The drum has kept Native Americans alive, giving life to the people, a dancer and singer from Pine Ridge told students in kindergarten through fourth grade in Flandreau last week.

“This drum is very sacred to us,” said Kelly Looking Horse, who along with his wife, Suzie, brought a cultural awareness program to school through the Pipestone National Monument American Indian Education series.

Rather than just show the children, he let them touch and beat on the drum made of buffalo hide. He also spoke with them in Lakota, taught them to sing in traditional chant style and had them practice war whoops. Five students earned dream catcher necklaces for listening well and being able to answer questions.

Looking Horse, an Oglala and CEO of Lakota Red Nations which shares culture and history, attended Flandreau Indian School in the early 1970s and told the students about going to movies in town and eating ice cream. “I remember Flandreau very well,” he said.

Looking Horse, 62, also told the children, who eagerly volunteered for chances to drum and dance, about how he earned the eagle feathers on his porcupine roach headdress, the first feather through a vision quest when he was 14. His second one was earned by saying no to alcohol and drugs at some point in his life, and a third is for his brother who was killed. He talked about the meaning of his regalia representing people who danced thousands of years ago and of his bustle, which is 150 years old and has been passed down from others who danced.

As part of the program, children and staff joined in a round dance and in a snake dance to the beat of the students drumming.

“That’s like a heart beat in our body. It’s a heart,” he said about the drum. “All of the bad things that happen to us, if it wasn’t for the drum, we wouldn’t be here today.”