Three Pines

The Three Pines Reservation is assigned to the local Indian tribe, the Shakahatche. It is located in the adjacent county 40 miles west of Spearfish Lake.^SQ13

Tribe

The Chief of the Tribal council is Douglas Spotted Deer^PE28 while another council member is Norm Eaglebeak, who was the project manager on the development of a ski lodge. The Three Pines band of the Shakahatche were allied with the Ojibwa and classified as such by the BIA in Washington.^SQ32

Centuries ago, the tribe and their allies had problems with the Lakota.^SQ30

Around 1980, the Shakahatche had been about the poorest tribe in the Midwest, and if it hadn't been for the casino and resort complex it still would be. The Shakahatche had the advantage of watching the mistakes that other tribes had made with gambling and had learned from them, so that was all to the good.^PE20

• Randy Clark and Clark Construction worked on building projects on the reservation at least as far back as 1998^DW58 around the same time that the Casino first opened.^SQ36

• Debbie Elkstalker is a member of the tribe and grew up on the reservation^AC14 as did Ruth and Ellen Standing Bear, Sarah Red Fox and Dorothy Horned Owl^SQ50

• Carole Carter had at least one appointment, working at Three Pines.^AC22

• Lame Badger bought cheap beer by the lorry load and sold it in bulk at inflated prices to white teens from the surrounding areas.^BITH12

Shakahatche Language

The language gained a writing system about 1980, based on Navajo. The language itself was related to Navajo, and native Shakahatche speakers were able to understand and be understood by the Navajo.^SQ32

The Shakahatche language included these words:

• katara: the word didn't translate directly to anything in English, but some of the things it meant were something like medicine woman, historian, counselor and mystic.^PE8
• tamboura: a spirit that entices impressionable young maidens to steal them away from their families.^SQ33 But it's also sometimes used to talk of humans: It has connotations of being young and stupid, of lust, and infatuation, and falling in love with someone who maybe you shouldn’t be falling in love with.^SQ41
• korican: It doesn’t quite mean ‘sexy white man who makes Indian maidens pant with lust and spread their legs' ... But pretty close.^SQ41
• hudaroi: sort of means temptress, but it also means things like easy lay and prostitute and sex teacher.^SQ41

Danny Evachevski made a serious effort to learn the language, becoming probably the only (mostly - 15/16) white man who spoke the language; only about 50 people spoke it, most of them quite old.^PE9