The Wasichus in Washington who ordered the slaughter of bison and Indian and those on the prairies who did the deed are frequently thought of, by some of us, as “fathers of our country,” along with the Indian killers and slave owners Washington and Jefferson and the like. Yet what “father” would needlessly exterminate any of his children? Are not the “fathers,” rather, those Native Americans, those “wild Indians” like Black Elk, who said, “It is the story of all life that is holy and is good to tell, and of us two-leggeds sharing in it with the four-leggeds and the wings of the air and all green things; for these are children of one mother and their father is one Spirit”?
Alice Walker
