coming home
“Native People remember and memorialize the struggles of their ancestors at Sand Creek, Washita, and Wounded Knee, places now sanctified because of those sacrifices.”
“Every society needs these kinds of sacred places because they help instill a sense of social cohesion in the people and remind them of the passage of generations that have brought them to the present. A society that cannot remember and honor its past is in peril of losing its soul.”
-Vine Deloria, Jr.
Sand Creek Massacre only 150 years ago today
By Cheyenne McAllistar
Photo of Virginia All Runner (By Cheyenne McAllistar)
My great grandmother. She tells me the story every year how the US made an agreement for our tribe to camp at Sand Creek. The US told my ancestors to put a US flag along with a white flag in front of the camp so our tribe would be safe. On Nov. 29, 1864, all the men at the camp had left to hunt. Only the elders, women and children were left there sleeping. My great grandmother tells me how her grandfather's mother was awakened by gun shots early before sunrise. She panicked, so she grabbed her son as quickly as possible, packed him on the saddle of a horse; her son on one side, her friend’s child on the other, they whipped the horse as hard as they could. Later the horse found another camp, and they took in my relative. The US continued to slaughter everyone who remained at Sand Creek that morning. The next day the US Calvary marched into Downtown Denver with "Skins" and "trophies" of my people's remains. Literally heads and embryos ripped out of their mothers’ wombs on large sticks and paraded across the streets which we walk every day.
Just a little history that's close to my heart.
Please click on the thumbnails below to view photos full screen, captions appear upon hover.
