Posted: 12/31/2008 at 7:44pm | IP Logged

Wounded Knee Cemetery

WOUNDED KNEE, SOUTH DAKOTA (ANS) -- It's just an obscure bluff among the barren hills of western SouthDakota. If you weren't paying attention, you'd miss the little signpointing to the small rundown cemetery on the hill.

Once you arrive, its significance begins to grab you. Wounded Knee. A small plot of land with an infamous, tragic story.

The Mass Grave of victims of massacre

Climbing up two broken steps and through a cross-crowned archway, I was ushered onto a sacred piece of ground. Looking straight ahead, there lies a long rectangular plot framed by a chain-link fence. Inside a sidewalk on all four sides borders a plot of brown grass.

Setting foot on this side walk, I realized that I was standing above the burial ground of more than 160 Lakota men, women and children, thrown naked into a gaping mass grace, covered over with dirt thrown by the men who murdered these innocent Native chiefs, braves, mothers and children in cold blood that fateful December day in 1890.

Bruce Bartelli gives word of encouragement and hope to Calvin Spotted Elk

The reason for my visit was to honor the memory of two descendents of Chief Spotted Elk, also known as Big Foot. I was there as part of an entourage of family and friends who had come to lay headstones on the graves of Jasper Spotted Elk and his son, Richard Spotted Elk.

Jasper was a decorated war hero who served as a paratrooper in the Second World War, having successfully made jumps into enemy territory in the Philippines. A drunk driver tragically killed his son, Richard, in 2005.

Mission Wounded Knee coordinators Bruce and Donna Bartelli brought the two headstones from their home in Kansas which coincidentally is the state that headquartered the U.S. Army 7th Calvary, the soldiers who carried out the raid at Wounded Knee Creek.

Calvin Spotted Elk requested that his friend Bruce, open the afternoon service with a reading of Psalm 23 and a short word and prayer. Jonathan Maracle of Broken Walls followed with a word of commendation for Calvin and a flute solo.

Following this, a Lakota spiritual elder conducted a traditional Lakota memorial service.

As I walked among the graces and stood above the mass grave of Lakota heroes, emotion and sadness overwhelmed me. Tears filled my eyes as I reas the inscription on the solitary monument.

Jonathan Maracle plays Native flute solo

Unfortunately, for most Americans, Wounded Knee is but a name, an insignificant place. A name with little connection or context to what happened that fateful December 29, 1890.

But for Calvin and his family, they can't escape the details of this tragedy.

As we stood waiting for the service to begin, Calvin showed me a torn photocopy of his family tree that connects him back to his great-great grandfather, Chief Spotted Elk.

Later at church not far from the site of the massacre, a reception was held, put on by Calvin's family and friends.  There we viewed the photos of his ancestors, almost forgotten in today's headline-crazed world.

Chief Spotted Elk got his nickname "Big Foot," because when a load of used clothing was donated to his tribe, he made sure that every one of the Natives under his care received some clothing and shoes.  All that remained was a pair of Army boots, several sizes too big for the chief. Wearing them, he was given the name "Big Foot," and that name seems to have stuck with him to this day.

Calvin's great aunt shared how today's events were possible because his great-great grandmother escaped the slaughter of innocent lives, fleeing with her infant son, Calvin's great grandfather.

Rex Alan Smith recounts this tragedy in his classic Moon of Popping Trees: The tragedy at Wounded Knee and the End of the Indian Wars (Bison Books, University of Nebraska Press, 1975). He writes: "On December 29, 1890, Pine Ridge reservation was enjoying its best weather of the month and almost of the entire winter. It was a day so gentle and clear that the distant brown hills looked as warm and soft as rumpled deerskin, and it was so still that the faraway sounds could be heard clearly, and the thin brown haze of smoke rising from Mousseau's chimney stood straight as a sunflower stalk against the blue sky. So at first the Minneconjous around Big Foot's tent sat calmly enjoying the friendly sun as they smoked and talked. But as they continued to speak about this thing that was happening and about their lodges being searched, they looked around and saw how tightly they were encased in a box of soldiers who stood watching them with loaded guns, and a feeling of cold uneasiness began to build.

A few short moments later, there was a commotion, a rifle shot went off which led to the massacre we now know as Wounded Knee.

Smith continues, "Unaware of the events unfolding at Wounded Knee, Pine Ridge agency began that day as placidly as any other. In the vast sprawl of camps surrounding the agency the Indians were passing the time in perfunctory chores, in visiting, or simply in warming themselves in the sun...At the Episcopal Church of the Holy Cross, Elaine Goodale and the Indian women from various church women's societies were sacking candy,...The women now were preparing for the sixth of the eight Christmas parties when, just before ten o'clock, a muttering rumble of cannon fire could be heard coming from the distant northeast, and the sereni ty at Pine Ridge was shattered by the knowledge that something had gone terribly wrong at Wounded Knee...."

The events of this day in recognizing another descendant of the victims of Wounded Knee are, for us, another reminder that Native Americans and non-natives need to recognize again the sacrifices our ancestors made so we may live.

Now Calvin and his siblings can rest knowing that they honored their people in a good way--the Lakota way.

Jim Uttley, Communications Coordinator for Wiconi International, is also the editor of INDIAN LIFE (www.indianlife.org) and serves as Native American News correspondent for ASSIST NEWS SERVICE. You can E-mail him at: jmuttley2000@yahoo.com. You can write to him at Wiconi International, P.O. Box 5246, Vancouver, WA 98668 or Indian Life, P.O. Box 32, Pembina, ND 58271. Jim lives with his wife Jan in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. They have three grown children and two grandsons.