I thought of Arlington National Cemetery. Would they allow this young man to “play through” there? (David Rooks)
That was the last line in a post about remembering those buried at Hiawatha Asylum. The ceremonies and remembrances were carried out early this month, but there is a weight of unbearable sadness. Not just over the crime of locking people up in the asylum. Not just over the maltreatment of those locked up in the asylum. Not just the terrible weight of grief borne by those who suffered the poisonous touch of the asylum. Yet another weight is the ever ongoing disrespect shown to Indigenous people across Turtle Island. Where are the dead of Hiawatha Asylum? In between the fourth and fifth fairways of the Hiawatha Golf Club course. Golfers waited to play through while the 21 Arrow salute took place.
Sunday morning, June 5, this hallowed ground was fairly warm by 10 a.m. Standing by the lone granite marker, whose bronze plaque carries the names of 120 of those buried somewhere close beneath it, I heard a soft rustle behind me. Ten feet west of the split rails stood a young man with a golf club who appeared to be waiting, more or less patiently. Lying in front of him was a golf ball.
I exited the cemetery on the west side and stopped by a tree. After a few practice swings, the young man approached his ball and then struck it. It skittered beneath the rail, through the cemetery, and out the east end, headed for the fourth green. I thought of Arlington National Cemetery. Would they allow this young man to “play through” there? I then thought of the mass burial site at Wounded Knee, and how nice it would be if it were surrounded by Hiawatha’s manicured lawns and lush and well-pruned trees. But not if it came with golfers.
[…]
Before the salute, Dr. Erich Longie, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Spirit Lake Dakota Sioux Tribe in Spirit Lake, North Dakota spoke. Longie reminded everyone that it is the nature of tribal peoples to keep their ancestors with them always; in their hearts, their minds, and their prayers. Longie also pledged to go back to Spirit Lake and see if he could get his tribe to help fund the purchase and construction of a new fence around the cemetery.
Given the golfer earlier that morning, Longie’s pledge seemed timely.
At the close of the ceremony, a 21-arrow salute was given by an archery team of students from Nebraska Indian Community College.
David Rooks has an excellent 2 page article about the ceremony, and about Hiawatha Asylum: A 21-Arrow Salute: ‘Come See the Crazy Indians’
Fuck golf courses.
Yep.
The mildly deranged penguin says there are some quite good courses several kilometres down in Saturn’s atmosphere: Giant enclosed floating courses being blown about by the wind. In keeping with the moving course, the holes on the course also move. They are migratory concave marsh turtles, so the courses tend to have many water and landmine hazards — the water so the turtles can survive and have a reason to move, and the landmines so the marsh topography keeps changing. (The turtles are quite safe, being too light to set off a mine, besides being naturally armoured.)
Being concave turtles, rather than the boring convex-shelled ones found on a few planets, they are basically natural “holes”. However, players need to aim for the convex shell, as the turtles rather like the taste of the golf balls. Having your ball eaten has become known as a “dragon” and is worth negative points, computed by a formula which takes into account such things as the number of times the turtle burped, the phases of Saturn’s moons, and the amount of turbulence the course was experiencing at the time.
No cultural sites, artifacts, or traditions were damaged or appropriated in the construction or flying of the courses.
blf
I’d play that course.
I hate golf courses.