By Michael Levengood
I'm here at Standing Rock with Sitting Bull's people on Thanksgiving Day. We started the day receiving an 8:30 gunshot across the bow with a woman driving through camp saying all women and children needed to go to the dome as the men were going to be rounded up in an imminent raid. Turned out it was another fear tactic to shake us up on the holiday.
Beautiful, painted ponies roam freely around the camp, stepping on the tears that can be followed like breadcrumbs to the wood-cutting area, to the water ceremony on the Missouri River every morning led by native women, to the two huge communal kitchens, to the prefabricated workshop for yurts and tiny houses started by tall Paul from Cleveland, to the recycling and compost area where people are already preparing for spring gardens even though the ground is just recently frozen. To the sacred fire fed by a few elders that burns 24 hours a day. U-Haul trucks come loaded with fresh produce from San Diego, from Eugene, Oregon, from Nashville, Tennessee. To the flatbed trucks arriving from Wisconsin with hardwood logs to be cut and split into firewood. Multiple complete solar systems donated by a company from western Massachusetts.
It's more than humbling to be with people of such humility. I'm staying with a Native Sioux family, Phylis and Amos Bald Eagle of the White Cheyenne Tribe from South Dakota. Every evening in our army tent heated with two Vermont Castings stoves, Amos tells stories of growing up as a Cheyenne and the importance of staying nonviolent. The Oceti Sakowin camp is well within 1851 treaty boundaries. The treaty has never been repealed by Congress and the indigenous people occupying the land have never left. The only people who have jurisdiction over this land are the very people the Army Corps of Engineers wants to leave. What the mainstream media will have you believe is that the water protestors are trespassing and this simply is not true. Do not buy into the lies and do not buy into city establishment media's echo chamber. A good source of information can be found on Commondreams.org and truthdig.org.
Levengood lives in Warren.
