Home in the Lakota language is thiyáta, meaning, at home, homeward.
I think of my relations, the Hunkpapa Lakota and the struggle of the word, “HOME” was the basis of a generational heartbreak. My family was taken from the lush land of the Black Hills and forced to live in a place so desolate the dirt would only grow sage brush and cactus, The Standing Rock Reservation. After time passed, and the struggles of adjusting were beginning to show some positive effects, many families were forced to abandon their children to boarding schools, where any established feeling of home, was abolished. -My Grandmother, Eva Flying Earth was forced to attend Carlisle Boarding school, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, early 1900’s, 1500 miles from her home in Wakpala, Standing Rock Reservation.