Winter Counts Quotes

“What I’d discovered was that sadness is like an abandoned car left out in a field for good—it changes a little over the years, but doesn’t ever disappear. You may forget about it for a while, but it’s still there, rusting away, until you notice it again.”
― David Heska Wanbli Weiden, Winter Counts

“There is no word for goodbye in Lakota. That's what my mother used to tell me. Sure, there are words like toksa, which meant "later," that were used by people as a modern substitute. She'd told me later that the Lakota people didn't use a term for farewell because of the idea that we are forever connected. To say goodbye would mean the circle was broken.”
― David Heska Wanbli Weiden, Winter Counts

“Lack looked over at me. "Virgil, what do you do?" I hated that question. It was such a white way of looking at the world, that a person is judged by their job, not their character.”
― David Heska Wanbli Weiden, Winter Counts

“Back in the time before Columbus, there were only Indians here, no skyscrapers, no automobiles, no streets. Of course, we didn't use the words Indian or Native American then; we were just people. We didn't know we were supposedly drunks or lazy or savages. I wondered what it was like to live without that weight on your shoulders, the weight of the murdered ancestors, the stolen land, the abused children, the burden every Native person carries.
We were told in movies and books that Indians had a sacred relationship with the land, that we worshipped and nurtured it. But staring at Nathan, I didn't feel any mystical bond with the rez. I hated our shitty unpaved roads and our falling-down houses and the snarling packs of dogs that roamed freely in the streets and alleys. But most of all, I hated that kids like Nathan - good kids, decent kids - got involved with drugs and crime and gangs, because there was nothing for them to do here. No after-school jobs, no clubs, no tennis lessons. Every month in the Lakota Times newspaper there was an obituary for another teen suicide, another family in the Burned Thigh Nation who'd had their heart taken away from them. In the old days, the eyapaha was the town crier, the person who would meet incoming warriors after a battle, ask them what happened so they wouldn't have to speak of their own glories, then tell the people the news. Now the eyapaha, our local newspaper, announced losses and harms too often, victories and triumphs too rarely.”
― David Heska Wanbli Weiden, Winter Counts

“I wondered what it was like to live without that weight on your shoulders, the weight of the murdered ancestors, the stolen land, the abused children, the burden every Native person carries.”
― David Heska Wanbli Weiden, Winter Counts

“When Sybil died, everyone said that the grief would get better over time, but that hadn’t happened. What I discovered was that sadness is like an abandoned car left out in a field for good - it changes a little over the years, but doesn’t ever disappear. You may forget about it for a while, bit it’s still there, rusting away, until you notice it again.”
― David Heska Wanbli Weiden, Winter Counts

“Time seemed to stop, and the Lakota phrase mitakuye oyasin—we are all related—came to me, and in that moment I understood what those words meant. I inhabited them, as images, thoughts, and memories arose amidst the old vehicles. I saw my mother, gone but still with me, my father, who’d died too soon, and my sister, who I’d loved like my own life. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends. They appeared before me, all of my relations, my ancestors, Native and white, who’d loved and struggled, hunted and gathered, worked and played; they’d stood on this continent, looking up at these stars and these planets. It was daylight, but I could see the stars now, all of them, surrounding me, lighting the air, their brilliance shining and radiating off the monoliths. And then it was dark, a black-hole sky. But I looked down and saw that the stars—every one of them—were now in my hands, lighting up my veins, my muscles, my bones. I stood there, alone with my ancestors, and listened to them. Finally I turned away. As I walked back to my life, the words my mother used to say finally came to me. Wakan Tanka nici un. May the Creator guide you.”
― David Heska Wanbli Weiden, Winter Counts

“But as I thought about it, I liked the idea more and more. Depredation claims. If something was stolen from you, all you had to do was file a claim and your losses would be restored. How about a depredation claim of the heart? Maybe I could file some form to get back the years I'd grieved for my mother, father, and sister. Or maybe I could submit a claim to have our dignity returned to us, sealed in an official envelope, the sins of the past magically wiped out, gone like the buffalo.”
― David Heska Wanbli Weiden, Winter Counts

“I didn't want to get up and face what I'd almost certainly lost. What I'd lost and still had yet to lose. The country of the living was gone to me, and I knew that I'd entered a different space, one that offered no solace but only the wind and the cold and the frost. Winter counts. This was the winter of my sorrow, one I had tried to elude but which had come for me with a terrible cruelty.”
― David Heska Wanbli Weiden, Winter Counts

“I wondered if any of us really had a choice about our judgments, or if we were forced by circumstances beyond our control into our own orbits, our own pathways.”
― David Heska Wanbli Weiden, Winter Counts

“She'd said that I was an asshole and she deserved better.
I didn't disagree.”
― David Heska Wanbli Weiden, Winter Counts

“I used to be able to remember everything. Now it seems like it's all going away, getting fuzzy in my head.”
― David Heska Wanbli Weiden, Winter Counts

“She cooked some simple meals and engaged in a full-scale cleaning of the house, top to bottom. I realized with embarrassment that it had been many moons since Nathan and I had really scrubbed the place. I offered to help, but she told me just to focus on getting him home.”
― David Heska Wanbli Weiden, Winter Counts

“said the Lakota government will set up reservations for the wasicus, give ’em commodity foods and open boarding schools for the little kids. Sheeit, I almost busted a gut! Taste of their own medicine!”
― David Heska Wanbli Weiden, Winter Counts