The Titunwan Lakota people say that the Western meadowlark sings in Lakota. In the spring this herald of the seasons reminds listeners to take joy in the new season and as the summer progresses this bird’s songs change a little too. By the end of the season when the Western meadowlark takes leave, the Lakota observed that their beloved friends’ songs have changed nine times.
In midsummer, long before the horse returned to the beautiful country, the Indigenous peoples of the Plains walked everywhere. Their deep generations-long acquaintance with the landscape became profound and intimate. They recognized bird song and heard the little changes that informed listeners of precious resources, mainly water, in the windy and arid land. And followed those songs to the sources of many streams. When they arrived to a spring, they quenched their thirst by dipping their carved horn spoons into the water. To cup one’s hands and dip them into the water was unseemly.
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The Lakota endured the weather’s dramatic changes from stinging cold to blistering heat. There was no question that summers are supposed to be hot, and winters cold. But this beautiful country is the vast open plains and sometimes it happened that winter reminded us that he was waiting by sending a snow in the midsummer. It did sometimes happen.
The people of the Plains might see clouds on the horizon and, like the wolf, expect to get wet. The wolf doesn’t expect to stay warm and dry when out in the open. The people of the Plains change their expectations.
Sometimes the heat of summer was exceptional. In 1803, the High Dog Winter Count recalls such a summer. The wind drank up the streams, flowers refused to bloom, and the birds refused to sing.
The brutal summer of 1803 was followed by an equally punishing winter. There was high snow everywhere. Unrelenting cold made it difficult to hunt, fish and gather. The Blue Thunder Winter Count informs us of a cold so bitter that birds took shelter by perching inside the smokeholes of tipis. Even more astonishing was a winter so challenging 20 years before in which birds fell down frozen.
Even as summer and winter challenged survival, the highest points of each season were observed in ritual and prayer. The height of summer was observed the day before solstice, the day and night of solstice, and the following day. The heart of winter was observed on the night before solstice, the night and day of solstice, and the following night.
The people of the plains faced all conditions together. When one feasted, all ate together; when one starved, all fasted. In one cold dark winter long ago, as the Hunkpapa Lakota crossed the prairie steppe, as those in front collapsed from the cold, those behind lifted and carried those who broke the trail. Can any of us today do the same again?