Julie Weivoda

“And I'm filled with an aching sorrow, too, for the loss to my own family because, in a very real way, I also died that day. I died to my family, to my children, to my grandchildren, to myself. I've lived out my death for more than two decades now.

Those who put me here and keep me here knowing of my innocence can take grim satisfaction in their sure reward — which is being who and what they are. That's as terrible a reward as any I could imagine.

I know who and what I am. I am an Indian — an Indian who dared to stand up to defend his people. I am an innocent man who never murdered anyone nor wanted to. And yes, I am a Sun Dancer. That, too, is my identity. If I am to suffer as a symbol of my people, then I suffer proudly.

I will never yield.”
― Leonard Peltier, Prison Writings

“Sun Dance makes me strong. Sun Dance takes place inside of me, not outside of me. I pierce the flesh of my being. I offer my flesh to the Great Spirit, the Great Mystery, Wakan Tanka. To give your flesh to Spirit is to give your life. And what you have given you can no longer lose. Sun Dance is our religion, our strength. We take great pride in that strength, which enables us to resist pain, torture, any trial rather than betray the People. That's why, in the past, when the enemy tortured us with knives, bullwhips, even fire, we were able to withstand the pain. That strength still exists among us.

When you give your flesh, when you're pierced in Sun Dance, you feel every bit of that pain, every iota. Not one jot is spared you. And yet there is a separation, a detachment, a greater mind that you become part of, so that you both feel the pain and see yourself feeling the pain. And then, somehow, the pain becomes contained, limited. As the white-hot sun pours molten through your eyes into your inner being, as the skewers implanted in your chest pull and yank and rip at your screaming flesh, a strange and powerful lucidity gradually expands within your mind. The pain explodes into a bright white light, into revelation. You are given a wordless vision of what it is to be in touch with all Being and all beings.

And for the rest of your life, once you have made that sacrifice of your flesh to the Great Mystery, you will never forget that greater reality of which we are each an intimate and essential part and which holds each of us in an embrace as loving as mother's arms. Every time a pin pricks your finger from then on, that little pain will be but a tiny reminder of that larger pain and of the still greater reality that exists within each of us, an infinite realm beyond reach of all pain. There even the most pitiable prisoner can find solace.

So Sun Dance made even prison life sustainable for me.

I am undestroyed.

My life is my Sun Dance.”
― Leonard Peltier, Prison Writings

“The white man, as one Indian said, “was in the Black Hills just like maggots”;10 wasicu, or “the greedy one” (literally, “he-who-takes-the-fat”),11 was the term the Lakota used to describe the miners, and it later became their term for whites in general. “The love of possessions is a disease with them,” said Sitting Bull, who was never behindhand in his contempt.”
― Peter Matthiessen, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse: The Story of Leonard Peltier and the FBI's War on the American Indian Movement

“I fear that Indian people will lose what culture we have left, that we will lose our land base, that those who would drive us off our territories into nonexistence will succeed. Our vigilance and our total determination in this regard must never let up. No, not ever.

But within that greater struggle, we must turn and help ourselves and our people, one by one. There's not a one of us who can't give a helping hand, just as there's not a one of us who can't benefit from a helping hand. We must reach out helping hands to each other.”
― Leonard Peltier, Prison Writings