Mitchelene Big Man
““We’re staying connected to the earth, Mother Earth,” she said. “It’s the heartbeat, the healing. Because even though the earth goes through so much, she always replenishes herself.”
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“Originally from the Crow reservation in Montana, she outlasted the hard life she found growing up. She is a survivor of sexual assault in the military. She is a mother who was often overseas when her own children lived with their grandmother, and is now a parent to four other children from her reservation, raising them at her home in Pueblo, Colorado, with her husband, also a veteran.
And she is the founder of the Native American Women Warriors (NAWW)), a color guard of female veterans from Indian Country. They perform a jingle dance, which some tribes regard as a healing rite traditionally performed by women. The members of the NAWW perform to heal from injuries that cut deep and they dance for others, such as Piestewa, a Hopi who loved the dances of her tribe. Since the group’s appearance at the second inauguration of President Barack Obama, invitations for the group have poured in.
An estimated one in three servicewomen experiences sexual assault during her career and runs the high risk of suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as a consequence of the attack. For Native American women, whose documented episodes with domestic abuse and community violence make them more vulnerable to future trauma, the risk is even higher, according to researchers at the National Institutes for Health. War trauma reinforces the accumulated grief, a cycle that can seem never-ending.
“We’re trying to get recognition for the Native American female veterans,” Big Man said. “A lot of people think we don’t exist in this country anymore, but we are here and we also serve in the military.’’
Big Man is a warrior — a veteran who is learning how to heal herself and others.”
Source: http://projects.aljazeera.com/2014/native-veterans/woman-warrior/