| Every seed is awakened and so is all animal life. It is through this mysterious power that we too have our being and we therefore yield to our animal neighbors the same right as ourselves to inhabit this land. Sitting Bull Chief, Hunkpapa Sioux |
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| I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age I can still see the butchered women and children laying heaped and scattered along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream... The nation's hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer and the sacred tree is dead. Black Elk Reflections on the massacre at Wounded Knee |
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| Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons and daughters of the earth. We did not weave the web of life; we are merely a strand in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. Chief Seattle
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| Mrs.
Fanny Kelly was taken captive in July 1864 by a war party of Hunkpapa
Sioux in Wyoming. During most of the five months she was held prisoner,
Mrs. Kelly stayed in the lodgings of Sitting Bull, the famous leader
"as a guest," of his family, "and I was treated as a
guest," she wrote.
"He was uniformly gentle, and kind to his wife and children and courteous and considerate in his [interactions] with others. During my stay with them food was scarce more than once, and both Sitting Bull and his wife often suffered with hunger to supply me with food. They both have a very warm place in my heart." This surprising warm friendship with a woman who had every reason to hate and fear him, characterized Sitting Bull's interactions with whites. A teacher and missionary among Sitting Bull's people, Catherine Weldon, once described him, "As a friend...sincere and true,
as a patriot devoted and incorruptible. As a husband and father, affectionate
and considerate. As a host, courteous and hospitable to the last degree." |
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| Original photography by Alexander Digital design by Alexander@Wildhorse Designs.com |
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