Once there was a people that lived on the Great Plains. They relied upon the wellbeing of the buffalo. The bones became tools to cut the meat and scrape the hides. The marrow was fed to the elders and the tendons became rope. The home, the clothes, and the stories all began and ended with the buffalo.

Then a people came that killed for pleasure. They called the buffalo hunters savage and wrote economic papers on the “unsustainability” of this society. “Kill the Indian, save the man”, they said so as to rip the children away and train them in the ways of the modern world. “Hunt buffalo in Indian Country for $1.00 a week”, was advertised in the East. When the buffalo were all slaughtered by the hunting trains, there was no choice.

The new society arose. Now, all the cups are made of oil instead of the buffalo horn. The food wrapped in oil instead of hide or organs. The ropes, the clothes, and the homes are all oil… and they point to graphs and charts that explain why it is best. Why a dependency on a dead reservoir is better than the 4 leggeds that walked upon the earth with us? There was no concept of a toxic spill of a herd of buffalo, but now they bring their tools and fashion death upon earth. Their beast is fully grown and has begun to reveal the true savages.

Writings from the Longhouse at Standing Rock – Trey