Wounded Knee

The village of Wounded Knee sits about eight miles off the highway along a narrow blacktop road. It was here in February of 1973 that several hundred armed Lakotas, led by AIMsters but by no means restricted to AIM members, seized the village for the purpose of calling attention to their plight. They knew that the world and recognized the Wounded Knee name and so they did. Press coverage was quite intense, as was the government's response. FBI, U.S. Marshals,Tanks, F-16s, advisers from the regular military. The siege lasted seventy-one days before the protesters, low on food, ammo, and medical supplies, surrendered. Two people, both native, died in the battle. A few government agents were badly wounded but survived. Considering the amount of shooting that occurred, the butcher's bill was miraculously low, certainly compared to the attack on unarmed Natives that had occurred eighty three years earlier. Maybe the NRA is on to something after all.

Three years of general chaos followed, AIM, GOONS, suspicious deaths, unsolved murders, low-scale terrorism and destruction, federal agents up to some unspecified form of no good. The tension between Zealots and Herodians infects life on the Rez to this day.

Some of the veterans of those days, Russel Means, Dennis Banks, etc. speak of "restoring the spirit" of Wounded Knee. A lot of talk of strong "spirituality" and moral victory. If that's what keeps them going, than so be it. The revolt accomplished nothing of course. The status-quo was re-established most vigorously, the Native activist movement became incoherent and cannibalistic. The village of Wounded Knee today looks just like every other settlement on the reservation looked then and looks now; decaying shacks, dirt trails, broken-down cars, the boldest statement is a demand to respect nothing.

A couple miles past the village lies the place. We came upon a brown circular building that turned out to be a "Wounded Knee Information Center." It was closed. Through the window we could see various museumish-looking swag. It's outside features included a water pump where I refilled my bottle and a few dozen Hurricane cans. The only spot in the entire area that wasn't littered with cans was the ceremonial circle behind the building. The importance of this place is revealed by the horse droppings as well as the lack of cans.

A small footpath led to the cemetery. Inside the hill are buried many of the victims of the 1890 massacre. The spot is also used as a general cemetery, home to those who were lucky enough to die individual deaths. The dates range from the turn of the century to the present day. There was a huge concentration of death in 02-03, another in the 1920's. So many babies here, oh God, their graves lavishly decorated with teddy bears, flowers, and cigarettes. Lots of people here in their twenties, thirties, forties. A lot of military veterans, a tiny handful of people who died of old age, their graves honored as much as the babies.

It seemed quiet, but there was just as much ambient noise as one would hear in a medium-sized town. It was the wind and the traffic on Big Foot trail, (named after the leader of the murdered band)and the birds and the rodents avoiding snakes. It was a perfectly appropriate sound. The weight of this place is overwhelming, but only for us. Three hundred people starving people butchered and left to freeze, birds briefly scatter at the sound of machine guns, come back, keep chirping. We heard nothing that we didn't expect to hear so we didn't hear anything.

I'll go to cemeteries sometimes, when I'm out getting my air. They're very pleasant; much quieter than the town park, much more intimate, and I fail to see anything distasteful about it. I can walk into my mother's house unannounced. I invite myself to the cemetery for the same reason. I go there to chide the shells who were too accepting. I try to avoid the children, they have no idea what they lost and if they saw my face they would know I'm hiding something. Mostly, I go there for the bankers and the mayors and the priests and the generals who have been dead a hundred years. I go there for the people who are used to having attention and now don't even get grandchildren who were forced to visit them. The ones with the elaborate crypts are the ones who need us. They can't talk too each other.

It wasn't so different here. Some families could only afford homemade wooden crosses for their dead. Some came from middle class-families and had their photographs etched on their headstones. They were the ones who took flattery and respect for granted, too busy and straightline to worry about aging. People people, couldn't stand to be idle or alone. They hate the nights here.

I removed my hat in the most genteel way possible. I took a cigarette from my pack and offered it in the way Robert had shown us. (Why are you acting like you know us boy?) I tried to think of something to say but, no,no, they were already suspicious enough. Too many white tourists who were deadly sincere until they got back to their hotels. We're just here to look, you know that. We're going to take some pictures too if you don't mind. We'll stay quiet, leave everything as it is, thank you for letting us come here, and don't you appreciate some spontaneous company every now and then?

Down from the hill and across from the building was another graveyard. It was a shambles. Rotting wood markers lying in the grass. A few Hurricanes had snuck in. No. No. There's enough room in this country to give everyone a permanent space. I don't understand why your graves have been left to decay but, here.

At the northeast corner I found the cross for a man who had died in the 1910's. I picked up a rock and pounded his cross into the dry ground as best I could. Than I took some pebbles and placed them around the cross. I did this for a couple other graves and I could hear Dan doing the same on the other side of the yard. They might have held for a week or so.

A married couple from New Jersey pulled up in the lot by the building and started turing the place. They were kindly.

Our group spoke a few words to each other over the half hour or so that I forget. The sky slowly went from that bruised look to mostly cloudy. It was still too warm and dusty. It would rain somewhere in the near-east, not here.

Down the hill and on the other side of the road is where the worst of the massacre took place. This is where people were shot in the back while trying to run. There's a road marker there, an elaborate one, a couple thousand words front and back, but just a road marker. Efforts to turn the site into some kind of Federal monument have fallen short so far.

The creek sits about twenty feet off of Big Foot trail. To the right of the road marker a gravel road runs off the blacktop and over a cheap bridge to a group of buildings, too small to even be called a village. We all made our own way towards the creek, we were all on our own trips now. I came to the bank, It would be more proper to call it a wash. It takes a hard rain or a real winter to get the water flowing through here. In the bed lay three empties of Natural Light and a couple more Hurricanes. Here?

I walked into the creek-bed and stood there awhile. There were fewer trees back then.
Machine gunners on the hills could see their targets in the banks perfectly well. Nothing for the people to do but keep running until they got cut apart or just stand there and face reality. Fuck that, show them you have some blood and keep running, running is the dignified thing to do. Facing reality is what turned my home into a desert. Facing reality is what's killing this place right now. People accept their places when they face reality. They stand there and wait. They drink Hurricane or Coors Light (It doesn't matter) until the good dreams go away and they can face more reality in their sleep.

The woman from the village who noticed the tourists at the spot and came to sell her trinkets, she faces reality. She was disappointed that we had nothing to buy. She had nothing in particular to say. The massacre was very sad, she said, lots of children killed.

I stood on the bridge and listened to the noise. How lucky will I die an individual death, with a Catholic-sized church organ to make noise for me,an obituary written by my closest relative, (which will probably be a second cousin) a stone with my name on it and, hell, dream big, maybe one of my own quotes?

I understand now why people fear terrorists or random loonies with Tech-9s so much. I mean it's really beneath capitalist dignity to die in a big group like that, isn't it? Thank God we have the government to protect us from that.