Copyright © 1999 NLThomas
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SOUTH DAKOTA/WASHINGTON, DC - A fire engine and four park police cars pulled up to the painted black pick-up truck carrying the Oceti Sakowin (First of Seven Council Fires) fire Wednesday, raising a minor ruckus on the Washington, DC, Mall.

Fire-fighters and officers got out of the truck and squad cars and came to inspect the smoke issuing out of a stovepipe from the back of the pick-up.

The Lakota and Dakota elders and young people rallied, concerned about whether the fire-fighters would try to put out the Sacred Fire which had led them all the way to Washington. Women wearing shawls and skirts gathered around a yellow banner saying "Treaty Rights are Human Rights; Uphold the Fort Laramie Treaty."

As one man sang to the beat of a hand drum, Lakota youth in baggy pants and sweat shirts held up hand-lettered signs reading, "We are the Seventh Generation of which Black Elk spoke and we want our land back," "One does not sell the land on which the people walk" (a quotation from Crazy Horse), and "Senator Daschle, you can't have our land or our water."

One fire-fighter quipped, "You want to get arrested."

An incoming hurricane caused a constant drizzle during the morning and afternoon, as people came and went to meetings with legislative assistants to discuss the violation of their treaties. The previous (sunny) day, elders and youth of the Sioux Nation had passed out leaflets. But by the time the fire truck, sirens blaring, pulled up beside the small pick-up, spirits were a little bedraggled.

As the firemen inspected the wood stove and pipe carrying smoke out the back end, a few umbrella-carrying tourists stopped to watch the action. A nearby bus driver snapped his own photos. When the fire-fighters learned that there was a fire extinguisher in case of emergency, they said that everything was up to code and left.