Vision inspires youths

Hopes of girl drowned by cousin in 2001 create cultural bridge from S.D. town to Ohio

ROBERT MORAST
rmorast@argusleader.com

published: 03/24/05

Chandler Brown Otter, 5, of Little Eagle shows his drawing to University of Dayton student Ben Thirlby on Tuesday at the gym in Little Eagle. Youths in Little Eagle, near the North Dakota border, and Dayton, Ohio, are sharing cultures in the spirit of slain teen Lakota Rose Madison.

(Photos by Stuart Villanueva / Argus Leader)

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• Alicia Pagán, a multi-cultural arts educator from Dayton, leads a story circle session with Little Eagle youth and other visitors from Dayton - (8.74 Mb)

LITTLE EAGLE - Weeks before she was found dead, Lakota Rose Madison had a vision of a bridge connecting her home town of Little Eagle to Dayton, Ohio.

Madison was 17 years old and trying to distance herself from the chemical addictions and depression that plagued many of her peers on the Standing Rock Reservation. In the vision, she told friends and family, a bridge delivered troubled and curious reservation youths to a Dayton safe house.

She hoped the vision would lead to a real cultural exchange that would bring young people she met during a youth conference in Ohio to the reservation.

The beginning of the vision was realized Saturday when a group of about 30 people arrived in Little Eagle. They came from the University of Dayton and other parts of Ohio as well as Pennsylvania.

A few were Madison's friends, people she bonded with during her trip to Dayton. Others were sympathetic followers to the youth sobriety movement that started in her name after she was found beaten and drowned in the Grand River in June 2001.

All came to help.

"We're just here trying to achieve what she hasn't because of her death," said Anita Lukey, a Cincinnati native and freshman at the University of Dayton.

Sleeping and gathering in the village's community gym, the visitors came to lay a figurative foundation for a safe house on Standing Rock and spread the news that a Lakota Rose peace house will be dedicated at the end of April in Dubois, Pa.

Tuesday night, they joined with locals for a ceremony handing out the Lakota Rose sobriety bracelets to youths and adults willing to make a three-year sobriety pledge. More than 8,000 bracelets have been given out across the nation, but this was the first time they had reached Madison's home.

Maybe more important, the visitors came to engage the Little Eagle youths in a discussion of cultural differences and similarities.

"This is what she wanted, people to come and talk to the youth," said Josephine Madison, Lakota Rose's mother.

"Sitting here, thinking about this, I feel bad. I'm wishing she was here to see all this."

Josephine Madison speaks with a somber, reflective tone. Aside from dealing with memories of a murdered daughter, she said a family member had just been killed in an automobile accident. And she lamented the fact that teen suicides are a disturbing trend on this reservation straddling the border of North Dakota.

"Something like this to happen in this community, this is what we need," Josephine Madison said as she watched the Dayton students interact with Little Eagle children.

Lakota Rose's story first was told in the Argus Leader almost a year ago. Just as the visitors from Dayton are a sign of hope, reminders of this area's inertia are present.

"It's really hard ... to try and do something," Josephine Madison said. "(People) get you down. They say stuff, try to hurt your feelings. But this is really good. Hopefully, good things come from it."

Party and fatal conflict along the Little Grand

Lakota Rose Madison had her bags packed and was waiting for Mary Ann Angel, a friend from Dayton, to pick her up and take her to Ohio, where she would spend the summer and they could begin work on the "bridge."

But days before Angel arrived in Little Eagle, Madison attended a party with friends at "the tree," a popular hangout along the banks of the Grand River south of town. When she left home, it was the last time her family would see her alive.

At the party, Madison and the others started drinking. An altercation developed and ended with Madison's cousin, O'Neil Iron Cloud, drowning her in the river. Three days later, her body was found downstream.

Iron Cloud later pleaded guilty to manslaughter and is serving a nine-year sentence.

Madison's death, coupled with her attempts to become sober and reach out to the youths of her community, made her a hopeful martyr of youth sobriety.

Spreading of bracelets to help realize a dream

Thanks to the involvement of the Colorado-based agency White Buffalo, the Lakota Rose sobriety bracelet movement has spread nationally.

But Angel said the bracelets are only part of a three-tier initiative trying to follow through with Madison's dreams.

Led by Angel, the group from the University of Dayton is intent on returning to Little Eagle next year to begin constructing a peace place in memory of Lakota Rose. Angel says a peace place is similar to a safe house but not bound by the same legal restrictions.

"That's what my young people want to negotiate," Angel said. "We don't want to go to a place or a community or organization and say, 'You should have a peace place.' They need to initiate it. If the young people and the elders say they want us to be here, we will collaborate."

At this point, it's only talk. There also are discussions of having student exchange programs between the University of Dayton and Standing Rock's Sitting Bull College.

"We're open to students coming here and learning about the land, the culture," said Linda Jones, an ethnobotanist at Sitting Bull College.

"We have a land base that is large and very open to students for research. And you have an area that is very different and would be good for research."

"This means bringing communities together," Angel said. "We really focus on bridging marginalized and oppressed indigenous communities."

Reaching out from Ohio for cultural harmony

In Little Eagle, that process involved the construction of a mural by area children depicting reservation life.

The mural will be taken to Ohio and included in an international festival.

When they were interacting with the youths, the Dayton students experienced Lakota traditions such as participating in a sweat lodge ceremony and learning traditional dancing.

Others spent time in story circles that shared cultural tales among white, Native American and Latino people.

Led by Alicia Pag1/3n, a multicultural arts educator from Dayton, the story circles brought the Little Eagle youths and their visitors together by sharing their cultural similarities.

One young boy listened to Pag1/3n tell the story of a Mexican maiden, then opened up about his life in Little Eagle saying he enjoyed reading books but didn't like it when his older cousin beat him.

During a story circle session, Tasha Kills Crow, a 17-year-old Little Eagle woman, told the group about Lakota traditions and customs, such as why the eagle is a sacred bird.

She said she thinks the bridging of Little Eagle and Dayton will bring hope back to her home.

"I think it will change people's lives around here," Kills Crow said. "There's a lot of hating going on, and it will bring the people back together so we can talk about the culture."

Reach reporter Robert Morast at 331-2313.