Skins (film) - Cultural Background

Cultural Background

The Lakota originated from the Great Lakes region where they were called Dakota. After they were pushed west by the Ojibwe People (Chippewa), they became a fixture of the Plains. Following the enormous herds of buffalo for the subsistence, the Lakota were nomadic in nature. Today there are about 70,000 Lakota, 20,500 of which speak the Lakota language.

Mogie and Rudy are Oglala Lakota which most residents of the Pine Ridge Reservation identify with. Pine Ridge, the reservation where Skins takes place is the largest reservation in South Dakota but the poorest reservation in all of the United States, with unemployment at around 80% and 49% of its approximate 28,000 live below the poverty line. These statistics have increased from 2002 when the movie was filmed.

The harsh living condition and high rates of alcoholism and violence of this particular reservation is very apparent in the film. Mogie’s door is falling off of the hinges and every one of Rudy’s police calls involves either intoxication or violence or both. Unfortunately, the fictional film is a very realistic depiction of life on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

Pine Ridge was originally part of the Great Sioux Reservation established by the Fort Laramie Treaty in 1868, but after several wars, including the Black Hills War, the reservation was divided into seven reservations, one being Pine Ridge. The Black Hills were very sacred to the Lakota and the conflict between them and the United States originally started because the Lakota did not want mining to happen in the Black Hills, but the U.S. persisted when gold was found there. The Black Hills are mentioned in "Skins" when Rudy's friend is telling him how sacred rocks are ("like the Black Hills"). On December 29, 1890, while the U.S. 7th Cavalry was moving the Oglala to Pine Ridge, 300 Oglala were murdered and 25 members of the U.S. 7th Cavalry were killed during what has now been named the Wounded Knee Massacre.

Mogie and Rudy tell the story of Wounded Knee over dinner with Herbie and Aunt Helen. “At that time, all Indian religious ceremonies were banned because were afraid of them” Rudy tells Herbie. It is obvious through Mogie’s anger during the story that the injustice of the Wounded Knee Massacre still haunts him. Through the rest of the film, Mogie’s satirical humor makes it clear that the white man’s power still looms over Pine Ridge through the faces of Mount Rushmore that ironically watch over the reservation, and that he hasn’t forgotten the past.

In more recent history, 1973 was the year that the American Indian Movement (AIM) led the Wounded Knee Incident, resulting in a 71 day stand-off. On February 27, 1973 AIM members and a handful of Pine Ridge residents seized the town of Wounded Knee to bring to light numerous murders, crimes and charges of corruption committed by the Pine Ridge Tribal Council and the Chairman, Richard A. "Dick" Wilson. As a result FBI agents, the U.S. Marshall's Service, and the National Guard on the other side blockaded all entrances and exits leading from Wounded Knee.

After Wounded Knee 1973, the persecution, illegal arrests, prosecutorial misconduct and numerous unsolved murders continued against various members of AIM and several residents of Pine Ridge. No action was taken by the federal government, not even the cursory investigation, against Dick Wilson. Wounded Knee 1973 was the culmination of the violence that swarmed the rest of the decade at Pine Ridge, naming it the “murder capitol of the United States” with up to 170 murders to every 100,000 people in 1976. While no reservation in Canada or the United States is without cases of extreme violence, poverty, substance abuse, and hopelessness, Pine Ridge stands alone in the misery index.