Gary Holy Bull's Lakota Men's Camp

The idea of the men's camp is to bring together young at-risk boys to deal with their own personal issues. Most of the young men were raised by their mothers, with no male figure present. The fathers were missing for many reasons, alcoholism, jail, having run away—many different reasons. Using traditional Lakota ceremonies, Gary's camp helped the young men deal with the issues of not having fathers as well as learning how to become a man. He taught them how to accept responsibility and how to respect women, each other and their ancestors.

The young men helped set up the camp and had to help figure out what was needed. It was the first time many of these boys had to do this type of work. It took them quite a while to get going, but in the end they were able to get the camp set up.

The first day began by talking about the Sun Dance ceremony, and what it means to the Lakota nation. Most ceremonies are given to the women, but the Sun Dance was given to the men. The men are to fast for four days without food or water. The pain a man feels as he is pierced and pulls on the tree is meant to bring him appreciation for the pain a woman feels during childbirth. Somewhere in the world as a warrior pulls on the piercing, a woman is pushing a new life into the world. It is the simultaneous effort that brings balance. It is through this pain that a man shares and understands the woman's pain.

Later that night, they had a sweat lodge with four rounds. The young men began to express their anger and their emotions around not having had a father in their lives. Slowly more and more of the kids began to express their feelings and came to understand how not having a father affected them.

Each morning they began with a pipe ceremony—a talking circle, giving everyone several opportunities to talk about their situations, their pain and anger, and all of their emotions. Then Gary broke them up into four groups. He used four young men who had previously proven themselves as leaders. These leaders would take the kids out to do traditional tasks that were done by the men in traditional times, such as gathering wood and drinking water. The boys were to bring their own food. And while out together, they would share a meal, as well as the chores. For example gathering wood involved doing a tobacco ceremony, and asking for permission to use the wood from the spirits and to gather it in a respectful way. In each of the days they learned the proper way to do things.

They did trust building exercises. One involved balancing on a small 3 foot diameter rock. At one point, the kids were able to get 46 kids balanced on the 3 foot rock. This was done through teamwork and trust.

Another exercise involved sensory awareness. The leader would sit on one side of a buffalo skin, and would have the kids on the other side guess what he was doing. They would have to stretch out their senses and try to determine what it was they believed he was doing. Over the course of the camp, the kids got better and better at sensing what was being done on the other side of the buffalo skin.

Throughout the day, there were many sessions using guided visualization. Ed Red Owl brought this technique to Gary and he would lead the kids through visualizations intended to bring them closer to their feelings and to somehow move the kids past them into forgiveness. When they did imagery sessions around issues of their fathers, many of the kids would break down and cry.

Six kids were a real challenge. They were heading toward some institution, jail or juvenile detention—something like that. As a result of the camp, two of them went back to alternative learning high school and the other four have gotten jobs. They're the ones that Gary feels were most moved by the men's camp. They came in very skeptical, testing Gary, questioning everything, but by the end, these six young men had made the most progress. There were times during the camp that Gary would break down and cry as he too learned from the young men as they learn from him.

The camp started out with approximately 11 kids but more kids joined everyday. They would say they were looking for their brother or cousin or friend. But before you knew it, they were joining in. By the last day there were 46 kids in the camp.

Gary has plans to conduct the men's camp twice per year, in the spring and in the fall. He would like to do it exclusively with the folks on his reservation next year and then open it up to anyone who would like to participate starting in 2009. He believes the teachings are universal, and it would be appropriate for non-Lakota as well as Lakota young men to participate.