Right now on our dining room table, we have a beautiful quilted table runner created by a 99-year-old Lakota woman from the Cheyenne River reservation of South Dakota. It was one of a table full of other possessions for a “giveaway” at her birthday party, which I attended, having been invited. 

A “Giveaway” is an ancient Lakota tradition, the idea being to make sure that the band doesn’t develop pockets of super rich, but also to demonstrate the kind of kindred spirit that, literally, separated the men from the boys in tribal life. Leaders—real headmen—didn’t build things to advertise their greatness; literally they gave away even their best things. Sounds a little New Testament-ish. 

Giveaways happened for a variety of reasons; in the case of my table runner, it was a birthday: my 99-year-old friend had spent all kinds of time getting ready for her special giveaway, the idea being for her not to “get” birthday presents but to give them. Imagine that.

If you’re thinking that “giveaways” are socialism or something, you’re right—and that’s why some white folks made sure giveaways were suppressed—along with the Sun Dance, rituals from remnant paganism that had to be squelched now that Native people were all going to be Christian farmers and landowners. Time to shelf the old ways. 

Well, the old ways didn’t shelf so easily, and there I was at an actual giveaway, an event which resembled, in some ways, a raffle. Everyone was given a number, and the age-old ritual began when those numbers, one by one, were called. 

I wasn’t the only white guy at the birthday party, but white folks were most definitely in the minority. Once the numbers started rolling out, I wanted to shrink away–this big old white guy didn’t want to walk up front to pick up whatever the booty.

A gorgeous table runner was one of the most valued treasures–the grand prize was an entire star quilt. But when the smaller hexagonal table runner came up and my number was called, I would have much preferred crawling into a hole. I’d won. The locals at the table where I was sitting, motioned for me to get up and walk to the front to receive it. 

Sioux Star Quilts have their own place in traditional life, which makes them of significant value. This table runner, all by its lonesome, carries great meaning and value. When I realized it was going to be carried home a couple hundred miles away by this white guy, my receiving it made no sense, not when my friend, at 99, had dozens of grandkids.

I was embarrassed–I was, honestly. I walked up front as directed and was presented with the small Star Quilt by the birthday lady herself, who wore a radiant smile. I told myself I should tell her I was happy to be the recipient, but dozens of her grandchildren and countless great-grandchildren would undoubtedly value their precious grandma’s work. She was a legend on the Cheyenne River reservation. 

So I smiled, then took the table runner and started back to where I’d been sitting, then spotted one of her daughters at the end of the aisle. Behind me, the Giveaway was continuing. I stopped, held the quilt out, and told her that I thought one of her kids or their kids would make a much better recipient. I was serious. Not only that, I thought I was being gracious; after all, I would have loved to take that Sioux Star home.

She made no motion toward taking it, just bore down on me with her dark eyes.I couldn’t help but understand that what I was suggesting was somehow blasphemous, that giving the quilt back would be a violation of a real-life spiritually-laden ritual my friend quite ritually adopted for this, her 99th birthday. For her, the real joy, in the oldest sense, was in her giving, not my getting.

Let me use another word. She looked at me as if giving it back was irreverent. Because the ritual had determined me to be the one who would take the table-runner home, giving it back would profane the ritual, like walking to the front of the church, picking up the bread and wine, and then dropping both on the floor.

Many years ago, I was selected by a Christian Reformed Synod to be a member of what seemed the first synodical committee to study what was then a thorny issue—children at the Lord’s Supper. At our first meeting, one of the members, a long-time CRC pastor, reminded the rest of us to understand that because Reformed people had so very few clearly “sacred rituals,” our assigned task might be more difficult than we imagined. Fooling around with the Lord’s Supper, what may be the central ritual of devotional life in the Reformed tradition, could be difficult. 

Today the Sioux Star table runner is here. It’s ours, and it’s beautiful and rich with story.

Someday I’ll have to give it away. When I do, trust me on this: the act won’t have anywhere near the strength and beauty of my receiving it way out there on the Cheyenne River reservation.