Host and Producer of First Voices Indigenous Radio

I can't let go of the ancient ways
It's in the blood I can't let go
It's in the blood

Tiokasin is available for concerts, lectures and other speaking engagements. Please email: Tiokasin@gmail.com to book your event scheduling.

Tiokasin Ghosthorse, the Lakota musician from Cheyenne River Lakota (Sioux) Nation of South Dakota, storyteller, poet, university lecturer, scholar, essayist and human rights activist, one of the great exponents of the ancient red cedar Lakota flute, and plays traditional and contemporary music, using both Indigenous and European instruments. He is a master musician, has played since the age of 3, and teacher of magical, ancient and modern sounds. He has been a major figure in preserving and reviving the cedar wood flute tradition and has combined "spoken word" and music in performances since childhood.

He has performed world-wide and has been featured at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the United Nations, numerous universities and concerts. He also has a long career in Indigenous rights activism and currently hosts a program on WBAI called First Voices Indigenous Radio in New York City. He has currently released a new CD: "Ksa" with the group Ghosthorse.

Tiokasin Ghosthorse spoke, as a teenager, at the United Nations Conference on Human Rights International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights in Geneva, Switzerland. He participated in several occupations including Wounded Knee, SD in 1973, Lyle Point, WA, Western Shoshone, NV, and Big Mountain, AZ, and has been actively educating people who live on Turtle Island (N. America) and overseas since that time. Tiokasin is also a survivor of the "Reign of Terror" from 1972-1976 on the Pine Ridge Lakota Reservation, the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs Boarding and Church Missionary School systems designed to "kill the Indian and save the man".

I am not a "Native American", this misnomer was conjured up by the politically correct U.S. government. I am an Indigenist in all meanings of the word. I think all the Native peoples here in the 'occupied' lands called America would agree that we were free before America ever appeared.

Tiokasin's offerings (45 to 90 minutes) present traditional and contemporary Lakota stories, flute and vocal songs, and Plains sign language. His flute and vocal performances are rich with informative and inspirational stories of historical and modern-day Lakota culture.

Tiokasin's presentations allow thoughts to delve into coexisting issues, problems and challenges within a milieu of traditional Lakota/Indigenous culture and history. The teachings are neither out-dated nor out-of-step with the modern, always drawing strength from a traditional past. Adapting his seminars to the needs of the participants, Tiokasin beckons the traditional songs, stories and flute arias from the elements. His words of Indigenous insight and global concern are offered though the experience of "one Lakota living in one world".

Tiokasin has been described as "a spiritual agitator, natural rights organizer, Indigenous thinking process educator and a community activator".