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Why the Founder of Standing Rock Sioux Camp Cant Forget the Whitestone Massacre
We must remember we are part of a larger story. We are still here. We are still fighting for our lives on our own land.
by LaDonna Bravebull Allard
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One hundred and fifty three years ago my great-great-grandmother Nape Hote Win (Mary Big Moccasin) survived the bloodiest conflict between the Sioux Nations and the U.S. Army ever on North Dakota soil. An estimated 300 to 400 of our people were killed in the Inyan Ska (Whitestone) Massacre, far more than at Wounded Knee. But very few know the story. As we struggle for our lives today against the Dakota Access pipeline, I remember her. We cannot forget our stories of survival.
Just 50 miles east of here, in 1863, nearly 4,000 Yanktonais, Isanti (Santee), and Hunkpapa gathered alongside a lake in southeastern North Dakota, near present-day Ellendale, for an intertribal buffalo hunt to prepare for winter. It was a time of celebration and ceremonya time to pray for the coming year, meet relatives, arrange marriages, and make plans for winter camps. Many refugees from the 1862 uprising in Minnesota, mostly women and children, had been taken in as family. Marys father, Oyate Tawa, was one of the 38 Dah'kotah hung in Mankato, Minesota, less than a year earlier, in the largest mass execution in the countrys history. Brigadier General Alfred Sully and soldiers came to Dakota Territory looking for the Santee who had fled the uprising. This was part of a broader U.S. military expedition to promote white settlement in the eastern Dakotas and protect access to the Montana gold fields via the Missouri River.
As my great-great-grandmother Mary Big Moccasin told the story, the attack came the day after the big hunt, when spirits were high. The sun was setting and everyone was sharing an evening meal when Sullys soldiers surrounded the camp on Whitestone Hill. In the chaos that ensued, people tied their children to their horses and dogs and fled. Mary was 9 years old. As she ran, she was shot in the hip and went down. She laid there until morning, when a soldier found her. As he loaded her into a wagon, she heard her relatives moaning and crying on the battlefield. She was taken to a prisoner of war camp in Crow Creek where she stayed until her release in 1870.
Where the Cannonball River joins the Missouri River, at the site of our camp today to stop the Dakota Access pipeline, there used to be a whirlpool that created large, spherical sandstone formations. The rivers true name is Inyan Wakangapi Wakpa, River that Makes the Sacred Stones, and we have named the site of our resistance on my familys land the Sacred Stone Camp. The stones are not created anymore, ever since the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dredged the mouth of the Cannonball River and flooded the area in the late 1950s as they finished the Oahe dam. They killed a portion of our sacred river. I was a young girl when the floods came and desecrated our burial sites and Sundance grounds. Our people are in that water. This river holds the story of my entire life.
. . . .
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/09/05/why-founder-standing-rock-sioux-camp-cant-forget-whitestone-massacre
Donkees
(31,407 posts)Where the Cannonball River joins the Missouri River, at the site of our camp today to stop the Dakota Access pipeline, there used to be a whirlpool that created large, spherical sandstone formations. The rivers true name is Inyan Wakangapi Wakpa, River that Makes the Sacred Stones, and we have named the site of our resistance on my familys land the Sacred Stone Camp. The stones are not created anymore, ever since the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dredged the mouth of the Cannonball River and flooded the area in the late 1950s as they finished the Oahe dam. They killed a portion of our sacred river."
Donkees
(31,407 posts)Published on Jul 18, 2014
Ulali Project at River People Festival singing "Wah Jhi Le Yihm"
--
"this is a song for healing and giving back to the water and letting the water wash and clean and the spirit rise those are some of the words in the song. Wahjheeleh Yihm means I carry you with me So it means let the water carry you Its an ancestral song for the dead and the water as the sacred source "
niyad
(113,315 posts)Mc Mike
(9,114 posts)OldEurope
(1,273 posts)I'm in tears.
niyad
(113,315 posts)discntnt_irny_srcsm
(18,479 posts)...and their culture a target and to devalue tribal members and their needs. In Colorado, Native Americans were not permitted to serve on a jury until 1956 and tribal members living on reservations couldn't vote until 1970.
niyad
(113,315 posts)not in the least surprised (sand creek, anyone????)
discntnt_irny_srcsm
(18,479 posts)...have made mistakes and committed acts that ought to be criminal. What I look for in a leader is someone able to learn from mistakes, if not those of others then at least their own. The first step is admitting the mistake was made.
Sand Creek, Whitestone, Wounded Knee and too many others.
niyad
(113,315 posts)niyad
(113,315 posts)womanofthehills
(8,710 posts)That is how a people are made poor
http://www.ecowatch.com/dakota-access-pipeline-1991972867.html
niyad
(113,315 posts)needs wide visibility.