Editor's note: This story was updated Friday morning to reflect changes. The ceremony Saturday is not a public event.
Knowing what happened at Carlisle Barracks filled Delwin Fiddler Jr. with sorrow and anger.
Two years ago, the Lakota Sioux Indian was walking among the tombstones of lives cut short by the social experiment known as the Carlisle Indian Industrial School.
Touched by emotion, Fiddler prayed for the children and for himself. A boarding school survivor, he knew their pain of separation from family and the tribe.
But Fiddler also realized that the true path of healing is to step away and move forward, never to linger in one spot and dwell on old resentments.
“Love in action is what we need now to support each other,” said Fiddler, executive director of Paza Tree of Life. “We have to find a way to bring healing to everybody.”
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A nonprofit support organization based in Easton, Northampton County, Paza Tree of Life has scheduled a private healing ceremony at the Carlisle Barracks Post Cemetery this Saturday.
Prayers and songs of healing will be offered during the ceremony. Organizers also plan to read the names of Native American children whose remains have been returned in recent years to tribal burial grounds.
Earlier this month, the Federal Office of Army Cemeteries exhumed the remains of one Alaskan Aleut child and nine Rosebud Sioux children who died at the Indian School, which was in operation from 1879 to 1918.
Paza draws its name from Native American symbolism that all mankind can stand together as a tree of life bound by common roots.
The ceremony this Saturday is an idea developed by Fiddler and Maria Ragonese, director of administration and program development for the organization. Ragonese lost a sister-in-law and a firefighter cousin when the World Trade Center in New York City collapsed.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks in Lower Manhattan and on the Pentagon along with the deaths of the Flight 93 passengers in the skies over Shanksville.
There have been media reports lately of plans to identify burial sites and to return the remains of other Native American children who attended Indian boarding schools throughout the U.S. and Canada.
These two developments made Fiddler and Ragonese realize that Native American families have something in common with the families of 9/11 victims.
“It is the pain of our relatives murdered because of someone else’s hate,” Ragonese said. “We want Native people to know there are people that understand their loss and what they have been through. We are hoping to create unity.”
Fiddler is descended from Elk Head Raid Hair who fought at Little Big Horn. He believes his ancestors were correct in their prophecies that this is the time when all people will come together as one.
“Our mission here is to bring healing to all people who have suffered during traumatic events,” Fiddler said. “In this way, there is hope that someday we will heal ourselves and our Mother Earth, bringing harmony to the world as one true nation under the creator.”
This Saturday, Tree of Life representatives plan to visit the Flight 93 Memorial in Shanksville before heading to Carlisle Barracks.
In June, the organization traveled to South Dakota, Montana and Minnesota to visit the sites of the Wounded Knee Massacre, the Battle of Little Big Horn and Reconciliation Park in Mankato where the Dakota 38 were killed in the largest mass execution in U.S. history.
The mission of Paza Tree of Life is to build a bridge between the past and future by providing humanitarian relief to disadvantaged communities and by promoting cultural awareness by cultural exchange.
Paza Tree of Life is dedicated to the revival, empowerment and sovereignty of indigenous people. Its mission is to build a bridge between the past and future by providing humanitarian relief to disadvantaged communities and by promoting cultural awareness through cultural exchange.