MOMMA DID YOU CRY? (1890 - 1973)
On December 29, 1890, a group of Lakota men, women and children were ambushed by the United States army when returning from a sacred ceremony and over 300 were massacred. Many of those who were not killed outright by gunfire were left to freeze. A few survived by hiding beneath the bodies of the dead. This occured at a place called 'Wounded Knee'. In February, 1973, a group of Lakota people (Oyate) staged a seige on this same spot to call attention to the plight of the Lakota Nation and to reclaim themselves as a sovereign nation. In the following, I imagined that one person could have been alive to witness both events.
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Momma, did you cry yourself to sleep that night
With the echoes of the gunfire and the memory of the flight
As we lay beneath the bodies, safely hidden out of sight
Momma did you cry yourself to sleep that night?
I was just a young boy when we traveled through the snow
To dance the prophet’s dance to bring back the buffalo
When the shots began to ring out we didn’t understand
It was our lives these strangers wanted as well as our land
Early the next morning when we crawled from that place
You held me oh so gently in your loving embrace
And in all the years that followed, you never shed a tear
As you watched the way of life you knew just disappear
Now I am an old man and I speak the white man’s tongue
Yet my heart still hungers for the ways I learned when I was young
My grandkids know the story of a place called “Wounded Knee”
But do they realize what was taken from them and from me?
Now once again the Oyate have come to take a stand
In this place my father died, upon this sacred land
And my eyes begin to tear at these young warriors’ proud refrain:
“You can’t kill us – you can’t still us. The People shall remain!!”
And momma how I cry with tears of joy tonight
As I see them standing proudly, ready for the fight
Our People will stand together; past wrongs will be made right
Momma how I'll cry myself to sleep tonight.
© Dark Deer
July 29, 2002
Photo of Miniconjou Chief Big Foot, dead in the snow. From wikipedia
By darkdeer
© 2008 darkdeer
(All rights reserved)
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