Riders start journey today at Sitting Bull death site
LITTLE EAGLE — Indians from across South Dakota began arriving Friday in Little Eagle to pay tribute to Sitting Bull, the great Sioux chief who was killed near here 100 years ago today.
About 50 horseback riders embark this afternoon on a cross-state journey. The ride begins at the site on the Grand River where Sitting Bull was slain by Standing Rock Indian Reservation police.
By the time the ride concludes Dec. 29 at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation, as many as 300 riders representing all South Dakota reservations will have joined.
“To me, the ride is a way of bringing together the people who make up the Sioux Nation, and in the respect, bringing together the nation itself, said Ron McNeil, a Sitting Bull descendent who has made the ride three times.
Today, communities on the Standing Rock Reservation in north-central South Dakota have scheduled symposiums, lectures and sacred Lakota ceremonies to mark the anniversary of Sitting Bull’s death.
A group of the chief’s descendants will meet at his old camp along the Grand River at 5 a.m. for a religious ceremony. At sunrise, a group of runners will leave from Fort Yates, N.D., and head toward the camp, 45 miles to the south.
They will meet the horseback riders there. After more ceremonies, the riders will begin their journey toward Wounded Knee, near the Nebraska border.
At Wounded Knee, the riders will remember their ancestors who were slain there a century ago.
Friday night, riders, their families and friends gathered at the Community Center in Little Eagle to share a dinner provided by the townspeople. Many of the riders participated in the Making of the Vows ceremony in which they pledged their commitment to the ride and the Indian way of life.
Isaac Dog Eagle, a Sitting Bull descendent who lives in Little Eagle, urged Indians to learn the Lakota culture and to preserve their heritage.
“If we are to survive as Indian people today, we must go back to our own way of life and our own way of beliefs… otherwise, we lose that,” he said.
Sitting Bull was Dog Eagle’s great-great-grandfather. “If we are to make a better world for these little children who are running around here tonight, it has to start with us, “ he said. “When we make our vows here tonight, let’s vow that the next 100 years will be a lot better.”
Sitting Bull was considered the most powerful chief among the Sioux. After Custer’s defeat at Little Big Horn in 1876, Sitting Bull moved to Canada because he feared he would be killed if he stayed in the United States. He returned to his home place after touring for several years in Europe with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. Sitting Bull was born just west of Mobridge sometime in the mid-1830s.
He was killed during his arrest on Dec. 15, 1890, by agency police, who feared that an uprising on the Standing Rock Reservation was imminent.
Police hoped that by removing Sitting Bull from the reservation, they would defuse the Indians’ anger.
The opposite happened. When word spread to the Pine Ridge Reservation and other reservations to the south that Sitting Bull had been killed, tension between Indians and white authorities grew worse. That tension culminated with the massacre of Chief Big Foot and many of his followers at Wounded Knee.