Details

Storyteller: Shawna
Tribe: Pine Ridge Oglala Sioux Tribe
Created: 2018
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Transcript: I have my mother and stepfather. My father died when I was 9 years old from alcoholism. My mother is a twin, so I have two moms and seven siblings (counting both my mom, my aunt, my three kids, and my mom's four kids including me), a sister from my dad’s side. I have two children, my son Weski (10 years old) and my daughter Shakyla (9 years old).

When I was growing up my mother talked about her journey on the longest walk in 1978 and how our people came together and traveled across states to Washington D.C. to fight for the threats made to our tribal land and water rights, the unlawful rights of them trying to take away our tribal land and go against the treaty rights. My mother exercised in teaching both Native teachings and also the white man’s teachings. She shared stories of how women and children struggled from starvation and a place to sleep when needed, both men and women falling to the ground unable to walk anymore, and how the people helped one another through this tough time. My mother also talked about the boarding school days and how they cut her hair and made her wear uncomfortable clothing, and family and language was prohibited at all times. She would tell me stories about how the priest and nuns would make them wake early and do chores, then have them pray and eat communion daily. She shared how the girls would cry at night and be hit with sticks for being loud. My mother would send me to sweats on weekends and put me in Native camps and St. Paul Indian education program during school hours. She would make me go to church on Sundays where a Sunday school bus would come pick me and my little brother up every Sunday morning. We would also go back home to reservation every summer where it would always take a few days for my cousins to warm up to me and my little brother, they would call us Goody-Two-Shoes and treated us mean. I was affected by living in the cities and shown cultural teachings differently and having to go back to the reservation where the language is spoken and me not understand or how to respond to it. I was always yelled at in the Lakota language so that’s all I knew.

I think somewhat similar but think differently about my childhood background compared to my children. I was raised believing the traditional ways and the white man’s ways. My mother put me and my brother in cultural programming but sent us to church and would take us back to the reservation every summer. I have traditional in-laws and was taught many things about my culture and the traditions to the Native way of living. My children are currently taking Potawatomi language classes and learning at a good pace. I am raising my children in the traditional and spiritual teachings, not the white man’s way, like sending them to church, like my mother had me and my brother.

We have a different way of praying and giving flesh offering to pray for whoever we are praying for. Our church is making tobacco ties and going to sweat to pray or going to Sun Dance to suffer (fasting for 5 days) for the people, the land, and the water! I was born and raised here in the cities, my mother being the black sheep of the family she came to the cities after the longest walk raising me and my little brother with the help of my stepfather Martin. He'd been in our lives since my brother was 8 months old and me 5 years old. I lived both lives the Native way and the white man’s way. I was affected when I went to my first Sun Dance, I started clapping to the elders looking at me. I felt ashamed, so I went to sit in a car when an Elder approached me and said, “Where are you from?” I said "Pine Ridge.” She said, “You’re different. Let me share something with you. Us women don't clap, we lele. Clapping is for the white man. Never be ashamed to scream loud and proud when you’re happy." That teaching has never left me. I am proud to lele when needed.

Every summer we would go to the reservation to visit family but every time me and my brother would experience being treated different. My cousins would call us sellouts and ask why we were there. I would go there in shame for not suffering with our people and returning to the cities with the feeling of being a sellout. I would feel great sadness for my cousins and the struggle they were going through with no car, or a clothes store, poor clothing, and having an angry attitude towards life.

I grew up going to camp at Wilder Forest learning about the 1862 run and how women and children were chased down and killed along with our warriors. I feel Indigenous to this now a day society, and to be proud and humble. I have lived at Little Earth of United Tribes for 7.5 years now and have changed in many ways in sharing teachings and being deeper involved in my community. I have learned some Ojibwe teachings as well as Lakota and Dakota teachings from other residents. I have made regalia differently and learned how to respect those items in smudging and giving thanks to those living spirits like the drum and to never forget them in the closet or a suitcase. I am proud to be Native American and be given the chance to be a carrier for the next 7th generation. I have more experience than I did. I have learned more with my in-laws about my culture than my parents have taught me. I went to sweat more, water ceremonies, full moon ceremonies, wiping of the tears, naming ceremonies, Sun Dance healing. And now I still attend these for the sake of who I am in this life and how to give back to the people and respect my grandmothers and grandfathers! And my family carries the knowledge and being proud, brave, honored, humble, sharing, caring, respectful, and loved in their own ways in this journey of life.