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OUR BLOOD REMEMBERS

a Docu-prayer​

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Rooted in the Lakota tradition of Wóakiktuŋže — a profound spiritual practice of forgiveness — this documentary follows the Ancestral Healing Circle on a journey that defies the boundaries of time and grief. One hundred and seventy years after a devastating massacre, descendants of survivors choose to embrace and adopt the descendant of the man whose ancestor led the attack, enacting one of the most radical and sacred acts their culture offers: the decision to heal rather than hate.

At the heart of the film is a single doll — a survivor of the 1855 Blue Water Creek Massacre — and what its existence means for the descendants of Little Thunder's Tiospaye today. As the emotional journey of repatriating ancestral belongings left on the massacre site unfolds, the film reveals the deep and unbroken connections between past and present, and the ongoing quest to bring sacred items back home to the People.

This is not a story about forgetting. It is a story of forgiving the unforgivable --- and all this is possible when ancient wisdom guides us through the deepest wounds of history, turning poison into medicine. The return of the 86 belongings, stolen from the slain bodies at the massacre site and held at the Smithsonian for 170 years are finally home.​​