During the 1950s, the town of Pine Ridge (since called Pine Ridge Village) served as a geographic symbol of the dichotomy between Indians and whites. The town was roughly divided in half by U.S. Highway 18, the west side representing the federal government, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the jail and courthouse, the distribution center for annuities, the tribal office, and the Oglala Community High School, one of the many boarding schools operated by the BIA. The east side was the town proper, consisting of the frame and stucco homes of Pine Ridge residents, the iyeska, or mixed-bloods. The east-west division was somewhat mediated by a square block of churches, service stations, a drugstore, pool hall, two cafes, and a supermarket. The town had its own hotel, Gerber's, a barber shop, and a post office. Eventually these landmarks changed hands and the corner hallmark, the Gates Store, was torn down and ultimately replaced by the more modern Billy Mills Hall, which now houses the post office and serves as a town meeting hall as well as a center for teenage "white" dances and indoor powwows.

On "office day" (Monday), the horses and wagons, and some automobiles, made their way into Pine Ridge over miles and miles of wagon roads leading from the small communities in the districts. On Saturdays, the people came into town to shop and gossip. The grandparents, men with long braids and women in long dresses, sat along Highway 18, changing their positions with the sun, watching a steady stream of "odd" cars from out of state coming to a full stop in front of the Gates Store, only to start up again for the Black Hills or Badlands to the north and west: white tourists perhaps amused with the tranquilllity of the small Indian town and the quaintness of its residents, pictures of another era in their tall hats and braids, some still wearing moccasins.

This geographic distinction changed slowly in the 1960s. The population grew from three hundred to perhaps one thousand. Many of the residents were really transients, moving back and forth from their homes in the country to dilapidated shacks on the east side. New housing projects like the North Ridge Estates, a senior citizens' home opposite the expanded public health facilities; the Moccasin Factory; and a spate of trailer homes began to change the complexion of Pine Ridge.

Although the geographic distinction was less clearly defined, the ideological split between Indian and white was still keenly felt. It was not only between Oglalas and non-Oglalas, but between what was later to be formally called sociological full-bloods and mixed-bloods or country Indians and their urban or town counterparts. Although formalized by anthroplolgists, the distinction was clearly a part of the Oglalas' emic model of the Pine Ridge Reservation. The traditional Oglalas, those who lived in the country in the small communities, some of which still bear the names of the original tiyošpaye leaders, represented a culture separate not only from that of the white man, but from that of the mixed-bloods, the offspring of the (predominantly) French and Indian marriages of two generations ago. To these traditionalists, the west side of town still represented the seat of power and authority, exemplified by the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council, incorporated in 1936 as a result of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. The council, in theory, represented the interests of all Oglalas, but over the years it was the mixed-bloods who commanded the power invested in them through the local superintendent, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Department of the Interior, and Congress itself.

Power and authority were, and still are today, expressed in economic terms. It was the mixed-bloods who got the jobs with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and other federal agencies. The discontent over full-bloods' being rejected for jobs was often reflected in such statements as "If you have an Indian name, don't even apply for the job." The traditionalists still feel that "real Indians" are discriminated against by their mixed-blood tribesmen, a notion held over from the time when the sons of French traders and Indian mothers were regarded as the most educable inasmuch as they were bilingual (and because they "inherited" the economic rationale from their fathers).

There are other than economic distinctions which are not so sharply defined and which cannot be correlated with the Indian or European sound of surnames. Many full-bloods in fact hold government jobs; and many mixed-bloods live like traditional Oglalas when they leave their government jobs in the afternoon, returning to an "Indian" household. The Indian-non-Indian, or full-blood-mixed-blood distinction is more profitably analyzed as a continuum. Most Oglalas live in the midrange of the scale despite the composition of their names, or their source (or absence) of income. At the ends of the continuum we find traditional Oglalas at one extreme and the bureaucrats at the other. Most people move back and forth along the continuum situationally: in dealing with matters of kin, it is more profitable to be Oglala; in dealing with matters of economics, one switches to his "white" side.

Pine Ridge Village cannot really be regarded as an Indian community. There is an absence of any traditional ties between its residents and pre-existing tiyošpayes because its residents are primarily mixed-blood. The tribal council members, however, who are representative of their districts and communities indeed have direct ties with tiyošpayes. Their allegiance to tiyošpaye leaders of generations ago is based on current kinship ties. And herein lies the predicament and paradox: bureaucratic leaders are given the constitutional responsibility of acting on behalf of all Oglalas (that is, all tiyošpayes), when their kinship responsibilities lie primarily with their respective tiyošpayes, exclusive of all others. The federal government has ignored the traditional tiyošpaye leaders in favor of a centralized, bureaucratic government. This more than anything else has led to the political problems of the Pine Ridge Reservation. According to one government official, the lack of recognition of local leadership, and the establishment of a tribal council may account for the political factionation that is the hallmark of Pine Ridge. He writes: "In the view of most technicians, and particularly that of the representatives of those federal agencies concerned, Pine Ridge has long been considered a 'trouble spot' in terms of social and political disorganization."

The social and political disorganization of course stems from the same dilemma faced by all colonized people: to what extent can a traditional society function under a superimposed bureaucratic structure? But underlying this question is one of more practical importance to the Oglalas. They ask not so much who represents the leadership of the reservation, but rather, just who the real Oglalas are.

The descendants of the tiyošpaye leaders, the traditional Oglalas, are not unaware of their de facto loss of power and authority. The Oglalas have become accustomed to changing their life style since the beginning of the reservation period. Each new administration brought changes, as did each agent in charge of Pine Ridge. In 1881, it was decreed by the federal government that the Oglalas must curtail the sun dance, and the "last" was held near the bald-face buttes in northern Nebraska easily observable from the present sun dance grounds. The Oglalas were powerless to reverse this federal mandate, but the institution of the sun dance was not easily abdicated. It was held out in the hills away from the white people until after the passage of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, when it was formally reinstated.

Although some were afraid that the assassination of Crazy Horse at Fort Robinson (Crawford), Nebraska, in 1877 heralded the final downfall, that notion was premature. In 1889, the Oglalas living at Pine Ridge, as well as other Northern Plains tribes, heard that somewhere in the west the sun had died, and that a new messiah who favored the Indian over the white man awaited them. There was a new religion underway, one called by the whites, the ghost dance craze, which would herald a new day for the downtrodden Indian. The messiah preached that a time would come when the earth would be overturned, and the white man with it. The old Indians who had died and the buffalo would return again, and the old life would be resumed. The Oglalas sent emissaries to Walker Lake, Nevada, to meet with the new prophet, a Paiute Indian named Wovoka. He himself had "died" and had communicated with the deceased. There he was told of a new Indian gospel, one which stated: "Jesus is now upon the earth. He appears like a cloud. The dead are all alive again. I do not know when they will be here; maybe this fall or in the spring. When the time comes there will be no more sickness and everyone will be young again." The Oglalas adapted the Wanagi wacipi, 'ghost dance', to their own modes of cultural expression. They planted a sacred tree and the adepts danced around it, falling into trances. During the trances the dancers visited with the deceased and came back to life to sing songs about their visions. Although warned by the prophet not to fight with the white man, the Oglalas donned sacred ghost shirts (ogle wakan, 'sacred shirt') which were believed to be impenetrable by the white man's bullets.

Not only the Oglalas but other Sioux became involved in the ghost dance religion. Sitting Bull, leader of the Hunkpapas on the Standing Rock Reservation, became a ghost dance leader. He was invited to Pine Ridge to meet the prophet, but when he requested a pass from his agent, the latter, fearing hostilities and another uprising, commanded his Indian police force to arrest the old man. On December 15, 1890, a detachment of police under the command of Lieutenant Bull Head attempted to arrest Sitting Bull,and during the fracas the Hunkpapa was killed.

Some of Sitting Bull's followers joined Big Foot's band of Mnikowojus who were planning to travel to Pine Ridge and participate in a large ghost dance. Warned of his arrival, the Pine Ridge agent sent Colonel George A. Forsyth and, ironically, remnants of Custer's Seventh Cavalry, to intercept Big Foot and his followers. On December 29, the interception took place on Wounded Knee Creek, sixteen miles east of Pine Ridge Agency. The old chief was suffering from pneumonia, but he and his 106 men, and 250 women and children were required to halt and set up their tipis. They were surrounded by nearly 500 men and four Hotchkiss guns, strategically located on a slight rise over the grassy plain. The next morning, the Indians were disarmed and routed out of their tipis, where the soldiers tore apart their belongings looking for concealed weapons. Shocked at the indignity, an old man cried out that the people should resist, and a shot rang out. Immediately a command was given to fire and the Hotchkiss guns exploded their shells in the huddled group of Indians lined up in front of their tipis. Trying to flee for their lives, Indians ran for cover along the creek bed, but within the hour 40 men and 200 women and children had been massacred. Some bodies were found as far away as three miles from the point of interception. A blizzard blew, and the frozen bodies of the Indians were buried unceremoniously in a common trench. Forsyth was charged with misconduct, but 23 of his men received the Medal of Honor for "heroic action" at Wounded Knee.

The year 1890 also signaled another event. The federal government required all Oglalas who were currently ghost keeping to release their souls on an appointed day.

The Oglalas at Pine Ridge never quite recuperated from the grim horror of Wounded Knee. It has been only within the past couple of decades that most of the survivors have died, and their children still live to retell their families' involvement in the massacre. It is not surprising that members of the American Indian Movement, when appealed to by the traditional faction of the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council to intervene in local political matters, selected Wounded Knee as the site for their seventy-one-day protest in 1973-74. A year earlier, approximately two hundred young adults destroyed the Wounded Knee museum adjacent to the "battlefield." Indian photographs were torn, artifacts destroyed or stolen, and the interior of the museum vandalized. It was as if the young Indians were destroying that what was symbolic of their oppression and despair; the only Indians that white people knew were the Indians in books, photographs, and museums.

Despite the outcome of the ghost dance movement and the ongoing pressure by the federal government to transform Oglalas into white men, neither military strategy nor congressional legislation was capable of eliminating tribal identity. Visistors to the reservation were prone to judge the seat of power, Pine Ridge Village, as typical of the acculturation process to which the Oglalas were inevitably resigned. But out in the districts this resignation was hardly apparent, although deculturation was anticipated to be the lot of even the country Indians. As Feraca states:

Despite the ill effects of the allotment system and ongoing decultruation, the Oglala have tenaciously held to the modified form of the traditional band. Called communities by Whites, the Lakota equivalent is still tiyošpaye. These groups continue to maintain their structure and identity despite what might be regarded as overwhelming odds to their disfavor. Communities were rarely considered as such in administrative programming; indeed the identity or existence of many was unknown except to day school teachers and a few field workers.

Part of this tenacity may be ascribed to a set of values which the traditionalists recognize as Lakol wicoh'an, commonly glossed as "the Indian way" (from Lakol, attenuated form of Lakota, 'Indian'; and wicoh'an, 'act, deed, way'). The Indian Way is a set of beliefs which ranks certain values as superior to the white man's. This notion of superiority should not be taken as a new phenomenon, nor should it be interpreted as merely a psychological compensation for the reality of white dominance. The Oglalas and other Sioux have always regarded themselves as superior not only to the white man, but to other tribes. According to Walker:

Those who speak certain dialects and conform to certain customs and usages are Lakota. The Lakota are allied against all others of mankind, though they may war among themselves. They are oyate ikce (native people), and are ankatu (superior), while all others of mankind are oyate unma (other people), who are ihukuya (considered inferior). This is the relation of the Lakota to all others of mankind, and if any refuse to acknowledge this relation they are tokoyapi (considered enemies), and should be treated as such.

The traditional Oglalas, despite their superiority, are not oblivious to the predominance of the white man's technology on the reservation and off. Many are anxious to receive new housing and new meeting places for their communities. When lease money comes due, the old people buy new cars for themselves or finance cars for their children and grandchildren. At small feasts and larger celebrations, participants are harangued by the elders about the nesessity of education for the younger generation. Light industry is welcome because it means the young people will not have to leave the reservation for employment. A high priority is placed on buying new clothing - straw hats and Stetsons, boots, flashy shirts and Levis, leather belts with western buckles - all in anticipation of entering school, participating in a powwow or rodeo, or taking an off-reservation trip to visit urban relatives and friends. But the extent to which acquiring the white man's technology has made the Oglalas more Western must be seriously questioned. These manifest forms of so-called acculturation or deculturation have been offered in the past as indicators of culture change without examination of the extent to which Western technology has in fact become "Indianized," that is , to what extent traditional Oglala values have been applied to culturally intrusive elements of Euro-American design. But there are indications that the Oglalas have adapted intrusive elements to their own value system rather than adopt a new value system along with the intrusive elements. A rereading of anthropological and missionary literature provides some corroboration.

If we examine those manifest aspects of political power at Pine Ridge, it is clear that there is political discontinuity with respect to native Oglala sociopolitical organization. But if we investigate other kinds of values, the less obvious ideational systems in conflict on the reservation, another kind of conclusion may be drawn. One of the major ambiguities recorded for the Oglalas, as well as other tribes, is the apparent ambivalence with which Indians practice Christianity and native religion simultaneously. Although Christian missionaries have always required a definite distinction between the two, most Christian Oglalas have not. If we examine the earlier missionary literature, it becomes apparent that missionary zeal was often the major cause of misunderstanding or ignoring the existence of two religious standards. Writing for the period following the Wounded Knee massacre, Goll states that

...the early missionaries found that the Fourth of July celebrations among the Indians were often occasions for reviving harmful practices. The reason was not hard to find. The Indians could hardly be expected to take an interest in the speeches and fireworks of that day. They could not speak of liberation but of subjugation.... When the Indians gathered together....all the old customs, especially the vicious "give away," were revived.

Goll continues by saying that Bishop Marty found a way to prevent this "misfortune" by establishing the first Catholic congress in July 1891. It was held on the Standing Rock Reservation, and Christian Indians had to travel a great distance on their "pilgrimage." A description of the moving camps is instructive.

When Indians traveled in those days, the whole family went - by horse and wagon. A caravan of forty or fifty wagons made the journey, and stopping places were predetermined by "officers" who assigned camping grounds to the travelers from the same districts. During the stops, officials took care of the horses and women prepared the evening meal. All gathered around the missionary's tent for the evening prayer. The people then retired and were awakened at dawn by the camp crier. The wagons were loaded and the caravan proceeded. Upon arrival at the congress meeting, officials assigned camp grounds to the travelers "in such a way that the entire assembly formed a large circle." The formal welcome was held after supper "in a bower made of branches cut in the woods nearby." The hosts sat on one side and visitors on the other, and while singing, persons would walk around the circle shaking hands with each other. Between 1900 and 1914, no fewer than three thousand persons attended annually. During the congress, confessions were held, baptismal instructions were given, and Indians were confirmed. Marriages were also "rectified." All received Holy Communion in the bower, and sermons were preached.

Goll attributes the success of the Congress as follows:

No doubt, the question occurs, How were all these people, three thousand for many years, taken care of whilst at the congresses? The Indians' answer is very simple: the guests eat at the table of the hosts. The guests one year will be hosts some other year. And if a locality cannot afford to be host, - well, the congress cannot be held there. It would require a complete change of the law of hospitality among the Sioux, if visitors had to provide board for themselves....When people are willing to be hospitable to visitors out of friendship, why should they change their attitude when religion is added to friendship?

Although Goll does not give the native terms for the "officials," he might very well have been describing the traditional methods of moving and forming a summer camp for the buffalo hunt and sun dance. The hosts at whose table the travelers ate were at least partly represented by the missionaries themselves. The standard strategy of enticing people to mass, even to this day, is to provide breakfast after the services. The missionaries found to their concern (and to the Oglala's amusement) that when they eliminated the feast, the congregation did not come. In describing the catechist sodalities, the St. Mary and St. Joseph Societies, Goll is somewhat more specific about the roles of the laymen:

The Jesuit Fathers introduced these societies in their missions...One man, elected and approved for that purpose, led in a kind of lay-service...This finished, the president ("grandfather") gave a well-thought-out address...The St. Mary Society also had its program. The president ("grandmother") would address all present...The fight against old Indian customs and superstitions kept the meetings of the St. Joseph and St. Mary Societies animated.

The use of grandfather and grandmother could not have been more appropriate. What Goll regards as the fight against old Indian customs and superstitions, however, is rather one-sided. The present-day sacred persons continue their side of the debate over the efficacy of Christianity vis-à-vis native religion. Although during subsequent field work, Macgregor was of the opinion that native religion was dying out, as were the native practitioners, he conceded that the acceptance of Christianity was without complete abandonment of native beliefs. He states: "The Dakota also accepted Christianity because it was the one part of the white man's life in which the Indian was accepted as an equal." He points out that the missionary use of native terms, such as Wakantanka for God, made it relatively easy for the old Oglalas to "understand" Christianity, as did the concepts of the asceticism, the torture of the crucifixion (similar to the sun dance), charity (the highest form of status), and virginity. Even the offering at church was analogous to the give-away. Macgregor's discussion of the Episcopal and Catholic convocations held during his field work in 1942-43 resemble Goll's earlier observations:

These gatherings are held annually, but since they include all the Sioux reservations, Pine Ridge is the meeting place only one in every seven or eight years. Although, of course, no Indian ceremonial is part of these meetings, the summer gathering of friends and relatives from different parts of the reservation and the camping in tents given the convocations some of the social functions of the old Sun dance.

At the community level, Macgregor provides more insight:

Individuals in rural communities all tend to join one church, especially if there is any common bond of band origin. It was noted that, in many families, a Catholic or Protestant has joined the church of the other upon marriage. In one family a Catholic mother became an Episcopalian, but her Episcopalian daughter became a Catholic upon her marriage.

Here we see an analogy between marrying out of one's tiyošpaye and marrying out of one's denomination. Finally, Macgregor notes:

Without detracting from the work of early and contemporary Pine Ridge missionaries, it can be said in all fairness that much of the significance which Christianity holds has come from its interpretation by the Dakota in terms of their former religion. Similarly, the church organizations have become significant as they have supplied a center around which band organizations and integration could continue. [But] under the pressure of the churches, the increasing knowledge of modern medicine, the fear of white critcism, and the general process of assimilation, the old religious practices seem bound for extinction.

Thus the missionaries contributed a great deal to sustaining earlier forms of Oglala social organization by providing a framework similar to the tiyošpaye. On the surface it did, in fact, appear that the old religious institutions were bound for extinction, but both the very pressure exerted by the churches and the sanction by other whites of missionary activities enabled Oglala social organization to persist under the guise of denominational membership. Given the religious alternatives available to the Oglalas, we find correlation between full-bloods and native religion on one end of a scale, and the mixed-bloods, non-Indians, and Christianity on the other. The Native American Church has never made much headway on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Feraca's statement that his "estimate of ten percent of the full blood Oglala being peyote members is to be taken with reservation" is probably accurate.

Part of the problem of religious identity is solved by regarding adherence to a Christion sect or the Native American Church as membership, that is, one joins or is born into it. Conversely, native Oglala religion has no membership or formal leadership. Oglalas participate in native religion as their individual needs arise; their participation is situational. Given the preceding evidence that church membership is organized along tiyošpaye lines, Christianity may be regarded as a means of satisfying social needs; it enables the older sociopolitical form of organization to persist under another guise. Native religion, on the other hand, enables people to identify themselves and each other as Oglala.