Walking with Grandfather: The Wisdom of Lakota Elders

by Joseph M. Marshall III

Any person or society or nation that ignores the lessons of the past will—sooner or later—face the flames of their own fears or arrogance. Some may not survive.

A truly humble person rarely stumbles, he contended, because such a person walks with his face toward the Earth and therefore can see the path ahead. An arrogant person walks with head held high to bask in the glory of the moment. Such a person is likely to stumble because he or she is more concerned with the moment than with what lies ahead.

Grandpa Albert had a habit of stopping now and then and looking back down the trail. Frequently, he would take me by the shoulders and ask me to look back at the way we had come. “Remember the trail,” he said, “because one of these times I will send you back alone. If you don’t remember the way you have come, you will be lost.”

None of us choose to be born, Grandpa Albert would remind me. Therefore, when and where we come into the world is quite by accident. But we do come into the world as something tangible. Each of us have a mother and a father. Each of our parents give us our physical identity and a host of inherent ethnic and cultural traits. That is the who that we are. And thereafter the family we are born into and/or that nurtures us gives us the foundation for what we will be.

My grandparents taught me that there was a better way to face this dilemma. They taught me to survive and function in a white-dominated society as a Lakota. In other words, learning to speak English and adapting the habits of the white people didn’t mean I had to forsake being Lakota. All I had to do was adapt. Adapting is not the same as wholesale change.

My grandparents also taught me that people and circumstances would continuously try to change my sense of identity. And the best and only way to face that was to remember who I am. They illustrated their point with one of the first stories of Iktomi, or the Trickster, that I can recall hearing. Long ago, Iktomi crawled out of his den in a hillside on a fine beautiful day and decided to take a walk. At the bottom of a hill, he came to a pond with sparkling blue water. He lay down on his stomach at the edge to take a drink. Suddenly, a face appeared below him, a familiar face, mimicking everything he did. If Iktomi raised his eyebrows, the face in the pond did the same. After several moments, he realized the face was his. Iktomi spent the rest of the day admiring his reflection. After the sun went down, he returned to his den. The next morning, the wind was blowing as Iktomi arrived at the pond, and he was dismayed to find that his reflection in the water was distorted. As the day wore on, the wind blew harder, and Iktomi’s image in the water didn’t improve. Angry and confused, he stomped home. Bright and early the next morning, he awoke to a cold, rainy day. Nevertheless, he hurried to the pond. The reflection he saw in the water was nothing more than a shadow. Confused, he trudged back to his den. The following day, the rain had stopped, but dark clouds filled the sky. Iktomi saw his reflection in the pond, but it was of a dark and angry face. He was about to slink away in...

The tracks we leave on the land will disappear over time. The tracks we leave in the hearts and minds of others will never fade.

There were moments when Grandpa would stop just at the crest of a hill. Then he would turn to me and ask: “Are you ready to see beyond the hill?” I’m on the verge of being an elder, and I can’t wait to see what is over that hill, because it’s where my Grandpa was taking me all along. It’s part of who and what I am and am still becoming. I’m still a work in progress.