given to Akta Gohlga
This dream was actually a series of dreams. Each dream had roughly the
same beginning, but continued beyond the end of the previous dream.
The dream always began with me driving my truck on a lonely stretch of two
lane road in South Dakota, far from the nearest town, the sky heavy with
an impending storm. I was on vacation, roaming aimlessly, my California
life far behind me for the next several weeks. Ahead, an old pickup truck
was broken down on the side of the road, it's owner working under the hood.
I slowed, and as I approached the owner looked up in anticipation, but after
taking a careful look at me, and my California plates, went back to working
on his truck as I passed. I looked up at the storm clouds, and back in my
rear view mirror at the truck. I slowed down, then stopped a few hundred
feet away. The truck's owner looked towards me. I remembered stories about
drivers being robbed by thieves posing as drivers with broken down cars,
and people saying didn't pay to be a good samaritan any more, and that you
should never stop and help anybody.
I backed up to the truck, and got out. The driver turned out to be a young
Lakota named John, late teens or early twenties. I had my tools with me
and tried to help him, but he needed a new part and without it, there was
no way of getting his truck running, so I offered to drive him to town.
We talked as we drove through the breaking storm on the long drive to town.
It gradually became clear that John was angry about something, but despite
my urging, he wouldn't tell me what it was. He said that because I was white,
I wouldn't understand. We reached town, John bought the part he needed,
and I offered to drive him back to his truck.
On the way, John finally told me what had him so upset. Until recently,
he had never followed traditional ways, but after years of trying, his grandfather
had finally gotten him to start dancing and to stop drinking, and was now
teaching him to follow the red road. Several weeks ago, his
grandfather had told him he had to go on his first hanblecheya (vision quest),
and that it had to be done this coming weekend. John had arranged to take
the days off from his gas station job, but yesterday his boss, a non-Indian,
changed his mind and now wanted John to work both days. His parents were
depending on his income, and there were no other jobs around. There was
no one who could work for him. He was angry and frustrated.
We drove further, talking, while an idea brewed in the back of my mind.
Finally, I offered to work in his place for those two days, so he could
do his hanblecheya. He couldn't understand why I would do this. I tried
explaining that my culture has no such tradition as the hanblecheya, and
that I would never get the opportunity to take part in one myself, and that
the closest I could ever coming to doing it would be to allow him do it.
John asked me what he could do to repay me. I said there was one thing I
would like - for him to have me in his mind for a at least a few moments
while he was up there. I emphasized that I was not asking him to promise
to do it. If it it any way interfered with his hanblecheya, or was improper
for any reason, I did not want him to do it. But if he could do it, then
I would like it very much, because it would allow me in some way to be there.
That was all I wanted. I spent the next several days living at his parents
house and working in his place in the gas station, while he spent his time
alone on the mountain.
When it was time to bring John down, his father invited me along. He said
John's grandfather had told him to bring me, as a way of honoring me.
After a long climb, we reached John. He looked tired, cold, and haggard,
but radiant. Embracing me, he said that he had seen that I was supposed
to go on hanblecheya also, that it was the grandfathers' will, he had been
told this. His father shut him up, telling him to talk to his grandfather
first before speaking to me of such things.
The next day John and his grandfather warmly invited me to go on my own
hanblecheya. I told them I would think about it. I wanted to do it, but
I was apprehensive. I knew this would not be like the vision quests that
my New Age friends back home in California do, on which they are connected
by walkie talkies in case something goes wrong. This would be the real thing-
a Lakota hanblecheya. And I was fearful. Fearful of the mountain, fearful
of everything on it, fearful of the spirits, fearful of the grandfathers.
The first time I had this dream, this is where it ended, with me uncertain
whether to go on hanblecheya.
All the other times I had this dream, I actually went on the hanblecheya.
I will not speak of the hanblecheya itself here. The experience was so powerful,
and so real, that it would not be right to speak of it, even though some
will say it was only a dream.
There were at least two different endings of the dream that occurred when
it was time for me to go back down the mountain.
In one of these endings, instead of waiting for John and his father to get
me, I went down the mountain by myself. Waiting for me at the bottom were
my Lakota brothers and cousins. It was the 19th century, over a hundred
years ago. I don't know whether I was Lakota by birth or adoption. I think
it was by adoption, but it didn't seem to matter. I was treated as an equal,
and expected to act like an equal. We were a war party. They were glad to
have me back.
The next day we went into battle with some whites. I found myself in hand-
to-hand fighting with one. Struggling him to the ground, I finally pinned
him on his back. He stopped resisting. My knife's blade was pressed against
his skin. He was about to die, and knew it. He was wimpering, crying, sniveling.
I let him feel the knife against his skin for a few moments, seeing the
terror in his eyes, hearing it in the pathetic sounds he was making. My
brothers had told me to never trust a white man. They said I should show
no mercy, for the white man would show none to me. But killing him would
have been like killing a worm, so I stood up, signalling him to leave. He
ran away in terror, every once in a while glancing back at me as he ran,
stumbling over rocks, looking like a fool. I laughed. Later, my brothers
told me I would regret not killing him. They were right.
That night, while they sat around a small fire, I went up into some boulders
to speak alone with the grandfathers, praying for a better understanding
of my hanblecheya. Behind me, the white man whose life I had saved was creeping
up to me, determined to kill me. One of my brothers saw him, and quietly
crept up behind him. Before the white man could kill me, my Lakota brother
killed him.
That was one ending of the hanblecheya portion of my dream.
In another ending of the dream, the hanblecheya ended with John and his
father coming to get me. They took me down the mountain to his grandfather,
who spent time alone with me to help me understand what I experienced during
the hanblecheya.
One version of the dream ends here. There is one final ending to this dream.
It was after my hanblecheya. I was getting ready to resume my trip, when
John told me that his grandfather had decided that John and I were now brothers,
and that we would be forever bound together as brothers. John's grandfather,
now my grandfather by adoption, said that there was something else John
now should do - the Sun Dance.
John told me he wanted me to do the Sun Dance with him.
I had read about 19th century Sun Dances, and I knew they were not something
I could endure. Were contemporary Sun Dances anything like them? I wasn't
sure I should even ask.
This is where the final dream ended.
I don't know what happened next. I don't know whether I told John that I
would not do it, or whether I just never gave him an answer. Maybe he was
told that a white would not be allowed to do it, brother or not. Or did
I fail some test? I don't know. It's been over a year, and I have not had
this dream again. Why did they stop when they did? Why did they go this
far? I don't have any answers.