"KILLING OF THE CHILDREN"
by Matthew Richter
copyright 2000
CONTENTS:
THE QUEST TO LEARN TO LIVE AS A HUMAN
WHY LITTLE OWL SEEKS THE VISION QUEST
WATER AND A CLEARING AMONG BLACK PINES
-Journey with Little Owl and learn of his heart and his love for you.
THE EAGLE'S FLIGHT
THE WARRIOR AND A YOUNG WOMAN
GRANDMOTHER AND GRANDFATHER
THE SEVEN CHILDREN APPEAR
WHEN THE SEVEN CREEDS ARE UNITED
THE CHILDREN HAVE MEANING
LITTLE OWL RECEIVES THE NAME OF A MAN
MOTHER OF LIFE'S GIFT
Journey with us and understand why your uniqueness
has always been cherish by the Sioux
PREFACE
This story is told in the old way of the traditional Sioux. In as much as you do not yet know my heart, you do not know if I speak the truth. While you read and think about what I say listen to what is in my heart. Let all I say be fiction until you find the truth in what I have said. In this way you will know to let this story be fiction as that is my respect and my honor for you.
"Killing of the Children" shows the ideas and standards of a proud and strong people. We have created it to show their way of life and the true meaning of that life, the quest to learn to live as a human being.
This story is told in a vision which is the spiritual path of the People. It has become profoundly clear to the author that his people are becoming extinct. The only way for that to happen is to destroy the one thing that makes up the People, IT'S CHILDREN.
One must ask is this what the United States Government is trying to achieve, or is this the will of others, the ones who do not live in the circle of life?
The author believes in his peoples spirits . He has asked the question, "What went wrong around a culture so beautiful?
THE QUEST TO LEARN TO LIVE AS A HUMAN
In the vision all children are whole and of the spirits, just as they are in the physical world as well. The People seek the vision quest to become human. Throughout the history of all people, the vision quest is the link between the physical and spiritual worlds. The People seek the knowledge of the spirits, so that they may walk the path of the human being. In this way all cultures are built.
The People learn of their culture from the spirits. They must teach the ways of the spirits to the ones entrusted to them, the children. The children learn that the vision is life and life without the vision is death. In this way the vision quest is the path of the human. When the vision is ended, one wakes to life. When the vision is remembered in life, one knows the truth.
A human being understands that all things come from the spirits just as he knows the children are the most precious of these things. To fail to pass on the teachings of the spirits, is to cut the child's umbilical cord to their true parents, the ones who are their spirits. If one is to honor their spirits, then one must teach the ways of the spirits.
The Vision Seeker asks, Who are the ones that deny the children the right to know their true parents? In the vision they are the animals and can not be of the human.
WHY LITTLE OWL SEEKS THE VISION QUEST
It was a place turned upside down and the People called it the Land of Old Bones. What looked to be near was more often very far. Ravines and canyons prevented reaching what was visible at your very feet, yet places in the distance could simply be reached by following the snake like ridges ducking in and out of sight. This was the land of opposites and confusing contradictions, a land of illusion. Two travelers separated here could easily communicate by signs or voice in places where they could not exchange handshakes without two or more hours of climbing in and out of obstacles. In this land of barren contrasts the living were hidden, the bones of the dead projected into plain sight and the work of spirit never ceased.
It was a familiar place of Little Owl's ancestors and like his relatives Little Owl was at home here. He loved the riddles that fooled his eyes, fueled his mind and spoke straight to his heart. He was always learning as they did, now on the other side, how to understand the twists and turns, each of the illusions and all the tiny contradictions of what has appeared to be real and what was not. Little Owl could make his way through this physical and spiritual landscape that demanded he use his common sense and his connections to the past to move where he knew he must go.
Yes, he had, like his grandfather, Fast Wolf, and those before him, spent his young life learning how to live with seeing those precious things held far from his reach while they sat in plain sight at his feet and as he grew he was learning to touch them in other ways beyond the physical.
He would find that he could not stand upon the table land at his feet or hold the lessons of his quest without taking the journey to reach them and in making this quest he would learn of the meaning of the journey, who it was made for and who was with him on his way.
The voice of Little Owl's grandfather, Fast Wolf, broke into his thoughts, "You are thinking again about what you do not yet have in your understanding."
The gray headed man raised his chin and smiled then shook his head looking sideways at his grandson then at the barren beauty before them. He saw the gray dust rising before the sun and remembered why some called this the Badlands.
"The ancestral home has been taken away and now we have to do this in secrecy. Even though we are walking on our ancestral home, the power of the white man forbids this quest. The churches condemn, ridicule and punish for seeking your religion's guidance, the communication with your family. You have been told, Little Owl that since you appear to them as a savage you must change your ways and if you don't you could never find your way to God, that you can never sit with him but must be condemned to their hell."
copyright 1997
Clem Iron Wing, Mathew Richter, Randy Jones
