SITTING BULL'S LEGACY

While I was checking my old journalist note-book just a few days ago, I saw it was the anniversary of Sitting Bull's death. Remembering his importance in Native American history, I read my few notes and checked some groups which I turned to "no mail" long time ago. I was thinking to search about the "Ghost Dance" and later write a short note for his memory and Indian massacres in history.

I forget it as many other topics I am thinking to write but can't have time. A few minutes ago I received an interesting mail based on PravdaRu, saying; "Reports circulating in the Kremlin today state that an enraged President Putin has ordered Russian Foreign Ministry Officials to begin the processes needed for Russia to recognize the Lakota Sioux Indian Tribe as an independent Nation, and who have now broken away from the United States by renouncing their treaties with their occupiers, and as we can read as reported by the AFP News Service..."

Receiving my share of funny news everyday, I thought it is one of them. But to my surprise mails fallowed one another from different sources.

Native American Shamanism always reminded me old Turkish religions before accepting Islam. Sitting Bull's most interesting side for me (other than his struggle against white men) is his status as holy man. Sources describe him as; "Sitting Bull became a Sioux holy man, or wichasha wakan, during his early twenties. His responsibilities as a holy man included understanding the complex religious rituals and beliefs of the Sioux, and also learning about natural phenomena that were related to the Sioux beliefs. Sitting Bull had an "intense spirituality that pervaded his entire being in his adult years and that fueled a constant quest for an understanding of the universe and of the ways in which he personally could bring its infinite powers to the benefit of his people." However, Sitting Bull also knew techniques of healing and carried medicinal herbs, though he was not a medicine man. Because of his status as a wichasha wakan, Sitting Bull was a member of the Buffalo Society, a dream society for those who dreamt of buffalo. He also was a member of the Heyoka, a society for those who dreamt of thunderbirds."

I wish Sitting Bull is resting in peace.
And look what his grand grand sons and daughters are doing;

"Sitting Bull's people break away from US - starting new country
www.theaustralian.news.com.au
Dec 20, 2007
From correspondents in Washington

THE Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the US.

"We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us,'' long-time Indian rights activist Russell Means said.

A delegation of Lakota leaders has delivered a message to the State Department, and said they were unilaterally withdrawing from treaties they signed with the federal government of the US, some of them more than 150 years old.

The group also visited the Bolivian, Chilean, South African and Venezuelan embassies, and would continue on their diplomatic mission and take it overseas in the coming weeks and months.

Lakota country includes parts of the states of Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming.

The new country would issue its own passports and driving licences, and living there would be tax-free - provided residents renounce their US citizenship, Mr Means said.

The treaties signed with the US were merely "worthless words on worthless paper," the Lakota freedom activists said.

Withdrawing from the treaties was entirely legal, Means said. "This is according to the laws of the United States, specifically article six of the constitution,'' which states that treaties are the supreme law of the land, he said.

``It is also within the laws on treaties passed at the Vienna Convention and put into effect by the US and the rest of the international community in 1980. We are legally within our rights to be free and independent,'' said Means.

The Lakota relaunched their journey to freedom in 1974, when they drafted a declaration of continuing independence -- an overt play on the title of the United States' Declaration of Independence from England.

Thirty-three years have elapsed since then because ``it takes critical mass to combat colonialism and we wanted to make sure that all our ducks were in a row,'' Means said.

One duck moved into place in September, when the United Nations adopted a non-binding declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples -- despite opposition from the United States, which said it clashed with its own laws.

``We have 33 treaties with the United States that they have not lived by. They continue to take our land, our water, our children,'' Phyllis Young, who helped organize the first international conference on indigenous rights in Geneva in 1977, told the news conference.

The US ``annexation'' of native American land has resulted in once proud tribes such as the Lakota becoming mere ``facsimiles of white people,'' said Means.

Oppression at the hands of the US government has taken its toll on the Lakota, whose men have one of the shortest life expectancies - less than 44 years - in the world.

Lakota teen suicides are 150 per cent above the norm for the US; infant mortality is five times higher than the US average; and unemployment is rife, according to the Lakota freedom movement's website.

Well, isn't it an interesting news? Here are some quotes from Sitting Bull, from my old note- book;

“Let us put our minds together and see what life we can make for our children.”

“The white man knows how to make everything, but he does not know how to distribute it”

“Each man is good in His sight. It is not necessary for eagles to be crows.”