2008 Medal Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Code Talkers Bronze 38mm

Coin Details

Description

This 38mm bronze medal honors the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Code Talkers, members of the Standing Rock Reservation community spanning North and South Dakota who used their Lakota and Dakota languages for military communications. The Standing Rock Reservation is historically significant as the place where Sitting Bull lived during his final years and where he was killed in 1890. The reservation is home to both Hunkpapa Lakota and Yanktonai Dakota peoples, and its code talkers drew on both linguistic traditions for their military service. The obverse features a design developed with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, honoring their code talker veterans with culturally significant imagery. The Standing Rock community's dual Lakota-Dakota linguistic heritage provided a particularly rich resource for coded communications, as both languages, while mutually intelligible to their speakers, present distinct challenges to non-speakers attempting to comprehend or translate them. The tribe's name comes from a sacred stone at the confluence of the Grand and Missouri Rivers, and the community's deep spiritual and cultural traditions provide context for understanding the code talker service as an expression of the warrior values central to Sioux identity. The reverse carries Code Talkers program inscriptions. Standing Rock's prominence in Sioux history and its more recent visibility through the Dakota Access Pipeline protests have kept the reservation in the national consciousness, and the code talker recognition adds another dimension to the story of this historically significant community.

Rarity Notes

Bronze duplicate medal, 38mm. Code Talkers Recognition Act of 2008 series.

Cross References

PCGS #910597; Code Talkers 2008; Standing Rock Sioux Tribe; Hunkpapa Lakota & Yanktonai Dakota