Native people celebrate their victory at the Battle of Greasy Grass (aka Little Bighorn) during a civil war against them
Editor’s note: The Battle of Greasy Grass (aka Little Bighorn) occurred 148 years ago this week
I put my warrior up to celebrate The Battle of the Little Bighorn.
That fight and the wars fought with the Native nations in this country should be considered civil wars, because they were waged on us, trying to terminate us. But we’re still here.
Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer, who was probably a psychopath, got what he deserved.
In 1992, I told a former FBI agent after he delivered a lecture for a business class at Northern State University that battles with the Tribal nations were civil wars.
I'm sure that the former agent, who claimed he was in Wounded Knee during the 1973 uprising, wasn’t expecting one little Lakota woman to be in his class that evening. I sat front and center with a bunch of college-aged non-Native people and I was not impressed or intimidated. I have never forgotten his first name — Adrian.
I wasn’t expecting a guest lecturer that evening but he sure as hell wasn’t expecting my presence. He was trying to do a spiel to try to impress someone. It didn’t work. And, we don’t have to wonder where my son David Hoagie Kastner gets that forthrightness from.
The Battle of the Little Big Horn (depicted above in a public domain 1899 Edgar Samuel Paxson painting posted on wikimedia commons) is the only time that the American flag has been captured — and by us Native nations. We are still here, strong Lakota!
In later years, our Native nation’s languages aided the United States during the world wars because the enemy couldn’t decipher them. So, there’s some educational insights.
My “hunka” (adopted) son Jordan “G-Handi” Laverdure made the warrior for me in high school many years ago. I’ll always treasure it.
It has traveled from Kennebec to Springfield now going to Silver Bay, Minn. The neighbors are probably wondering what’s up. “LI-LI-LI-LI-LI-LI-LI!!!”
Tuesday was the annual remembrance of The Battle of Greasy Grass, as Natives refer to it, or the Battle of the Little Bighorn, or Custer’s Last Stand.
The seventh generation is here. Say a prayer for those humble relatives who have gone on. After what our relatives went through, we should only be humbled and feel grateful to take another breath, see another day and make them proud through our every good deed.
Their lives and tears were not in vain.
Diane LongFox-Kastner of Fairmont, Minn., is an enrolled member of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe of South Dakota. Some of her close relatives, the LongFox and Widow families, are also enrolled in the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. She has worked for the Indian Health Service: the Aberdeen Area Tribal Chairmen’s Health Board; the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe; the Santee Sioux Nation, Yankton Sioux Tribe and Nebraska Indian Community College. LongFox-Kastner has three sons, David, Nick and Chris Kastner, a daughter-in-law, Emily, and a grandson, Ezra.
