W.A.R.N. Rides Again
A small group of intergenerational women from the Oceti Sakowin homelands - People of the Seven Council Fires (meaning of the Lakota/Dakota/Nakota peoples who make up the "Great Sioux Nation") - gathered as part of the 2019 O'maka Tokatakiya/Future Generations Ride (aka Big Foot ride). This horse ride happens every year to honor and remember the ancestors who were massacred in the winter of 1890 at Wounded Knee. These women came together to follow the matriarchs of W.A.R.N. who walked this path in the late 1970s when they organized to raise awareness for the critical issues under their care and responsibility as Indigenous women: the land and the people.
Women of all ages rode together leading a riderless horse in memory of relatives who have been taken, hurt, stolen, disappeared, ignored and murdered as part of the ongoing crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women— also referred to as MMIWG and MMIWR to remind us that this happens to Native relatives, male or female, 2 spirit, trans, third gender, and young girls.
On the riderless horse is the empty cradleboard with the message #MMIW to bring attention to everyone in Indian Country and Indigenous relatives around the world who are all affected by this ongoing crisis. This epidemic is directly connected to the ongoing colonization and occupation of Native land and the large scale fossil fuel extraction projects that threaten water and life.
In the coming weeks, we will hear from these women directly as they share what they want you to know about how the coming "man camps" for the Keystone XL pipeline will mean a dramatic increase in violence in human trafficking. What can we do and what will we do to make the immediate changes that need to happen to protect our families and communitites?
#FollowTheMatriarchs #WARNRidesAgain #W.A.R.N. #CloseTheCamps #BlowTheWhistle #SoundTheAlarm #KeepItInTheGround #TribalPolice #TribalSovereignty #RiotBoosting #ManCamps #TemporaryHousing #VAWA #PeopleOverPipelines #NoDAPL #NoMorePipelines #LakotaLaw #SacredStone #NorthDakota #SouthDakota #DakotaAccess #StillStanding
