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Amelia Schafer
ICT + Rapid City Journal
*Editor’s note: This is the second part of a two-part series on Indigenous maternal healthcare in South Dakota. The first part is available here .
For the first time in eight generations, a Dakota baby was born in a traditional earth lodge in Dakota homelands.
Under the moon of the black chokecherries, Dallis Rencountre, a citizen of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, gave birth to her second child, a 10-pound baby boy. Her son was born in a traditional earth lodge in Granite Falls, Minn. built by her grandfather’s company, Makoce Ikikcupi .
Dallis Rencountre&comma Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate&comma gave birth to her son in a traditional Dakota earth lodge&period &lparKatie Pantzar for the Rapid City Journal&rpar
“I remember sitting in the tub and thinking, ‘I don’t know if I can do this.’ I was actually very upset at my grandparents, but my grandpa looked at me and told me that the next generation is coming,” Rencountre said. “I was realizing that I was going to bring a leader to my people and that this birth was history in the making — it could be a turning point for other Dakota women to come to an earth lodge and give birth to their babies just like I did.”