Dance honors lost loved one

By Alex Cameron, NEWS 9

Rose Saddleblanket was one of three people killed in flooding last August near Carnegie.

"She was my sister, my best friend," BM said. "It's a void you can never replace."

Cynthia Banta said she knew Saddleblanket's parents and fell in love with Saddleblanket when she was a baby.

"When Native women take another child as their own and love them as their own, it's just like it's part of us," Banta said. "No matter whose child they are, we still claim them."

Banta's adopted daughter, Audrey, said Saddleblanket's death was devastating.

"I've lost people before, but it never affected me the way that it did when we lost her," Audrey Banta said.

During a parade Friday, those who loved Saddleblanket said she had planned to attend the event. It was the first time she would have danced in the Red Earth Festival, one of the largest Indian Powwows in the country.

Instead of watching Saddleblanket in her debuted, Red Earth held a special dance in honor of the young woman.