They say a picture is worth a th0usand words, so how many words is a video worth? You be the judge. I pulled out my mini recorder when some of the boys started singing in the St. Labre cafeteria in Ashland, Mont., as part of run that took place from Jan. 8-14, 2010. The singing took place after everyone had enjoyed a community dinner after the 97 youth runners of the Fort Robinson Outbreak Spiritual Run arrived back on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. The kids were part of a 400-mile run that led them from Fort Robinson, Neb. to Busby, Mont., a five-day journey that allowed the youths to remember the not-so-distant past.
In 1878, just a year after the Battle of the Little Big Horn, the U.S. cavalry relocated the Northern Cheyenne to Oklahoma because of their role in joining forces with the Lakota and defeating Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer. The majority of those who were relocated the Indian Territory died there. Two Northern Cheyenne chiefs, Little Wolf and Dull Knife, decided to lead thier people back home rather than suffer from the heat in Oklahoma. Dull Knife’s band made it as far as Fort Robinson in Nebraska where they were imprisoned and starved. Rather than starve, about 130 of the band members broke out of the log barracks around 10:30 p.m. on Jan. 9, 1879. They fled into the night in which temperatures were reported to be 40 below zero. About 30 people were shot just outside the barracks. The rest fled into the surrounding hills where many more were shot and killed by the cavalry.
The Northern Cheyenne youths commemorate the past by running for their relatives back to Montana. Only this time, the runners are fed warm meals like spaghetti and clothed with warm jackets and hats. While no one has to die on the run in 2010, I saw a number of the youth runners take off their shirts and run down the highway in the snow. It was their way of acknowledging the hardships experienced by their relatives who died on the same trip in 1879.
The snapshot above was taken on Thursday night, Jan. 13, the night before the youths completed the last 40-mile leg of the journey, a stretch of highway between Ashland, Mont. and and Busby, Mont.
Jodi Rave
US Education
Here a wealth of information here. Thanks! I’ll be back for more
katherine ward
it does ones heart good to see the teachings of respect and wisdom…..thankful hands up to the many who take time to teach the customs of remembering our ancestors fully…letting them know the right way that they will share the story on and on and on so we can remember these teachings full of heart and not tears and that the tears are and can become happy ones because we are not forgetting..let our ancestors know every day that we are proud of them you can look up and give thanks for how and where you stand today…it is up to you how tall you stand ..masi seoquial….