Lakota John and Kin The Intersection of Native American Culture and Family by Nikki Whang The Lumbee Tribe consists of 55,000 members of North Carolina residents, making it the largest tribe in North Carolina and the largest tribe east of the Mississippi River. Many Lumbee currently reside in Robeson, Hoke, Cumberland, and Scotland counties. Though they have been recognized by the state of North Carolina since 1885, the US congress still denies the tribe full status as a federally recognized Indian tribe. Lakota John Locklear, a sixteen-year-old blues musician from Robeson County, comes out of this tradition. He and his sister Layla, who on occasion sings with Lakota when he performs, both acknowledge that it is an important part of their lives. “Native Americans in general went through so so much. You know, assimilation and genocide and we’ve had to adapt and also adopt a lot of things into, you know, native culture and I guess over the years as we’ve adapted and adopted and acculturated to a modern world, we’ve picked up different things and I guess all of that is the reason why natives can relate to blues music,” Layla said. Not only is the struggle important, but also there’s the beautiful musical tradition that comes with being Lumbee.
Lakota John Locklear
“The Lumbee…their musical tradition is distinct from all other musical traditions in that they sing in harmonies. A lot of Native American singing is in unison. It’s probably the most beautiful singing you ever hear,” said Aaron Greenhood, Music Maker’s Artist Services Coordinator. Beautiful, indeed. Both Lakota and Layla have great voices for the blues, and Lakota also plays the traditional flute.
The Locklear family recognizes the importance of Lakota’s presence in the blues music scene. It is representative of how far their ancestors have come. Gifted with feathers that he keeps on his guitar, Lakota is a symbol of pride to the
Lumbee; fellow tribe members can say with confidence, “yeah, he’s one of ours.” Tonya Locklear, Lakota’s mother, has a slightly different perspective on her Lumbee background: “Natives are clannish. They do have strong kinship bonds to families, to extended families, and usually whatever they have—be it music or art or performing arts or visual arts—that also shows up in the clan or the kinship and, you know, so for us I think it was a kinship first, you know, being a family.” A sense of kinship and family is very important for the Locklears. Though they are all busy with their own lives, working or going to school, they always make time to play music together, to support Lakota’s budding career, and most importantly, eat dinner together. Tonya: “I mean, it started just with fun. You know, playing together. Because we would listen to the Pine Cone Show on Sundays. And Sundays at six o’clock, you know, that’ll be our Pine Cone Show, and so, after church, after dinner, or after lunch, then we would go on the porch, grab an instrument and we would just sit and you know, pick! You know, play a little bit….It was family fun, you know. And then, you know, as John was saying, time got away from us, and our lives got busier. The one thing is that we do sit and find time to have dinner together. If we don’t practice our instruments, we make sure we have time to have dinner together. Or just sit at the table together.…but just to have at least one hour of the day to just sit around, family time, dinner time, together. That’s a must. That’s a must.”
Tonya, Layla, and “Sweet Papa” John Locklear