Special Issue: Empowerment Through Literature || Dakota Homecoming

Dakota HomecomingAuthor(s): Diane WilsonSource: American Indian Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 1/2, Special Issue: Empowerment ThroughLiterature (Winter - Spring, 2004), pp. 340-348Published by: University of Nebraska PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4139066 .

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Dakota Homecoming

DIANE WILSON

In the morning my left hip aches so that it hurts to stand, hurts to walk to the kitchen for my coffee. In the two days that I have not walked with the march, leaving the group at a community center in Henderson after a long day that ended with several bone-chilling miles in the sleeting rain, the pain has grown worse, as if I walked all night to make up for the lost

days. At night I would fall asleep and dream of the eagle staff moving steadily down the road ahead of the group, my legs following behind with strong, sure steps. In the morning I woke tired, my knees sore, my hip aching.

When the flyer went out announcing the Dakota Commemorative

March, it was the first time in 140 years that the original march in 1862 had been publicly acknowledged, much less grieved. How many people saw it, read it, and tossed it away, while others felt those words immedi-

ately begin to stir something in the blood, a heartbeat that echoed across the country as a small group of marchers recognized a call, a summons to be present. History was about to repeat itself as we retraced the original 150 mile forced march from the Lower Sioux reservation to a prison camp at Fort Snelling. For many of us the march would become one of the most significant events in our lives.

I could feel the marchers moving closer, feel their presence as they approached Prior Lake, now a sprawling urban city. The group had grown larger with each passing day as more marchers arrived from the Santee Reservation in Nebraska, from the Sisseton Reservation in South Dakota, from reservations across Canada where Dakota people had fled in 1862 rather than risk hanging or imprisonment. This was their homecoming,

340 D. Wilson: Dakota Homecoming



the return of the Dakota so many generations later to land that was their

heritage. The march followed the original route as closely as possible, passing

through the towns of Sleepy Eye, New Ulm, Mankato, and Henderson, names made infamous by the townspeople who had battered the original marchers with sticks and rocks and scalding water, channeling their own grief into a murderous hatred of all Indians. But this march is rela-

tively peaceful, passing through these towns without incident. The route

grows more arduous as the long caravan of marchers and cars leaves behind the bucolic back roads near the Lower Sioux reservation and is forced to walk on the shoulder of increasingly busy highways.

On the morning of the seventh and last day of the march, the day when we would arrive at the original site of the Fort Snelling prison

camp, I woke at 5:00 a.m., drank my coffee, burned sage with a prayer for strength for the marchers, swallowed four ibuprofen, and drove

through the predawn morning to the Little Six Casino in Prior Lake. Af-

ter breakfast the marchers regrouped at mile marker 92 on Highway 13, where they had ended the previous day's march. The woman who offered the morning prayer wept as she spoke. Already the mood of the group had begun to shift, feeling the weight of six days of remembering, of

sharing stories with other descendants, combined with the sense that we

were about to arrive at the final destination of this long, exhausting journey. The march was approaching what had been a prison camp at Fort

Snelling, the winter home where many more would die of disease and broken hearts.

We walked along the shoulder of the highway with red prayer ties

braided in the women's hair, tied to the antennas of a long line of cars and

vans, wound around the arms of the men who carried the eagle staff at the head of our procession. The wind was strong and cold that morning,

rising up to meet this group with its own challenge, the air whipped by the passage of fast-moving cars and trucks. We crossed freeway entrances

by stopping traffic. My brother, Dave, and the husband of one of the or-

ganizers, Scott, became the shepherds of this ungainly caravan. They wore orange plastic vests and stood at the top of the freeway entrances,

waving their arms at cars that hit their brakes suddenly, surprised at the

unexpected presence of a long line of people walking along the highway. Some drivers seemed to clench in frustration at having the morning

AMERICAN INDIAN QUARTERLY/WINTER & SPRING 2004/VOL. 28, NOS. 1 & 2 341



commute made even longer, their fingers tapping the steering wheel while they looked away rather than face this band of marchers, this mot-

ley group who must be protesting god knows what, why do not these

people just get over the past and move on? Others honked and waved in

support, waiting patiently for the long line to cross safely. We continued to stop each mile and place a stake with a red prayer tie

that carried the names of two of the original marchers. One of the elders would read the names out loud in Dakota and then translate them into

English, and we would all offer prayers and tobacco after the stake was

pounded into the ground with the "Canadian hammer," a large stone that had presented itself to Leo on the first day of the march. Leo and his

nephew, Gerald, had driven 1,200 miles from a Canadian reservation to drive at the head of the procession in the "red pony." It was Leo's original idea that had brought us all together, when he suggested at a confer- ence that the women and children who made this journey in 1862 needed to be remembered, their suffering and courage recognized and grieved by their descendents. The march was named Manipi Hena Owasin Wi-

cunkiksuyapi or "We Remember All Those Who Walked." Sometimes one of the marchers would turn away in silence, wiping

away tears after recognizing the name of a relative who had been part of the original march. I carried the heavy knowledge that my great- great-grandmother, Rosalie Iron Cloud, a full-blood Dakota woman, had escaped this fate by taking refuge at Fort Ridgely with her French- Canadian husband, Louis LaCroix. She may have survived as a result, but I have often wondered what it cost her to be separated from her fam-

ily and community, to have witnessed her sons and husband fighting against her Dakota relatives.

In the afternoon we stopped again to place a stake at one of the mile markers. When it was brought out, Leo said, "This one is easy to under-

stand, no translation is needed as it is not an Indian name." When it was

my turn to say a prayer and place tobacco at the base of the stake, I read the names, Narcisse and Louise Frenier. I felt an electric shock of recog- nition travel down the length of my arms, all thoughts of prayer mo-

mentarily suspended. These names belonged to my family. Narcisse and Louise were relatives of my great-great-grandmother on the other side, Rosalie Frenier, or Iron Lady, from Sisseton.

In that single moment, all of the research I had done about the 1862 war and the following displacement, the reading, the writing about my




other grandmother's experience, even walking and hearing the names of the original marchers, it all came together in a single, deep feeling of

grief. Where I had felt compassion and a strong interest in the events of the march, suddenly it became personal; it was my family who was abused as they passed through the towns of New Ulm, Henderson, and Mankato. It was my relatives who were hit by bricks, stones, and scald-

ing water, who were spat on, taunted, hated. I felt stunned by this real-

ization, watching as each one in the group took their turn in offering tobacco and prayers to my relatives, to my family. How many others had I missed in the days I had not marched?

An hour later I was walking next to Clifford Canku, a spiritual leader from Sisseton. As we walked we exchanged our stories, telling about our relatives and what had drawn us to be part of this march. I told him about

my grandmothers and finding my relatives' names on the stakes a few miles back. I told him how I had felt, for the first time, a powerful sense of grief for the original marchers, that in mourning for my own family the march had become personal as well as for the Dakota people. Clif- ford nodded his head as he listened.

After I stopped talking, Clifford paused for a moment in thought. He

said, "We are all part of the collective unconscious and the people's con- nection to it is growing stronger, partly because of events like the march. When people come back to their heritage, when they learn their lan-

guage, when they march to reconcile a part of history that has never been

acknowledged, then they are slowly putting together the pieces of their

lives, like a puzzle." In the midafternoon, when we had marched almost fourteen miles, we

turned onto old Highway 13, also known as the Sibley Memorial High- way. At one of the last mile markers before we would reach the Mendota

Bridge and cross to Fort Snelling, Leo stood in front of the group and announced that it was time for the men who had led the march with the

eagle staffs to step aside. "This march is to acknowledge the women and children and elders who made this journey and they need to go ahead of the men. They are the givers of life," he said, "The men will walk beside them and behind them."

As the men moved in silence to walk along both sides of our small band of women, a palpable wave of grief settled in as the history that we had recreated began to blur the distinction between past and present, and the sense that we were not alone on this journey grew even stronger.




I was near the back of the group of women and children, and I could see how we had been transformed by Leo's words. Angela Cavender Wilson, the woman who was the "heart" of the march, one of the primary or-

ganizers and the only person to walk the entire 150 miles, became the

lightning rod for the dark feelings that washed over the women. She was the first to begin weeping with deep, shuddering sobs, her head bowed while she continued to walk with her arms wrapped tightly around two of her children. One of the women waved an eagle feather around her

head, while others patted her gently on her back. Clifford filled a tiny bowl with sage and moved through the group, stopping briefly to allow each woman to wave the smoke into her face, hair, and breath. It became difficult to continue walking as my limbs grew heavy and weak, and I was filled with an absolute sense of despair that deepened the closer we came to the bridge that would lead us to the prison camp below. The pain in

my left hip had returned, and my entire right arm and shoulder ached as if I had been carrying something I could not set down, a baby perhaps, or the weight of an elder leaning on my arm.

As we continued to walk, the pavement beneath the women's feet be-

gan to fade and disappear, the rigid layer of tar and gravel slowly giving way to the prairie beneath. Long-stemmed grasses dusted with a layer of snow now bent beneath the hems of the women's dresses as we began to move in our own private landscape. The wind no longer carried the fumes of truck exhaust and fast food grease. I could smell the rich scent of leaves decaying on moist earth, crushed by the slow rolling of the

wagon wheels. The fields had been turned under for fall, a thick layer of

pungent manure spread across the black soil, its neatly furrowed rows a testament to the white farmers who owned it, who subdued it with their

plows and horses. Even the land had lost its freedom, lost its wild mane of prairie grass and sumac bushes.

The men disappeared, leaving the women guarded by a long string of soldiers on horses. Our small group swelled until it stretched into four miles of women and children walking, with a few wagons that carried the

elders, the meager possessions we were allowed to bring, children too

young to walk, and those who were already ill. I could turn back and see the long train that snaked slowly behind us all the way to the horizon,

pointing the way back to the land that had been stripped from the Dakota people.

We had been forced to march over twenty miles each day, and some-




times one of the women stumbled, her legs giving way in exhaustion. "Get up," was the order, as a musket was pointed at the prostrate figure on the ground. "Get up or plan to stay here," the soldier would say with an ugly laugh, his small eyes lingering on the hip of the younger woman who bent quickly to help, to pull her aunt to her feet, to whisper in her ear that she must, she must get up quickly, we will rest soon. Her aunt looked up at her and her niece could see the surrender in her soul, her

willingness to go no further, to have her life end beneath the broad sky of the prairie she had always known, leaving her bones unburied, her mem-

ory lost to her family. Her aunt rose slowly and painfully, her life now a

gift to her niece. She leaned her weight on her niece's arm while the crowd of women flowed slowly around them, murmuring, come auntie, patting her arm and her shoulder as they walked past on sore, swollen feet.

The sky was gray and heavy with snow, the wind gusting in swirls of leaves that danced around their legs, as if mocking them, knowing that some of these women would never dance again. Women pulled their blankets tightly around their shoulders to keep the wind from finding their hearts, from tearing the children from their grasp, especially the little ones who coughed and laid in their mothers' arms without crying, their eyes already focused on the horizon.

Come please, auntie, I said, feeling the urgency of the soldier whose horse paced restlessly nearby, his muzzle level with my head, feeling his

eyes on my hip, my leg. I placed my arm under hers, felt her weight heavy against my shoulder, felt my hip ache and threaten to give out. But I am

young and strong and I can bear that much pain and more, I have untold

depths of rage for my people. If I had my knife I would remove this soldier's staring eyes, cut his insolent tongue from his mouth and feed it to the crows that circle overhead. I would cut the hair from his head and I would dance for my aunt, for my mother who is already dead, for my father who is in a prison in Mankato, accused of killing a man when he was miles away. I would dance for my people, who are treated as less than an-

imals, who are spat on and beaten. My face is bruised from a rock that a white woman threw as we passed through Henderson, her face twisted in

hate, her soul aflame in her eyes that were so terrible I could not face

them, I could not look into that dark place and survive. I felt the blood trickle down my face, but I did not flinch or wipe the blood from my chin. I stared at the ground and held myself in prayer, knowing that as

long as I pray, nothing can move me, nothing will harm my spirit. My

AMERICAN INDIAN QUARTERLY / WINTER & SPRING 2004/VOL. 28, NOS. 1 & 2 345



aunt stumbles and pulls hard on my aching arm. I feel my hip clench but it holds, we will make it, auntie, I am not sure where we will end, but we will get there.

We stop at the side of the wide river where there is a ferry waiting to take the first group of women across. I can see the stone fort on the hill, its windows watching us like little eyes set in its walls. I can see the heads of soldiers who stand guard with their muskets. It is good they have such a large, strong army to protect themselves from these women. I spat quietly to one side, filled with disgust for such cowardly men, who threaten

women, who shoot the ones who could not keep walking, women who closed their eyes, willing to die rather than to live any longer this way. I saw them crowd around an elder and I could not watch. I had to bury my face in my blanket. But nothing could keep the shot from ringing in my ears, from waking me at night when I dozed, too cold to sleep deeply, woken by the rumbling in my empty stomach. I wondered where her

body lies, is she still at the side of the road with no one to bury her, no one to mark her grave, no one to carry her memory forward for her fam-

ily. I could not even weep for her, my tears all used for my family and now I was dry as a bone. I was the corn husk left in the field, useless and

empty. Only my anger kept me moving, kept these two bloody feet walking,

one step after another, kept my auntie upright by the sheer force of my will. I felt my anger, my sorrow rise in my chest and burst out as a fierce ululation that took the other women by surprise. They looked back and I could hear another voice and another rise as we said, "We are Dakota and we will not be defeated." But a stinging blow to my head snapped it

forward, cutting off my voice, and for a moment the world around me went dark. It was my auntie's strength then that held me up, kept me alive while the soldiers called harshly for silence, threatening to shoot the next woman who opened her mouth.

It was a slow ride across the river with the cold wind whipping the blankets around our legs. We could see the first few teepees already set

up under the watchful eye of the fort. This was our prison, our land re- duced to this patch of woods where we would live on handouts from the

government. The first few flakes of snow began to fall, softly and gently laying a white blanket on the fallen leaves. We had little food and none of our own medicines, while many of our people were already ill. I could see

in their eyes that some had already given up, were ready to make their




last journey. I looked around our frigid camp, tipis rising up ghostlike in the woods, no sign of a welcoming fire where we might warm our hands and feet at the end of this road. I wondered then if this would be the last home of the Dakota people.

Our small group of marchers had grown in the last few miles to at least fifty or sixty people, a long line that covered most of the bridge as we moved slowly across to our final destination. Women walked in silence, heads bowed, weeping quietly. What despair we all felt as we moved forward, what a sense of hopelessness, of grief, of uncertainty about the fu- ture. We had to stop once when one of the young girls, who had been walking with her arms wrapped around her mother, simply stopped, weeping, unable to go on. Again, the other women came to her and wrapped a red scarf about her head, shielding her face from the view of the river, wrapping a blanket around her shoulders. As we approached the far end of the bridge, we could hear the ululations of some of the women who had reached the camp ahead of us. At that same moment, the sun broke through the clouds, brightening the bridge with the first rays we had seen all day, warming the hills above the river with a soft golden glow.

I walked next to Clara Strong, who told me she had just turned sixty- three and had originally moved to Minneapolis from Canada. We followed the paved path from the end of the bridge that led down to the park, to the original site of the prison camp. The path turned downward at a steep angle and Clara grabbed my arm while I steadied the two of us all the way to the bottom of the hill.

As we moved slowly downhill, we could hear a solitary male voice begin to sing as he welcomed us with a traditional song, a poignant end to an exhausting journey. The singer was Art Owen, son of Amos Owen, and he was singing a welcome song that his aunt had recently given him. He would tell us later that he had not known why she had given it to him until he sang it as the marchers entered the park. He also said that when he saw the group crossing the bridge that he got choked up, he felt tears on his face. Those are the spirits, he said, pointing to his cheeks. "When you were crossing the bridge," he told the marchers, "I could see blue lights surrounding the group. Those were spirits traveling with you."

After a ceremony to honor the 1,700 original marchers, dedicating a commemorative plaque, an honor dance for this group of marchers, and




a feast, we were told that there would be a closing ceremony with testimonials from people who had been part of the march. Chris Mato

Nunpa, Angela's father, self-confessed "worry wart," and a fierce advo- cate for the historical and political necessity of remembering this 1862

march, moved through the group inviting everyone to stay and be part of the ceremony. Many of the marchers would leave immediately after the feast to begin the long drive home. Chris came to me and said, "We would like to hear a testimonial from you, if you're willing. People think

you're a wasicu but you have Dakota relatives." When we were all seated in a large circle, Art Owen talked about the

emotion of the day and the importance of the march in healing and rec-

onciling the past. He talked about his own experience marching, how beer bottles were thrown at them, people yelled out swear words and racial epithets. He said that as long as you are in prayer, nothing can stop you. Each step you take on a march should be for a relative. When some-

thing gets in your way, you do not go around it, you go through it, oth- erwise it might become an obstacle next time. The feelings that came up when you were crossing the bridge were the spirits, he explained, and their presence meant that the healing had begun. He told us that what we had brought to the march, the words that had been spoken, were all to-

gether, like a bag that has been filled and then closed, and that we would all take part of that with us when we left.

Other testimonials followed with many of the marchers telling his or her story, explaining what it meant to them to be part of this event. These seven days had drawn together a group of strangers from across this

country and Canada who would leave this night feeling like family, like we had formed strong bonds of community in what we had shared.

When it was my turn to speak, I offered a poem I had written during the days when I could not be part of the march, as a way of giving some-

thing back to the group, of offering my thanks for an experience that had

changed my life. Somewhere in these seven days I had stepped fully into

my Dakota heritage, feeling my ancestors gather round like prodigal family. As a witness to my family's experience, and that of the Dakota

people, I learned how much we are our own history, how our daily lives are only the tip of the iceberg that peaks above hundreds of years of generations whose experience, acknowledged or not, has everything to do with the people we become.




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Special Issue: Empowerment Through Literature || Dakota Homecoming