OSEU One: Kevin Locke- The Human Being Tribe

The Human Being Tribe - Kevin Locke - OSEU #1 FIRST TWENTY SECOND ARE IN LAKOTA. I just quoted this elder's name… was Red Weasel and he said he introduced… they asked him to introduce himself. He says, “I'm a I'm a I'm a common man. And I sprang up between heaven and earth. And I'm a member of the… two legged.” Or in other words… human being. I'm just a member of the human being tribe. I like that it's kind of general, but I like that that he identified himself like that because, you know, that's how I think of myself, too. I think of myself as just more of a world citizen. But I do have a I have a nice little place over there in Wakpala, and I lived around there most of my life. It's very familiar to me. And, you know, the little kids, they all call me grandpa… and the next generation, they all call me uncle, you know. I have very few, very few anymore that I can call aunt or uncle, unfortunately. But yeah, so it's really good. I feel very good over there. It's… everything is familiar. You know… the confluence… the LAKOTA WORDS… Right where the Grand River and the Missouri come together. That's where my place is right there. Yeah. It's very beautiful. You know the… you have an unobstructed view of the sunrise and sunset… and we have some beautiful landmarks, you know, with the high buttes… They're close by. It's… they're kind of landmarks for Wakpala District. And it's really a nice community. But we have, of course, the same problems as so many of the rural communities. But interestingly, I think we've got such a bright future in those areas because, you know, the demographic identifies the median age is very low… like it's around 18 or 19. You take the whole population… it's a very low median age. And so this means many things. Maybe if for some that may… it may mean a crisis or impending crisis. But I always think that it's really a wonderful storehouse of human resources. Just like today, we saw those… these young people. They stood up their… first time they stood up there in public like that… and they're playing the flute… and they played very well. I was very, you know… they came through under pressure… there's a lot of technical technicalities involved in terms of just like making sure all those holes are covered completely. You have to… each note requires a different pressure, air pressure. So, they're very careful about all that. I was very, very impressed with them. And it just… it just to me… it just shows how, you know, the capacities that they have is just indicative of that… and that there's no reason why they can't really progress. You know, I was a… I mentioned this last night, too, but it always… I always think about it.