(RNS) — On Sunday (Feb. 1), a group of dancers in dresses affixed with metal noisemakers performed an Ojibwe traditional healing dance known as the jingle dress dance to the heartbeat of a leather drum in downtown Minneapolis. The swishing of the dancers’ dresses sounded like light rain as more than 100 Minneapolis community members followed them to the sites where two local residents, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, were killed by federal agents in recent weeks.
At each site, the group prayed, sang and danced in a ritual meant to promote healing and solidarity.
Nicole Matthews, executive director of the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition, who helped organize the dance, compared the ceremony to a “medicine dance.”
“It was a community collaboration of Native women working together,” said Matthews. “We were there as a community to come together and bring healing to that place where, you know, significant trauma occurred.”
In Minneapolis many Native people say they are reluctant to leave their homes for fear of being detained by federal ICE agents. “We are seeing people being profiled based on the color of their skin,” Matthews said. “We have families who are afraid to leave their homes or send their kids to school.”
On Jan. 9, the Oglala Sioux Tribe reported that four unhoused tribal citizens were arrested …