When I look at these images all I see is my failure. Not as a photographer (I don’t think), but as a human being. I was so focused on looking at Maxine through my viewfinder, I completely failed to see her. I knew her last name was Thunderhawk. I knew she was Lakota. But which tribe? The End Village? The Without Bows? The Planters By Water? Was Madonna Thunderhawk, the great Native activist, her great grandmother? Was Chief Thunderhawk, a friend to Sitting Bull, her ancestor? Who of her elders fought at Little Bighorn? Who were massacred at Wounded Knee? Does she believe everything has a spirit? The trees? The rocks? The sky? The murmurations of the starlings? Is Thanksgiving a Grieving?
