Leo Lockwood

Leo John Lockwood lives on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in western North Dakota. His tribal affiliation is Arikara. His mother is Cecelia Dragswolf and his father is Melvin Starr. His maternal grandmother Mary Howling Wolf was a midwife and delivered many of the children in the tribe. She also took in many children and cared for them as her own. Leo's maternal grandfather, Edward Lockwood, was known for his skills as a cowboy and powwow singing. His paternal grandparents, Jenny Spotted Horse and John Starr were caretakers of tribal medicine bundles. Migrating north along the Missouri River, the Arikara lived in the bottomlands before the building of the dams. They lived in earth lodges numbering into the thousands before the smallpox epidemic, which wiped out the major part of the Arikara. Today the Arikara live along the lake that was created by the dam and along the Missouri River in six communities within the Fort Berthold Reservation.

Leo is considered a historian and storyteller, but prefers to be known for his interest in music. He has written songs, sings, plays drums, guitar, bass guitar, and has sang with a drum group for a short time, learning powwow and traditional songs. He feels his people have always had music in their culture. They had songs for many occasions and purposes and through songs and music expressed themselves. Songs and music are still used in ceremonies and prayers that are conducted today and not something that is just talked about from the past. The Arikara are still very spiritual and involved in keeping their culture alive.

He had the privilege to listen to his grandmother tell stories when he was very young. He remembers them and has passed them on to his children. A lot of the stories are teaching stories and legend stories using animals and also about the Creation story. Leo feels it is important for the children to know and hear these stories told by an elder family member. Hearing these stories being told to him by his grandmother has fostered a very close bond between him and his grandmother. Leo lived in Pipestone, Minnesota for some years and had the opportunity to learn from some very knowledgeable people. He was taught how to quarry the sacred red stone, fashion the pipes and stems, and care for them. He was also told stories of how the pipe was acquired and how it was used.

Leo's storytelling includes the tribe's Creation story. It tells of how they came from under the ground and the place was somewhere in South America. They have medicine bundles that go along with the Creation story. Whenever the tribe relocated they placed an object in the bundle to represent that area. It's been told there are things in the bundle that can only be found in South America. When the tribe gets ready to move they hold a ceremony and the Creation story is told and every object is used to tell part of the origin story. Leo also shares the story of Chief Gray Eyes. White Shield, Son of the Star, and Grey Eyes were all Chiefs of the Arikara people. Grey Eyes was Chief when Lewis and Clark came across the Arikara in South Dakota.

Leo is very proud to say that his people were a part of a large trading hub that took place long before the coming of the white people. They were well known for gardening vegetables and other tribes came from long distances to trade with them. His people were considered a very friendly people by other tribes. It is thought that the Arikara and the Sioux were always bitter enemies. When the Sioux were being pushed westward into Arikara homelands, the tribe offered the Sioux an invitation to the ceremony called making of family, where the Sioux would become part of the tribe and gain all the benefits of being part of the tribe.

Leo Lockwood
Box 763
New Town, ND
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cell