Meet Red Rock Eagle Standing Perkins & Dr. Alayna Eagle Shield!
This inspiring couple has dedicated their lives to strengthening community, land, and tradition through their work, teachings, and ongoing efforts in cultural revitalization. Red Rock, from the lands of the Three Affiliated Tribes (Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara), and Alayna, from the Standing Rock Nation, have been together for 14 years and are proud parents of five children.
Recently, they’ve collaborated with yəhaw̓ to help build a sweat lodge on the land that will serve as a space for healing, ceremony, and gathering for Indigenous community right here in Seattle. As Dr. Eagle Shield shares, “we want to help co-create a sweat lodge space that is respectfully stewarded. We will dress it and undress it, take care of it, always make sure it is cleaned, like a living thing. We want to learn the protocols of this land and also share what we've been taught.”
Their work extends beyond that. They’ve helped teach Indigenous language, co-founded the Native Family Learning Lodge to support families in passing on culture, language, and lifeways, and actively work to reconnect their community to ancestral teachings, especially in an urban setting.
Q: What inspired you to participate in yəhaw̓'s creative residency?
We wanted to give our urban Native community access to our cultural ways, and to help give them a positive place to come if they are going through hardships. When we first came to Seattle for Alayna to start her PHD program, we had never been away from North Dakota before. We were suddenly so far from the ceremonies and community that were an everyday thing in our homelands.
With yəhaw̓, we want to help co-create a sweat lodge space that is respectfully stewarded. We will dress it and undress it, take care of it, always make sure it is cleaned, like a living thing. We want to learn the protocols of this land and also share what we've been taught.
Q: Could you share insights into your art, the material you use, and the work you plan to create during your residency?
Because we come from ceremonial ways, we have to be responsible to each other, to the land, and to our broader community. We used to teach immersion on our homelands, and we speak our Native language in our house. taught language at the UNEA program with the youth, helped co-found the Native Family Learning Lodge, and are part of Ancestral Sisterhood, an Indigenous arts and ecological knowledge organization. In working with all these organizations, we learned that everyone is trying to make connections. We want to uplift and support each other. This space you've been sharing at yəhaw̓, when we first visited it felt like a little piece of heaven inside the city. It shows that we can connect with the land even in the middle of Seattle. In our cradle board work, we teach how important that ancestral connection to land is wherever we are. Our sister Kim, with Julius and Jesse, have all helped build the sweat lodge. We could never do anything in this life alone, this project was a small glimpse of that.
Q: What inspired you to participate in yəhaw̓'s creative residency?
We wanted to give our urban Native community access to our cultural ways, and to help give them a positive place to come if they are going through hardships. When we first came to Seattle for Alayna to start her PHD program, we had never been away from North Dakota before. We were suddenly so far from the ceremonies and community that were an everyday thing in our homelands.
With yəhaw̓, we want to help co-create a sweat lodge space that is respectfully stewarded. We will dress it and undress it, take care of it, always make sure it is cleaned, like a living thing. We want to learn the protocols of this land and also share what we've been taught.
Follow their journey at @iyotanla, @dr.eagleshield, and @rockperkins. Support their important work, and stay tuned as they bring this sacred space to life!