LESSON DAY 13:
TITLE:
The Ghost Dance at Wounded Knee
SUBJECT:
American Literature and Composition
GRADE:
10th
QCC(s):
2, 29, 30, 41
GENERAL
OBJECTIVES: (IRA/NCTE standards for the English Language Arts)
Students will:
• Students read
a wide range of print and nonprint texts to build an understanding of texts, of
themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire
new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the
workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and
nonfiction, classic and contemporary works. (No. 1)
• Students read
a wide range of literature from many periods in many genres to build an
understanding of the many dimensions (e.g., philosophical, ethical, aesthetic)
of human experience. (No. 2)
• Students apply
a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate
texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other
readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their
word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features
(e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).
(No. 3)
SPECIFIC
OBJECTIVES: (Georgia’s Quality Core Curriculum)
Students will:
•
Read critically, ask pertinent questions, recognize assumptions and
implications, and evaluate ideas. (Topic: Core Skills – L.A. 9-12 No. 2)
•
Read, discuss, and analyze American literature representing diversity (e.g.,
gender, ethnicity). (Topic: Reading/Literature – L.A.
9-12 No. 29)
•
Write and speak critically about literature. (Topic: Reading/Literature – L.A. 9-12 No. 30)
•
Engage in discussion as both speaker and listener, critically and
constructively interpreting, analyzing, and summarizing ideas. (Topic:
Speaking/Listening – L.A. 9-12 No. 36)
•
Write in narrative, descriptive, persuasive, and expository modes with emphasis
on exposition. (Topic: Writing/Usage/Grammar – L.A.
9-12 No. 41)
PROCEDURES/TEARCHER
NOTES:
Daily Writing
Prompt:[15
minutes]
As
students enter the class each day they will be given a new expository prompt
either in a handout, written on the board or projected by an overhead. Students
will respond to the text by writing a paragraph.
Prompt:
How
many Nahua are we?
By Luis Reyes
Why, for what reason do they want us to disappear?
Not much thought is needed four hundred years
have taught us what coyote wants.
Coyote fancies our land
fancies our woods
fancies our rivers
fancies our labor
fancies our sweat.
Coyote wants us to live in the slums of big cities
there to live naked
there to starve to death
there to become objects of their deceit
there to become objects of their game.
Coyote wants us on his payroll.
That's why he wants us to give up
our communal lands
our communal labor
our native tasks
our native speech
that's why he wants us to forget
our native clothes
our native way of life
our native way of thought.
First coyote turns us into coyotes then he steals from us
all that is ours
all that we produce
all that the milpa produces
he steals our fatigue
he steals our work.
Question
the students will answer: Think about
what you have just read. Write an expository paragraph to turn in explaining
your response to the text.
Quick
Write: Students will create a fast response paragraph as quickly as possible.
When the students have finished their fast response, they should put their
pen/pencil down and remain quiet.
Overview of
main lesson: The teacher
will introduce
the students to The Ghost Dance at Wounded Knee. The class will discuss their
reactions to the mass killing of Sioux (many of them woman and children) by the
U.S. soldiers.
Step
1: [5 minutes]
Introduction
– This is an oral history of events that occurred at the Wounded Knee
Reservation in South Dakota in 1890. It is called an oral history because the
events were not recorded by the witness to them. This story was told by a man
who experienced to his nephew Dick Fool Bull, who told the story to Richard
Erdoes who recorded it. As we read the story, ask yourself if you think that
the story you are reading is the same as was told by Dick Fool Bull’s uncle.
Step
2: [30 minutes]
The
teacher will take volunteers from the class to take turns reading the story
aloud.
As
the story is being read the teacher will break in at appropriate points with
questions to stimulate discussion. Possible questions to engage the students
with the text might be:
1)
What kind of story do the storyteller’s first remarks
prepare the reader for?
2)
What is your first impression of the uncle?
3)
Why would Kicking Bear and Short Bull be happy at what they
saw?
4)
What does the teller mean by “our old-young Indian earth?”
5)
Why might the army soldiers be suspicious of American
Indians gathering to dance?
6)
What do you think will be the result of the to groups fearing
and distrusting each other?
7)
What does the comparison (simile) of the cannon fire to the
tearing of the great blanket suggest will happen to the American Indian’s
vision and the earth?
Step
3: [35 minutes]
Students
will write their answers the following questions (the teacher will projects
them on the overhead):
1)
How might the last scene provide the reader with a with a
symbol of how the United States grew at the expense of the American Indian way
of life?
2)
Why or why not do you think it is necessary to remember
tragic events?
They
will then share their answer to one of the questions with the class.
CLOSING:
The
teacher will ask students to think about the following before the next class.
Does oppression of minorities occur out of ignorance of their culture? Would
understanding by the majority have prevented this tragedy? Is an understanding
of cultures you are yourself not a member necessary to prevent injustice? How
would this apply to the life of slavery experienced by Fredrick Douglass.
Homework:
The teacher will write on the board a quote by George Santayana:
“Those
who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
The
students will be asked to copy this quote down. For homework they will need to
write a paragraph on what they think this statement means means, whether they
agree or disagree with his statement, and how they think it applies to the
works that have been read in the last three weeks.
MATERIALS:
Elements of Literature, Fourth Course, dry eraser markers
SUPPLEMENTARY
MATERIALS: Students will need to have paper, pen/pencil.
EVALUATION:
Discussion:
The in-class discussion will show the level of understanding the students are
reaching.
Classwork:
The answers the students complete and turn in will illustrate their deeper
understanding of the events of the story. These answers will count towards the
students’ Classwork portion of their grade.
ACCOMMODATIONS: See accommodation sheet
REFERENCES:
Reyes,
Luis. "How many Nahua are we?”. 22 Nov 2001.
www.oneworld.org/index_oc/issue196/brothers.html
Elements
of Literature, Fourth Course, with Readings in World Literature /
Grade 10. 2000 ed. New York: Holt
Rinehart Winston, 2000
Told by Dick Fool Bull
Recorded by Richard Erdoes
This is a story about the massacre of
Sioux ghost dancers at Wounded Knee in December 1890. Under the false
impression that the ghost dance was the signal for a general Indian uprising,
the white agent at Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota called in the regular
army to suppress the ghost dancers. One band under Chief Big Foot surrendered
to the Seventh Cavalry ~ Custer's old command. Among it's men and officers were
many who had served under Custer and who were eager to avenge his death. At Wounded
Knee Creek eighteen miles northeast of Pine Ridge, the army opened fire with
many quick-firing Hotchkiss cannon upon Big Foot's people and killed some two
hundred fifty men, women, and children. The mass grave in which they were
buried is still there. In 1973 Indian civil rights activists occupied the site
and withstood a siege by US marshals, the FBI, and local vigilantes. During
this siege, which lasted 73 days, two Indians were killed, one of them a local
Sioux buried next to his massacred ancestors. Dick Fool Bull told his story on
many occasions. Each time, he remembered something else connected with it. He
was the last flute maker and player in Rosebud. He died in 1976. Some say he
was 103; others say he was in his 90's. Nobody knows for sure.
"This is a true story; I wish it
weren't. When it happened I was a small boy, only about six or seven. To tell
the truth, I'm not sure how old I am. I was born before the census takers came
in, so there's no record.
When I was a young boy, I liked to stick
around my old uncle, because he always had stories to tell. Once he said,
"There's something new coming, traveling on the wind. A new dance. A new
prayer." He was talking about Wanagi-wachipi, the ghost dance. "Short
Bull and Kicking Bear travel far" my uncle told me. "They went to see
a holy man of another tribe far in the south, the Piute tribe. They had heard
that this holy man could bring dead people to life again, and that he could
bring the buffalo back"
My uncle said it was very important,
and I must listen closely. Old Unc said:
"This holy man let Short Bull and
Kicking Bear look into his hat. There they saw their dead relatives walking
about. The holy man told them, 'I'll give you something to eat that will kill
you, but don't be afraid. I'll bring you back to life again.' They believed
him. They ate something and died, then found themselves walking in a new,
beautiful land. They spoke with their parents and grandparents and with friends
that the white soldiers had killed. Their friends were well, and this new world
was like the old one, the one the white man had destroyed. It was full of game,
full of antelope and buffalo. The grass was green and high, and though
long-dead people from other tribes also lived in this new land, there was peace.
All the Indian nations formed one tribe and could understand each other.
Kicking Bear and Short Bull walked around and saw everything and they were
happy. Then the holy man of the Piutes brought them back to life again.
"You have seen it," he told
them, "the new Land I'm bringing. The earth will roll up like a blanket
with all that bad white man's stuff, the fences and railroads and mines and
telegraph poles; and underneath will be our old-young Indian earth with all our
relatives come to life again."
"Then the holy man taught them a
new dance, a new song, a new prayer. He gave them sacred red paint. He even
made the sun die: it was all covered with black and disappeared. Then he
brought the sun to life again.
"Short Bull and Kicking Bear came
back bringing us the good news. Now everywhere we are dancing this new dance to
roll up the earth, to bring back the dead, a new world is coming."
This Old Unc told me.
Then I saw it myself: the dancing.
People were holding each other by the hand, singing, whirling around, looking
at the sun. They had a little spruce tree in the middle of the dance circle.
They wore special shirts painted with the sun, the moon, the stars, and
magpies. They whirled around; they didn't stop dancing.
Some of the dancers fell down in a
swoon, as if they were dead. The medicine men fanned them with the
sweet-smelling cedar smoke and they came to life again. They told the people,
"We were dead. We went to the moon and the morning star. We found our dead
fathers and mothers there, and we talked to them." When they woke up,
these people held in their hands star rocks, moon rocks, different kinds of
rocks from those we have on this earth. They clutched strange meats from star
and moon animals. The dance leader told them not to be afraid of white men who
forbade them to dance this wanagi-wachipi. They told them that the ghost skirts
they wore would not let any white man's bullets through. So they danced. I saw
it.
The earth never rolled up. The buffalo
never came back, and the dead relatives never came to life again. It was the
soldier who came; why, nobody knew. The dance was a peaceful one, harming
nobody, but I guess the white people thought it was a war dance.
Many people were afraid of what the
soldiers would do. We had no guns any more, and hardly had any horses left. We
depended on the white man for everything, yet the whites were afraid of us,
just as we were afraid of them.
Then when the news spread that Sitting
Bull had been killed at Standing Rock for being with the ghost dancers, the
people were really scared. Some of the old people said: "Let's go to Pine
Ridge and give ourselves up, because the soldiers won't shoot us if we do. Old
Red Cloud will protect us. Also, they're handing out rations up there."
So my father and mother and Old Unc got
the buggy and their old horse and drove us children toward Pine Ridge. It was
cold and snowing. It wasn't a happy ride; all the grown-ups were worried. Then
the soldiers stopped us. They had big fur coats on, bear coats. They were warm
and we were freezing, and I remember wishing I had such a coat. They told the
same thing to everybody who came, by foot, or horse, or buggy. So there was a
camp, but little to eat and little firewood, and the soldiers made a ring
around us and let nobody leave.
Then suddenly there was a strange
noise, maybe four, five miles away, like the tearing of a big blanket, the
biggest blanket in the world. As soon as he heard it, Old Unc burst into tears.
My old ma started to keen as for the dead, and people were running around,
weeping, acting crazy.
I asked Old Unc, "Why is everybody
crying?"
He said, "They are killing them,
they are killing our people over there!"
My father said, "That noise-that's
not the ordinary soldier guns. These are big wagon guns which tear people to
bits-into little pieces!" I could not understand it, but everybody was
weeping, and I wept too. Then a day later-or was it two? No, I think it was the
next day, we passed by there. Old Unc said: "You children might as well
see it; look and remember."
There were dead people all over, mostly
women and children, in a ravine near a stream called Chankpe-opi Wakpala,
Wounded Knee Creek. The people were frozen, lying there in all kinds of
postures, their motion frozen too. The soldiers, who were stacking up bodies
like firewood, did not like us passing by. They told us to leave there,
double-quick or else. Old Unc said: "We'd better do what they say right
now, or we'll lie there too."
So we went on toward Pine Ridge, but I
had seen. I had seen the a dead mother with a dead baby sucking at her breast.
The little baby had on a tiny beaded cap with the design of the American
flag."
From versions told by
Dick Fool Bull at Rosebud Indian Reservation, South Dakota, 1967 and 1968.
Recorded by Richard Erdoes