Born May 9, 1996, the white calf was immediately viewed as a symbol of hope, rebirth and unity for numerous Great Plains tribes. "For us, this would be something like coming to see Jesus lying in the manger," Floyd Hand Looks For Buffalo said shortly after Medicine Wheel's birth. Today, the calf's death comes amid turmoil and chaos on Pine Ridge, where internal and external pressures have rocked its 20,000 Oglala Lakota for much of the past year.

According to a tribal police report, Pine Ridge'symbol of hope and unity died just after 8 p.m. Sunday, when police officer Alex Morgan spotted the animal running down a road near the Red Cloud community. Morgan and tribal member Leon Poor Bear pursued the animal, which ran into a yard."We tried to chase it back down the road, but it would put down his head and charge us," Morgan wrote in his report. "I told Leon to shoot the buffalo for the safety of the community." When Merrival found the buffalo's body later that night, it appeared someone had started to butcher it, he said: its throat was slit and its hide scarred from being dragged down a gravel road.

The rare animal's significance is rooted in Lakota oral history, which tells the story of a holy woman visiting one of their villages. She taught them their seven sacred ceremonies and their four great virtues: courage, wisdom, generosity and fortitude. Before she left, she told the people not to worry, that she would return one day, and that a sign of her arrival would be a white buffalo calf.

Native Nations!

Look Not to the Things of this World, for the Peace, the Love, and the Hope that can Only be found in Me. I am the New Future of Your People, and I am the One that You Seek. I am the Great One and I will Not Allow Anything to come between Me and My People. I am a Jealous God, and as I Destroyed the Golden Calf in Moses Day, so I have Removed this Idol that was Between Me and My People!

Hello.  Most of you know me well enough by now to know I will stand and speak my heart on issues that are of importance to me.  However, only rarely do I address political or religious happenings because, in my opinion, most of those kinds of things are very personal to each person and I have no right to cast judgement or criticize another's belief.  I sincerely trust we are all leaves of the same Tree of Life, whatever the belief system.

However, the website and text found below transcends what I perceive to be even remotely acceptable.  Not only is it blatantly ignorant of history, the Lakota Sioux and Lakota Traditional beliefs, the Lakota sacred symbol of harmony for all mankind (the Sacred White Buffalo) and even solid Christian theology but it defies the many current efforts at developing understanding and respect between Catholic and most mainstream Protestant denominations and all Native Americans.  It is a desecration of all the Traditional Lakota hold sacred and of all that speaks for harmony, respect, and hope for the future in our world.

This website appallingly condones the genocide, violence, and atrocities perpetrated upon the Lakota Sioux and all Native Americans over the last several hundred years (and current tragedies as well) as a just and acceptable retribution inflicted upon them by the website author's fundamentalist version of the Christian God.  Even worse, in its wording, this demeaning site even predicts and implicitly encourages more of the same against all Traditional Peoples.  In my mind this borders on, if not outright transgresses, American Hate Laws not to mention any moral or ethical aspects.

I send this out today so that you may be aware this exists, and in some areas flourishes, due to Internet exposure.  Feel free to delete this email if you are not interested.  However, if you read this and find it as objectionable as I do, I would hope you would write and voice your objections to the website's author/owner as well as the Mailing List owner who is promoting it in numerous venues.

It was precisely by ignoring things like this that allowed Hitler to flourish and gain power prior to WW2.  I, personally, am many heritages among which is found Native American (nation/tribe unknown), Jew, Russian, Irish, Catholic, and Gypsy.  The words are forever etched upon my soul.... that we may never forget, that we may never ignore and therefore condone, racial and cultural persecution and genocide in any form wherever it may be found....

Steph

To believe that you are the only true God is denying that God is in each and every one of us. Your web pages claim that you are the only true God. You blaspheme! If you say you are not the only true God, you must be a Liar. You claim to have a knowledge that no one else on this planet has, therefore you must be God. You claim that we (Indian people) were forced off our lands and punished by the Europeans, because we didn't listen to God. We listened to God. We gave them Bread. We gave them Shelter. We helped them to survive. Sadly we gave them a foothold on this continent. Then your wonderful Holy People gave us Smallpox and all manners of diseases. They showed us how well their muskets worked. They gave us alcohol when they found how we had no resistance to its effects. They coveted our land and our women.

Sounds more like Soldiers of Satan than avenging Angels of God. As I recall, the Pilgrims were Christians weren't they? Your history lesson seems to skip the Pilgrim years and jumps into the West rather quickly... of course for God, what's a couple of hundred years?

Perhaps you should look into the matter a little further. In my beliefs there are many ways up the mountain, mine is but one. I suspect that when I am in Spirit World again there will be Christians, Catholics, Jews, and all other faiths represented there. Funny part is, none of them will consider themselves by those titles, for in Spirit World we are all one of the Whole, which is God.

If you are going to give history lessons, please take the time to do them on the millions of people who have been killed in the name of God all over the world, and include those killed in the "Holy Wars". Catholics against Protestants and vice versa. Or better yet, just leave it all alone and pray for World Peace. Wouldn't that be better use of web space?

Meanwhile, this "sinner" will pray for you.

Respectfully,
Steps In It