Ho-Chunk History

A wonderful break this semester!  I get a chance to explore in depth the history of my people and GOM's people.  Oral tradition is at the forefront of my studies and my myopic view has been expanded.  My study has been hastened a bit because I have an opportunity to present "The Ho-Chunk Nation in Minnesota: A Historical Perspective" on February 28, 2012.  Let's hope I can keep all of my sources, historical facts and oral tradition facts straight.

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.

Glory of the Morning: History does repeat itself, but you have to know t...

Glory of the Morning: History does repeat itself, but you have to know t...: Yesterday I had an interesting meeting. Surprisingly I was made aware that I have offended some people who are following my blog, therefore...

History does repeat itself, but you have to know that it is happening for it to count.

Yesterday I had an interesting meeting.  Surprisingly I was made aware that I have offended some people who are following my blog, therefore, I will be as general as possible.

Someone at this meeting said they didn't like being called an Indian Agent and wanted me to stop calling people names...hmm.  First of all  I didn't call them an Indian Agent as I wasn't referring to them.  They are more akin to the evil enterprising overlord who saw to it that we Indians were kept in our place either through indebtedness (money) or fear or through other controlling measures.  The Indian Agent in my previous blog and other articles is the poor token Indian who sat on a big important committee who did the evil overlord's bidding.  While this may seem mean to you, this is all too real for me as it happened to my ancestors in the 1700s', 1800s', 1900s', and it is happening to me, today in 2011.  This is the whole point of my observation!

My ancestors signed the treaty at Prairie du Chien which removed the last of the Ho-Chunk from Wisconsin.  They were duped, signed out of fear for their peoples/families lives.  Some of my ancestors had homesteads and didn't have to leave Wisconsin during the forced removals because they were Decaris (half white).  Some of my ancestors who stayed near Prairie du Chien (a place given to half bloods) were without a home or food or with no means of securing food; who had to wait for the White Father to honor his treaty.  Some tired of waiting took to drinking, so much so that when annuity payments were made they owed the store keeps or enterprising settlers quite a sum of money that they had little money left to get needed food and clothing.  Indian Agents and the early leaders of Wisconsin and the US,  knew what was best for us and employed Indian Agents to help us.  Some were white, though they kept a few of my ancestors on and considered them to be better than others because they were half bloods (though they had married back into the tribe and they didn't understand genetics),  and offered them a little power through this title of Indian Agent.  One of my ancestors got out of the Indian Agent business all together and moved to Oshkosh to start his own business and family.

I do not judge my ancestors as I was not in their shoes.

This pattern continued among the Anishnabe and the Dakota.

Explain I did my use of the term Indian Agent to my critic.  I also explained the history behind it and it was to no avail.  I was accused of attacking people (doesn't that sound familiar?) with no discussion of what led up to the alleged attack (doesn't that sound familiar too?).  History has been whole heartedly embraced from the view from the top though there is some tiny incremental advances in native peoples recapturing their history, but I wonder if it will be enough.

How can we help others feel what we have felt from our grandmother's and grandfather's stories of injustices, genocide, forced removals, relocation, treaties, and discrimination?  Their very lives were affected through these means.  How can others understand what we have experienced for generations because we have the cultural advantage of oral tradition in our everyday lives.

I recognized that history was repeating itself here in Rochester.  The evil overlord offered the poor starving Indians a little power (or alcohol of the old days) and now they have become addicted.  They have become so addicted that they no longer see the need to help their people or other Indians and seek to misrepresent other Indians to feel the rush of power again.  Sad.  It is hard to stand against or with someone who has an addiction.  Perhaps I have been too hard on the token Indian.

When I first heard the phrase or cliche "history repeats itself" I doubted it.  I was young and filled with optimism.  Surely, no one would ever go back to the treaty days!  We can all become educated, self reliant and then, we can make our own destinies.  We are the master's of our fate, right?  Now I am older and filled with some wisdom, some pessimism and a little hope among other things.  There are obstacles in the path of our people and it will take time to overcome them.  There will be incremental evidences of change.  There will be victories won, look at Indian Heights Park!

To my critic or rather critics as I am sure there are more than the one, I say that I am sorry, but my grandmother didn't tell me her experiences of injustices like being punished for speaking her native language at boarding school for nothing.  She didn't want me sitting passively by because she made peace with the dominant society about being forced to go to boarding school.  Nor did leave me the example of her telling Clyde Bellecourt and Russell Means to call her "Delicious" because they likened her to an "Apple Indian" because she believed in education, so that I could let others decide my fate for me.  No, she left me quite a legacy and I still draw power from today as a wife, mother, community member, church member, tribal member and clan member.

As for GOM.  She was a woman, who may or may not have been a Chieftess, but she made a conscious decision to marry outside of the tribe; Jospeh Decaris.  From them came numerous chiefs and other descendants whom historians, military men, early Wisconsin businessmen wrote about in their memoirs, narrative writings and papers.  My journey to discover her world has enlightened me beyond measure and I am grateful.

Pilot study brings new insight

My pilot study this past fall semester looked at the roles and cultural practices of contemporary Ho-Chunk women and the results were amazing.  The women viewed themselves as defenders, mothers, teachers, providers, spiritual, disciplined and carriers of vital knowledge.  They saw themselves as hard workers and resourceful, willing to do whatever was asked of them for the sake of their people, their clan and family.  

This is amazing because I expected them to state "roles" such as teacher, mother, cook, or at least state their professional roles, but they didn't.  Instead they listed those things that are at the core of one's identity, their character.  As I pondered these preliminary results I couldn't help but think of the Ho-Chunk women that I observed over the years and this fits so many of them so well.

Also, none of them felt GOM could have been a chief in the real sense of the word by today's standards nor did they hear about her through oral tradition.  The study asked about their knowledge of GOM too.

What does this study have to do with GOM?  GOM was rumored to have been a chief of the early Ho-Chunk and there are those within the tribe who vehemently disagree with this story and there are those who quietly agree with the story.  Some say that this goes against all tribal teachings regarding the roles of men and women, there was a female leader of the modern day Ho-Chunk who was elected to be the President of the Nation.  Though she wasn't a "chief" she certainly was an elected leader possibly similar to GOM.  Therefore, given the story of GOM (1700s') through oral tradition, it begged the question, "how do Ho-Chunk women view themselves?"  While it is difficult to directly ascertain how the Ho-Chunk women of the 1700s' viewed themselves, our cultural is steeped in oral tradition and those teachings vital to our Nation's survival have been passed down from generation to generation.  Therefore, how women view their roles and their knowledge of GOM might give valuable insight to my thesis question: GOM: Ho-Chunk woman or Chieftess?

I am anxious to do the actual study in the spring of 2012!

Let's hope the Mayan Calendar holds out for me to do the study and write it up.

SACRED DAKOTA burial site...

Today a long battle has come to a close and a new beginning has ensued.

For me, it was the courage that I have gained by studying about GOM and being raised by a full-blood Dakota grandmother.  Indian Heights Park in Rochester was finally recognized as a sacred site of the Dakota peoples in a unanimous vote today by the Park Board of Rochester.  It has been a long arduous road to travel these past two, nearly three years.  In the critical last few months, I, through my studies and upbringing,  was able to defend oral tradition and use historical data to show that Indian Heights Park was used by the Dakota people as late as the 1860s' through two presentations to the Park Board and Steering Committee.  Also, through my studies and support I have received from my advisor, program director, thesis team members, and the Minnesota Dakota Hereditary Chief, and my "academic mother" I was able to write an op-ed piece that compared and contrasted oral tradition versus history of the dominant society as to how each viewed "burial sites."  This op-ed piece stirred a lot of feelings, both good and bad, in Rochester.  I received both praise and criticism.  One man, a leader of a small local organization threatened me after I wrote the article because I did not share his views of a homogenous Native American culture and singled out the Dakota Nation.

To be sure, this much wanted outcome was NOT due to my efforts alone.  The Friends of Indian Heights, a grassroots neighborhood organization helped GREATLY!! Though I did not always agree with their methodologies, namely they did not tenaciously go to the source (the Dakota people) and instead went to non-natives for their information, yet despite this faux pas Indian Heights Park will be recognized as a sacred site.  Though we ethically disagreed at many junctures during this process, I am still desirous and free to join their ranks as someone who wants to preserve the park and restore it to its proper dignity.  FOIH here I come.

I do believe my gram and GOM would be proud.