Wiping the Tears of Seven Generations

Narratress:
In support of the white settlers the US army began a methodical and systematic campaign to use whatever means necessary to seize our sacred lands. In a telegram from general William Sherman to president Ulysses S. Grant, this policy was tragically outlined.

Narrator:
"First clear off the buffalo. Then clear off the Indian. We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their total extermination, men, women and children."

[first lines]

Dwayne Blindman:
[December 1990, South Dakota] We, as people in the sixth and seventh generation after the massacre at Wounded Knee, want our nations re-united. We are bringng back together the Sioux nation that was split apart. And that you see today, two hundred and some, almost three hundred riders riding today; and you're seeing representatives from every Sioux nation as well as most of the nations across the world. So we are rebuilding, in the seventh generation.

Birgil Kills Straight:
For the past hundred years, individually as well as a nation, we have been crippled, 'cause after the massacre at Wounded Knee, we have never gone through the process, the ritual that is usually accorded to the individual or the family that has lost a loved one. And until the time that takes place they are in a period of mourning. So my brothers and I got together and we decided we must do this spiritual ceremony for wiping the tears.

Birgil Kills Straight:
The events that happened and that led up to 1890 and the subsequent actions against our peoples was horrendous. A heinous crime was committed, people scattered in all directions. The US gave congressional medal of honors for killing women and children and unarmed men.

Birgil Kills Straight:
We will go through the process of wiping the tears of our people. This does not mean we forget what happened 100 years ago. But we as educators, we will rewrite history in the way we've been told, orally, by our grandparents. The ceremony, after it's concluded, will be like turning a page over in history.

[last lines]

Arvol Looking Horse:
And today we pray for peace and unity, and we look at it as global, as the whole world needs it. So now we pray for all mankind, the two-legged, the four-legged, everything that crawls and flies, we are all related. This is Wo'Lakota.