Articles Diversity Foundation Home Page

Otakuye Hdihunipi- The Third Annual
Great Dakota Gathering and Homecoming

By Ernestine Chasing Hawk, Journal Editor
Reprinted from the Dakotah Journal June 16, 2006

WINONA, Minn. - In the land where the “waters reflect the sky,” citizens of Winona, Minnesota welcomed back the indigenous Dakota Oyate who once inhabited this lush green island city situated along the banks of the Mississippi.

The Otakuye Hdihunipi or Third Annual Great Dakota Gratings and Homecoming on Wapasha Prairie on June 3 and 4 was an experience like no other where Wasicun (Caucasian) and Dakota worshipped, danced, feasted, shared stories and played together for two days along the shores of beautiful Lake Winona.

“This is the Garden of Eden, where the Minnesota River joins the Mississippi,” Chris Mato Nunpa, Associate Professor of Indigenous Nations and Dakota Studies at Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall, Minnesota said during a Saturday afternoon History and Truth Telling session. Mato Nunpa, from Pezi Huta Zizi K’api (the land where they dig the yellow medicine or the Upper Sioux Reservation) called this special area the “genesis if you will” of the Dakota Oyate, the place where they originate.

Winona, which means oldest daughter in Dakota is located in Southeastern Minnesota on land once occupied by Chief Wabasha the III and his band of Mdewakanton Dakota Oyate. Their encampment once sat along this stretch of the Mississippi River under the rock formation now called Sugar Loaf.

According to the Diversity Foundation website, the Wabasha Oyate lived, hunted and fished these areas up until 1851 when treaties were signed then ratified in 1853, forcing Chief Wabasha III to a remote reservation in western Minnesota, now called the Lower Sioux Indian Reservation.

According to Lyle Rustad, Executive Director of the Diversity Foundation the Otakuye Hdihunipi emerged in 2004 as a result of the Sesquicentennial Celebration of the Grand Excursion.

The 1854, the first Grand Excursion celebrated the completion of the Rock Island railroad from the East Coast to the Mississippi. An entourage of 1,200 men considered “the most brilliant ever assembled in the West” including former U.S. President Millard Fillmore as well as “statesmen, historians, diplomats, poets and the best editorial telent” traveled up the Mississippi to St. Paul by steamboat.

“The opening of the west to the Europeans was essentially the end for the Dakota people, said Rustad.

He and other members of the Winona Dakota Unity Alliance insisted that the city also commemorate the indigenous people who once inhabited Wapasha’s Prairie. The City of Winona agreed and offered to host the annual event.

Highlights of this years gathering included a Sunday morning Blended Spiritual Service, History and Truth Telling sessions and the Winona Canadian-American Moccasin tournament. A Quillwork demonstration was provided by Myrna Weston of Flandreau.

Guest Artists including Annie Humphrey, musician and singer, Jackie Bird, hoop Dancer, Musician and David Chevez, flutist.

Hereditary Dakota Chief Ernest Wabasha VII and his wife Vernell were special Guests of Honor.

The History and Truth Telling sessions included guest speakers Chris Mato Nunpa and Glenn Wasicuna.

Arena Director and MC was Danny Seaboy from the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate. Spiritual Advisor was Ambrose Little Ghost.

Host drum was Mazu Kute from Santee, Neb. Also in attendance were the Prairie Island Drum Group from Prairie Island, Minn. and the All Nations Drum Group from Spirit Lake, North Dakota.

Akicita for the event include the Bravo Company from Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate and the Gordon Weston Post from Flandreau.

Joan Pate who came to Otakuye Hdihunipi for the third year in a row said, “I have come – because I love the spirit of the gathering. It is a good thing.”

Next year organizers hope to hold the event in Unity Park, which is currently under construction. The park, circular in design, will honor the Dakota who were forcibly removed from this “Garden of Eden” in 1853 by the military and white settlers. It will include a garden with indigenous grasses and vegetation.

http://www.diversityfoundation.org