THE KILLING SPIRIT: Hanblecheya (50)

CHAPTER ELEVEN
HANBLECHEYA



To the Lakota all things sacred must be made pure. That is why lamenting, crying for a vision, Hanblecheya, begins and ends with Inipi. The lamenter must cleanse his body, his mind and his spirit. His soul must be made pure if he is to receive the blessing, the power, the message and the vision of the spirit world. He must fast four days and four nights. He must overcome the suffering of the body so that his spirit may rise.

It is as though the body must read the signs of death so that it releases its hold on the spirit. Many of the great visions, like the Ghost Dance vision of the Paiute Wavoka, were born when the dreamer lingered in a feverish nether land between life and death.

Ramona made all the arrangements, securing the sweat lodge and the required role players who would serve the ceremony. She found an elder to serve as spirit guide. Henry Lightfoot was an old soul and his people knew him as the one who gazes at the stars.

“You possess the knowledge of the ancestors,” he told Jerico “It was handed down from the generations to you. You have the power of second sight and your lament is heard in the four corners of the sacred wheel. It reaches the ears of the great father and the earth, who is our mother, cries with you. The powers within you can only be revealed in a vision, in the way of your people: Hanblecheya.”

“The powers of the earth and the stars are ready to receive you but you must give your word, which is your honor, that you will never turn back. When you receive your vision, you must follow it. You must promise your life. Do you take this step?”

Jerico nodded.

The old man handed him a very old, red clay pipe, made from a clay found only in one quarry in northern Minnesota, the original home of the Lakota nation. Henry Lightfoot was Navaho but he was wise to the ways of all the tribes of Turtle Island.

“In the over world, there is only one tribe,” he explained. “It is the tribe of the earth and the heavens, of the air and water. It is the tribe of all – red white brown yellow and black – who know the path. There are not many white men there,” he smiled. “There are more white women. Why is that?” he asked Ramona.

“I could write a book,” she replied.

So much in nature comes in fours: The four directions, the stages of life, the seasons of change, the elements of earth, the legs of the buffalo, the limbs of man and bird. Even the tree of life may be counted in four: roots, trunk, branches and leaves. It is for this reason that Inipi is counted in four waves and the lament in four cycles of the sun.

The preparations were complete and they entered the sweat lodge for the first wave. Jerico began the process of letting go the sorrows and worries that block the heart and settle in the soul. The spirit cannot fly if it is weighted down by the burdens of life and it must fly it is to receive a vision.

The sweat poured from his body and Jerico forgot the suffering, the pain, the guilt, the blood spilled in his name and the anger that surged through his veins. The sweat lodge was as a womb and. after four waves, Jerico was reborn.

He stepped out of the lodge and his vision was clearer, clearer than it had ever been, clearer than when he was a child and first laid eyes on the Dog Star, clear than the eyes of innocence and youth when there was no darkness, when all the world was a promise and everything he touched a blessing.

In the stillness of early morning, he went to the place he had chosen to cry for a vision. It was a clearing in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, a place held sacred to the Indians of Taos Pueblo. The white man who sang of “purple mountains majesty” was thinking of the Sangre de Cristos for when the sun rose at dawn and when it fell at dusk, the mountains were bathed in crimson. The sight bent the faithful to their knees, lamenting the blood of the fallen, the loss of the ancestors, or the suffering of Christ.

When Jerico saw the crimson dawn, he saw a river of blood connecting the past to the present. He saw the blood of the circle, the blood of the family, and the blood of the Indian people.

He gave his offering to the four directions and smoked the sacred pipe, holding in his hand the blood offering of Ramona, bits of her flesh in a leather pouch. He had not asked but he could not refuse.

“She chose to make this sacrifice,” the wise one said, “so your vision will be strong.”

He reflected on all the people he had encountered on his journey who sacrificed so willingly. Ramona had suffered so that he might not suffer too much. He closed his eyes and saw her riding a white Appaloosa through a field of knee high grass. He recognized the place. It was the meadows of the Black Hills where he had gone so often as a child.

As she rode, she was transformed. Her pale skin grew darker and tinged with red. Her body and facial features changed from female to male. She was tall and strong and her expression was fierce. She wore the markings of a Minneconjou warrior and she was riding to a gathering of warriors. She joined the party of the bravest and fiercest war chief, the strange man of the Lakota, the one known as Crazy Horse.

Jerico saw her through the eyes of Crazy Horse. He saw her fear and her courage. He saw the promised that passed between them. He would trust her with his life and she would trust Crazy Horse.

Led by the mad man known as Yellow Hair, the blue coats were preparing to attack their camp. They would not flee. Already they had pushed back the blue coats under General Crook at the Rosebud. This was the greatest gathering of Cheyenne and Lakota warriors in history. Crazy Horse worried that there were more blue coats approaching but the soldiers with Yellow Hair were not so many. If they held their ground, if they planted the staff and fought with courage and cunning, they would crush the most notorious Indian killer of them all.

Every warrior in the expansive gathering knew the vision of Sitting Bull: He had seen soldiers falling from the sky. It was a powerful sign and this was the day the vision came to life. They were not afraid to fight. Even if this were the last battle they would ever fight, it would be a great victory. The ancestors would join the celebration.

“Ho-ka hay! It is a good day to fight!”


The spirits were quiet at Jerico’s fire, observing the vision seeker in his stillness, listening to his thoughts, hearing his song, tasting his tears and judging the depth of his suffering.

He was visited by the coyote spirit on a distant ridge. The lizard spirit approached his camp and the dragonfly singed its wings on the flames of his fire. A hawk circled overhead and flew to the north. In the night, as he struggled to remain awake, he heard the call of an owl and its silent fluttering of wings. As his body swayed like reeds in the wind, he sang and lamented. His conscious thoughts returned to Crazy Horse at the Greasy Grass.


A Cheyenne warrior flew into his camp to report that the blue coats were attacking to the south. Crazy Horse ordered his warriors to remain where they were. He had seen the white man fight. He knew they attacked from more than one direction. He also knew that Yellow Hair was across the bluff, waiting to attack their flank.

He led a handful of warriors to the south, where he found that Short Bull’s warriors had already pushed back the attackers. They rushed back to the north, straight through the camp, gathering warriors as they rode. He would outflank Yellow Hair with more than a thousand Cheyenne and Lakota warriors.

Gall’s warriors broke up Yellow Hair’s attack, pushing the blue coats to the high ground in the center of a great clearing, where Yellow Hair met Crazy Horse face to face.

The warriors and the blue coats fought bravely but none fought so bravely as Crazy Horse and Yellow Hair. Crazy Horse rode his pony back and forth, taunting the soldiers, drawing their fire and spurring his warriors on. Yellow Hair stood his ground, bullets and arrows planted in his dying body, fighting to his last bullet, which he discharged into the chest of the warrior who carried the spirit of Ramona.

Yellow Hair laughed as he fell, as all his soldiers had already fallen. He laughed as he spent his last breath.

“Ho-ka hey! It is a good day to die!”


The second day was much the same. The same spirits visited his camp, only now they lingered. The hawk circled twice and flew to the east. The owl swooped down so close to him he could feel the wind of its wings. The coyote approached his circle, tilting his head and gazing at him from across the fire before scampering away. Jerico sensed that there were hidden spirits, eyes in the darkness, watching and waiting.

On the third day, his hunger and thirst became a craving. The hawk chased a vulture away, circled three times and flew to the south. Struggling to remain conscious, he gripped a sharp rock until it drew blood. His sweat was dry and his body was coated with a crusty layer of salt. The world was swirling inside his head, churning in his gut, his balance was lost and his vision distorted.

“Ho-ka hey! It is a good day to die!”

He awakened in the night not knowing how much time had passed. He examined his fire, no longer burning but the embers still glowed. He examined the sky, the stars and the moon, and decided it was early morning. He became aware of the night spirits surrounding his camp and he heard a voice. It told him to remain strong. The ancestors had heard his lament and the spirits judged him worthy.

He gave thanks in song and his tears were tears of joy.

The fourth day passed as a river flows. His strength was renewed, his hunger and thirst abated. He was no longer a man upon the earth. He was a spirit being surrounded by brethren spirits, filled with wonder at the miracle of all living things and all things upon the earth were living. The earth herself was a living being, sentient and feeling, with needs and desires. She blessed those who protected her from harm and condemned those who planted poisons in her womb, in the air and water that nourished her. Global warming was not only real; it was a mother’s angry warning to those who continued to abuse her in the name of progress.

You have known her kindness and mercy; would you know her wrath?

The indigenous peoples were not without flaw but they had suffered too much for their misdeeds and they were always defenders of the earth. They were kin to all creatures of the land, the water and the air. They were the best hope that humankind and countless other species would not perish. Earth abides but those who walk her sacred grounds may not. Extinction is a cruel fate for those creatures whose only crime is to live at the same time as the wasichu, those who see only resources to be exploited, the lovers of money and merchants of death.

The wasichu revels in suffering; he welcomes the death knell; he yearns for destruction as the Lakota yearn for the return of the buffalo and the final reckoning of White Buffalo Calf Woman.

Night came with a profound silence. Jerico recalled the deep caves in the Black Hills where some said Crazy Horse was secretly buried. He remembered a silence that was not the same as the absence of sound. It was magnified like the silence of a full moon, a still wind, the breath of an Oak or the silence of dreams.

With heightened awareness, he looked to the east at the caw of a crow. His friend the crow had guided him on his path but until now had not appeared at his camp. He looked beyond the mountains, beyond the desert, beyond the fields, beyond the great river, beyond the forest to the endless sea, where at last he found his friend the crow.

The crow appeared as a fly on a kitchen wall, a speck of black in a sea of blue, and as he watched he saw that the crow was moving toward him, growing larger with each flap of his wings; and as he watched he saw that the crow was no longer a crow. He was a man wearing a long, flowing black robe, his arms outstretched to resemble wings, his eyes beneath his pointed hood invisible to the light.

As the black robe set foot on the land that the white man christened America, two more black dots appeared in the sea of blue, and behind them four more, and behind them eight, and behind them sixteen and so on until it seemed an endless wheel, and there would be more black robes than any land could bear.

Jerico saw that the land was pure, the forest untouched, the hunting grounds rich, the air and water clean. It was the beginning time – before the wasichu, before the machines, when the two legs bowed to the earth, the stars and the moon. It was a time when no man challenged the sacred majesty of mother earth.

The black robe came and laid waste to the land. With fire and pestilence he cut a trail of destruction through the endless forest so that the black robes behind could see and follow. Two more trails appeared, then four, then eight, like an army of ants devouring a carcass, destroying all until the forest that was, was no more, until only a skeleton remained.

The people of the earth knelt before the black robes and offered their hands in friendship but when the black robes took their hands or crossed their foreheads with holy water, the people fell like lambs at a slaughterhouse and the black robes whispered in their dying ears:

Do you take Jesus as your lord and savior?

The black robes gathered at the great river, turning back to see what they had wrought. Smokestacks sprang from the earth at the wave of their hands and white crosses marked the land. Another wave and armies came forth with guns, cannons and weapons of mass destruction. Wars were fought and the land that was once a forest was made fertile again with the blood of the fallen.

The black robes were pleased but they were not satisfied. They turned to the west and looked out upon the open land, the vast deserts and mountains rich in gold, silver, copper and iron. They looked out upon the Great Plains, the endless waves of grain, herds of buffalo, and the untouched peoples who still worshiped the earth and honored animal spirits as if they were brothers and sisters.

So the black robes continued their march westward and as they crossed the plains, the buffalo fell as stones dropped from the sky. White men followed, stripping them of their skins, leaving their bodies for vultures, coyotes and worms. Soon there were only bones and the black robe followers gathered their skulls and stacked them high as the tallest mountains.

The black robes said to the people:

Behold the power and the glory! Bow down before our holy father or join your buffalo brothers!

The people were frightened for they had seen the railroads, the long guns, the cannons and the guns that shoot many bullets and they knew the heart of the wasichu held no mercy. Many bowed down to the black robes and received their blessings. Others shuffled their feet and looked to their brothers for guidance.

A pale faced Lakota warrior and spirit guide stepped forward and the people looked to him with respect. They saw in his eyes that he would never bow to the black robes or their wasichu God. The people saw this and gathered around him, whispering his name: Crazy Horse. He spoke for all who refused to bow.

“You have killed many buffalo,” he said, “but you have not killed all. They have gone to a place where you cannot follow. When you are banished from our land, they will return. As it is with the buffalo, so it is with the Lakota.”

He climbed on his white Appaloosa and rode into the Black Hills, his people behind him. The black robes fell silent and made no move to follow. They were afraid of this man for he alone knew their secret: a people cannot be conquered without their submission.

As the vision began to fade, he saw a great cloud of smoke rising to the east. He saw a darkness, darker and more deadly than any he had ever seen, spreading to the four corners of the earth. It surrounded his camp, enveloped him, and blocked his vision.


Jerico returned to his fire, where he was greeted by the crow. He sat quietly as the crow became the raven and the raven became a man shrouded in black robes with hidden, invisible eyes. He lowered his hood, revealing the face the white man knows as Jesus, the perfect white Jesus with blue eyes, the likeness that hangs on the walls of the black robe places of worship.

For he so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.

The black robe warmed his hands by Jerico’s fire and his face began changing, transforming from one to another in rapid succession. Jerico recognized Washington the Indian fighter, Jefferson the slave owner, Jackson the betrayer, Roosevelt the buffalo hunter, Johnson the Vietnamese killer, Hitler, Stalin, Suharto, Pinochet, Pol Pot, Amin, Milosevic, Hussein, Trujillo, Arafat and Sharon, Nixon and Kissinger. He understood that this was the killing spirit. He understood that the wasichu was not always a white man but always he was infected by the same disease: His love of power and greed.

The black robe returned to the face of Jesus and smiled beneficently. “What you call the killing spirit is not the great evil you imagine it to be,” he said. “I prefer the name of progress for it carries the weight of inevitability. You cannot fight manifest destiny any more than you can push back the tides.”

Jerico listened as he would to an elder for there was much to be learned.

“What if the wasichu had been kind and gentle?” the black robe asked. “Would that have stopped them from spreading over the land, killing your people with disease? The white man has built a great nation, the greatest power on earth. They welcome you to their family, to share the wealth, to live in comfort and peace. They give you medicine and technology. They promise you freedom. They only ask that you live as they do, that you give up the old ways, that you lay down your arms and give up your hatred. They ask only that you take their faith, their God, their holy father, the blood and the body of Christ into your hearts. Is that really too much to ask?”

“You have taken our land,” replied Jerico. “You have raped our mother. You have killed the buffalo. You have fed your poisons to our father. In exchange, you have given us sheds to live in, alcohol and gambling. We give, we surrender, but it is never enough. The killing spirit always wants more. When you have stolen our hearts, you will ask for our souls.”

“Your people will follow you,” said the black robe. “If you refuse to bow down, they will suffer. If you agree, if you give yourself over to the power of Christ, they will prosper. This is the choice that you and you alone must take.”

Jerico looked to the sky where the hawk circled four times and flew to the west. In the distant clouds, he saw clearly the white buffalo.

As it is with the buffalo, so it is with the Lakota.

“You are not the one called Jesus,” he said, but as he turned, he saw that the killing spirit was gone. He had already received the answer of Jerico Whitehorse. He would not bow down. He had chosen the red road, the way of the Lakota.