Miss Indian World

Miss Indian World Credits Her Horses, Family Heritage and the Arts

She plays 12 instruments, sings ancient prayer songs and dances the steps of her grandmothers

Story by Bernie Hunhoff

Tashina Red Hawk lives at Old Ring Thunder, a tiny village in the Rosebud Indian Reservation that may lack some urban amenities but is rich in other ways.

Red Hawk, 18, was raised with the songs, dances and artistry of her father’s Sicangu Lakota heritage. In Albuquerque last April, the rural teen proudly displayed the culture of her ancestors, and the judges enthusiastically crowned her Miss Indian World 2022. She was the youngest competitor at the Gathering of Nations Pow Wow, and only the second South Dakotan to ever win the honor. Friends and family in the Rosebud Indian Reservation were not surprised that she wowed the New Mexico judges. They’ve seen the teen dynamo with the big smile win the hearts of all she meets. She won the honor of South Dakota Rodeo Queen twice in the past three years. She earned the national 4-H Youth in Action Award for Agriculture. She started a drive-up coffee shop in the city of Mission, introducing lattes and espressos to the town when she thought her neighbors needed a boost during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Red Hawk is also a barrel racer at rodeos. She trains horses. She plays 12 musical instruments. She plans to be a veterinarian, and this fall she started her college career.

There seems to be no challenge too big for the girl from Old Ring Thunder. In fact, she likes to quip, “Don’t tell me the sky is the limit when there are footprints on the moon.” But she credits her rural upbringing and the artistic and spiritual traditions of her Lakota family for her achievements.

The New Mexico pageant stage became a showcase of those traditions. Red Hawk performed a Lakota prayer song that has been passed down from her great-great-grand-mother Viola Good Voice. She wore a Lakota robe that she designed and hand-beaded, and showed the crowd a photo of her horse, Tokala, in full regalia made by her mother, Noella, from her grandmother’s designs. She also performed a traditional dance as part of the competition.

The teen from Old Ring Thunder impressed the judges and audiences in New Mexico with songs and artistry, including beadwork on her horse Tokala.

Gathering of Nations / Will Huston

At the Miss Indian World pageant, Tashina Red Hawk sang a Lakota prayer song passed down from her great-great grandmother Viola Good Voice.

She has lived her Native culture. She says ceremonies and dancing were “as close as my back door,” and her family resides on the same land, along the forested White River valley, where Good Voice lived in the 19th century.

She has a deep respect for the traditions and customs, yet — showing wisdom beyond her 18 years — she says she also believes in balancing that with modern education. She remembers her grandmother once telling her father, Shane, that today’s youth need to live in two worlds — the traditional Lakota and the outside world of technology, business and science. She hopes her accomplishments are an example to others of how that’s possible. Red Hawk says her family’s roots in the arts are integral to both worlds. “We are artists,” she says of her Lakota community. “The arts are part of our life.”

An equestrian tradition is also reflected in the culture and art. Her father raises and trains horses. “My dad says he’s earned his boots but not his cowboy hat,” she laughs. “He works with our horses, but he doesn’t have any cows.”

The family’s appaloosas, corralled on the Red Hawk ranch, have Lakota names. She says they and other creatures are part of “who we are as a people.”

“Lakota are called the Buffalo Nation,” she adds. The buffalo constituted the housing, diet and clothing of the Native communities, so it’s natural that they and the horses became important symbols in Indian art and spirituality.

The new Miss Indian World is now a freshman at South Dakota State University, joining 9,000 fellow students on the bustling campus in Brookings, 300 miles away from her parents’ quiet ranch on the Little White River. She hopes to someday be a veterinarian.

No one who knows the teen from Old Ring Thunder doubts that she’ll reach that goal, or that she’ll remember and honor her Native heritage along the way.