One of my goals after becoming a volunteer for the Native Americans at the South Dakota State Penitentiary was to visit all nine reservations in the State of South Dakota.  It is a long haul from Sioux Falls in the southeast corner of South Dakota to the reservations which are in the northwest and southwest parts of the State.  In fact as a child growing up in Sioux Falls I was taught to be afraid of going onto the reservations since having a car breakdown there could expose us to danger.

As an adult and a volunteer, I not only became acquainted with citizens of all the reservations, but I also met spiritual leaders from many of them and tribal dignitaries who would come to the prison to talk during the quarterly two day spiritual conferences held at the prison.

One of the men I met was Chief Joseph Brings Plenty, who was not only a spiritual leader, but was also the chairman of the Cheyenne River Reservation for one term, a tribal policeman, a sometimes bit player in movies, a coach for a tribal boxing team, and a big advocate for the youth on the Cheyenne River Reservation in the northwest part of South Dakota.  In 2020 he was named a Bush Fellow.

While Joe was tribal chairman, I took him out to lunch one day between the morning and the afternoon sessions of a spiritual conference where he was a speaker.  He hardly ate anything because he received one phone call after another on his cell phone about tribal business.  The scenario seemed to fit the description, “When the cat’s away, the mice play.”  In his absence some people were apparently taking some actions which he opposed as the tribal chairman.

When he was no longer tribal chairman, lunch with him was a lot more fun.  He would take a photo of someone’s salad to email to his wife with a message that he was eating a healthy meal just before he had a serving of pie.  He has a delightful sense of humor and an infectious laugh.

Because Natives arrested for Federal felonies go to Federal prison, it didn’t seem like he would have arrested any of our State inmates, but he had.  Some had gone on to bigger and better crimes off the reservation after being arrested previously on the reservation.  No one was upset with him, however.  Men would go up to him, shake his hand, and ask him if he remembered arresting them when they were teenagers on the reservation.  They would reminisce about it and laugh.

I’m providing a link to a film about the Cheyenne River Reservation so you can see its geography and some of the people who live there.

My chance to visit the reservation came when I was in Pierre, SD, our State Capitol, for a meeting of the SD Board of Accountancy in February one year.  I volunteered to drive from there to the Cheyenne River Reservation to pick up some buffalo meat the tribe was donating for a prison powwow.

I drove to the buffalo processing site along a highway out in the country on the reservation.  There was one mobile building containing the office and freezer and another building for the kill.  I went to the office and introduced myself.  My eye was caught by a computer screen with a diagram showing how to cut up a cow or buffalo.  Modern technology was being used for a century old tradition of killing buffalo and cutting it up to eat.  They loaded up my trunk with buffalo meat in bread wrappers.  I didn’t need ice since the outside temperature was very cold.  I took the meat to the kitchen at the penitentiary the next morning and they put it in their freezer.

About two weeks later they got it out of the freezer to start making buffalo soup.  The meat was spoiled so there was a terrible stench in the kitchen.  I had to make a quick run to a grocery store to buy beef to use in the soup.

It remains a mystery to this day how the meat became spoiled.  Since it was well below freezing the whole time I had it, I think it must have happened before it was packaged.  The men were disappointed of course that they didn’t have buffalo meat in their traditional soup, but of course they didn’t want to eat tainted meat and the beef in the soup was good.

The Food Service put in a rule then that any buffalo meat I brought in the future had to be processed and wrapped by a locker.  (Buffalo used by the tribe is not subject to Federal inspection.  If it is going to be sold off the reservation, then it must be inspected.)  Since that episode, we have received meat that was processed by a locker and there has never been another problem.  Everyone looks forward to eating buffalo soup as one of the meals at the powwows and Indian tacos for the other meal.

The Cheyenne River Tribe has helped often with funds for powwows and with sending tribal members to speak at the spiritual/cultural conferences and Joe has come consistently to pour water (lead) sweat ceremonies.  His wife has not been fooled by the photos of salads he sends to her every time he is in Sioux Falls.

Mary Montoya