The Mahkato Mdewakanton Association’s annual Wacipi at Land of Memories Park is traditionally a time of reconciliation, meant to remember the Dakota warriors executed in 1862.
But this year’s Wacipi had added significance, as organizers and attendees honored former Chair Dave Brave Heart, who died last year, and four-year-old Nytalia Ashes, who died in 2021.
In Dakota tradition, families remember their loved ones for four years; families are given a full year to mourn before the first memorial, which is why this is the first year the Wacipi is remembering Brave Heart.
Nytalia died three years ago from a limb that had fallen from a tree during a storm. Next year will be her family’s last year of mourning.
Nyssa Ashes, her mother, said it means a lot that people still talk about her daughter.
“Truly, honestly, we just want to keep giving back to the community somehow,” she said.
The Wacipi honored Nytalia Saturday with a giveaway and dinner.
The family gave gifts to the incoming and outgoing Miss Mahkato and Junior Miss Mahkato, as well as the contestants.
“Nytalia technically was supposed to be a jingle dress dancer, and it was going to be her first year that year, so we kind of just honor the jingle dress dancers, because truly I feel like she’d be out there with them even now,” Nyssa Ashes said.
Brave Heart will be honored at 11 a.m. Sunday at Land of Memories Park, Chair Daniel Zielske said.
“We’ll talk about him. Dave’s history here and his life and all the good things that he’s brought to this community and to the other ones that he lived in before he came to Mankato,” said Zielske.
The Wacipi also continued Saturday with traditions such as the Grand Entry.
Brian Heart, who is Dakota, gave an invocation before the ceremony.
“For me and my teachings, what I was taught is the Grand Entry actually started back during a period of time in the turn of the century or when, back in the early, early days of our ancestors,” he said.
“That’s kind of how the Grand Entry got formed in the powwow circle. It’s kind of a time to bring in all the dancers individually, show them their own style, their own uniqueness, their own person as a whole, as one.”
Heart said there’s significance when Grand Entry participants form the circle.
“That is connecting our sacred hoop within this grounds, within this celebration that’s happening here,” he said.
Heart, who is from the Yankton Sioux reservation in South Dakota but has been living in Minneapolis for the past two decades, said dancers often travel to the Wacipi in remembrance of the Dakota.
“For me, I am a person that travels the powwow circuit throughout the year,” he said.
“This is more of a memorial, remembrance powwow of that time and era, so it’s made up of a lot of ancestral relatives. It’s made up of a lot of tribal dignitaries from other tribal reservations, it’s made up of people who travel from all across the country to be here, to remember our ancestors and what had happened at that time.”
In remembering Nytalia and Brave Heart, Heart said he knew Brave Heart in the past.
“He was a big influential person in this Mankato area, and so again, he was part of the leadership and all of what this brings to us today,” he said.
“For Nytalia, she is actually a granddaughter of mine through family kinship. The Ashes family (are) my relatives from the Yankton reservation where I’m originally from.”