Hundreds of people stood in the gentle Juneau rain with their necks craned toward the sky. Their focus was not on the sky, but instead on a healing totem that towered over the crowd. AWARE, Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, the Wooshkeetaan and L’eeneidì A’aakw Kwáan hosted a community gathering this past Saturday afternoon to unveil a healing totem pole and screens carved by Tlingit master carver Wayne Price honoring survivors and victims of domestic violence and sexual assault along with their families and communities. It included speeches from community leaders and representatives along with cry songs, dance performances as well as grief release and fire dish ceremonies among other acknowledgments.
A seven-month review of the Red Cloud school by Indian Country Today and Reveal found evidence of at least one unmarked grave and at least 20 student deaths, and harsh, dehumanizing treatment of students at a time when the Catholic Church was accumulating thousands of dollars in government payments and hundreds of acres of land at the expense of the Oglala Lakota people. From 1903 to 1940, records show the church received the equivalent of nearly $18 million in today’s dollars via the U.S. government from Lakota trust and treaty funds for providing education to Indigenous students at Red Cloud, and obtained about 700 acres of tribal lands for the mission and school.
