Post by sara on Dec 15, 2008 8:47:22 GMT -5
This comes from the Sota newspaper this morning....
Dakota Wokiksuye Unity Riders in need of prayer, additional support due to extreme weather conditions
To the descendants of the relatives that suffered from the Dakota Uprising of 1862. Special attention to the Honorable Tribal Chairman Selvage, Executives, Council and “traditional Oyate”:
I am reaching out to you, because I would like you to be aware of the riders that have been traveling from Lower Brule, SD to Mankato, MN, since December 10th; on the Dakota Reconciliation “Wokiksuye” Ride. They are riding on behalf of our Oyate, for the younger generation, for a healing of our spirit.
I know many of you are getting ready for Christmas, but during these times, there are those that are out there riding in arctic temperatures during this holiday. Seems like the murders were chosen around a time when it is supposed to symbolize Peace. It was not peaceful in our ancestors’ time; they lived a horrendous nightmarish life that no movie can adequately portray.
We think we have a hard life now, trying to make the holidays, make the bills, finding a home while staying with relatives, worried about what one another is saying, keeping the car up and running to go to work, when we need to look at what our ancestors went through. It was real history. It is not a fictional story. Our People were running for their lives! Many of them said prayers for each and every one of us before their life was taken; standing on that gallows ready to be hung, singing their death song, for us! Or as they laid in the snow from bullets or from frigid temperatures from clothes that could not keep them warm, as the buffalo were gone, saying that last prayer; that their People can live!
During the Great Sioux Uprising, as it became better known, elders, women and children were marched from Birch Coulee, MN to Mankato, MN. During that time of the march, the men were sent to Fort Snelling to another prison camp and 300 were sentenced to be hung, but later 38 were chosen to be hung in Mankato in a public hanging, with the audience feeling they were being given a good x-mas present. Then there were 2 more hung 2 years later, Medicine Bottle and Shakopee after being captured by bounty hunters in Canada and hung publicly as villains, when they were our leaders.
The ones that marched only wore burlap sacks (from ration bags, their only material) to cover their bodies and many wrapped their feet with rags, walking in frigid temperatures. The main reason why they retaliated was the starvation, hence being called the Dakota Uprising. They were marched to Mankato, MN and were put on a train ending up where the Mississippi and Missouri rivers met. By then around 600 were left.
The remaining 600 elders, women and children were transported by 3 boats up the Missouri River into the Prison Camp by Fort Thompson and Lower Brule Reservations, which took 3 years with never being allowed to leave the boats, horrendous conditions. Imagine living on a boat that long, hanging on to your child. There were only 300 that survived the journey and those that could not survive the trip were dumped off in the river, so many bones exist in the Missouri River. So this is the reason why the Riders would like to commemorate the 4th year by riding from Lower Brule, SD to Mankato, MN, as before the first 3 years, of the Rides started from the Lower Sioux reservation. They are carrying the spirit of the People back to where the nightmare had begun, to begin a healing of the historical trauma imposed on the People. This endeavor came about from a vision of Jim Miller to complete a ride to heal and bring awareness of our history. He is on this Ride as well, as you read this.
We just returned from the Ride as it reached past Ft Thompson. Arvol Looking Horse assisted them in the first 2 days of the Ride from Lower Brule and is now on the Big Foot Ride from Sitting Bull’s camp in ND to Wounded Knee as you read this. The Big Foot Ride was conceived in 1987 after a vision of Birgil Kills Straight from Pine Ridge to retrace Chief Big Foot's journey from Sitting Bull's camp in ND to Wounded Knee where 300 were massacred on December 29th 1890. He knew it would be a healing journey with a motto "that there would be no more Wounded Knees throughout the world." Arvol has participated in the Ride for 21 years, the first 16 he rode the whole duration of two weeks in sometimes tremendous frigid temperatures on a 2 week journey on horseback. The last 3 years (2005-07) he assisted the Big Foot Ride til they reached the Pipe House where he resides in Green Grass, SD on the 18th. So again this year he will travel back east to meet up with “Wokiksuye” Ride after he is done with a ceremony with the Bundle. By then the Mankato Ride, that will be between Pipestone and Lower Sioux reservation, then on to Mankato, MN til the 26th Ceremony.
Also, on the evening of the 25th, a Run will come from Ft Snelling as well, youth running overnight to the ceremony at Mankato, praying for a healing for our People.
What does this mean for each and every one of our Oyate? Please be aware of your history, be aware that there are men, women and children riding for your health and well being, pray for their safe journey. Add your prayers for a healing of our People. Each of our families have been inflicted with problems: alcoholism, abuses, many young ones ending up in prison, much confusion within our homes, community. Why? Because of much of this history just explained, our Great Grandfathers and Grandmothers were the survivors, witnessing the deaths of their loved ones, watching their relatives die in torturous conditions and try to live on. Yet this trauma is passed down, silently, coming out in various ways, most of all – losing our spirit as an Oyate or misinterpreting what that really means.
If you are Dakota, help the Riders with your prayers of support. Maybe some of you can make a journey on this fourth year and be at the site of ceremony downtown Mankato and honor your relatives! Maybe many of you can help even more – the SWO Tribal Council gave the Riders that are riding from Lower Brule 7,000 dollars. Wopida Tanka, but that is not enough. Trucks are breaking down, horses are having a hard time, supplies are needed, they are struggling with help of the Oyate of Lower Brule, Ft Thompson, Flandreau and Morton along the way, but these rides take a toll on everyone. If each and every one of you can donate 20 dollars to them, that would be your donation personally; if 100 or 200 People help them or even more, that is 2000 or 4000 to help them. Ask the Chairman to help them collect the funds and send to Ray Shepard -- people on the Ride say he has been fair and honest in helping the riders from Sisseton.
There are also Riders who only could take 3 days off to Ride, yet those on the journey know once you begin a spiritual journey you have to finish it, please Sisseton-Wahpeton Tribal Council reconsider this rule of only allowing 3 days – these riders are on no picnic or vacation. Please see this is for you and your children too.
So Oyate pray for the Riders to Mankato and to Wounded Knee, that there will be no more Wounded Knees or similar atrocities as the Dakota public hangings throughout the world, that our children can experience Peace in their lives, what Peace really means, free from the things that are taking our children away from their spirit, that Dakota spirit.
Pidamaye, Paula Horne, Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate Member.
Update from Unity Riders
In a cell call late Sunday, Harvey Renville notified the Sota editor that the Unity Riders were stranded at Howard, South Dakota.
Harvey reported that the people in the small town of Howard were “outstanding” with their generosity.
The riders were given access to the community’s 4-H building, where those who did not want to sleep in their vehicles could set up cots, and the 4-H livestock barn, where the horses were being kept.
“They’ve even washed clothes for us,” he said.
Another community along the way from Lower Brule where the riders were treated to extraordinary help was Wessington Springs. There the riders were treated to free food, including bowls of hot chili.
Blizzard and whiteout conditions made it impossible to ride on Sunday, but Harvey said they hope to make it to Flandreau sometime on Tuesday.
There are 43 riders participating, with 20 from Sisseton and others from Canada.
Dakota Wokiksuye Unity Riders in need of prayer, additional support due to extreme weather conditions
To the descendants of the relatives that suffered from the Dakota Uprising of 1862. Special attention to the Honorable Tribal Chairman Selvage, Executives, Council and “traditional Oyate”:
I am reaching out to you, because I would like you to be aware of the riders that have been traveling from Lower Brule, SD to Mankato, MN, since December 10th; on the Dakota Reconciliation “Wokiksuye” Ride. They are riding on behalf of our Oyate, for the younger generation, for a healing of our spirit.
I know many of you are getting ready for Christmas, but during these times, there are those that are out there riding in arctic temperatures during this holiday. Seems like the murders were chosen around a time when it is supposed to symbolize Peace. It was not peaceful in our ancestors’ time; they lived a horrendous nightmarish life that no movie can adequately portray.
We think we have a hard life now, trying to make the holidays, make the bills, finding a home while staying with relatives, worried about what one another is saying, keeping the car up and running to go to work, when we need to look at what our ancestors went through. It was real history. It is not a fictional story. Our People were running for their lives! Many of them said prayers for each and every one of us before their life was taken; standing on that gallows ready to be hung, singing their death song, for us! Or as they laid in the snow from bullets or from frigid temperatures from clothes that could not keep them warm, as the buffalo were gone, saying that last prayer; that their People can live!
During the Great Sioux Uprising, as it became better known, elders, women and children were marched from Birch Coulee, MN to Mankato, MN. During that time of the march, the men were sent to Fort Snelling to another prison camp and 300 were sentenced to be hung, but later 38 were chosen to be hung in Mankato in a public hanging, with the audience feeling they were being given a good x-mas present. Then there were 2 more hung 2 years later, Medicine Bottle and Shakopee after being captured by bounty hunters in Canada and hung publicly as villains, when they were our leaders.
The ones that marched only wore burlap sacks (from ration bags, their only material) to cover their bodies and many wrapped their feet with rags, walking in frigid temperatures. The main reason why they retaliated was the starvation, hence being called the Dakota Uprising. They were marched to Mankato, MN and were put on a train ending up where the Mississippi and Missouri rivers met. By then around 600 were left.
The remaining 600 elders, women and children were transported by 3 boats up the Missouri River into the Prison Camp by Fort Thompson and Lower Brule Reservations, which took 3 years with never being allowed to leave the boats, horrendous conditions. Imagine living on a boat that long, hanging on to your child. There were only 300 that survived the journey and those that could not survive the trip were dumped off in the river, so many bones exist in the Missouri River. So this is the reason why the Riders would like to commemorate the 4th year by riding from Lower Brule, SD to Mankato, MN, as before the first 3 years, of the Rides started from the Lower Sioux reservation. They are carrying the spirit of the People back to where the nightmare had begun, to begin a healing of the historical trauma imposed on the People. This endeavor came about from a vision of Jim Miller to complete a ride to heal and bring awareness of our history. He is on this Ride as well, as you read this.
We just returned from the Ride as it reached past Ft Thompson. Arvol Looking Horse assisted them in the first 2 days of the Ride from Lower Brule and is now on the Big Foot Ride from Sitting Bull’s camp in ND to Wounded Knee as you read this. The Big Foot Ride was conceived in 1987 after a vision of Birgil Kills Straight from Pine Ridge to retrace Chief Big Foot's journey from Sitting Bull's camp in ND to Wounded Knee where 300 were massacred on December 29th 1890. He knew it would be a healing journey with a motto "that there would be no more Wounded Knees throughout the world." Arvol has participated in the Ride for 21 years, the first 16 he rode the whole duration of two weeks in sometimes tremendous frigid temperatures on a 2 week journey on horseback. The last 3 years (2005-07) he assisted the Big Foot Ride til they reached the Pipe House where he resides in Green Grass, SD on the 18th. So again this year he will travel back east to meet up with “Wokiksuye” Ride after he is done with a ceremony with the Bundle. By then the Mankato Ride, that will be between Pipestone and Lower Sioux reservation, then on to Mankato, MN til the 26th Ceremony.
Also, on the evening of the 25th, a Run will come from Ft Snelling as well, youth running overnight to the ceremony at Mankato, praying for a healing for our People.
What does this mean for each and every one of our Oyate? Please be aware of your history, be aware that there are men, women and children riding for your health and well being, pray for their safe journey. Add your prayers for a healing of our People. Each of our families have been inflicted with problems: alcoholism, abuses, many young ones ending up in prison, much confusion within our homes, community. Why? Because of much of this history just explained, our Great Grandfathers and Grandmothers were the survivors, witnessing the deaths of their loved ones, watching their relatives die in torturous conditions and try to live on. Yet this trauma is passed down, silently, coming out in various ways, most of all – losing our spirit as an Oyate or misinterpreting what that really means.
If you are Dakota, help the Riders with your prayers of support. Maybe some of you can make a journey on this fourth year and be at the site of ceremony downtown Mankato and honor your relatives! Maybe many of you can help even more – the SWO Tribal Council gave the Riders that are riding from Lower Brule 7,000 dollars. Wopida Tanka, but that is not enough. Trucks are breaking down, horses are having a hard time, supplies are needed, they are struggling with help of the Oyate of Lower Brule, Ft Thompson, Flandreau and Morton along the way, but these rides take a toll on everyone. If each and every one of you can donate 20 dollars to them, that would be your donation personally; if 100 or 200 People help them or even more, that is 2000 or 4000 to help them. Ask the Chairman to help them collect the funds and send to Ray Shepard -- people on the Ride say he has been fair and honest in helping the riders from Sisseton.
There are also Riders who only could take 3 days off to Ride, yet those on the journey know once you begin a spiritual journey you have to finish it, please Sisseton-Wahpeton Tribal Council reconsider this rule of only allowing 3 days – these riders are on no picnic or vacation. Please see this is for you and your children too.
So Oyate pray for the Riders to Mankato and to Wounded Knee, that there will be no more Wounded Knees or similar atrocities as the Dakota public hangings throughout the world, that our children can experience Peace in their lives, what Peace really means, free from the things that are taking our children away from their spirit, that Dakota spirit.
Pidamaye, Paula Horne, Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate Member.
Update from Unity Riders
In a cell call late Sunday, Harvey Renville notified the Sota editor that the Unity Riders were stranded at Howard, South Dakota.
Harvey reported that the people in the small town of Howard were “outstanding” with their generosity.
The riders were given access to the community’s 4-H building, where those who did not want to sleep in their vehicles could set up cots, and the 4-H livestock barn, where the horses were being kept.
“They’ve even washed clothes for us,” he said.
Another community along the way from Lower Brule where the riders were treated to extraordinary help was Wessington Springs. There the riders were treated to free food, including bowls of hot chili.
Blizzard and whiteout conditions made it impossible to ride on Sunday, but Harvey said they hope to make it to Flandreau sometime on Tuesday.
There are 43 riders participating, with 20 from Sisseton and others from Canada.