Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee

Mary Crow Dog:
Long ago, to end the Indian Wars, the United States made a treaty with Red Cloud and Sitting Bull, the leaders of the Sioux Indian Nations. The paper gave this great Sioux Nation to our grandfathers alone. Our lands began in Canada and stretched south into the Badlands of what would become the Dakotas. At its heart were the Black Hills, sacred to our tribes. We were promised this land was ours, as long as the grass grows and the waters flow. The treaty was signed by President Ulyssey S. Grant. Then General Custer announced there was gold in our Black Hills. He led his Seventh Calvary to protect the miners and the white settlers who swarmed in, and the railroad men, the saloon keepers and the lawyers who followed. They ripped the heart out of our Black Hills, they slaughtered our buffalo and drove our people off the rich prarie into the Badlands. It began for us a time of great darkness. All the dreams of our people seemed to die here, at Wounded Knee, where Custer's men shot down 300 Lakota men, women and children, and threw their bodies into a mass grave. This is where I came to find my soul, which I had lost and which had wandered by itself for many years. This land will be yours the white men said, as long and the grass grows and the waters flow. As long as the grass grows and the waters flow.

Mary Crow Dog:
We were poor, but I didn't know it because we had love and respect.

Charlene:
Sister Maggie's gonna kill us.

Mary Crow Dog:
Ah they'll never miss us besides that fat German sina capa can never catch us. [having snuck out on their own]

Webster:
I'm Webster. What's you name baby?

Mary Crow Dog:
It ain't "baby," baby.

Webster:
So what is it?

Mary Crow Dog:
Mary. Hey this is the first car I've been in years that the radio worked!

Mary Crow Dog:
Jesus. Where'd you come from?

Spencer:
I'm not Jesus. And you're drunk kid.

Mary Crow Dog:
If you're not my savior then who the hell are you?

Spencer:
Spencer, like the rifle. It was a good rifle.

Archeology Professor:
This is an archeological site. Could you stand back please? We don't wanna displace the remains.

Mary Crow Dog:
Ask him where his grandmother is buried at.

Archeology Professor:
What?

Spencer:
We said where's your grandmother buried at? We got shovels. We want to get at her, so we can put her in our museum.

Archeology Professor:
Who are you people? What do you want?

Spencer:
We walking scientific specimens. We're quaint tourist attractions. We're living fossels. We're your conscience, if you have one.

Mary's grandfather:
Soon I will make my journey to the spirit world. I will see all my old friends again. Carl Iron Shell, Good Lance. We'll walk with young legs and talk about the mysteries of life. Like where the sunglasses go when you lose them. We'll have buffalo meat, and I'm gonna tell them about what we have done since they have gone. I'm gonna tell them about A.I.M.

Barbara:
Where's he goin'?

Mary Crow Dog:
His own road to hell. [after Spencer leaves]

John Standing:
Welcome to the revolution Father. [after GOONS have shot up the Wounded Knee church]

Russel Means:
Used to be you couldn't hardly get a woman to talk, now you can't get 'em to shut up.

Post Reporter:
Excuse me Miss. What's the real reason you people are here?

Mary Crow Dog:
You should probably talk to Dennis Banks or Crow Dog. [tries walking away when reporter grabs her]

Der Stern Reporter:
We uh... we eh... we wants to know as you think.

Mary Crow Dog:
See that guy over there? He's a Mohawk from New York City. We have Cheyenne from Montana, Nisqually from Washington State, Ojibway, Oneida, Paiute from Alaska and Canada, all over. The Red Nations, they were like this... [holds up her open hand]... now we're like this. [makes a fist] We are here.

Post Reporter:
Could you do it again. Just one more

Der Stern Reporter:
Hold it up.

Post Reporter:
Could you make it more like a fist. That's great!

Russel Means:
Raymond Yellow Thunder. Wesley Bad Heart Bull. Richard Oakes. Norman Little Brave.

Reporter:
Who are these?

Russel Means:
Ah man be a professional, do you research!

Fools Crow:
As landlord of this continent, we're gonna collect the rent. [cheering]

Leonard Crow Dog:
Mr. White Man, we do not want to fight with you. Only you're system and the laws...

Attorney:
We're a Nation of laws, not men.

Gladys Bissonette:
Do your laws fight your wars for you! Do they have your children? Are they there when you die?

Lt. Colonel Alex Burns:
This is not a military operation this is a Chinese fire drill and I'm probably insulting Shanghi firemen at that!

Red Arrow:
If the 82nd came in here...

Lt. Colonel Alex Burns:
Let me ask you something here just what are those people over at Wounded Knee doing?

Red Arrow:
They are in defiance of the legal order to evacuate the area.

Lt. Colonel Alex Burns:
Well have they made any assaults? Have they taken any prisoners or any hostages... I mean what in the hell are you scared of here?

Red Arrow:
They got arms Sir. They're talking armed rebellion, they're talkin' Indian Wars. Now hell I agree with this bunch up here. We got no control! Now your people could run 'em right over.

Lt. Colonel Alex Burns:
Uhhuh. Good God. Another massacre at Wounded Knee. Well Mister, I think the United States Army's already fought one Indian War and we got too many good Indian soldiers. And we know how they fight. And if I were you, I'd watch my ass. Good day.

Gladys Bissonette:
He said a long time ago, 83 years ago, the ghost dancers gave up their arms at this very spot. And they were massacred!

Attorney:
I can't undo that. I didn't do it. Nixon didn't do it. None of us were there. We can't change that. Let's move on. We have to start with you laying down your weapons.

Gladys Bissonette:
Hey! Asking didn't get you here. Being right didn't get you here, our guns got you here.

[negotiating at Wounded Knee]

Mary Crow Dog:
Ow-wee! Someone's gotta lose weight! Get off. [laughs after men cover her when gunshots sound]

Mary Crow Dog:
In the next days, they prayed for me and my baby. They gave me a new name: Mary Brave Woman. It was then that I found my voice. I was a Lakota woman. I was happy. I was free.

Mary Crow Dog:
I had a baby. Does that violate some kind of law? [after being arrested]

Mary Crow Dog:
After 73 days, the siege at Wounded Knee was over. Once we put down our guns and the television and the news reporters went home, the arrests began. They could say anything they wanted. Whatever we said was gone on a cold Pine Ridge wind. Here, where I found my life, my center, my people - where I found my first-born - nearly everything is gone now. The government tried to extinguish all signs that Indians once made their stand here. It will do them no good, because the world saw, the world heard. Even though, in time, Annie Mae Aquash and Pedro Bissionte were murdered by GOONS. Even though once again the government lied and betrayed us. Even though some of our leaders are still in jail, in the end it, will do them no good at all to try to hide it, because it happened. Today is still not ours but tomorrow might be because of that long moment those short years ago at Wounded Knee where we reached out and touched our history. I was there. I saw it. It happened to me. So that our people may live. So that our people may live.

Mary Crow Dog:
This is my story. Compared to many of my people's heroes - Red Cloud, Crazy Horse - it is only a little one, but it is mine.

Mary's grandfather:
Mary's got the strong heart of a turtle.

Aunt Elsie Flood:
Long after it dies, the turtle's heart keeps beating, all by itself. Like us, like the Lakota.

Mary Crow Dog:
The years passed as they tried to turn us from Lakota to white. They took away our langauge and our history, and our memories grew dim. They replaced the the comfort and joy of our religion with the thunder and agony of theirs. They took away our souls every day and our pitctures once a year. I don't have any of the pictures... [talking about boarding school]

Hippie:
You guys are Indians?

Charlene:
Last time we checked.

Hippie:
Where you from?

Mary Crow Dog:
He-Dog.

Hippie:
Cool name.

Father Hochbauer:
I've tried with you. It just isn't working. I don't know. Maybe it's the genes. You will run out of track, you know. At some point we all do. I had God. You won't have anything or anyone to save you. You're a soul lost to God. [expelling Mary from boarding school]

Mary Crow Dog:
I was here last week

Grocery store owner:
Oh yeah.

Mary Crow Dog:
Any jobs open up?

Grocery store owner:
I had to hire the boss' son.

Mary Crow Dog:
Aren't you the boss?

Grocery store owner:
Yeah.

Mary Crow Dog:
So what's your big, bad, irritating A.I.M. gonna do?

Spencer:
We light the spark. We're gonna take it all back! And then we're gonna set it free.

Russel Means:
We will all die if the whites get their way. They will use this sign.

[holds up American flag]

Russel Means:
They will do anything wrapped in this.

Russel Means:
Flown upside down, it's their signal for distress. Because each star on this blue field is a state stolen from us! A.I.M. is the new warrior society of this century... bound by the sound of the drum!

Lizzie Fast Horse:
I hereby reclaim this piece of bad art in the name of the Lakota Nation, this land's rightful people!

Woman at Calico:
How long you gonna lick Dick Wilson's boots? Take handouts from Washington and talk like a bunch of old women?

[elders arguing about help from A.I.M]

Stat Man:
I made a list. We got 200 gallons of gas, canned vegetables, meats, sleeping bags. Also got frozen corn dogs. I'll log it all in. We got nine rifles and most important, I have 116 of my new brothers and sisters. [after arriving at Wounded Knee]

Red Arrow:
Who are you?

Dennis Banks:
The enemy. Who are you?

Leonard Crow Dog:
Back in 1889 Short Bull came to see my great-grandfather. He said Wovoka, the Paiute medicine man, told him about a dream on the day the sun died. How it happened went like this: he said that 'a new world is coming. Look into this darkness, look here and you will see a new world coming. And walking in it we will meet our dead relatives, which the white man killed, alive again. They will greet us and they will bring back the buffalo and here is the eagle feather.' So many men traveled, at night they went; some from far, far away. They wandered for hundreds, hundreds of miles across new railroad tracks, under telegraph lines. And then the holy man said 'The first song brings fog and white mist. The second song brings snow and ice cold but the third brings gentle rain. And finally the fourth song brings sunshine and warmth.' So today we're gonna dance until we drop or until we're done.

Mary Crow Dog:
This hurts! I didn't think this would hurt so much.

Pedro Bissonette:
Well, well what can I do? Let me do something here. [tries fixing her bedding]

Mary Crow Dog:
Would you go boil some water or something isn't that what you're supposed to do! It's a good thing for a guy to do, boil some water! [going through her labor pains]

Carter Camp:
They need you Mary... to bring Buddy out with some honor.

Mary Crow Dog:
I'm not leaving Wounded Knee.

Leonard Crow Dog:
Yes you are. You are all the family he has here. He gave his life. You can give this.

[after her uncle is killed]

Fools Crow:
Why don't you just kill us? Make our bodies plead guilty. Why don't they just do that?

Carter Camp:
I don't know. Maybe 'cause they didn't think of it.

[being arrested at Wounded Knee]