Riders to honor those killed at Wounded Knee

Two weeks from today, 300 men, women and children will saddle up their horses near Bridger and begin the final leg of a five-year journey honoring their Indian ancestors slain at Wounded Knee a century ago.

The Sitanka Wokiksuye — or Chief Big Foot Memorial Ride  — provides the state’s Indian communities an opportunity to assess their gains in this Year of Reconciliation.

The ride also offers a symbolic starting point to plan for better living in the second 100 years after the massacre of Big Foot and his band of Minniconjou Sioux at Wounded Knee on Dec. 29, 1890.

“As Indians, we all remember those tragic events, and we’re all touched by them so much,” said Jim Garrett, one of 10 riders who has participated in the annual December journey since it began five years ago.

“Wounded Knee is something that affects everyone. We know why it happened: The federal government and the state wanted our land. They took it, and the only way they could shut us up was with something like Wounded Knee. After Wounded Knee, our people settled down and lived this austere life on the reservation.

“This 100th year anniversary is a manifestation of our coming out of that period,” Garrett said.

The centennial ride begins Friday in Little Eagle on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in north-central South Dakota. After ceremonies Saturday at Fort Yates, N.D., about 50 Sitting Bull descendants will ride to Bridger, arriving Dec. 21.

Their route follows that of their ancestors, who fled Fort Yates after soldiers killed Sitting Bull on Dec. 15, 1890. They joined Big Foot’s band and journeyed together toward Pine Ridge.

In Bridger, another 300 riders — many of them Big Foot descendants  — will join for the final 175-mile trek to Wounded Knee. That segment of the ride begins on Dec. 23 and concludes Dec. 28.

This year’s ride will be the last.

“The reason we wanted to do it for five years, in the Lakota traditional way, when you enter into the sacred circle, you prepare yourself four time for four days,” said Birgil Klls Straight of Kyle another of the original riders. “That’s what we’re doing. We’re following that old tradition. We must do it four times to prepare for this final year.”

The Sitanka Wokiksuye began with 19 riders in 1986 and has grown into a spiritual journey for several hundred.

Media from around the globe will report on this year’s ride. Garrett said he has received inquiries from more than 100 news organizations, including some from the Soviet Union, Italy, Germany, Mexico and a half-dozen other countries.

Most riders will be Oglala Sioux from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, but several South Dakota trbes will be represented, Garrett said.

Among them: 40 riders from the Cheyenne River Reservation, 25 from Standing Rock, 40 to 50 from Rosebud, 15 from Sisseton and a small group from Crow Creek. In addition, a dozen or so Minnesota Indians with ties to the American Indian Movement occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973 will join in.

Garrett expects 20 to 30 non-Indian riders, too

“This ride is not only for the people whose families were involved at Wounded Knee. It’s for the whole Lakota nation,” he said.

Kills Straight, whose recurring visions that began nearly 20 years ago inspired the ride, said he never envisioned that the Sitanka Wokiksuye would grow into a media event, nor was it intended to be a test of physical endurance.

“It’s not just a horseback ride,” said Kills Straight, who welcomes the attention and the glut of riders with mixed emotions. “You can do that at anytime, and travel greater distances and at a faster pace. The unique thing is that we are able to live between the physical and the metaphysical world. From the Lakota perspective, we’re right between the spiritual world and today’s world, and our mind can traverse that metaphysical world, but our body is in the other world.”

That’s the beauty of the ride, he said.

It offers riders a chance to explore their inner-self, to ponder the past and plan for the future. It’s a taxing physical journey during the heart of one of the prairie’s most challenging seasons, testing participants’ ability and willingness to endure.

Kills Straight and Garrett agree that four years’ worth of rides has given them a better understanding of the physical stress of their ancestors, as well as a clearer perspective of their roles in the current struggle to achieve a better life for Indians.

Riders will camp outside. Friends and family traveling in support vehicles will prepare group meals nightly, and various spiritual ceremonies will be conducted regularly throughout the journey.

A series of ceremonies at the mass grave at Wounded Knee on the evening of Dec. 28 and morning of Dec. 29 will cap the ride.

“It’s a beautiful experience,” said Garrett, 42. “It’s very difficult, and it’s very cold, with long hours in the saddle. But it’s a very good way to see the land for how it is, especially in the harshest season. It’s very old, and you have to endure a lot of hardship. But everyone is going through the same thing, so you don’t complain. You accept it and you pray.”