Public Memory of the Sand Creek Massacre By Lindsay Calhoun

not easily defined by conventional empirical interpretations, or even by modern US American cultural ones.

When rituals and ceremonies occur both on site and away from Sand Creek, in Denver or elsewhere, the emotional tension of the experience thickens. People often break down when letters are read testifying to what happened; it is as if the event had taken place recently, even though according to the linear historical definition of the event, it occurred over one hundred years ago. “Reliving” the past, even when the people doing so were not present at the event itself (in the conventional interpretation of reliving an event), is provocative and important to building theories of collective memory because it reveals how people viscerally experience the connection of history to meaningful experiences of culture and identity. Reliving the past is embodied. It is not always simply an abstract, mental reflection on past events that is at least somewhat removed from one’s identity in the present, although that certainly can be one kind of experience for many people visiting memorials. For many of the Cheyenne and Arapaho at Sand Creek, and even for some people not affiliated with these First Nations, identity is tied to the events at Sand Creek as if it were a happening event rather than an event that happened. To shift the Sand Creek massacre into the past is to displace their core identities. How and why this occurs, as well as what it creates in terms of communities of sentiment is one of the key questions driving my inquiry into memorializing Sand Creek—particularly because at times the experience of linking one’s identity to Sand Creek, even if momentarily or inconsistently, is not necessarily dependent upon ethnic ties to the event. But even though attachment to ethnic identity and attachment to Sand Creek are not consistent, stable, or predictable in practice, ethnicity plays a significant role in interpreting the memorialization of Sand Creek.