About Custer and Independence

On June 25, 1876, a thug commissioned in the U.S. Army and 200-some goons under his command attacked yet another peaceful Indn camp - but this time, instead of slaughtering The People, these hired goons got what they deserved. Today, we ITI commemorate this as the Battle of the Greasy Grass. White people commemorate this as the Battle of the Little Bighorn or Custer's Last Stand. We won the battle, but because our ITI cultures were not oriented to annihilation and the Euro-'American' culture was, we didn't win the war.
The war isn't over, however. It's still going on.
There is a myth promoted in the majority culture that we ITI are "conquered". There used to be a myth-conception that we ITI were going to become extinct. We've pretty well gotten rid of that one. Not entirely - but almost. We're working on it.
But so long as we ITI - Indigenous Turtle Islanders - refuse to be 'acculturated' and/or 'assimilated' - which would be a giant step down and backward from our Traditional Ways - the war will continue.
So long as we ITI have to continue to sue to get our Treatys both recognized and adhered to by the U.S. government - which never intended to adhere to them initially, according to the official historic record - the war will continue.
Supreme Court Justices have written of their distress at the raw deal we have gotten from the U.S. government. It has made a dent in the wall of abuse handed out to us by officialdumb. In a few spots, we have made pinholes.
But so long as we ITI have to 'justify' our desire for such things as eagle feathers, which are central to our spiritual practices, to officials of the U.S. government while no other group has to justify anything to any officials of the U.S. government, we are not "full" citizens of the U.S. despite the words of the Snyder Act of 1924. So long as we have to guard our sweat lodges against destruction by racists, particularly when we have them off of our Reservations, which are 'countries', and so on a par with the U.S., the war continues.
So long as we are forced to welfare-as-lifestyle, particularly in those states with a large Indn population, the "Custer Effect" is still in effect, and the war continues.
So long as officials in any part of government - at any level, not just federal - try to keep us from accessing our full Constitutional Rights, the war continues.
And eventually, we will win it. It does strike this Indn as sad, though, that in the Age of Enlightenment, with so much accurate information available at the touch of a button, some humans - supposedly the only animals that think - continue to resist the fact that we are human beings with equal rights throughout this land - which is technically still ours, since the Treatys were broken first in every one of the 389 cases we know as Treatys by the U.S. government.
Tomorrow the whites of this country will celebrate "Independence" Day. The reality is, however, that so long as any part of the majority culture tries to subjugate another, so long as the U.S. government tries to restrict Indigenous Peoples' religious / spirituality - Freedoms guaranteed to us all by the Constitution and Bill of Rights (not of priviledges) - people here are not independent of anything except a form of government.
Bigots are prisoners of their dedication to ignorance and all that attends it. And that continues the Indian Wars. To me and many other Traditionals - it's just a day with pretty fireworks displays at night. We had independence; the majority culture which so busily celebrates its illusions is the one that doesn't really believe in them, yet, and so doesn't have them or want anyone else to have them, either.
I shall continue to pray for their enlightenment, and ask you to do so, too.