Indigenous Matters
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Honoring Sitting Bull
Dear Bruce,
When most people think of December, what comes to mind might be the holidays we celebrate, gathering with family, and the turning of the page to a new year at month’s end. In Lakota Country, unfortunately, the end of the Gregorian calendar year is also inextricably linked with a pair of troubling anniversaries. In solidarity with us, I hope you’ll make a little room to remember them with me today.
First, Dec. 15, 2024 is the 134th anniversary of the assassination of the great Hunkpapa Lakota Chief, Thatanka Iyotake, or Sitting Bull. I, too, am Hunkpapa Lakota, and I’ll say that Sitting Bull is one of our most celebrated ancestors for good reason. To learn more, I urge you to read (or reread) this blog, which I penned last year to give you more about Sitting Bull’s life, the context of his death, and an action you can take and share to rescind Medals of Honor granted to U.S. soldiers responsible for the second anniversary I referenced: the massacre of hundreds of Natives at Wounded Knee just days later, on Dec. 29, 1890.
Photograph of Sitting Bull by David Francis Barry, circa 1883.
Tied to both of those anniversaries, I’ve been doing research and thinking a lot about the unique, historic nature of policing in Indian Country. In general, cops have never been especially friendly to us — even when they are from our communities. They have always been in direct correspondence with and there to enforce rules made by American governmental officials and corporate institutions that we all face together, even today. In turn, those entities have frequently displayed genocidal intentions and undertaken endeavors, from the Wounded Knee Massacre and the murder of Sitting Bull to railroading pipelines through our sacred lands, meant to degrade or eliminate tribal nations (or, potentially, anyone demonstrating the will to defend American lands and waters).
In our last message, my father thanked U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland (Pueblo of Laguna) for her service over the past four years. Let it not be lost on anyone the importance of a Native woman occupying that seat, because for many years, her department was (and sometimes still is) a great nemesis to our communities.
And that brings us back to Sitting Bull. In 1890, the Indian agent James McLaughlin, overseen by the U.S. military and the Secretary of the Interior, ordered him taken into custody. As 43 policemen and volunteers arrived that sad morning at the chief’s house and announced his arrest, a crowd of community members gathered at the commotion and began to protest. 150 Lakota arrived to protect him, and his son then led a group who attempted to free Sitting Bull from police custody.
Bureau of Indian Affairs police lieutenant Henry Bullhead and police sergeant Charles Shavehead, who bracketed Sitting Bull to prevent his escape, were shot. Mortally wounded, Bullhead then murdered Sitting Bull, shooting him in the ribs. Indian agent Red Tomahawk, who’d been behind Sitting Bull, then assumed command of the police. The ensuing fight resulted in the deaths of six police and eight Lakota protectors. After Thatanka Iyotake’s assassination, his people fled to join Spotted Elk (the brother of Iron Eyes, from whom my family takes its name). Then the band fled toward Red Cloud and the Oglala at the Pine Ridge Agency — and soon thereafter came the massacre at Wounded Knee.
These events live on with us — not just, unfortunately, as histories. As an Oglala who lives on Pine Ridge, I have witnessed police abuse in the modern day. And I have heard direct testimony and firsthand accounts of abuse of power and undue violence by Indian police over the past few decades. One example, and this is something I plan to expand on for you in subsequent messages, was the Reign of Terror on Pine Ridge in the early 1970s, which ultimately laid the foundation for the American Indian Movement’s occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973.
There is much more to say about that, and there’s so much more we can do moving forward. I promise you’ll hear more from me again soon. In the meantime, please hold us close, as you would all your loved ones at this time of year. I’m so grateful to be able to share with you, and I know that, together, we can continue to make progress. We can and we must use the often harsh lessons of the past to understand the present and create a future we can be proud of for all human beings.
Wopila tanka — thank you for your friendship!
Tokata Iron Eyes
Spokesperson & Organizer
Lakota People’s Law Project
A Brief History of the Attempted Genocide
Although the European invaders attempted a complete indigenous genocide they failed, and although many indigenous cultures, traditions, languages, and much wisdom has been lost, the fact is there are currently 574 federally “Recognized” tribes in the US as of 2024 as well as over 400 “unrecognized” tribes including the Herring Pond Tribe of southeastern MA. There are also approximately six million Indigenous tribal citizens now alive in the US. How odd that the best concise summary of the American Genocide of the Indigenous Peoples is to be found at The Ministry of Foreign Affairs website of the People’s Republic of China.
Free Leonard Peltier
… and all other political prisoners who are unjustly held captive!
History of the Winged Free Leonard Peltier Spirit Mask and Puppet
The Winged Free Leonard Peltier Spirit Mask was created in 1992 for a cultural festival and parade in Jamaica Plain, Boston, at a time when many people were celebrating 500 years of Indigenous survival and trying to call attention to the ongoing oppression of Indigenous People and Indigenous leadership on Turtle Island. The actual puppet/mask was constructed and brought to life by creative artists and cultural revolutionaries associated with “Spontaneous Celebrations” a community empowerment through art organization in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston after Dennis Banks – who lived in Boston during the 1990s – visited the home of Spontaneous Celebrations and spoke about Leonard’s unjust incarceration and the history of the Massachusett People who lived around Jamaica Plain, which was named after a Massachusett sachem, Kuchamakin. In 1995, Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council President, Russell M.Peters, wrote of Spontaneous Celebrations that he was “particularly impressed with the attention paid to Native American issues … and to the Leonard Peltier puppet…”
The Free Leonard Peltier mask has been to big Climate March demonstrations in New York and Massachusetts. Dennis Moynihan – then of NPR- took Leonard to the White House where he was photographed on the front lawn. For many years Leonard was carried during the Wake Up the Earth Festival in Boston and at Boston’s First Night Parade. Leonard’s Winged Spirit has traveled over 20,000 miles and has been to Pine Ridge, Wounded Knee, and Oak Flat. The mask also spent a week encamped at Standing Rock in 2016. Many repairs have been made to Leonard’s mask over the years. Most recently his face was repainted by the famed Uruguayan artist, Roberto Ciao.
Leonard’s allies in Massachusetts – including Spontaneous Celebrations and the Massachusetts Peace and Justice Community – hope at this time in Leonard’s life – Fall 2023 – to gift the Free Leonard Peltier mask/puppet/winged spirit to the Lakota People.
The Aquinnah Powwow on Noepe aka Martha’s Vineyard
In 2023 I attended my first powwow on Noepe, held by the Aquinnah Tribe of the Wampanoag Nation, occupants of Noepe probably for 1000’s of years before the Pilgrim’s occupation and conquest. And inasmuch as I haven’t gone yet, and I’m only hoping that the Great Spirit will grant my wish to attend, I will write about this subsequently.
Pssst – Did you know I could see the future?
Indigenous Matters
I work at honoring and protecting indigenous cultures worldwide, particularly in North America, a.k.a. Turtle Island,` and particularly in Massachusetts, named for the Massachusett People, one of the indigenous nations that occupied the current state that bears its name. I wish to walk the talk and not just talk to talk of restoration of rights and preservation of culture, knowledge, and belief. As the child of immigrants and invaders now living on the unceded land of the Nauset Tribe of the Wampanoag Nation on Cape Cod I hereby declare:
Indigenous Matters and the 2024 MA Legislative Agenda
It is important to the rebalancing that I imagine is possible that we acknowledge that we live on lands loved for millennia before us by people of the Massachusett, Mohican, Nauset, Nipmuc, Pawtucket, Pocumtuc, Seaconke, Pokanoket, Pocumtuk, Nipmuc, Abenaki, Wabanaki Confederacy and Wampanoag tribes and nations. I give thanks to the indigenous people who stewarded the land and waters of Massachusetts for more than 15,000 years. I acknowledge that I inhabit land seized and stolen from these indigenous people, whose descendants still live among us. I am committed to honoring their wishes for respect, restoration, and independence and invite you to join me.
The 2022 Massachusetts Legislative Agenda
You may think you know all about why to support the MA Indigenous Legislative Agenda but there is still much to learn if you … WATCH THIS POWERFUL ONE-HOUR VIDEO OF THE JANUARY 11 INDIGENOUS PANEL SPEAKING ABOUT THE NEED TO SUPPORT INDIGENOUS-CENTERED BILLS IN MASSACHUSETTS!
And if you don’t have the time to be further re-educated and inspired …THEN JUST TAKE THIS ACTION STEP:-Go to https://bit.ly/SupportIndigenousBills and send an automated letter to the members of the legislative committees where the bills are currently sitting, asking that the bills be reported out of committee favorably. You can customize the letter if you want. Please share and get your friends and organizations to write, too!-Learn more about the bills and get updates via http://maindigenousagenda.org/-Email for more information: info@MAIndigenousAgenda.org or info@uaine.org
Move our bills out of committee before the deadline!
The 2021-2022 Indigenous Legislative Agenda includes 5 priorities: Remove Racist Mascots, Honor Indigenous People’s Day, Celebrate and Teach Native American Culture & History, Protect Native American Heritage, and Support the Education and Futures of Native Youth.
Join us in calling for each of these bills to move out of committee!
An Act prohibiting the use of Native American mascots by public schools in the Commonwealth. (S.2493/H.581) Currently about 30 public high schools in the state use Native American mascots. This bill would task the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education with establishing regulations to prohibit Native American mascots in MA public schools.
An Act establishing an Indigenous Peoples Day. (S.2027/H.3191 ) This bill replaces Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day in the Massachusetts General Laws.
An act relative to celebrating Native American culture and history. (S.382/H.651) This bill addresses the lack of Indigenous curriculum in Massachusetts public schools.
An Act providing for the creation of a permanent commission relative to the education of American Indian and Alaska Native residents of the Commonwealth. (H.582) As a State Education Agency, the MA Department of Elementary and Secondary Education must engage in timely and meaningful consultation with stakeholders. Representatives of Indian tribes located in the state are explicitly identified as stakeholders.
An Act to protect Native American Heritage. (S.2239/H.3377 & S.2240/H.3385) This would ensure that Native American funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony (those of cultural, traditional or historical importance to their heritage) held in governmental, municipal or non-profit collections are not sold for profit.