“...They believed if they did the Ghost Dance and the white buffalo came the land would rise up like a wave and bury all the whites.”
Yeah, fat chance!
My paternal grandmother was Welsh. The Welsh people were the people in Britain when the Romans arrived. After the Romans left and Germanic tribes invaded the British Isles, the Welsh were treated to genocide for nearly a millenia. They retreated into the mountains in the western part of the main island of Britain until finally standing their ground in what is known today as Wales.
It has been nearly two thousand years and the Welsh still have their own language and racial identity. But as a group they were smart enough to recognize that living well is the best revenge, and that means succeeding within the greater swell of the human cavalcade.
I have family who are Cherokee and a friend who is half-Apache. Both say the worst thing a person can do is stay on the Reservation. It will kill you.
Well I didn’t say it was likely to happen just that that was what the Ghost Dancers believed back in the day. I have no idea if any Indians take stock in that now. I kind of doubt it. It’s more likely that believers in the power of the White Buffalo today see it more as a spiritual awakening and purification than a temporal salvation of the land and their old way of life.
Well, that explains a lot about you. ;) (ducking and running)
You are correct that the reservation system as run by the BLM is deadly. Mostly from the feral gooberment part of it.
I have lived with a Cherokee woman (married her, actually), and later (after the divorce) lived on Navajo lands and can speak about as much Navaho as a 3 year old, or maybe a little less.
I respect all peoples, and leave them room for their beliefs.
But I think that killing a white buffalo calf was wrong, and was related to a very, very old argument. I may be wrong.
/johnny