A Warrior’s Cry
Sam Dailey
It is quiet and boring
Nothing to say when someone asks
about our history
They know from one chapter in high
school history
That Custer removed the Cherokees
That Kit Carson trespassed into
Navajoland (Dine’tah)
That there was a place called Little
Big Horn
The Long Walk was what the Navajos
suffered
Exiled from Canyon De Chelly to
Bosque Redondo in 1864
Indians captured and their spirits
not set free
Acres of land left destroyed
Bilagaanas, White Men
Stole the land from us
Beat us and tortured my ancestors
Dug up the land with their greedy
ass white lies
We gave them food, water, and a
place to stay
In return, some died of starvation
Some died of smallpox
Others held prisoner and locked
up
Poor Leonard Peltier
They know of Black Hills Gold
But that land never was sold
In high school history class
I learned that it began this way
“In 1492, Columbus sailed
the ocean blue”
My response, “Motherfucker
who?”
The Indians were savages
They killed settlers with their
bow and arrow
They can’t speak English
They have long hair and talk in
tongues when they sing
I never read that
White settlers were Indian Killers
They took the people from their
villages
Shot and killed them
They hurt my mother- Earth
By digging her up and leaving her
dry
Indians speak a language of their
own
White men talk in twang
Whenever they sang
They have blond hair, blue eyes
Their language is foreign
My question- Is your hair always
so short?
Cause mine ain’t always long
Indians aren’t savages
We’re proud when we need be
Can be humble to those who are ignorant
I may be Navajo
But there are hundreds of other
tribes
From Cheyenne, Seminole, Sioux,
Lakota, Hopi, and
Apache to name a few
Funny how all they seem to know
Is that their grandmother’s
a Cherokee princess
Your leaders were Presidents
Washington and Jackson
Mine taught me to listen and learn
Manuelito and Canoncito
You crazy white men were wrong
You never listened to our song
We sing of Life
Spirit, Beauty, and Harmony
Practice our traditional religion
through stories and ceremonies
Listen to the winds and stones
Hearing all those warrior’s
cry
Who once lived in this place and
died