Nyla Helper, Mato Wiyan (Bear Woman), is a traditional Lakota Spiritual Woman of the Hunkpapa Band. She is a member of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (Lakota Sioux) in South Dakota with her husband, a Lakota Spiritual Leader and Head Man, David Swallow. Nyla Helper spent her early life training and participating in the traditional spiritual ceremonies of the Lakota. Now a mother and a grandmother, she is currently the Women's Sundance Helper for her husband's annual Medicine Wheel Sundance and assists him in his spiritual work and life. She is also a beautiful singer of traditional Lakota sacred songs and is highly knowledgeable about the uses of natural herbs in the old traditional Lakota ways of healing. Nyla speaks about the life she lived and the trials she overcame that made her into the respected medicine woman she is today.