The Spirit of the Eagle carries Jon Jordan of Joliet and Ed Murray of Chicago between two worlds–from the landscape of suburbia to the hunting and camping grounds of the Lakota Sioux.
Carrying a Native American lodge, clothing, tools and other gear in a van, Jordan and Murray re-create the lives of the Lakota tribe through their joint venture, Spirit of the Eagle.
Historical re-enactment is a confusing business, said Murray, who with Jordan also portrays a Civil War soldier and a mountain man. “You’d have to look at your clothes to know who you were that day.”
But a love of Native American culture inspired both the name and the main portion of their enterprise. Jordan and Murray assume the identity of two fictional Lakota tribesmen, Running Deer and Yellowjacket, to demonstrate the daily life, stories and dances of the tribes of the Great Plains, concentrating mainly on the Lakota.
The two trace their fascination with the original Americans to the Boy Scouts. Although family lore of both men alludes to a Native American ancestor, there’s no hard evidence of such a link, so the affinity likely isn’t genetic.
“It’s more of a heart thing,” said Jordan, 25, a bank teller. “I feel there’s a love of the culture.”
“I believe it doesn’t always depend on blood,” said Murray, a 24-year-old college student. He attaches more significance to understanding and appreciating the culture.
Jordan, a graduate of Marist High School on Chicago’s Southwest Side, and Murray, who attended the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences in the Mt. Greenwood neighborhood, met and became friends one summer when they worked at Owasippe Scout Camp in Whitehall, Mich.
“My spark was lit when I learned the burning hoop dance (a Native American ceremonial dance),” said Jordan, who has been involved in scouting for much of his life. Murray also credits scouting projects on Native Americans with kindling his curiosity.
Murray is majoring in history at Northern Illinois University and working toward a teaching certificate in secondary education. Jordan, a graduate of Western Illinois University in Macomb, started out as an art major, then earned a degree in elementary education.
The way the venture combines the two men’s interests and talents, “it seems like it was all meant to be,” Jordan said.
The idea for Spirit of the Eagle was born a couple of years ago at Taft Elementary School in Joliet, where Jordan taught 5th grade. He took his class to an ecology presentation and was inspired to craft a dramatic presentation of his own based on his interests.
It was “a chance to teach and be creative,” Jordan said. “So I called Ed and said, `Hey, let’s do this together.’ “
They had chosen an area of study, the history of Native Americans, often glossed over in the average curriculum, he said. “It’s an understated part of American history . . . books talk briefly about the Plains (Indian) culture, if at all.”
And it’s a civilization worth teaching and learning about, Jordan said. “I’d say they were a very civilized people. You could see they were a people who loved their children. . . . Their elders were very important to them. They still are today.”
In their presentations, Jordan and Murray explain the social organization of the Plains tribes, in which women owned the tepee, men owned the hunting equipment and guests of honor were seated to the left of the elder, to be nearer the heart.
Honoring Native American culture earns respect for Jordan and Murray, according to James Terry Flying Hawk Reynolds, a mixed-blood Lakota from Shabbona, Ill.
Reynolds’ wife, Rita Dancing Spirit Woman Reynolds, works with Native Americans Together to Insure Our National Sovereignty (NATIONS), an NIU student organization that works to spread knowledge of Native American culture. Rita Reynolds, a business manager at NIU, helps organize an annual powwow at the university, and her husband saw signs of authenticity when he entered Jordan and Murray’s lodge at the event.
“When I walked into the tent, they stopped talking and asked if they could help me,” James Reynolds recalled. “These young men impressed me that they really cared.”
Jordan and Murray take to heart the counsel of Native Americans as they strive to create an authentic picture. They revised their presentation after the NIU powwow when a member of the Kiowa tribe pointed out some inaccuracies, Jordan said. Their lodge, the visitor informed them, lacked sweetgrass and a fire pit.
“If something’s off, a Native American will tell us,” Murray said.
The willingness of Murray and Jordan to learn from the Native American people and their customs indicates sincerity, Reynolds said.
“They’re on a road which is very strict,” he said.
Although some believe only a Native American can express that culture, Reynolds said he sees a place for a “rainbow tribe” of traditionalists. The “Red Road” that embraces the Native American ethic of respect for others and care for the Earth and its living things should be accessible to sincere seekers, he said.
“Black Elk (a Native American holy man) said, `If you don’t share what you have, you’re going to lose it.’ “
Jordan and Murray also picked up pointers last year at an Intertribal Winter Gathering, a get-together for Native Americans and those interested in their culture, at the American Lifeways Institute in Michael, Ill., northwest of St. Louis. The institute, an enterprise similar to Spirit of the Eagle, is run by John White, a Tamaroan Illinek.
“We learn from anyone who is willing to help us,” Jordan said. “I learned some from Scouts, then I turned to books and people, wherever I could (learn).”
Immersed in a culture attuned to messages in the natural world, Jordan took the name of his Native American persona, Running Deer, while preparing for the presentations. Besides scraping and curing buffalo hides to make authentic clothing, Jordan also fashioned a drum from a log he found in the woods.
“When I found it, I thanked the Great Spirit. Then I saw six does in a field. The deer gave me that drum. That was a sign,” he said. “Things like that give me the fortitude to continue. The deer has always guided me.” (Murray’s Native American name, Yellowjacket, has no special symbolism.)
Another time Jordan saw two eagles streak across the sky before a presentation. “I said, `I guess I know I’m going to do (well) tonight.’ ” And so he did.
Native American history may be their favorite aspect of the country’s past, but Jordan and Murray also portray Civil War soldiers fighting with the 1st Georgia Regulars as well as mountain men out in the American wilderness.
The Civil War program is based on first-person accounts of military life, Jordan said.
“My character, William Hill Andrews, actually lived,” he said. “It’s not just history as we see it. It’s history as it actually was.”
The Civil War program is set in January of 1863. “The South still had a lot steam behind it, but the turn (toward defeat) was near,” Murray said.
The raucous lifestyles of the mountain men are scrubbed up a little for student consumption. “It’s as close to a rendezvous as you can get without the women and wine,” Jordan said.
“We adapt our program to what the group needs,” Jordan said.
Costs for a presentation by Spirit of the Eagle varies. A short presentation might cost $100, and a full day could cost up to $600, depending on the type of group, the amount of time and other factors.
Spirit of the Eagle set up a Lakota camp site for a day last fall at Chelsea School in Frankfort.
“I spent a lot of time out there because I wanted to see how the kids would respond,” said Principal Dennis Nielsen. The response was vivid, he recalled.
“Reality kind of becomes transcended, and the kids were talking about the Indians who came to school,” he said.
One indication that students are responding comes from the eager questions Jordan and Murray are asked.
“The student response is phenomenal,” Murray said. “They ask very good questions.”
Jordan and Murray introduce the students to the Lakota language, including words such as pilimia for thank you and kola for brother.
Hands-on learning engages students strongly and should be part of an educator’s “toolbox,” the principal said. Such an approach is especially helpful in teaching history, he said. “People learn more if they see and do. Our society is getting to be a very visual one.”
Songs and stories grab the attention of kids, according to Cubmaster Dan Ferek of Pack 4470 at St. Bede the Venerable Church in Chicago.
Ferek brought in Spirit of the Eagle to entertain at the pack’s recent Blue and Gold Dinner.
“(The scouts) were mesmerized by the dancing and storytelling because they were quiet the whole time, and that’s highly unusual for Cub Scouts,” Ferek said.
Jordan and Murray endorse the visual, hands-on learning their presentations exemplify.
“Not all students learn from a book,” Murray said. “I feel it’s a very good way to learn. We let them experience. We let them see what it was like (to be a Lakota, mountain man or a Civil War soldier).”
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For more information, call Jon Jordan at 815-354-7063.
