The Thieves of Turtle Island

Heya-heya-ho, heya-heya-ho... My name is White Feather, hear the dry grass sigh tonight I carry the ashes of a thousand-year fire burning bright Long before the wooden sea monsters breached our sacred shore Came the religious zealots, driven by a hunger for more Cast out from Europe for their radical, twisting creed Pious with the bible, yet savage in their bloody deed We shared our corn, they brought the smoking, burning steel And stole our sacred Turtle Island with a greed so real Millions of bison brothers, our sacred Tatanka spirit Slaughtered by these robbers, our hearts bleed when we hear it They shot them from the iron horse, left meat to rot in the sun "Kill the bison," they cried, "and the Indian war is won" Ninety percent of our nations paid the ultimate toll On the bitter Trail of Tears, they tried to break our soul Four thousand Cherokee frozen by their land-stealing greed Driven by bayonets for a vroom and brutal deed Now their stolen kingdom is vast, wealthy, and grand Built upon our sacred graves, on the blood of this land And the thieves build walls, screaming loud at the border line: "This country is full, this ground is only mine!" The robbers live in terror of the ghosts they left behind We listen to their panic and we slowly shake our head The earth belongs to no man, no matter how much blood was shed! In the deepest winter darkness, the Great Spirit sent a sign Wovoka the prophet brought the Ghost Dance, ancient and divine We wore our sacred shirts, danced in circles on the clay So the buffalo would rise and push the dark away But the barbarians trembled at our holy medicine song At Wounded Knee, their Hotchkiss guns proved us fatally wrong Three hundred unarmed souls, frozen dead in the snow Dumped in a mass grave by the Christian fire's glow Close your eyes by my fire, see the vision that I hold I see their concrete cities shining artificial and cold But their walls of iron offer the thieves no sweet release The ground begins to crack, shattering their stolen peace And do you hear it? The thunder of millions of Tatanka hooves returns! The earth shakes the robbers off her back as the fake world burns! Now their stolen kingdom is vast, wealthy, and grand Built upon our sacred graves, on the blood of this land And the thieves build walls, screaming loud at the border line: "This country is full, this ground is only mine!" The robbers live in terror of the ghosts they left behind We listen to their panic and we slowly shake our head The earth belongs to no man, no matter how much blood was shed! We watch their iron walls... We listen to their screams... And we slowly... shake our head.