Proud rider inspired by spirit of the eagle
A special land, people — and ride
KYLE — Bucky Harjo isn’t sure what the eagle said, but he’s certain it spoke to him.
Standing waist-high, the golden eagle held its perch looking south over Big Foot Pass in the Badlands. Dignified and proud, the bird barely flinched as a car rumbled past. It was as if the eagle was saying, “The is my land. I move for no one.”
A smile crossed Harjo’s lips. Excitement leapt into his eyes. “Slow down!” he instructed the driver. “Did you see that eagle?”
He turned to watch the bird through the rear window. As it passed from his sight, Harjo fell back into the passenger seat, content and overwhelmed.
“That was Big Foot,” he said. “Or else it was his spirit. I’m sure Big Foot sent that eagle.”
Harjo, 35, is typical of the 300 or so Indians from throughout North American who spent the past week traversing the state on horseback, on foot and in cars, all in the spirit of the Sioux Chief Big Foot, who was slain a century ago at Wounded Knee.
Harjo comes from Santa Monica, Calif. He has a few ties to South Dakota. None of his ancestors were killed at Wounded Knee, and he’s visited the state only a few times before.
But he feels he belongs here. As an activist, he felt compelled to participate in the ride. As an Indian, he had no choice.
The Big Foot Memorial Ride is a statement of self-dignity and self-respect for not only the Lakota, he says, but for all tribes in North America.
“What has happened to the Lakota people has happened to all nations throughout the land as we know it, Turtle Island. We’ve all had our trail of tears, our long walks. We’ve all faced annihilation. Through strength and prayer, we’ve all survived.”
Harjo was born 35 years ago in Muskogee, Okla., one of eight kids. He has four brothers, three sisters. He lived in Oklahoma for 14 years, then was shipped off to a boarding school in Riverside, Calif., that was operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
There, he says, his teachers tried to strip him of his culture. But it was there that he discovered who he was.
When a teach told him his red skin was shameful, Harjo rose up and protested. “That’s what triggered my resistance,” he says. “They try to brainwash you.”
Harjo was given the Indian name Little Buck at birth. His peers teased him, but he was proud of his name so he accepted their wisecracks.
To live up to the name, he challenges authority, resists the norm, takes risks. He occasionally works as a stuntman in Los Angeles. His film credits include Mystic Warrior and Chisum.
When Harjo got out of boarding school, he moved to Nevada, where he learned the ways of Navajo.
“Nevada is a racist state. It was hard for me to live there. I only stayed for a couple of years, long enough to sit down with my elders so they could teach me their knowledge.”
Harjo, a Paiute-Shoshone, eventually ended up in California. He worked as a lab technician at a Los Angeles children’s hospital for 14 years, but recently quit his job.
He now juggles several projects.
He is a spokesman for L.A.-based group protesting efforts to relocate a group of Indians living at Big Mountain, Ariz. A coal company wants to mine the land.
Harjo also is a part of a continent-wide effort protesting the 1992 celebration of Columbus day.
“Columbus didn’t discover America. He was lost. We found him,” Harjo says. “ We see the celebration as 500 years of genocide.”
All Harjo wants, he says, is freedom for himself and his people. He took a first step toward freedom in May when he resigned from his job.
“I let a time clock and a paycheck control me for 14 years.”
He quit because he could no longer pay taxes in good conscience.
“I didn’t want to support and pay taxes to a government that’s causing turmoil for indigenous people throughout the United States. I don’t support that. I recognize myself to be a sovereign person in a sovereign nation. I don’t consider myself to be a citizen of the United States.”
Those are the reasons Harjo came to South Dakota.
Since he’s been here, he’s learned a lot about Wounded Knee and made new friends.
“When I go back among my people in the city — Los Angeles, Santa Monica and my friends in San Francisco — I will have a good story to tell them of what I’ve seen on this ride. If we are to mend this Sacred Hoop, it will be up to us, the seventh generation today. We all have a lot of knowledge, we’re all educated in different ways. If we can come together and utilize that knowledge together, as one body, one voice, then we will be able to turn things around with the political struggles that affect our way of living.”
Harjo got his first chance to ride on Christmas Day. A friend from Rosebud had an extra horse.
As he passed through the Badlands, Harjo looked for the eagle that he had seen the day before when he drove through in a car. He listened for voices. And he heard them.
“I can’t describe the feeling of my spirit,” he said that night, sitting on the floor of the gym at the Little Wound School in Kyle.
“What happened today, what is happening on this ride, is spiritual. It’s sacred. I don’t think I’ll ever understand that eagle that stood on the ridge. It symbolizes a lot. It was a good sign. It could have been the spirit of Big Foot himself. Or maybe the eagle was sent by Big Foot and his people.
“The way I understand the ride is planned, it’s done through the animals, the coyotes, the wolves, the antelope. They show us the way. That eagle did have importance for this journey.”
When Harjo left California, he was wearing a T-shirt. He knew it would be cold in South Dakota, but he had no idea how cold. He wasn’t prepared for wind chills of 50 to 60 below.
“I never knew how cold cold could be.” he says, laughing at his ignorance. “All I’m wearing is two T-shirts, a sweatshirt and a windbreaker. But I’m still hanging in there with the people. I won’t give up.”
Harjo is a sundancer, so he’s used to sacrifice. He doesn’t mind suffering. He welcomes the wind because of the fresh life it brings.
The snow is the blanket for Mother Earth.
The sense of community — strangers working together toward a common goal, sleeping en masse on cramped gym floors for days on end — has impressed Harjo.
As he sees one camp come down, as the teepees are dismantled, the cooking ware packed away and the horses rounded up, he senses that that’s the way things were done on this land 100 years ago. People continuously packed up what they had and moved on to a new camp.
When he thinks of the 300 or so Indians killed at Wounded Knee, Harjo feels inadequate. He suffered on this ride, but he’s still got it made. If he wanted to, he could go back to work. He can sleep in heated shelter at night. He can buy better, warmer clothes. He’s on the run day after day because he chooses to be, not because he fears his life.
Humility is the lesson of this ride. “Today, we have a lot of comforts — heated homes, heated cars, hi-tech clothes that protect us from the cold.
“We have it all too easy, but we’re trying to be strong. The dedication of the people is definitely there….If I had my way, If I was able to choose which life I had and when, I would rather live in the days of my grandfather. The unity is gone today.
“To live in harmony with the universe is beautiful. To live and to walk and to breathe. To have respect for all life, all creation. To live and grow with the seasons. And to not be contaminated by man made things and man’s pollution.
“Back then, we were a lot healthier. Stronger minds, stronger spirits.”