TRIBAL VOICES  

THE VOICE OF THE SIOUX  

Before the American Civilwar, a little over hundred years ago, the Sioux was living around at the prairie, hunting buffalo, growing mais and pumpkins. The Indianterritory was stretching from west of Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains close to the Canadian border and down to the highland of Arizona and New Mexico. (Of course the states is of today's understanding) Here the Sioux and many other prairie indians lived. The Sioux wasn't a unity, but clans which was more or less in family with eachother. Sometimes they met to "Powwows", or meetings, but most of the time they lived shattered around the prairie....says the historybook. The clan's chiefs discussed issues of common interest for all, and the problems or issues decided the time of the gathering. Each clan had one chief, but sometimes there was a strong man who lead more than his own clan, due to his powers as a leader...however if he showed out weak he was dismissed, often by being beat of an stronger opponent. The tribesmen meet also to held different sermonials and annual fiestas-

The history of the Dakota and Lakota indians are known as a tough and bloodsheaded tragedy after the white man came to the New World. The indian was forced to leave his old ways and those who tried to hold on to their tradition has been victims of plain murder until this day. The American Federal Governments representatives , the FBI has been responsible for innumerous murders, arrests, and violating of The Native American Indian Rights. The Red Power uprising around the time of the Shamewar of Vietnam, (there was a lot of indians serving in Vietnam, however that is a silent chapter) made again the Great Nations become alive in the conscience of man, but soon after the last confrontation in 1973, at Wounded Knee, most people in Europe have forgotten them until the last years.

The Lakota's culture and history is a step ahead of all white men's useless love for idols, like all indian cultures, but the sad truth is that many still today live in the poorest conditions in the reservations of N. and S. Dakota. It is alcoholabuse, violence, tears and healthproblems....and I just don't understand how it's possible that a nation can held it's first people in this kind of cultural inslavery. I will probably never understand the society and human history of violence at all, all because of a "god"that the modern man never will see, and the power of destruction of every damn thing in his  way.  

The history of the Sioux is a history about war and conflict, but the most famous conflict found place the last half of the 1800. Out of all possible force they tried to stop the white man's invasions at their territories and the white goldminers that finally stole the sackret grounds of the Black Hills, the Sioux last outpost before destruction. The slaughtering of the buffalo, only for the skin, the railroad forcing it's way, with a path of dead negro and chinese slaves in its tail, and, most of all the governments pressure and enforcement of the indian to stay inside the ever changing and crumbling reservations. The names of a whole lot of famous chief was at every white lip as a negative , but for the indians their last big chiefs was the last hope of freedom.

At the end of 1862, the clans of Minnesota had a uprising against the militarytroops, the white settlers and the government representatives. Under the leadership of Chief Little Crow , they grabbed their weapons in anger over the corrupt commisionaries and the politics that lead to another landarea was taken from them. This uprising lasted about two years, and lead to many incidents from both sides. In 1863 the congress redraw all "contracts" with the Sioux about land, and the tribes lost it's last old area in Minnesota, forced out by military troops. In 1865 the army made a frontline against the Sioux at along the Missouri river and forced the Sioux further and further to the Rocky Mountains. ( I have some family in Minneapolis, one time I wrote and asked about the indian reservations...that was the end of that family reunion.....my forefathers came there from hunger and badlife here in Norway some hundred years ago. No way that my family wanted to talk about the indian question  ).

Still when there was some dialogue running, the government made claim to the Bozeman road which went trough the buffalo land in the eastern Wyoming  to the goldmining areas of Montana and Idaho. This made the situation for the Sioux who lived in the western area worse. Under the leadership of Chief Red Cloud and Spotted Tail , the clans started to execute guerilla actions against the stations and the roads. These actions went on for three years, and in 1868 the government was forced to do something.The following year the government started a politic we know as the Grant-policy...to put up government offices near the places we today knows as the indian reservations. The government promised to give the Sioux support to education and economy , to put oil at the stormywaters of the uprising.

But a lot of indians still didn't settle with the white mans lies, and great personalities as Sitting Bull, Gall, Crazy Horse, and others continued to lead some of their people around as free humans in the western area.

Under the leading General George Custer a armybatallion searched for gould in the Black Hills, the goldrush was a fact, when he intruded into the indian territory in the 1870. The railroad company Northern Pacific also was another source of conflicts. Hundreds of angry and disseapointed indians left the reservations, and the army started a long road of terror actions against the indians the following years. The massacres we only know from the few normal and truthful movies made the latest years.

The summer of 1876 the situation came to it's ultimate confrontation when the crazy General Custer attacked what he apparently thought was some defenseless indiancamps at the Little Big Horn , in southwest of  Montana. It was a trap. The force of Chief Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and a lot of other sioux chiefs had gathered the Siouxnation to the last fight , a fight the white man still remember today because the defeat and killing of all the Custer's men of the seventh cavalry including Custer himself.

Sitting Bull run to Canada, Spotted Tail and Crazy Horse was captured by the whites at last, however these proud men didn't have a choice. In the years to come until the massacre at Wounded Knee, the indian's life worsened every day. Many braves committed suicide with his wife and children. Hundreds died, yes maybe thousands, who knows , of illness brought by the white man, starvation and many plain did freeze to death at winter.

Later we are going to look at the tragedy at Wounded Knee, and the brutal end of a dance for freedom, the belief that the Messiah would come and give the indian all their land and freedom back, and throw out the white man..the last desperate hope became a spiritual movement that finally killed the last hope of ever be able to rise again. That is the white man's messiah, he who they worship as crucified....what kind of barbaric religion is the white mans religion??Did there ever be anything else than death in the path of White Man's Bible?