PORTLAND Ore. (KPTV) – A Native American-led organization held a vigil in southeast Portland on Saturday to honor and grieve missing and murdered Indigenous children.
The vigil celebrated the lives of 2-year-old Dane Paulsen and 14-year-old Emily Pike, and allowed tribal members to say goodbye to both young lives cut short by tragedy.
“When you hear that drum, that’s the heartbeat, that’s the soul of Native people, and that these kid’s lives and their souls aren’t forgotten,” Kimberly Lining says.
Lining is the founder of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Search and Hope Alliance, also known as MMIW, and said her heart broke after learning about Dane and Emily.
“Their deaths have been heard around the nation, so I thought, let’s make an example,” Lining said.
Dane was reported missing from his Oregon home earlier this month, and after a more than week-long search, officials confirmed the toddler died by drowning. Emily, an Arizona teen, was reported missing in late January and was found dismembered last month nearly 100 miles away from where she was last seen alive.
“If we can get the same response searching for every single missing child like this, then what a difference it would make. We wouldn’t have cases from 1979 happening still looking, we wouldn’t have cases from 2018. People want to complain, but they don’t want to come search and help,” Lining said.
Lining said both children are tribal members, and their deaths are part of a larger crisis.
“We see what’s happening – Indigenous children are eight times more likely to go missing and murdered than any other demographic in the United States,” Lining said.
Attendees left cards, stuffed animals, and other personalized gifts but truly honored their lives through song.
“That’s how we honor them; it’s not so much a celebration, as honoring them and the life that they did live, even if it was just two years or 14 years,” Lining said.
The group plans to give the items from the vigil to Dane Paulsen’s family and to the San Carlos Apache Tribe that Emily belonged to.
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