Lakota healers focus on values

By Jomay Steen, Journal Staff Writer | Monday, September 18, 2006

Previous Page

Share

• del.icio.us
• Digg
• NewsVine
• Fark

Print

Email

Two traditional Lakota healers from Porcupine will offer a free public lecture as part of the 19th Annual Behavioral Health Conference. Ethleen Iron Cloud-Two Dogs, project director for Nagi Kicopi "Calling the Spirit Back," and Rick Two Dogs, an Oglala Lakota College adjunct instructor and traditional-healing consultant at Wakanyeja Pawicayapi, will present "Nagi glu Kini pi: Renewing the Spirit - Lakota Cultural Lifeways."

The free, 90-minute presentation begins at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 20, in the Pactola Room. It is one of several presentations and sessions that the He Sapa Behavioral Health Team - formerly the Sioux San Alcohol Task Force - has brought to its conference Sept. 19-21 at Best Western Ramkota Hotel at 2211 N. La Crosse St.

Larry Prairie Chicken, health-team task force member and organizer, said that the conference theme, "Renewing the Spirit," is a result of health behaviors developing within the community and on the reservations.

"The loss of family values ... I would say it is a big concern," Prairie Chicken said.

"It's a way of addressing it and remembering our cultural ways."

Jim Hagel, health-team task force member, said Two Dogs and Iron Cloud-Two Dogs developed several projects on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation involving children and family mental health. "It's important that the community knows about this," he said.

Reservations have been hard hit by methamphetamine use, but meth use has also spread across racial borders and into neighborhoods throughout Rapid City, Prairie Chicken said.

"Recovery is possible," he said.

With only two in-patient methamphetamine treatment centers in South Dakota - the City/County Alcohol and Drug Program in Rapid City and Keystone Treatment Center in Canton - Sioux San is developing an intensive 16-week outpatient model with a year's worth of aftercare for recovery.

"But no one person can do it single-handedly," Prairie Chicken said.

He said that the ephedrine-based drug includes a volatile stew of drain cleaner, lighter fluid, ammonia and other toxins, which users then smoke, snort or inject into the body.

"If you drank the stuff, it would kill you," he said.

Indian Health Service and tribal programs are exploring ways to address meth treatment, but several new models and strategies will be presented at the conference, he said.

"This is a start," Prairie Chicken said.

Conference presenters include Rhonda Stennerson of Alternatives, of Billings, Mont.; Kathleen Masis of Addiction Medicine Consulting of Billings, Mont.; and Sharon Scheef, Morning Star Visions lifestyle coach of Rapid City. Lorraine Jewett, Sioux San Hospital chief executive officer, will open the conference on Tuesday.

For conference information, call Jim Hagel at 355-2293 or Jacqui Arpan at 355-2257 or write to Sioux San Hospital at 3200 Canyon Lake Drive, Rapid City, SD 57702.

Contact Jomay Steen at 394-8418 or jomay.steen@rapidcityjournal.com