Lakota Woman
August 29, 2020
I’m in the first chapters of this autobiography. Already it’s shocking what she’s talking about and oh, so very timely.
Some people get emotional at the movies or yell at their televisions. That would be me.
I do the same thing when I read. I will laugh out loud or cry when I read. There was even one book that made me so angry I screamed out loud as I threw it across the room. I’m sure that amused the neighbors. With the right book, I will tell myself, “Just one more chapter” over and over all night long. Things are so busy these days I don’t have that luxury often. But given my druthers, I’d do nothing but read all day long.
Lakota Woman has already made me want to rip out the pages. It’s the chapter about St. Francis School. Yes, it still exists, though no longer run by the Jusuits and the Sisters of the Sacred Heart. Mary Crow Dog lived and went to school there in the 1960s. I knew this stuff happened. It was only an intangible. Until now. Damn. There’s a bigger reason this chapter bothered me so much. Abuse at an Indian school. Abuse at the hand of Catholic clergy. I need to work through the abuse aspect more myself, tangential in this life along with some past life baggage. There’s at least one apology I owe that I haven’t figured out how to approach.
Anyway, one of the things she writes about, “for the sake of objectivity,” is that two of the Jesuits were “great linguists and that the only Lakota-English dictionaries and grammars which are worth anything were put together by them.”
The Lakota language has fascinated me for years, since I first watched Dances with Wolves on campus at USC. This is one of my favorite movies, say what want, you aren’t changing my mind. Unless you’re indigenous, especially from the Sioux tribe, and give me good reason to reconsider. Always willing to learn.
In Dances with Wolves, they speak in Lakota and use English subtitles. The third or fourth time I watched it, yes, in the theater, I realized how much I loved listening to them speak. The cadence and flow of spoken Lakota was beautiful.
I should say, I’m TERRIBLE with languages other than English. There is no excuse, just the truth of the matter. I’ve taken high school and college level French and Spanish. I suck. Some of the vocabulary sticks, but for the love of all the is holy I cannot get to a conversational level.
Recently, in an effort to broaden my horizons and educate myself, I’ve started listening to the Native America Calling podcast. It’s quite interesting. Many of the topics they cover are the same as any other NPRish story (Pandemic Fatigue or Tools for Teaching Kids at Home) but from the perspective of the indigenous people. They also did an episode on the history and current crafting of Ribbon Shirts and Jingle Dresses. The jingle dress is completely modern! Only about 100 years old. Fascinating! Check out Brenda Child’s brief history here. Brenda Child is a professor at University of Minnesota originally from the Red Lake Ojibwe Reservation.
One of the things that has struck me is the advertising during the show. Much of it is in native languages. At the end of a particular ad they’ll identify the speaker and their tribal affiliation. And I’ll be damned! I can recognize Lakota when I hear it. It’s so beautiful.
This has taken a major detour from Lakota Woman. Oops!
I’ll be updating this post as I read. If you’re following along with me on Patreon, I’ll let you know when they happen.
And if this has piqued your interest in reading along, you should be able to get a copy from your local independent bookstore. If they don’t have it on hand, I’m sure they will order it for you. Or, if you’d like to support me through the Amazon Associates Program, you can order here. You can also get it on Audible here.