It was a good day to be alive.
I joined 44 horseback riders Saturday for what has become the annual Big Foot Memorial Ride, a two-week tribute to our Lakota relatives who died at the Wounded Knee Massacre on Dec. 29, 1890.
And we did. Only one rider was bucked off. As our horses galloped, I thanked my Lakota relatives for the beautiful gift of their memory. Even though Chief Big Foot of the Minneconjou Lakota and more than 350 unarmed men, women and children were mowed down by U.S. Cavalry soldiers and left to freeze into contorted shapes on the prairie, they've shown us the worst of our suffering is over.
We are mending the sacred hoop that was broken.
On this day, I rode a magnificent paint horse brought to me from North Dakota by my father, Carlin Rave. I thanked my ancestors. I thanked them for the beautiful animal I rode, who bore such a proud spirit. I could feel it. He stayed up front near the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe flag and the sacred eagle staffs.
Damon Hopkins, a 19-year-old from the Fort Berthold Reservation, said the horse's name was Dazzle, but they called him Diesel because he was a powerhouse of a horse. He said Dazzle carried a young man through the Ultimate Warrior contest on the Crow Reservation last summer.
I didn't expect to feel so elated at the beginning of the ride. Nor did I think I'd be so warm. I was too aware of past rides where horsemen faced temperatures that plunged to 40 degrees below zero. Wind chill factors threatened to crystallize mercury, plunging to 80 degrees below zero. The Dakota prairies have a well-earned reputation for being cold.
My husband made sure I had warm clothing before I left our home in Missoula. I felt obliged to wear one of the cold-weather outfits he pieced together for me. It was too much. I ended up taking off one jacket because I was hot.
I thanked my ancestors for the weather. I know tomorrow, next week or Christmas Day could prove to be much different. And even though I feel good today, I know my body may very well be speaking another language in a few days.
But on Friday night, I joined the Big Foot Memorial Riders. And I pledged to join them for the entire ride. We made our offerings of eagle feathers and tobacco in a school gym in McLaughlin, S.D., where about 60 people gathered until nearly midnight.
We all spoke about why we were participating in the ride. I stood and told them I wanted to share the stories of the Spirit Riders, a group of teenagers who expect good things from life.
As the adults and Spirit Riders move out from the Standing Rock Reservation, we will cross onto the Cheyenne River Reservation, the land of Chief Big Foot. This is also the land where my father grew up. As we move over Cheyenne River, we will rest for a day in the community of Green Grass where many of dad's relatives lie buried.
I remember attending my great-great-grandmother's funeral there when I was 9 years old. Mabel Dupris died on Feb. 17, 1973, the same year of the uprising at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation that led to the killing of two FBI agents.
I thanked my ancestors for allowing me to return to Green Grass, this time in good spirits, riding horse with my father and my cousin Shawn Johns, who arrived from Washington, D.C., to participate in the two-week ride. He said he joined the journey in tribute to sobriety.
I'm thankful for my Lakota relatives, past and present.
Both my great-great-grandparents, Lucy Fights The Thunder and Matthew Poor Buffalo, came from Cheyenne River families who were among the last Lakota holdouts who refused to surrender to the U.S. Cavalry.
Lucy was about 6 years old when her father and brothers joined Sitting Bull at the Battle of Little Big Horn in June 1876.
The Fights The Thunder and Poor Buffalo tiospayes retreated to Canada with Sitting Bull. My Lakota relatives returned to the U.S. with the chief after his surrender in 1881. Poor Buffalo settled into life on Cheyenne River where he was a healer. The people paid him with many horses.
I'd like to think he helped start the mending of the sacred hoop.
In a few days, the Big Foot Memorial Riders will be thundering into Cheyenne River, to the land of Chief Big Foot. They'll arrive on many horses. And the seventh generation of youth will be there to make the hoop complete.
Jodi Rave covers Native issues for the Missoulian. Reach her at (800) 366-7186 or jodi.rave@lee.net.
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