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Under the Religious Crimes Code of 1883, Congress banned Native dances and ceremonies, including the Sun Dance, Ghost Dance, potlatches, and the practices of medicine persons. The North American settlers’ dance rapidly took over, marching East to West, spreading North to South, a freedom of speech walk bludgeoning everything in its path.
The men danced authority and conquer, the women danced subservience with stubborn backbone, and the children danced from assuming a pleasing role and cultivating rebellion.
Wiped out by smallpox, corralled, and sanctioned, the People who once danced tribal ceremonial tradition upon the land were registered and labeled, stripped of their children, and eventually relegated to a Native North American status sans their native dance. Native means natural, normal, inborn, and innate, yet we have been systematically estranged from our dance upon the land roots.
Everyone dances upon the land. Servant, master, parent, and youth; explorer, rebel, teacher, and coach. Each of us has a dance style, rhythm, beat, and connection to the land. We all walk or wheel on the land. We all dance on the land.
