On December 29, 1990, in blowing snow and wind-chill temperatures around 50 degrees below zero, more than 350 mounted riders approached Wounded Knee, South Dakota. They rode to observe the end of seven generations of mourning on the centennial of the massacre of Chief Big Foot and nearly 300 of his Lakota people. Over seven days, they had retraced Big Foot's path. The bitter cold that day seemed appropriate for remembering the results of one culture failing to understand another.
Leading them were Arvol Looking Horse, Birgil Kills Straight and Dan Afraid of Hawk.
Looking Horse, the 19th Generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe and spiritual leader of the riders, was one of the original fifteen who made the ride in 1986. It was in that same year that he learned he was a great-great-grandson of Big Foot.
Kills Straight, grandson of a massacre survivor, was also an original rider on the 300-mile route he had proposed.
Afraid of Hawk, son of a massacre survivor, was the last living patriarch of the Afraid of Hawk tiospaye, or extended family, a lineage that included White Mountain, Slow Bull and Slow Woman.
This photograph is held in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of the American Indian. A 2009 article in Smithsonian Magazine described the experience of capturing the moment. For three years it was in the Song for the Horse Nation exhibition at the George Gustav Heye Center.
When the riders neared Wounded Knee, their precise path proved elusive to me. Twice I got ahead of them, ran across a stretch of prairie and waited, only to see them go by on a nearby ridge. On the third attempt, a fence line ensured they had no choice but to come to where I waited with my cameras.
Only minutes after I reached that spot, the advance scouts came over the crest of the hill. With my car some distance away and not readily visible, they were surprised to find a lone photographer standing in the middle of the empty prairie. They rode up and stopped to confirm that I wasn't lost, then rode on.
As the column approached, the frost-covered horses and riders took on a timeless and ghostly appearance as if they were indeed riding in from the past.
As they passed, I stood my ground, kept shooting and became completely engulfed. The ground shook as more than 1,500 hooves trotted over the frozen turf.
A number of runners appeared among the horses. My photographic ambitions satisfied, I got swept up in the moment. I turned and ran with them for as long as I was able.
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