Commentary: Infamy of Wounded Knee lives on in hearts of the Lakota people

[unhappycamper]

Commentary: Infamy of Wounded Knee lives on in hearts of the Lakota people
By Tim Giago (Nanwica Kciji)
Posted on Monday, December 27, 2010

On crystal clear nights when winter winds whistle through the hills and canyons around Wounded Knee Creek, the Lakota elders say it is so cold that you can hear the twigs snapping in the frigid air.

They called this time of the year "The Moon of the Popping Trees." It was on such a winter morning on Dec. 29, 1890, that the crack of a single rifle brought a day of infamy that still lives in the hearts and minds of the Lakota people.

After the rifle spoke there was a pause and then the rifles and Hotchkiss guns of the Seventh Cavalry opened up on the men, women and children camped at Wounded Knee. What followed was utter chaos and madness. The thirst for the blood of the Lakota took away all common sense from the soldiers.

~snip~

The Lakota people say that only 50 people out of the original 350 followers of Sitanka (Big Foot) survived the massacre.

Five days after the slaughter of the innocents, an editorial in the Aberdeen (S.D.) Saturday Pioneer reflected the popular opinion of the wasicu (white people) of that day. It read, "The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extermination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries, we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth."



unhappycamper comment: Ten years after he wrote this OpEd, L. Frank Baum wrote the "Wizard Of Oz".

[xchrom]

1. 'untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth."

the ultimate subversives.

[Scruffy1]

2. Not to mention all of the Medals of Honor awarded.

Over twenty if I remember correctly. This for the wholesale slaughter of a starving band heading to an Army fort for shelter.

[ladjf]

3. The "Infamy of the unprovoked invasion of Iraq will live in the hearts

of the Iraqi people for hundreds of years. nt

[RegieRocker]

4. It's is easier to make friends than enemies and less costly too.

but it's hard to create friends when your stealing their resources and or lands.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. One of the saddest places I have ever been

Wounded Knee, SD

[mikekohr]

6. Today at Porcupine SD, the family of Severt Young Bear Sr. is giving a feed to honor the

"Wounded Knee Memorial Riders."

?

On December 29th, 1890, a band of Lakota people led by
Spotted Elk ( Chief Bigfoot) was encircled by the Seventh
Calvary, at the place called Cankpe Opi Wakpala, the creek
called Wounded Knee. In the early morning hours the men
were assembled in a semi-circle formation in front of the tipis
and disarmed.
A holy man fearing for the lives of his people stood up and beseeched the
creator and asked for protection for the lives of the people.
A shot rang out and the soldiers fired en masse into the sitting
Lakota men, killing most of them instantly. The horror was only
beginning.
The women and children ran as the soldiers chased them
down and killed them one by one. The slaughter continued
for over three hours. Some of the dead were found over three miles
from the campsite.
In vol.3, issue 1, "The Lakota Journal" listed the names of the Lakota
victims of the massacre at Wounded Knee. Four-hundred and five were
listed as killed. Of this number, 69 were identified as infants or young children,
133 were identified as women, the remaining 203 were identified as
men or had no gender or age identification. Of the total dead, 39 were
identified as elders.
The bodies were left to freeze onto the prairie. Over the next three
days survivors and relatives recovered nearly half of the dead. On
the third day a government burial detail arrived to bury the remaining
victims. The bodies were stripped of valuables and dropped into a
mass grave.
A 40 year old, named Last Man, lay gutshot, frozen
to the ground until he was discovered on the 5th of January, 8 days
after the slaughter of December 29th. Last Man died at 8am on
January 6th, 1891.
The United States government awarded 23 Medals of Honor to
members of the Seventh Calvary for their service to the nation at this
place, the creek called Wounded Knee. 45).
Chief Bigfoot's body was scalped and the trophy was sent to
the Seventh Cavalry's museum in Massachusetts. There it remained
over the protests of Chief Bigfoot's family until the summer of 2000.
The last remains of Chief Bigfoot were returned to the place of his
birth, 109 years after his murder.


"I did not know then how much had ended. When I look back
from this high hill of my old age I can still see the butchered
women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the
crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young.
And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud
and was buried in the blizzard. A peoples dream died there. It
was a beautiful dream....the nation's hoop is broken and scattered.
There is no center any longer and the sacred tree is dead."

BLACK ELK -Lakota-

From "International Brotherhood Days," http://www.brotherhooddays.com/index.html

[mikekohr]

7. Lost Bird Of Wounded Knee

?

Lost Bird was seven months old on December 29th, 1890, the day her mother was shot down at Cankpi Opi Wakpala, the creek called Wounded Knee. Four days after the massacre, Lost Bird was discovered under the frozen body of her mother by General Leonard Colby. General Colby took the child for his own and raised Lost Bird in White society. Lost Bird suffered greatly during her life, searching for her identity, subjected to sexual abuse by an adopted cousin and raped and impregnated by General Colby, her adoptive father.

She led a tragic life and died on Valentine's Day, 1919, in California. Lost Bird's remains were repatriated to the Wounded Knee Cemetery in 1991. Her life remains a powerful symbol and has become a rallying point for Native People attempting to re-connect to their culture and families the thousands of Native children and their descendants that were removed from their culture and adopted into non-Indian society.


From "International Brotherhood Days" http://www.brotherhooddays.com

[mikekohr]

8. The Wounded Knee Memorial Riders

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