Carlos Llerena Aguirre - Artist residence .Liverpool John Moores University.

Carlos Llerena Aguirre. Tatanka Lyotanka. Silkscreen. 15" x 20" 2022.

The Standing Rock and Wounded Knee Massacre. A Vision

The Conquest of the American West.

In The Standing Rock Indian Reservation, North Dakota, the reservation’s [1] police came at dawn and killed all of us… As I was dying with several blown-up bullets in my head and chest, I had vivid visions,[2] I remembered hunting my first buffalo at age 10 which is why my father renamed me Tatanka Lyotanka (aka, Sitting Buffalo). I saw myself at age 15 attacking and invading the Crow’s tribe[3] with my father and winning. In my 20s I remembered the battle of Little Big Horn[4] as we fought the US soldiers in which we defeated lieutenant colonel George Custer of the 7th U. S. Calvary.

I visualized myself as the new leader of the Dakota nation. To survive, I took the entire tribe and fled to Canada. In 1876, I crossed the international boundary into Canada and sought refuge in the Cypress Hills near Wood Mountain, Alberta. James Walsh of the Canadian Mounted Police assured me we would be protected from attacks by the US Cavalry.

We stayed there for over four years, we did not have enough hunting grounds or food rations or a reservation from the government of Canada, and we were starving, so I decided to return to the USA. As soon as we returned to North Dakota, the Bureau of Indian Affairs [5] incarcerated all of us at The Standing Rock Reservation.

In my spiritual death vision, I saw Buffalo Bill coming into the reservation and proposing a job to join his Wild West Show. He wanted me to parade in the Circus ring with him, dressed in Dakota full regalia wearing the chief’s head feather dress. My image become an icon in the American West.[6] Many posters[7] and photos were taken and distributed. I performed for several months, and we traveled all around the United States and Canada. I had no choice. I had to accept my failure and defeat as a leader and holy man for the Dakota nation, as we lost all our land and were sent to a reservation. After I joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show I went back to the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota. As I retired from the circus ring Buffalo Bill gave me as a gift ‘Dancing Horse” his favorite show horse, he was trained to do curtsying, prancing, and step dancing around the ring.

In my 50s I founded the Ghost Dance Society in the tribe, we had meetings, dances, and secret rituals every day. I wanted to recover our land and be free once again. The US Army heard about this new project of mine, and thought of a possible Indian rebellion, and ordered the reservation police to kill all of us. [8]

In 1890, agent James McLaughlin sent 43 Indian Reservation policemen to arrest me for my involvement as the leader of the Ghost Dance Movement. The soldiers came into our teepees and killed 20 of us. “Dancing Horse “heard the bullets where he was, behind Sitting Bull’s tepee, first he thought it was the sounds of a Wild West Show. Dancing Horse then felt in his heart my assassination and in protest, began prancing in circles around the gruesome massacre. I saw him raising up on his back legs and curtsying in the middle of the battle as the bullets flew everywhere. I felt “Dancing Horse” danced to honor me during and after the massacre. Not one single bullet hit Dancing Horse and he became a spiritual legend among us. He danced in circles around the dead bodies for hours after the massacre, until he was exhausted, and my Lakota tribesmen brought him water and a blanket.

In my vision, while agonizing, a black hairless dog appeared and guided me to the land of the Great Spirit.

Epilogue

After I was murdered, two weeks later, on December 29 of 1890, the U.S. Army’s 7th cavalry surrounded and killed all the Ghost Dancers under Sioux Chief Big Foot. This was the brutal massacre of Wounded Knee[9] in South Dakota. 300 Native Americans were murdered, half of them, women, and children. The US cavalry only lost 25 men.

[1] An Indian reservation is an area of land held and governed by a federally recognized Native American tribal nation whose government is accountable to the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs and not to the state government in which it is located. 1658 (Powhatan Tribes)

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBEhz8vw2AM Smoke Signals (1/12) Movie CLIP - The Oral Tradition (1998

[3] Lassieur, Allison. The Apsaalooke (Crow) Nation. (The Crow, Apsáalooke are Native Americans living primarily in southern Montana.)

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Little_Bighorn

[5] https://www.bia.gov/bia

[6] SHEPHERDSON, CHARLES. A POUND OF FLESH LACAN'S READING OF THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE. Diacritics, Winter, Vol. 27, No. 4 (Winter, 1997), pp. 70-86 The Johns Hopkins University Press. 1997.

[7] Rennert, Jack. 100 posters of Buffalo Bill's Wild West, Darien House. 1976

[8] Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. An Indian History of the American West. NY.Holt Paperbacks. 1970

[9] McGregor, James H. The Wounded Knee Massacre from the Viewpoint of the Sioux, Baltimore, Maryland: Wirth Brothers, First Edition. 1940.