After I visited Wounded Knee in late 2015. It took hours to navigate Pine Ridge Reservation’s roads back to the Interstate. At one point I came to a “T” intersection. I pulled to a stop, facing a weathered strip of plywood nailed between two fence posts. Hand painted letters cried out, “NRC URANIUM EXPANSION HEARING. […]
On a Ute Holy Man at the Parliament of the World’s Religions
Last week marked Indigenous Peoples Day. A year ago last week I attended the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Salt Lake City, Utah. For me, these two things will always be connected. The Parliament of the World’s Religions marked a homecoming for me. I grew up in Salt Lake City and still have family […]
Custer’s Last Stand, Pt. II: The Little Bighorn’s Grandson
140 years ago today (June 27, 1876,) a column of soldiers discovered the bodies of George Armstrong Custer and 210 of his soldiers on a desolate ridge in Montana, above the Little Bighorn River. Dug in atop a ridge four miles southeast, were Major Marcus Reno, Captain Frederick Benteen, and the 400 surviving members of […]
Custer’s Last Stand Pt. 1: The Little Bighorn’s Stepfather
This weekend will mark the 140th anniversary of George Armstrong Custer’s demise–along with 250 men under his command–at the Little Bighorn River in Montana. For insight into how and why Custer and the 7th Cavalry met such a fate, we need to start with the previous decade. Picture a wintery scene: Nov. 26, 1868. A […]
A Reflection on Wounded Knee
This December 29th will mark the 125th anniversary of the Wounded Knee Massacre. As students of American history probably already know, this 1890 horror was, in a real way, the end of the so-called “Indian Wars.” That is, it marked the final crushing blow specifically against the Lakota on the Great Plains, but symbolically against […]