While searching for a picture, I discovered that I never processed images from a visit to Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve in south central Colorado three years ago. Camping by the edge of the dunes, I was able to hike into the dunes to watch the glow of sunrise. The tallest dunes looming behind are aglow while the closest are still in shade.
These tallest dunes in the country rise nearly 750 feet above the plains. They collect in a bend of the Sangre de Christo Mountains. The land was once that of the Cheyenne and Arapaho. The day before, I visited Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site in east Colorado. The haunting site was where the U.S. Army attacked a peaceful village of 700 Arapahoe and Southern Cheyenne, slaughtering a third of them. Many still rest there in Mother Earth. It is a hard place to visit.
Suzan Shown Harjo is a Southern Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee, and amazing advocate for Native peoples and land. You can read more about her in the Smithsonian, including a picture of her receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama. She also is a wonderful writer and her lyrics to the song White Antelope’s Chant is in Norton’s Anthology of Native Nations Poetry When the Light of the World was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through. To know when reading the poem, Tsistsistas is the word Cheyenne use for themselves.
White Antelope had a song
it was a Tsistsistas song
it was his song
because he sang it
. . . .
The Song that sang itself
had a Tsistsistas sound
and a truth for all who heard it
at the hour of the end
The Song that sang itself
had no chorus
its voice was the Morning Star
and the rain at the edge of time
. . . .
The Song sang a Tsistsistas Woman
in the offerings at dawn
in the sighs of the wind
in the power of the end
. . .
The Song sang a Tsistsistas sound
in the peace before dark
in the sighs on the wind
in the power of the end
Only Mother Earth endures
sang the man
Only Mother Earth endures
sang the woman
Only Mother Earth endures
sang the child
Only Mother Earth endures
sang the song
Only Mother Earth endures
From, Suzan Shown Hargo, The Song Called “White Antelope’s Chant”
I got a little lost preparing these images, but I did find the one I was looking for:
