Rainwater's Native American Spirit Gallery

11/10/2025

11/10/2025

As the leaves fall and the earth prepares for rest, we pause to reflect on the journey — not just of our business, but of our healing as Lakota people.

Our Lakota Made store stands just blocks away from the Dakota 38 hanging site — a place of sorrow, survival, and remembrance. To stand here today, as the first Lakota woman business owner in Mankato, carries deep meaning. Every day we open our doors, we bring healing to this land through our medicines, our language, our laughter, and our love for our people.

Seven years ago, I was a stay-at-home mom, mixing plants in my kitchen — “selling weeds in jars,” as one of the first comments said. But those “weeds” were medicines. They were teachings. They were prayers.
And through them, something incredible grew.

Today, Lakota Made LLC employs nine people, supports other Indigenous artists and families, and has become a worldwide e-commerce business and a Southern Minnesota staple.
Because of this work, my children and I just bought our dream home. One of our employees just closed on their first home too. This isn’t just business — it’s community growth, it’s healing, it’s sovereignty in action.

We are proof that when you plant with love, water with faith, and grow with good intention, the medicines will take care of you too. 🌿

As we enter the season of giving, I ask you to remember the meaning behind what we do:
Every jar, every salve, every tea — carries the story of resilience, balance (awak ehan), and realization (woábleza).
When you shop with us, you help our medicines continue to grow.

🪶 Wóphila tȟáŋka — many, many thanks to everyone who has walked this path with us.
From the kitchen table to the world — from grief to growth — from silence to song.
This is Lakota Made.

www.lakotamade.com
Visit us in Mankato, Minnesota, or online at LakotaMade.com
and join us in honoring the land, the people, and the medicines that continue to heal us all.

— Megan Bull Bear
Founder, Lakota Made LLC

11/06/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/1AGrbehL5K/

10/10/2025

When I hear words like “Columbus, the original American hero,” I feel a heaviness in my chest — not because I am angry, but because I know how stories can wound when they are told without truth. Our people have lived on this land since long before that man ever dreamed of crossing the ocean. The rivers already had names. The stars already had songs. The people already knew the Creator. To call him a hero, and to erase the names of the ones who were here, is to speak only half a story — and half-stories have always been dangerous things.

When the leaders of a nation use their power to lift up conquest and silence the survivors, it tells me they have not yet learned the meaning of kinship. A true leader does not fear truth. A true leader does not need to erase others to stand tall. Our ancestors taught that greatness is not measured by how far you travel or how many lands you claim, but by how well you remember your relatives — all your relatives — the four-legged, the winged, the swimmers, the crawlers, and the human beings.

When I was young, the old ones told us that stories are medicine, but they can also be poison if told without humility. This proclamation feels like that — words dressed in honor but carrying harm. It forgets the women and children who suffered, the languages silenced, the songs that were not allowed to be sung. It forgets that this so-called discovery began a long night for our peoples, one we are still waking from.

I do not speak these things to divide us. I speak them because truth must be spoken if there is ever to be peace. We do not need to hate Columbus to honor our own story. But we must not let his name stand above the countless ancestors who greeted him with open hands and were repaid with chains.

Today, when the government once again chooses to remember the colonizer and forget the Indigenous, it is not surprising — it is just a reminder that our work is not done. We must keep teaching the children who they are. We must keep speaking our languages, planting our medicines, walking softly on the land that still remembers us.

So I say this: we will not disappear because a proclamation forgets us. We were here before Columbus, and we will be here long after the politicians are gone. The land remembers. The water remembers. The wind carries our names. And as long as we breathe, we will keep telling the whole story — the one that begins not with discovery, but with belonging.

—Kanipawit Maskwa
ᑲᓂᐸᐏᐟ ᒪᐢᑿ

09/29/2025

09/27/2025

Will Sampson, a full blooded Muscogee (Creek), was born in Okmulgee County, Oklahoma and stood an imposing 6'7" tall. Sampson competed in rodeos (his specialty being bronco busting), for about twenty years.

Now, Wikipedia says that he was on the rodeo circuit when producers Saul Zaentz and Michael Douglas were looking for a large Native American to play the role of Chief Bromden in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975). Rodeo announcer Mel Lambert mentioned Sampson to them, and after lengthy efforts to find him, hired him on the strength of an interview. He had never acted before.

But IMDb says that Sampson was a park ranger in Oregon in a park near where the movie was filmed. He was selected for the part because he was the only Native American the casting department could find who matched the character's incredible size.

I researched New York Times and the Oklahoman websites for Sampson's obituaries, and neither says anything about either. The LA Times obituary for Sampson leans toward the rodeo story. But the Aboriginal Multi-Media Society website, writing about a documentary produced about Sampson, quotes his sister Norma Sampson Bible as follows: "What he told me, he was up there in Yakima, Washington, somewhere up there in the mountains painting and drawing and coming down once in a while. He said he had a friend in town. He came down to check his mail or something and his friend told him that they were in town casting for a movie and said they needed 'a tall, ugly Indian.' Those were his words... So my brother thought, 'Why not?' He was always one to take a gamble anyway. So he walked to this casting office ... they said the minute he walked in the door, they said, boy, they had found their Indian. So he was the mute Indian in 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.'"

So I'm going to go with his sister, and you now have an idea of how challenging it is to do these posts when you encounter conflicting information, not that I'm complaining, mind you... 🙂

Happy Birthday, Will Sampson!

09/21/2025

Happy Birthday, Dr. Richardson!

We celebrate the 100th birthday of Dr. Eugene Richardson, a Tuskegee Airman, educator, and mentor. From serving in World War II, to launching a career development program that encourages self-discovery, Dr. Richardson continues to inspire future generations to follow their dreams. Read more about Dr. Richardson’s story: https://comca.st/4mqE7XH

09/05/2025

Prevent the destruction of the Tuscarora Burial Site!

Save Cedar Point Tuscarora Village. 482 signatures are still needed!

06/04/2025

Be angry. We should be very angry.