October 05, 2026

Neither Wolf Nor Dog

I do not wish to be shut up in a corral. All agency Indians I have seen are worthless. They are neither red warriors nor white farmers. They are neither wolf nor dog.

Sitting Bull spoke these words as U.S. agents pressed the Lakota to abandon their way of life and settle on reservations, trading the buffalo hunt for the farmer's plow. He had watched agency Indians caught between two worlds, no longer free warriors and never truly accepted as white farmers either. To him this half-state was worse than death, a hollowed-out existence belonging fully to neither people. His refusal still speaks to anyone tempted to blend into a shape that fits no one, least of all themselves.