Teaching Culture Through Games

North Elementary fourth grade students just completed a cultural week with lessons on Lakota history and culture.

Híŋháŋni. Good morning in Lakota.

Steve Tamayo served as artist in residence last week at North Elementary.

His programs included crafts and dance, and cultural presentations Wednesday through Friday. On Thursday, he showed students how to make earrings. He explained the history of beads. The trading of beads started when the Dutch arrived in America in 1540, he said. He said it was a bartering method, a type of currency.

He taught the students how to about the shells used in the earrings and where the shells likely originated. His lessons were not just about assembling an artistic pair of earrings, but the life-lessons that occurred along the way. He encouraged students to not copy another student's design, but to follow their own ideas. He told students of the importance in balance in their designs.

Later, he introduced the Hand Game (or The Stick Game). The is an example of how in traditional Lakota life, recreation and life-lessons cross. Even in competition, teams are expected to remain quiet and respectful of other competitors. A judge's decision is final and cannot be appealed. In The Stick Game, a player has the opportunity to guess where the marked "bones" are in the opponent's hands. If the guesser is wrong, he or she loses a stick. The life-lesson is if you make a mistake, it will cost something.

Tamayo has 35 years presenting cultural programs. The programs are educational for the children, and benefit him as well.

"For us, it is a healing process," Tamayo said.

He said the effort of sharing cultures and Lakota history is an effort of reconciliation. It is a value that is returning to the tribes and clans. However, it is returning at a cost. The data on the traditional games is not as available as it once was.

"I had to do a lot of research on the game (The Stick Game)," he said.

His personal history is one of seeing both sides of the Native America story. His grandmother was taken to a boarding school when she was 4 ½ years old, and was released when she was 18. Tamayo said she never returned to the Reservation.

He grew up in Omaha, then enlisted in the U.S. Army, serving in the 101st Airborne. Returning home, he then wanted to go to the Reservation, much to his mother's surprise. He said he always knew he was Lakota, but he had a desire to know what that really meant. His goal was to learn the Lakota language, the rituals, ceremonies and traditional art form of the Lakota.

"I came home, started speaking Lakota to her, and she started crying," he said. "Things started coming back."

He is known as a cultural specialist, and a symbologist. He has been teaching for 35 years.

"Coming here, playing my games, that's how we communicate," he said.

He said the symbols found on cloth and clothing are more than colorful designs. They are also symbols used to define how a specific cloth or rawhide is used.

When he is home on the reservation, he speaks four languages, the four Lakota tribes in Nebraska.

In addition to his work with schools and the Nebraska Arts Council, he is also a consultant for the Smithsonian Institution on Plains Indians. He was honored on Nov. 11 with a Proclamation of Congressional Record in Washington, D.C., by Congressman Don Bacon. He was honored in Nebraska with a reception hosted by Gov. Pete Ricketts, Congressman Bacon and Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert.