'Spirit Walk' will trek through area (fwd)

[Phil Cash Cash]

'Spirit Walk' will trek through area

By: Michele Scott, Herald Staff Writer
August 07, 2003
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=9970185&BRD=1408&PAG=461&dept_id=463231&rfi=6

CLINTON - A group of Lakota Sioux will walk into the Gateway area next
week as it works its way to Washington, D.C., as part of the national
Spirit Walk 2003.
 The group is to arrive in Low Moor on Tuesday to spend the night before
walking down U.S. 30 through Clinton and across the U.S. 30  Bridge on
the way to Morrison, Ill. The group began its trek from the Pine Ridge
Reservation in South Dakota.
 The Spirit Walk 2003 is a 1,700-mile journey to raise awareness and
funding for the preservation of the American Indian culture and their
language.
 It is a race against time.
 The Sioux language was once the most widely spoken American Indian
language in North America, and now it is at risk of becoming extinct.
If a people lose their language, their cultural ways also will be at
risk of dying out as well.
 The Lakota Sioux are walking to show the world what the Lakota people
have given this nation and to humanity and the desperate situation in
which their culture, their language and their way of living is in right
now, according to John LaFountaine, president of the Board of Directors
of the Seven Fires Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to
helping the Lakota people preserve their culture and language by
bringing elderly people and children together to teach them their
native language.
 At the current time, less than 25 percent of the Lakota population
speak or understand their native tongue, and even fewer are fluent. The
Seven Fires Foundation believes that the consequences of the loss of
their language would be catastrophic for the Lakota Nation.
 With the right support, the foundation believes the Lakota language has
a realistic chance for long-term survival due to the fact that there
are still people who speak the language as well as available
documentation of the language.
 The Spirit Walk 2003 will take the group through Iowa, Illinois,
Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia and Virginia before they reach Washington
D.C. in late September. Then organizers will meet with government
representatives and request assistance for all the programs that
preserve Lakota and other native cultures in the United States.
 Along the way, the group will be making stops in various communities to
share their message of hope through storytelling and music.
 Anyone interested in showing their support or contributing to the group
to help their cause should watch for the group to make its way down
U.S. 30 into Clinton sometime on the morning of Aug. 13. Times are
approximate, so no set time is available.
 All money collected will go to the Seven Fires Foundation.

                ©Clinton Herald 2003