Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights

June 27, 2011

Owns the Sabre: Painting and walking for future generations


By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
Paul Owns the Sabre Long  Walk 2 by Brenda Norrell
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
Long walker Paul Owns the Sabre, Lakota from Cheyenne River, South Dakota, said he was surprised and honored to discover that one of his paintings is in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American Indians.
"Something good has come out of this walk for me personally," Owns the Sabre said.
The Lakota elder, 71, has been on the Long Walk 3 across America for the Reversal of Diabetes, which left the west coast in February and will arrive in DC the first week of July.
Owns the Sabre said he is glad to know that his artwork will be there for future generations, along with his contributions to the Longest Walks across America. He was walked across America on the original Long Walk for American Indian rights in 1978.
"It is a chance to leave something behind artistically. Its good to leave all this to future generations. Not many people have the chance to do this."
Appreciating the donation to the museum, Owns the Sabre said, "It is good that people think well enough of you to do this. That's really something, what can you say."
On the Long Walk 2 northern route across America in 2008, Owns the Sabre was reunited with his mother Thelma Franks, in Colorado, who he had not seen in 30 years. They reunited in Eads, Colorado, before the long walkers gathered for prayers at dawn at the site of the Sand Creek Massacre, where Cheyenne Arapaho women and children were among those massacred.
Franks passed to the Spirit World the following year.
Owns the Sabre will be in DC the first week of July, 2011, with the group of walkers who call themselves The Renegade Walkers for Diabetes.

Owns the Sabre with his mother.

In DC, the Renegade Walkers will join two other groups of walkers who departed from the west coast in February, the northern route and the southern route. The walkers will host Long Walk 3 diabetes awareness events in DC.
Paul Owns the Sabre's painting now at NMAI in DC, is titled, "I saw this in the water today." It was formerly in the collection of R.E. Mansfield (1937-2007) and donated to NMAI in 2005.

Watch a brief video of Owns the Sabre's reunion with his mother in Eads, Colorado, on the Long Walk 2:
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2008/04/longest-walk-reunited-after-27-years.html
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