Running the same route her Northern Cheyenne ancestors did makes Cinnamon Spear, 20, feel closer to history.

"To actually set foot on that same ground they traveled on is very humbling," Spear said during a break Friday in the 11th Annual Fort Robinson Outbreak Spiritual Run at Crazy Horse Memorial near Custer.

Spear, originally from Lame Deer, Mont., on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, is a junior at Dartmouth College.

She ran in the spiritual run in 2005 as a senior in high school and returned this year to make a documentary on the run as she works toward her degree in Native American studies.

Spear said the first year she participated, as runners took off their coats and sweatshirts and ran in the freezing weather, she thought about how cold and uncomfortable the people breaking out of Fort Robinson felt in 1879 as they traveled.

"What I realized is that this is some type of personal sacrifice we can do in the present day," Spear said. "And just for us to give that personal sacrifice brought us a little closer to what they felt."

More than 100 men, women and children from the reservation in southeast Montana bundled up in coats, hats and gloves Friday to run from Hot Springs to Deadwood as part of the annual run to honor their ancestors.

"We have tennis shoes, hats and gloves and stay in hotels at night," Lynette Two Bulls of Lame Deer said. "Our ancestors didn't have any of that."

Two Bulls and her husband, Phillip Whiteman Jr., coordinate the run each year.

Whiteman began the run in 1996, but the journey only involved the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation area.

In 1999, Whiteman and Two Bulls decided to lengthen the run to 400 miles to honor the path taken by the Northern Cheyenne who broke out of Fort Robinson near Crawford, Neb., on Jan. 9, 1879. They had been placed in Fort Robinson as part of containment measures by the United States government.

Many of them were killed during the outbreak, but some survived and made it to their homeland, the Powder River area in Montana.

This year's group of runners drove Tuesday from Lame Deer to Fort Robinson, visited the site Wednesday and started the run Thursday.

The runners will continue through Hot Springs, Custer, Deadwood, Belle Fourche and on into Montana this weekend, and end Monday in Busby, Mont.

Participants take turns running, so one male and one female are running at all times.

Two Bulls said that symbolizes the roles of their ancestors.

"Our ancestors worked together," she said.

The males carry an eagle staff, and the females carry a blue and white flag with the morning star symbol of the Northern Cheyenne people. Several vans accompany the group, and as runners tire, they pass the flag and staff onto other runners. That way, the flag and staff are always moving.

Runners range from 3 to 81 years old.

Rosalia Badhorse, 14, of Lame Deer said participating in the run gives her a sense of pride about her heritage.

"I feel I owe honor and respect to my ancestors," Badhorse said.

Badhorse has participated in the run three times. She said she enjoys getting to know other people during the run.

"It brings us together," she said.

"Our people are survivors, and our spirituality is important," Two Bulls said. "That's all part of this."

Two Bulls and Whiteman bring their two daughters, Florence, 6, and Nellie, 4, on the run, and the girls participate.

Two Bulls said as a parent, she wants to educate her children about their heritage.

"I think our history, if it's not learned from, reproduces itself," Two Bulls said.

Contact Katie Brown at 394-8318 or katie.brown@rapidcityjournal.com