Past Tour Members Say...
Please extend all of our gratitude to everyone for making us feel at home and sharing all that they did on our big adventure. We felt that everyone bent over backwards to make our time special and that it was! We all had a FANTASTIC adventure. It was good to be disconnected from the high tech, fast paced life for a while. We all felt like we were gone for a month, not 10 days and I think it will take a bit of time to digest all the experiences.
Laura Fadden, Florida
Laura Fadden, Florida
For those who want to find it, the evidence exists that tribes had a unique relationship with the treasures in the land of Yellow Rock Water millennia before European contact. But it is tribal memory that retains the authentic – the voices, the history, and the cultural perspectives – so journey with us and listen for the words and silences, the ancient songs of the two-legged and four, and see Yellowstone, a Biosphere Reserve and World Heritage Site, as you will have never seen it before.
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Yellowstone Is Indian Country
August 27th - Sept 5th, 2009
Go Native America is included in National Geographic Traveler's 50 Tours Of A Lifetime
The Place of the Yellow Rock Water. Indians called it home over 10,000 years before the
Pilgrims anchored at Cape Cod and sought to find their own. Since the days of Bridger and
Moran, through Yellowstone becoming the first and now oldest national park in the world,
the absence of a Native presence in Yellowstone has been explained by the myth that
Indians feared this vast, pine-robed plateau that is punctuated by thermal wonders from
lakeshore to river course. Supposedly the geysers engendered such apprehension among tribal people that they would do all they could to avoid this bountiful landscape.
The Cheyenne, Kiowa, Shoshone, Bannock, Blackfeet, Nez Perce, and the most recent arrivals, the Crow, know a different story. Within these archives from ancestral memory is found a common theme – the sacred nature of the land named for the Yellow Rock Water and the connection to place, an ancient compact between the two-legged and four and the earth that sustains, but there, as yet, is still unmade. From the earliest experience it was gleaned that the earth in the Place of Yellow Rock Water was uneasy with itself, and, that there, creation was neither finished nor content. To be close to creation is to be upon the sacred. There was not fear but respect and intuition; the 600- square mile Yellowstone caldera is far from resting easy.
The Kiowa have an ancient connection to Yellowstone and we go to the origin of that bond before discussing the relationship between the buffalo and the Kiowa, and the significance of the buffalo, the sacred provider of physical and spiritual sustenance in many cultures. Sacred bundles and explanations related to the buffalo embody the well-being of not only the Kiowa, but also the Lakota, Cheyenne, and other tribal people, and this inter-relationship and inter-connection is explored through traditional narratives that speak of the days when the human beings and the buffalo were as one, and how the buffalo is an ancient relative.
Just as the human beings and the buffalo share an ancient compact, so too do the wolf and the buffalo, and the wolf and the human beings. The wolf taught many to hunt, and would call others to share the bounty, and we learn of that tradition – of the wolf as a teacher, and how the wolf is revered in Cheyenne and other Plains cultures, to the extent that the scouts of the people, those who guide, those who bring warnings and messages, are referred to as “wolves.” At dawn and dusk we will seek the twilight hunter and listen for the mysterious music of his song.
To journey into Yellowstone is to enter the realm of the Great Bear – as the Blackfeet say, the Real Bear – the grizzly, and we will learn of the physical and spiritual significance of the bear to tribal people who shared this land with the bear. A great healer, a potent symbol of power, a guardian, and a grandfather who can instill fear, the grizzly is all of these and more. Through traditional stories and explanations, and by actually entering the grizzly bears’ domain, we learn of the power and gifts the
grizzly brings to the people, and the bear’s prominence in art and symbolism. The Nimiipuu, the Nez Perce, speak of how grizzly bears retained the knowledge of how to cross the Bitterroot Mountains on the Lolo Trail, for it was the grizzlies that made it. The Nez Perce used the ancient route when they would journey to Yellowstone and the plains beyond
Go Native America is a member/ supported / promoted by:
American Indian and Alaska Native Tourism Alliance
Montana Tribal Tourism Alliance
American Indian Crafts Association
Wyoming Travel and Tourism
RMI Rocky Mountain International, Real America
Black Hills, Badlands Association & the Rapid City Chamber
Premier hosts of Native American tours - travel American Indian lands & traditions - tribal culture and history
Included in National Geographic Traveler's TOP 50 Tours of a Lifetime
“Treat the earth well, it was not given to you by your parents; it was loaned to you by your children.”
"Uñci maía þañyañ íuwaöi, nihuñúaúe úiñ uñ¤i maía niäuöi ßni. Ni¤iñca úiñ uñ¤i maía
ecel uñniäuöi. "
ITINERARY
which includes dates, prices, itinerary and general trip information
ITINERARY
SPECIAL OFFER PRICE ($3497) $3299!
Day 1 Arrive West Yellowstone.
Day 2 The Backbone of the Park and the Time of Creation, A Cheyenne Explanation. The Place Where the Sacred Paint Was Collected.
Day 3 Where the Kiowa Passed the Test of Faith: How Yellowstone Became a Homeland to the Kiowa. The Buffalo and the Kiowa.
Day 4 Ancient Hunters in Unison, The Ways of Wolf and Man.
Day 5 The Trail of the Great Bear.
Day 6 On the Bannock-Shoshone Trail: Homes, Subsistence and Pathways.
Day 7 Following the Nez Perce in 1877.
Day 8 Perilous Journey Through Incredible Beauty: Chief Joseph Pass to Clark’s Fork Canyon. Tipi Rings, Reminders in Stone of a People’s Pilgrimage.
Day 9 Many Lifeways: The Plains Indian Museum at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center – An in-depth walkthrough, context, and summation
Day 10 Depart Billings, MT (BIL)
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Once I moved like the wind, intoned Geronimo
The Heartbeat of the Nations at a traditional Powwow
Yellowstone, Grand Teton & the best in eco-lodgings
Yellowstone Is Indian Country - BOOK NOW FOR LAST REMAINING PLACES
Lakota Moon - ENDED
Cheyenne Heartsong - 2 PLACES AVAILABLE
Ancient Ways Of The Hopi - BOOKINGS CLOSED
