The H.V. Johnson Lakota Cultural Center is operated by the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. It is a unique building on highway 212 in Eagle Buitte, South Dakota. The main room has eight sides with a high ceiling with skylights in the center. Around the top of the room are murals that depict important scenes from history. Other murals show important cultural and religious traditions. We were there for a funeral yesterday and it didn’t seem appropriate for me to be taking pictures. My descriptions in words, however, fall far short of the powerful art of the murals. We were sitting across from the mural that depicted the massacre at Wounded Knee. At the bottom of the picture were the bodies in the snow, familiar to those who have studied the history and seen the few photographs that were taken after the killings. But instead of the sepia-toned images of the photographs, the mural depicted fresh, white snow without the mess of tracks and the litter of a community destroyed. Standing off to the left in the picture was a man who was translucent, with the background showing through his body. He had already entered the spirit world and was watching over the scene. About midway up the painting was a small line of silhouetted carts and walking people with a couple of horses.

What captured me about the mural, however, was the top half of the painting which depicted a winter sunset as only someone who had spent time looking at one could have painted. It was filled with blues and pinks and purples the way the sky in this country gets when it is cold in the winter.

The picture exudes the grief of the people. I don’t think you can look at it without grasping a little of the sorrow.

The journey of the first generation of the survivors of that terrible day led them north, away from Wounded Knee, away from Pine Ridge, and out of the sight of the Black Hills. I don’t know if that small band of survivors knew where they were going. North was generally the direction of Canada. They were headed to the Wakpa Waste Oyanke - the good rive reservation. Wakpa Waste seems like a much better name than the common name, Morequ. No matter, that band of survivors didn’t make it to the Wakpa Waste. They followed the Cheyenne River to a place not far from where Cherry Creek enters it and there they stopped traveling. They were exhausted. The were cold. The were so overwhelmed with grief that just putting one foot in front of the other seemed nearly impossible. It isn’t that easy keeping from freezing when all you have to keep your feet warm are strips torn from old blankets. And the reason to keep walking is hard to find when all you can think of is the grief of the loss of so many who have died.

They call the place where they stopped walking Takini.

Some translate that word “survivors.” Others say it means “barely surviving.” One wise elder told me it means “We’re still here.”

The mural seemed appropriate for the mood yesterday. We were there for Rosemarie’s funeral. She was only 42. She had spent her last Christmas in the hospital in and out of consciousness - mostly out of it. Her husband Leroy was not unfamiliar with grief. He had spent a Christmas season in the hospital before watching his mother as she came to the end of this life. Rose was well-acquainted with grief herself. She had known the death of her father, her grandparents, her sister, Leroy’s parents and three of her children.

Rose died the day before the anniversary of Wounded Knee. The riders were preparing for the annual trek from the place of the massacre to Takini.

Ever since that awful day in 1890, the community of the survivors has been too acquainted with grief. There have been too many illnesses and diseases, too many accidents, too many suicides, to many deaths.

It is a community that is well-acquainted with grief.

We observed the rites in full. The ministers offered their consolations and words of faith, the singers offered their songs. The congregation wound its way around the room for a last viewing and hugs and handshakes with the family. The casket was placed int he funeral coach and a meal was served. The give away proceeded with more hugs and tears. We got into our cars and made our way out to Green Grass for a brief committal service in the church before going up the hill to the cemetery. It wasn’t that cold at the cemetery, but the ground was icy and slippery from the bitter cold of days past. We could have been standing at Takini in the midst of the graves of loved ones with that beautiful view of the Moreau and the Missouri River breaks in the background. Prayers were said, the casket was lowered. No fancy vaults or lowering devices for this funeral. Just strong pall bearers who slid straps under the casket and lowered it into the ground. Just men with shovels who filled the grave with the semi-frozen dirt. We worked up a sweat in the cold afternoon.

And then it was time to go home.

I gave Leroy one more hug. “I’ve buried so many here,” he said. “I never thought that I would have to bury Rose.”

There are no words for moments like that.

It is another winter of grief for the descendants of generations of grief.

But as I stood their on the hilltop with tears freezing to my cheeks I noticed that from our vantage point the horizon is low. The picture is far more sky than earth. Like the mural in the cultural center, it is more about the world of the Spirit than the world of this life.

Maybe a bit of the true meaning of Takini is being revealed. The real story is not the story of a people with a tragic past as much as it is a story of a people with a future. We don’t turn and walk away from those who have died. Rather they support us as we reach for the sky. However painful the past, the future has not been taken from the people.

We did not need words for that moment because we know it is not the end of our story.

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