Friday, July 25
12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
The Journey Museum welcomes author Victor Swallow, joined by Gary Wietgrefe, for a special program centered around Victor and Gary’s new book, Lakota Life After the Buffalo.
Author Gary Wietgrefe will share how he first met Victor and took on the project of producing their joint book, in which Victor Swallow, a Lakota elder passes on oral stories from his mother, her mother's mother, and her mother's mother's mother dating from the loss of the American Bison (mid-1800s) to family life in 2025.
Victor Swallow grew up in tents and cabins on Red Shirt Table, a small grassy mesa bordered by the non-vegetative Badlands National Park in southwest South Dakota. The nearest village, Red Shirt, isolated by the Cheyenne River, is in the far northwest corner of Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Red Shirt currently has about fifteen dwellings, still no retail services, and is the poorest area in the U.S. His parents thought it was critical that Victor get educated like white people. He attended Indian boarding schools operated by the Presbyterian and Seventh Day Adventist churches. Following Lakota warrior tradition, Victor joined the U.S. Navy in the early years of the Vietnam War (1960-1964). After honorable discharge, he took any odd job a Lakotan could get to earn money—often working for area cattle ranches. In 1966 he became a construction laborer and eventually a life-member of the bricklayer’s union while raising his family in Rapid City, SD with his wife, Melidie, who he lost during the Covid 19 pandemic. With sincere desire to pass on oral family stories, Victor hand-prints on notebook paper. With the help of his daughter, Vikki, some stories have been transcribed, typed, and included in the book, Lakota Life After the Buffalo.
The afternoon will include a presentation, Q&A, and book signing. Program will be held in the Adelstein Gallery, which currently hosts an exhibition chronicling the history of the American Bison - These Noble Brutes.
Both the program and the exhibit are free and open to the public.