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Old 02-25-2015, 01:26 PM   #4
xoxoxoBruce
The future is unwritten
 
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 71,105
Quote:
Only in 1934 were the Rosebud Sioux officially recognized as a self-governing nation —see the Indian Reorganization Act—and thus formally allotted ownership of land that, prior to the arrival of European colonists, had been their’s for centuries….
Good for them, they should stand up for their rights, with every tool available to them... including righteous indignation.





However, a point of order. "Been theirs for centuries" is misleading to contemporary readers who likely envision a group of first graders having their lunch taken away by high school bullies. The Sioux by tradition didn't feel they owned the land and there was no legal system issuing deeds and protection. They occupied that land only because they were strong enough to take and hold it. Had there been a neighboring tribe who were strong enough to take and hold it, the Sioux would have been gone. The "colonists" (I think a strange term for the interlopers of the time, but I'll go with it because it contains colon and the Sioux did get it up the ass) took possession because they were strong enough to take and hold it.

Ironically, the "colonists" also established rule of law and deeds to keep a stronger tribe from taking away their land, after the compassionate, benevolent, colonist successors, couldn't think of a better use for it in 1934. But the Sioux must face the reality that you and I do, which is we only have a deed and protection of the law, until someone with more money and suck wants it.

If you have a little time you could go to the Smithsonian's online collection of Lakota Sioux Winter Counts. The tribes had a tradition of oral history which would naturally fall to the elderly to keep and teach to younger people... between yelling at the whippersnappers to get away from their Teepee, and trying to find their glasses. But since the cavemen, humans have known memory is a fickle beast, so the tribe would keep a hide or piece of cloth where once a year they would record the most important thing that happened during the year. This document was a cheat sheet of sorts. used as kind of a calendar to keep memories of events in their proper year. They used events like Meteor Showers to jibe the winter counts of different tribes.

Let's see now, I stole that young maiden after the year, One Cheyenne and twenty Crows were killed by Dakotas at Bear Butte(1830-31), but before the year, An Uncpapa Dakota Medicine man was killed by Rees(Indians). (1834-35).
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