Kent Nerburn - The Girl Who Sang to the Buffalo: A Child, an Elder, and the Light from an Ancient Sky

M ORE P RAISE FOR

The Girl Who Sang to the Buffalo

Simply riveting. Kent Nerburn has the very rare ability to gently and compassionately teach in a respectful way. I love this book. And so does the rest of our staff.

Susan White, manager of Birchbark Books

How do you live when you dont know what spirits to believe in? The Girl Who Sang to the Buffalo poses this question for Natives and non-Natives alike. In it, a mysterious Native American girl named Yellow Bird from an Indian boarding school shows us what we already know within ourselves about which spirits to follow. With this book, Kent Nerburn leads us on a search through old and new Native America in a touching and enlightening pursuit of spirit.

Chris Eyre, director of Smoke Signals

P RAISE FOR The Wolf at Twilight

Emotionally arrestingNerburn shines when describing the humor and heartbreak he finds on South Dakotas Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.Heartfelt wisdom is found throughout Dans quest for closure and the tale is beautifully told.

Publishers Weekly

After my prison cell began to cool from the days heat, I opened Kent Nerburns creative and compassionate book, which I found humorous, hilarious, and at times very sad. Thank you, Kent, for a good book to read. Doksha.

Leonard Peltier, author, artist, and activist

Elegant, yet powerfulNerburn crosses borders with a single-minded dedication to preserving an oral tradition. The emotional truth that resides in the rich storytelling is a testament to the strength and endurance of Lakota culture andremoves barriers to understanding our common humanity.

Winona LaDuke, founder and executive director of the White Earth Land Recovery Project

The story of this unique and captivating journey should be accepted with an open heart. It is a remarkable gift that we are honored to receive and obligated to pass on.

Steven R. Heape, Cherokee Nation citizen and producer of the award-winning documentary The Trail of Tears: Cherokee Legacy

P RAISE FOR Neither Wolf nor Dog

A chronicle extraordinary for its difficult truths and its stunning depthsThis is a sobering, humbling, cleansing, loving book, one that every American should read.

Yoga Journal

I expected to find Black Elk between these covers. What I found instead was more modern, more alive, and every bit as poignant and moving.

NAPRA Review

This is one of those rare works that once youve read it, you can never look at the world, or at people, the same way again. It is quiet and forceful and powerful.

American Indian College Fund

A LSO BY K ENT N ERBURN

Calm Surrender

Chief Joseph and the Flight of the Nez Perce

A Haunting Reverence

Letters to My Son

Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace

Neither Wolf nor Dog

Ordinary Sacred

Road Angels

Simple Truths

Small Graces

The Wolf at Twilight

E DITED BY K ENT N ERBURN

The Wisdom of the Native Americans

The Soul of an Indian

Native American Wisdom

Copyright 2013 by Kent Nerburn

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, or other without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Text design by Tona Pearce Myers

Photograph on page 389 courtesy of the South Dakota State Historical Society.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

First printing, November 2013

ISBN 978-1-60868-015-3

Printed in Canada on 100% postconsumer-waste recycled paper

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

In memory of Richard Twiss and Vine Deloria Jr.,

two exemplary men who understood, in very different ways,

that what we believe is who we are;

and

Harold Iron Shield,

who would not let the dead go unremembered

There are more things in Heaven and Earth,

Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

W ILLIAM S HAKESPEARE , H AMLET , ACT 1, SCENE 5

We will stir the waters

Until one remembers

O JIBWE CEREMONIAL SONG

F or more than two decades I have tried, honestly and respectfully, to walk the difficult line between the world of Native America and the world of those of us whose people came, willingly or otherwise, to these American shores.

I have done this because I believe that we, as Americans, are poorly served by our willful avoidance of the true facts of our national experience, and also because I believe that the lives and ways of the Native American peoples have much to teach us all.

It has been a fascinating and deeply rewarding journey. It has taken me into classrooms and sweat lodges, onto basketball courts and to kitchen tables. It has found me on dusty reservation back roads, in deep northern forests, and on lonely mountain passes. Most of all, it has taken me into the hearts and lives of some of the kindest, most fun-loving, most thoughtful people I have ever met.

But it has also taken me to places that challenge my way of understanding. Lying in the shelter pits on Chief Josephs final battlefield on the lonely Montana high plains, I was touched by a force, almost palpable, telling me to leave, because I did not belong there. On a wintry day on a great frozen marsh in northern Minnesota, where a battle between the Ojibwe and Sioux left hundreds dead more than a century ago, I heard what sounded like voices, or cries.

Projections? Maybe.

Fantasies? Possibly.

But, perhaps, something else.

The book you hold in your hands The Girl Who Sang to the Buffalo takes you to the edge of this world so far from our own. It weaves its way through lands of the heart and the spirit, where reality takes different shapes and truth is often better revealed by the power of story than by the simple recounting of fact.

At its center, of course, is Dan, the Lakota elder you have come to know if you have followed my journey through Neither Wolf nor Dog and The Wolf at Twilight. Dan was a gift a person who gave me the opportunity, through stories well told, to reveal the world of Native people in a way that would touch minds and change hearts. Through him, I have been able to lead you into the heart of Native America in a way that few non-Native readers ever experience.

You traveled with us across the Dakota high plains and into the dark confines of the Indian boarding-school system. You learned of the beliefs and struggles of the Native people as our American culture moved across the land that was once their own. You saw how they lived, how they laughed, how they honored their Creator, and how they cared for one another. You learned of Dans life, his friends, and the world through which he passed in his almost ninety years on earth. You came to know his humor, his insight, his anger, his sadness.