Indian Ritual Marks Deaths at Wounded Knee

Hundreds of American Indians arrived on foot and horseback at this massacre site to commemorate the 100th anniversary Saturday of one of the saddest days in their history.

About 100 horseback riders and another 100 people watched as Indians conducted a spiritual ceremony in sub-freezing temperatures Saturday morning at the grave site of Sioux Indians killed by U.S. soldiers a century ago.

Russell Means, an activist member of the militant American Indian Movement, blocked the entrance to the cemetery when Gov. George S. Mickelson showed up to pay his respects. The governor made no effort to get past him.

“It would be an insult (for Mickelson to enter) because we live in the racist state of South Dakota and he is the governor,” Means said.

“He wouldn’t let me in,” the governor said later. “He said I wasn’t welcome. He wants to make a mockery of all that has occurred in reconciliation.”

Mickelson declared 1990 the Year of Reconciliation as part of state efforts to improve relations between Indians and non-Indians.

Of Mickelson’s proclamation, Means said: “It is an empty word utilized by the governor for political purposes. It sure helped him in the November election.”

The ceremonies were conducted in temperatures of 21 below zero and a wind chill of 60 to 70 below. The crowd later went to a school seven miles away for other ceremonies at which Mickelson and others spoke.

“The massacre at Wounded Knee is one of many dark moments in American history,” Mickelson said.

Mickelson said he was “pledging my own commitment to learn from our past in order to build a future for all South Dakotans regardless of race or culture.”

The governor said he will keep trying to persuade federal officials to create a national monument at Wounded Knee. The site should be preserved according to the wishes of Wounded Knee descendants, he said.

Hundreds of Sioux men, women and children were killed by U.S. soldiers at Wounded Knee in an event that some historians said signified the end of the Indian wars.

Nearly 300 horseback riders and others on foot endured wind-chill temperatures as low as 50 degrees below zero Friday on their way to the ceremony.

They ended what for some was a two-week, 220-mile trek retracing the final journey of Chief Big Foot and his band before they were killed at Wounded Knee.

The riders assembled their horses in a circle at the massacre site Friday and prayed for peace within the Sioux Nation and throughout the world.

“We pray for peace and unity, and we look at it as global, because the whole world needs it,” said Arvol Looking Horse, a Sioux spiritual leader.

Means and Dennis Banks, another American Indian Movement activist, joined the riders last week. Some said they were bothered by the participation of those associated with the armed takeover of Wounded Knee in 1973, which led to two deaths.

Accounts differ as to who fired first and how many died in 1890 at Wounded Knee. The federal government says about 150 Indians died; the Sioux say as many as 400 were killed.