Indians Want Their Side Told during Lewis and Clark Bicentennial

Abstract

The boy closed his eyes, raised one arm to the skies, then gazed at the sun as he sprinkled his traditional offering of tobacco on the ground-to the east, to the south, to the west, to the north. You can feel it when you get there, William TalksAbout says. A sense of calm, security, a sense of my heritage and my culture being played out even in my mind. He's 54 now, but remembers the moment as if it were yesterday. Here in the place TalksAbout finds sacred, two Blackfeet Indians were killed by Meriwether Lewis and one of his soldiers during the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1806. It was the only blood shed during the expedition. But finding out what led to the skirmish at Two Medicine River 145 depends on who you ask. The Blackfeet say the story America has been told is false. As the country celebrates the bicentennial of the journey by Lewis and William Clark through the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase and to the Pacific, American Indians-so crucial to the expedition's