Xia Brave Bull’s siblings recall generous, adventurous, ‘crazy’ person

“She saw me,” said Thompson. “She handed me $20. I asked, ‘Why this? What’s this for?’ And she said, ‘I want you to gamble!’”

Thompson said he didn’t have to be asked twice.

“She was not materialistic, she’d always give things away,” added Tianna Thompson, another of Xia’s older siblings. “If we would buy her a new car, I guarantee it’d be given away by the next day. One time I bought her a pizza, and she asked, ‘How did you know I wanted a pizza?’ She took a piece, then said to bring the rest of it to someone else who’s hungry.”

Dustin and Tianna remember a woman who was passionate about Native rights and saving the environment, who was also a devoted mom to her four children, Kimimila, Lowan, Oniya and Mathias. They say she possessed an indomitable spirit that she wielded to better the lives of her family and her people, the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. She carried the Lakota name Wakíŋyaŋ Au Wíŋ, which means “Brings Thunder Woman.”

“We would pop in and out of each other’s life,” said Dustin, explaining that their biological mother left them to be raised in separate households. “She liked to be lively, crazy and goofy. I’m the same way. Bring a smile and laughter. When you’re young, you think you have the world by the tail.”

But Dustin added that Xia would run away sometimes. And while she always came back and picked up where things left off, this last time on March 19, her disappearance from outside the Red Gym in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, felt different.

“Something is not right here,” he remembered. Xia wouldn’t reappear until May 3, when her body was found outside the Cannon Ball community. The Standing Rock Bureau of Indian Affair’s law enforcement officers retrieved the body. Autopsy results are pending.

Warrior woman

In April 2016, the first demonstrators against the Dakota Access Pipeline Project planted their feet along the construction zone.

Among them was Xia.

“Starting with the ‘Water Protector’ movement, she was one of the first and original,” Dustin recalled. “She was a great idealist. She had a fighting spirit and ideas of her own.”

“She had a beautiful spirit, very loving and caring for others’ kids with her mother’s instincts,” said Tianna, adding that Xia brought her own children to the protest encampment. “And would instill in them who she was as a woman, and what she’s good for. She was always trying to instill our Native American values, Lakota values and spirituality.”

On a Facebook post from January 29, Xia wrote, “Live everyday to be happy and praise Jesus and thank God! My happyness [sic] returned back to me,” with a video showing how to make tortillas from scratch. Other posts show recipes for an upside-down pizza, hospital visits for dog bites and support for the Land Back! movement and MMIW awareness.

“MMIW hits me hard because I am a person who has been affected by the loss of a wonderful native woman whose case has still been unsolved,” Xia wrote in a March 19, 2020, post.

Five years to the day, she would go missing herself.

Stubborn sibling

Dustin recalled Xia could be headstrong about things she figured she knew enough about, and remembered a camping experience where she came running toward him.

“She ran up to hug me and had a rash. Her leg was all rashed up,” said Dustin. “I took a look and said, ‘Sister, I think this plant over here did this to you. Looks like wild parsnip.’ And she said, ‘No, it’s a big green leafy plant.’ So I said then, ‘Show me the plant that did this to you.’”

After Xia showed him the plant, Dustin, without hesitation, grabbed it and proceeded to eat it in front of her.

“You’ll get sores!” Xia wailed.

“No, I won’t,” replied Dustin. “This is wild grape.”

Xia eventually accepted that her big brother was right. But if she sometimes was proven wrong, she outdid her siblings in other ways.

Tianna recalled visiting Xia and other relatives one year, and going to a tribal meeting in town.

“It was all really nice and then an elder came up while we were chatting. He had a big sack of something,” she said. “Then he said something about a rattlesnake.”

The elder explained that the snake was dead, but he needed its skin. Would the siblings be willing to remove it for him?

“Mind you, all of my siblings love snakes,” Tianna said, laughing. “But me? Fuck no! We parked on the side of Xia’s house, and out flopped the snake. ‘Time to skin them! C’mon girl, you’re Indigenous!’ everyone said.”

Tianna said while she was off to the side fighting nausea, Xia carved up the dead rattler like it was nothing.

“I had to bury it,” added Tianna.

Adrift but at ease

Dustin recalled a time when several Hollywood celebrities were coming out to visit the Standing Rock encampment to show their support for the Native resistance against the pipeline. Dustin, Xia and a few others knew that actors Shailene Woodley and Ezra Miller would be the first to show, but were also going to arrive late. So they and a few others went off to fish on the Cannonball River to pass the time.

“Lo and behold, the motor goes out on us,” said Dustin. “We’re sitting at the mouth of the Cannonball River, before it enters the Missouri.”

The small crew — made up of grown-ups and kids — tried to figure out what to do.

“I grabbed a tree and held on for dear life,” continued Dustin. “I knew if we drifted to the other side, we’d hit the other bank and not get home until tomorrow morning!”

In the midst of the confusion and coursing water, Xia stayed in the middle with her kids, calm and carefree. Eventually someone jerry-rigged a pin for the motor that got it roaring, and everyone made it back just in time to greet the actors and show them how to set up a Lakota tipi.

“We wanted to be inclusive,” Dustin said.

Lots of memories, lack of answers

Xia’s body was found on May 3 near the confluence of the Missouri and Cannonball rivers. A family friend, Caleb “Cal” Spoerl, was part of the search team and said he felt drawn to the spot by his ancestors and God.

“When she first went missing, my friend and brother Dustin, I could see that his heart was hurting,” said Spoerl. “I felt I had to pray, and I was blessed with the opportunity to go with him. I believe in the power of prayer, and as we got near the site where Xia lay, I felt things weren’t right.”

Like others in the family, Dustin and Tianna are wondering what happened to Xia. (They are also wondering what happened to a cousin’s son, Renzo Bullhead, who went missing in March.) With the last known photo of her showing their sister walking in black and gray clothing through a parking lot, there’s little else to go on. In past posts, Dustin talked about Xia sometimes going off with random people and refusing “to get help with her issues.” But the two loved their little sister and are honoring her memory through remembering her powerful spirit and kindness.

“If I could see her, I’d say that I love her,” added Tianna. “No matter what, Jesus Christ loves her as we all do. She’s in heaven.”

Anyone with information about Xia’s disappearance is encouraged to call the Standing Rock BIA’s Law Enforcement at 701-854-3433.