ANNA MAE AQUASH 40/LIFE AFTER WOUNDED KNEE

All excerpts are in italics and from THE UNQUIET GRAVE by Steve Hendricks.

To continue with a subject from the last post here is a good website that provides a good service, NEW AGE FRAUDS & PLASTIC SHAMANS They are the reason I didn’t get a post done last night. I am a reader of what people consider “new age”. My “new age” collection includes my personal favorite A COURSE IN MIRACLES which is a constant in my life except that I am not a true practitioner of any religion. Yogananda, the Dali Lama, Walsch, Tolle…a lot of book stores put the Buddhist and Hindu stuff with the new age cause it ain’t Christianity. I am not a Buddhist or anything else. I love “new age” music but not that Yanni or Celtic (sorry to those of you who like the Celtic stuff) crap. I am very particular about my new age music. But that’s another post.

What I would like to get to is that I had know idea how prevalent and damaging some of these charlatans are. I live in an area with a few people who claim to be Native American shaman or medicine men….some even have certificates from the Lakota tribe or so they say. I have never met a person who claims to be a spiritual leader that I had good feelings about. The same goes for those books by Mary Summer Rain whom I have never read and probably shouldn’t be critiquing her I just have an oogie feeling when ever I see her books and she has been around a long time. The good folks at the New Age Frauds website expose her for what she is. Oops I am getting off track again the point is that it is a wide spread problem with these “religions” not only do they disrespect the Native American ceremonies but apparently some of the herbs and plants that Native Americans use are becoming hard to find because of these “”. Some people even die because of these whack jobs. Luckily I have always been wary of guru type people. That is not to say that there isn’t the real thing out there….I’m just not a follower. So for those of you who are inclined to this sort of thing read some of the warnings. Just their fraud section has over 5,000 posts for inquiries. I’m still reeling at all the fraud..

And now from the poetess Monica Charles a glorious poem of rage…. cause and effect.

WOUNDED KNEE 1973

The AIM war cry thunders across our lands
Igniting pride trampled by history
Gathering The People lost in cities
Survivors of Relocation Pogroms
Reservation politics got the rest
The BIA guards the sacred door to
education opening just a crack
Selecting a chosen few to squeeze through
To swim the holy waters reserved for
The rich and the privileged and the white
Nixon’s administration’s sponsoring
Blonde prostitutes for the NTCA
White kids, now fully awake, demonstrate
To stop the war,, and killing of all life
DB Cooper’s still missing, he got away
Dennis says he’s coming to Wounded Knee
Humor overcomes the cold and hunger
At dark time we watch the tracers come in
As if they were shooting stars to carry
our prayers higher, lighting the way home
It is the right time for youth, truth and dreams
Circled by US Marshalls I AM FREE
In Amerika Freedom of the press
is one of the myths of democracy
News blackouts hang over South Dakota
It covers deeds and deals of complicity
No one wants to hear angry Indians
Who refuse to live the lie anymore
Sober, articulate, young and angry
Long haired and armed, educated by you
Does the face of fear wear a red headband
We are Crazy Horse’s people come back
Joseph and Geronimo live in us
The Tribal Chairmen’s Association
Backed by the feds, playing GOOD INDIANS
Denounce the militants: troublemakers
Agitators, cover up the story
Heat up left over lies, serve it again
No matter. The vanished tell no stories
Survivors do, painted in poetry

On with the story…

…the Aquash’s settled full-time in St. Paul. Indians by the score were doing likewise to support Banks and Means for the length of their eight-month trial. But the courtroom was so small that many could not get in, so anna Mae put the idle feminine fingers to work sewing ribbon shirts.

Aquash found other outlets for her energy at the overlapping AIM and WKLDOC offices, doing everything from clerical work to writing press releases to planning fundraisers. she also tutored students at the Red Schoolhouse, AIM’s school for Indian children who had either dropped out or been kicked out of public school. she was especially keen on teaching students how to use libraries to research their heritage.

The marriage started falling apart due to alcohol and fighting apparently Nogeeshik used to beat her too…I have never been hit by a man….I don’t get that nonsense…

After their separation, Anna Mae reverted to the name Pictou, or tried to , but the surname she had taken at the iconic wedding at wounded Knee would not be discarded so easily. To the small public who followed Indian affairs she remained Anna Mae Aquash, and would continue so even in death.

Apparently Dennis was a lothario back in the day and his attentions turned towards Anna Mae.

In 1974  Banks was married to a much younger Lakota woman, Kamook Nichols, a friend of Aquash. But friendship did not stop Aquash from falling in live with Banks, and they began an affair that summer.

After their rendezvous (Annie Mae and Banks) in Ontario, Aquash continued east to Nova Scotia to see her daughters and , on arriving, was enraged to learn that Jake Maloney had taken custody of them without telling her. There was no denying, however, that she had been an absentee mother for more than a year. If she wanted to regain custody, she would have to settle into a paying job and keep a stable household, which in practice meant giving up her activism. She agonized about what to do, but in the end she chose her cause over her family and prayed that someday her girls would grow to understand.

Yeah I kind of wondered that her daughters had a good reason to be pissed off at AIM…Mothers are so important and theirs chose AIM over them. I’m thinking they want nothing to do with what took their mother away. Aside from that I hope their father was good to them.

She returned to St Paul for a few illicit weeks with Banks, but he soon sent her to Los Angeles….Her brief was to revitalize AIM’s California office, a potentially lucrative satellite since many of Hollywood’s stars sympathized with the Indian cause from the bottom of their capacious pockets. Aquash came to Los Angeles a new woman: Joanna Jason. She meant the alias to fool the FBI, which she assumed, correctly, had penetrated AIM  with informers and would be watching her, but the ruse did not work.

“Our biggest problem,” a spy quoted Aquash, “is that we don’t have the funding to call halfway across the country to find out who is representing who in the wounded Knee trials. There’s no money to pay for lon-distance calls. The phone bill last month was one hundered and ninety-two dollrs. The salary I make feeds us. We’re waiting for somebody to call us aobut eh government’s presentation in the trial at Lincoln because we can’t afford to call them. If we have any money, we’ll be able to put out a newsletter. but we have postage costs, printing costs, money for mats, and so on.”

The group’s hand-to-mouth existence did not stop the FBI from seeing in Aquash a threat to the republic.