Little Red Fawn Remembers the Last Words of Her Grandmother, White Tail

I am old, Little Red Fawn, but my heart will not be stilled. When I was young I chewed clouds of dust from the horses of the hunter and the warriors. The men returned with buffalo and stories of bravery, and we women mourned dead sons and brothers, mended the wounded, and scraped hard the hides of the buffalo to forget. The white man came, like grasshopppers, scarring the land with plows and fences. The white man thought the land could be divided and owned, but the hand of the Great Spirit holds the land forever. Our men said they would not give up the hills, the plains, the sky. Our warriors fought the white man for the land to be wide as the sky. Little ones could no longer run free, women did not sow, fields lay fallow from fear. Men smoke the pipe of peace but the smoke does not settle but is blown away on the winds. The book of the white man's god speaks of love and peace, but the white man speaks with tongue of snake and his god is silent. The Great Spirit weeps blood on His land but stands with His arms crossed on his breast. Some ways of the white man are not so bad, I think. They do not pick up their houses to go with the wind and the sun. Their houses can be of wood, their dresses from stores. Is it so bad, Little Red Fawn, to wish to smell of lilacs and comb my hair with combs made of shells of the sea swimming with rainbows. But the white man has ways I cannot live with. I cannot be buried under the earth. I will offer myself to the Great Spirit under the sky. What He finds worthy will mingI am old, Little Red Fawn, but my heart will not be stilled. When I was young I chewed clouds of dust from the horses of the hunter and the warriors. The men returned with buffalo and stories of bravery, and we women mourned dead sons and brothers, mended the wounded, and scraped hard the hides of the buffalo to forget. The white man came, like grasshoppers, scarring the land with plows and fences. The white man thought the land could be divided and owned, but the hand of the Great Spirit holds the land forever. Our men said they would not give up the hills, the plains, the sky. Our warriors fought the white man for the land to be wide as the sky. Little ones could no longerle with that of my fathers and mothers, my brothers and sisters. I turn and turn these things in my head, Little Red Fawn. I have no answers, but I tell you these things to move stones from your trail. Sometimes I wonder if women had sat in the circle, could it have been different? Our spirits will prowl the land, haunting the white man until he lets the land be, until he returns to the seas, back before the sun rises.