Custer and the Buffalo
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Three poems and a note from history.
Buffalo Bull Addresses the Crowd at Yellowstone National Park Where have my prairies gone, with the big bluestem and compass plant that tickled my belly? They have been plowed and planted with corn and wheat as the plowman’s children sang Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam. We fed the native people for centuries as they honored us in their ceremonies. A buffalo skull was a sacred object. We had an agreement with them. We took care of the land. The prairie grass thrived as we trampled tree seedlings and devoured them. We had an agreement with the grass. The cowbirds followed us and ate the insects we stirred up. Today, they follow the cattle that belong to ranchers who need no agreement. I will not apologize to the family of the photographer that my brother killed after being kicked. He got what he wanted, a buffalo in a different pose.
Nature’s Decorum Interlude - A Cascade Poem Deep in the woods, I let go of proper decorum. Distant neighbors will not hear me howl. As the moon sends forth her magic beams, Diana drives her chariot across the sky. No one will see me dance with wild abandon as morning star Venus sends forth her light or evening star Venus greets the crescent moon. Deep in the woods, I let go of proper decorum. Coyotes celebrate the moon and become song dogs. Domestic dogs may join with yaps of memory as silent Sirius faithfully follows Orion skyward. Distant neighbors will not hear me howl. Fancy seizes me on active sleepless nights. I sit on my porch and watch the dipper rise, seek the bear in stars made faint by city lights. As the moon sends forth her magic beams. I imagine druids dancing beneath the oaks as friends gather at a fire with drums and chants. Sun and moon strike stones of distant lands, and Diana drives her chariot across the sky.
Custer at the Little Big Horn Custer wore an arrow shirt, or so they say. What obsession filled his mind that fateful day? Was it his duty, or did he believe the lies, manifest destiny, his singular objective? We see the snag that briefly stopped the march of time. We call that snag Custer’s last stand but truly, it was a fleeting victory for those who opposed him. A web of deceit entangled them and took them to apartheid reservations. The sun dance continues around the Cottonwood Tree, but the medicine wheel was broken. The missions restricted worship to Sundays, stripped away their native ways and language, did their best to obliterate a culture. The traditions are reborn every time a native person wields the power of No.
Historical note:
The near extermination of the American Bison from the great planes was not a mere accident of history. It is now known that President Ulysses S. Grant ordered their extermination as part of a program to subdue Native Americans in the Plains states. Their dependence on the bison for food, clothing, and materials was well known. Grant placed General Willam Tecumseh Sherman in charge of this project, and his orders included the extermination of the bison. His words to Sherman were, “Every buffalo gone is a dead Indian.”
Sherman’s deliberate extermination was an example of cutting off supplies and, in a sense, a repeat of his campaign in Georgia during the Civil War. The History website has an excellent source for this information is The History Website.
