Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

Elaine Goodale

Ohiyesa / Young Charles

Sitting Bull

Uncle

Henry Dawes

General Sherman

President Ulysses S. Grant

Jacob

Bishop Whipple

Col. Nelson Miles

Chief Red Cloud

Young Man Afraid

Chasing Crane

Scarlet Whirlwind

Bull Head

Bull Head's Wife

Soldier

Teacher

Major Walsh

Mountie

Woman

Charles Eastman

Mrs. Goodale

Singing Sioux Woman

Sergeant / Horse Thief

Crow Foot

Four Robes

Issue Clerk

Crier

Chasing Crane's Son

Daniel Royer

Photographer

Wovoka / Jack Wilson

Reverend Woods

Little Wolf

Young Sioux Man

Village Man

Village Man

Colonel James Forsyth

Secretary

Guest

Sergeant

August Schellenberg previously played Sitting Bull in both Witness to Yesterday (1970) and Crazy Horse (1996).

Originally began development in 1995 as a two-part miniseries for ABC.

The mouse that craws under the blanket is clearly not the same mouse that is hit with the pan by the Indian woman and then removed from under the blanket.

When showing close ups of the dead bodies in the snow after the massacre at Wounded Knee you can clearly see the breathing (nostrils flaring) of the one indian that is supposed to be dead.

When Charles Eastman is sitting on the floor, you can clearly see that the soles of his boots are made of man made material with a modern tread design, not the smooth leather soles you would expect to see in the nineteenth century.

Charles Eastman: My dear Senator Dawes, as I believed you sincere in asking me to keep you informed, I write you again in an appeal for your assistance. With no medical equipment here worthy of the name and understocked in medicines, there has been little reason for the sick to risk the journey to the agency for treatment. I bought a horse and a wagon with my own salary and have just now returned from the several weeks in the villages. It is a mistake to trust the official reports. Measles, influenza and whooping cough have ascended from hell all at once. My own assistant's child has been taken. The agent here, Royer, has no experience and even less inclination to help these people. Of equal concern is the epidemic of hopelessness that has overtaken the reservation. That the Sioux would bear the wretched taste of cod-liver oil for the ounce of spirits contained in the bottle is, to me, the whole of their experience in a nutshell. I no longer deny them. Many here fear a return to the old ways. The prophesy of a Paiute shaman called Wovoka has spread from tribe to tribe faster than a telegraph signal, rekindling old superstitions among the Sioux and old apprehensions among the whites who are sure to mistake desperation for hostility. As conditions worsen, the church can provide little solace beyond a Christian burial. Sincerely yours, Charles Eastman.

Wovoka AKA Jack Wilson: A vision came to me when the sun went into shadow, and I lay dying. And in my death, I saw the Heavens of the white robes. And yes, it is as they describe it. But also there, my children, all the Indians that ever roamed this earth, all your beloved ancestors, and mine, and those young ones who were taken by the white man's diseases. Do not grieve for them. They want you to know that they are happy. Yes. And you should not grieve for yourselves, because here is what the white robes did not tell you- the white man, my children, will soon be no more. Now you must not hate the white man. This will onlydelay his end. But if you will do the dance that I will teach you, all the ancestors will return. And the buffalo will be renewed. And you shall all live forever. Forever in the freedom that we as Indian people once knew.

Sitting Bull: You must take them out of our lands.