JAN. 14 - Lakota 101

About this class:

Students will learn basic Lakota conversations.  As we progress students will learn basic; vocabulary, sentence structure, orthography through speaking, listening, reading and writing.

Our first text book will be;

“Level 1 Lakota Language Textbook” available through the Lakota Language Consortium. The discount code LAKOTA35 is good at the Lakota Language Consortium Book Store https://lakhota.org/old-pages/llc-bookstore/  from now until Dec. 19th at noon. Most of the items will be not shipped before the holidays since they are using media mail for cheap shipping. If you order a lot of items they will ship with Fedex and it will be available before holidays. All the items on the site are now 35 % with this coupon and you can use coupon 2 times this week if you want to order twice.

This class will meet from 5:30-7:30 pm CST beginning Thursday, Jan. 14, 2021, and continue to meet weekly for 10 consecutive weeks.

If you have affiliation with any indigenous people group this class is free. Contact Sue Skalicky at programs@humanitiesnd.org for the promo code. 

If you are an HND member this class is free. Go to the Vault at humanitiesnd.org for the promo code. 

This course is taught by Kevin Locke, (Lakota name: Tȟokéya Inážiŋ, meaning "The First  

to Arise"; born 1954) is Lakota (Hunkpapa band) and Anishinaabe. He is a preeminent player of the Native American flute, a

traditional storyteller, cultural ambassador, recording artist, fluent Lakota language and sign language speaker, and educator. He is most known for his hoop dance, The Hoop of Life.

Website: www.kevinlocke.com

Born in 1954 in Southern California, at the age of five years Locke moved north with his  family, later to settle in South Dakota on the Standing Rock Reservation in 1966. It was  from his mother, Patricia Locke, his uncle Abraham End-of-Horn, mentor Joe Rock Boy,  and many other elders and relatives that Kevin received training in the values, traditions  and language of his native Sioux culture. He is frequently cited as an ambassador of  Native American culture to the United States and the world.

Mr. Locke attended the Institute of American Indian Arts in New Mexico for high school  and earned a master's degree in educational administration from the University of South  Dakota. He taught himself to speak Lakota, his ancestral language, as a young adult. Mr.  Locke learned the hoop dance, which had nearly died out, from Arlo Good Bear, a  Mandan Hidatsa Indian from North Dakota. Since 1978, he has traveled to more than 90  countries to perform and is continuing to perform abroad most recently as July 2018,  Malaysia Rainforest Festival, 9th International Sefika Kutluer Festival: East Meets West in  Ankara Turkey (2018), Arte Dule Indigenous Festival in Panama City, Panama (2019) and public concerts in Winterthur and Nonam Museum in Zurich, Switzerland (2020).

Locke has served as cultural ambassador for the United States Information Service since  1980, was a delegate to the 1992 Earth Summit in Brazil and was a featured performer  and speaker at the 1996 United Nations Habitat II Conference in Turkey. He has recorded  albums beginning in 1982, and is an active member of the Bahá'í Faith. In 1990, he won  a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the highest  award granted to such traditional artists. In 2009 he won the $100,000 Bush Foundation  Award. Mr. Locke is on the advisory board of the World Flute Society. In 2019, he received  the news that he is awarded the prestigious United States Artists Fellowship for the year  2020. In 2018, he founded the Patricia Locke Foundation named after his late mother  Patricia Ann Locke with the mission to provide educational opportunities for underserved  children and youth. Mr. Locke uses folk arts to emphasize universal themes that are integral to all peoples. Universality of human spirit, its inclination towards peace, balance, harmony, and a longing that all human beings have for the Divine Springtime are a few central themes that he displays in his hoop dance, which is essentially a prayer for the unification of all mankind. Using his folk arts as a vehicle, Locke shares this prayer with  children and adult alike ranging from 50 to 55,000 people at a time. Even though he has performed in many prestigious venues to innumerable dignitaries such as Nelson Mandela and Dalai Lama, his favorite audience continues to be children and youth.

Mr. Locke comes from a distinguished family. His great-great-grandfather was the famous  Dakota patriot, Little Crow. His great-grandmother, Mniyáta Ožáŋžaŋ Wiŋ, was a  renowned medicine woman. His mother, Patricia Locke, was an activist for Indian rights  and recognition. When recently asked about his mission in life his said: "All of the people  have the same impulses, spirits, and goals. Through my music and dance, I want to create  a positive awareness of oneness of humanity.”

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However, in an increasingly polarized world, we at Humanities North Dakota believe that being open-minded is necessary to thinking critically and rationally.

Therefore, our programs and classes reflect our own open-mindedness in the inquiry, seeking, and acquiring of scholars to speak at our events and teach classes for our Public University.

To that end, we encourage our participants to join us in stepping outside our comfort zones and considering other perspectives and ideas by being open-minded while attending HND events featuring scholars who hold a variety of opinions, some being opposite of our own held beliefs.