Howard P. Bad Hand is a Sicangu Lakota from the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. He attended Lenox School, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, and Sinte Gleska College.

He is a singer and composer of Lakota songs and is the leader of the traditional singing group 'Heart Beat'. He is the owner of High Star Productions, Inc., which produces CDs and videos of Native American music and traditional dance. He leads Native American song workshops and teaches the Yi King for personal development. He works for peace by sharing the teachings of the Sacred Pipe through the ceremonies of his people. He has led the High Star Sun Eagle International Sun Dance for peace for 16 years.​

 

Here is an excerpt from his self-introduction on his own Red Valley Sundance website at www.highstarsuneagle.org

 

I received the blessing and initiation to conduct ceremonies and rituals on my own altar through the blessing of Charlie Kills Enemy (he says he was instructed to do this) in recognition of the lineage of healers on my father's side. So, in a gratitude ceremony that I offered and Charlie Kills Enemy led in Denver in 1979, a relationship between my altar and my spirit friends was firmly established. James Dubray, at the 1983 Fools Crow Sun Dance, asked me to help with the healing and to tend to the heyokas in the center of the dance circle. In 1988, Albert White Hat and Duane Hollow Horn Bear presented me with their pipes to help with their dance, which I did until 2006. In 2005, Homer White Lance asked me to lead his dance near St. Francis, South Dakota. (which Howard did until 2014). (Howard has been leading his own Sun Dance in Red Valley, Arizona since 2006.)

 

I am the fourth generation of singers in my family, and I have been a singer all my life. I am a lover, not a warrior.​

 

I have been a singer, composer of Sun Dance songs, announcer at pow wows, and intercessor for several Sun Dances since 1977. I have seen the revival of the Sun Dances and its evolution since 1966. I recently had a vision in which all the medicine people I have ever met in my life were in a lodge with me. They all told me to finish the dance. What this meant to me was that we had to begin and finish that part of the dance that is bringing people to peace. The revival of the Sun Dance was meant to awaken the Lakota people to a path of peace by humbling the warrior ego. It seems we have done enough of that now. It is time to do the other part of the dance, the part that is bringing peace.

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