ABOUT THE ARTIST

Although I am of mixed blood, it is the Lakota part of my ancestry that I have identified with the most throughout my life.  The Shota part of Shotawoodcarving is a direct tribute to Grandpa Chief Smoke of the Oglalas. In our family genealogical records my Great-great Grandma Walks With White was said to be one of the Chief's daughters. Recently there has been some question about whether this is correct information or not. In Lakota tradition it is common to refer to people who are not your blood family with terms of relation as if they were. She could have been called Grandpa Smoke's daughter in a symbolic way.  Also, in the Lakota way, titles like "Great-Great Grandpa" or  "Great Auntie" are not used. It is just Grandpa or Grandma or Uncle or cousin. No separation because of generations. I am using them to help illustrate the story.

     Regardless, Walks With White and her sister Walks With Cow were raised up there in Chief Smoke's group at Fort Laramie. You can find information written in history books about Chief Smoke. Especially notable is the account by Francis Parkman Jr. in his classic "The Oregon Trail". I still honor him and all the "hangs around the fort" people who hung with him. I mention this because there were always those that thought negatively about the one's who stayed close to Fort Laramie. Given the hindsight that we have now I try not to be too critical of how things came down in those days. 

     Anyway, Great-Great Grandma Walks With White met a french trapper named Alex LaBeouf and she soon gave birth to my Great Grandma Zoe LaBeouf. When just a small child, Zoe was kidnapped by her father Alex and taken away with him to the gold fields of Colorado and then across the Oregon Trail to their permanent home in eastern Oregon. Walks With White never saw her daughter again. She died soon after losing her but before she passed she gave birth to my Great Uncle Alex LaBeouf Jr. It is said that Alex was raised at Pine Ridge by my Great Auntie Walks With Cow.

     When just a young woman, Great Grandma Zoe fell in love with Steven Amiotte, a ranch hand on her father's horse ranch. It was around this time that Zoe found out  she had a brother she never knew about  back at Pine Ridge. She and Steve decided to pack up and cross the Oregon Trail once again to return to  Pine Ridge, South Dakota. This was quite a task in those days. At one point wagons had to be hoisted up or lowered down cliffs with ropes depending on which direction you were going. 

     As soon as they arrived in Pine Ridge she was reunited with her brother and Aunt.  This was at the time of the Wounded Knee Massacre. Zoe was at the school house when it occurred. Uncle Alex helped retrieve the dead.  Zoe and Steve Amiotte settled out in the Sand Hills and lived the rest of their lives back in South Dakota.  During those troubled times it is said that Steve and Zoe's ranch was refuge for those trying to lay low. 

     Zoe and Steve had 12 children the last of which was my Grandma Lena Amiotte. Her mother Zoe died when she was very Young, I think around 5 years old and although her Father Steve was still alive, she was shipped off to the residential school along with her sister Delma. As teenagers, Grandma Lena and Aunt Delma left the rez. Soon she met my Grandpa Paul Craig, a young soldier just home from WW1. They headed west to Seattle then south to Sacramento where they settled. As far as I know Grandma never went back to the Rez. 

     Lena and Paul had one child, a boy named Paul Jr. who became my Father. My Dad never knew these stories growing up because he was instructed by his father Paul to never bring up Indian stuff with his mother. I was given the same instructions by my Dad when I was young but I secretly asked her stuff anyway. She always answered my questions and talked freely about those days so I am not sure who was trying to protect who over all the secrecy. So it wasn't until my Father's twilight years when he was undergoing treatment for cancer that as a gift to him and myself, I went back to  Pine Ridge and started to put together the pieces that is this story. Happily my father got to know these stories and many more about our family before he passed. I have since been in correspondence with many wonderful family members I never knew we had. A very gratifying experience and I am so glad to have made the effort to reconnect.

I love music! From the time I first picked up my Mother's old Harmony arch top six string guitar at the ripe old age of 10 years and began plucking away until the present moment, I have been a constant companion to my instruments. Creating music is in my opinion, indescribable. It's clean. It's fresh. It's magic! 

    Over the years I have had the great honor to play with many wonderful and talented musicians some of which I have collaborated with to make some recordings of our music. I am working on getting the recordings on here for folks to listen to. Meanwhile, you can get a little sample of my music by clicking below.