What Was Taken from Natives. They came with crosses - but death reached the tribes first, erasing names from longhouse to canyon before the guns were drawn. They said it’s progress - as they mapped the land with fences, moved entire nations like pawns across a board we were never invited to play on. Reservations carved from the bones of sacred earth, dry corners where roots could not hold - where the stars above didn’t know our songs anymore. They took the tongue from our children, braided shame into their hair, pressed foreign gods into their hands and told them their own stories were only shadows. Still, we remain - fewer, yes, but never gone. Our blood remembers. Our drums still beat Our spirits are echos they couldn’t kill.
