Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee Page #2

I will speak straight to you

because these are the words

of the Great Father

and his people.

You must touch pen

to this paper,

or you and your people

will perish.

Soldiers!

Bear Coat.

They say he was fearless

in the whites' big war

against themselves.

Bear Coat was a friend

of Longhair Custer.

He comes for revenge.

Sitting Bull

requested this council.

We await his words.

Take your soldiers

out of here-

- they scare the game away.

- Very well, sir.

Tell me then, how far away

should I take my men?

You must take them

out of our lands.

What precisely

are your lands?

These are the lands

where my people lived

before you whites first came.

I don't understand. We whites

were not your first enemies.

Why don't you demand back

the land in Minnesota

where the Chippewa and others

forced you from years before?

The Black Hills

are a sacred land

given to my people

by Wakan Tanka.

How very convenient

to cloak your claims

in spiritualism.

And what would you say

to the Mormons and others

who believe that their god has given

to them Indian lands in the West?

I would say they should listen

to Wakan Tanka.

No matter what your legends say,

you didn't sprout from the plains

like the spring grasses.

And you didn't coalesce

out of the ether.

You came out of the Minnesota

woodlands armed to the teeth

and set upon your fellow man.

You massacred

the Kiowa, the Omaha,

the Ponca, the Oto

and the Pawnee without mercy.

And yet you claim the Black Hills

as a private preserve

bequeathed to you

by the Great Spirit.

And who gave us the guns and powder

to kill our enemies?

And who traded weapons to the Chippewa

and others who drove us from our home?

Chief Sitting Bull, the proposition

that you were a peaceable people

before the appearance

of the white man

is the most

fanciful legend of all.

You were killing each other

for hundreds of moons

before the first white stepped foot

on this continent.

You conquered those tribes,

lusting for their game and their lands,

just as we have now conquered you

for no less noble a cause.

This is your story

of my people!

This is the truth,

not legend.

Crazy Horse

has surrendered...

with his entire band.

And by his surrender,

he says to you and your people

that you are defeated.

And by ceding

the Black Hills to us,

so say Red Cloud

and the other chiefs,

who demand

that you end this war

and take your place

on the reservation.

Red Cloud

is no longer a chief.

He is a woman you have mounted

and had your way with.

Do not speak to me

of Red Cloud!

I suppose you

are the only chief then?

Sitting Bull is king

of all the Indians.

Ah, humility.

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