I volunteer with a group out in South Dakota called Re-Member. If you've read my blog before, you are probably already familiar. If not, in short, it is a group that works on light construction projects in one of the financially poorest counties on the continent. They also do some amazing cultural awareness programs.
Anyway, I am on the Board of Directors as well, and we are in the midst of a capital campaign to build a permanent presence on the Rez to continue our work until we aren't needed anymore. We have finally broken ground at the new location, but we still need financial help to get the project finished. None of the money for Feather II comes from the programs we already run. If you have other questions or want to help financially or with a visit, please contact me! Here is an e-mail that was sent out today...
 Working with the Oglala Lakota Oyate on the Pine Ridge Reservation, S.D. | |
| Hi John,
We're making history at Re-Member, as the first building goes up at Feather II, our new permanent home on Pine Ridge. Our shared goal - to live and work alongside the Oglala Lakota people is being realized - thanks to your help.
 Your support is critical to our efforts, and your support has helped us achieve the milestone we are celebrating today.
Visit our Feather II project page to learn more about the ambitious plans - and dynamic opportunities - that Feather II will bring to our program. Ted Skantze Any help would be great! even at the $5 or $10 a month level, it all adds up! Even sharing the link to this blog post or to the Re-Member website could help. Please take some time to consider what you could do to make a difference today. Thanks friends! | |
My Dog Shoba
Showing posts with label Wounded Knee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wounded Knee. Show all posts
Thursday, May 7, 2015
Feather II
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Pine Ridge, 2013
Seeing my friend Pastor Andy Nelson when he hosted our group at his cool Student Center.
Hiking in the Badlands, where nobody got hurt!
Planting seeds of new friendships with people out there.
Hanging out with friends that I made last year.
So - Here are some pictures from the adventure...
The Bethel Group, On the way!
Friday night at Pastor Andy's
PA and the boys say goodbye for now.
Saturday hiking in the Badlands
Bill giving us the pre-hike briefing
Dad's discovery from last year, fossilized turtle shell, much the worse for wear.
More Badlands
Pastor Anjanette and her daughter Sela, Paul and Frank, pondering the Badlands
Quiet time in the Sanctuary for reflection, contemplation, meditation, or a good nap.
Allen looking out over the Badlands
Old wagon found during our tour of Feather 2, the next generation of Re-Member
Visiting Wounded Knee
During the talk, this dog came directly to me, lay down as you see here, and put a paw on my leg for some attention. It was very hard not to bring her home. She was malnourished and a little dehydrated, but otherwise healthy.
We were given the opportunity to put tobacco prayer ties on the gate surrounding the mass grave. Many of us took this chance to send up prayers for the victims, and for the understanding that we cannot let this sort of thing happen again.
During the work week, I helped build wheelchair ramps, decks, skirted trailers and installed bunk beds in the home below.
These are the beds we put in. Clean linens, and a new pillow and blanket included! These were put in for a pair of sisters, four and six years old.
In the room, the wall had separated from the floor, I could see the ground through this crack.
The window was rigged up with some heavy plastic, wrapped around cardboard and thumb tacked to the wall.
This room was plastered with Disney princesses, much like you could find on my five year old daughters walls. But this is poverty in action right here.
This headless, muddy doll seemed to sum things up out there.
We got this deck with stairs built, wheelchair ramp started.
The next day we finished the skirting around this trailer, and had a great time getting to know the people who lived there.
Thursday was tour day, cloudy and chilly as we passed Wounded Knee.
But by lunch at Bette's Kitchen, it was hot and sunny again. I met and befriended a new group of Hope Girls (from Hope College in Holland, Michigan) They were there for a two week class, so we didn't see them much. But they were delightful, as I have found Hope students to be in the past.
This is a painting that one of our members, Bernie, acquired from a Native artist. It was painted on old ledger paper. I think it is awesome.
Thursday night we were treated to an extreme thunderstorm. It was incredible! After it passed a full double rainbow appeared. I went up onto the hill to try and get a good shot and noticed lightning in the storm as it moved on. A little patience and a lot of shots later, I got this one.
The group with Ted and Paula on our last night there.
We got on the road Friday morning at 5:15 and drove back to Rochester. I think everyone had a great time. They were a great group. Hard working and fun to hang out with. I hope the trip stirred something in them as it has in me, and that they will become advocates for the Lakota as well. This post scratches the surface of the stories I could tell, and every person in the picture above has stories as well.
More Later
Friday, March 30, 2012
Slow Down Sunday - Wounded Knee
Sunday morning I stepped outside to get the amazing sunrise...
My team one was in the kitchen helping get breakfast ready. I was in charge of toast, running bread through the conveyor belt toaster. I must say that I took to it readily. Everyone had toast who wanted it.
After breakfast was the first Wisdom of the Elders talk from Ted. My notes form that morning are a little sketchy and quickly written, but he talked about Ceremony being very important to the people, as that was how the instructions on how to live were passed down. The Wisdom Keepers, who encouraged their people to listen to the knowledge and follow the sacred ways. One of the elders, when confronted with those who wanted to change his religion said that all of nature was his church and that they were all a part of it. That they lived and slept in their church and walked on their sacred paths all day, every day.
Ted also introduced us to the old wisdom of Mitakuye Oyasin, which means 'we are all related'. That everything is related. Rocks, trees, animals, humans. We are all interconnected and can live easily if we take care of each other.
He reminded us again to slow down and listen. And today we would have ample time for that.
After a brief history lesson, we piled into the bus and a van to head for Wounded Knee. It was a short drive and soon we were climbing the hill to the cemetery.
Dakota Highhawk joined us just outside of the cemetery to tell us the history of Wounded Knee. He is a descendant of Big Foot, Red Cloud, and the Highhawk listed on the monument in the cemetery. After his talk, he opened the cemetery to us, and I went to talk to him a little more. He spoke of some of the atrocities perpetrated by the 7th Cavalry that day and said that it was motivated by revenge for Custer's death.
I walked the cemetery first and noticed the plethora of people far too young to be in a graveyard. I walked around the mass grave site of the massacre victims and thought about the women and kids that were indiscriminately slaughtered, then piled in there, a few of them still alive but seriously wounded. I saw the grave of Lost Bird, a baby found on the "battlefield" in her dead mother's arms, and the raised by General Colby to be a trophy to be shown off. She would kill herself 28 years later. I wondered what happened to the three other babies found on the plains after that day.
Just beyond the road was where the Sioux camp was. I took this picture from the cemetery hill, where the cannons were placed. The rise to my immediate right held another battery of the deadly artillery.
The building there was built where the 7th had their "council fire" to talk to the Indians. The flats to the left are where the troopers were camped and spent the night drinking and getting ready for the next day.
Then I walked the ravines where the women and children tried to escape while the men used their bodies as human shields to try to give them time to get away. They were chased for two hours. Hunted down and executed. Some children that were hiding were told to come out and that they would be safe. When they emerged, they were slaughtered.
I've been to battlefields before, where two sides fought each other for one reason or another. But this was my first visit to a massacre site. It was no battle. The 7th had Hotchkiss cannons. They had disarmed the Indians. Even with the few guns that the Sioux had hidden, there was no tactical reason whatsoever to fight here.
I had read in many history books the accounts of soldiers who had been drinking through the night before that day. There was every evidence that most of the wounds and fatalities suffered by the 7th that day were the results of friendly fire.
As I climbed from the ravines, I met Curt, a local who was selling some beadwork and other things. He and I got to talking and he told me that this was a revenge killing of unbelievable cruelty. The families of survivors had passed down the stories, and he told me now of soldiers tossing babies into the air to use for "skeet" shooting. Of genitals being cut off and used as trophies. Of people trying to surrender and being shot for their troubles. And the white soldiers had the gall to call the Indians "savages".
Later, twenty Congressional Medals of Honor were conferred on soldiers from that massacre. This is a disgrace to the Sioux and a disgrace to any current or prior service military that know what those medals are usually given for. There are petitions to be signed trying to revoke these medals. You can find them if you look. But I would encourage you to visit Wounded Knee. Talk to the locals. The descendants of those killed there. Ask them what you can do. You may be surprised at the answers.
If you can't find a petition or don't want to visit the site. Then just write your government officials and ask them if they have gone there, and what can be done to restore honor to the CMOH, the Sioux and help the healing that still needs to happen there.
It was a very powerful place. Lots of sadness there, but lots of beauty as well. I'll return again.
More Later
My team one was in the kitchen helping get breakfast ready. I was in charge of toast, running bread through the conveyor belt toaster. I must say that I took to it readily. Everyone had toast who wanted it.
After breakfast was the first Wisdom of the Elders talk from Ted. My notes form that morning are a little sketchy and quickly written, but he talked about Ceremony being very important to the people, as that was how the instructions on how to live were passed down. The Wisdom Keepers, who encouraged their people to listen to the knowledge and follow the sacred ways. One of the elders, when confronted with those who wanted to change his religion said that all of nature was his church and that they were all a part of it. That they lived and slept in their church and walked on their sacred paths all day, every day.
Ted also introduced us to the old wisdom of Mitakuye Oyasin, which means 'we are all related'. That everything is related. Rocks, trees, animals, humans. We are all interconnected and can live easily if we take care of each other.
He reminded us again to slow down and listen. And today we would have ample time for that.
After a brief history lesson, we piled into the bus and a van to head for Wounded Knee. It was a short drive and soon we were climbing the hill to the cemetery.
Dakota Highhawk joined us just outside of the cemetery to tell us the history of Wounded Knee. He is a descendant of Big Foot, Red Cloud, and the Highhawk listed on the monument in the cemetery. After his talk, he opened the cemetery to us, and I went to talk to him a little more. He spoke of some of the atrocities perpetrated by the 7th Cavalry that day and said that it was motivated by revenge for Custer's death.
I walked the cemetery first and noticed the plethora of people far too young to be in a graveyard. I walked around the mass grave site of the massacre victims and thought about the women and kids that were indiscriminately slaughtered, then piled in there, a few of them still alive but seriously wounded. I saw the grave of Lost Bird, a baby found on the "battlefield" in her dead mother's arms, and the raised by General Colby to be a trophy to be shown off. She would kill herself 28 years later. I wondered what happened to the three other babies found on the plains after that day.
Then I walked the ravines where the women and children tried to escape while the men used their bodies as human shields to try to give them time to get away. They were chased for two hours. Hunted down and executed. Some children that were hiding were told to come out and that they would be safe. When they emerged, they were slaughtered.
I've been to battlefields before, where two sides fought each other for one reason or another. But this was my first visit to a massacre site. It was no battle. The 7th had Hotchkiss cannons. They had disarmed the Indians. Even with the few guns that the Sioux had hidden, there was no tactical reason whatsoever to fight here.
I had read in many history books the accounts of soldiers who had been drinking through the night before that day. There was every evidence that most of the wounds and fatalities suffered by the 7th that day were the results of friendly fire.
As I climbed from the ravines, I met Curt, a local who was selling some beadwork and other things. He and I got to talking and he told me that this was a revenge killing of unbelievable cruelty. The families of survivors had passed down the stories, and he told me now of soldiers tossing babies into the air to use for "skeet" shooting. Of genitals being cut off and used as trophies. Of people trying to surrender and being shot for their troubles. And the white soldiers had the gall to call the Indians "savages".
Later, twenty Congressional Medals of Honor were conferred on soldiers from that massacre. This is a disgrace to the Sioux and a disgrace to any current or prior service military that know what those medals are usually given for. There are petitions to be signed trying to revoke these medals. You can find them if you look. But I would encourage you to visit Wounded Knee. Talk to the locals. The descendants of those killed there. Ask them what you can do. You may be surprised at the answers.
If you can't find a petition or don't want to visit the site. Then just write your government officials and ask them if they have gone there, and what can be done to restore honor to the CMOH, the Sioux and help the healing that still needs to happen there.
It was a very powerful place. Lots of sadness there, but lots of beauty as well. I'll return again.
More Later
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