Teacher imparting Lakota language, culture
PINE RIDGE, S.D. — When Tristiana Brewer studies Lakota Language and Culture at Pine Ridge High School with her teacher, Will Peters, she scrutinizes the small details. Then, before long, larger worlds start to open up.
“My favorite part is learning the language and then seeing all the stories that come behind the language,” she said.
Brewer is a junior at Pine Ridge High School and an enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota Nation, as is Peters. Her love for the tiniest parts of language and her appreciation of the worlds that lie behind the words are qualities that Peters also described on a recent afternoon at the high school.
Peters, who grew up on the Pine Ridge Reservation, is a Lakota Studies teacher at Pine Ridge High School and sponsor for the Pine Ridge Flute Society.
“I don’t start with stories,” he said, in reference to the Lakota Language and Culture class. “I start with basic knowledge of the Lakota language.”
That includes, he said, looking closely at vowel sounds, consonant sounds and the sounds indicated by accent marks. His students pick up on the close analysis, using words such as “guttural” with ease in conversation.
“We progress into the origin stories of the Lakota people while still incorporating the Lakota language,” he said. “From there, there’s a story for almost everything I teach.”
Drums, flutes, songs — all of them have origin stories, the kinds of narratives behind the individual words that Brewer described. And for Peters, the participation of students such as Brewer is vital.
“In my classes, I encourage students to express themselves, whether it’s in the form of a question or a statement,” he said. “The voices of the youth matter — a lot. They matter to me, they should matter to my people, they should matter to this country. Unless we all plan on living forever and being in charge of everything, these young people are going to be the ones.”
Peters teaches Lakota Language and Culture, as well as Lakota Arts. The Lakota Arts class, he said, includes beadwork, music and many other topics and activities.
“It’s all tightly interwoven,” he said, “just like the web on a dream catcher.”
The course activities create emotional reactions, often linked closely with intellectual ones. John Henry Long, a senior at Pine Ridge High School, and one of Peters’ students, said he was drawn to the process of beading for its calming influence.
“It keeps my mind off things and makes me feel relaxed,” said Long, an enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota Nation. “And there’s no stress involved with it.”
Brewer noted the richness of the process, as well, including learning the “four direction colors” and the meanings behind them.
Peters began teaching at Pine Ridge High School in 1996 and paused in 2004 when he was elected as a tribal council representative. He returned to the high school in 2008 and has been teaching there ever since.
“I couldn’t get back fast enough,” he said. “Young people are so much easier to work with than adults.”
The topic of young people and their importance sends Peters’ mind spiraling deep into Lakota language and history, and far into the future.
“I tell these young people, when we’re learning language, there’s a word for where they’re at in this life right now,” he said. “For the young women, they’re called ‘Wikoskalaka,’ which means young women. For the young men, they’re known as ‘Koskalaka.’”
The elders, he said, call both young women and young men “Wakanyeja.”
“Wakanyeja means ‘Sacred Beings,’” he said. “And I always remind them of that. They are sacred beings.”
Peters underlined the importance of teaching Lakota language and culture.
“There have been things like colonization and forced assimilation,” he said. “Those things have resulted in a lot of families who don’t know the Lakota culture.”
As Peters talked, he continually gravitated toward reflection about — and celebration of — young people. He noted just a bit of his own accomplishments, mentioning that he’s “a NAMMY award-winning singer-songwriter,” referring to the Native American Music Awards. But he quickly pivoted back to his students, describing the Pine Ridge Flute Society, which he advises and helped to launch several years ago.
“My students are NAMMY-award winning flutists,” he said. “The Pine Ridge Flute Society, with their first recording, won the NAMMY for the (2018) Best Flutist of the Year. Nine members of the Flute Society were comfortable enough to record.”
Other members of the society also produced powerful music, he explained, but with the descent of covid-19 the chance to perform and promote the music suddenly vanished — at least for a time.
Peters said he grew up with music, especially with traditional Lakota songs that involved the drum.
“Later on in my youth, one of my older brothers had a rock band,” he said. “He was a singer, and I kind of gravitated toward that genre of music and self-taught myself the drums, being tutored by my oldest brother.”
At 14, he learned to play the guitar with help from his brother and other musicians, “all the while maintaining my involvement with Lakota music.”
Peters said he’s long felt drawn to a range of music, from traditional Lakota music to contemporary rock.
“I’m convinced that every form of music allows for expression — self-expression,” he said. “And I dare say that’s why people listen to music,
no matter what genre it is, because the artist is expressing something that is relevant.”
Peters grew up on the Pine Ridge Reservation and relishes his decision to stay there and to continue to call it home.
“I’m a lifelong resident of this place, and I’ll be buried here,” he said. “The world has nothing to offer me that I don’t already have here. Some people are mistakenly under the belief that those of us who live here are trapped here. That we can’t make it out there. I live here by choice.
“I have three college degrees, and I know I can make
it out there any place,” continued Peters, who’s also a state-certified Lakota language
teacher. “I know I can compete with anybody out there. But my choice is to stay here with my people — specifically these young people, and to help empower them.”
Peters doesn’t object when young people decide to move away to other places, but he expressed deep certainty that Pine Ridge is his home. He recalled advice from the elders he knew as a child.
“When I was growing up, they told us to get educated and help our people,” he said. “So I’m following what the elders of my time passed down to me.”