Pine Ridge Works to Save Lakota Language

[The Straight Story]

Pine Ridge Works to Save Lakota Language

PINE RIDGE INDIAN RESERVATION, S.D. (AP) — Skin has gathered at the corners of her eyes into soft brown wrinkles, and the tattoos on her forearms have faded into an inky blue. Bernice Spotted Eagle rests on a couch in her three-bedroom house, her feet protected from cold linoleum floors by red slippers. The house is warmed by space heaters, one of which almost burned the house down. But it is this house, she says as she gestures with small hands, that used to be so packed with relatives and friends, sleeping bags littering the floor every night.

Her house, a safe haven she fervently defends as alcohol- and drug-free, is in the middle of a cul-de-sac of tribal housing. It is with this view that Spotted Eagle says she can most clearly see the roadblocks that stand in the way of breathing life back into her native Lakota language.

Graffiti sprayed on a nearby house leaves a chilling reminder that the Crips and the Bloods frequent the area. A neighbor was stabbed to death in an argument recently

People often stop by to ask for money or food.

She keeps the front door locked.

http://www.reznetnews.org/article/pine-ridge-works-save-lakota-language-44580