GUILFORD — When first approached by the Brattleboro Interfaith Youth to come to town for a concert presentation, Tiokasin Ghosthorse, an activist and spiritual leader of the Lakota People, was on his way to the annual Auschwitz/Birkenau recognition of victims of the Holocaust.
Ghosthorse survived both the “Reign of Terror” from 1972 to 1976 on the Pine Ridge, Rosebud, and Cheyenne River Lakota Reservations, and the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school and church missionary school systems designed to “kill the Indian and save the man” (a quote attributed to Richard Henry Pratt, who developed this model of cultural immersion and assimilation for the first Indian boarding school).
Politics for the Lakota is spiritual and is not separate from the rest of life. His words of Indigenous insight and global concern are offered though the experience of what he says is “one Lakota living in one world.”
He will offer a concert presentation at the Guilford Community Church, UCC, on Friday, Feb. 20, from 7 to 9 p.m. Admission is by donation, and all proceeds will go to fund an interfaith youth trip to South Dakota later this year.
The concert will be preceded by a “cabin fever” barbecue featuring barbecued chicken, cornbread, baked potatoes, coleslaw, and dessert. The cost is $10 per person and $5 for children.
The youth group, under the leadership of Rev. Lise Sparrow, will stay in Ghosthorse's hometown, La Plant, S.D., offering community service on local building projects and creating an afternoon summer camp for children of the town. Evenings will be spent with community members learning about local traditions and culture.
Ghosthorse has had a long history in Indigenous rights activism and advocacy, from the time he first spoke, as a teenager, at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. He is also a master musician - one of the great exponents of the ancient red cedar Lakota flute - who plays traditional and contemporary music, using both Indigenous and European instruments.
He has been a major figure in preserving and reviving the cedar wood flute tradition and has combined spoken word and music in performances since childhood.
He performs worldwide and has been featured at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, Lincoln Center, Madison Square Garden, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and at the United Nations as well as at numerous universities and concert venues.