The New Nation

Riders are coming.

In the dawnlight riders are coming

to the camp on Milk River, north of

the Medicine Line. We know these riders,

their names echo across the plains. They are

riding to the camp of the Siksika, Crowfoot's

camp, to council. Riders are coming in dawnlight,

at the moment when they could be free in time.

They could be free in time and all time

is present. The camp crier calls out their names

and they echo across the plains.

We know their names. Together they could

ride at the head of the greatest light cavalry

in the world. People from all the northwest

plains in the last days of their freedom

have been invited to Crowfoot's camp to council.

All winter messengers were kept busy going

between the camps, sneaking past the forts

that seemed to spring up overnight. Assiniboine,

Stoney, Saulteaux, Ojibway, Cree, Gros Ventre

and Sarci Nations from these plains around us.

Flatheads, Kutenai, Pend D'Oreilles and Nez

Perce from where the live in the backbone of

the world. The many nations within nations

of the Lakota and their allies the Cheyenne

driven from their homes. These and the nations

of the Nitsitapi Federation, all have been

invited to council, at the dawn of a new day.

We know their names. They

echo across the plains.

The crier calls out the name White Bird

of the Nez Perce Nation and he is made

welcome. He is honoured here. His bravery

has brought him honour. The crier calls out

the name Sitting Bull of the Lakota nation

and his name echoes across the plains.

He too is honoured here this day. His losses

are mourned and his victories celebrated

in the camp of Crowfoot. The crier calls out

the name Big Bear of the Cree Nation.

He too is made welcome. The crier calls

the name Louis Riel and for a moment

the camp is silent. He is both well known

and not known here. Madman some say,

messiah say others. He will be heard this day.

His voice will echo across the plains.

They smoke together, they and their councillors.

In the dawnlight they smoke together

to pledge their honour.

My name is Medicine Calf, a leader

of Kainai warriors and I bid you welcome

to our territory. In the freedom time,

recently passed, we have fought with some

of you, traded with some of you, stolen some

of your horses for our own herds. Everything was

as it should be. Now these times are changed

and mostly gone. We must now learn to work

together before we lose everything to greed

of the Napikwakes who take everything they

see. The days are now gone when we each had

our own territory, nations among nations,

free to live as we would wihtin our own sacred

lands. Now the takers have changed all this.

Each time we made a mark on their bits

of paper they wanted more and more. Now

we have nothing left. Women and children cry

in the camps. Once brave hunters fight

with scavengers to keep from starving.

By ourselves we can do nothing but together

we can drive them back from where they came.

I cannot forget the freedom time and want to live

like that again. The camp is silent a moment,

remembering.

My name is Sitting Bull and I am pleased

to speak to this council. I will tell you

that I agree with the Kainai, Medicine Calf.

We are strong this day and it is time to drive

the Wasichu from our lands. We have tried to get

along with them but it is impossible. What treaty

that the whites have kept have we ever broken.

Not one. What treaty that the whites ever made

with us have they kept. Not one. When I was a boy

the Lakota owned their world. The sun rose and

set in their lands. They sent ten thousand horsemen

to battle. Where are the warriors today.

Who killed them. Where are our lands. Who stole

them. What law have I broken. Am I wicked just

because I am Lakota, because I was born where

my parents lived. Am I wicked because I would die

for my people and my country. I will

remain what I am until I die.

It is good to be alive today.

It is also a good day to die.

My name is White Bird and I tell you it is good

to be here in the camp of Crowfoot, amongst those

who will now be our friends. As you know,

our leader, Joseph, cannot be with us today

for this council. Their General Miles, whom we call

Bearcoat, has taken him to the stone fort far from here. But I want you to know it was Joseph himself

who stopped the fighting, for the sake of young

ones and the elders. They could fight and run and

fight no more. But we were not defeated in battle.

Fourteen times we fought them and fourteen times

we left their dead on the field. People will tell

the story of those battles and our flight

from our homes in the beautiful Wallowa Valley

for a thousand years. Now all I want to do

is gather up the few people I have left to me

and go home. But to do this we must fight yet

again, this time all of us together.

My brothers and sisters. The camp falls silent.

Riel would speak. I come here to tell you

of a vision God has given me. It is a vision,

clear as the sun now rising in the east,

of a new nation. Look around you this day.

See the strength we together possess. Together

we can create a nation where the oppressed people

from all the eargh can come to our land and be

free. From the northern forests to

the Missouri River, from the land now called

Manitoba by the invaders to the shining mountains

in teh west, all this shall be our homeland.

In this land we can be free in time and live

in the ways of our own choosing, free to live

the ways of our ancestors. My brothers and sisters

look around you this day and know this is the last

day of our freedom. If we join together today

we can all be citizens here in the land of our birth.

If we join together we can be free in time.

We are free in time in the dawnlight and

as with all freedom there comes to us knowledge.

The railhead has reached the Red River

settlement. We know that it will soon push

across these plains as inexorably as the glaciers

millennia before and like the ice sheets, the train

will leave the scars of its passing. We know

the young men of Upper Canada have heard

the stories of this papist swine Rield and

would like nothing better than to ride

the new train west to avenge the murder of

their hero Scott, executed by Riel and his friends

in what might have been a new nation just ten

years ago. These young men know the name

Sitting Bull and if he joins with their Riel,

so much the better they think to themselves.

We are free in the dawn. Free

with this terrible knowledge.

What god is it that has given Riel this vision.

I say to you that if it is a vision that comes

from the god of the Napikwakes then no good

can come of it for the Nitsitapi or for any

of you other nations. The visions of the white god

do not include us, their god would destroy us

if given the chance. What kind of god is this

that the whites cannot even agree as how to

worship it. I have spoken with the Black Robes

and the others and each is sure that their own way

is the right way. The only thing they agree upon

is that the gods of our ancestors are wrong but

how can this be. Look at Nato'se rising in the east.

Surely it is from him that some of you call Wakan

Tanka and other names that all life comes from.

Our god put us here in our land and I do not want

any visions from the angry god of the whites.

My name is Crowfoot and I have spoken.

Riel steps forward again. It is true,

I went to Montreal to study with the Oblate

Fathers as it was the wish of my parents.

But while I was there the visions I had were not

given me by the priests and their invader god.

They came to me from the god I worship, the god

of all of us here on the plains. Whites, Bois Burle

and the First People will live here on the plains

together. Free to worship as we would, free to

govern ourselves as we would equal before our god.

This is the vision I had when I was young and

I have it this day. I know the European invaders,

I have lived among them and learned their ways.

I know if we give them a good fight, all of us

together, thery will lose their heart and leave

us here in peace. Together we can drive them from

here though they are many. We have our god and

justice on our side and we will prevail.

The sun is rising and will soon shine down on

these plains where we live. In the light of the sun

we are fixed to our time and no longer free.

We are no longer in hawk flight, free in time.

For this last moment, then, let us soar high

above the camp on the river. Let us fly, higher

than the Sweet Grass Hills and look around us.

We can see south to the Yellowstone and north

to the Red Deer. In the east the Bears Paw

Mountains rise in the dawn. To the west

is the backbone of the world. In all this land

of many gifts the greatest gift of the sun

is no more. Only in this last moment in the dawn

can we hear the quiet thunder as they wheel like

mandala through the centuries. Listen.

Listen to their thunder and mourn their passing.

Everything we have is a gift from the sun.

Even this moment of freedom in the dawn.

Listen.

Our creator is rising and will soon shine down

on us here on the plains. The visionary, Big Bear

steps forward and speaks. Pesim, the sun,

will give us light in which to see clearly and

we must. We must stand and look around us this

day and see how it is for us and how it will be

in the future. Look around you, see how none

of you are more in the light than another.

So it must be with us, nations equal among nations

standing together, speaking in one voice.

I never thought I would see such a day as this.

Our beloved puskwa moostos, our most sacred

animal on whom our freedom depends is gone

from this earth and we will always mourn their

passing. But for the sake of our children we must

stand together to guard them just as our buffalo

did guard their young. Perhaps this way we will not

share the fate of our sacred friend whose bones

now cover the ground alongside the bones

of our ancestors.

My name is Crowfoot. I believe

I am speaking for my nation when I say

these words. The talk this morning has been

mostly good and very pleasing to hear.

Yet the words are like leaves, hopeful

in the spring but doomed to fall. Do you forget

who it is you intend to fight. These takers

who have lately come among us are ruthless and

unless we stay on our reserves they will stop

at nothing to destroy us. Do you forget that

only ten winters ago the Big Knife called Baker

murdered all of Heavy Runner's camp, men, women and children, for no reason. Heavy Runner

had always spoken for peace and this was his

reward. Look at Joseph and his people, Dull Knife

and his Cheyenne, Sitting Bull himself is driven

from his home. When I made my mark on the

Queen's paper it was to save my people and

all our pretty talk will not change this.

Go to your reserves. The old days are gone.

My name is Crowfoot and I will speak

to this council no more.

MURDOCHBURNETT:

A LIFE MAKING POEMS