WCD Cycle

7" x 6" in.
Screenprint

Growing up, I would look at myself in the mirror and visually analyze who I am. My hair is long and brown, and my eyes are brown too. When I took a closer look at my skin, it was brown, but it looked like a tanned hide or smoked leather hide like a buffalo robe. I used to ask my parents why I look the way I am, and their answer stuck with me to this day and that is “you are closer to the Buffalo Nation.” I have a voice recording of my grandmother before she recently passed, Barbara Moore, of her telling me one of the stories about my great-grandpa Henry Crow Dog. Grandma Barb explains in detail that she attended a peyote meeting (Native American Church) with the Crow Dog relatives and more, and she was sitting next to Grandpa Henry as they both sat by the entrance door. It was around two in the morning, Henry stood up and looked at Barbara, as she looked up at him and there, she saw a buffalo because “his face had a buffalo look and his hair was all squiggly. He was a buffalo.” I am also part of the buffalo nation as I knew that our people depended on the buffalo for everything, for what we ate and used for everyday items. After we send our relatives back to the spirit world after a successful hunt, one of my grandfathers, Sam High Crane, would use to say “he is running back to the happy hunting grounds.”