By Faith Spotted Eagle On the morning of August 23, 2013, the phone call came from my older sister, “cuwe” in our Dakota language. The mother-in-law of our granddaughter, Lori Abdo, called her in tears, asking if I would go pray for her horses. They had been shot the previous night. I tried to digest the horrific information as I listened to her tell me that a white farmer had shot five of Lori’s horses after they had escaped from her fenced corral. Everyone in our community knows Lori loves her horses; more than anything. In ranch and farm country, this often happens with animals and it is not an unheard of occurrence for livestock to get out. Unwritten rules of good neighbor policy dictate that you call the farmer or the police to let people know that animals are on the road and could be a danger to others and themselves. However in Charles Mix County, things are different. Charles Mix County, is the home of the Commissioners who fought with the Yankton Sioux Tribe all the way to the Supreme Court to get the Ihanktonwan reservation disestablished. Thankfully that effort failed although our land was diminished. We live in a parallel universe where Natives talk to Natives mostly and “whites” talk to whites. The main common ground we have in this “racially divided” community is the tribal casino. Casinos don’t discriminate. The Ft. Randall Tribal Casino is the largest employer in Charles Mix County and yet we still had to defend ourselves against disestablishment by not only the County Commissioners but other towns in the country. They smile at us at the casino, but the conversations go quiet when an Indian walks into the local farmer’s coop. This is the very same county where Euro-American settlers homesteaded because Ihanktonwan leader Struck by the Ree signed the 1858 Treaty, relinquishing 11 million acres which was given to homeless settlers through the Dawes Act. How soon history is forgotten. These are the descendants of the very same settlers who want to disestablish the Ihanktonwan and now shoot defenseless horses who stray off “Indian land." These same descendants of settlers called in the State Tribal Relations on July 18, 2013 to meet with the Ihanktonwan to complain about signs that had been erected on the boundaries of the 1858 Treaty, which say: “Entering Ihanktonwan Nation.” In a heated meeting which had outbursts of historical trauma, a wary compromise was made to possibly change the sign to Welcome rather than Entering. It echoes of the “white privilege” causing us to mediate what we say about where we live. Our lives are about marginalizing. My daughter Mah’piya was home visiting. She shook her head in disbelief and counted the number of racial incidents that happened in the short six weeks that she was home. First the article in the Wagner Post that berated local Natives, then the Mitchell Daily Republic article by a Winner area man who complained that Natives get free monies from the government “from the cradle to the grave.” The Chairman of Crow Creek asked for a boycott of that community. The man complaining about Natives receiving money from the “cradle to the grave” was soon found to have received over $200,000 the last year in farm subsidies, perhaps from the “cradle to the grave??” We can’t forget that the Wagner School District refuses to fly the Ihanktonwan flag although the majority of students attending there are Native? Although some major progress has been made as the Andes Central School District recently voted to fly the Ihanktonwan flag. History has been made on this battleground. Then there is the Chamberlain School refusing to allow an honor song for graduating Native students. The list goes on. However, four beautiful “sunkan wakan” are dead. As I drove out to pray with the departed horses and their distraught owner, my nephew Chuck who is a horseman, came with me. We saw a mare slowly moving through a field towards the house of the owner, with a colt following closely. We did not know at the time, that the mare had bullets in her and she was laboring to get home, to get her colt to safety. Upon arriving, we saw five paint horses who were milling around excitedly and a black yearling who had a wound in his side, where the bullet passed clean through, according to the vet who came. The black horse would survive if he didn’t succumb to a fever and if the bullet did not do too much damage; the results uncertain at the time. Meanwhile, four other beautiful horses lay dead in the fields. One was missing and one had made it back to the corral, but the intestines were falling out and it kept trying to kick them so the tribal police put it down to save it from more misery. Horror in the fields. The best and only thing that we could do was to pray for the departed spirits of the beings sacred to our Dakota culture. Innocent holy ones, who had no idea what “racism” is. As I held the crying owner of the horses, you could see they were like her children. She described their relationships, sobbing. Later in the day, after we left, the slow walking mare made it home to the corral, bringing her colt home and laid down and died in Lori’s arms. Horror in the fields. The owner recounted how the neighbor who killed the horses had come charging into her yard awhile back and had stated he had no use for the jurisdiction battle between the tribe and the white landowners. The day of the shootings, he drove by countless times, waving at times, unremorseful. This behavior necessitated the need for a restraining order for the safety of the horse owner; which was quickly granted by the judge. In the afternoon, my vision was blurred by my tears as we watched the horses swirling around their owner as she told them to be brave, to not be afraid because she was not afraid. They seemed to stop shaking, as spooked as they were, since the fallen mare was only a few feet away; her colt trying to nurse her. They had returned from a battlefield of horror and seemed to be comforting her instead. That evening we prayed again for the horses in ceremony and for peace of mind and courage. There is no question that Charles Mix County needs help for the ills of racism and hatred. We pray for peace, understanding and answers; just as our ancestors did when they signed treaties that gifted land to people who had no appreciation of their sacrifice. Maybe we need peacemakers to come in like they did in faraway places like Bosnia. And as for Lori, the loving owner of the “sunkan wakan”; the second night following the horror of the shootings…..she had a dream. In the dream, the deceased matriarch mare came into the yard prancing with the other missing horse, now presumed dead. This particular horse could not be found but Lori, the owner felt comforted that the horse came in the dream to let her know that it had gone on to spirit place and that it would be ok. Holy dogs we call them…now we know why. Now, a date has been scheduled for March 7, 2014 in Lake Andes, South Dakota at 9 a.m. at the Charles Mix County Courthouse for a jury trial to decide how to address this “crime against nature.” The individual who killed the horses, Ray Johanneson will appear for trial for cruelty against animals, which recently became a felony in South Dakota law. It is important that this crime NOT be “marginalized” or dismissed as a small thing. It is unacceptable violence against our horse relatives with racial overtones. Is it a hate crime? During this time period, the Ihanktonwan signs aforementioned, have been vandalized and cut down twice on the west side of the reservation entrance….the latest vandalism occurring this winter of 2014. Let’s put this into perspective. I am a landowner and recently found some cattle trespassing on my land. I certainly didn’t kill them. I called the cattle owner and he remedied the situation. That’s what human beings do. In light of the horrific horse killings, it appears that Natives are not the only ones who have historical trauma about the past? It will be interesting to see who ends up on the jury. In fairness, one or two non-Natives who were horrified by the action, came up to the horse owner Lori and expressed their dismay. We hope justice will be served. (Faith Spotted Eagle can be reached at: eagletrax@hotmail.com)
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