Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument: Gravestones, Picket Fences and Manifest Destiny
December 27, 2008
Earth slides aside and sun’s amber glow spills over undulating hills covered with nursery-green grass. Bullet-holes smolder in the petals of tiny white flowers. Thousands of white gravestones line up like molars, gnaw the newborn day and scream dead soldiers’ names. I look down the row. From here, they look like posts in the white picket fences of American Dreams.
“Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument memorializes one of the last armed efforts of the northern plains Indians to preserve their ancestral way of life…in 1876, more than 260 soldiers met defeat and death at the hands of several thousand Lakota and Cheyenne warriors…among the dead were Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and every member of his immediate command…”
I follow the winding path through the battlefield, going up steep hills and down deep valleys. I crouch in the grass. Billions of grasshoppers jump on tense thighs, backs, necks, shoulders. Billions of grasshoppers crawl into gold-buttoned collars and once-shiny black boots. Skin itches, blisters, bakes in the afternoon sun.
“…approximately 7,000 Arapaho, Lakota and Cheyenne were encamped below the Little Bighorn River…Custer orders Maj. Marcus Reno’s battalion to attack…warriors rush forward to defend the village…Reno’s battalion is soon joined by Capt. Frederick Benteen’s battalion and the surrounded troops make a determined stand…
I look out across the river. An army storms straight at me. There are only a few blades of grass between me and death. Will I run out and meet it? Will I freeze, paralyzed, close my eyes and vomit thru clenched teeth? What would my last thought be? Would it even be coherent?
“…a devastating charge lead by Oglala Lakota Crazy Horse and White Bull… cut down retreating soldiers…Custer found in vicinity of 7th Calvary Memorial…other soldiers found below the knoll…”
Only a few blades of grass between me and God…beautiful green grass between me and…good god…what good god spills blood on beautiful grass…to manifest destiny…to clear the way…for a graveyard and some statues? For glory? God is glorious…like Custer…is handsome like God…is handsome like man…is the measure of all things…even God…Trust us. We know what he wants. We know that he’s a he…like Man…the measure of all things… so tall six feet under…looking up at wide Montana sky… big sky country… big country… no share…no compromise white picket fences… standing in rows like gravestones…screaming the names of dead soldiers…
“I want peace on Earth and that’s what I have strived for…I need your help…to get your minds and your hearts together. Ask the creator for peace throughout the country and throughout the world.” -Austin Two Moons, Northern Cheyenne Elder, November 11, 1993
They fought for a big open space to erect gravestones and statues…and a highway…for buses full of tourists… Close in together now! Cheese! See the cameras flashing…like gunpowder in the sun…glinting off the bullets…flashing toward your eyes…ready to take your… life flashing before your…eyes blinking like shutters… capturing memories for your photo album…Custer, can you see them taking pictures of your death…cameras flashing off your gravestone…
“…the Indians won the battle, but they lost the war against the white man’s efforts to end their independent way of life…”
“Forty years ago I fought Custer…until all were dead…I was then the enemy of the Whiteman. Now I am the friend and the brother, living under the flag of our country.” -Chief Two Moons, Northern Cheyenne, June 25th, 1916
