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Rose Tompkins hangs prayer ribbons in a tree

Rose Tompkins, who is Nakota—with Dakota and Lakota parents—participated in the Westminster UCC-Spokane weekend retreat Sept. 11 to 13 at N-Sid-Sen.

Rose Tompkins holds ladder while ribbons are installed in tree near Spirit Lodge.

She offered a craft of making dreamcatchers with red willow twigs campers bent into circles. She provided sinew and beads participants could use.

The Thursday before the weekend, her daughter, Dyan Rose Youpee, an anthropologist and archaeologist, as director of tribal historical preservation, brought back bodies of three children who had been taken to boarding schools. She had a ceremony at the Fort Peck Reservation welcoming home the bodies of these youth, who were among the remains of children buried at the Carlisle Boarding School in Pennsylvania.

Through DNA, one was identified as the daughter of one tribal family and two others were identified as being connected with the tribe.

Because Rose was at N-Sid-Sen, she prepared four prayer ribbons in their honor in yellow, red, black and white, the colors of the tribe.

Rose told participants at the retreat about the repatriation of the bodies and that she was hanging the ribbons in a tree outside Spirit Lodge, so the spirits of those children could run freely in the meadow.

“We are victims,” she commented. “Our culture, practices and religions were stripped from us. Our children were separated from their families, but that history did not disappear,” Rose said. “This is a way to respect our traditions, people, sovereignty and the need for dignity.”

Rose, who has a bachelor’s in sociology from WSU, was among the protestors at Standing Rock in 2016, fighting to protect her land from the pipeline.

 

Pacific Northwest United Church of Christ Conference News © October 2026

 

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