What appears to have been the catalyst for natives cashing in on and selling out the spiritual value of the Lakota culture in particular was the marketing of a cassette recording, with a color booklet, of Lakota Ceremonial Songs by Albert White Hat and Sinte Gleska college. John Around Him, from Pine Ridge, sang the songs for that particular recording. Albert White Hat is married to a non-native and appears, from an early age on, determined to compensate for a perceived lack of recognition that he seems to believe that he deserves. And he's going to make the whole community of St. Francis, and the whole Lakota tribe, pay for this lack of respect that the community and tribe has had for him and his family. He'll show them. He's going to make all of them pay by selling everyone out.
The "Hollow Horn Bear Sun dance" is about the most controversial of his projects because he first duped Howard Bad Hand, then Duane Hollow Horn Bear, into supporting a sun dance managed by him. Albert has longed for any kind of prominence since he was kid. His involvement with Norbert Running's sun dance gave him a taste of the kind of respect that he has longed for. Ask anyone on the Rosebud rez about the New Age sun dance and everyone will tell you "Hollow Horn Bear's sun dance".
So, David Swallow is only following Albert White Hat's lead. They both shrewdly cashed in on their own lack of personal integrity and creativity by plundering the traditionally sacred songs of the Lakota. Otherwise, who would buy anything that either one of these individuals produced one their own? Because this material, the traditional sacred songs, are in the public domain, neither Albert nor David have to share any royalties to any original creative artist. It's all profit. Cultural grave robbing with only profit and no authority to answer to.
