> I am a college student and
> I'm preparing to take my vision quest sometime around Thanksgiving,
> kinda appropriate, don't you think!
No. I don't think it is an appropriate time. My family does not
celebrate Thanksgiving as a holiday. Do you know what happened to the
Indian People who helped the pilgrams to survive.
The Pipe Fast (what you are calling a Vison Quest) is a very
sacred time. Are you going to South Dakota to fast and pray. It is very
cold in November. Are you going to the Butte or are you going to another
place used by your adopted family? It is Spetember, have you only now
just began to prepare and ask questions? It is hard to go without food
and water for four days, but in a SD November wind --Wow you must be some
strong warrior.
> After my quest I would dearly love
> to learn how to tan hides, hunt with a bow and arrows, I don't mean
> going out to the store and buying a compound bow, but I want to learn
> how to make my own bow and arrows. I want to learn how to make
> buckskins and moccasins, that won't fall apart anytime in the near
> future.
I have hunted with a bow that I have made, I also hunt with a
compound bow, but normally I use a 250-3000 Savage lever action. I
depend on what I hunt to help feed my family. I have some brain tan, and
moccasins, If you want to know how to do these things, one of the women
in you adopted family should teach you.
> I would also like to know anything about the MASSACRES at
> Wounded Knee, and at Sand Creek.
OK I will tell you about them, because We CAN NOT forget them ever! The
Lakotas and other tribes have learned to forgive, But we will never
forget what was done to us.
At SandCreek there were camped many families. The Mila Haska had given
the People an American Flag and told them that this flag was the symbol
of the Mila Haska People. That all Mila Haska would honor it and that by
flying it the Mila Haska would never attack the People and that they
would be safe. The Mila Haska soldiers attacked anyway and killed the
Children, Woman and Men as they huddled under the flag pole still flying
the Mila Haska (american flag). Perhaps someone in your adopted family
will tell you the family story.
I will tell you now of Wounded Knee:
In the moon when the antlered creatures lose their horns in the
winter that Big Foot died the People were hungry, sad, and afraid. Two
who led the People had just been murdered. The food that the whites had
promised in return for not hunting had not come. Everyone said the
soldiers are coming to kill us. The People wanted to have a talk with
Red Cloud, he was a good friend of the soldiers. So the People started
off for the PineRidge agency. About half a day out of the agency head
quarters the People saw the US 7th Cal massing to attack. It is said
that the older people were really worried as they had been present the
day that Custer has been rubbed out. The leader who was so sick that he
lay in the bed of a wagon coughing up bits of his lung --said not to
worry that we had no fight with these soldiers. He raised a white flag
and met with the soldiers. They told him that the People would have to
camp along the WoundedKnee creek. As the People were moving over to
WoundedKnee the soldiers rode up and down the lines counting our guns.
That night the soldiers put two "fires fast" guns upon the hillside.
These guns were hotchkiss cannons - a truly modern weapon that shot
exploding shells-shapnel. By morning there were two more cannons on the
hillside. The soldiers ordered the People to stack their guns. They did
so --they had no choice. The soldiers counted those guns and decided
that there must be more guns. So they broke into the homes (tipi) of the
People and searched. They destroyed many homes, yet found no other
guns. Finally they found one man a deaf man who had an unloaded gun
under his blanket coat. A struggle broke out between this man and a
couple of soldiers. Then a soldier fired his gun. Those cannons on the
hillside then opened fire. The ground was pelted with metal shards and
everywhere the People died. One small boy watched and saw the soldiers
take three or four babies in the cradles and line them up like cans on a
fence and shoot them! This boy lost his mother, father, 2 sisters, and a
grandmother at WoundedKnee. Another Sam Helper (12 years old) ran naked
through the snow a distance of many tens of miles to safety. He lost his
mother and grandfather. In all over 300 children, women and men were
killed under that white flag of truce. But the story did not end there.
It was new years eve and the soldiers went back to the agency to
celebrate their great victory and the new year. The people who were
wounded and bleeding has no homes or help. They were out in a December
SD snow storm. They hobbled into the Agency to find the soldiers drunk,
and no one willing to help them. They froze, many to death, out in the
cold. Finally the priest opened the unheated church to those who were
left alive. Over the alter was a christmas sign "Peace On Earth". So
if you as a "newly adopted Indian" want to know how to celebrate
christmas. We Cry for those children that were piled into a mass grave
on top of a small hill.
Even today the SD historical people call Wounded Knee a great
victory over the hostile Indians. In NJ a white woman prepared to dance
under a "tribal burial platorm" as part of her Miss SD bid to become Miss
America.
>If at all possible I would like to get
> all the information that I can or get titles of books that deal with
> the crushing defeats dealt to the wasichus all throughout the Plains
> Wars with the Lakotas, and all the other Plains people. I thank you
> all for your time.
Why? In the end the White People have taken the PahaSapa and
have relegated us to the margins of their society. Perhaps you sould
read of the legal struggles and the modern day Indian wars. These are
still going on. Do you want to enlist? Our friends in Canada have
posted on the Native Net list how they have been undered armed atack by
the RCMP. Perhaps you would like to go an help out and perhaps see if
you can't partake in a "crushing defeat" of the wasichu.
> I once heard a story that went something like this--- At thetime
> of creation Wankan Tankan gave each of the different colors of people
> a different part of nature to master and use in a skillfull way. The
> yellows wre given the water, the blacks wre given air, the reds were
> given the earth, and the whites were given fire. All of these working
> together were supposed to form a peacefull cooperation in order to help
> all of mankind, but somewhere down the line the fire got to greedy and
> powerful and everything was thrown out of balance. Thus you have the
> problems that we are all facing today.
I know the old time stories, I have heard them since I was
small. This story my friend is simply BS! It is not Lakota. We were
not given the Land. The Land, the Air, the Water --like all things in
creation belong to Tunkasila. You my friend have been duped by a fraud
and have been led down a path that is neither Lakota or Indian; nor is it
Native in any way.
You asked:
> My question is to anybody that is in the Lakota
> nation that happens to be on this talknet.
So I tell you this, this man you speak of is not
a Lakota. I say this because he does not do or
say Lakota things, in a Lakota way. If he claims
this then he is a fraud!
Mitakuye Oyasin
Jay Brummett
The opinions expressed above are mine, and do not reflect
official positions of NatChat, Native-L or the NativeNet.