Legacy
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Collecting and preserving our ancestral knowledge
The Afraid of Bear – American Horse Tiospaye is dedicated to honoring and building upon the legacy left by our ancestors.
We believe that sharing ancestral knowledge with our family and community is vital to preserving Lakota language, culture, and traditions and ensuring they endure for generations.
Our hope is that our work inspires indigenous peoples around the world to preserve, share, and celebrate their own ancestral knowledge – so that it may bring healing to them and to the world.
Our Tiospaye is working to reclaim our heritage, piece it back together, and share it with present and future generations.
— LORETTA AFRAID OF BEAR–COOK
The Importance of Ancestral Knowledge – and Why We Need to Act Now to Preserve It.
Ancestral knowledge gives displaced people a sense of identity, meaning, value, and strength. It helps us understand where we came from and gives us context for who we are as individuals and as a people.
For eons, our ancestral knowledge has been passed down orally from one generation to the next. With forced moves to reservations, requirements that native children attend Christian boarding schools, and other US government policies created to eliminate our language, spirituality, and practices, much of Lakota oral tradition and ancestral knowledge faded or was lost.
What is left is held by our elders, Lakota knowledge and culture keepers. We must act now to document and preserve their knowledge before it disappears with them. To this end, we are creating a House of Knowledge – an archive of Lakota people, culture, and traditions – so that others may learn about and benefit from the knowledge of our ancestors.
