Land Tenure and Livelihoods of the Oglala Lakota - Kathryn M ...

Stromberg 3
frequently observed that the practice of inheriting the land as undivided interest between all heirs
in the absence of a will has fractionated it beyond use. A Pine Ridge village resident told me how
"as land gets passed down over time, it becomes less and less, so what I have is a portion of my
grandmother's land, that went to my mother and then came to me, was split among nine siblings,
and in my mother's family they had about fifteen people, so it doesn‟t amount to much.” The
incredibly tiny sizes of many Lakotas‟ allotments frequently act as an impediment to
development. A Batesland man told me, “If grandpa has 160 acres, and he has 10 children, they
split that. And lets say each of those 10 children have 5 children each. They split that, and those
children have children, and it splits further, until you can‟t even stand on it anymore. So most of
the current population today can‟t even stand on what section or piece of land that they own, let
alone trying to build a home on it." Moreover, the tribe has the right to repossess any fractions
that are less than 2 acres and place them in a tribal trust account. Either in addition to a larger
tract, or as their only land holdings, every person I interviewed reported owning a handful of tiny
land pieces, fractionated along with dozens of other owners.
The endemic fractionation across the reservation has the related effect of splitting
decision making authority across tens or hundreds of people, effectively paralyzing any sort of
action. An individual seeking to move out to live on part of his or her allotment faces the task of
collecting hundreds of signatures for many reasons, most frequently for an easement to allow the
placement of a water pipe or well. A Martin landowner recalled, "when I was a boy, I went with
my dad, we were leasing trust land, and we had to get 76 signatures to lease a quarter section of
land." The fact that Indian families are frequently spread across the country further exacerbates
the difficulty of making decisions about undivided interests. A crafter spoke about how "our
family can't get together and agree, because a lot of them don‟t live around here.” Several tribal