Friday, January 6, 2012

Dakota Journalist

I am attending a Dakota History Serious of lectures which revisits the Dakota Conflict and the events surround the conflict.  The latest lecture I attended was a more spiritual one.  It was presented very thoughtfully and brought out several points that were salient to my work on GOM.  Glen Wasicuna is the Director of Dakota Studies at a tribal college in Shakopee.

The main points were, first that the Creator gave the Dakota three sacred things: the feather, pipe and language.  All were to be used as vehicles to worship Him: one feather, one pipe and the Dakota language. He went on to show how the people have changed these sacred objects.  Today people have many feathers and dance for entertainment.  He did not elaborate on the pipe, other than to say that the people have strayed from its original purpose.  One example he did give was that the pipe was like the Bible, communication from and between God.  What if people were to put the pages of the Bible on and dance?  OUCH.  Lastly, the Dakota language.  He said that he used to think it was a difficult language to learn, but now he doesn't think so.  Instead he has come to the conclusion that until one reconciles with their own history, individually and collectively, and until one is ready to become clean then the language will be easy to learn.  That is to say until the Dakota people are ready to face their brutal history, not find fault but to understand it, and then they will have a desire to learn the language and it will be easy for them to learn it.

This message really hit home.  My thesis team members want to me understand Ho-Chunk history first and then get busy and learn the language.  Maybe this is what they were telling me...

The last take home point for me was this, Glen thanked people in the audience if they ever wrote about the Dakota people. He said, "Bless you for writing about us.  Now it is our turn to write about our history.  It is our history to tell."  AMEN!!!  Haven't I been saying this all along???  I even got so bold and told this to THREE HO-CHUNK ELDERS, in a very respectful way, that we need not ever apologize for our oral tradition and history.  It is ours to tell.  If we with hold it from the young people ( I am included in this) it will be lost, forever.

Glen felt as I do, that the language, the culture, the people, the traditions will be "all right and they won't be lost" so long there are elders willing to share it and there are young people willing to learn about their history and "become clean" and live as the Creator intended.

Dr. John Peacock Lecture

I heard a lecture by Dr. John Peacock about his latest endeavor, the 80 Dakota letters written by the Dakota in Fort McClellan to a Father Riggs.  These Dakota were placed in prison just after the Dakota Conflict.  He made several salient comments that resonated with my work on GOM.  First, marriages between the Dakota and the French were considered alliances between the nations.  This is quite true between GOM and Joseph Decaris.  Second, written history will trump oral history every time.  I whole heartedly disagree with this statement.  It will if we let it. There is a magnificent cache of oral tradition that has been stored waiting to emerge.  We need to decolonized and deconstruct the methodologies that have kept us and our history suppressed because NO ONE LIKES TO HAVE THE TRUTH THROWN AT THEM.  Especially those who have been the suppressors.  Third, the history that Dr. Peacock wants to share was at first frowned upon by the Dakota elders whose help he secured.  Dr. Peacock wanted to translate the letters in modern day english, imagine.  The Dakota elders convinced him to use Dakota English.  It it a step between Dakota < Dakota English < English.  Actually, it is probably two steps away.  The gist of the message isn't lost, but I would have preferred the Dakota translation.  The elders know best and this is what I have discovered in my work.  If you secure the approval of the elders, even the Nation as I have, it is for the best.

These letters are still being translated and will hopefully be available in book form yet this year, 2012, which marks the 150th anniversary of the Dakota 38.  There is no doubt about it, our history is brutal, no matter if you are Ho-Chunk or Dakota.

The elders say that we (Dakota and the Ho-Chunk, perhaps more) were one many, many years ago.  I feel that every time I hear a lecture or an elder speak.  It brings me back to my childhood when my grandparents would sit in the evening and talk to each other.  I was planted in front of the TV, but listening to them speak..."What do you say for sugar? "  "Nee-sku" "Isn't that funny we say almost the same thing."  They would go on like this for hours; talking about their language and the old times.