Across the fence

"My uncles," the young boy pleaded with hands raised above his head, "do not kill me. I do not wish to die."

Crow Foot, the 14-year old son of Chief Sitting Bull, had been in hiding inside his father's cabin as the skirmish between the Indian Police and Sitting Bull's followers escalated. Nearly a dozen men lay dead or dying on the frozen ground outside the cabin. Among the dead was Sitting Bull who had been shot in the chest and head at the beginning of the skirmish. Many of the Indian police had counted coup on his body and others had begun to mutilate the corpse.

The Indian police were bringing their wounded into the cabin when they discovered Crow Foot's hiding place and asked one of their officers what they should do with him.

"Do what you like with him," the officer responded. "He is one of them that has caused this trouble."

Two members of the police force raised their weapons in unison and fired. Crow Foot fell dead. His body was thrown out the door and dragged to the row of corpses that lay cold and stiffening in the snow.

This moment, in the tragic history of the Lakota, occurred in the pre-dawn hours of December 15, 1890 at Sitting Bull's camp on the Grand River, some 40 miles southwest of the Standing Rock Reservation, Dakota Territory.

In 1869 a Paiute holy man named Wodziwob, organized a religious movement involving a ceremonial dance that would bring about the fulfillment of his vision. He told of a journey beyond the living and of promises made by those ancestors recently dead. A promise that those who had departed from this life would come back to their families in three years time. Wodziwob conducted the ceremonies, involving the common circle dance, or Spirit Dance, for a period of three years with the assistance of another holy man named Tavibo.

Twenty years later Tavibo's son Wovoka, a spiritual leader and prophet of the Paiute, received a vision during a solar eclipse on the first day of January 1889.

Wovoka said that he had stood in God's presence in heaven and had seen his ancestors involved in all of their traditional pastimes. God had shown him a land filled with the bounty of wild game, enough for all. Wovoka was instructed to tell his people that they should love one another and must not fight. His vision revealed that Jesus would return to the earth in three years time and that the people should work, not lie or steal and refrain from the old ways of war and self-mutilation when mourning for their dead. Wovoka preached that if the people would follow these teachings they would be reunited with their families in another world where there would be no sickness, disease or death.

The native tribes across the Great Plains Region accepted Wovoka's teachings and believed that through this new religion the old ways of their ancestors would return, either here on this earth or in another world. Differing interpretations became common among various tribes and while some leaders embraced the movement others did not.

Among the Oglala Lakota of Pine Ridge and Standing Rock reservations the Spirit Dance Religion was known as the Ghost Dance and its teachings were somewhat modified. For the Lakota, the Ghost Dance would bring a Messiah who would drive the whites out of the sacred lands of the Lakota. It would bring back the buffalo, return them to the days of old and reunite them with their departed ancestors.

While the religion taught non-violence and those who practiced the religion remained non-violent, the U.S. Military and some government appointed Indian Agents believed that the 'Messiah Craze' would escalate to a full-scale war.

It was believed that Sitting Bull was the primary instigator and supporter of the Ghost Dance Religion and that he should be arrested and imprisoned in order to bring a halt to the ceremonies being held. To prevent or stop the anticipated outbreak the U.S. military launched the largest deployment of troops that had been seen since the Civil War. Thousands of troops from across the country converged on the Dakota Territories and Sitting Bull was targeted as a strategic leader for the movement.

So it was that in the early morning of December 15, 1890 the appointed Indian Police of The Standing Rock Agency descended on Sitting Bull's camp and attempted to remove him from his home because he had dared to defend the rights and beliefs of his people.

What had begun as a peaceful protest ended in the violent deaths of nearly a dozen men and a boy.

But it did not end there at Standing Rock. As bodies were being removed for burial thousands of troops were assembling to put down a supposed uprising that simply did not exist. In less than two weeks time the spark that had ignited the hopes of the Lakota would be extinguished at a place called Wounded Knee Creek.

Volume 1 of "101 Yesterdays", containing 50 selected columns from the past six years is now available. To order contact Tim at HYPERLINK "mailto:[email protected]" [email protected] or send $17.00 plus $3.00 postage and handling to M. Timothy Nolting P.O. Box 68 Bushnell, NE 69128