Songs for Her Father
Tiana Spotted Thunder is an Oglala Lakota recording artist from Oglala, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. She is a vocalist of many genres but specializes in traditional round dance, powwow, and hand game songs. She travels throughout North America to powwows as a backup singer for drum groups and performs solo for powwow audiences. Her vocal abilities range from a soft serenade to an empowering hail, soaring above in a unique way that reveals the pride of her identity as a Lakota woman.
Tiana stood beside the magnificent rock formation, Stone Mother, on Pyramid Lake — a sacred place to the Paiute people. The calm waters reflected the pink and teal of the sky at sunset. Tiana began to sing a prayer song for her father. Her cousin, Wakan Waci Blindman (Paiute), recorded the moment.
Tiana's até (father), Charles Warren, is her inspiration to sing. He was a singer at powwows and for sun dances in his time, and when she was young, he recorded songs for her to learn.
"He gave me my Lakota name from a vision he had which predicted that I would sing (Tasiyagmuka Ho Waste Win, 'Good Voice Meadowlark Woman')."
"He's always been my number one fan," Tiana says. "He gave me my Lakota name from a vision he had which predicted that I would sing (Tasiyagmuka Ho Waste Win, 'Good Voice Meadowlark Woman')."
That moment at Pyramid Lake, on the day before Tiana's birthday, came a month after her father's passing.
When her dad had gone into home hospice care with cancer, Tiana drove from Montana to Nebraska to stay with him. On the way, she composed a song that told of his life. She sang it over and over on the way down.
"I asked if he liked the song, and if it could be his song," she says. "And he agreed."
That time, and song, is making its way onto Tiana's next album, supported by her 2020 First Peoples Fund Artist in Business Leadership fellowship. Tiana had planned to finish the album earlier this year, but with most of her singing career on pause and her father's illness, the project was delayed.
But she knew it was still on the right timing when, a few days after her dad's passing, she took a break from a sweat lodge to make a call, and a bird landed behind her. It looked at her and allowed her to pet then pick it up. She realized it was a female meadowlark, inspiring an idea for the cover art on her album.
"It helped me release built-up grief I was carrying," Tiana says. "That was a blessing in itself because if I had rushed this album and gotten it out at the beginning of the year, I wouldn't have had all this to make my album so much more meaningful."
Her purpose with this album is to promote cultural pride and the Lakota language. Through the project, the strength of Tiana's spirit and voice will echo over Pyramid Lake long after her singing the prayer song for her father.
