Annie Mae Aquash Quotes

“My best friend was Annie Mae Aquash, a young, stronghearted woman from the Micmac Tribe with beautiful children. It is not always wise for an Indian woman to come on too strong. Annie Mae was found dead in the snow at the bottom of a ravine on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The police said that she had died of exposure, but there was a .38 caliber slug in her head. The FBI cut off her hands and sent them to Washington for fingerprint identification, hands that had helped my baby come into the world.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“They won't let Indians like me live. That's alright. I don't want to grow up to be an old woman. -Annie Mae Aquash”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“Annie Mae was a Micmac Indian, born and raised on a tiny reservation in Nova Scotia, not far from Halifax. Though she lived in Canada, two thousand miles from Rosebud, her life was almost a copy of mine, or of that of thousands of other young Indian girls and women. Instead of on a reservation, she lived on a reserve. Instead of a Bureau of Indian Affairs regulating and interfering with her existence, it was a department. The white boss lording it over the Micmacs was an agent, not a superintendent. The men who harassed her were mounties, not state troopers. Otherwise everything was the same north of the border. She lived in the same kind of tar paper shack that I did. She too had to do without electricity, indoor plumbing, central heating, running water, and paved roads. She too was often hungry, down to one meal a day, eating anything she could find. Her mother had the same name as I-Mary Ellen.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“Annie Mae grew into a Native American militant. She got into the same kind of fights that Barb and I had fought. She gave herself to the cause and that meant giving her children to her sister Mary to care for. That was hard and heart-wrenching. It was the sacrifice Annie Mae made to the movement-her motherhood.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“Ever since Wounded Knee she had had premonitions of approaching death. "I've fought too hard," she said. "They won't let Indians like me live. That's all right. I don't want to grow up to be an old woman." She talked that way often, almost cheerfully, without a trace of sentimentality. All she was left with then were her jeans, ribbon shirt, and Levi's jacket. That was all.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“Promise me, if the goons blow me away, to tell my girls that I died true to my beliefs, fighting for my people.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“They offered me my freedom and money if I'd testify the way they wanted. I have those two choices now. I chose my kind of freedom, not their kind, even if I have to die. They let me go because they are sure I'll lead them to Peltier. They're watching me. I don't hear them or see them, but I know they're out there somewhere. I can feel it.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“She came to my room. She did not say anything much, she was just sitting on the bed looking at me. She said, "I just wanted to see you. You won't see me again. " We talked about a few unimportant things, said our goodbyes, shook hands, hugged each other, and she cried and cried. That was the last time I saw her. It was as if she had heard Hinhan, the owl, hoot for her, death calling her. She knew and she accepted it.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“They cut her hands off to send to Washington for identification-a needless cruelty as they could have made fingerprints on the spot without mutilating her.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“Annie Mae Aquash is dead. Leonard Peltier is doing two lifetimes. Maybe the prison hacks let him wear the moccasins she made for him. Nogeeshik was in a bad car accident and is now a wheelchair case. Leonard and I still have a lot of things she once treasured, which she gave to us. Some day I am going to find out who killed this good, gently tough, gifted friend of mine who did not deserve to die. Someday I will tell her daughters that she died for them, died like a warrior. Someday I will see Annie Mae. In a strange way I feel that she died so that I, and many others, could survive. That she died because she had made a secret vow, like a Sun Dancer who, obedient to his vow, pierces his flesh and undergoes the pain for all the people so that the people may live.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“I was looking into the clouds, into the sun. Brightness filled my mind. The sun seemed to speak: "I am the Eye of Life. I am the Soul of the Eye. I am the Life Giver!" In the almost unbearable brightness, in the clouds, I
saw people. I could see those who had died. I could see Pedro Bissonette standing by the arbor and, above me, the face of Buddy Lamont, killed at Wounded Knee, looking at me with ghostly eyes. I saw the face of my friend Annie Mae Aquash, smiling at me. I could hear the spirits speaking to me through the eagle-bone whistles. I heard no sound but the shrill cry of the eagle bones. I felt nothing and, at the same time, everything. It was at that moment that I, a white educated half-blood, became wholly Indian. I experienced a great rush of happiness. I heard a cry coming from my lips:
Ho Uway Tinkte.
A Voice I will send.
Throughout the Universe,
Maka Sitomniye,
My Voice you shall hear:
I will live!”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman