Sioux Actors Dramatize Dangers of Alcohol

"Wakanyeja," a Lakota Sioux expression signifying "children are sacred," was both the title and the message of a youth performance on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) at Longfellow Hall yesterday evening.

The event, co-sponsored by the Harvard Education Forum and the Harvard University Native American Program (HUNAP), brought to the University a troupe of 10 young, Ogallala Sioux actors, aged 13 to 15, who came to preach the dangers of alcohol consumption during pregnancy.

It was their first performance outside of their home state of South Dakota.

Interspersing short, original pieces with information on FAS, the performers assembled a show that demonstrated both the brutal effects of alcohol on an unborn fetus as well as FAS's relevance to their own communities.

"Our students are not actors, not polished playwrights," program co-director Wendy Mendoza said. "They've built these stories for you."

The students, Mendoza reported, had been culled by herself and her associate Junior Bedayan from the schools of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The program, itself, was the brainchild of Bedayan and Harvard Medical School Professor of Neurology David D. Potter who is also involved in FAS education in the Boston area.

"We wanted to let the students educate each other," Bedayan said. "What about a play, we thought." The final product, totaling 12 skits, provided insight into the social consequences of FAS.

One skit, in particular, recounted the persecution of a mentally-retarded, FAS-afflicted child by other youths. The performer, Eddie Red Feather, recalled that his peers once convinced the boy to place a fire-cracker in his mouth and smoke it as if it were a cigarette.

Red Feather and his fellow performers later said that this and other pieces were drawn at least partially from life experience.

"We always have to think about how FAS comes to affect our culture particularly and this [alcoholism] is just one of the ways," ninth-grader Norma Tibbets said.

Following the performance, Leroy Little Bear of HUNAP thanked the actors for speaking about "an enemy that has been the cause of so many social problems for our people."

While the Wakanyeja group plans to continue performing across the country, Bedayan also said that part of the "initial intent was to have others pick up the book."