motto: ”The Black Hills are not for sale.” Winyan Zi Tiospaye ( Yellow Thunder Camp) was originally formulated as Hagan’s Master’s thesis at the Department of Anthropology of Stanford University, an academic paper written in 1983 about the creation and the legal struggle of a small camp in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The original document, which was read and approved by Russell Means, has been considerably altered and updated for general publication. The revised book covers the history of the Lakota (Sioux) Nation, as outlined in the course of testimonies for the U.S. government and the recitation of myths and legends known to the Lakota elders who testified in court on behalf of YTC and during the 99th Congress Hearings before the United States Congress Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs. The book includes pertinent decisions and other legal documents in their entireties as Appendices I to VII. The book also contains an extensive updated bibliography and a few of Helene Hagan’s personal photographs as well as some of the superb drawings and paintings executed by Alex “Smokey” White Bull, a Lakota Minneconjou artist who lived in the camp and married Shari, Russell Means’ oldest daughter. In addition, the book features the well known Wyoming western artist Robert “Bob” Coronato’s seven foot portrait of Russell Means, an oil canvas he painted in 2009, now on display in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.