Shaundre Stead

I am from South Dakota, heart raised Lakota and self taught in Nakoda. I love to dabble in art, film, music and poetry. I often try to incorporate aspects of each into one huge form of expression, a way to showcase my identity through heritage. I incorporate Ochédiia into my music, which often stems from poems I make myself, and then, I use my own art to promote. In art, I love creepy and weird energy filled creation; the beauty in ugly is my approach in my ways of art, as a musician, writer and artist.

What is sacred to my community and I is the Ochéti Shagowî languages; Dakota, Lakota and Nakoda. I present a poem of awareness. It tells a message, incorporating each dialect of Ochédiia, including Stoney Nakoda. The anaphora plays a big part, and the IPA hybrid orthography showcases relations between each dialect, as a language. A message explaining a common struggle in our communities, “when will we realize?” As elders forward journey nears, and thus, it will be us as a next generation to realize this. Resources present themselves, and we have spoke these tongues in past. Let us return them.