Native+people+in+the+English+speaking+world

=**__The story of my life__**=

My name is Hothlepoya. You may find my name weird, but that’s just because you probably never heard it before. It means “wild hunter”. I was given the name a long time ago. I got it when our Shaman had a scary dream, (what you white people call a nightmare), where spirits came to him and said what my name should be. Some say that the Shaman dreamt about a horrifying war and that the Shaman got so afraid and frightened that he actually began to cry. At least, that’s what the old rumour says. And I actually believe it’s true now. Just the thought of what I’ve been through in my life makes me really sad.

It all started when I was about 17 years old. I was sent out in the forest by my mom, looking for medicine plants. (I didn’t have any sisters so I had to do both the men and women work.) I looked for hours without finding what I needed. I looked really hard, because I knew how disappointed my mom would be if I didn’t find the special type of plant that she needed to make her medicine. She always told me that she didn’t care about the plants as long as I came back in a good shape, but somehow she always told it with a voice that made me feel a bit guilty. My mom used to call the plant “shioa”. We, in our tribe used “shioa” when we got sick. We used the plant to make us relax and calm down. I know now that the plant has been illegalised by the American law, and that it’s very dangerous to smoke, but back at that time we didn’t know that. You may find the American name “marihuana” familiar? Anyway, as I was on my way back to my mom’s wigwam I suddenly heard screaming voices not far away. I immediately started to run in the direction of the screams, which surprisingly enough came from the direction of our tribe. As I approached my tribe’s location I started to smell a more and more intensive smell of smoke. Suddenly I heard a shot! The shot couldn’t have been more than 40 meters away from me, because it was so loud that I got a ringing sound in my ears. But as a strong member of the Absaloke tribe I just knew that nothing could stop me, because in my tribe we tough men don’t get so easily affected by small things like a little shot. So I kept on running towards our camp. I ran and ran until my sweat pushed its way through my buffalo-made skin clothes. Somehow a very weird and scary feeling got stuck in my head. It was a gloomy feeling that I had never felt before. I started to get some second thoughts about the screams and the shot… I was just a stone throw away from my mom’s and all the others wigwag when I for the first time in my life saw the “white people”. I had never really understood what all the old ones meant when they talked about how dangerous the “white people” could be, before now. When I saw what the white people had done to our tribe I got furious. At first, I couldn’t believe that our entire “village” was set on fire. It wasn’t before a couple of moments later the moment in earnest really caught me. It was then I first realized what had happened. Everything was burned down to the ground! It was nothing left. The food, clothes and all of our life-important tools was gone. Not even a single peppermint leave seemed to have been saved from the flames.

For a moment I forgot all about the armed soldiers standing 30 feet away from. I quickly kept my head down under the bushes before I continued walking at ground level in a desperate hope finding out where my family were. It wasn’t before I climbed up the small hill behind all the wigwams I saw the worst part. My whole tribe had been set away with handcuffs around their hands. Three of our best hunters were lying on top of each other with a big red puddle of blood underneath them. They probably got shot when they tried to defend our families. When I saw these men lying dead on the ground, I suddenly felt an anger rising up inside me. Without thinking I jumped up from the bushes and ran down the hill towards my tribe. Surprisingly,I didn’t get far. Already after 4-5 steps a soldier saw me. He immediately started to run after me with a big club in his hand…

I woke up the next day with a painful headache. I felt dizzy and confused. When I laid my hand on the most painful spot on my head, I could feel a huge wet lump. When I looked at my hand I saw that it was bloody and brown of dirt. It actually took a couple of minutes before I realized where I was. I was in a wigwam and when I looked outside the opening I saw all the other people from my tribe. I got very happy when I saw them, but yet so disappointed when I found out that it also was a bunch of other “Native Americans” there. I instantly realized that we had been put in a reservation. I got really sad…

Since this day I’ve been pushed around by “white people” without any dignity. They have treated me worse than an animal. The worst part is that some of them don’t even regret it today. Down below, you can see a speech I was planning to perform when the president was coming to the reservation. I made it four years after I was put in the reservation. I never really finished it because a soldier discovered what I was writing. I then actually got 10 years in prison for it. All in all I think it was worth it, and I also become a sort of a saint in my tribe…

//“I’m a proud member of the Absalooke tribe. Your people probably call me an Indian, or nowadays maybe a Native American. I don’t care, because I know deep inside me who I am and where I belong. I’m a proud member of the Absalooke tribe which lay in the true spirit of Northern America. We are the people of hope and freedom. We have never done anything to offend you, but still we are forced to live in small territories which your people took away from us. You forced us to learn English, eat your food, walk like you and dress like you. You took advantage of us and killed us. Our people have suffered a lot, but in the end we know that we have something that you never are going to experience; the true love of a people that take care of each other and look at their neighbours as their own family…”//

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