Hitchhiking Adventures – Part 1

I’ve been to the USA and Canada twice, for three and a half months each. During the Coronavirus outbreak, I wrote down some of my memories and would now like to share them with you.

Why an entire church in Nebraska prayed for me

I was hitchhiking along the border of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, the home of about 20,000 Lakota Indians. There they live on a tiny remnant of their former traditional land. They’re no longer nomads who follow huge buffalo herds across endless prairies, setting up their tipis. Many of them are now unemployed, receive welfare assistance, and live in shabby little houses or even caravans. With the help of a friend I had organized a youth exchange. Oglala Lakota College was our partner. The next few weeks I would stay on the Reservation with the family of a medicine man. I travelled the last 60 kilometers to the reservation border in three cars that day. After hitchhiking about 3,200 kilometers I would arrive just in time for the exchange project. It should be my first visit to the Lakota. The Lakota of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation were and still are famous. On Pine Ridge, some of the major protests and uprisings against the United States government suppression of Native Americans took place, particularly in the 1970s. Wounded Knee, a small place on the reservation, became a symbol of the genocide of the Native Americans, but also of their resistance and cultural revival. This has strengthened their reputation of not putting up with everything and fighting for their rights.

I noticed how all this is influencing the white people that live near the reservation when I talked to my last three drivers that day, all men in their forties.

Driver 1: Well, where do you want to go?

Me: Pine Ridge Reservation!

Driver 1: What! Really? That is far too dangerous. The people there are bad and dangerous. Better not go there!

Me: Have you been to the reservation yourself?

Driver 1: For heaven's sake, never in life. I live nearby, but that would be too dangerous to go.

(You have to know that there is no real border surrounding the reservation, no control, nothing. Everyone can go there. You can’t live there without permission if you’re not a member of the Lakota tribe. But you can go there, shop, go for a walk, have some coffee, or visit the museum.)

Driver 2: And where do you want to go?

Me: I'm going to the Pine Ridge Reservation.

Driver 2: Alone? Without a gun? It’s dangerous, those men. They’ll steal your backpack, if they don't kill you.

Me: Have you ever been there?

Driver 2: Oh god, no, no, I'm not crazy!

Driver 3: Where do you want to go today?

Me: To the Lakota on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

Driver 3: Ah, ok, nice people, but take care of yourself, some of them do drink too much alcohol and then you never know.

Me: Have you been on the Reservation yourself?

Driver 3: Yes, now and then, I live nearby. But tell me, it's getting dark. It’s difficult to hitchhike when it’s dark. I can take you to the Catholic priest in the last town before the reservation. I’m sure you can stay there for the night.

Indeed, the priest was kind. He gave me a bed, even the house key, and we didn’t interact much otherwise. He was busy writing his preaching for the service the next day. It was a Saturday evening. I plunged into the nightlife. The place was not big. The town had about 1,600 inhabitants. But in the main street a number of pubs and alcohol shops were lined up. And there were already some drunk people on the street. Almost all the drunks were Indians. I quickly got into conversation with some of them. Most of the ones who started talking to me wanted some money. One old man told me about Crazy Horse, one of the great heroes of the Lakota who got killed in 1877 by a soldier of the US army. He told me that he knows the secret place where Crazy Horse was buried. A unique information, because as much as I know, nobody knows where he was buried. Three drunk young Lakota joined our conversation. They spoke about their holy mountain and that I should go there to sing and to pray, to fast and to wait for a vision. I asked the young lady who told me to go, if she often visits this holy mountain. She became sad. She whispered: “Sometimes.” I didn’t believe her. Her friend said: “Let´s better not talk about something holy when we’re drinking!” I knew already a little bit about the old Lakota tradition of fasting somewhere in nature for four days at the age of about 14 years, with only a rattle and a blanket, without food and without anything to drink. For four days! It was the time to sing, to pray, to think and to wait, to wait for a vision that tells you what your special task is in your life. After four days a medicine man would come pick you up and together, you’d try to find out what your dreams and visions mean. I do like this tradition, that everybody should have a personal goal in life, something that makes their life special and unique.

But, why so many drunken Indians in this town? Why so many bars and alcohol shops in a town 20 kilometers outside of the reservation? The answer is almost simple. Alcohol is prohibited on the reservation. You can’t legally buy it there, and you aren’t allowed to have it or to drink it on the reservation. In the past, the US government forbade alcohol on the reservation. Now every few years the Lakota decide by themselves if alcohol should be allowed or not. So far, they’ve always said NO.

But many Lakota are alcoholics. Why is that?

The famous Lakota – medicine man Tahca Ushte (1903–1973) – described it in his book "My Life":

"So the question is: Why do the Indians drink? I think they drink to forget. To forget the good times when the country was still ours and beautiful, without the highways, advertising signs, fences and factories. They drink to forget miserable cottages and rusted caravans that are their homes. They want to forget that they are treated like children, not adults. We drink to forget that there is nothing meaningful for us to do, nothing that honors an Indian or makes him feel good about himself. There are only a handful of jobs for a few thousand people. To get a job like this, you have to be a good Indian, a real apple, red on the outside and white on the inside. In order to keep the work you have to behave well. If you have a job like that, you drink to forget what happened to you. If you don't have one, you drink because there is nothing for you except maybe a couple of weeks of potato harvest if you're lucky. You drink because you do not live, but only exist. For some people that may be enough, but not for us."

It was late and I went back in the priest's house.

The next morning, it was a Sunday, I packed my things and was about to leave, just when the priest came back from his service in church. He said to me: "So you really want to go to the reservation? Take good care of yourself. God's blessing is with you. I prayed during my service together with my churchgoers for you and your safety.” The young priest already warned me when we talked the evening before. He also told me that he would never go on the reservation alone.

I stayed on Pine Ridge for three weeks and I really enjoyed it. Nothing bad happened to me. I met many great and friendly people. I would have loved to meet the priest and the two drivers again to share with them my experiences of being among the Lakota.