Past Life Memory Bank
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The Americas: Native Americans

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I wanted to let you know about an experience I had a few years back,,My family and I were travelling in Montana ,,and we were well out miles from any town. When the feeling I had been here before became so over whelming that I slowed down almost to a stop,,,,I could see a small goup of Indians,and they were being slaughtered by the calvary,,,there was one warrior,that when he saw me,he was enraged,,,and coming closer to the car,he began shouting,,,,SHA HAN A TAE,,, I didn't know quite what it meant but I knew it wasnt good,,,but as he got closer his entire demenor changed,,he knew me and I knew him,,,he began relating the story of these people and how they had been hunted down like dogs,and finally at the break of day the massacre had started with the shooting death of a young Indian boy about 14 years old,,,I can still picture him,,and he told me that I had been taken in death days before the incident,from a sickness of some kind,,,It was like there was a photograph there that once imprinted on time and space,,,would be there forever.,,,,I call it "photographs in time".I experience them in many places from many different ages,,,its eerie,but at the same time,,,fascinating.ÝÝI was this man's neice,,,and he himself had the name of SHA HAN A TAE. He stays with me in times of trouble or confusion,,,and guides me through my life......I hope this helps you some how,,,,,
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    I believe I have had multiple past lives... one I believe to be Native American which has always been a hidden interest of mine. (Even to myself) It started with the first dream, when I was pregnant in real life, it was just a brief vision of me standing in front of a mirror. I was an old indian woman with a pleasant apple-doll kind of face and very long grey hair. I was in a very plain room with wooden planks (unpainted) for floor and walls, all alone. That was it... but later I tried a meditation and took her back to being about 13-14 yrs. old and getting married to a much older warrior. I remember not being pleased but thinking this is my duty and and honor!
    My father and mother were preparing me for marriage, with special clothing. There was a sort of bathing ritual with my mother and then I was smeared with some smelly ointment, consistency of Vaseline? My mother was sort of chanting thru the entire ritual... and giving me encouraging words about becoming an adult. It ended around the marriage ceremony. But reoccurred with the death of a child, when I miscarried in real life... I saw the many deaths of children that were mine. In this life I know I lost a son which my warrior husband also mourned and 2 girls. It hurt, so that I woke sobbing!
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    Another much older memory I have is of being among the Native Americans during the 'Trail of Tears.'  This memory is short--just me as a child crouching behind a wagon wheel and watching people being butchered.  Soldiers or what I thought of in my memory as 'big men' were hitting and stabbing some of Indians.  The memory hit me so hard as I was reading a brief 'tidbit' about the episode for an English Literature class.  I actually dropped the book and sobbed..... I felt this rush of helplessness and pain overcome me and I couldn't even go back to that book until the next day.
     As an English Literature major and a True Crime hobbyist I have seen and read some incredibly horrible things.  I've even interviewed a prison inmate who was incarcerated because he had helped murder an entire family while involved with a cult.  So, I am not feeble in heart by any means.  But, this small paragraph--and subsequent memory of the Indians and their lonely quest--upset me so badly that I still can hardly read about that time in our history.
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    I was just going through your postings of past lives and I came across the woman who's tribe was wiped out, and so was mine! Ever since I can remember I loved feathers, stones and bones and whenever I walk in a field I always find the most amazing things, and I always felt a sadness that I could never explain. when I did my training at a reserve we had horses and we went horse riding quite a lot, I found it so strange when the guy who was with me asked me if I have been riding since I was little and I said no I have never even rode a horse until now, but never thought anything about it until I did regression.
    I did some hypnotherapy to sort out things that happened to me in the past, I was suddenly sitting around a campfire next to my grandfather who I perceived to be the chief of the village, we were talking and he was teaching me, I was to take over from him when the time came, the next image is of me riding like crazy to go back to the village, I was on the lookout for danger because there was a lot of killing in the area and I saw something and was hurrying to get back to the village to warm my people of the danger. As I entered the village I found that I was too late.. all the people were dead. I was walking through the village and the woman and children was lying there all dead I could not believe it, some women looked like they were violated, I was crying and being very hard on myself for not being in time and I could not believe the injustice of what was done when all of a sudden I was grabbed from behind and flung to the floor and choked to death and the last thing I saw was the face of the man killing me and he had such pleasure doing it.
    While still under hypnosis I was asked if I wanted do something and I said yes I would like to say good bye to my loved ones and apologise for not being there in time, I did and as I was saying good bye to everything my husband came past and I could not believe it, He was my brother in that lifetime, which explains the fact that I felt we have known each other before, and more strange was that I was a man in that lifetime, I always thought you take on the same shape in every lifetime.
    Needless to say I hate tight things around my neck, and ever since that day the sadness I have felt disappeared. Knowing about the lifetime explained so many things in my life, that I could never understand, mostly it explained the loneliness I felt and the fact that I never really wanted to become close to people and to take responsibly for them in the fear that I will let them down as well as myself, I am still a loner but I am not lonely anymore -Melissa
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    The other night I did my first ever past life meditation and what I saw I know I will never forget.  I saw beautiful tall green trees similar to pine trees there were also mountains around me, I came face to face with a Huge Grizzly Bear, then I was in an Indian Village complete with Tee Pees, I was a  young indian woman with two plats in my hair and a coloured bead braclet around my left wrist, I wasn't wearing any shoes, it felt like a mild Summer day.  Then I was in a Tee Pee with a very old Indian lady with grey mattered hair and a very wrinkly weathered face, I felt very close to this lady, she felt like a Grandmother to me.  I could see other indians around outside.  I also had a little baby that was only very young, maybe only 4 - 8 weeks old.  All of a sudden I was outside when a group of white men came into the camp, they weren't at all like the cowboys you see in western movies, they wore dirty clothes and thier skin and teeth were dirty.  They started killing everyone in the camp, one of the men took my baby and held his hand over the baby's nose and mouth until it was dead, I started to run but something hit me in the back and I fell to the ground, it must have been a bullet because I died.  I could see my spirit rising up into the sky but I was trying to fight it, I knew it wasn't my turn to go.  I think everyone in the camp was wiped out.  I know the year was in the 1800's.  I have never been to America and I have never studied the American Indians but I feel that I have a connection there.  I have always been scared to death of bears even though we don't have bears here in Australia and when I was a very young girl I used to get my mother to put my long hair in two plats so that I could play at being an Indian girl who would always get caught and hurt by the cowboys.  When I had my children my greatest fear was that someone would take my children and hurt them, I am extremely overprotective of my kids and have only had them baby sat a few times.  Are my fears that I have today come through from a past life?  -Simone.
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    This is a dream that came to me about 2 years ago. It may have more of a symbolic meaning, but I think perhaps I caught a glimpse of who I was in another life. I found myself standing on the shore of a lake surrounded by (hidden by?) mountains and forests. Behind me were a group( tribe?) of native people. The whole mood was somber... even gloomy.  I realized why.  In the lake, within wading distance, were 2 pyres with 2 wolves in each.  Apparently, this was a funeral ceremony.  We then proceeded to wade into the lake, towards the pyres, to pay our last respects and say goodbye.  I found myself at the pyre on the right. I looked at the wolf.... she/he was so beautiful.  I looked closer and saw a brown slimy dirty leaf on her forehead.  I decided to brush it aside; it revealed a opening in her skull, filled with all kinds of detritus (small twigs, dirt, leaves) and I took it upon myself to clean it out. I noticed that she was starting to stir.... in my excitement, I started to yell to the others, who, as it turned out, had discovered that the other wolf had been stirring as well. We all started cheering and shouting for joy.  I think I remember gently taking the wolf out of her pyre and lifting it above me... she was still limp, but alive. (As I'm writing this, I have goosebumps!) The cheering and shouting built up into a huge, heaven calling howl.... and then I woke up.  No other dream I have had has had such an impact on me. I feel I must point out that I am not of Native American blood (though I have yet to validate this through genealogy). I give thanks to Eileen and her wonderful book, and to all who would help me along my path. May the Great Goddess watch over us all! -
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    I know of 3 lives that I have lived.  Some of the details at times are very scant, but I know enough about them to know they are memories.  One in paticular is set in a Lakota or Cheyenne Indina village, I'm not exactly sure, but it seems it may have been a gathering where both Lakota and Cheyenne were camped together.  I remember being a white lady in my early 20's, I know that I was white because I can see myself,  though I don't look as I do in this life.  I can also remember being in love with an Indian warrior of the village.  I have other memories of sneaking away from home to meet with the Indian man in secret.  But I was not at the village for a visit, a small child was sick and I was tending to the child.  Though I know I wasn't a doctor or a nurse, but my father owned a ranch and I took care of my younger siblings because my mother was dead and knew much about nursing from someone close to me.  An uncle or a older brother, I am not sure.  I can remember hearing thunderous hooves and people screaming.  As I run out of a wicciup i see union soldiers racing through the village. I remember hearing the women screaming for me to cross the stream and an middle aged Indian lady is pulling at my arm, but I just stand there paralyzed as I see my beloved shot in the head.  He falls to the ground.  Usually I wake up at that point in a cold sweat. My heart pounding.  Many times I wake up crying.  I have a very strong pull towards native peoples and their beliefs.  As I am part Cherokee, I am a very spiritual person and have been close to nature in every life that I remember. - Dee
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    While I was under hypnosis three years ago, I saw many detailed pictures in my mind of what I believe was a past life. First, I saw a large river with rocky banks and an amazing sunset that was in front of me. There were also images of tall dense forests, mountains and fields, a shallow round basket with some type of berries in it, and skies heavy with rain. I lived in a village of straw-covered huts clustered in a clearing at the edge of the woods. I got the sense that I was female, but I couldn't tell you what I looked like. My main job in the village was the care of a large herd of horses--like a healer or a veterinarian, I suppose.
    In one image I recall, I was standing with a brown-and-white mare who had a tiny brown and white foal at her side... she was showing her foal to me because she trusted me. The foal put her muzzle in my hands and she had long eyelashes and soft white whiskers. This image made me very very happy. An image that made me frightened or concerned was an image of a very large dead animal--possibly a bear--lying on the rocky riverbed. I'm not sure why I was frightened, but as I put my hands on the animal, I saw two european men coming out of the woods wearing dark blue hats. I'm not sure if I was afraid of these men or of the situation, but I know I didn't understand why the animal was dead.
    I also saw a type of marketplace that had a tall fence nearby and lots of people of both races. I lived with a very old woman who was not my mother, and I think she was blind... there was something strange about her eyes. She would sit with a covering over her head and I would kneel at her feet with my head in her lap and she would stroke my hair and talk to me. I also saw a man who was a very handsome and fierce warrior-type with shoulder-length black hair. He was either my brother or my husband, I felt very proud of him, and he had an air of disapproval or seriousness about him because he never smiled. When I was asked for a year, I first said "1695," then "1680," but I was sort of unclear about that. When asked for a location of the village, I said, "Where the two great rivers meet." I got a sense that it was in North America, the Pacific Northwest/Canadian region. I couldn't recall my exact name, but knew it as an image: the ripples that rain makes when falling on water.
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    My name is Kari & I'm a hypnotherapist on Long Island who specializes in past life regression.  Several years ago I had a friend hypnotize me into 2 past lives. The first was in the turn of the 20th century (early 1900's).  It was a bit boring so won't go into it now.  But the American Indian life was very interesting...... I was a small child, age 2 or 3, standing naked in a big grassy clearing. I couldn't tell my gender (In this culture, gender is decided later in life.  There are 3 genders: male, female & homosexual.).  I asked my regressionist to age me ahead 15 years.  At that point, I was a young beautiful woman. Tall, light-skinned with slightly wavy medium brown hair, I knew I lived in the Montana area before the "white man" came. We were all very happy with a great sense of love & comraderie.  In that life I was always filled with joy & contentment, as are most who go back to this time.  This feeling has been brought forward to this life; at times I'm so filled w/happiness for absolutely no reason at all.
    Back then, I saw my mother, husband & son.  These  people are unknown to me now.  When the facilitator asked me what my greatest accomplishment was in that life I saw my son again, a little boy of 9.  Out from him came streams of colored light & he morphed into a strong handsome young man.  There they were standing next to each other, the same person, my son, one age 9, the other 19.  He had grown into such a kind wonderful person & my heart then knew the pride of being a mother.  My dream is to meet him again as my son.  I have no children now, but I'll be waiting for him. -Kari
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    Here's the other one I got from a past life meditation: I'm a Native American, I don't know when in time it is. I'm a young man, standing on the edge of a cliff, a shaman is drawing a sand painting around my bare feet and chanting. The ground shakes and the cliff crumbles, falling, breathing dirt and dust, and I'm dead. I think this is where my asthma came from.
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    I have had several meditations that somehow led to these memories, each time it gets more detailed but it starts with me being young teens I think and I was a Native American girl. I had a lover somehow I feel it was forbidden, I followed him without his knowing and saw him with another.  I remeber my heart bieng completely broken and the reality of the consequences of my actions all being thrown at me.  I turned and ran, there is a stream (here's where it splits) and suddenly soldiers. I'm shot in the back and I see the water rushing around me my blood mixing with the water. I'm so sad, I'm sure at this point I die.  This could be two seperate past lives the way it splits I'm not really sure. I do know in the one where I am shot I am the chief's daughter.  If anyone else reconizes anything or was that lover please e-mail thanks.  Christine
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I had a waking vision that I was a woman probably between 17-25. I lived in a tribe that consisted of only other woman. I rememeber one day we (me and people I felt very connected to) were in the woods hunting a deer when we were attacked by a group of men. All of my sisters (I am actually not sure if they were but I had such a close connection with them that it's possible we were family or just very close) everyone I was with was killed. I was shot in the stomach with an arrow but somehow I managed to escape and find my way back to my village. I died later that night. What is really wierd is that I have this birthmark on my stomach. And whenever I look at it I get this great feeling of loss and sadness. - Lynn
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    In my dream I was a young native american woman about 16, my age now. I was married. My husband a great warrior was out fighting. He came back and watched me play with our daughter, Sky Feather. He then called to me: Hidden Beauty get her and run. I blinked and everything was gone... wierd. -Kelly

Apache
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      I am mostly Apache Indian (my great grandmother was full-blooded Apache), although you could not tell it from my appearance.  I have been told I look like a "very Jewish young lady," though I am 20.  Aside from dreams leading me to find out my father, who was adoopted as a baby, came from a Jewish family, I have another story to tell, one about my Apache Indian influences.
      For as long as I can remember, I have loved turtles.  I always found them utterly fascinating, up to the point of godly.  I have worshiped them, cared for the ones I found stranded, and I was ecstatic as a child when "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" came on as a t.v. show, all because I never could get enough of turtles. When I was 13, an aunt of mine sent me $25 for the winter holidays, which I then celebrated as Christmas (now I am a strict Strega).  The first thought that came into my head then was "buy a turtle."  I hadn't given it previous thought; it was a very spontaneous desicion, especially for an animal I had no clue how to care for.
    I ended up buying a red-eared slider, a water turtle, and I named her McCormack, after one of my crush's dogs; I call her Mackie.  Now when I bought Mackie, the guy at the pet store told me not to try to hold her too much because turtles don't like to be touched.  He said they like to be left alone.  Of course, as a teen, I never listened to him.  The second I took her home, I played with her.  Mackie let me pet her all the time, and she loves her head, jaws, and chin being rubbed.  My turtle and I would crawl up under my bed and take naps together, and she soon became my "baby" - she became so spoiled that she refused to eat unless I personally hand fed her a dead fish (she wouldn't go anywhere near any live water creature!)
    Two years later, when I was 15 years old, my family went to this town event called Beckworth days at my town's riverbottom area.  That festival honored Native Americans and the founders of my town.  Just as my family was getting ready to head back to our car to go home, my Momma put a stone-carved turtle necklace around over my head.  The turtle had a black marble inside of its shell.  On the underside of the turtle, there was the Apache synbol for turtle carved in.  My mom had gotten the necklace for me because I love turtles and because it had been made by an Apache Indian, one of our blood relatives (even though I never met him/her).
    I still continued to adore and worship my turtle and treat her like a queen, giving her all her favorite foods, and I wore the turtle necklace every single day, even in my sleep.  Two years after that, when I was 17, I found out that Apache Indians worshiped the Turtle more intensely than almost any other animal, giving the turtle whatever it pleased for sacrifice, giving turtles the best of homes a human could imagine a turtle wanting, and admiring turtles and honoring their existence every day.  And it struck me: that is exactly how I was with my turtle.  I realized my Apache beliefs had skipped everyone else in my family, besides my great grandmother and her family.  I had no idea why I was the only one who felt the way I did about the turtles, and my cousins had turtles also.  I now believe I have one of my Apache ancestors's soul in my body, and I believe that Is why I can never do anything without my turtle and must give her the utmost respect.  As the Apache tribe believed, turtles were a sign for fertility and creation of life and land miracles.
 The Turtle is a earth (land) creature, and I am a Virgo, an earth sign in astrology.  I think that is an awfully precise connection for me feeling protective and honoring my pet turtle.  I believe my turtle, Mackie, was an Apache Goddess herself, and I believe I have been reincarnated as the protector of my little Goddess. Blessed be---Ree

Cherokee
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    Another much older memory I have is of being among the Native Americans during the 'Trail of Tears.'  This memory is short--just me as a child crouching behind a wagon wheel and watching people being butchered.  Soldiers or what I thought of in my memory as 'big men' were hitting and stabbing some of Indians.  The memory hit me so hard as I was reading a brief 'tidbit' about the episode for an English Literature class.  I actually dropped the book and sobbed..... I felt this rush of helplessness and pain overcome me and I couldn't even go back to that book until the next day.
    As an English Literature major and a True Crime hobbyist I have seen and read some incredibly horrible things.  I've even interviewed a prison inmate who was incarcerated because he had helped murder an entire family while involved with a cult.  So, I am not feeble in heart by any means.  But, this small paragraph--and subsequent memory of the Indians and their lonely quest--upset me so badly that I still can hardly read about that time in our history.

Chumash
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    I feel deep inside me that in a past life I was a member of the Chumash Indian tribe of southern California, local to the area in which I currently reside. I feel that it is no coincidence that I have reincarnated here, so close to where I have been before- though for what purpose I'm not sure quite yet. Anyways, I know that I was a woman living in the Chumash village of Humaliwo, which is where the city of Malibu is located today. I lived about 500 years ago, prior to European contact, and I was married at the age of nineteen to a canoe builder. I had several children- two boys and a girl, and one child who was stillborn. I lived for about thirty something years I think, before being killed by a mountain lion or bear or other large animal. This past life has made itself known in my current life from early on- ever since I was a little girl I was drawn to nature and when I found out about the Chumash for the first time in the 3rd grade, it rang true to me. The word carried magic, and I knew somewhere that it had deep significance. I feel I have had other lives inbetween then and now, but this one is the one I remember most vividly and which seems to impact me the most today.

Comanche
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    The 3rd life i saw i feel more connected to and all the emotions feel too fresh.  I was 18 years old....commache girl whom was married to a kind, strong warrior. my name was bear cub. I had 3 children. 2 boys and a daughter.  I was sitting on top of a mountain cliff looking down at what was the ruins of my home.  the white soldiers killed everyone in my tribe.  My husband, my children, my family, my friends. I was the only survivor.  The pain and torment, and such deep deep sadness i can feel till this day.  Somehow it was my fault that they found us.  i think they followed me to the campsite unbeknownst to me.  i sat there crying and the hole in my heart and soul was too great to ever be able to describe.  then i just walked right off of the cliff of the mountain to my death. this life is the most poignant one out of all that i have rewitnessed....and i carry bear cub within me everyday of this life.----christina

Cree
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  I KNOW FOR SURE THAT I WAS A CREE INDIAN IN A PAST LIFE FOR A INDIAN MAN CAME TO ME IN A DREAM AN TOUCH MY FACE AN SAID YOU ARE CREE YOU ARE ONE OF OUR LOST CHILDREN AND EVERYTIME I GET SICK ALL I HAVE TO DO IS CALL FOR THE SHAMAN'S AN THEY DO COME I HAVE SEEN THEM MANY TIME THIS I KNOW WHO I WAS

Inuit
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    One evening at the Psychic Club I used to attend we decided to try to access the Akashic Records.  I experienced two former lifetimes and in both cases the memories were vivid and compelling. Unfortunately, I didn't receive any dates or exact locations, but I will describe them for you anyway. In the first one I was male (I am female in this life) and an Eskimo.  I was dressed from top to toe in a long garment made of various pieces of fur stitched together.  I was standing on the edge of a huge frozen lake, desperately trying to break the ice to find fish.  I was using a long metal hooked tool of some kind. The reason I was desperate to find food was because my wife had recently given birth to our first child and she needed food urgently in order to produce milk to feed the infant.  She herself was wasting away because all her body fat was being used to create the milk supply.  Even this wasn't enough and the baby was constantly crying with hunger.
    The ice was incredibly hard and I couldn't break it, no matter how hard I tried.  It was as if I was constantly knocking at a door that wouldn't open.  Eventually, however, I did make a hole in the ice big enough for my hook to enter ... at that point I left that lifetime. I was aware during this that my family and I were the only people left in the area.  We lived in the very far North of whatever country it was and earlier out community had been visited by a messenger from further South, telling us that we had to migrate South for the Winter as it was going to be exceptionally cold and there wouldn't be enough food available to feed us all.
    Everyone except my wife and myself left.  My wife was unable to go as she was near her time for delivering our child and could not travel - it was many miles to the warmer area.  I recall that my wife pleaded with me to go and leave her behind, but I refused to do so as I loved her and would never have left her alone to starve. The only other thing I can remember about the area was that although I know it was daytime when I was on the frozen lake, the sky was dark.  There appeared to be a very small amount of light, but it was extremely low in the sky, almost on level with the lake.  This makes me wonder whether it was Iceland.
    We were told that whatever we recalled would have some meaning for us in this life, especially with regard to any specific problems we were having at the time. I can only assume that this memory was trying to tell me that I needed to be persistent and carry on trying to achieve what I wanted to achieve and eventually I would do so.  Unfortunately, I am still trying a good two years later! - Julie E. Lewis
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    from the ages of 11-13 i had a recurring dream that i was a little Eskimo boy and had gone ice fishing with my father and grand father for the first time, my grandfather and father had finally come across an opening in the ice and we decided to set up there, we must have been sitting there for a good few hours before there was any movement in the hole my father and grandfather were up like lightning and i got to close and fell in the hole i tryed to find the opening but through the panic and cold i could not find the hole in the ice and i drownd. i honestly dont know if this is a past life but just thought i would share. cheers, angel
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    i have this "memory" "vision" picture in my mind of me walking through a snowy forest, my feet are freezing and are bound in skins like pelts of beaver and or seal. this same psychic, again with absolutely no hint at this idea at all, told me she saw me in a life as an eskimo. i informed my mother about this, thinking she'd have a good laugh, instead she said, " DeeDee, remember those baby pictures of you with your hair sticking straight up and you cheeks all rosy. they looked as if they were always cold. i used to tell people you were my little eskimo baby. you looked like a little eskimo" (i'm puerto rican, sicilian and mexican how could i look eskimo???) COINCIDENCE??? i think not. lol anyone who would like to email me i would like responses, anyone with similar memories, feelings or even if you think i'm nuts. lol thank you for the opportunity to post.
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    When I was three years old, my mother was bathing me and my younger brother in our bathroom that always felt to me as if it was cold. For no apparent reason i said to my mum "Thankyou for saving me from the Eskimos mummy" She asked me what i was talking about and i replied "They were trying to get granddad and he was too heavy to pull into the little wooden house." She just said ok, then I asked "Where is grandad?" And she thought i was talking about my granddad now. I dont know if this means anything but I have always wondered.

Pawnee
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    Hi I'm a 45 year old Australian lady, came across your website and thought I'd share my past life experiences.ÝÝWhile meditating on past lives I saw a vision of myself as a thirteen or fourteen year old American Indian girl.ÝÝA very old Indian woman with long silver-grey hair was looking at meÝout of aÝbeigeÝcoloured tepee. As I caught sight of her I felt an overwhelming feeling of love and heartache. I actually cried during meditation.ÝI then saw a young, strong Indian man from some other tribe,Ýwith a tall featherÝheaddress, on horseback. He was very aggressive and I was snatchedÝup, screaming,Ýas heÝgalloped past. I wasÝnever returned to my family.ÝAs I was coming out of my meditationÝI heard the word Pawnee. I had no previous knowledge of Indian tribes andÝhave only ever had a mild interest in American Indian history before this, but IÝwas now obsessed. While surfing the net I found out that Pawnee Indian women and childrenÝwere stolen fromÝtheirÝtribes by Apache Indians andÝwere soldÝ as slaves to the Spanish and Pueblo Indians.Ý

Plains Indiian
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   All my life I have been attracted to Native American culture, always siding with the Indians in movies. This is somewhat hazy, but very real.  Several times I have had dreams & visions of being a Plains Indian woman, Lakota or Cheyenne.  I see myself scraping hide staked to the ground and I saw myself riding a horse with a band of people, we seem to be moving from one camp to another.  I look up at the hills, covered with dark trees and know they are the sacred Black Hills and are called that because of the color of the dense covering forest.  The last one having to do with this life is being an old woman, laying sick in a large wooden building, I seem to be imprisoned there with my people.  I see my son, a tall, strong warrior and am very proud of him, but long to die so that I do not take food away from the young ones. It seems so unfair that I live while they are dying.  I think I was probably very happy in this life, despite the trauma of loosing our ancestral lands.  To this day, Native American spirituality is very real  to me and is an important part of my life.