Wounded Knee sacred belongings finally returned to South Dakota descendants

 

[Editor’s note: Accounts from the Wounded Knee Massacre included in this story may be disturbing.]

Violet Catches (Cheyenne River Lakota, Hohwoju) of Pierre, remembers being a child and listening to her grandmother cry as she told the story of their ancestors at Wounded Knee, where more than 250 unarmed Lakota men, women, and children were slaughtered by U.S. Army Calvary in 1890. Catches says that when she listened to her grandmother’s story, she was afraid the Calvary would come to kill her and her family.

Violet’s mother’s father survived the Wounded Knee massacre as a 10 or 12-year-old child. With the Calvary chasing them, he and two other Lakota boys about his age literally ran for their lives.

They ran in the winter snow all the way to Bridger, over 100 miles away. They knew how to build a fire to keep from freezing and, according to family lore, knew how to catch rabbits to cook to eat. They hid in thickets during the daytime and traveled at night to escape being caught.

Early in the journey they found a 4-year-old Lakota boy who had been shot in the hip by the Calvary. They carried him all the way to Bridger. Along the way they applied sage to his wound so he wouldn’t bleed to death. That 4-year-old was James High Hawk, who grew up to be a signer of the first Constitution for the Cheyenne River Lakota.

Though she lives in Pierre, Catches has been an active member of the HAWK 1890 Wounded Knee Descendants Group on the Cheyenne River Reservation for a decade. The group chose her (among others) to represent the descendants on Saturday, Nov. 5, when the Founders Museum in Barre, Massachusetts, returned about 150 sacred belongings to the Lakota people in ceremonies at Barre.

Some of the belongings were connected to the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre and have been in the possession of the museum for over a century. The collection includes ceremonial pipes, weapons, moccasins, clothing, and the dried umbilical cords traditionally kept by tribal members throughout their lives. The items being returned to the Lakota people have all been authenticated by multiple experts, including tribal experts.

Along with Catches, Ivan Looking Horse (Cheyenne River Lakota Tribe) was a representative of Wounded Knee descendants at the ceremony on Nov. 5 and said the day was “a very good day in history. There is a very sad history that is not being told. There is a need for forgiveness but first, people need to know what is being forgiven.”

According to Looking Horse, Lakota culture teaches that the spirits of deceased relatives can remain attached to their belongings if there is no proper ceremony to release the souls back to the spirit world to rejoin their relatives. If there is no proper ceremony for the disposition of the bodies at the time of death, the spirits can be restless. Looking Horse said, “We only want to allow the restless to rest.”

Catches says the day at the museum receiving the belongings was “emotional and meaningful. …I could feel the presence of the ancestors. …I was so glad to have them coming home. (At the same time) I felt sad.”

Leola One Feather of the Oglala Sioux Tribe told the Associated Press in July, 2022, as she observed the process of photographing and cataloguing the belongings. “It may be sad for them (at the Museum) to lose these items, but it’s even sadder for us because we’ve been looking for them for so long.”

Catches continued her account of Nov. 5, “The day was beautiful. There was a traditional ceremony with tobacco and sage – and I got to talk!” Catches said she did not know she would have the opportunity to speak and did not prepare any remarks. She doesn’t remember what she said other than an expression of her appreciation. After she spoke, more than one person said her remarks helped them to understand the pain and tragedy of Wounded Knee in a way they had not understood before.

Representatives from the Nipmuc and the Mashpee Wampanoag tribes in Massachusetts attended the ceremony in solidarity, sang a song, and gave gifts for the Lakota descendants to bring back home to South Dakota.

Representatives of the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies made donations to help pay the travel expenses of the descendants from South Dakota. Catches says that she felt a special connection with one of the Buddhists she met there who is a survivor of the Jewish Holocaust.

Violet Catches says that being at the repatriation ceremony “did something (positive) for me, but it did not bring me closure. About 300 of my people were killed at Wounded Knee and all their belongings were stolen. There are still many belongings that have not come home. A Lakota baby was taken and kept alive as a trophy. My pain will never go away.”

Catches refers to a Lakota infant found alive under the lifeless frozen body of her dead mother several days after the massacre at Wounded Knee. She was eventually named Zintkala Nuni, the Lost Bird. A National Guard general and his wife adopted her.

Lost Bird lived a brief but harsh life with no true meaning of belonging before she died at the age of twenty-nine. Hers is one more tragic story of Wounded Knee.

Manny Iron Hawk (Titunwan Okowozu) and his wife Renee Iron Hawk (Tituwan Oohenumpa) have been active members of the HAWK 1890 Wounded Knee Descendants Group on the Cheyenne River Reservation since it started 20 years ago. Manny is a direct descendant of a Wounded Knee survivor. His grandfather’s mother was 10 years old when the Calvary ambushed her people. Also, Manny’s grandfather Ghost Horse and his son died at Wounded Knee.

Manny’s mother was active in the descendants’ group until she died in 2008. At that time, he stepped up to a leadership role in the group “to honor my mother and all the relatives who lost their lives in 1890 (at Wounded Knee).”

Along with Chief Henry Red Cloud of the Oglala Lakota Nation, the Iron Hawks traveled to Barre in April 2022 to negotiate for the return of the belongings. Manny Iron Hawk told his family’s Wounded Knee story to a packed house after the April meeting with the museum board.

“The scenario is this,” he said. “You wake up in camp, and … you can see the clamoring of the tents moving. Something is about to happen. You see our men giving up their weapons, even our women. As soon as the shooting starts, Grandma grabs you by the hand and runs to the nearest ravine. And run, run, run, because the Calvary is going to come… hunt you down and kill you.”

That’s the story Iron Hawk’s mother would relay to her children. She’d cry every time, which in turn would cause him and his siblings to cry. “That’s the trauma that we have today,” he said. “Historical trauma.”

Manny Iron Hawk hopes to stop the cycle for the next generation, and instead turn towards healing. “We can’t do that to our children,” he said. “We need to start healing.”

The April 2022 meeting captured national media attention and raised awareness of the Lakota belongings at the Founder’s Museum, which encouraged the return of the belongings to the descendants.

Immediately following the public ceremony on Nov. 5, the descendants’ representatives and museum representatives held a smaller private ceremony. According to Looking Horse, there were more prayers for protection from any restless spirits attached to the belongings and prayers for safe travel back to South Dakota. “Then we shared a good meal.”

Cedric Broken Nose (Oglala Lakota) of the Pine Ridge Reservation received the belongings into his care and drove them back to Pine Ridge in his car. They are now stored at the Oglala Lakota College Pine Ridge Center and will remain there while descendants from the Oglala, Standing Rock, Rosebud and Cheyenne River Lakota tribes meet to decide the final disposition of the belongings.

Manny Iron Hawk says, “We’ll take our time and have discussions and follow all proper protocols” in deciding what to do with the belongings. Looking Horse says that all decisions concerning the belongings should be made by consensus.

Manny and Renee Iron Hawk say they “feel elated now that the sacred belongings are back on our homelands where they belong.” Renee says both she and Manny are grateful and proud of Violet Catches, Ivan Looking Horse, and others in the Lakota delegation that went to Barre on behalf of all the descendants. “They did a really good job.”

Henry Red Cloud says, “We cannot go back in time to change things. What we can do is learn from it, embrace it, and get direction from it. That way we can all unite together as the humans that we are. We can walk forward together.”

Renee Iron Hawk said that moving forward will take forgiveness. “It’s about forgiveness, because I know we will not forget,” she said. “It’s just not possible to forget.”

Ivan Looking Horse emphasized, “(All people) have to come together in peace. We cannot carry hurt and anger any more. That shortens lifetimes.” He continued, “I hope the good message gets out and people will learn history and learn to forgive. We need to build a network of friendship and compassion so that life can go on.”

Looking Horse said the recent actions of the Barre museum are “a good start.” According to an Associated Press review of data maintained by the National Park Service, some 870,000 Native American artifacts, including nearly 110,000 human remains, that should be returned to tribes under federal law are still in the possession of colleges, museums, and other institutions across the country.

 

The post Wounded Knee sacred belongings finally returned to South Dakota descendants first appeared on Native Sun News Today.

Visit Original Source