Oscar Howe (1915-1983) was a Yanktonai Dakota. He was educated at the Pierre Indian School, the Santa Fe Indian School and the Fort Sill Indian Art Center. He worked in casein and tempera. He was a strong influence in contemporary Native American Art.

Sioux Seed Player is a work of magnificent creativity. Here we seem to see the blending of past and present in the “turntable soil” where a seed is being planted while in the swirls of color and crops already harvested we seem to see a possible future wrapped in spirit and remembered loss. The seriousness of the planter’s face seems to reflect the ancestors, the living, and the yet unborn of a proud people who are trying to reclaim and reveal a legacy they can be proud of and we cannot.

Although we do not know the schooling experience of this artist, the recently revealed information on the Indian Schools and the process of methodically erasing identity, language, ritual, and ancestral knowledge from the lives of the children forced to attend can be added to the long list of sins we must confess and repay. How can God forgive all the things that have been done by white Americans to anyone we could mark as the other?

Maybe these are questions to ponder now. How would we paint a companion piece showing what we will plant to repair long, deep wrongs? What color is shame? What shape is humility? How does one paint the bidding prayer we must say?

May we find these answers repeatedly and faithfully. May we make amends in God’s way of love. Amen.

In gratitude, faith and hope,

Sandy Prouty
Minister of Children and Families
Montview Church