Great-great-grandson of Wounded Knee Massacre Commander Becomes A Buddhist And Asks The Lakota For Forgiveness

Great-great-grandson of Wounded Knee Massacre Commander Becomes A Buddhist And Asks The Lakota For Forgiveness

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FYI the link seems to be broken.

This worked for me.

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Beautiful, thanks so much for sharing.

In my talks in the US, I have been introducing the Australian custom of acknowledging the traditional owners of the land before an event. I know very little about the context here in the US, of course, but it seems to me that it is something we can do to begin healing.

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A good book about the context of Wounded Knee is Black Elk Speaks by John Neihardt. Black Elk was a Lakota holy man who lived through the events that took place after the American Civil War when the government decided to tear up treaties and settle the northern plains. “The yellow metal that makes the white man crazy” had been found, and there were railroads to build after we conquered the West Coast from Mexico.

I lived in Minnesota, which is just east of the Dakotas, for about twenty years, and they’ve lately begun to rename places with their traditional native names.

A quote from Black Elk that sums it up goes:

Once we were happy in our own country and we were seldom hungry, for then the two-leggeds and the four-leggeds lived together like relatives, and there was plenty for them and for us. But the Wasichus came, and they have made little islands for us and other little islands for the four-leggeds, and always these islands are becoming smaller, for around them surges the gnawing flood of the Wasichu; and it is dirty with lies and greed.

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I think the context is pretty similar to Australia.

As far as the US goes there were many distinct nations and cultures of natives when the British arrived. The colonists ( okay, invaders) had immunity to a number of European diseases ( bubonic plague, etc ) and were carriers. Large amounts of the native population were wiped out from disease.

Per the article, those that weren’t were slaughtered.

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or forced onto reservations.

This narrative that “they’re all dead now anyway” is a myth which helps to perpetuate their (yes, Native Americans still exist) continued erasure and suppression.

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quote=“Khemarato.bhikkhu, post:7, topic:14338”]
This narrative that “they’re all dead now anyway” is a myth which helps to perpetuate their (yes, Native Americans still exist) continued erasure and suppression.
[/quote]

As per Australia: when I was a child I was taught two myths, that there were no Aboriginal people at all left in the island state of Tasmania and that “unfortunately” those who survived on the main continent were destined to die out because they weren’t able to move out of the Stone Age. My mother was basically a good woman but she truly believed this was true.
:cry::sob:

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