When I reviewed the two historical fictions surrounding a key turning point in America history, I knew exactly what two crafts I wanted to do with my kids!

1. Arts and 2. Crafts

A good friend sent our family a gift of para-cord activities and a bead loom kit.  Having served in the military I figured that the para-cord is our modern-day equivalence of weaving skills.  Whereas the bead loom kit would be a fun throw back to traditional American Indian crafts!  

My back up plan was to let them

color this picture from 

Except I caught myself thinking of American Indians in a weird past tense sort of way.

In school American Indians were presented as an old and lost part of our history.  Even though in the past I had seen Indians at tourist shops, I had never made the connection that they were a part of modern American culture.  Or that they were authentically Indians.

In an effort to honor our multicultural heritage I wanted to learn more about our First Nation neighbors.

In particular the two books I read were about the Lakota tribe.  So after learning a bit more about them I wanted to share with you some of the other activities we hope to do this week with the kids.

3. What do the Lakota eat?

One of things I wanted to know more about the Lakota was the type of food they traditionally ate.

From Lakota Traditional Foods I learned about an Indian form of energy bars called Wasna! Essentially it was a patty of dried bison jerky, dried berries, and tallow mixed together.  Pretty much an all season super food for the road.  If you need a vegetarian friendly substitute you would probably make a zucchini nut bread.

On the other hand the Wojapi was a sweetened berry soup.  Depending on your preferences this can be a soup, a pudding, or a berry syrup to either dip your bread or top it.

Both look really simple to make, but in an effort to not bite off more than I can chew I decided to make Chef Otaktay‘s Lakota Plum cakes from Food.com!

Lakota Plum cakes

INGREDIENTS

• 1cup dark raisin
• 1cup boiling water
• 1(16 ounce) can purple plums, drained and pitted
• 1cup toasted hazelnuts, chopped fine
• ¹⁄₂cup melted butter
• 4cups sifted all-purpose flour
• 3teaspoons baking soda
• 1 ¹⁄₂teaspoons salt
• 1 ¹⁄₂teaspoons allspice
• 1teaspoon ground cloves
• 1cup honey
• ¹⁄₂cup maple syrup

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350º F Place raisins in small glass bowl, cover with 1 cup boiling water; soak 30 minutes till plump.
2. Lightly oil 24 or more muffin cups.
3. Mash plums in a large mixing bowl, add remaining ingredients to plums and mix well.
4. Add soaked raisins and their liquid. Blend together well.
5. Fill each muffin cup 1/2 way full.
6. Bake 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
7. Cool 10 minutes on wire rack, loosen sides, and turn out of muffin pan.
8. Serve warm with honey or raspberry-plum butter.

Now if you are thinking about going a little more hardcore you might want to consider looking into adding some of the 10 super nutrient rich foods traditionally available to the Lakota tribe into your diet;

• cattail broad leaf shoots
• chokecherries
• beaked hazelnuts
• lamb’s-quarters
• plains prickly pear
• prairie turnips
• stinging nettles
• wild plums
• raspberries
• rose hips

4. American Indian Sign Language

Each tribe had their own language and one of the ways they overcame their language barrier was to  develop a universal sign language.

A form of communication that is still used today!

AMERICAN INDIAN 

UNIVERSAL SIGN LANGUAGE 

by William Tomkins

5. Learn the Lakota language

While learning more about the Lakota culture I came upon several efforts to reestablish the language.  For several generations the focus was on teaching English and only English, but in doing so they noticed a growing loss of identity in their community.

Luckily they have been working hard to preserve their culture for generations to come;

• St. Joseph’s Indian School has been teaching the language and traditions of their culture for the last 85 years.  You can also find on their campus the Akta Lakota Museum.
• In 2007 a Red Cloud School on the Pine Ridge Reservation developed the nation’s first comprehensive Lakota K-12 program.
• David Little Elk is a certified Language and Culture teacher who enables students around the world to learn the Lakota Language with his Book and CD set.

In the short time I have had to understand our Native American Brothers and Sisters, I realize that we don’t know enough about their culture.

More importantly I learned that the culture (and the people) are not lost between the pages of a textbook and that they are more than a romanticized symbol of the old west!

Read more about the Multicultural Children’s Book Day and how you can win a bundle of books – then if you have a minute, please PIN and share! Thank you!