Skip to main content

Transcript: Tom Cook

Symbols assumed to be Christian can also have meaning in other cultures

[Lindberg:]
What do the symbols mean?
[Cook:]
These are the symbols from an earlier century. It’s got the houses on it. It’s the tiospaye, the circle of the culture of activities. What it portrays is the interest that I carry for these same things, the family, the “tiospaye,” the cultural needs, to make sure that these ceremonies and alters and particular Lakota indigenous ways are preserved, practiced, promoted, and extended into the next generation, because actually it’s the basis of human life. Without it, individuals drift anywhere.