The emergence cave is the connecting passageway between this world and the underworld. It must be very complicated because the Pte people cannot travel through the cave without a guide. The wolf, however, can find his way through the cave and therefore is capable of traveling back and forth between the underworld and this world. Tokahe is the ambitious young man the wolf encounters in the underworld. “Tokahe” means “the first.”

Most people who visit the rocky foothills and dry creek beds that slide east out of the Black Hills see lifeless gravel pits. JhonDuane Goes In Center sees the ongoing, dynamic process of creation that has been flowing out of the Black Hills since time beyond time. He has spent a lifetime exploring for agates at the center of the wind-blown, eroded landscape. “You can’t get into heaven unless you have an agate in your pocket,” he jokes. JhonDuane describes himself as an “adornment artist” who celebrates the extraordinary attention to beauty in every detail of traditional Lakota life and clothing. Polished agates represent the transformation of dull rock into beauty, just as Lakotas transformed a harsh life into beauty.

JhonDuane created his beautiful bolo tie almost entirely of natural materials from the area surrounding the cave through which the wolf traveled between the worlds. That cave is called Washun Niya in Lakota, and Wind Cave in English. The irony is not lost to JhonDuane that the area where there once were countless wolves is now almost devoid of them. He imagines that perhaps in the region of Wasun Niya there still remains a paw print of one of those wolves. In recognition of those wolves and of the wolf that delivered the pack to Tokahe, JhonDuane titled his piece “Wolf Track.” Its string is soft, brain-tanned deerskin. Attached to the ends are elk teeth and deer toes. The slide is a hammered copper wolf print with five polished Fairburn agates mounted in silver. Dangling from the wolf paw are four silver cones holding red and yellow dyed deer tail hair. JhonDuane says, “The wolf was promising beauty and plenty if the people followed him and came upon the world. But it didn’t turn out that way. Instead, life was hard. But we Lakotas used our creativity to overcome the challenges. That’s how I see it. Coming into the world was the best thing that happened to us because it forced us to be creative, and that’s how we thrived.”

It went through the cave and saw the camp of the people far away. Before it came to the camp it met a strong young man. The young man asked who it was, whence it came, and what it wanted. The wolf replied that it was a friend of the people and came from the world to give them that which they most desired. It asked the young man his name and what he most wished. He said his name was Tokahe and that [he wished] to become a leader. [The wolf] told him to take [the pack] and show it to the people and let them taste the food and see the clothing that was in it and to tell them that there were plenty of such things in the world, but it said he must not tell how he got the things and must say nothing of the wolf.