We Ride Sport and Trail Magazine March 2019 | Page 7

historic trail that led to the site of the Wounded Knee Massacre.

The massacre that took place on December 29, 1890, is credited as the final battle of the Indian Wars. Hundreds of Lakota were disarmed and killed by the 7th Calvary of the United States Army along the Wounded Knee Creek.

On the one hundredth anniversary of the massacre, after four years of the memorial ride, members of the Hunkpapa, the Minnicoujou, and the Oglala nations rode into Wounded Knee and performed a Wiping of the Tears Ceremony to signify the end of mourning.

Known as the Oomaka Tokatakiya or Future Generations Ride, this is a Lakota effort that empowers through a spiritual and physical remembrance of their ancestors’ experience. Braving the brutal South Dakota winters, kids as young as seven, ride up to 35 miles in a day through snow and blizzard conditions, with temperatures often reaching -20°F.

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n 1986 a small group of Lakota men and women started an annual tradition, riding horseback across the South Dakota winter, tracing the historic trail that led to the site of the Wounded Knee Massacre.