Albert White Hat, Sr., known also as Natan Tokahe, "The First One to Charge,” is a Sicangu Lakota educator, author, linguist, tribal and spiritual leader, and respected elder. He is an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota. Albert was born on the outskirts of Saint Francis on the Rosebud Reservation, and lives there today. His father died when the boy was four, and his mother when he was seventeen. His family was one that followed the traditional Lakota ways and Albert White Hat only spoke Lakota until age seven, when he started his formal schooling. He attended day school in the community of Spring Creek and then attended and graduated from St. Francis Jesuit Mission School. Regarding his education and the Lakota traditional ways, he has said, “I got my education from the Jesuits, then I went back to my traditional ways and beliefs.”

 

White Hat has been a Lakota language instructor for over twenty-five years. He taught at and later became the chair of the Lakota language program at his alma mater, Sinte Gleska University at Mission, SD, one of the very first tribal-based universities in the US. He has received several awards and acknowledgments for his life time of contribution including the 2007 Governor's Award in South Dakota, the Gamahiel Chair for Peace and Justice in 1987, the Outstanding Indian Educator Award in 1995, and the National Indian Education Association's Indian Elder of the Year in 2001. In addition, Albert has the designation of traditional Chief by the Sicangu (Rosebud) Lakota people and has served on a number of tribal councils over the years.

 

Amongst his published works is his text Reading and Writing the Lakota Language (Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 1999) which has enjoyed widespread use in secondary and post-secondary educational settings.

 

Francis Cut was born and raised in Wanblee, South Dakota, by his grandparents. He graduated high school, left the Pine Ridge Reservation, and returned around 1985. Francis Cut is involved in education and the preservation of the Lakota language. Cut has been a Lakota speaker for over fifty years.