Who is the more wounded?

I drove through the Badlands enjoying the scenery, the early morning coolness, the promise of another sunny day and the ubiquitous song of the Western Meadowlark.

Meadowlarks, Eastern and Western, are declining grassland birds who suffer from the earlier cutting of hay and silage these days.  They are the corncrakes of North America.  But with their yellow fronts and beautiful songs they are well worth holding onto.

Not many American birds, in my limited experience, have great songs.  Many are stunning to see – like the Mountain Bluebirds of yesterday and today (and by the way – no internet connection last night) – but apart from the orioles and the meadowlarks I have met few great songsters.

While travelling through the Badlands today I called in at Wounded Knee  – a small town in the poorest county in the USA in terms of per capita income, and within the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Have you heard of Wounded Knee?  Perhaps you have read the book ‘Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee’ or seen the film of the same name?  Or perhaps you know the story of the massacre of over 150 Lakota Sioux indians at the hands of the 7th Cavalry in December 1890?

This account of what happened is particularly poignant.

If you are keen to visit the site then you will have to make an effort – it’s not signposted at all.  And when you arrive there is precious little to tell you what happened there or what is its significance – a strange combination since the events here are widely regarded as having been the culmination of the war against the native American.

You can park in the dust and stroll up to the cemetery where a simple monument, inside a chain-link fence, marks the mass grave of the indian victims.  Forty-three names are inscribed on the monument – 21 of them have animals as part of their names and there are no women listed.

If you didn’t know it was here, you would drive past.  There is no sign to point you to the hilltop and no sign that America wants to mark its home-grown My Lai massacre of all those years ago.

I can see why the US would be ashamed of events here – past events perhaps but certainly the current poverty of the local people is no basis for pride today.  Thinly disguised begging and selling of trinkets to passing tourists, like myself, makes one wonder about the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And the Meadowlarks sing on over the prairies as they did in the time of Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull.  It’s as though the Meadowlarks remain hopeful despite their depleted numbers whilst man remains fickle in his kindness to his fellow man.  Have the native American indians lost hope or do their hearts still sing like Meadowlarks?

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