The faith community is encouraged to help support the Dakota people who are leading and participating in the November 7-13 Dakota Commemorative March and the Dakota 38 horse ride this December along with other commemorative or educational events. Many events have already happened this summer which marked the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the US-Dakota Indian War of 1862. Many more are scheduled this year (see page above).
Through this site, we hope to help streamline non-Dakota positive intentions into a more effective and culturally appropriate manner by sharing information as it is provided to the Healing Minnesota Stories group.
What is the 2012 Dakota Commemorative March?
Dakota participants will have an opening morning prayer on November 7, 2012 at the Lower Sioux Agency Historical Site on Highway 2 near Morton Minnesota. After leaving the site, the group will walk east with wooden stakes and prayer ties along a route to Fort Snelling, Minnesota. Along the way, approximately each mile, the Dakota group will offer prayers and tobacco after a stake is respectfully hammered into the ground and the name of one of the families that was on the "Minnesota Trail of Tears" in 1862 is read aloud. This is not a parade or a protest -- it is a prayer walk.
Map: Commemorative March Route
Each stake records the name of one of the families who marched in 1862, many of whom have descendants participating on the 2012 march. This spiritual prayer walk winds across the Minnesota. Similar to the historic march, the group will travel approximately 20 miles a day. On Tuesday November 13 the marchers will a sacred place called Bdote (pronounced Bdoh-tay), meaning the meeting place or the confluence of the Minnesota River and the Mississippi River and is the equivalent of the Dakota's Garden of Eden. In 1862, Fort Snelling overlooked Bdote. which became the site of the concentration camp setting below the bluff.
All remaining stakes from the march are placed at Bdote on Tuesday November 13, the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the Dakota's ancestors to the Dakota concentration camp.
More details coming soon: See the page above "Support the Marchers."
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for sharing your comments!