Wounded Knee Ll and Leonard Peltier Native American Religious Expression and Dawes Act
Leonard Peltier has been in prison since 1979, after being convicted of the murder of two FBI agents at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation four years earlier. He was an activist with the American Indian Movement (AIM) and at least on the Left has been regarded as a political prisoner, convicted for a crime that he probably did not commit and for which two of his other alleged accomplices were acquitted at a federal trial in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. This occurred before his conviction, but since he was not extradited from Canada in time for this trial the federal government tried him alone and obtained a sentence of life imprisonment. His next parole hearing will not be for thirteen years, and despite many years of protests and petitions on his behalf, no U.S. president has even shown much interest in granting him a pardon or clemency. Peltier has always stated that he did not shoot the FBI agents, although he admitted firing at them out of self-defense.
Cultural immersion through community participation and observation
This paper is on culture. Surely, before I went to the festival, I had a slight idea about the mess I was getting into. I wasn't really eager to participate and was going to be a quiet observer as people crazily went on to throws color at each other. However, as I was there around different people having the time of their likes, I could not help myself. It was very nice to see people of different ages and different backgrounds act the same way and just enjoy themselves. There was no class or sect division. People were playing around and throwing color even if they were ten or sixty. This showed me the importance of culture and tradition in this group of people.