Steve Tamayo (Sicangu Lakota)

Steven Tamayo (Sicangu Lakota), recipient of the 2025 NEA Bess Lomax Hawes National Heritage Fellowship, has spent 14 years on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, reclaiming and preserving Lakota culture through his art. As a traditional artist and educator, Tamayo revives stories that were systematically erased by discriminatory laws, the boarding school system, and forced relocation.

After his service in the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division in the late 1980s, Tamayo worked with Umoⁿhoⁿ (Omaha) elder, World War II veteran, and artist Howard Wolf to study a variety of traditional materials and techniques important to the regalia of warrior societies. This included elements such as the pesha, a headdress made from deer tail and the soft guard hair of the porcupine.

His own work with buffalo robes is the culmination of decades of experience and knowledge gathering. Following traditional practice, Tamayo prepared the hides by softening the animal skin and stretching each hide on a frame before painting it with materials he produced by harvesting natural pigments and vegetation. Painted buffalo robes archive the history of Lakota people, tell stories of everyday life, and share culture and tradition with future generations. In 2022, Tamayo was awarded a four-year Creative Capital project grant to design, paint, and adorn 13 traditional buffalo robes for the school at Standing Rock Reservation. Tamayo’s work also includes buffalo robes gifted to Willie Nelson and Neil Young.

As part of the Nebraska Arts Council teaching roster, Tamayo visits schools and communities across the state, including remote communities, sharing his knowledge of art, regalia making, drumming, and powwow dancing. In his role as a cultural specialist in Omaha Public Schools' NICE (Native Indigenous Centered Education) program, he helps Indigenous students sustain their cultural identity. To further his education and advocacy efforts, Bluebird Cultural Initiative, a nonprofit organization founded by Tamayo, offers free classes and educational materials on the Rosebud Reservation and nationwide. Several groups established by the organization host regular meetings where participants can deepen their cultural knowledge through traditional activities including Lakota language classes that teach ways of speaking and singing that are vital to cultural preservation and unity.

In 2011, Tamayo earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Sínte Gleska University in Mission, South Dakota, where he later developed and taught the traditional arts program. In 2014, he was awarded the Nebraska Governor’s Heritage Art Award for excellence in cultural artistic expression and for his contributions to Native American culture.

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FEA World Cup Finals 2023 – Horse Markings Presentation

Podcasts

Steven Tamayo

Traditional Sicangu Lakota artist and educator Steven Tamayo talks with host John Floridis about a lifelong search for the knowledge behind Lakota art, regalia, and language.

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Transcript

John Floridis: Welcome.
This podcast is part of a series highlighting the 2025 National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellows, recipients of the nation's highest honor in folk and traditional arts.

I'm John Floridis.

For this podcast, we're going to visit with traditional Lakota artist and educator Steve Tamayo.

Steve Tamayo was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska. He is a traditional Sicangu Lakota artist whose family originates from the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota.

Steve served in the United States Army's 101st Airborne Division in the late 1980s. Upon returning, he moved to Council Bluffs, Iowa, and began to study a variety of traditional materials and techniques important to the regalia of warrior societies, including elements such as the Pescha, a headdress made from Deer tail and the soft guard hail of the porcupine.

As an artist, Steve is best known for his work with buffalo robes, a process for him that is years in the making; Starting with his first experiences with animal hides, which came from working in a meat packing plant in Council Bluffs, then to his immersion in learning how to brain tan buffalo hides after moving to the Rosebud reservation in South Dakota, and finally to the point of stretching each buffalo hide on a frame before painting it with materials he produced by harvesting natural pigments and vegetation.

Two of these ropes have been presented to Willie Nelson and Neil Young.

Painted buffalo robes archive the history of Lakota people, tell stories of everyday life, and share culture and tradition with future generations.

As an educator, Steve has been a part of the Nebraska Arts Council teaching roster, the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, Sinte Gleska University, and his own Bluebird Cultural Initiative.

Undoubtedly, Steve's creative, educational, and spiritual journey is best summed up in his own words. “Art is my savior, he says. It is my reconnection to who I am.”

Here's my conversation with Steve Tamayo.

Stephen, let's just dive in. I am curious to know how you first came to know that the visual arts were going to be part of your dream, were going to be your main voice.

Steve Tamayo: You know, growing up, I've always created art somehow, some way, but it wasn't until I became an adult. I made my way out of the military and that when I got back home. That's when I really started to focus on finding elders, um, who understood this way of life by interviewing them and just talking to them.

They shared a lot of the information of technique of construction, but also the most important thing is what is the history and origin. Anytime I put anything together, what is that chronological order? And what specific is the symbology, the numerology, the color concepts that's incorporated into all of it. And so that's where I am today.

And so, you know, it was never my intention to become this cultural bearer because in the beginning, all I tried to do was obtain as much information as possible, just to help my kids, because my kids are the ones that kind of pushed me into this, this way of being, this way of life, because, um, they kept asking me all kinds of stuff, and I didn't know. I didn't know the answers. The reason being is because of the atrocities committed against our people by the United States government.

And so, you know, my having my mom as a victim of the boarding school system and what impacted that actually have on the people because that whole culture was, you know, forcibly removed.

You know, understanding that, it had a huge impact on many generations of relatives across the nation, understanding that, you know, I wanted my kids to understand what they were wearing and what they had, and um, that kind of led me down this path. You know, when I made my way out of the military, I wanted to learn as much as possible. I started to look at, look around my community, and who are the, the cultural bearers within my community, and that's where I started.

Later on when I said having children, you know, they started asking more and more about this and this and this, and now it's just like, oh, oh my gosh, I don't know. So I had to go find more people and more people and more people. And so, That was 40 plus years ago, because now most of my cultural teachers, bearers are have passed on.

But what I did was I started documenting as much as possible, I started researching. I started finding as much information as possible, um, through books, through videos, through uh, our orators, through our storytellers.

But then I also jumped into, because of the Smithsonian and having access to the collections, that led me to follow up on the anthropological research papers that were written about our relatives 150 years ago, and I was like, “Oh my gosh!”, you know?

One thing I really started to focus on was archival photos. And so specific to tribal nations way back in the day before this assimilation process was truly forced upon us, those are the photos that I need to study to examine to research because of adornment, but having access, you know, and working with the Smithsonian for the last 20 years now, that opened up the door to collections all over the country.

In the mainstream, you know, the terminology that is used is artifacts, that are in collections. But to us, the relatives, because of the understanding of certain words that don't exist in our vocabulary. And so all indigenous languages, um, animal doesn't exist in our vocabulary, which I found fascinating, you know?

John Floridis: I didn't know that.

Steve Tamayo: Because that's a hierarchy that was brought here from Europe. And so, you know, man has always thought they were above all, you know? And so what I'm doing is I'm going into collections. And I'm examining the technique of construction. What was the material items utilized way back in the day?

And so, but some of the items that I'm working with and researching and examining are hundreds and hundreds of years old, and so a lot of them have been fragmented. There's a lot of pieces that are slowly breaking off because once again, they're not living.

And so for us, when we are wearing all of our regalia, it's still living because it gets the moisture. It gets that sunlight in the wind. And so, but once they go into collections, they're not living anymore, and now they're at a climate control, and so the natural oils that used to be incorporated, have stopped, and now they're drying out and they're becoming very brittle and they're breaking, and so understanding that, the fragmented pieces, now I'm collecting those, not to take possession of, but to examine under microscopes and, you know, And see what is the paint pigments.

What are the elements inside of specific items that were created long ago? And so when I make regalia, you know, once again, what are the attributes and characteristics of specific birds? So when you look at bird nations, you know, what type of nation is it? Is it waterfowl? Is it land? Is it birds of prey? You know, that's how specific these are because what are the characteristics and attributes once again? Because we incorporate those into our adornment.

But that's the complexity. You know? When I started talking to the grandmas and grandpas, they're like, “Well, you know how the owl is…” You know what I mean? “You know how the eagle and the hawk…” and I'm like, “No, I was born and raised in a city. I have no idea what you're talking about.”

And so over the last 40 years, I've learned. And I'm still learning. And so I'm trying to learn as much as possible to bring back to the people so that we can continue with this way of life in a more traditional manner. And then once I understand it in, in, uh, layman's terms, um, English, and then I incorporate (Speaks in Lakota language) because we are students. We are all students.

John Floridis: There are so many things I want to, so many paths I want to go from what you've just said. You've covered so many things that I was going to ask anyway, which is beautiful. One of the things out of many things that I have so much respect for you for is your thirst for knowledge on all fronts. And what I'm hearing is to make sure that you covered all bases. You were going to the elders. You were getting those stories firsthand, the oral tradition. You were also immersing yourself in the academic world of mainstream America so that you could function in both worlds and make your life's journey and your art that much stronger. And my understanding is that one of the things, and you mentioned many things along the way, but am I correct that the paintings of Karl Bodmer were also a big influence?

Steve Tamayo: You know, I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. And so I would visit the Johnson Museum, but it was weird because way back in the day, they didn't have a curator for the collection for the Native American items in collection. And so they didn't really open the door to collections to the vault there. Until recently. And so about a year and a half ago, this young lady received her, her uh, master's degree here, PhD and became the curator for the Johnson uh, native collection. Her name is Annika Johnson.

And, you know, when she got here, you know, I'd been working with the Smithsonian for 18 years prior to her making her appearance in Omaha. So, When she figured that, found that out, she was like, “The collection is totally open to you to research.” I had been waiting 25 years to get into this vault.

Once that door opened, then I had full access to all of Karl Bodmer's paintings. Once I really started to research and document and go through, um, Karl Bodmer's paintings, I was like, “Oh my gosh.” And then I partnered up with Creighton University, and the Johnson Museum, and other community indigenous community educators, we created curriculum based on Karl Bodmer's paintings.

He was such a meticulous painter that I could actually look at his paintings and see what was 3 D. And here's an example because when you look at our moccasins, and you see our porcupine quills or our bead work, it kind of raises it a little bit, you know?

But Karl Bodmer was able to do that, but then I started to looking at the, uh, Coeur d’Alene, Gros Ventre, you know, all of their paintings because, What he was able to do was, um, over that way, what they do is they get bundles of horse hair. And they would do coal work, porcupine coal work, over the horse hair, which gave it a 3D look, and they would sew it on top of the mock sin foot. This you could tell by his paintings. I'm like, “Holy smokes, look at that!”

So I knew that that was something that there was something inside of it. I didn't know what it was. But then eventually when I got into collections at the Smithsonian, I got to see the raised 3D, um, horsehair bundles that were quill worked that were placed on the moccasins of the plateau basin region. I was like, “Look at this!” You know what I mean?

So Karl Bodmer's paintings? Yeah. His paintings are just, they're national treasures.

John Floridis: Stephen, I'm very passionate about language and preserving language and have a particular soft spot for indigenous languages. I know enough to know in the world there's so many, there's languages of all kinds that are disappearing, but particularly indigenous languages. So one of the things I appreciate about our conversation is you sharing in the midst of your, of our conversation, you're sharing in, uh, I'm assuming that's Lakota that you're speaking generally? And so I wanted to offer you another chance to maybe do a greeting, an introduction in in Lakota, whatever you would care to. It's something that strikes me and feels important to me, and I can only imagine what it means to you. So whatever you care to share would be would be very welcomed.

Steve Tamayo: Awesome… (Speaks in Lakota language) …Steve Tamayo … (Speaks in Lakota language) …uh, Pine Ridge, uh, My grandfather, his name is Zing Talato, Bluebird, because of his voice.

And so once again, you know, um, my organization here at Omaha, Nebraska is called Bluebird Cultural Initiative, because I named my my nonprofit organization after the grandfather that I never got to meet. And so when I introduced myself, I acknowledge all of our relatives as Ah Metaki, hello, all my relatives.

When I say, you know, (Speaks in Lakota language), this means that I'm a member of the Burnt Thigh people. I speak the Lakota language. My family comes from a small little village called Milks Camp.

And so for us, we introduce ourselves. We understand, you know, who we are tribally. And so that's how important our language is. So thanks for asking me to do that.

John Floridis: Yeah, absolutely.

Steve Tamayo: Thank you for your time.

John Floridis: Thank you so much, Stephen. Yes, it's been a wonderful conversation. The stories are just wonderful. And your sharing is very much appreciated. I'm honored by sharing your story with us and with me personally and also with this project.

Steve Tamayo: So. The last thing I have to share is, you know, we never say goodbye. We say (Speaks in Lakota language) Or, you know, and that means that our paths have crossed for a very specific reason. And so if I don't see you here, I'll see you elsewhere. Take care, brother.

John Floridis: Take care, brother.

Steve Tamayo: Okay, bye bye.

John Floridis: That was traditional Lakota artist and educator, and 2025 National Endowment for the Arts, Heritage Fellowship Recipient, Steve Tamayo. There's a tribute video featuring Steve on the National Endowment for the Arts YouTube channel. You can find a link in our show notes or visit arts.gov/heritage for more on all of the NEA National Heritage Fellows.

I'm John Floridis.

Thanks so much for listening.

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