The Chief's Last Ride

It is bitterly cold at Wounded Knee. 150 hooded riders from the Oglala tribe have formed a large circle with their horses. To the dull thud of the drums, the Lakota Indians sing a song of prayer. Then all ride slowly up to the mass grave. From precisely this spot, soldiers of the 7th US Cavalry opened fire on more than 350 previously disarmed Indians - the ancestors of these riders. The bodies of dead Indians, redominantly women, children and the elderly but also the legendary chief "Big Foot" lay dead in a large circle on the ground. Since 1986, Lakota Indians have retraced the footsteps of their ancestors to this place, which has long since become a memorial for the atrocities visited on all North American Indians. Among those here is Vina, who has come this year with six of her children, the youngest, a son, just 14 years old. It is a challenge for all: journeying for a week through snow and ice in the cold of a Dakota winter, at temperatures well below freezing. At the start of the ride, Vina and her group meet a second group, Lakota from the Hunkpapa branch. Their chief is Ron, a direct descendent of the legendary chief Sitting Bull. The Bush government wants to change the reservation layout, in order to better exploit the raw materials found there. Ron believes that this is a cynical parallel to that time as it was a gold rush of white settlers that triggered the great exodus.

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