Porcupine (, 'porcupine tail') is a census-designated place (CDP) in Oglala Lakota County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 925 at the 2020 census.

The community most likely was named after Porcupine Butte. Porcupine has been noted for its unusual place name, and for its designation as the unofficial capital of the unrecognized Republic of Lakotah.

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 9.5&nbsp;square miles (24.6&nbsp;km<sup>2</sup>), all land.

Culture

Porcupine is home to KILI (90.1 FM), a non-profit radio station broadcasting to the Lakota people on the Pine Ridge, Cheyenne River, and Rosebud Indian Reservations, part of the Great Sioux Nation. The station started broadcasting in 1983 as the first American Indian-owned radio station in the United States.

Demographics

thumb|left|Students at Brave Heart Day School in Porcupine learn to milk a cow, Oct. 2, 1937

thumb|left|Students at Brave Heart Day School in Porcupine learn to brand a calf, Oct. 2, 1937

As of the census Lakota Tech High School is the public high school.

A campus of Red Cloud Indian School, Our Lady of Lourdes Elementary School (), is adjacent to the Porcupine CDP and has a Porcupine address. It was established in 1929, and became a part of the Red Cloud System in 1931.

Notable people

  • Old Chief Smoke, an original Oglala Sioux head chief. He is buried southeast of Porcupine.
  • Russell Means, an American Indian Movement activist and actor. As "a grandfather with twenty-two grandchildren" Russell Means “[divided] his time between Chinle, Navajo Nation, Arizona, and Porcupine." In December 2007, while a resident of Porcupine, he joined with members of the American Indian Movement, and "dropped in on the State Department and the embassies of Bolivia, Venezuela, Chile and South Africa ... seeking recognition for their effort to form a free and independent Lakota nation," to be known as the Republic of Lakotah.
  • Edgar Bear Runner - Citizen used by the FBI to negotiate with AIM occupiers during the Wounded Knee incident, survivor of the Pine Ridge Reign of Terror carried out by FBI, local law enforcements, and the paramilitary GOONs. Activist who lobbies for the clemency of AIM activist Leonard Peltier for his crimes during the Wounded Knee incident.

References