http://www.journalstar.com/articles/2008/05/08/news/local/doc482234a5210615
07756405.prt

Standing Bear continues to inspire others

BY KEVIN ABOUREZK / Lincoln Journal Star
Thursday, May 08, 2008 - 12:16:35 am CDT

A play is in the works. A book will be published next spring. And a
documentary is being filmed.

Nearly 100 years after Ponca Chief Standing Bear’s death, his story
continues to inspire others.

“This past year or two it’s just been like an explosion of things related
to Standing Bear,” said Christine Lesiak, an executive producer for NET
Television who is working on a documentary about the chief’s life.

Lately, it seems everyone has Standing Bear on the brain:

* In March 2007, “Wakonda’s Dream” — an opera about a modern Ponca family
and its relationship to Standing Bear — debuted at the Orpheum in Omaha.

* On Friday, the Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs will host the fourth
annual Chief Standing Bear Commemoration Celebration at the Capitol.

* That night, New York City playwright Chris Cartmill will perform his
monologue about Standing Bear, “The Nebraska Dispatches,” at the Johnny
Carson Theater. The University of Nebraska Press plans to publish a book
based on Cartmill’s monologue.

* The University of Nebraska Press plans to publish a children’s book about
Standing Bear.

* Next spring, St. Martin’s Press of New York will publish “I Am a Man,” a
book about Standing Bear written by Joe Starita, a University of
Nebraska-Lincoln professor of journalism.

* And Tribeca Films plans to produce a film about Standing Bear’s life.

Judi Morgan gaiashkibos of the Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs said
Standing Bear’s story empowers Native people.

“The Standing Bear story gives us an opportunity to remind people of our
history,” she said.

That lesson appears to be catching on. In the past month, state and federal
lawmakers also have recognized the chief.

In April, the Nebraska Legislature passed a resolution calling on the
secretary of treasury to select Standing Bear as one of the designs for the
reverse of the Sacagawea $1 coin.

And last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution
introduced by U.S. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry that honors the life and legacy of
Standing Bear.

“He has become my Moby Dick,” said Starita, who has spent the past four
years researching Standing Bear’s life.

The appeal of Standing Bear’s story, he said, comes from its universal
themes — family, freedom and a desire to return home.

In January 1879, Standing Bear and 30 followers left Oklahoma, where the
Ponca had been forcibly moved two years earlier.

They planned to return to Nebraska to bury the chief’s son.

Two months later, Standing Bear was arrested and put on trial.

That May, after a two-day trial, a federal judge recognized Standing Bear
as a human under the law and freed him, a landmark decision that secured
constitutional rights for all Native people.

Standing Bear returned to his home near the mouth of the Niobrara, where he
died in 1908.

“I think that’s a fantastic story, and I’m often surprised at how few
people have heard of it,” said Lesiak, who expects to complete her
documentary next year.

With it, she hopes to tell Standing Bear’s story in all its richness,
rather than the simplistic, iconic version of his life many people know,
she said.

Beyond a story about a humble father who wanted to return home with his
son’s remains, Standing Bear’s story is about the eclectic collection of
people who championed his cause, Lesiak said. They included a newspaper
reporter, a frontier judge, a general and a renowned Native poet.

For Cartmill, it’s easy to see why so many people continue to tell Standing
Bear’s story today.

He compared the chief’s story to a diamond.

“Every way you look at it there’s something different,” he said. “It’s
universal in its implications.”

Reach Kevin Abourezk at 473-7225 or kabourezk@....