tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72293128072222137982024-02-22T01:06:51.454-08:00North Dakota Humanities CouncilNDHumanitieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587988436325558541noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229312807222213798.post-38888636894736292262013-11-18T12:59:00.001-08:002013-11-22T10:31:06.421-08:00The Wind Is The Spirit Of The Great Plains<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_QAwuBHbfGwm01O5Gt8hB3t3XcrXvkCyWbEXZvLQE908d0t3DyeorNPi4cSOhEmRDr47XkmZIKn-ccv0SP5BTwlrb-U6Aa2ymBu8yBoxx5hawaZeuJ42qeG_YgkbHe1rJxHhQvV8mb0RV/s1600/337924_10151216285616241_790856199_o+(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_QAwuBHbfGwm01O5Gt8hB3t3XcrXvkCyWbEXZvLQE908d0t3DyeorNPi4cSOhEmRDr47XkmZIKn-ccv0SP5BTwlrb-U6Aa2ymBu8yBoxx5hawaZeuJ42qeG_YgkbHe1rJxHhQvV8mb0RV/s400/337924_10151216285616241_790856199_o+(1).jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Tȟaté’káoškokpa
(Canyon Made-By-Wind), or Wind Canyon, along the Heȟáka Tȟa Wakpá (River Of
Elk; Little Missouri River) in Makȟóšíća (Badlands, N.D.; Theodore Roosevelt
National Park). Photo by <a href="http://thefirstscout.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: blue;">The First Scout</span></a>. </span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Wind Is The Spirit Of The Great Plains</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Sky In Language: Spoken, Drawn, and Signed</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial;"><i><a href="http://thefirstscout.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: blue;">By The First Scout</span></a> </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">THE GREAT PLAINS - The wind has been a constant presence on the open prairie since creation and has shaped the
landscape. It races across the open sky with the summer and winter storms, and
flows about the landscape playfully, fitfully, and angrily. It is the very
essence of the Great Plains.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">The Lakota
have several words for the wind and its attributes such as <i>tȟaté</i> (air in motion), <i>uyá</i>
(to blow leeward of the wind), <i>kaȟwókA</i>
(to be carried along with the wind), <i>ikápȟaŋyaŋ</i>
(to be beaten down by the wind, as with grass) or <i>itáglaȟweya</i> (with the wind). When a strong wind is present, or
suddenly appears, during prayer or at a gathering, the wind might even be
referred to as <i>takú wakaŋ škaŋškaŋ</i>
(something with great energy is moving). A whirlwind is called <i>tȟatéiyumni</i>, which some regard as a sign
that a spirit is present. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">There is
only one word to describe a windless day, <i>ablákela</i>
(calm or quiet).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">When the
wind blows cold, such as it does in the winter months, the Lakota refer to it
as <i>tȟatóšni</i>. The cold winter wind had
a story of its own. In the days of legend, before steamboats an trains,
before soldiers and missionaries, when the camps moved across the prairie
steppe in the fall to establish winter camps, they told the story of <i>Wazíya</i>, that which some call a giant, or
the <i>Power Of The North</i>. <i>Wazíya</i> blew his cold breath across the
world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">They say as
the summer wanes and turns to autumn, the wind changes with the weather. That
change in the wind is the breath of North. The cold was and is deadly, never to
be feared, but respected. The North spreads his robe across the sleeping land.
The North makes hunting game easier to track. In fact, the Lakota used to dance
in snowshoes in the blanket of the first snowfall. They rejoiced in the weather
and embraced the deep cold. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">In the
spring, the wind signals another change. The <i>Lakȟóta</i> call this wind <i>Niyá
Awičhableze</i>, The Enlightening Breath. This is the first spring wind upon
which the meadowlarks return. It’s the time of year in which the Lakota carefully
watch for the ice to break on the <i>Mníšoše</i>,
the Water-Astir (Missouri River), the geese return, and when the bison bear
their calves. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.0pt;">Read the original complete article <a href="http://thefirstscout.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-wind-is-spirit-of-great-plains.html"><i><span style="color: blue;">The Wind Is The Spirit Of The Great Plains</span></i></a> at <a href="http://thefirstscout.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: blue;">The First Scout</span></a>.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229312807222213798.post-26298027739884237532013-11-09T08:53:00.002-08:002013-11-22T10:32:38.120-08:00Winter Counts on the Northern Great Plains<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
By Aaron L. Barth<br />
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<a href="http://theedgeofthevillage.com/2013/11/09/dakota-goodhouses-winter-counts/">Reposted from here.</a><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4WCT7ToUvvZ2JUypz__NgZ5bXTI6tv9aUPktDhg3j2dL9UuTtzj2wH9R1sivXiPRfSoBazezc7omlk1He65jm1fwPOl2d1fDApcSkAIiZGnuKzqu6bxGCuAomc2rE4tegl2V0c97qGyM/s1600/winter+counting.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4WCT7ToUvvZ2JUypz__NgZ5bXTI6tv9aUPktDhg3j2dL9UuTtzj2wH9R1sivXiPRfSoBazezc7omlk1He65jm1fwPOl2d1fDApcSkAIiZGnuKzqu6bxGCuAomc2rE4tegl2V0c97qGyM/s320/winter+counting.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chapter 4 of <i>The Year the Stars Fell: Lakota Winter <br />Counts at the Smithsonian </i>(2007).</td></tr>
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In the last couple days, Dakota Goodhouse (<a href="http://thefirstscout.blogspot.com/">his blog linked here</a>) and I have been hanging out in downtown Fargo, as he's here to expand on the Native tradition of winter counts. He crashed at my place for a couple nights, and last night we had dinner here after his talk at the Spirit Room (this collaboratively organized and funded by the <a href="http://www.fargo.k12.nd.us/education/dept/dept.php?sectiondetailid=5088">Fargo-West Fargo Public Schools Indian Education Program</a> and the <a href="http://www.ndhumanities.org/">North Dakota Humanities Council</a>). Dakota and I chatted about winter counts, and about future prospects of scholarly interest and inquiry.</div>
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I'm thinking that winter counts, and the history of them, have become popular enough that I don't really need to explain them. But just in case, a winter count is an annual pictograph painted onto the larger medium of buffalo or elk hides. In the latter part of the 19th century, they were painted onto canvas. These counts provided the owner or memory group with a traceable past, the pictograph often representative of a successful high-point of that year. Dakota Goodhouse continues pushing this tradition in new directions today, in 2013.</div>
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While Dakota explained the winter counts to the group at the <a href="http://www.spiritroom.net/">Spirit Room</a> last night, he pointed to one of his buffalo hides while expanding on how he saw something different in that particular account between today and a couple years ago. Impressionistically, this account is a symmetrical series of triangles running around the circumferences of a couple circles. Some years ago, Dakota said he used to see this as a Native headdress that was laid out on the floor. Today, though, he said he perceives of it as the plains indigene narrative attached to what we call "sun dogs." He said in the Lakota tradition, "sun dogs" are thought of more as camp fires next to the sun. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAla7aHNJoKVxvA_R74cvIDd_XR5sfCvODx10EYXwSSHA0dKWjH-9aUTLyjbpBtwrHahOLAkFLEUzsh2QE0U33UOw8IgkYfti8FUo3q1-JE7z0yAbgFJpJhvhqkPhJbW35uY-mDKfs8es/s1600/Goodhouse.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAla7aHNJoKVxvA_R74cvIDd_XR5sfCvODx10EYXwSSHA0dKWjH-9aUTLyjbpBtwrHahOLAkFLEUzsh2QE0U33UOw8IgkYfti8FUo3q1-JE7z0yAbgFJpJhvhqkPhJbW35uY-mDKfs8es/s400/Goodhouse.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dakota explains the stories reflected by and attached to the pictographs on the bison hide.</td></tr>
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These stories got me thinking of something historians deal with every now and then, and that's one-dimensional thinkers who sometimes polemically say, "Well, cultures with oral traditions don't have a history, or if they do it's impossible to trace." This is always a fun question to respond to. Last night I was thinking more-so of how a person who reads a novel, or a good piece of history, is likely to walk away with different perceptions about the same text within the span of two or more readings.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWrHVTmqTCHMGoymOvrEy7uWJydyvleXJf6ijJ3cw9y04xADAL8Na5M8fOUeTY1i1NgpNzjUCAz6o2sfE0DhnWn1n8LXvdpFyqx30Ufas9U0FigKw5Zhz3oKYTPXzL9CQ14t1mcRS405M/s1600/Goodhouse+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWrHVTmqTCHMGoymOvrEy7uWJydyvleXJf6ijJ3cw9y04xADAL8Na5M8fOUeTY1i1NgpNzjUCAz6o2sfE0DhnWn1n8LXvdpFyqx30Ufas9U0FigKw5Zhz3oKYTPXzL9CQ14t1mcRS405M/s320/Goodhouse+2.jpg" width="209" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A photo of Dakota Goodhouse being<br />
hilarious.</td></tr>
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This is similar to the winter count. Dakota explained the difference in how one individual, when looking at the bison robe laid out, might see a native headdress while another might see sun dogs, parhelia, or what the Dakota call <i>wi'aceti</i>, this roughly translated and defined as "when the sun makes fires." Dakota added that the winters on the northern Great Plains are often cold enough to induce the sun to make camp fires to keep it warm.</div>
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This story, in turn, induced me to abandon the sun dog phrase and replace it with <i>wi'aceti </i>(pronounced "we-ah-che-tee"). If anyone wants to join me on the northern Great Plains in this effort, by all means. If we hear someone say "sun dog," we can add to that <i>wi'aceti</i>, and with explanation.</div>
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One more note: Dakota contributed heavily to a piece of winter count scholarship that you might be interested in, chapter 4 of Candace Greene and Russell Thornton, <i>The Year the Stars Fell: Lakota Winter Counts at the Smithsonian </i>(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007). <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Year-Stars-Fell-Smithsonian/dp/0803222114/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1384013197&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Year+the+stars+fell">Check it out at the link here.</a></div>
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Aaron Barthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14735702931679363844noreply@blogger.com0Fargo, ND, USA46.8771863 -96.78980339999998346.5297063 -97.435250399999987 47.224666299999996 -96.144356399999978tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229312807222213798.post-24115690033882764132013-09-16T09:26:00.000-07:002013-09-16T09:26:48.845-07:00For The Love Of North Dakota, A Review<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>For the Love of North Dakota and Other Essays: Sundays With Clay</i> in the <i>Bismarck Tribune</i>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By Clay Jenkinson. (Washburn, North Dakota: The Dakota Institute Press, 2012) 364 pages. A review by Aaron L. Barth. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When writers describe a place, they explain their surroundings while they intentionally or inadvertently explain themselves. Clay Jenkinson’s For the Love of North Dakota is a sounding board for this, as a collection of his Bismarck Tribune essays are now accessible from The Dakota Institute Press, this from the northern Great Plains in Washburn, North Dakota. Jenkinson covers the deep culture of the state-wide political spectrum, including an acute and thoughtful post-mortem on North Dakota Governor Art Link, and ruminations on the sense of place at Theodore Roosevelt’s national park. This is all the more pressing considering how North Dakota is experiencing a global industrial petroleum boom (as of 2013, North Dakota is the #2 producer of petroleum in the United States, this just behind Texas).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In light of this, Jenkinson also showcases artists who literally come from the North Dakota soil. Chuck Suchy is one, a farmer and rancher with roots from Bohemia and on the upper Missouri River (not too far south of Mandan, North Dakota, to be exact). As Jenkinson describes Chuck, “He’s a working farmer, which means that… He so clearly loves this place, its history, heritage, its people, its quirkiness, its muted west-[Missouri-]river landscape beauty, that he can really be called the voice of North Dakota.” Of Chuck Suchy and his family of musicians, this is true. It is Bohemia on the northern Great Plains, something that Willa Cather alluded to in her novels, and this is why Garrison Keillor continuously calls upon Chuck’s talent when The Prairie Home Companion radio show enters North Dakota.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another story of individual North Dakotan nature comes in the form of a slightly anonymous “Mr. R” who secured staples for his family during the famous blizzard of 1966. Jenkinson is at one of his literary peaks here, remembering how Mr. R. “bundled up in all the coats, mittens, and scarves he owned,” and “silently knelt down to buckle up his overshoes” before heading out into the blizzard abyss. Quite a while went by before Mr. R. returned to his family, and when he did he revealed his cache: “a loaf of bread, a case of Hamms beer, and two cartons of cigarettes.” Jenkinson says, “It took many years for Mr. R. to live down that story.” These otherwise humorous and anecdotal tales feel honest, and Jenkinson and other public historians are increasingly turning their attention to these local stories, memoirs and histories. (See, for example, Tammy S. Gordon’s, Private History in Public: Exhibition and the Settings of Everyday Life, AltiMira Press, 2010).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A review would not be fair without critique, though. While reading Jenkinson’s essays, a reader hopes for but never gets more than a couple of essays on Great Plains Native America — they were, after all, the first North Dakotans. In addition to this, he suggests that everything non-North Dakotan is somehow inferior to North Dakota. This is odd, especially when contextualized with his love for original non-North Dakotans such as Thomas Jefferson, C.S. Lewis, Theodore Roosevelt, T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, George Frideric</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Handel, Meriwether Lewis & William Clark, and Henry David Thoreau (among others). These figures are central in the culture and history of the Atlantic World, the stuff that Wallace Stegner grew up with in the first half of the 20th century. Jenkinson’s ruminations on them show intellect, but they do not speak to genuine and authentic touchstones of North Dakota culture and history, or the people who have a genealogical connection with the land.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Perhaps, though, this is the theme throughout the book: Jenkinson is a North Dakota nationalist with advanced training in Western Civilization. He is a patriotic Euro-American booster for the geo-political abstraction that is North Dakota. And this is how it has to be — a love for the abstraction — since it would be logistically impossible for him to meet and love every individual North Dakotan. This, no doubt, makes a reader eager for Jenkinson and The Dakota Press to fill in the gaps with a follow-up to For the Love of North Dakota. Considering how the booming Petroleum Industrial Complex is altering the culture of North Dakota in the second decade of the 21st century, writers such as Jenkinson are all the more important. There is an infinite amount of North Dakotans and New North Dakotans throughout the state that have individual stories worth telling, and Jenkinson has the pen and vocabulary for it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Involved in historic preservation and cultural resource management since 2002, Aaron L. Barth is a PhD candidate in history with North Dakota State University, Fargo. His focus is on Great Plains, Public, and World History. In addition to this, he is a board member with the North Dakota Humanities Council. Barth’s blogspot can be found at </i><a href="http://www.theedgeofthevillage.com/">The Edge Of The Village.</a></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229312807222213798.post-17495779018583160182013-08-14T13:00:00.001-07:002013-08-14T13:00:50.111-07:00General Sibley's Conflict With the Sioux At Apple Creek<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i style="font-family: Arial;">A view of the Missouri River bottomlands below present-day University of Mary. Taken from Sibley Park, Bismarck, ND. </i></div>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">The Dakota Conflict In Dakota Territory<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">The Apple Creek Conflict 150 Years Later<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">By Dakota Wind, <a href="http://thefirstscout.blogspot.com/">The First Scout</a></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial;">Bismarck, N.D.</span></i><span style="font-family: Arial;"> – The <i>Mníšoše</i>, Missouri River, moves determinedly along the ancient valley it has carved over thousands of years. The river flows in the very heart of the Great Plains, in fact, aside from the wind, it’s a defining feature of the prairie steppe. Its <i>Lakȟóta</i> name means “The Water A-stir” in reference to its muddy stirred up appearance in historic times. Commercial traffic on the river in the nineteenth century came to call it “The Big Muddy.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial;">Tȟaspáŋla Wakpála</span></i><span style="font-family: Arial;">, Apple Creek, meanders along its own course from a field north and east of present-day Bismarck, N.D. The Menoken Indian Village rests along the quiet creek, a silent witness to trade in what archaeologists call the Late Woodlands period. The creek’s name refers to the tree that bears the tiny edible thorn apple.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Where the <i>Tȟaspáŋla Wakpála</i> converges with <i>Mníšoše</i> is <i>Mayá Itówapi</i>, Pictured Bluff. There, along the bluff are caves where the sediment is layered in colors. A testament to the changing climate throughout the ages of the world to the geologist, but to the <i>Lakȟóta</i>, it was a place to gather natural yellow and red pigments to create paint.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">There was a conflict between the <i>Pȟadáni</i> (Arikara) and the <i>Iháŋktȟuŋwaŋna</i> (Yanktonai) in the 1830’s. According to the John K. Bear <a href="http://thefirstscout.blogspot.com/2011/05/winter-counts-art-of-history.html" target="_blank">winter count</a> the year is recorded as <i>Čhaŋnóna na Pȟadáni ob thi apá kičhízapi</i>, The Wood-Hitters (a band of the <i>Iháŋktȟuŋwaŋna</i>) fought with the Arikara. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>The Blue Thunder Winter Count, variant III.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The <i>Waŋkíya Ťho</i>, Blue Thunder,<i> </i>winter count correlates this event at a Dakota winter camp located below <i>Čhaŋté Wakpá</i>, Heart River. According to Blue Thunder, the assailants are variously identified as Arikara, Mandan, or Assiniboine. The Mandan Indians have the Foolish Woman winter count, and they record that they destroyed fifty lodges. The <i>Tȟatȟaŋka Ska</i>, White Bull, winter count has that winter as <i>Wičhíyela waníyetu wičhákasotapi</i>, the Yanktonai were almost wiped out that winter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The John K. Bear winter count also mentions the Dakota Conflict in its 1863 entry: <i>Isáŋyatí wašíčuŋ ob okȟíčize</i>, the Santee warred with the whites. The Minnesota Dakota conflict is also reflected in the Red Horse Owner, Roan Bear, and Wind winter counts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Clell Gannon, a depression era artist, painted this scene of General Sibley's command in pursuit of the Sioux. The painting can be found in the south vestibule of the Burleigh County Courthouse, Bismarck, ND.</i></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial;">The fight between the two tribes paled in comparison when in 1863, General Sibley and his command of about four thousand soldiers engaged the <i>Dakȟóta</i> and <i>Lakȟóta</i> people in a running battle lasting two weeks, from Big Mound (near present-day Tappen, N.D.) to Pictured Bluff.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitWWRUSC1s0T2pgcm_6_Qp-OYdqtR0INZs0ZPjSfLLlHLoUI3icovc-8j07-Q_7Yy0-kIGgfjF_ZB6PJa1vU9tyYZ4c3qogniW3yt-QnhWcvTtsXTIKa_DwGYQeTYsB325Psb3uJ7w1KIE/s1600/Sitting+Bull,+Battle+of+Big+Mound.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitWWRUSC1s0T2pgcm_6_Qp-OYdqtR0INZs0ZPjSfLLlHLoUI3icovc-8j07-Q_7Yy0-kIGgfjF_ZB6PJa1vU9tyYZ4c3qogniW3yt-QnhWcvTtsXTIKa_DwGYQeTYsB325Psb3uJ7w1KIE/s320/Sitting+Bull,+Battle+of+Big+Mound.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Sitting Bull counts coup on one of Sibley's men and steals a mule at the Big Mound Conflict. The image was Sitting Bull's own account, from "Sitting Bull's Heiroglyphic Autobiography" which appears in Stanley Vestal's "Sitting Bull: Champion Of The Sioux."</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">In <i>Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake’s, </i>Sitting Bull’s, own pictographic account, he placed himself at Big Mound where he rode into Sibley’s camp, stole a mule, and counted coup. It is almost entirely certain that if this great leader was at the beginning of the running battle, he was there to the end at Pictured Bluff.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The running battle began as a masterful retreat on July 24, 1863, across hilly terrain in a sinuous line back and forth across streams. This constant crossing, in effect, caused Sibley to lag behind enough for the <i>Dakȟóta</i> and <i>Lakȟóta</i> to gain enough lead time that the women, children, and elders could navigate their crossing <i>waŋna hiyóȟpayA</i> <i>Tȟaspáŋla Wakpála hená Mníšoše</i>, where the Apple Creek converges with the Missouri River.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">That critical crossing came on July 29, 1863. The <i>oyáte</i>, people, abandoned their <i>thiíkčeka</i>, lodges, on the broad flood plain of the <i>Mníšoše</i>. A thousand lodges encircled two little lakes, sloughs in later years. They crossed the <i>Mníšoše </i>in as many as five places below Pictured Bluff. The warriors rallied together, perhaps under the leadership of <i>Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake </i>or <i>Phizí</i> (Gall), and took the high ground a-top Pictured Bluff.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The women, children, and elders who made a successful crossing signaled the warriors with flashes of sunlight using trade mirrors. The warriors in turn, signaled back to their loved ones then they turned their attention to Sibley’s command. There is no exact number of warriors, but if there were a thousand lodges, then there was at least one able-bodied man or warrior per lodge. Using this projection, the warriors were outnumbered four-to-one.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Sibley and his men arrived on the scene, July 29, 1863, to witness flashes of light in communiqué to those in safety across the river. The general struck camp and named it “Camp Slaughter” after a doctor in his command. Over the course of the next few days, Sibley could not take the hill and some of his men were ambushed in the middle of the night. The morale of his soldiers suffered and on July 31, withdrew his men from the field when the enemy seemingly disappeared.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The Apple Creek Conflict is the only fight in the Punitive Campaigns of 1863 & 1864 in which the <i>Dakȟóta</i> and <i>Lakȟóta</i> chose the battlefield, met their aggressor, and held them off until they withdrew. This clear victory became entirely overshadowed by the tragedies of <i>Iŋyáŋsaŋ </i>(Whitestone Hill) and <i>Tȟáȟča Wakútepi </i>(Killdeer), and the victory of <i>Pȟežísluta</i>, the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><i>An unknown, or perhaps forgotten, artist pictographed this scene which was originally identified by Mike Cowdrey as "The Battle Of Whitestone Hill," but is quite possibly a Yanktonai account of the <a href="http://thefirstscout.blogspot.com/2013/01/general-sibleys-apple-orchard-conflict.html" target="_blank">Apple Creek Conflict</a>.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Susan Kelly Power, an esteemed <i>uŋčí </i>(grandmother) of the <i>Iháŋktȟuŋwaŋna Dakȟóta</i> and enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and great-granddaughter of Chief Two Bear, has the oral tradition that places three warriors there at the Apple Creek Conflict: Callous Leg, Little Soldier, and Has Tricks. There must certainly be more warriors and oral traditions amongst the <i>Iŋyáŋ Wosláta Oyáŋke</i>, the community of Standing Rock, and others.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Today, a park named for General Sibley rests virtually where his Camp Slaughter once stood, where some of the <i>Dakȟóta</i> and <i>Lakȟóta </i>made their crossing. Bismarck has turned a battlefield into a place of recreation. There is no signage explaining the name of the park, nor of the conflict.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The landscape has been appropriated and development has erased the battlefield; <i>Dakȟóta</i> and <i>Lakȟóta </i>oral tradition recalls that the soldiers chased the people into the river. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial;">On July 29, 2013, 150 years after Sibley’s command withdrew entirely from the Apple Creek Conflict, the anniversary passed in silence. </span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229312807222213798.post-26335275769592909482013-07-30T09:14:00.000-07:002013-07-30T09:14:23.970-07:00General Custer And The Frontier That Was<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><i>President Abraham Lincoln met with General George McClellan at Antietam following the battle there. General Custer is featured in this photo at the far right. </i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;">General Custer And The Frontier That Was</span></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;">Understanding Indians</span></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 115%;">By Steven Alexander, <a href="http://www.georgecuster.com/">George Custer</a></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“The Frontier that
was,”</span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> lasted little more than six decades.
But to the American Spirit, <i>"The
Old West"</i> has epitomized our nature and eclipsed most periods of our
recorded history.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Mountain Men, Davy
Crockett, the Nomadic Tribes (sometimes referred to as Native Americans) and
the Festive Cowboy all bare world renown.
To the enthusiastic immigrant, the image of America is sometimes steeped
by the romantic portrayal of the West as first introduced by Buffalo Bill Cody,
and later finely tuned by Pappy Ford and John Wayne in the cinema.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Early on it was
immortalized in paint on sweeping canvas by Albert Bierstadt, George Catlin and
Karl Bodmer, then later molded in bronze by Frederic Remington. Still,
for some the <i>“End of the Trail”</i>
has yet to be reached. And to those 21<sup>st</sup>
Century Travelers who bravely venture outside their urban subdivisions,
they are only but an arm’s length from
legend and the allure of Louis L’Amour in their local grocery stores.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As technology micro
sizes and maximizes your MP3 Players, isn’t it comforting to know that just
over the next bluff on your cable channel, Rowdy Yates and Wish Bone are
trailing long horns to Kansas while Matt and Kitty are holding down law and
order in Dodge City. And somewhere on the
internet the iconic Iron Eyes Cody
stands vigil on a pollution free America?
Before all this the <i>“Frontier that
Was”</i> held a special place in the World’s imagination when art and history
blended together and was reflected in the hour glass of life and shifting sands
on the painted desert of the West.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">My own journey into the
<i>“Frontier that Was,”</i> began when my
Great Grandparents, Harry and Kate Boley traveled west in a prairie schooner
across North Dakota and homesteaded the High Plains of Montana at the turn of
the 19<sup>th</sup> Century. As a young
boy I listened to their incredible stories intently; Ward Bond was still Wagon Master and Fess
Parker had not retired his coonskin cap. Through the pages of <i>“True West”</i> and <i>“Frontier Times”</i> I cut my teeth on adventures that later saw me
riding buffalo trails across Nebraska and smoking prayer pipes in the Lodge of
the Medicine Arrow Keeper. Along the way this writer might have fared but
little better than the bleached bones beside the wagon ruts worn in the Bozeman
Trail, and like the character I portray, if I had not grasp the importance of <i>"Understanding Indians."</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The word <i>"Indian"</i> today is readily
accepted, but in fact, was a misnomer as the first Europeans had designated the
inhabitants as Indians, thinking they had landed in the Far East unaware an
entire continent lay between what they thought was a short cut to the Eastern
Trade Routes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For George Armstrong
Custer, Civil War Hero, the west was like a tonic, he had the heart of an
Indian and during the decade he served on the frontier a large portion was
understanding Indians. <i>"Neither a
luxury nor a necessary of life. He can
hunt, roam, and camp when and where so ever he pleases, provided always that in
so doing he does not run contrary to the requirements of civilization in its
advancing tread. When the soil which he
has claimed and hunted over for so long a time is demanded by this to him
insatiable monster, there is no appeal; he must yield, or, like the car of a
juggernaut, it will roll mercilessly over him, destroying as it advances. Destiny seems to have so willed it, and the
world looks on and nods its approval."<sup>1<o:p></o:p></sup></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">More than 14,000 years
ago the First Americans came to this continent from Asia via the Bering
Straits. While in pursuit of game,<sup>2</sup>
each tribal division settled in places they eventually adapted to. From the Canadian Rockies to the Gulf of
Mexico and from the Mississippi across the Salt Flats to the Pacific Shores this
at one time, was all Indian Country.
Over 2.5 Million square miles of wild uncharted prairie inhabited by
270,000 Indians of 125 distinct tribes, most friendly, but a few who would eventually be driven to hostility. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><i>President Thomas Jefferson</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In 1803 President
Jefferson authorized the Corps of Discovery to map out and explore the West. Unexpectedly
revealed were those myriad of Indian tribes and the vast Buffalo herds that
were to all the tribes their mainstay
food source. As late as 1832 this area
was viewed as permanent Indian territory where the American Aborigines could
pursue their ancestral way of life without interference. During the 1840s the tribes became familiar
with the white man, chiefly the French
who adopted the Indian ways. As
traders and trappers, they integrated into the lifestyle of the various tribes,
often times marrying Indian women and having children. In May of 1841 the first
immigrant wagon train passed westward along the Oregon Trail known to the
Indian as <i>"The Great Medicine
Road."</i> With them came the
Missionaries who wanted to save their heathen souls, while the English tried to
civilize them. Years earlier
Pocahontas, daughter of Powhatan, had traveled to England. She shed her leathers for fine lace and took
tea in the court of King James.<sup>3</sup>
Wampanoag warriors Samoset and Squanto,
cultivated a friendship with the Pilgrims and <i>“directed them how to set their corne, where to take fish and procure
other commodities…” </i>Those
experiences conjure images of our traditional Thanksgiving. But yet, through the better part of
Indian-White relations a familiar scenario seemed to run<i>, “First the Indians would share their food with the newcomers. Then the supply ships would be delayed and
the settlers, having made no attempt to grow a crop, would become
demanding. The Indians, with their
stores depleted, would refuse aid. Then
would come bad feeling, even open hostility.”</i> This
proved to be the true clash of values for which Europeans, framed by
traditions, failed to grasp in their study of the complexities of the Indian
beliefs.<sup>4 </sup>For the
Indian, his <i>“integrity of spirit was
deeper than conscious reasoning;” </i> his love of homeland and founded fears of the
Whiteman’s encroachment, which the Indian likened to <i>“the horror of
dismemberment."<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">While early colonists
to America saw them as pagans, almost animalistic in nature, they failed to see
their deeply religious nature, their artistic nature and their love of
beauty. All of these attributes were
expressed in the Indians' everyday life, with strong family ties and a deep
commitment to their tribe. These values
sustained him as he was pushed westward in an excuse called manifest
destiny. Even with these values, their
ties to the land ran deeper. Lakota
Mystical Warrior Crazy Horse once stated, <i>"One
does not sell the earth upon which the people walk."<sup>7</sup></i><sup> </sup> And Tecumseh, a military strategist, who
united his people and when asked to sell his lands replied, <i>“Why not sell the air, the clouds and the
great sea…?”<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.therooster.ca/sites/default/files/whiskey-tasting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://www.therooster.ca/sites/default/files/whiskey-tasting.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Civilization also brought
small pox and almost as infamous, <i>“Fire Water”</i> which today is as
threatening to the Redman as it was a century ago. <i>"He is in danger of becoming a drunkard before he has learned to
restrain his appetites, and of being tricked out of his property before he is
able to appreciate its value."<sup>5</sup></i> Over 24,000 Creeks diminished in number to
13,537 after their real estate became coveted and they were forced to move to
Oklahoma on The Trail of Tears. Indian
resentment increased, <i>"As
the white frontier advanced tribe after tribe fell before new diseases to which
they had developed no resistance.” </i> The outbreak of Asiatic cholera, introduced
to North America from Europe in 1832 spread like wild fire across the plains.<sup>6<o:p></o:p></sup></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.angelfire.com/az2/yumaxing/marching.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="302" src="http://www.angelfire.com/az2/yumaxing/marching.gif" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">While at their peak the Apache numbered 8,000
individuals distributed between the Chiricahua, Mescalero, and Tonto Apache
tribes all considered<i> " gentle
people, not cruel, and faithful in their friendships." </i>That is until the Spanish came to
conquer, <i>“leaving a trail of death and destruction."</i> Although never confronting them in battle
Custer visited their villages and had interviews with their prominent chiefs
during the Hancock Expedition of 1867.<sup>1</sup><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">That campaign began
what would saddle our military with the thankless job of policing the
territories with a total troop force of 27,000 soldiers to pacify and keep
peace between the Indian and non-Indian.
An unlikely task of surrounding ten Indians with one soldier while
enforcing policies set in Washington and changing when those policies soon became
obsolete. Initiation into the west causing
one to learn quickly and adapt skills and knowledge in dealing with a society
so diametrically opposite to modern European tactics. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> And
quickly it became apparent that, <i>"no
one was going to pin a medal on you for killing Indians and stealing their
land."<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<a href="http://img.readtiger.com/wkp/en/Alfred_Jacob_Miller_-_Hunting_Buffalo_-_Walters_371940190.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222" src="http://img.readtiger.com/wkp/en/Alfred_Jacob_Miller_-_Hunting_Buffalo_-_Walters_371940190.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">With the
re-introduction of the horse by Spaniards, Indians were able to embrace a new
hunting culture, dominating a larger portion of warfare on the Plains and became
more mobile. <i>"Indians mounted their ponies, first having fixed their toilets in
war paint, and adorned their head and hair with feathers. Also the mane and tail of their ponies, and
those having white ponies (which are very plenty amongst them) they daub red
paint on so as to look as though they had been wounded."<sup>8 </sup></i> Horses were a measure of wealth and
prowess. Warriors gained honors for the
theft and capture of enemy horses. The
Comanche, thought by many to be the greatest horsemen in the world, were often compared
to mythical centaurs; horse and rider appearing as one.<sup>9</sup> Streaking wildly bareback across the western
plains, they would drop their bodies on either side of their ponies' back,
screening themselves from their enemies' weapons and cut loose with arrow or
firearm at a full gallop.<sup>10</sup><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><i>"They shall hold the bow and
the lance: they are cruel, and will not
shew mercy: their voice shall roar like
the sea, and they shall ride upon horses, every one put in array, like a man to
the battle, against thee..."<sup>11</sup> </i></span><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><i><sup><br /></sup></i></span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-I6zeO7PMlxA/UffdoY7SHeI/AAAAAAAABUg/PnTNul0pr9o/s1600/Bodmer_Bison_Hunt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="276" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-I6zeO7PMlxA/UffdoY7SHeI/AAAAAAAABUg/PnTNul0pr9o/s400/Bodmer_Bison_Hunt.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 115%;"><i><sup>Indians Hunting The Bison by Karl Bodmer</sup></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Preferring the three and a half-foot
or four- foot bow, the Sioux and Crow were known to make the best bows. Their arrowheads, fashioned from metal barrel
hoops and fastened to the shaft of the arrow by sinew. Arrow wounds were especially dangerous to
humans because bodily fluids would effuse around the point of penetration, which
then softened the <i>"tendon wrapping,"</i> holding the arrowhead. Thus when the shaft was pulled from the body,
the loosened head always remained. If
the head could not be removed by
surgery, such wounds would always prove mortal.<sup>12<o:p></o:p></sup></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The
Warrior was most esteemed above all others who could throw the greatest number
of arrows in the sky before the first one fell to the ground. Two Lance, a Brule could shoot an arrow clear
through a running buffalo as evidenced during Custer's hunt with the Grand Duke
Alexis at Red Willow Creek, Nebraska in the winter of '72. The Grand Duke was given this arrow as a
trophy and took it back home with him to Russia.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.donsmaps.com/images23/mammothcarving.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://www.donsmaps.com/images23/mammothcarving.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><i>Petroglyph of a mammoth hunt in Florida.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><i>"To me, Indian life, with its attendant ceremonies, mysteries, and
forms, is a book of unceasing interest.
Grant that some of its pages are frightful, and, if possible, to be
avoided, yet the attraction is none the weaker.
Study him, fight him, civilize him if you can, he remains still the
object of your curiosity, a type of man peculiar and undefined, subjecting
himself to no known law of civilization, contending determinedly against all
efforts to win him from his chosen mode of life."<sup>13 </sup></i>Custer felt theirs' was a system based on
courage, yet plagued by duplicity and falsehood. Although one might appreciate their wit and
humor and admire their color and pageantry, their passionate fondness of
dancing; one must also recognize their
brutal side. Almost like children, but
don't be fooled, these were survivors of the stone age-savages 20,000 years
behind modern civilization. Young boys
of the tribe were raised with warrior ethics in a warrior society. Raiding for them was not only a rite of
passage, but also necessary training to build self-esteem. A Blackfoot song expressed a common Plains sentiment,
<i>"It is bad to live to be old, Better to die young fighting bravely in
battle."<sup>82</sup></i><sup> </sup> Indian culture was based upon permanent war with their neighbors as
evidenced by the Chippewa who were successful in driving the Sioux whose
sign was <i>"cut throat"</i> the
Chippewa word for <i>"enemy"</i>
from Michigan, Wisconsin and part of Minnesota.<sup>14 </sup> In 1851,the Uncpapa stubbornly refused to
make peace with the Crow.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.hamilton.edu/assets/mmlibrary/images/500x/Native.American.signing.Buffalo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="263" src="http://www.hamilton.edu/assets/mmlibrary/images/500x/Native.American.signing.Buffalo.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><i>Mountain Chief demonstrates the Plains Indian Sign and Gesture language.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Some tribes though
peaceful by nature, never considered peace, but immediately attacked the
Spanish or other tribes they deemed trespassing on their hunting grounds. Although they shared a common way of life,
they belonged to a dozen or more different
tribes speaking languages of a half-dozen totally unrelated groups. So it was for them to communicate through the
use of sign language which became the universal talk of the plain tribes.<sup>15 </sup> Through smoke signals, mirrors, drums or the
water telegraph they communicated through the ages. Basic paints,
colored beads, and use of items
from Mother Earth told stories, gave warnings or guided those who would seek a
trail. To the Indian all things were
interconnected. All objects had
life. And life continued, even when this one they knew ended, in the Happy Hunting Ground. Wakan Tanka the Everywhere Spirit was with you
and all around you. Your medicine was
either good or your judgment indelibly tainted by your impureness of heart.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Nomadic by nature and driven by the
pursuit of food sources, the Indian adapted to the land and it was from the
land he found his means. As the
prairies grew lush grasses, thus it allowed the Indians to pursue their main source of food-the Bison.
Reliant on the Buffalo for subsistence the warriors could successfully hunt and
kill 12 buffalo thus supplying a band of
a hundred 12,000 lbs of meat. A
similar requirement would be of 120 deer to feed the same band for a
month. Besides the hides used in the
clothing and homes, the Indian utilized the skin from the buffalo neck to make
his war shields. The skin was soaked and
hardened with the glue extracted from boiling the bison hooves and when
finished allowed a surface impenetrable by arrow and curved sufficiently to
deflect the path of a bullet.<sup>12</sup></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><sup><br /></sup></span></div>
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<a href="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/01/09/science/bison.3.600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="166" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/01/09/science/bison.3.600.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Before the coming of the white man
the buffalo numbered some 600 million, thundering across the grasslands and
wooded forests of the mid-west.
Although buffalo commonly traveled in small bands of 5 to 50 head, it
was not uncommon for a herd to hold up a train for several days while that same
herd continually passed that particular spot.
Estimates ranging up to 60 million bison were calculated in the 1860's
with 100,000 hides processed annually since the</span><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> </span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">early<b> </b>1840’s. Buffalo hides, highly prized were shipped eastward to tanneries
that accepted them as alternative sources of commercial leather. Buffalo tongues, considered a delicacy by
Indian and Non-Indian alike, were pickled and canned while whole carcasses were
left to rot on the Plains.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">But
it was the .50 calibre Sharps alone that had such a devastating effect on the
Bison herds. A single</span><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> </span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">hunter armed with a Sharps Rifle could bag 150
bison per day keeping 15 skinners busy full time. Hides selling from $2.75 went on to hit an
all time high of $5.00. Once t</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">he Overland route
was established, the Indian felt the White man had maliciously achieved the
undesired consequence of driving away
the buffalo.<sup>6 </sup> By 1867 the westward progress of
the Union Pacific Railroad had in fact, driven
a wedge through the great bison herds.
Indians’ superstitious beliefs foretold, that once the buffalo scented the white man, the bison would not return to that part of the
prairie. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://fredmarkers.umwblogs.org/files/2008/04/sheridan-portrait.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://fredmarkers.umwblogs.org/files/2008/04/sheridan-portrait.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><i>General Phil Sheridan</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> <i> </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><i>“Destroying the Indian’s commissary,”</i>
commented General Sheridan, <i>“ for the sake of lasting peace, let them kill,
skin and sell until they have exterminated the buffalo. Then your prairies will be covered with
speckled cattle and the festive cowboy.” </i> So destroying the Bison became the overall
strategy and mission for subjugating the tribes. And was entirely successful when it was
estimated that only a total of 800 Bison was all that remained in the
continental United States by 1890.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Sioux tribes who once
had formerly lived and hunted on the Platte until gold was discovered in
Colorado, now turned to the elders of the Nations. Resistance to this insurgence took a variety of
forms. At first alliances, then movements seeking solutions based on native
experiences and ideologies. Oglala
councilors, composed of older and respected community leaders, sometimes called
<i>“The Big Bellies”</i> adopted various strategies in response to the
challenge of incessant encroachment on their lands; treaty diplomacy, or merely
leading their bands away from American settlements. These men who sat in councils were basically
legislators sometimes called chiefs who evidentially called for outright
warfare. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSCJK5FNxImvj0LORGoLevj_a0dJtpr4UOnOx0zJpF61n1TU-qxyw" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSCJK5FNxImvj0LORGoLevj_a0dJtpr4UOnOx0zJpF61n1TU-qxyw" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Dog Soldiers, between the ages of 17-37 generally led in battle followed by the
Fox Men, Those With Headed Lances, Red Shield Owners and the Foolish Dogs
mostly made up of younger warriors not yet proven in battle. They made up part
of the ten clans of the Cheyenne headed by forty- four chiefs who when it came
time for council would send out forty-four painted sticks to all the villages.<sup>16
</sup> Entrance into such societies was
accomplished by obtaining coups against an enemy. Evidence was sometimes exhibited by weapons
wrenched from an enemy’s hands in battle, possessions, captured women or horses. When groups
approached each other, the initial actions consisted of attempts to frighten
the other side, and to show bravery.
Chanting war songs or <i>“Wolf Songs”</i> they went into battle with the
object of insulting the enemy, rather than killing him. Counting coups or touching the enemy brought greater honors than taking of a life. This touch was performed by either
hand or short weapon at close quarters.
A coups might be made with a quirt or a special coups stick varying in
length but almost always adorned with paint, feathers and scalps of
enemies. Sometimes curved at the end it
was similar to looking like a whiteman's cane, but longer and often displayed
in front of the warrior's lodge where all the tribe could know of his
achievements in battle. The highest honor
fell to the first touch, with three consecutive honors awarded for those who
touched the enemy next. Other
warriors might rush up to each touch the enemy up to four times. After the fourth touch no more points were accumulated. Many warriors felt that to touch a live enemy
or one who had been felled in combat was equally honorable. Many times the enemy might feign death only
to deliver a fatal blow to an opposing warrior attempting to count coups on
him. Another example might be to spare
the life of an enemy in battle, touching him in a humiliating way that would
steal his honor. The act of killing
under any circumstance was never rated as credit to a warrior. When an actual death occurred in combat each
warrior who had killed some enemy followed such an act with a death wail many
times misconstrued as a <i>“Yell of
Triumph.”</i> When in fact it was a
wail of utter sadness at the taking of a human life and prayer for forgiveness
to the Everywhere Spirit. Most
ceremonies before or after a battle consisted of the death wail for those who
may be killed and those who actually were.
But
since Indians were unwilling to accept even a few casualties, under most
circumstances they simply withdrew. The
feeling of awe at taking life was also felt-probably to a lesser degree-when
animals were killed. To the American
Indian everything possessed a living soul.
Therefore every part of an animal which when killed was either consumed
or utilized for clothing or tools, insuring it had not died in vain. Indians unlike non-Indians, never hunted for
sport. The sorrow one might endure at
killing of an enemy could last up to 30 days in which time the warrior blackened
his face, his hair flowed loose and his general appearance was neglected and
unkempt. Such is the shame that in most
battles if one or two participants are killed on either side the whole conflict
might be called<i> "quits"</i> as
both sides would retreat from the field.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Most myths recounting
the warrior’s lust for torture were greatly exaggerated as the act of torture was
performed in a symbolic gesture of purification and bravery. Those on the receiving end may have thought
differently as <i>"...they persisted in
the hellish work until every inch of the bodies of the unhappy men was haggled,
and hacked and sacrificed, and covered with clotted blood."<sup>17 <o:p></o:p></sup></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><i><sup>Sitting Bull's pictographic account of stealing a mule and counting coup at the Battle of Big Mound.</sup></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When
a full-blown battle occurred and half of the opposing forces sustained mortal
causalities the victors allowed the defeated to surrender. The survivors were then treated to a big
feast and released <i>“on parole” </i>owing their lives to the victorious band. The survivors from that moment on were honor
bound never to attack or make war upon those who had spared them. If they ever
should, they ran the risk of capture and ultimate torture from the band that
had befriended them. If a warrior
undergoing torture could display fortitude and bravery defying his tormentors
to do their worst and survive, in most cases he was nursed back to good health,
praised by his torturers, released or persuaded to become a permanent member of
their tribe. Custer stated <i>"...the
Indian forfeits his claim to the appellation of the noble red man. We see him as he is, and, so far as all
knowledge goes, as he has been, a savage in every sense of the word; not worse,
perhaps, than his white brother would be, similarly born and bred, but one
whose cruel and ferocious nature far exceeds that of any wild beast of</i> <i>the
desert."<sup>13</sup></i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The ambush remained their favorite
tactic, and was used both offensively and for defense. War parties relied on swift attacks. First, there was little time available during
a raid to engage in a shot for shot contest.
The purpose of a raid was to strike fast and leave. Second, the loss of a single warrior took a
lifetime to replace. Indians during a
raid on a settlement were cold, cruel and heinous. Their best weapon was fear and terror. The brutal and hideous mutilations of their
victims created an unsightly horror when dismembered beyond recognition. Once human,
they could only be discerned by the smallest bit of flesh still clinging
to clothing of the unfortunate soul. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/lewisandclark/images/tribes/high_453.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="306" src="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/lewisandclark/images/tribes/high_453.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When warriors rode off
to war, they usually dressed in their finest clothes and painted themselves not
to frighten their enemy, but to impress the Everywhere Spirit should they be
killed. The purpose of the paint was to
prepare for their burial and to radiate a handsome and respectable appearance
in the afterlife. <i>"Indians are very fond of bright and gaudy colors, and if they see
any trinket which they like they will have it regardless of cost, if they have
the price of it in their possession.
And jewelry they all wear. Of
course, it's nothing but brass or German silver. Some of them will have a cord around their
necks filled with all kinds of stuff just so it shines. I have seen some with rings on all their
fingers-not only one on a finger, but 3 or 4 on each. And for earrings, it's awful. They will be from 2 to 2 1/2 inches across
and from 3 to 4 in each ear, one above the other. And the holes in the outer edge of their ears
are as large as an eyelet in a shoe."<sup>8</sup></i><sup> </sup> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Streaming in the wind
their large
headdresses sometimes referred to as <i>"War Bonnets, "</i> made from
buckskin turbans or the crowns of traded or captured slouch hats affixed with
eagle, hawk or turkey feathers, often earned or given in allegiance from other
warriors in the tribe. Sometimes the
standing feathers would encircle the crown and flow at length to a long train
that reached in some cases to the ground.
They were never without their Hudson Bay trade blanket even in warm
weather when they draped it over their arm or wore it like a cloak. Their legs were covered by their long breach
cloths and leggings often fashioned from trade blankets or animal skins with
beads and fringe at the seams. Their
feet covered by soft tanned buckskin moccasins with intricate bead work or
quills in various shades or colors, the soles being made of tough durable
buffalo leather. By the 1800's the
traditional buckskin shirt became replaced by trader's cloth and cotton fabric shirts
manufactured by the white man. While
only the Warrior Societies continued the tradition of the <i>"War
Shirt"</i> made from hides and decorated with beads, scalps and feathers
all honors earned in combat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www1.assumption.edu/users/mcclymer/tahcourse2/HarpWeekDakotaSioux91362.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="231" src="http://www1.assumption.edu/users/mcclymer/tahcourse2/HarpWeekDakotaSioux91362.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Primary to a raid was to steal
horses and mules. If homes were burned,
settlers killed and scalped; women and children taken captive, then the raid was
considered a success. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In 1862 the eastern
or Santee Sioux under Little Crow perpetrated the Minnesota Massacres.<sup>6</sup>
<i>"Since 1862 at least 800 men,
women, and children have been murdered
within the limits of my present command, in the most fiendish manner; the men
usually scalped and mutilated, their private parts cut off and placed in their
mouth; women ravished sometimes fifty and sixty times in succession, then
killed and scalped, sticks stuck in their persons, before and after
death." </i>And in a few
cases an enemy’s scalp would actually be removed before or after death. Although this practice has been attributed to
the Indian’s barbaric nature, the true act of scalping was introduced to the American
Indian by his sophisticated European counters, the French and the English and
dates back to the Middle East in Biblical times.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.legendsofamerica.com/photos-nativeamerican/SandCreek.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="247" src="http://www.legendsofamerica.com/photos-nativeamerican/SandCreek.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In November of 1864
Colonel John Chivington and his Colorado Volunteers deliberately stirred up the
Cheyenne hostility resulting in the Sand
Creek or Chivington Massacre. Many warriors
in the village had been on the warpath and fresh scalps of white women and
children were found by troops in the village.<sup>6 </sup> For those
carried off it is certain torture at the hands of these unmerciful
savages. If spared, they were usually in
for a long hideous night of misery.<sup>14
</sup> When a white woman fell into
Indian hands she could expect to be forced into the brutal lust of her captor.
Indians tended to gamble almost day and night. An Indian smoked incessantly
while he gambled. He would gamble all
that he owned including his wife. More
often than not it was a<b> </b>captured woman from another tribe or a captive
white woman who upon tiring of her would gamble or barter her away to another
Indian for two horses or such then traded to another before being traded on
once again. Should she try to escape
her bare feet were placed into a campfire until every portion of the cuticle was
burned away preventing her from running away.<sup>18 </sup> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Custer's standing order remained, that should the
column come under attack and there was fear of maintaining his wife's
safety, the escort was directed to put a
bullet in her brain. Furthermore the old
frontiersman adage had always been, <i>"Keep the Last Bullet for
Yourself."<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<a href="http://almanac2010.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/seventh_cavalry_charging_black_kettle_s_village_1868.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="http://almanac2010.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/seventh_cavalry_charging_black_kettle_s_village_1868.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Therefore the Military’s task was to secure
the release of these captives as soon as possible, and hopefully return them
home unharmed. D</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">uring the summer of
1866 twenty-eight women and children were captured and carried off by Dog
Soldier raiding parties. In the winter of '68-'69 Custer led the Seventh Cavalry in a successful
retaliatory campaign against the Southern Cheyenne. Although the Regiments causalities
included Officers Hamilton, Elliott and 19 enlisted men; over 103 warriors were
killed, Fifty- three Indian Women and
Children were secured and captured.
Eight Hundred and seventy five ponies put to death. One thousand one Hundred buffalo robes, 500
lbs of powder, 1,000 lbs of lead and 4,000 arrows destroyed. <span style="letter-spacing: -.1pt;">This was
regarded as the first substantial US. victory </span>in the Southern Plains
War, thus effectively crippling and helping to force a significant <span style="letter-spacing: -.2pt;">portion of the Southern Cheyenne onto a U.S.
appointed </span>reservation.<sup>19</sup> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Custer was credited
with negotiating with numerous tribes and securing the release of two white
women, Sarah White and Annabelle Morgan
captured six months before on the Kansas border. The result of these actions d<span style="letter-spacing: -.2pt;">uring that same long winter campaign saw </span>the Cheyenne, Arapahoe and
Kiowa eventually come into the
reservations. It would be, not for the
number of Indian lives that were lost during the Staked Plains Campaign, but for those who were spared that Custer
became known as the Foremost Indian Fighter on the Plains. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/51/Ely_S._Parker.jpg/496px-Ely_S._Parker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/51/Ely_S._Parker.jpg/496px-Ely_S._Parker.jpg" width="330" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><i>General Ely Parker served in General Grant's field command during the Civil War. After Grant was elected president, he appointed Parker as the Commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In 1869, President
Grant appointed a commission of nine men to examine all matters pertaining to
Indian Affairs. Their findings reported <i>"The history of government connections
with the Indians is a shameful record of broken treaties and unfilled
promises."<sup>20 </sup></i><sup> </sup>Driven
by their lack of understanding Indians.
Custer had always believed peace would have lasted longer than the
outbreak of '74, had diplomacy and proper treatment of the tribes been
practiced over government duplicity.<sup>21 <o:p></o:p></sup></span></div>
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<a href="https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTzJ7hduqr1gymWaCjczicdXe8eoX-Xr6KaleaCzXSsnEA-ZhKY" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTzJ7hduqr1gymWaCjczicdXe8eoX-Xr6KaleaCzXSsnEA-ZhKY" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><sup><i>Cadet Custer at West Point before the Civil War broke out.</i></sup></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Even though written
during Custer's time at West Point his thoughts on the Indian were reflected in
his essay "<i>When we first beheld the Redman, we beheld him in his home, the home of
peace and plenty, the home of nature.
Sorrows furrowed lines were unknown on his dauntless brow. His manly limbs were not weakened by being
forced to sleep in dreary caves and deep morasses, fireless, comfortless and
coverless, through fear of the hunter's deadly rifle. His heart did not quake with terror at every
gust of the wind that sighed through the trees, but on the contrary. They were the favored sons of nature, and she
like a doting mother, had bestowed all her gifts on them. They stood in the native strength and beauty,
stamped with proud majesty of free born men, whose souls never knew fear, or
whose eyes never quailed beneath the fierce glance of man. But what are they now, those monarchs of the
west? They are like withered leaves of
their own native forest, scattered in every direction by the fury of the
tempest. The Red Man is alone in his
misery. The earth is vast desert to
him. Once it had its charms to lull his mind
to repose, but now the home of his youth, the familiar forests, under whose
grateful shade, he and his ancestors stretched their weary limbs after the
excitement of the chase, are swept away by the axe of the woodman. The hunting grounds have vanished from his
sight and in every object he beholds the hand of desolation. We behold him now on the verge of extinction,
standing on his last foothold, clutching his bloodstained rifle, resolved to
die amidst the horrors of slaughter, and soon he will be talked of as a noble
race who once existed but now have passed away."<sup>23<o:p></o:p></sup></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">From 1866 to 1876 the
cost to the United States Government for the Reservation System rose from an
annual budget of $1Million to $20 Million per year. Even though the prices went up the annuities
promised to the Indians never arrived at the reservations.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Indian people on the
reservations literally starved or sought relief by exiting the agencies. A delegation from Standing Rock Agency
arrived at Fort Abraham Lincoln in the winter of '75 seeking council with
General Custer. Running Antelope the
emissary from the Sioux exclaimed, <i>"The Great Father may choose only good
men when they leave Washington, but by the time they get to us they are damned
thieves..."<sup>22</sup> </i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRCqU7OEvW_vey6_9XNqiLtl_w9ISnsQxCyOqdtyl-k_wdk91CQ" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRCqU7OEvW_vey6_9XNqiLtl_w9ISnsQxCyOqdtyl-k_wdk91CQ" width="324" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Aware
of this, Custer's own testimony before Congress in the Spring of 1876 about the
corruption and inadequacies of the reservation system was punctuated by his own
writings and was summed up by his own beliefs of understanding Indians, <i>"If I were an Indian, I often think
that I would greatly prefer to cast my lot among those of my people who
adhered to the free open plains, rather
than submit to the confined limits of a reservation, there to be the recipient
of those blessed benefits of civilization, with its vices thrown in without
stint or measure."<sup>13<o:p></o:p></sup></i></span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-885uUhAb3eM/UfflgZDTqRI/AAAAAAAABUw/XD17tBTMK1Q/s1600/Steven+Alexander+Custer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-885uUhAb3eM/UfflgZDTqRI/AAAAAAAABUw/XD17tBTMK1Q/s320/Steven+Alexander+Custer.jpg" width="205" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><i><sup>Steven Alexander is the foremost Custer living Custer historian.</sup></i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Footnotes, Bibliographies And Sources</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">1. <i>Wild Life on the Plains and the Horrors of
Indian Warfare, </i>General George Armstrong Custer <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Sun Publishing Co. St. Louis, MO 1883<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">2. <i>Daily
Life in a Plains Indian Village 1868, </i>Michael Bad Hand Terry Clarion Books
1999<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">3. <i>500
Nations, </i>Alvin Josephy Gramwercy Books, NY 1994<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">4. <i>Bury
My Heart at Wounded Knee, </i>Dee Brown
Holt, Rinehart & Winston NY 1970<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">5.<i>The Indian Dilemma-Civilization or
Extinction, </i>Carl Schurz, <i>Annals of
America, </i>Volume 10, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> 1866-1883.
Reconstruction and Industrialization, Encyclopedia Britannica, 1976<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">6. <i>Custer's
Luck, </i>Edgar Stewart University of Oklahoma Press Norman, OK 1983<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">7. <i>Native American Indians: Quotes and Thoughts,</i> Steven Redhead <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> www.stevenredhead.com/Native/contact.html<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">8. <i>Frontier Soldier: An Enlisted Man's Journal of the Sioux and Nez Perce Campaigns, 1877,</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Private William Zimmer, edited by Jerome
Green Montana Historical Society Press, Helena, MT <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> 1993<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">9. <i>The
Little Bighorn Campaign </i>Wayne M. Sarf Combined Books Conshohocken, PA 1993<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">10. <i>Indians
and the Old West </i>Anne Terry White Golden Press New York 1958<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">11. <i>Book
of Jeremiah (50:42) </i>King James Bible/Old Testament<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">12. <i>My
Native Land </i>James Cox Blair Publishing Co. Philadelphia 1903<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">13. <i>My
Life on the Plains</i> G. A. Custer The
Galaxy, Vol. VII January 1872 to June 1872<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">14. <i>The
Custer Tragedy</i> Fred Dustin Upton and Sons El Segundo, CA 1987<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">15. <i>Indian Signals and Sign Language</i> George Fronval and Daniel Dubois Bonanza
Books New <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> York 1985<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">16. <i>The
Horsemen of the Plains </i>Joseph Altsheler
Macmillan Co. NY 1966<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">17. <i>Little
Big Horn 1876</i> Robert Nightengale Far West Publishing Edina, MN 1996<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">18. <i>The Plains Indians </i>Jay Smith Research
Review: The Journal of the Little Big
Horn Associates <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Vol. 1 No. 2 December, 1987<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">19. <i>Custer
and the Cheyenne </i>Louis Kraft Upton and Sons Publishers El Segundo, CA 1995<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">20. <i>The
Indian and the White Man</i> Helen Hunt Jackson A Century of Dishonor Boston
1887<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">21. <i>Bugles,
Banners and War Bonnets</i> Ernest L. Reedstrom Bonanza Books New York 1986<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">22. <i>Eyewitnesses
to the Indian Wars 1865-1890 Volume 4</i> Peter Cozzens Stack Pole Books 2001<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">23. <i>The Redman </i>George Armstrong Custer <i>The Harrisonian Journal of the Harrison
County, Ohio<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">
Historical Society</span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Number 2 1989<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229312807222213798.post-71721563663844304252013-06-25T11:22:00.002-07:002013-06-25T11:26:12.768-07:00Remembering Greasy Grass in World History<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
by Aaron L. Barth<br />
Board Member<br />
Cross-posted at <a href="http://theedgeofthevillage.com/2013/06/25/remembering-greasy-grass-in-world-history/">this link here</a>.<br />
<br />
I remember the first time I started piling over the historiography of Greasy Grass/Little Bighorn at some point in 1999 or 2000, this with a short historical article included in one of those military history readers. This article happened to be by the late Stephen Ambrose (I think he published it sometime in the 1970s), and as a reflection of the scholarly times, it focused exclusively on what we call white military history. Looking back on it, and considering how even by the 1870s the American military was such a small cross section of elite Anglo-Americans that guided policy (as opposed to the lot of our non-English-speaking immigrant great and great-great and great-great-great grandparents who were entering the country at the time), it is much more apt to refer to the traditional historiographic body of white 19th century American history as Anglo-American or Victorian Military History. This is not meant in a conspiratorial way. Rather, it is meant to point out how institutions are composed of individuals, and if the individuals within those institutions have certain outlooks on the world, then the institutions are going to operate accordingly.<br />
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For at least a couple decades, now, individual scholars within the academies have created a social structure large enough so they can shift the direction of the scholarship (archaeologists today sometimes call this "counter-modern" while historians refer to it as multivocal). For example, instead of once again combing over what happened on June 25, 1876 at Greasy Grass, scholars have taken to looking at the conflict as a broader segment that needs to be contextualized in World History. James Gump has a work out there entitled, <i>The Dust Rose Like Smoke: The Subjugation of the Zulu and Sioux </i>(University of Nebraska Press, 1994), and it considers how the Anglosphere mythologized themselves after a confederation of Lakota, Cheyenne and Native America decimated the 7th at the Little Bighorn in 1876, and after the Zulu wiped out a British force of 1,500 at Isandhlwana on January 22, 1879. Check out the <a href="http://gertswartsculptor.homestead.com/Isandlwana.html">Zulu monument to the fallen Zulu at Isandhlwana with this link here</a>.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY0sfoA1aMfoRirJ4B_Uducch5zd0rEOnGxQyK6y6hP5NuqAgVRhuMoka30_kpeMCLbMYyPfBXngsWTCM1wTudU7rPM84GkzGGJ_sI62ROhdhNMrDnkTlbPLuNgt8evpltonBH9FXwifs/s1600/Isandhlwana.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="85" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY0sfoA1aMfoRirJ4B_Uducch5zd0rEOnGxQyK6y6hP5NuqAgVRhuMoka30_kpeMCLbMYyPfBXngsWTCM1wTudU7rPM84GkzGGJ_sI62ROhdhNMrDnkTlbPLuNgt8evpltonBH9FXwifs/s400/Isandhlwana.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Isandlwana landscape from the Wikipedia public domain page.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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These broadened world historical treatments help pave the way for other scholarship (for example: so we're not incessantly sitting around wondering what Custer did wrong; but rather what the Lakota and Cheyenne forces did themselves to bring about George's demise). The latest and greatest public historical treatment of Greasy Grass comes by way of Debra Buchholtz's <i>The Battle of the Greasy Grass/Little Bighorn: Custer's Last Stand in Memory, History, and Popular Culture </i>(Routledge, 2012). This work gets a reader to think secondarily about the actual events of June 25, 1876, and primarily about how the public has remembered the events since 1876. It was, after all, a centennial year (from 1776 to 1876), and the general Anglo-American reading public was nonplussed and aghast to think that Custer (or any Anglo-American for that matter) would be capable of losing a battle within the interior of the American nation, and this so close to the centennial anniversary of the nation's declaration of independence.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIKufwgcu_a8eAPbwH3h8mF5dHgivYBEWWH32_cVxL37luyVY7MJIf4suF5x_4U2-KlW2OibQdj8z4dxbqcPXhmpEJ2q5oXsMzF4xBQyGUfUwAhp2CYBm-I7MzfV1iqcifcaoT4hvKtQI/s1600/Greasy+Grass.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIKufwgcu_a8eAPbwH3h8mF5dHgivYBEWWH32_cVxL37luyVY7MJIf4suF5x_4U2-KlW2OibQdj8z4dxbqcPXhmpEJ2q5oXsMzF4xBQyGUfUwAhp2CYBm-I7MzfV1iqcifcaoT4hvKtQI/s320/Greasy+Grass.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Greasy Grass/Little Bighorn from Google Earth imaging.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
So this is where a lot of the contemporary scholarship is at these days: not just looking at the historical event itself, but also looking at what the popular press and academically trained thought about the historical event in and of itself (for example, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cities-Dead-Contesting-1865-1914-America/dp/0807828963/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372169539&sr=1-3&keywords=William+Blair">William Blair</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Race-Reunion-Civil-American-Memory/dp/0674008197/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372169321&sr=1-2&keywords=Civil+War+memory">David Blight</a>, among others, have taken a hard look at Civil War memory and memorialization in this way too). And that's what I've kind of been thinking about on this 137th anniversary of the day the Lakota and Cheyenne (and others) stuck it to George at Greasy Grass in eastern Montana.<br />
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In closing, I leave you with a paragraph quote from the 1986 work of James Belich, <i>The Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict </i>(McGill-Queen's University Press, 1986 and 1989). This is so you don't have to lug around numerous books while you're taking in the various Lakota and Cheyenne holiday celebrations that commemorate the defeat of Custer at the Battle of Greasy Grass — Aaron Barth Consulting does that work for you.<br />
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Okay, to quote Belich, and to consider it in the context of Custer as a trained Victorian operative for Anglo-America:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"Racial ideas are not just images of others, but of one's self and one's own society. Superiority and inferiority, inevitable victory and inevitable defeat, higher faculties or the lack of them; each are two sides to the same coin. To question one is to question the other, and thereby cast doubt on an individual and collective self image. Victorians, like other people, were not eager to ask such questions"</i> (Belich, 1989: 327)</blockquote>
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Aaron Barthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14735702931679363844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229312807222213798.post-85934528757771952892013-06-17T11:26:00.000-07:002013-06-17T11:26:00.451-07:00Historic Scandinavian Log Cabins: Then and Now<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
By Aaron L. Barth<br />
Board Member<br />
Original <a href="http://theedgeofthevillage.com/2013/06/17/historic-scandinavian-log-cabins-then-and-now/">entry linked to here</a>.<br />
<br />
Yesterday I visited a project area in the Sheyenne River Valley in southeastern North Dakota, and on the way back from fieldwork I stopped by some static public historical signage and historical Scandinavian-American log cabins on one of America's Scenic Byway routes. I snapped some photos, downloaded them on the computer last night, and then started in on a bit of research on the archaeological project area: history often informs archaeology, since much happens with the history of an archaeological site before archaeologists have a chance to descend on it.<br />
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While looking through a series of digitized photos, I came across a <a href="http://www.digitalhorizonsonline.org/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/uw-ndshs&CISOPTR=1213&CISOBOX=1&REC=5">historic photo</a> in the Digital Horizons/ND Institute for Regional Studies archive. The photo is titled, "Building at Fort Ransom, N.D.," and it is a log cabin today located some miles north of Fort Ransom, N.D. I compared the historic with the modern this morning. Below are the photos I've looked at: one is a 1950s gable-end elevation, and compare the shapes of the logs and the seams of the logs. You'll notice that they match one another. This is the same building but in different places (academics often say something about the spatial and temporal divide here).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdLsAKIdp3a-ksUwxP7YurCq1-nPSuBrq_vHoSbLv2MoYAZWCPb_zjboG4cEzT4ZHwrrE-LYyb1SEDaYKbsGzamWFqA7A6-R4UiemEoKryfwUjSLey_pZqYE3IM0jPGD9K1lqH_jgP4f0/s1600/getimage.exe.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdLsAKIdp3a-ksUwxP7YurCq1-nPSuBrq_vHoSbLv2MoYAZWCPb_zjboG4cEzT4ZHwrrE-LYyb1SEDaYKbsGzamWFqA7A6-R4UiemEoKryfwUjSLey_pZqYE3IM0jPGD9K1lqH_jgP4f0/s320/getimage.exe.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPMSEUQMf9xvC7BT575XfepZeNzHH7poCN5a0oMFnnU2AUjqxxj6TZe7sd5asgKlJN-4uGeGA5yYVshNeoPoKkQWCmDAmPm8YXuRMkC2ooEvjlHH_se0dPYMxykCfYW1HC7Xzir2_4aMo/s1600/P1010535.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPMSEUQMf9xvC7BT575XfepZeNzHH7poCN5a0oMFnnU2AUjqxxj6TZe7sd5asgKlJN-4uGeGA5yYVshNeoPoKkQWCmDAmPm8YXuRMkC2ooEvjlHH_se0dPYMxykCfYW1HC7Xzir2_4aMo/s320/P1010535.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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As the public historical signage said, this cabin was built in 1879 by Norwegian immigrant Theodore Slattum, and he originally hailed from Christiana, Norway. He immigrated to Fillmore County, Minnesota in 1870, and he and his wife, Jorgine, relocated to the Sheyenne River Valley in 1879, where they built this cabin. They also raised nine children in the cabin (they modified the original cabin from what it looks like here in the photos).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh42XQnfTtB35uNu_CJ_UGrrtjdEJMFWFgLzu_xCXYY97gGisNmRnnAAL2dNR7zM-oIbg3Lf3CcTK9JtGZmIGLQ3GiU7KHUaMmc4eUsiEnRW1iQlIZ165M1IKvitnrrt-YnfECrVWoK74w/s1600/P1010533.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh42XQnfTtB35uNu_CJ_UGrrtjdEJMFWFgLzu_xCXYY97gGisNmRnnAAL2dNR7zM-oIbg3Lf3CcTK9JtGZmIGLQ3GiU7KHUaMmc4eUsiEnRW1iQlIZ165M1IKvitnrrt-YnfECrVWoK74w/s320/P1010533.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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In 1945, this cabin was moved to the Fort Ransom Historic Site, and then moved back to this original location at some point around the turn of the 20th century (this is likely why the description of the cabin's provenience is what it is within Digital Horizons/NDIRS; and this is also an example of how history informs archaeology, and not the other way around).</div>
Aaron Barthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14735702931679363844noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229312807222213798.post-47078482665372157882013-06-17T10:43:00.001-07:002013-06-17T10:47:37.967-07:00Hehaka Wakpa Makoche (Elk River Country)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Hehaka Wakpa Makoche (Elk River Country)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>AKA Theodore Roosevelt National Park</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By Dakota Wind, <a href="http://thefirstscout.blogspot.com/">The First Scout</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/1002790_10151708240336241_45292076_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/1002790_10151708240336241_45292076_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anytime I visit a place with my sons, if the Lakota people have a name and a story about it, I tell them about it as the Lakota know it. The above image was taken at the Painted Canyon Visitor Center. There, I quietly shared the story of General Sully's punitive campaign against the Lakota that started at Killdeer Mountain and led the soldiers to the Badlands, <i>Makoche Sica</i>.</span><br />
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<a href="https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/1017320_10151708240501241_406331895_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/1017320_10151708240501241_406331895_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This was taken about a mile south of Wind Canyon. My youngest son wanted to pick flowers so we walked about and found some. When we came upon some, I told him that we must never pick the first ones we see, that we want the flowers to return, so we can pick the second flower we come across. </span><br />
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<a href="https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/971097_10151708240556241_592076518_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/971097_10151708240556241_592076518_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Any trees of big size grow on the Elk River floodplain. This little shrub was growing between broken sandstones on a hillside. </span><br />
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<a href="https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/992967_10151708240581241_1694715903_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/992967_10151708240581241_1694715903_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There it is. Elk River. Today the river is known by its contemporary name, the Little Missouri River. It was a favored place of the Lakota, Cheyenne, Mandan and Hidatsa to hunt elk.</span><br />
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<a href="https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc3/969658_10151708240656241_1918703778_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc3/969658_10151708240656241_1918703778_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here's a feral herd of horses within the park. The horses descend from horses which were removed from the Lakota in the late 1800s. My youngest son knows that the horses aren't "ours" as in ownership, but he calls them "ours," as in "our friends." </span><br />
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<a href="https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/10561_10151708240701241_1843832432_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/10561_10151708240701241_1843832432_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A gange of bison roam the park too. These bison are pure blooded bison from the gange at Yellowstone National Park. By the turn of 1900 there were only about 300 pure blood bison that could be accounted for there. They were close to extinction, but have made a return.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There were several colts among the horse haras (one of those fancy collective nouns for horses) in the park. Several other visitors had gotten out of their cars and trucks to take pictures, but we didn't. My youngest rolled down his window and called out to them. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It was windy, but them its always windy on the Great Plains. The wind has been here since creation and still blows strong. The wind blew and carried the wonderful scent of sage across the endless rolling miles. Here's a little valley of sage. Last year my youngest son picked sage for my mother here because her house smells like this.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I post other things at <a href="http://thefirstscout.blogspot.com/">The First Scout</a>. Catch me there.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229312807222213798.post-28834792347312399562013-06-11T08:48:00.000-07:002013-06-11T08:50:51.253-07:00The Dakota Prisoner Of War Letters, A Review<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white;">Dakĥota Kaškapi Okicize Wowapi: </span><span style="background-color: white;">The Dakota Prisoner Of War Letters, A Book Review</span></h3>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By Dakota Wind, <a href="http://www.ndhumanities.org/">North Dakota Humanities Council</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">I received my copy of Dr. Clifford Canku’s <i>The Dakota Prisoner Of War Letters: Dakota Kaškapi Okicize Wowapi </i>through the mail and I carefully removed it from the box it came in. I was excited to read it, but not joyous to do so. Its about a real life tragedy, the consequences of which the Dakota and Lakota are still living with today. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">My initial perception of the book, my judgment of the book based on its cover, was that I was getting a book in the vein of Albert White Hat’s <i>Life’s Journey</i>. In the case of White Hat’s book, the transcriber, Mr. John Cunningham, and White Hat took great pains to keep the oration of the book even as a translation into English as how a traditional Lakota would speak English. White Hat’s work retains the “flavor” of the language.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Canku’s book goes a step further. Not only did White Hat and his associates invest several years translating beautifully hand-written letters in Dakota to English, Canku keeps the original Dakota, but he adds a word for word translation, then a free translation into English which contains Dakota connotations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"><i>Dr. Canku carefully reads a letter of a Dakota prisoner.</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">There are two things which reached out to me about this book. The first being that its about the Dakota who became prisoners of war following the Minnesota Dakota Conflict of 1862. The book contains letters, first-person accounts of innocent men and women who were wrongly accused and imprisoned. They weren’t <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region></st1:place> Citizens, so due process didn’t apply to them, so they were guilty and imprisoned until they were determined to be innocent or no longer a threat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Part of the story of the letters involves a missionary to the Dakota people, Rev. Stephen Riggs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Riggs, a missionary among the Dakota in the 1850s, was present when cases involving the Dakota were judged, as fast as the service at a fast food restaurant. In one day, Riggs saw forty Dakota cases judged and sentenced to death in about seven hours. Some of the cases took mere minutes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"><i>The missionary Stephen Riggs.</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Missionaries, including Riggs, visited the Dakota prisoners, and converted a captive audience, while writing their letters of appeal for them, letters to loved ones at different agencies and letters to military commanders pledging to never more resist the American expansion westward.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The second thing which reached out to me was that the book is bi-lingual. There aren’t many resources published in both Dakota and English. As a person whose first language is English, and being a Dakota-Lakota person, having the original Dakota language present for me to read and learn is wonderful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The most intriguing part of this book is the scholar himself. Dr. Clifford Canku. He is an enrolled member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate and a retired Presbyterian minister. Canku is a common man and his stirring introduction includes early efforts from the previous teams he worked with at <st1:city w:st="on">Flandreau</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">SD</st1:state>, the <st1:placename w:st="on">Sisseton</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">Wahpeton</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">College</st1:placetype>, and then <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">North Dakota</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">State</st1:placetype> <st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype></st1:place>. Even though his name is on the cover alongside Michael Simon, Canku is quick to acknowledge the efforts of others.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"><i>Taoyate Duta, His Red Nation, more commonly known as "Little Crow."</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Before being brought on to earliest efforts of this translation project, Canku was visited by the spirit of Taoyate Duta (His Red Nation; aka Little Crow). Throughout the translation process, a spiritual presence was always present. When the project wrapped, Canku received another visitor through a dream. He was at a sundance in this dream and a old man was brought into the east gate where his name was announced four times. The grandfather’s name: <i>Wakaŋboide</i> (Sacred Blazing Fire). The grandfather came to Canku and said, <i>“Hau, wičohaŋ ečanupi kiŋ de wašhté do.”</i> (Yes, the work you are doing is good, it is so.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Canku is deliberate in that the reader, casual or otherwise, clearly understands that the book is about the Dakota prisoners of war. There are plenty of books out there, and more so with the 150<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the Civil War and the Dakota War, but Canku’s and Simon’s book is the only published primary resource from the perspective of the people who fought, the people who defended, and the people who were entirely innocent of the 1862 Minnesota Dakota Conflict.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"><i>Camp Kearny, where the Dakota prisoners of war were taken.</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">An excerpt of one of the letters places the reader in the first person. <i>Wiŋyaŋ</i>, or Woman, writes to her relative <i>Pa Yuĥa, </i>Curly Head, <i>about</i> starving and the heartbreak in the prison camp at <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Davenport</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">Iowa</st1:state></st1:place>:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">…my heart is so very broken, it is so. Last summer, we all know one terrible event has occurred, and always we are very heartbroken, because now again, my heart if broken very much, because this winter we are without, we are all suffering. I hate to live, it is so. And now where will they take us?...now we don’t know where they will take us, and therefore I thought maybe we will never see all of you, and therefore my heart is very sad.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Another letter by Stands On Earth Woman tells her relative His Country that she is recently widowed and with a new baby, at the prison camp. She asks for her relative’s assistance because she literally has nothing and she’s starving.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Get this book if you are interested in the “other” side, the forgotten side of the story. Get this book to support a native elder and scholar, but get this book so that we never forget what happened as a result of this terrible conflict. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Folk Humor Of North Dakota's Germans From Russia</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By Ronald J. Vossler, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1999 Larry Remele Fellow and North Dakota Humanities Scholar</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.25in;">This is an exploration of the oral folk humor of
Germans from Russia, one of North Dakota’s most numerous ethnic groups. The
history of this distinctive group stretches over two hundred years. It begins
in various eighteenth century Germanic provinces; includes a century-long
sojourn on the Russian steppes; and, for those who immigrated to America,
continued on the North Dakota prairie in twenty-three counties called the
“German Russian triangle.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">There are more than a few books about German
Russian culture and traditions, but the group’s folk humor remains relatively
unexamined. In fact, the stereotype exists that this ethnic group known for
their work ethic are generally humorless.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">When I told colleagues at the University of
North Dakota that I was studying German Russian humor, several of them, trying
to be funny, could only reply “That shouldn’t take you long,” or “That will be
a slim volume.”</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Over
a period of six months I gathered examples of German Russian humor. From
written sources, both new and old. From tape recordings. From friends, recent
acquaintances, and family members. Not until, as the old saying goes, “I’d
educated myself </span></span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">right
up to the horns” did I realize some of the extent and variety of German Russian
humor.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">I knew that much had already been lost, not
passed to the next generation, that it was locked away in an obscure dialect
few any longer spoke, or, as I learned, in people’s memories. As I transcribed
and translated the material into English, my own knowledge of German dialect
grew; and, at the same time, many humorous jokes, quips, and sayings that I’d
heard in my childhood surfaced. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">This study, then, seeks to categorize what
remains of the rich variety of this ethnic group’s humor; and, after noting
various theories of ethnic humor and comparing German Russian humor to Jewish
humor, to discuss the place of humor in a modem multicultural democratic
society.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><b><i>A Fancy Definition Of Why My Granny Spoke So Colorfully</i></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">Much of the material I’ve gathered for this
project occurs in the German dialect. Therefore, it might be appropriate at the
onset to point out how the form of the dialect spoken by German Russians –
something called </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">Umgangsprache</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"> – is
intimately connected with humor. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">The word </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">Umgangsprache
s</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">ounds like it could be one of those exotic sounding foods so dear to the
German Russian palate, akin to</span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"> koladetz</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">,
(pickled pig’s feet), or </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">schwatamaga </i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">(headcheese).
But it is really just a term linguists use to describe language in which
neutral terms could be replaced with emotionally charged expressions. (Keller,
pp. 517-523)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">So </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">Umgangsprache
</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">is just a fancy way of saying that after I’d tracked mud onto my
grandmother’s clean linoleum floor, instead of politely asking me to go outside
and wipe my boots, she’d announce, in a combination of cranky humor and
correction, “</span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">Yah, du glana Hossaschissa,
ich sot dich aus dem Haus ins Schneebank schmissa” – </i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">“You little pants
pooper, I should throw you out into the snowbank.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><b><i>Proverbs And One-Liners</i></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">German Russian culture, both on the Russian
steppes and the American prairie, had a wide variety of folk proverbs.
Scholars, notably Shirley Arends in </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">Central
Dakota Germans </i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">(pp. 174-193, and Joseph Height in </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">Homesteaders on the Steppe </i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">(pp. 275-278), have included extensive
lists of these folk proverbs in their books.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">These folk proverbs, which illustrate German
Russian cultural beliefs and attitudes, date back to eighteenth century
Germanic provinces and are, I think, the earliest evidence of German Russian
humor. Their sheer number and variety gives an indication of the depth of
German Russian folk culture. Below are a few of the more vivid proverbs.</span></div>
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</div>
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<br /></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">·
<!--[endif]-->With
violence one can pick fleas from a porcupine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">·
<!--[endif]-->Better
a louse in the cabbage than no meat at all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">·
<!--[endif]-->You
can’t pull hair from a frog.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 40.5pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -22.5pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">·
<!--[endif]-->You
always give the meanest dog two pieces of meat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">These proverbs are not found only in books. On
the prairie, German Russian settlers and their children used them in daily
life, to pass to future generations distilled peasant wisdom, and, also, to
have a little fun.</span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">I’ve heard my mother and grandmother recite
these proverbs on many an occasion. Once, commenting on two rather eccentric
people who were getting married, my grandmother said, “Yah, even a crooked pot
has a cover.”</span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">These proverbs are only one part of German
Russian humor. Joseph Height in </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">Paradise
on the Steppe </i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">notes the rich mother wit of the German Russian colonists in
Russia, and their quickness with repartee, along with the wide variety of
jokes, insults, zingers, wisecracks, put-downs, and puns which were part of
their daily lives. Height also quotes a German Russian saying which
demonstrates this ethnic group’s attitude toward joking and fun: </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">“Wer nit kann Spass Verstehen, soil nit
under die Leute gehen” – </i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">“Whoever can’t take a joke, shouldn’t go among
people.” (p.143)</span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">This past summer (1998), at my hometown
centennial celebration, I overheard a conversation about someone who’d married
for the third time. “Well you know what they say,” one person said with a
hearty laugh. “The first wife is from God. The second wife is from man. The
third wife – that one is from the Devil. </span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">If that wasn’t a folk proverb, it should have
been, for its hard-edged brevity seemed typical of much German Russian short
humor. Some German Russians, it was once said, had a hard nature, but also a
great belief in God. Sometimes both of those elements were reflected in their
humor, which could be used to remind later generations, in memorable terms, how
to behave. In the following one-liner, which out of propriety I’ll leave
untranslated, young women who wore their skirts too short were not so subtly
reminded of their transgressions: </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">“Yah,
sieht mir nuff an der scheiss hoga.”</i></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">Or, if a son returned home from the army or
college with “newfangled” ideas, the father might bellow. </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">“Yah, Hans, du hosch Ideen da dee Hunda dobel frecka.” </i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">– “Hans,
your dumb ideas make the dogs croak.” (Marzolf, pp. 16-17)</span></div>
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Nicknames</i></b></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">Joseph Height in </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">Paradise on the Steppe</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"> has also noted that the German Russian
colonist was much given to taunting and teasing and that he was not afraid to
apply his “riotous vocabulary of nicknames, epithets, and jibes…to lampoon
human foibles and frailties.” (p. 143)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">Current political correctness might cast a
negative view on name-calling and teasing, or even on the often hard-edged
humor of the German Russians in general. But these practices were, for a
variety of historical reasons, a part of this ethnic group’s culture.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">It should be explained that praise and
compliments – because they were thought to tempt fate and lead to the sin of
pride – were generally not used to correct, comment on, or influence behavior.
But teasing, jibes, and jokes were once used. One pastor to a German Russian
congregation once remarked that the German Russians understanding of “words,
stories, sermons, and jokes is markedly at variance with the point of view of
American or the native Western European.” (Joachim, p. 20)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">Here are a few terms that, depending on tone and
circumstance, were used as terms of endearment, for teasing, or applied to
someone caught in some mischief: </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">stink
katz – </i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">“skunk”; </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">ver grupta Apf</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"> –
crippled monkey; </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">arschkarps – </i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">“pumpkin
butt.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">In some German Russian communities permanent
nicknames often were in use. Volga Germans called these </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">Beinamen</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">, based on physical traits or behavior, and used discreetly
when swapping news or gossip.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">In Russia, in both Volga and Black Sea colonies,
there was much intermarriage and little variation in naming children;
therefore, a nickname often provided a sense of individual identity. Volga
Germans still living in Russia, when asked why they used so many nicknames,
replied, “To keep each other straight.” (Kloberdanz, p.121)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">Besides providing identity, nicknames also
enlivened everyday German Russian life with a dash of humor. Some nicknames
were comic; but the recipient of them – branded forever from some momentary
indiscretion, or because of a notable physical characteristic or defect – might
not have thought them so funny.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">Tim and Rosalinda Kloberdanz in their book </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">Thunder on the Steppe</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"> give lists of
nicknames among Volga German villagers, including one short fat person known as
</span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">Sackvolisand</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">, literally “sack full of
sand”; and another elderly Volga German known as </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">Nudel Deppler, </i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">or “Noodle Stepper.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">Some said that “Noodle Stepper” was given this
this name as an old man because he took slow, tiny steps, no bigger than finely
cut noodles. Another version of how he got his nickname, which indicates the
long memory inherent in German Russian village life, was that many years
earlier, as a barefoot toddler, he’d stepped on some egg noodles his mother placed
on a wooden bench to dry. (pp. 136-136)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">Similarly, in my hometown of Wishek, North
Dakota, populated primarily by descendants of German Russians, there were in
mid-century a variety of nicknames. Here are a couple of the more innocuous
nicknames that I remember: </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">Schlang</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">,
or “Snake,” was a high school basketball player with deceptive moves on the
court; </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">Winegar</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"> was a fellow with an
accent who’d jammed his thumb in football practice, and, on the day of the big
homecoming game, showed up brandishing his ailing member, saying that he was in
fine shape because, as the old remedy indicated, he’d given it a good overnight
soak in a cup of “winegar” – thus his nickname; and there was also a distant
relative of mine we called </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">Entchl </i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">because
he’d made the mistake of bragging about how he could back his father’s tractor,
or, as we called it then in dialect, an </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">Entchi,</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">
a hundred yards in a straight line to a hand held hitch.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><b><i>Playing With Language: Nonsense Sayings, Rhymes and Greetings</i></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">When I was a child and hurt my finger, my
grandmother would rub the afflicted area and repeat rhymed jingles in a sing
song voice. These jingles, with their often incongruous humor, helped us forget
the hurt. Here are two that I remember:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">· <i>Heila heila Katz dreck</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Heal, heal cat poop.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Morgen
fruh isch alles wek<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(In the morning
everything will be gone.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">· <b>ABC (ABC)</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Katz liegt
im schnee </i>(Cat
lays in the snow)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>D’r Schnee
geht wek </i>(Snow
goes away)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>D’katz
liegt im Dreck </i>(Cat
lays in the dirt<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Dreck geht
wek </i>(Dirt
goes away)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Katz isch verreckt
</i>(Cat is
dead)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">These chants and rhymes bear some similarities
to or might have their origins in the German Russian </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">Brauche</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">, a centuries-old folk healing tradition, which was still
practiced past mid-century in south central North Dakota. (Arends, p. 193)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">Chants of that nature could also be adapted for
other purposes, like the one heard in 1965 at the McIntosh County basketball
championship. There was a long-standing, heated athletic rivalry between my
hometown of Wishek and neighboring Ashley, both of which German Russian
immigrants settled.</span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">During a close game, as a Wishek player stood at
the free-throw line, the Ashley cheering section bellowed out in unison a
resounding German dialect cheer, which everyone on both sides thought was quite
amusing. Besides attempting to disturb the player’s concentration, the chant
also betrayed, I think, how the younger generation felt about the ethnic foods
with which we were all familiar. Here is the chant, along with a translation:</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">· <i>Blutwurst, liverwurst,
schwatamaga, speck, </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> (Bloodsausage,
liver sausage, headcheese fat,)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <i>Wishek Hochschule, wek,
wek, wek</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i> </i>(Wishek Highschool, go away, go away, go away.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"> In traditional German Russian
life there were a variety of children’s rhymes, tongue-twisters, or nonsense
phrases which were both a source of verbal fun. They could also be used by
adults as a way to fend off curious children’s inquiries. Both Arnds in </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">Central Dakota Germans </i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">(p. 193) and
Height in </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">Homesteaders on the Steppe </i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">(p.
274)include short lists of these, such as the following:</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">· <i>Was isch? – Mehr Wasser
als Fisch.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(What is it? – More
water than fish.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">· <!--[endif]--><i>Hasch Hunger? – Schlupf
in e Gagumer. </i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Hungry? – Crawl in a
cucumber.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">· <i>Wo gehnst du nah? – Ins
loch, Bohne lese.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Where are you going? –
Into a hole, to pick beans.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">In German Russian life, there were also a
variety of phrases which were exchanged when meeting someone; and these short
expressions – seasoned with humor, moral insight, teasing, risqué references,
or just hard truth – were the perfect vehicle of expression for a hardworking
people who did not want to waste time chatting, but who also wanted to have a
little </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">spass</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">, or fun. Below is a
parting one-liner to visitors, who, on their long way home might ponder this
conundrum:</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">· <i>Fahr nit so schnell,
aber macht das Hamm kommsch.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Don’t drive too fast,
but make home come quickly.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">Other playful exchanges – in which the reply to
the initial query </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">Wie gehts?</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"> – may
have several meanings to a German dialect speaker, including a risqué one:</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="ListParagraph" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">· <b>Question: </b><i>Wie gehts? </i>(How are things going? <b>Reply: </b><i>Yah, was nit hangst,
muss stehen. </i>(Whatever doesn’t hang must stand.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"> These exchanges seem to fit intoa category
termed “ritual insults” by Apte, who maintains that this kind of repartee
serves to “reduce tension” and maintain social order. (p 172) One can only
conjecture about the value of these exchanges in a small, closed village of
German colonists in Russia, where social order was important:</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">· Two
people meet after a long time. One of them says, “I haven’t seen you for a long
time.” The other replies, “Yah, what did I put in your way?” (<i>“Yah, was han ich dir in der weg gelegt?”</i>)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">Some “ritual insults” involve replies to “thank
you”; these replies might use either playful nonsense rhyming, or a proverb –
like retort, as below:</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">· <i>Dangashay; Du hash so
langa Zahn.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Thank you; you have
such long teeth.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">· <i>Dangashay; Bezahl die
Schulde dann brauchts nit danke.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Thank you; Pay your
debts then you wouldn’t have to thank anyone.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">In German Russian life there is also a rich
tradition of what Mahadev Apte calls “linguistic humor.” This kind of humor
includes overall misuse of language, on purpose and otherwise, along with puns,
plays on words, and “reinterpretation of familiar words and phrases.” (p.179)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">German Russia jokes often “misinterpret” similar
sounding German dialect words to create double entendres: words with two
meanings, one of which is often risqué. These double meanings can also arise
from the use of the diminutive, an extra </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">la
</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">tacked onto the end of some words. Examples of this kind are too graphic to
examine here. Sometimes alternate meanings are embedded in the dialect phrase
itself, as in the following:</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="ListParagraph" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">· </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A
person might ask you in German dialect if you know someone, to which you might
reply: <i>Yah, Ich wass wer du meinsch, aber
Ich Weiss yah nit wo ich ihn her nema sot. </i>(I know who you mean, but I
don’t know where I should take that person). The <i>wo ich ihn her nema sot </i>can be understood both literally, as in
“where should I take that person”; but by the German dialect speaker, that
phrase has another, sexual meaning.</span></div>
<div class="ListParagraph" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraph" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<b><i><span style="font-size: 14px;">B</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How To Have Fun In Two Languages At The Same Time</span></i></b></div>
<div class="ListParagraph" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraph" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><b><i> </i></b>Some of the short humor of the German Russians
can be quite complex. For example, sometimes members of this ethnic group
combined nonsense ditties, greetings, and bits of two languages, English and
German – all in one or two phrases. Punning of this sort – using similar
sounding words with different meanings from two different languages – is termed
“interlingual.” (Apte, p. 181)</span></div>
<div class="ListParagraph" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">·
<!--[endif]--><i>Was isch los? </i>(What is wrong?)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i> Bread isch
loafs.</i>
(Bread is loafs.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">·
<!--[endif]--><i>Wie gehts?</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> The gates OK, but the
fence is broke.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"> Some “interlingual” humor is quite playful and
sometimes just goofy or nonsense humor. However some statements, behind the
silliness, carry another message. For example, one might infer from the veiled
hint, “the fence is broke,” that things might not be going too good for the
speaker. (Just as in High German usage </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">ziemlich
gut </i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">means that not everything is right in the speaker’s life.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"> Out of expediency, or just by accident, English
and German phrases were sometimes blended, creating odd linguistic construction
which could be a source of amusement, as below:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;"> Everyone knows what "below zero"
means. German has a similar phrase, </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">unter
null</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: 0.25in;">. Once I heard both of them used together by one of my brother's
friends, who said, as he came in from outside, "Yah, it must really be
'under-below' today."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%; text-indent: -0.25in;"> There was a similar linguistic construction - I'm
told this is a true story - which grew out of an </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><div style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;">
<span style="line-height: 115%; text-indent: -0.25in;"> encounter in a grocery store in my hometown. An </span><span style="line-height: 115%; text-indent: -0.25in;">elderly gentleman was relating a bit of local news to a fellow shoppe, who
wanted to know about the origin of the information. Disturbed that his
credibility was being questioned, the elderly fellow telling the story replied
with a huff, "Yah, I saw it standing in the newspaper." - which is a
literal translation from the German phrase, </span><i style="line-height: 115%; text-indent: -0.25in;">es
steht</i><span style="line-height: 115%; text-indent: -0.25in;">, which is used to indicate that it was printed, as in the Bible, or
in a newspaper.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;">
<span style="line-height: 115%; text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;">
<span style="line-height: 115%; text-indent: -0.25in;"><b><i>Narrative Jokes</i></b></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;">
<span style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">
<span style="line-height: 18px; text-indent: 0.25in;"><b><i> </i></b></span><span style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.25in;">Besides the shorter humor outlined above, this
ethnic group also had longer jokes which used a narrative or story-line. In his
</span><i style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.25in;">Memories of the Black Sea Germans</i><span style="line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.25in;">,
Joseph Height has collected and printed a few of the longer variety. (pp.
216-221)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"> Based on occasional references to life on the steppes,
or to Russian locales, Height's jokes obviously date from the time of the
German colonies in Russia. Tame in content, moralistic in tone, these examples
illustrate fairly typical German Russian attitudes, such as the balance needed
between "faith" in God and reliance upon one's own resources.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"> In </span><i style="text-indent: 0.25in;">Paradise
on the Steppe</i><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"> Height mentions the German Russian "lack of Puritan
inhibitions, and their penchant for ribald anecdotes." (p. 143) Despite
that, Height offers no examples; and there are few, if any, collected narrative
jokes, or, for that matter, one-liners or other short humor, either from the steppes
or the prairies, which show that penchant.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"> Some of the longer narrative jokes I've
collected from the oral tradition of the German Russians are ribald; but more
importantly, they contain a gold mine of information about German Russian life,
attitudes, and worldview. These jokes are like an archaeological site, for
imbedded within them are markers of the long, and often difficult, historical
journey of this ethnic group.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"> Some of the people who told these jokes often
insisted that they "actually happened" and that they were based on
real people and incidents. Below I've translated a couple into English; I've
included punch lines in both English and German dialect. One of these jokes
which bears closer scrutiny is "Not Until the Combine is Paid.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">
<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 24px;">
<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> Once
there was a very poor farm family with three boys. The oldest, who was
eighteen, told his father one day, "I'd really like to have a car."
"No," his father said. We just bought a combine. Until that combine
is paid you won't get a car."</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> Several days later the
second boy, who was fourteen, told the father, "I'd really like to have a
bicycle.</span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> "No," his
father said. "Your older brother won't get a car, and you won't get a
bicycle — not until the combine is paid for."</span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> Finally the youngest,
who was five, went up to his father one day and said, "Father, I'd really
like a tricycle."</span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> "No," his
father said. "The other boys won't get anything, and neither will you —
not until that combine is paid."</span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> Oh my, the youngest ran
away, screaming and throwing a tantrum — until he looked up and saw a hen
coming across the yard, with the rooster in pursuit.</span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> When the rooster tried
to get onto the hen, the boy booted the rooster aside and said, "You
Satan, you can walk too, until that</span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<b style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><b style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Punch line translation: </b><i style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Du Sutton,
laufst au bisch der combine bezahit itsch. </i><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">(Schultz)</span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"> Most longer German Russian jokes that I've
collected contain many of the same elements as in "Not</span><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;">Until
the Combine is Paid." The narrative, or story line, is in English, German,
or a combination of the two languages. The punch line is invariably in German
dialect; and the joke includes a number of references to rural prairie life,
along with a few key</span><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;">English words, which are clear indicators that
the</span><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;">joke takes place in America.</span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"> Identifiably German Russian, these long jokes, just
as Height's jokes, focus on issues that grow out</span><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;">of this ethnic group's
experience, moral attitudes, or</span><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;">values. In the case of
the "Not Until the Combine Is</span><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;">Paid" joke, the concern
is with making careful purchases and prudent use of money. But the "Combine"
joke is different from Height's jokes in one</span><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;">major respect: the humor
hinges on a sexual reference in the punch line.</span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"> Most of the longer jokes I've collected and translated
include, in addition to the German dialect punch line, other shorter comedic
elements, like </span><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;">name calling, such as the </span><i style="text-indent: 0.25in;">Du Sutton</i><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;">,
or colorful exclamations like </span><i style="text-indent: 0.25in;">Grossa
Elend</i><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;">. These phrases, when given verbal emphasis by the joke teller, seem
to operate as cues for laughter, at least to German Russian ears.</span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"> Some jokes gathered from the German Russian oral
tradition use other groups, such as Englishmen, Russians, or, as in our next
example, Norwegians, as the butt of the joke. </span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">
<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">
<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> Once
there was a young man who went into the hospital for an operation on his brain.
After they'd removed his brain, they placed it in clear fluid of a glass jar so
it could be examined. When the nurses and doctors gathered around to observe
the brain more closely, the young man escaped. They hunted high and low for
him, but couldn't find him. For three days the hunt went on, but to no avail.
They had his brain, but not him. After three years, they finally found him. He
was in a Norwegian school, teaching. (Schultz)</span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">
<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">
<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> German
Russians didn't only aim their </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">jokes
at other ethnic groups; they also aimed their jokes at German Russians from
other locales or at German Russians of different faiths from themselves. In Russia,
German colonists kept to their own village and faith, whether it was Catholic,
or Protestant. On the American prairie this tradition of marrying within their
own faith continued until well past the middle of the twentieth century. Here
is an example of a short, fairly simple joke, which turns the table on a couple
of prejudiced Protestants. </span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">
<span style="text-indent: 0in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">
<span style="text-indent: 0in;"> Once
there was a Catholic nun who broke her arm. She was walking down the street in
town when she was approached by two bachelors who asked what happened because
her arm was in a cast. </span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"> "Oh," the nun said. "I fell in
the bathtub."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in; text-align: left;">
As they walked on, one
of the bachelors turned to the other and said, "What's a bathtub?"<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">The other said,
"How should I know. I'm </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">not Catholic." (Die andere hat gesagt, Wie </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">soil ich wisse? Ich bin nit Katholische.)</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><b><i>How To Laugh With Lizards</i></b></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-align: left;">
<span style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">
<span style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.25in;"><b><i> </i></b>Jewish humor, which has enriched American life,
has much in common with German Russian humor. They share a root language, for
Yiddish is a German dialect spelled with Hebrew letters. In addition to these
similarities, both ethnic groups have jokes which contain more harshness than
merriment. That kind of humor, which in Jewish tradition is called
"laughing with lizards," is illustrated by the following:</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.25in;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->· Mrs.
Bloomberg was complaining to her neighbor about the rats
in her house: "I tried rat poison, but it doesn't work."<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"> "Have you tried giving them rat
biscuits?"</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">asked
her neighbor.</span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast">
<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"> </span>"If they don't like
what we have in our</span><span style="line-height: normal; text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="line-height: normal; text-indent: -0.25in;">kitchen," Mrs. Bloomberg said. "Let
them</span><span style="line-height: normal; text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="line-height: normal; text-indent: -0.25in;">starve."</span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-indent: -24px;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"> As we can see from the next joke, which comes</span><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;">from
McIntosh County, North Dakota, that type of </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">bitter
humor is also familiar to German Russians:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->· In
the first years on the prairie, there was an<span style="position: relative; top: 2pt;"> </span>unmarried man named Jacob who went to<span style="position: relative; top: 2pt;"> </span>his neighbor and said,
"I've just taken up a claim of land, which has many stones on it. So now I
need a wife to help me pick those rocks."<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">The neighbor said that
he knew just the </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">woman for Jacob and directed him to a </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">nearby farm.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">"Eva
is tough and strong. She'll get those stones picked for you."</span></div>
<br />
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; text-align: left;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Several months passed,
and the neighbor </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">finally meets up with this Jacob again. He </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">asks Jacob how it went with Eva. Jacob </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">replies, "During my
first visit to Eva's house, I thought that she could bake really good raisin
bread. But when I started to eat it, I found out those weren't raisins but flies.
But I married her anyway, and, great misery, I never would have believed that
those rocks could get picked so fast."</span></div>
<br />
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; text-align: left;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; text-align: left;">
"I told you Eva was
just the person to help you," the neighbor said. "But I still don't
know how you managed to get those rocks picked so fast."</div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;">"Well, I'll tell
you," Jacob said. "She was in the box, and ran the whip. I was out in
the fields picking stones. Better a heart attack than a crack from Eva's
whip."</span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 0in; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 0in; text-indent: 0.25in;">
<b>Punch line in German
dialect:</b>
<i>Sie war im box mit grossa Beltsch, und
ich war daraus und hap stan gelast. Lieve ein Herz schlak wie ein Eva schlak.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 0in; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">
(Ketterling)</div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 0in; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 0in; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;">That theme of adjustment
to American life and the accompanying economic struggle was common in Jewish
jokes of the previous era. Groucho Marx </span></div>
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.25in;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;">used to tell the following joke: 'When I first came to this county I didn't
have a nickel in my pocket," Marx said. "Now I have a nickel in my
pocket."</span></div>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="ListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">
Some scholars have indicated that the kinds of oral
humor which survive in a society are those relevant to, or which reflect an important
issue of, the existing cultural situation. (Apte, p. 264; Kersten p. 39). In
modem Jewish humor, as the fortunes of that group have improved, jokes about
the struggle to gain an economic foothold have disappeared. But with the German
Russians, jokes of that kind still circulate. For example, on the "Ger Rus
list serv," a German Russian web site, we still can find jokes like the
following:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 27pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">
•
A woman of German Russian descent, whose husband had just died, went to the small
town newspaper office to make sure that the obituary of her recently deceased
husband was printed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">
"50 cents a word," the obituary editor
said. "Let it read: Konrad Scherer died," the widow replied.
"But there is a seven word minimum for all obituaries," the editor
said. "Well then," the widow replied, without missing a beat.
"Let it read: Konrad Scherer died. 1984 pickup for sale."<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">
Another theme which Jewish humor introduced was
that of the "loser" or "the fool," a character which
runs counter to the more heroic American folk type. This
"fool" was the extreme version of the "little man," or
common man, whose strength is sometimes in his weakness, like the Jew who finds himself
on a battlefield, and cries out, "Stop shooting. Someone might, God
forbid, lose an eye." (Wisse, p. 23)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">
There are a lot of "fool," or noodle jokes
in German Russian humor too. Some of these most likely<span style="position: relative; top: 2pt;"> </span>derive from immigrant
themes, the stranger in a<span style="position: relative; top: 2pt;"> </span>strange
land experience. Here is a "fool" joke set in<span style="position: relative; top: 2pt;"> </span>rural south-central
North Dakota during the automobile era, but it reflects prairie isolation and
the<span style="position: relative; top: 2pt;"> </span>continuing
adjustment from traditional ways to the<span style="position: relative; top: 2pt;"> </span>ways of the wider world:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="ListParagraph" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->·
<!--[endif]-->There
was a hardworking farmer who lived<span style="position: relative; top: 2pt;"> </span>near the small town of Streeter in south central
North Dakota. Only rarely did he<span style="position: relative; top: 1pt;"> </span>venture from his farm and then just to deliver
his crops to the town elevator or to get supplies. But one day he decided to
venture out and visit his cousin, who lived a ways to the south, in the small
town of Ellendale.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">
With his wife beside him, he drove his car onto
the first highway near his home. The sign said "Highway 32," so that
was how fast he drove. It was a slow journey, but eventually they came to
another blacktop road, and this time the sign said "Highway 46," so
he drove a little faster. Finally, when they came to another road, which was marked
"Highway 281," the farmer turned to his wife and said, sternly,
"Hold onto yourself. Now we're going to drive fast."</div>
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<b style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></b></div>
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<b style="text-indent: 0.25in;">Translation of punch
line:</b><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"> </span><i style="text-indent: 0.25in;">Hep dich </i><i style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.25in;"></i></div>
<div style="display: inline !important; text-align: left;">
<i style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.25in;"><i style="text-indent: 0.25in;">Welb, jetzt fahren wir wiedich schnell.</i></i></div>
<br />
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<i style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.25in;"></i></div>
<div style="display: inline !important; text-align: left;">
<i style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.25in;"><i style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></i></i></div>
<br />
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<span style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.25in;"></span></div>
<div style="display: inline !important; text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><b><i>Some Stories On Ethnic Humor And The Role of Ethnic Humor In Our Democratic Society</i></b></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.25in;"></span></div>
<div style="display: inline !important; text-align: left;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span></div>
<br />
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">When they first arrived in this country, some
German Russians were called "dumb Rooshlans," a term even later
generations resented. This lack of understanding and prejudice escalated during
the WWI era, particularly in less isolated areas than North Dakota's German
Russian triangle. In Texas, South Dakota, and Nebraska, where the easily identifiable
immigrants were viewed as unpatriotic, many legal restrictions were leveled
against the use of the German language. There were also many threats, some of
which were carried out. (Luebke, pp. 31-47)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">That
era clearly outlined differences between German Russian immigrants and their
neighbors. It was clear that there were differences in power, authority, and
status. One theory maintains that ethnic humor develops as a means of a
minority group to fight back against a dominant group.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">According
to Pratt, a minority group, such as German Russians, might use
"autoethnographic texts," and such skills such as storytelling,
parody, and bilingualism, to respond to those differences in power, authority,
and status. (p. 183-194)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">Here
is a joke my mother sometimes told me, which seems to illustrate Pratt's
theory:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="ListParagraph" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: .25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">·<span style="font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">In the early years on the prairie, there was an
elderly German from Russia</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">grandmother
on an infrequent trip from her</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">homestead
to town to get supplies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">In a dry goods store,
this <i>alta grossmutter</i>, browses
around. The storekeeper finally asks her in English: "How may I help
you?"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">Nodding and pointing to
an atomizer of</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">perfume on the counter, our old granny</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">asks,
venturing into English as best she</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">knows, if he could
please "<i>shiet</i> a little into</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">my
hand." Of course the storekeeper, who</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">didn't speak German, can
only stare back,</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">horrified and embarrassed at what he thinks</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">the
harmless old granny wants.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">This joke is "bilingual": the text or
narration completely in English, except for the one word in</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">German
dialect, "shiet," which the storekeeper misunderstands. If we examine
this joke in light of</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">Pratt's theory, we notice that the humor fights</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">against
the stereotype that the German Russians were ignorant.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">The storekeeper, who does not speak German dialect,
in Pratt's view at least, would represent the</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">main street businessmen,
most of whom at the time</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">the joke is set ("in the early years on the
prairie") were non-German Russian. That was generally the situation, as we
can see from the last names of main street business owners, as listed in <i>Spirit of Wishek: Wishek Golden Jubilee Book
1898--1948.</i> (pp. 3-5).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">And our harmless granny, viewed the same way,
represents the German Russian farmers who'd settled in such heavy numbers
around the town.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">Following Pratt's theory, we can also surmise
that there might have been some friction, or even prejudice, between some
storekeepers and their German Russian clients; or, at least, some struggle to
understand each other. No doubt a few German Russian shoppers felt ignorant, or
backward, not knowing much English; and the storekeepers and businessmen might
even have viewed them the same way and treated them accordingly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">But the ignorant person in this joke is not, of
course, the German Russian grandmother, but the clerk who doesn't know that <i>"shiet"</i> is German dialect for
spray or pour. (High German verb, <i>schutten</i>),
and so Pratt would see this as evidence that the German Russians were fighting
back against how the "majority" viewed them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">There are, besides Pratt's theory, a variety of
other theories which examine the role and purpose of ethnic humor. Some
scholars, such as Apte, state the obvious, that humor in general, including
ethnic humor, "serves the purpose of pleasure and entertainment."
Apte also maintains that ethnic humor, even If it uses another ethnic group as
the butt of the humor — such as our earlier "brain" joke, which pokes
fun at Norwegians — does not necessarily make the listeners, or the tellers of
such jokes; hos-tile or aggressive. (p. 145)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">Jansen, however, takes a more complicated view
of ethnic humor. First, along with many other scholars, he would agree that
jokes which disparage another group, like our "brain" joke, act as a
unifying force in group identity. But he also says that such
"exoteric" jokes have their origin in "fear, mystification
about, or resentment of the group to which one does not belong." (p. 46);
and that the result of such jokes are that they "mold" negative
attitudes towards those — i.e. the Norwegians — towards whom the humor is
directed. (p. 44)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">Most interesting, however, Jansen would see much
of German Russian humor — the "exoteric jokes"; the numerous folk
proverbs; and even the "ritual" greetings familiar to only those of
German Russian background — as evidence of this ethnic group's isolation,
either geographic or cultural, or both. (p. 49)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">Some scholars, like Lowe, point out that ethnic jokes
actually work to "mediate conflicts between groups" by bringing
differences, and stereotypes out into the open. (pp. 441--442) Similarly,
Kersten</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; position: relative; top: 1.5pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">maintains
ethnic humor's value lies in its ability to</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">cast a critical eye onto
the dominant culture. (p. 16)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">Leveen indicates that ethnic group members</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">are
more sensitive to issues of identity; and that ethnic humor is important
because it marks and clarifies boundaries; reinforces a sense of collective
identity; helps to "define ethnicity positively"; and</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">though
some ethnic jokes may be understood to confirm stereotypes, those same jokes
also show that the teller of the joke intends to overcome those stereotypes.
(pp. 29, 42, 60).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">Further study of German Russian humor, and
ethnic humor in general, is important because, as citizens of a multicultural
democracy, we are all concerned with finding the best way to live together, to become
full members of American society. Do jokes about other groups, or jokes that
only some people understand, help or hinder our living together, our getting
along?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">In our current era, with so many different
ethnic groups and nationalities becoming citizens of our country, German
Russians serve as a good example of a group which has already gone through a
lengthy process of assimilation into the American mainstream.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">Much can be learned from the experience of this
ethnic group, who despite differences with mainstream attitudes and ideas,
eventually merged with and enriched the American character. My view is that
humor, which is essentially democratic, creates community; and one way that the
German Russians adapted was by means of their humor —which allowed them to
endure difficult lives; to get along with other groups; and also to keep part
of their culture and birthright, as they made the long journey from their old
peasant life into the modernity of America.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">So, I would like to leave you with this old
German Russian saying for when people depart from each other:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Nichts fur Ungluck, aber sau kievel fur streu hut —<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.25in;">
<b><span style="font-size: 12pt;">"I
wish you nothing but good luck, but please, as you go, wear this metal slop
pail for a straw hat, just in case."<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
</div>
</div>
</span><br />
<br />
NDHumanitieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587988436325558541noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229312807222213798.post-32231312683967452012013-02-22T09:11:00.001-08:002013-02-22T13:34:11.514-08:00An Experience Of Traditional Lakota Storytelling<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
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<i>By Dakota, North Dakota Humanities Council</i></div>
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Fort Yates, ND - The Lakota people call the month of February <i>Čhaŋnápĥopa Wi</i> (The Moon of Popping Trees) or <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on"><i>Thiyŏĥeyunka</i></st1:city><i> <st1:state w:st="on">Wi</st1:state></i></st1:place> (The Moon of Frost in The Lodge). These are names to articulate the coldest months of <i>Waniyetu</i> (Winter) when <i>Makĥoče</i> (Grandmother Earth) was at rest.<br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The needle dropped below zero and the only news the wind carried was that more cold was on the way. Over a hundred people gathered together over the course of two evenings at <st1:placename w:st="on">Sitting</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">Bull</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">College</st1:placetype> in <st1:city w:st="on">Fort Yates</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">ND</st1:state> in the heart of winter, to hear a Lakota visitor, an elder from <st1:state w:st="on">South Dakota,</st1:state> share the Lakota Creation Story and Lakota Star Knowledge.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The room was filled with the murmur of raucous laughter, playful teasing and the cries of hungry babies when an assuming man entered the room and quietly prepared at a table near the front of the room. His name, Rick Two Dogs.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Two Dogs, an Oglala Lakota from the Pine Ridge Sioux Indian Reservation, began the first evening with a little exposition that the stories he was going to share were told in the lodges around the campfire long ago. These were the kind of stories that were shared by the <i>Lala </i>and <i>Uŋči</i> (Grandfathers and Grandmothers) and one can feel the weight of centuries and tradition echo in Two Dogs’ tranquil voice when he began the evening with a prayer of <i>Whŏpila, </i>Thanksgiving.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The attention and quiet in the room which followed was like the crack of a whip, sudden and sharp, and even the youngest of children quickly stood in quiet respect when prayer was invoked.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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When the prayer concluded, a traditional horseman named Jon reiterated to the mass what many already know, that elders eat first, then visitors before the rest. Young women dashed off to the front of the line to prepare bowls of <i>bapa </i>soup, a traditional soup made with corn and jerked meat, <i>wŏžapi</i>, a type of pudding traditionally made with chokecherries but for these two evenings is made with blueberries, fresh fried bread and steaming black coffee for the elders. Everyone else formed a line and the jocular murmur of laughter and teasing among friends returned.<o:p></o:p></div>
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When hunger was satiated and thirst was slaked, Jon introduced Two Dogs in Lakota and English. Two Dogs isn’t just unassuming, he’s self-deprecating, and is quick to attribute or credit others for the stories he shared, his <i>Lala</i> especially, who witnessed the Battle of Little Bighorn when he was ten years old.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Two Dogs recalled his <i>Lala</i> fondly. He took his meals seated on the floor, speared his food with his knife and refused the aid of a fork. He would look askance at anyone who offered him a napkin, and wiped his hands on his braids. During the long winter nights, his <i>Lala</i> put a few sprigs of cedar on the wood-burning stove, the kerosene lamps were doused, and firelight lit the home.<o:p></o:p></div>
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When Two Dogs opened the floor to field questions, one man asked, “Why are these stories told only in the winter?” Two Dogs replied that he once asked the Lakota scholar Albert White Hat the same thing and was told that if the stories were told out of season, one would get a hairy butt crack, but quickly reminded the crowd too, that the stories were shared when the world was at rest.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The following night, Two Dogs and his wife asked everyone to imagine the room as though it were one great lodge with one entrance. They divided the room between the sexes with men on the left half of the lodge and the women on the right. Between the men and women they explained was a path, a path of wisdom. The men sat in descending order from eldest to youngest going left from the path, just as the women sat in descending age from eldest to youngest, only they sat in order right from the path. It was an exercise in tradition and order.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Two Dogs’ stories are the traditional stories of the people, and should best be listened to in person, on a cold winter night, after supper, in the natural dark.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>Haŋhépi čhaŋečela héčhuŋpi</i> (This was done only at night).<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>Waniyetu čhaŋečela héčhuŋpi</i> (This was done only in the winter).</div>
</div>
</div>
NDHumanitieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587988436325558541noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229312807222213798.post-79499266923103541522013-02-21T07:49:00.000-08:002013-02-21T07:49:06.872-08:00Punk Archaeology, An Un-Conference Experience<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://theedgeofthevillage.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/punk-archaeology-1.jpg?w=300&h=225" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://theedgeofthevillage.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/punk-archaeology-1.jpg?w=300&h=225" /></a></div>
<div style="background-color: #f3f4ee; color: grey; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Baskerville, serif; line-height: 18.1875px; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #f8faf7; color: #666666; line-height: 17px;"><i>A photo of the evening crowd at the NDHC Punk Archaeology un-conference in downtown Fargo, North Dakota.</i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: #f3f4ee; color: grey; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Baskerville, serif; line-height: 18.1875px;">
By Aaron L. Barth, <a href="http://theedgeofthevillage.com/">The Edge Of The Village</a></div>
<div style="background-color: #f3f4ee; color: grey; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Baskerville, serif; line-height: 18.1875px;">
Fargo, N.D. - On the evening of February 2nd, 2013, at Sidestreet Grille and Pub in downtown Fargo, North Dakota, the first global Punk Archaeology un-conference unfolded with song, bullhorn, academic rants and discussion, and more bullhorn and song. The event was simple enough: get a group of scholars together in a tavern, get an audio-video system and a pitcher or two of beer, and have these scholars openly talk about and consider why and how “punk” might be part and parcel to the disciplines of archaeology, history, and art history.</div>
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Scholars from North Dakota State University, the University of North Dakota, Concordia College, and Franklin and Marshall College (Pennsylvania) contributed to the discussion. Considering that a winter storm pummeled central and eastern North Dakota that night — that evening, the North Dakota Department of Transportation shut down I-94 between Bismarck and Dickinson — an approximate audience of 300-to-400 visitors to the 5-hour Punk Archaeology un-conference was considered more than a success. One noticeable difference of conferences compared to un-conferences, at least noted by University of North Dakota’s Bill Caraher, was that at punk archaeology un-conferences, scholars are introduced with a bullhorn, and then they are required to give their talks through the same PA that the punk bands play through.</div>
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<a href="http://theedgeofthevillage.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/punk-archaeology-2.jpg" style="color: #5f5f5f; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Dr. Kostis Kourelis, punk archaeologist and art historian with Franklin and Marshall College (Pennsylvania), gives his thoughts on punk archaeology through a PA after being introduced with a bullhorn." class="size-medium wp-image-835" height="300" src="http://theedgeofthevillage.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/punk-archaeology-2.jpg?w=211&h=300" style="border: 0px none; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px;" width="211" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: #f8faf7; color: grey; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Baskerville, serif; line-height: 17px;"><i>Dr. Kostis Kourelis, punk archaeologist and art historian with Franklin and Marshall College (Pennsylvania), gives his thoughts on punk archaeology through a PA after being introduced with a bullhorn.</i></span></div>
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In the weeks that led up to this event, a variety of Red River Valley media outlets contacted me, as they were understandably interested in what was meant by the phrase Punk Archaeology, and also what an “un-conference” entailed. Without me rehashing everything that was said, here are the hyperlinks to the media punk archaeology frenzy. Bob Harris of KFGO 790AM in Fargo-Moorhead interviewed me on the evening of January 21, 2013. The first segment of that interview <a href="http://www.kfgo.com/on-air-details.php?pageNum_rsAir=1&totalRows_rsAir=15&pageNum_rsPodcastBobHarris=1&totalRows_rsPodcastBobHarris=122&ID=1914" style="color: #5f5f5f;">is linked to here</a>, and the second installment is<a href="http://www.kfgo.com/on-air-details.php?pageNum_rsAir=1&totalRows_rsAir=15&pageNum_rsPodcastBobHarris=1&totalRows_rsPodcastBobHarris=122&ID=1913" style="color: #5f5f5f;">linked to here</a>. On January 23, Kris Kerzman put together a Punk Archaeology write-up for the <a href="http://theartspartnership.net/artspulse/punk-archeology-yes-its-a-thing/" style="color: #5f5f5f;">The Arts Partnership blog here</a>, Kayleigh Johnson ran a Punk Archaeology story in <a href="http://hpr1.com/music/article/long_live_red_river_valley_punk/" style="color: #5f5f5f;"><em>The High Plains Reader </em>on January 31, 2013 linked to here</a>, and <em><a href="http://www.ndfreepress.com/2013/02/01/diggin-up-the-punk/" style="color: #5f5f5f;">The North Dakota Free Press</a></em><a href="http://www.ndfreepress.com/2013/02/01/diggin-up-the-punk/" style="color: #5f5f5f;"> covered it on February 1, 2013 here</a>. <em>The Fargo Forum </em>covered the story in two different instances, once in <a href="https://secure.forumcomm.com/?publisher_ID=1&article_id=387412&CFID=630196500&CFTOKEN=23078658" style="color: #5f5f5f;">a January 23, 2013 blurb here</a>, and <a href="https://secure.forumcomm.com/?publisher_ID=1&article_id=388158&CFID=630196500&CFTOKEN=23078658" style="color: #5f5f5f;">John Lamb’s January 29, 2013 write-up of it here</a>. <a href="http://www.1019talkfm.com/weekend-schedule.php" style="color: #5f5f5f;">Steve Poitras</a> asked me to chat about this event during his February 2nd, Saturday morning Fargo-Moorhead radio show on 101.9 FM from 7:30-to-8:15AM. So I did that too. This was what the official press covered, and it went over well.</div>
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Several additional sponsors of Punk Archaeology included <a href="http://laughingsunbrewing.com/" style="color: #5f5f5f;">Laughing Sun Brewing (Bismarck)</a>, Tom Isern’s <a href="http://heritagerenewal.org/" style="color: #5f5f5f;">Center for Heritage Renewal (NDSU)</a>, the Cyprus Research Fund (UND), and the Working Group in Digital and New Media at the University of North Dakota. In all, it was an event that brought together North Dakota State University, the University of North Dakota, and the <a href="http://www.ndhumanities.org/">North Dakota Humanities Council</a>, among others.</div>
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In closing, <a href="http://mediterraneanworld.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/punk-archaeology-recap-and-reflections/" style="color: #5f5f5f;">here his Bill Caraher’s blog-spot recap of Punk Archaeology linked to here</a>. It happened. And it was awesome. And there is light banter about doing it again.</div>
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<i>Aaron L. Barth is a member of the ND Humanities Council Board, an archaeologist and a North Dakota historian. Visit his work online at: <a href="http://theedgeofthevillage.com/">The Edge Of The Village</a>.</i></div>
NDHumanitieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587988436325558541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229312807222213798.post-59332453655661031122013-01-30T13:47:00.002-08:002013-02-05T08:25:28.726-08:00Racing To Save A Language<br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-weight: normal;"><i>The vesper landscape on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation. Barren Butte stands alone from the Barren Hill range. Photo by Dakota for <a href="http://thefirstscout.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">The First Scout</a>.</i></span></span><br />
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Lakota Language Nest, An <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Immersion</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">School</st1:placetype></st1:place></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Reviving A Language On The Knife’s Edge Of Extinction</i></span><br />
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<i>By Dakota for the North Dakota Humanities Council</i></div>
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It is the heart of winter on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian
Reservation. Gleaming white snow blankets the landscape, the <st1:place w:st="on">Missouri
River</st1:place> has turned to ice and the crisp cold air somehow makes every
sound sharper–the peal of a bell seems to carry an impossible distance from
town–but the sounds of children playing, laughing and singing warms everything.
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The children are in pre-school, ages three to four. Their
high-pitched play echoes down the hall when their door opens. The pitch of
little voices sounds like what one would hear in any other early child care
service across the state, but listen closer and it becomes obvious that this
isn’t like any other day care service. The children speak a mix of English and
Lakota amongst themselves, but the teachers strictly speak only Lakota in the
classroom. </div>
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This preschool is called <i>Lakȟól’iyapi
Wahóȟpi</i>, the Lakota Language Nest. It is an immersion school still in its
first year of practice and based on the language nest model which was designed
by the Maori people in New Zeeland. The language nest was established to raise
language loss awareness on the reservation and to raise up a new generation of first-language
Lakota speakers. </div>
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The language nest is one part of the Lakota Language
Education Action Program (LLEAP) designed for students to go to college and
pursue language studies. Students who are in the program are given financial
aid to learn Lakota and gain proficiency in the language with the caveat that
LLEAP participants must teach the language. Many of the nest’s learners have
parents participating in LLEAP at <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Sitting</st1:placename>
<st1:placename w:st="on">Bull</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">College</st1:placetype></st1:place>.
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<i>Lakota language teacher, Tipiziwin Young engages a little boy, answering him only in Lakota.</i></div>
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Tipiziwin Young, a second-language teacher in the <i>Lakȟól’iyapi Wahóȟpi</i> program, estimates
that there are about 200 fluent Lakota speakers left on the Standing Rock Sioux
Indian Reservation. “A few years back, I was facetious with Jan Ullrich about
who I am and where I’m from when he said to me, ‘You’re language will die.’ He
didn’t say it to be mean. He said it to be real. I was moved to silence. I was
provoked. The loss of my language motivated me to learn it.” Young is an
enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, born and raised on the
reservation, and a mother to three children. “I teach here, then go home and
stay in Lakota for my children to learn.”</div>
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A little boy with a mop of brown hair approaches me. In a
quiet unassuming voice he introduces himself to me. Thinking to obey the rule
of the classroom, I go down on one knee and respond, “Hau. Dakota émaĥčiyapi
lo.” I gesture to him, an open palm when I greet him, then gesture to my heart.
I place my right fist above my left fist over my heart, then gesture with my
right hand–index finger–to my mouth when I say my name. I’ve seen few others
use the Plains Indian sign and gesture language and the signs I made were for
“my” or “mine” and for “name.” I don’t know that his little one has seen the
old sign and gesture but he nods his head and smiles.</div>
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<o:p><i>Sacheen Whitetail-Cross prepares a hands-on activity involving colors and rice for the Nest. </i></o:p></div>
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Sacheen Whitetail-Cross, Project Director of LLEAP and the <i>Lakȟól’iyapi Wahóȟpi</i> at <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Sitting</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">Bull</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">College</st1:placetype></st1:place>,
is preparing an activity with rice for the children. For Whitetail-Cross the
greatest challenge with the language nest has been to “stay” in Lakota, “I
spent a week in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Washington</st1:city> <st1:state w:st="on">DC</st1:state></st1:place>, speaking nothing but English. When I
came back to the classroom, during an activity, I asked a couple of the
children, ‘What are you doing?’ in English. They were as shocked as I was.” </div>
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One observation that Whitetail-Cross shared about the
children of the language nest is that they are showing ownership of Lakota. At
a recent program, they heard a Lakota speaker, and many of them told
Whitetail-Cross, “That’s my language.” </div>
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<o:p><i>Tom Red Bird speaks only Lakota with a little boy as they work on a puzzle together.</i></o:p></div>
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Tom Red Bird, the first-language teacher on staff at the <i>Lakȟól’iyapi Wahóȟpi</i>, approaches a group
of little boys near the window. One mischievous boy stands on a heater behind
the short bookcase which was put next to the window. “Héčé šni! [Don’t do
that!]” Red Bird says and gestures to the boy to get down. The boy casually
climbs down as though he were going to get down anyway and rejoins the other
boys. </div>
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Perhaps an indication of how comfortable the children are is
use of Lakota is in their own little conversations. Two of the children, a boy
and a girl are playing with Legos. They began to argue over a few choice bricks
in their construction. The boy wants a brick that the girl is already using. As
he reaches for it he says in English, “That’s mine!” She retorts in Lakota, “Šni!
Šni! Héčé šni! No, don’t do that!” and keeps her brick. </div>
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<o:p> <i>Two children sort out who gets to play with what in a discussion which involved a mix of English and Lakota. </i></o:p></div>
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A father steps into the classroom. Chase Iron Eyes is his
name. His daughter Azilya is among the nest participants. “I heard of this
program through community members,” says Iron Eyes, “My wife and I were
immediately drawn to it. We wanted her to have this opportunity.” Iron Eyes
commutes each week day from <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Mandan</st1:city>,
<st1:state w:st="on">ND</st1:state></st1:place>. “She’s not a morning baby.
She fights every morning.” He believes the effort is worth the struggle. </div>
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Iron Eyes relates to me that Azilya experienced culture
shock for the first two weeks then she started to like it and began to speak
Lakota at home. Azilya’s older siblings have begun asking their sister and father
how to say things in Lakota, and she corrects her father’s Lakota grammar.</div>
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<i>Chase Iron Eyes, Esq., founding contributing writer of <a href="http://lastrealindians.com/" target="_blank">The Last Real Indians</a> has his mind going a hundred different directions, but his actions always serve the interests of the American Indian people. Profile photo of Chase Iron Eyes from <a href="http://lastrealindians.com/" target="_blank">The Last Real Indians</a>.</i></div>
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Iron Eyes doesn’t believe that language revitalization today
equals a renaissance. “Its something that’s been building up now since the
1960s and ‘70s,” he points out, “native activists were and are proponents of
language practice. It’s not a renaissance because you live it.” Iron Eyes is
active with the community and engaged as a parent in the <i>Lakȟól’iyapi Wahóȟpi</i> program. </div>
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The children in the <i>Lakȟól’iyapi
Wahóȟpi</i> are getting to be good speakers. “Their American accent is going
away,” says Red Bird. They hold hands and pray before lunch. Little hands
clasped in little hands. When the prayer of thanksgiving, the <i>Wota Wačéki,</i> is finished the children
say together in unison, “<i>Mitakuyé Oyasiŋ,</i>”
the traditional way the Lakota conclude prayers meaning “All My Relatives.” During
lunch one of the little boys stops eating and spontaneously breaks into song,
singing in the Lakota language. </div>
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<o:p><i>Tom Red Bird takes a moment to finish a project while the children are engaged in an activity.</i></o:p></div>
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After the parents have picked up their children, Red Bird deeply
breathes what sounds like a sigh of satisfaction. The only relief he shares is
that the language is spoken again daily. “I like it,” Red Bird says in English,
“I get to speak my language all day. It feels good.” Red Bird is originally
from the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Reservation, and had taught Lakota at <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">United</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">Tribes</st1:placename>
<st1:placename w:st="on">Technical</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">College</st1:placetype></st1:place>
for several years. “Our Lakota people get lonesome to be home or go home, and
language is part of that. That’s where our heart is. I go home to get reenergized.”</div>
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Red Bird has hopes for the children, the <i>tĥakŏža</i>, as he refers to them. “If this
keeps going, maybe in ten years we’ll have a new group of Lakota speakers who
speak the language correctly.” Red Bird is a great-grandfather and he speaks
only Lakota to his great-grandson. His optimism for what can only be called a
language revival pours out of him, “We have a culture and tradition, our
spirituality, a land base, and our relationship with all of those is best
expressed with words found only in our language. It is a sacred language.”</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfNiLJgUlXFEaK9Hw83frddfgikLxB3lunpGvhBfQsVxpB0MWAzYn5JqxJg8DsWlZky-D6yJWAr9rWKy9YuvO_XDLviOPqBhtBIu-gIBFCLL0v6GPcCeNlrPtCwS1xwunMJxLWELr0FFQ9/s1600/DSC_0210.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfNiLJgUlXFEaK9Hw83frddfgikLxB3lunpGvhBfQsVxpB0MWAzYn5JqxJg8DsWlZky-D6yJWAr9rWKy9YuvO_XDLviOPqBhtBIu-gIBFCLL0v6GPcCeNlrPtCwS1xwunMJxLWELr0FFQ9/s320/DSC_0210.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<o:p><i>Sacheen Whitetail-Cross loves her job, but not nearly as she has come to love the children she teaches at the Nest. She hugs a learner and offers words of encouragement to him. </i></o:p></div>
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Whitetail-Cross’ hopes for language revival echoes Red Bird’s,
but her optimism is laced with concerns for the program, “Funding is an issue.”
The <i>Lakȟól’iyapi Wahóȟpi</i> program
received funding from an Administration of Native Americans grant for three
years. The first year of programming consisted of developing preschool
curriculum, training for language educators, and classroom startup. The <i>Lakȟól’iyapi Wahóȟpi</i> is in its second
year of funding, its first year of operation. </div>
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The North Dakota Humanities Council recently awarded a
$10,000 grant to the <i>Lakȟól’iyapi Wahóȟpi
</i>program to assist the program with publication of language materials, but
its not enough. Both Whitetail-Cross and Red Bird have expressed the dire need
for age-appropriate language materials. There isn’t much published.</div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://birchbarkbooks.com/Images/ProductImages/greet-the-dawn-pop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="247" src="http://birchbarkbooks.com/Images/ProductImages/greet-the-dawn-pop.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<o:p> <i>Artist and author S.D. Nelson is also an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Whitetail-Cross is working with Nelson and the State Historical Society of South Dakota to acquire permissions to print Nelson's works in the Lakota language. Buy your copy from the </i></o:p></div>
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<o:p><i><a href="http://www.sdshspress.com/" target="_blank">South Dakota State Historical Society Press</a>.</i></o:p></div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
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Once a week, Red Bird will take a children’s book, translate
the text, and then read the story to the children. Having extra copies of Red
Bird’s translations for parents to take home and read with their children would
help to reinforce that day’s language lesson. “We desperately need more
language materials,” Red Bird said. </div>
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Jan Ullrich, linguistic director of the Lakota Language
Consortium, shares Red Bird’s concern for speaking the Lakota language
correctly. Ullrich has had a hand in the development of a standard Lakota
orthography for the New Lakota Dictionary. We converse on Skype getting to know
a little of one another before business. Ullrich is from the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Czech</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Republic</st1:placetype></st1:place>.
As a little boy he admired the survival story of the American Indian. In 1992,
he travelled to the Pine Ridge Sioux Indian Reservation and made friends with
the Fire Thunder and Looking Horse families and came to learn Lakota. </div>
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<a href="http://www.lakhota.org/_images/about/jfu-lg2.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.lakhota.org/_images/about/jfu-lg2.gif" /></a></div>
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<i>Jan Ullrich may come from the Czech Republic but his heart is Lakota. Visit his work online at the <a href="http://www.lakhota.org/index.html" target="_blank">Lakota Language Consortium</a>.</i></div>
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Ullrich sends me the letters <i>t, o, k </i>and <i>a</i>. He then
asks me to pronounce what he’s spelled. I reply <i>TOH-kah</i> which can mean “enemy,” then follow up with <i>toh-KAH</i> which can mean “first.” Ullrich
then sends me the texts <i>Tĥoka</i> and <i>Tĥoká</i>. The accent marks take a moment to
get used to, but the new standard orthography he employs has me pronouncing
Lakota correctly when I read it. </div>
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Ullrich’s standard orthography isn’t embraced by all Lakota
speakers, nor is it the first effort at standard orthgraphy he admits. Sometime
back, a Lakota man named Curly from the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Reservation
developed a thirty-six character alphabet. The main drawback with this alphabet
for modern Lakota speakers is that it involves learning and remembering
entirely new symbols. The new standard orthography makes use of the modern
keyboard and letters with sounds Lakota students learned with English, the only
addition are marks for accent, aspirants, glottal sounds and glottal stops. </div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://stores.languagepress.com/catalog/NLD300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://stores.languagepress.com/catalog/NLD300.jpg" /></a></div>
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<i>Jan Ullrich is the editor of the New Lakota Dictionary, but being the editor means little to Ullrich who credits several Lakota people who've contributed to this work. Support the Lakota Language Consortium and buy a copy of this dictionary or any other of their published Lakota language materials online at the <a href="http://stores.languagepress.com/StoreFront.bok" target="_blank">Lakota Language Consortium Bookstore</a>.</i></div>
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“Missionaries did a good job of starting the process of
recording the language,” explains Ullrich, “But they ‘invented’ new words in
the interest of literal word for word translation, rather than translation of
concept for concept.” Thousands of entries in the Buechel and Riggs
dictionaries should be carefully and critically examined according to Ullrich. These
dictionaries should also be praised for bringing the Lakota and Dakota
languages to the general public’s attention.</div>
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Ullrich recently joined the <i>Lakȟól’iyapi Wahóȟpi</i> via Skype to encourage the young learners and
to offer courage to the language teachers. Like Red Bird, Ullrich believes that
the key to language revitalizing is learning consistently and accurately. </div>
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<o:p><i>Tipiziwin Young engages the children in an activity. The children enthusiastically respond with requests for pictures of various faces and feelings. </i></o:p></div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
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Young gathers the children together in a circle on a soft
blue carpet. A couple of the children take their time in getting to the circle.
Young raises her voice a little, “Inaĥni!” she says, <i>hurry</i>. I know the word well from my own childhood and it becomes
obvious that these young ones do too. “Iyotake, iyotake,” Young commands with
the strong confidence that mother’s everywhere instinctively possess. <i>Sit down, sit down</i>, and they do so
without argument. </div>
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She takes out a pen and paper and quickly draws a series of
faces with a variety of expressions. The children respond somewhat in unison,
“Iyokipiya!” “Wačiŋko!” <i>Happy! Sad!</i>
The children tell her in Lakota what faces to draw next and she obliges. When
they finish this exercise, they even take time to sing happy birthday to two of
the boys, “Aŋpétu tuŋpi,” Young begins and the <i>tĥakŏža</i> sing following her cues. It is to the popular tune “Good
morning to all” which was popularly appropriated to the Happy Birthday song,
and it’s a close translation in Lakota, <i>They
day you were born</i>.</div>
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Little voices singing in Lakota continue to echo in my mind
when I leave the <i>Lakȟól’iyapi Wahóȟpi</i>,
the Lakota Language Nest. It was spoken everyday in the days of warriors and
legend. It was spoken everyday when the reservations were established. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaj8k7LYWPWrmrrFdHPAPJ-xRfgVAjhROYePsBF85B8APiMtgUoGBEfJvTF4GL0yMUWd8YduGhjn62ZZw8Cx14Y0y8kJuieDYxJu5dh48F2K9fGDwEuPnzvbQ0yuJ4IrqGG9S7lYfDdpYl/s1600/Bismarck+Indian+Boarding+School.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaj8k7LYWPWrmrrFdHPAPJ-xRfgVAjhROYePsBF85B8APiMtgUoGBEfJvTF4GL0yMUWd8YduGhjn62ZZw8Cx14Y0y8kJuieDYxJu5dh48F2K9fGDwEuPnzvbQ0yuJ4IrqGG9S7lYfDdpYl/s320/Bismarck+Indian+Boarding+School.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>The Bismarck Indian Boarding School for girls, 1933. </i></div>
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Somehow along the way between then and now the language
began to die through a variety of reasons. Some speakers were scarred from
their experiences in learning English during the boarding school days. Some
left the reservation and never returned, their children and grandchildren grew
up speaking only English. Schools on the reservation teach only in English.
Lakota became a language for church or special occasion. </div>
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<br /></div>
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These <i>tĥakŏža</i> speak
the language in fun, in play, in prayer, and even in arguments. They can
express themselves and articulate their feelings accurately through the
knowledge of two languages. Perhaps English has too many words. There is a word
for everything, a noun. It’s a language of things. Lakota is a language of
description and relation, and that’s just what we need these days. </div>
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Support the <i>Lakȟól’iyapi Wahóȟpi, </i>the Lakota Language Nest. Contact Sacheen Whitetail-Cross at Sitting Bull College at (701) 854-8034 or <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">sacheenw@sbci.edu about what you can do to save the language.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Support the Lakota Language Consortium. Visit them online at <a href="http://www.lakhota.org/">www.lakhota.org</a>. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Or make a donation to the North Dakota Humanities Council. The NDHC will make sure that the Lakota Language Nest receives your support. Contact the NDHC at (701) 255-3360, or council@ndhumanities.org.</span></span></div>
NDHumanitieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587988436325558541noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229312807222213798.post-61448685048638908712012-12-05T13:58:00.003-08:002012-12-05T13:58:56.588-08:00We Have Ways Of Making A Difference<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>By Brenna Gerhardt, Executive Director, North Dakota Humanities Council</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<br />
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">I want to share with you a
few of the programs your generosity made possible:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>"Playing with Mahpiya [Clouds]"</i></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i> Photo by Lakhol'iyapi Hohpi, Lakota Language Nest, at Sitting Bull College, Nov. 7, 2012. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">On the Standing Rock Sioux
Reservation a three-year-old child is learning to speak the language of her
ancestors from an elder who is one of the remaining people in the world who can
speak fluent Lakota, an indigenous language spoken by Hunkpapa Sioux since time
unknown. The girl is taking part in a
new language immersion preschool program that seeks to ensure the wisdom of the
past is not lost for future generations. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Kristi Rendahl</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Kristi Rendahl travels the
world working to end the practice of torture. She invites the most remarkable
people she meets during her travels back to her hometown of Rugby to talk about
critical issues facing the global community through the program Prairie Talks. She
started the project to connect common-sense people in the heart of North Dakota
to common-sense people from around the world who share the same interest: to
better understand ourselves and our neighbors so we can work together for a
better tomorrow. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.csudhnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/terrence-roberts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.csudhnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/terrence-roberts.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i>Dr. Terrence Roberts</i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">On September 4, 1957,
Terrance Roberts, an African American student seeking a better education was
turned away at the doors of Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas, by the
National Guard and a horde of angry white protesters who did not want to see
black students educated alongside their children. It was a pivotal moment in
America’s civil rights movement that directly involved a federal judge from
North Dakota, Ronald N. Davies. The court decisions rendered by Davies would
change the course of public school integration in our country making the dream
of equality a reality for Roberts and future generations. Today, Dr. Roberts is
involved in creating a curriculum for students across North Dakota to learn
about these events and the lessons of justice and civility they embody.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">These programs and many more,
all currently sponsored by the North Dakota Humanities Council, help us fulfill
our mission to transform lives and strengthen communities by offering
educational and cultural experiences that allow everyone the opportunity to
reach their full human potential. Our ability to offer these meaningful
programs depends in large part on the generosity of a thoughtful and caring
community.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Please include the North
Dakota Humanities Council in your holiday giving so we can continue our
important work. A gift of $40, $60, $100 or more will go a long way in helping
make lifelong learning a cornerstone of life in North Dakota. Use the enclosed courtesy envelope and mail
your contribution today. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">On behalf of the lives that
are charged by your generosity, thank you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Best Wishes,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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[X]</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="NoSpacing">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Brenna
Gerhardt, Executive Director<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">p.s. According to the mother
of the little girl learning Lakota, “I really see in her hope, now. We have a
drug and alcohol free home and she’s learning the language and the ceremonies. We’re
breaking the cycle; that’s the hope.” That is the power of the humanities to
transform lives and strengthen communities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=3ZNXA2E7FKBY6" target="_blank">Continue to make a difference</a>.</div>
</div>
NDHumanitieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587988436325558541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229312807222213798.post-22197062863219502562012-10-31T10:33:00.001-07:002012-10-31T10:33:18.109-07:00Eating With Eyes On The Community<br />
<i>By Dean Hulse</i><br />
<i>This article appears in the Key Ingredients issue of the North Dakota Humanities Council's magazine "On Second Thought," Winter 2012.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://strivetosimplify.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/eggs-butter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://strivetosimplify.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/eggs-butter.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<i><br /></i>
<br />
I recently came across a note I’d dashed off some time ago that concerned an advertisement (circa 1922),<br />
which I’d seen in my hometown newspaper. If memory serves, I’d been looking through newspaper archives while doing research on a topic unrelated to the ad’s subject, but its copy nonetheless caught my attention. The ad read, “Butter and Eggs, same as Cash.”<br />
<br />
My maternal great-grandmother and my grandmother both bartered butter and eggs (and cream) for staples,<br />
probably with the same grocer who ran that ad in my hometown newspaper. According to family legend, my<br />
maternal great-great-grandmother was a “fancy cook” in England before she and my great-great-grandfather<br />
emigrated first to Canada and then to Richburg Township in North Dakota’s Bottineau County.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
Mom was an exceptional cook, too, so perhaps it’s genetic. Even as a child I experimented in the kitchen,<br />
and Mom and Dad were generous with what they allowed me to make. Like many farm families of that<br />
era, our “fruit room” resembled a grocery store—with shelves full of jams, jellies, tomato sauce, green beans,<br />
relishes, and pickles (beet, cucumber, corn, cauliflower). Also, canned stew meat and meatballs, with congealed morsels glistening like jewels inside the jars. Without asking, I could go down to the basement and retrieve a package of frozen hamburger, wrapped in white freezer paper carrying the “Not for Sale” label our<br />
local butcher had affixed. The beef came from our own steers. My first food triumph was sizzling as Dad arrived for dinner: hamburgers, releasing the aroma of nearly every dried herb and spice Mom had in her cabinet. A predominance of chili pepper, onion salt, and garlic powder gave these burgers a piquancy that perfectly complemented a melting slab of Colby cheese.<br />
<br />
Of course, I had a few failures. A sodden tuna pizza comes to mind. A meal fit for our dog Stub, who<br />
required some persuasion.<br />
<br />
“You eat that,” I barked.<br />
<br />
I’ll end the tales of my adolescent cooking escapades here.<br />
<br />
<br />
Beside my note containing the “Butter and Eggs” ad copy, I’d scribbled my reaction: “Oh really? Try making a cake out of cash.” I know about cake. Dad’s avocation was baking angel food cakes, each requiring fourteen egg whites, and many of which he gave as gifts.<br />
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<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Cabbage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="228" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Cabbage.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Butter and eggs, same as cash? I know bartering is a form of commerce, but during my life, I’ve witnessed this butter-and-eggs sentiment assume a more literal character. I don’t think it’s a stretch to claim that many who frequent supermarkets today behave as though their cash is the same as cabbage, one indistinguishable commodity exchanged for another. For many years, I was one of those shoppers.<br />
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When my wife, Nicki, and I first moved to Fargo, I relished the fact that I could shop at grocery stores overflowing with exotic produce at 3 a.m. if I so chose. Like many Americans, I ate daily, and well, without knowing or caring a lick about the food on my plate—except how it looked and tasted, and perhaps how much it cost.<br />
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For me, the convenience of that marvelous arrangement helped blunt some repulsive memories of growing up on a farm. Picking eggs as a child was a chore, especially when I’d encounter an unexpected visitor in the henhouse. I once discovered a large rat, sitting on its haunches, exposing an oozing ulcer on its underside. After retracing my steps, lickety-split and empty-handed, back to our house, Dad returned with me to the clucking chickens. That rat departed this world squirming on the end of Dad’s five-pronged pitchfork, creating a silhouette against the early morning sun.<br />
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And so, I was OK buying anonymous eggs produced who knows where. But in my late twenties, my outlook began to change. I don’t think genetics was responsible. More likely, it was modeled behavior—that is, my having grown up with gardening parents and my having experienced truly fresh food. What manifested my latent craving for vineripened tomatoes? I can’t say. What satisfied it? Thick tomato slices still conveying the sun’s warmth, made even more perfect by salt, pepper, mayonnaise, and two slices of bread, substantial enough to absorb the free-flowing tomato juices without becoming soggy. A summertime sandwich to savor for only a few weeks, but to anticipate the rest of the time.<br />
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At first, we rented garden plots from the Fargo Park District, and we drove to our garden with open buckets of water sloshing in our car’s trunk. Later, I bought a small trailer and adapted it so it could haul two fifty-five-gallon water barrels. One year, someone stole our entire crop of spaghetti squash. I pacified my anger by writing a letter to the editor of our local newspaper, in which I offered a recipe so that our thief could fully enjoy his booty (his large footprints among our picked-clean squash vines). A day after the letter appeared, I got a call from a woman living in Casselton. She offered to share some of her spaghetti squash with me. Another woman from Moorhead did the same. We ended up with more spaghetti squash than we had growing in our garden.<br />
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That series of incidents planted a seed that would sprout once we bought a home and had a garden of our own. Now, we didn’t start our backyard gardening with the altruistic notion of supplying our neighbors with produce. But on most years, there are only so many zucchini squash two people can eat. To our credit, we are diligent in checking our zucchini plants. We aim to pick the fruit when it’s six to eight inches long, and that’s what we share with neighbors. Those zucchini lurking at the very bottom of our plants, the ones stealthily growing to the size of small children’s legs, we toss into our compost pile.<br />
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We also share tomatoes, eggplant, onions, spinach, chard—whatever we have in overabundance. Our neighbors have been joyfully generous with their in-kind reciprocations. One of our neighbors, an elderly Japanese widow, treats us to several meals reflecting her culture’s cuisine each year. Painstakingly garnished and with precisely cut vegetables, her dishes don’t disappoint in presentation, taste, or texture. I often daydream about her sticky rice. And the source of her homemade herb wine, which packs a punch more like a liqueur, grows right outside her garage service door. This year she’s going to show us how to grow the herb and make the wine.<br />
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Another neighbor is the patriarch of a family-owned package store and popular college bar. He repays<br />
with wine or beer, some of which comes to us with a “born-on” date that is either current or only a day or two old. A Montana native, he’s also shared cherries that grow near Flathead Lake.<br />
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<i>Contact the North Dakota Humanities Council for a copy of the article in which this except by Dean Hulse appears and we'll gladly send you one at no cost: call us at (701) 255-3360. OR see the entire article and this issue of On Second Thought now online at http://www.issuu.com/ndhumanities.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i></i><br />
<i>Dean Hulse is a writer living in Fargo. He and his wife, Nicki, still own his family’s farm in Bottineau County, which is a source <i></i></i><br />
<div style="display: inline !important;">
<i><i>for much of Dean’s activism and inspiration concerning land use, renewable energy, and sustainable agriculture. In 2009, the </i></i></div>
<i><i><div style="display: inline !important;">
University of Minnesota Press published Hulse’s memoir, Westhope: Life as a Former Farm Boy.</div>
</i></i><br />
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NDHumanitieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587988436325558541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229312807222213798.post-11795747513715386432012-08-30T09:48:00.002-07:002012-08-30T09:48:37.081-07:00Chautauqua, A Living History Experience Coming to Bismarck<br />
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<i>General Lee signs the surrender papers at Appomattox Court House. General Grant sits at the other table. Standing second from the right is Ely Parker, a Seneca Indian from Upstate New York.</i></div>
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When General Lee arrived at the Appomattox Court House to discuss
terms of surrender with General Grant, he was introduced to Grant’s personal
secretary, Lieutenant Colonel Ely Parker.
Startled by the sight of the Seneca Indian chief, Lee paused for a brief
moment, then extended his hand to Parker and said, “I am glad to see one
American here.” Parker took Lee’s hand
and replied, “We are all Americans.”
Grant then had Parker compose the surrender papers, which Lee signed.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“His story is absolutely intriguing.
I think people will be amazed at what he accomplished in spite of the
odds against him,” says Reuben Fast Horse, the scholar who will be portraying
Ely Parker during the upcoming Everett C. Albers Chautauqua, which runs
September 5 – 8, in Bismarck.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>L to r: Frederick Douglass, Little Crow, Clara Barton, Ely Parker, and William Jayne.</i></div>
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During the living history event, sponsored by the North Dakota
Humanities Council, scholars will present the stories of four people who played
significant roles in the Civil War in America: <b>Little Crow</b>, who led the
Santee Dakota in the Dakota Conflict of 1862, portrayed by Jerome Kills Small; <b>Gen.
Ely Parker</b>, the Seneca Indian chief and Union general who drafted the
surrender papers signed by Confederate General Lee at Appomattox, portrayed by
Reuben Fast Horse; <b>Frederick Douglass</b>, the former slave, abolitionist,
and writer, portrayed by Charles Everett Pace; and <b>Clara Barton</b>, the
founder of the American Red Cross, portrayed by Karen Vuranch. <b>Governor
William Jayne, </b>who was President Lincoln’s personal physician and first
governor of Dakota Territory, portrayed by Dr. D. Jerome Tweton, will moderate
the Chautauqua presentations.<o:p></o:p></div>
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All performances, which combine entertainment with education, are free
and open to the public. For those
unfamiliar with Chautauqua, the routine is simple: Performers present a
45-minute monologue in character and then field questions from the
audience. According to event coordinator
Dakota Goodhouse, “The scholars who portray the characters are skilled
interpreters who’ve devoted months or even years of study to present authentic
performances. They imitate appropriate
accents and styles of dress. Most of
all, they strive to speak their characters’ words precisely.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Adult workshops and children’s programs will also be presented. During the adult workshops scholars step out
of character to present more in depth analysis of the historical figure they
have researched. The children’s programs
are an opportunity for children to learn more about American history. <a href="" name="_GoBack"></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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For more information visit <a href="http://www.ndhumanities.org/">www.ndhumanities.org</a> or call 701.255.3360.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2012<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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10:00 AM Children’s program by Charles
Everett Pace at the Bismarck Veterans Memorial Public Library<o:p></o:p></div>
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2:00 PM Adult
workshop by Karen Vuranch at the Bismarck Veterans Memorial Public Library <span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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6:30 PM Evening Chautauqua program by Little Crow, portrayed
by Jerome Kills Small, at St. George’s Episcopal Church<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b>Thursday, Sept. 6, 2012<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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10:00 AM Children’s
program by Karen Vuranch at the Bismarck Veterans Memorial Public Library <o:p></o:p></div>
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2:00 PM Adult
workshop by Jerome Kills Small at the Bismarck Veterans Memorial Public Library
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6:30 PM Evening Chautauqua program by
Gen. Ely Parker, portrayed by Reuben Fast Horse, at St. George’s Episcopal
Church<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b>Friday, Sept. 7, 2012<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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10:00 AM Children’s program by Jerome Kills Small
at the Bismarck Veterans Memorial Public Library <o:p></o:p></div>
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2:00 PM Adult
workshop by Reuben Fast Horse at the Bismarck Veterans Memorial Public Library <span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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6:30 PM Evening Chautauqua program by Frederick Douglass,
portrayed by Charles Everett Pace, at St. George’s Episcopal Church<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b>Saturday,
Sept. 8, 2012<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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1:00 PM Children’s program by Reuben Fast Horse at the
Bismarck Veterans Memorial Public Library <o:p></o:p></div>
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2:00 PM Adult workshop by Charles Everett Pace at the
Bismarck Veterans Memorial Public Library <span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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3:00 PM Afternoon Chautauqua program by
Clara Barton, portrayed by Karen Vuranch, at St. George’s Episcopal Church<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 5.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"> </span>4:00 PM Chautauqua Scholar meet-and-greet
at the North Dakota Former Governors’ Mansion</div>
NDHumanitieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587988436325558541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229312807222213798.post-3223483108309599902012-07-20T07:51:00.001-07:002012-07-20T07:51:34.585-07:00Pulitzer-Prize Finalists and US Poet Laureate Coming to Fargo-Moorhead<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Four prominent poets and novelists
will be visiting Fargo-Moorhead for a symposium honoring <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">North Dakota</st1:place></st1:state> native, Louise Erdrich.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Entitled <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Four
Souls: Stories from <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s
Boarders</i>, the event will feature keynote presentations by Robert Pinsky,
Naomi Shihab Nye, Luis Urrea and Erdrich.</div>
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The symposium, beginning Thursday,
Aug. 23, and running through Friday, Aug. 24 will be held at <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Bluestem</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Center</st1:placetype></st1:place>
for the Arts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The event is a joint
effort of Bluestem and the North Dakota Humanities Council.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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“This symposium is dedicated to the
diversity of cultures and ideas that make <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> such a great nation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During a time when our nation is deeply
divided politically, this is a chance to remind everyone who we are and what we
stand for,” said Brenna Gerhardt, executive director of the Humanities
Council.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I hope people will walk away
with a renewed hope for both our nation and the global community we are a part
of.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">New York Times best-selling
author, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Louise Erdrich</b> grew up in <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">North Dakota</st1:place></st1:state>, where her
parents taught at a school run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. As the daughter
of a Chippewa Indian mother and a German-American father, Erdrich explores
Native-American themes in her works, with major characters representing both
sides of her heritage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She has said,</span>
“One of the characteristics of being a mixed blood is searching.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You look back and say, ‘Who am I from?’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You must question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You must make certain choices.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’re able to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it’s a blessing and it’s a curse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of our searches involve trying to
discover where we are from.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Erdrich
will share her journey during an opening conversation with fellow North Dakota
author Jamieson Ridenhour on Thursday evening.</div>
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<span style="color: #231f20;">Born in <st1:city w:st="on">Tijuana</st1:city>,
<st1:country-region w:st="on">Mexico</st1:country-region> to a Mexican father
and an American mother, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Luis</b></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: white;"> Alberto
Urrea </span></b><span style="color: #231f20;">grew up in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">San Diego</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">California</st1:state></st1:place>.
Urrea will share</span><span style="background: white;"> his story of
transformation from his beginnings on a dirt street in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Tijuana</st1:place></st1:city> to Pulitzer Prize finalist and
beloved storyteller. </span><span style="display: none; mso-hide: all;">Nye’s next
books include <em>On the Edge of the Sky </em>(1981)<em>,</em> a slim volume
printed on handmade paper, and <em>Hugging the Jukebox </em>(1982)<em>,</em> a
full-length collection that also won the Voertman Poetry Prize. In <em>Hugging
the Jukebox,</em> Nye continues to focus on the ordinary, on connections
between diverse peoples, and on the perspectives of those in other lands. She
writes: “We move forward, / confident we were born into a large family, / our
brothers cover the earth.” Nye creates poetry from everyday scenes throughout <em>Hugging
the Jukebox </em>in poems like “The Trashpickers of San Antonio” and the title
poem, where a boy is enthusiastic about the jukebox he adopts and sings its
songs in a way that “strings a hundred passionate sentences in a single line.”
Reviewers generally praised <em>Hugging the Jukebox,</em> noting Nye’s warmth
and celebratory tone. Writing in the <em>Village Voice,</em> Mary Logue
commented that in Nye’s poems about daily life, “sometimes the fabric is thin
and the mundaneness of the action shows through. But, in an alchemical process
of purification, Nye often pulls gold from the ordinary.” According to <em>Library
Journal</em> contributor </span><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=81168"><span style="display: none; mso-hide: all;"><span style="color: #045482;">David Kirby</span></span></a><span style="display: none; mso-hide: all;">, the poet “seems to be in good, easy relation with the earth
and its peoples.” <br />
<br />
The poems in <em>Yellow Glove</em> (1986) present a more mature perspective
tempered by tragedy and sorrow. In “</span><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=178323"><span style="display: none; mso-hide: all;"><span style="color: #045482;">Blood</span></span></a><span style="display: none; mso-hide: all;">” Nye considers the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. She describes a
café in combat-weary Beirut, bemoans “a world where no one saves anyone,” and
observes “The Gardener” for whom “everything she planted gave up under the
ground.” <em>Georgia Review</em> contributor </span><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=695"><span style="display: none; mso-hide: all;"><span style="color: #045482;">Philip Booth</span></span></a><span style="display: none; mso-hide: all;"> declared that Nye brings “home to readers
both how variously and how similarly all people live.” In <em>Red Suitcase </em>(1994),
Nye continues to explore the effect of on-going violence on everyday life in
the Middle East. Writing for <em>Booklist, </em>Pat Monaghan explained that
“some of her most powerful poems deal with her native land’s continuing search
for peace and the echoes of that search that resound in an individual life. Nye
is a fluid poet, and her poems are also full of the urgency of spoken language.
Her direct, unadorned vocabulary serves her well: ‘A boy filled a bottle with
water. / He let it sit. / Three days later it held the power / of three days.’
Such directness has its own mystery, its own depth and power, which Nye
exploits to great effect.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="background: white; color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: .2in;">
<span style="background: white; color: black;">Award-winning Palestinian-American poet <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Naomi Shihab Nye </b>was born in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">St.
Louis</st1:place></st1:city> in 1952. Just four years earlier, her father and
his family lost their home in <st1:city w:st="on">Jerusalem</st1:city>
following the establishment of the state of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region></st1:place>. As a result of her father's
experiences, she learned the importance of place and of being connected - a
theme she will address in her poetry reading and discussion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<a href="" name="top"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Robert Pinsky</b> (United
States Poet Laureate 1997-2000) grew up in a lower-middle class Jewish family
in </a><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on"><span style="mso-bookmark: top;">Long
Branch</span></st1:city><span style="mso-bookmark: top;">, <st1:state w:st="on">N.J.</st1:state></span></st1:place><span style="mso-bookmark: top;"> </span>According to Pinsky a <span style="background: white;">poet needs to “find a language for presenting the role of a conscious
soul in an unconscious world.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span>Pinsky
will perform improvisatory poetry with a local jazz combo, “trading fours” with
the musicians to create a spontaneous work of art that tells its own story. </div>
<br />
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According to Sue Wiger, “This is
exactly the type of event Bluestem was built for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It will bring the community together to
experience the best our nation has to offer in the way of arts and culture.”</div>
<br />
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Poetry writing workshops for adults
and children will also be offered.</div>
<br />
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For more information and a full
schedule of events, visit <a href="http://www.ndhumanities.org/"><span style="color: #045482;">www.ndhumanities.org</span></a>
or contact Brenna Gerhardt at 800-338-6543.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>NDHumanitieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587988436325558541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229312807222213798.post-47611904882449945392012-05-14T08:22:00.000-07:002012-05-14T08:22:36.786-07:00Captain Meriwether Lewis and the Great Falls<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 14pt;"></span></b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqFA0MbpvndZvb9QtOgNDn_SXw22XtDUtY2TPTFkNHB2muyxn1TpE_YdA3aGIysyPw-rc-JnFgleicnAcm6FRd5nwu8e3lVt-fvOt-OElT5A9i9KYIAmypL8XpV6F8-eFM78JdmMmHDyDl/s1600/Meriwether+Lewis+at+the+Great+Falls+by+Charles+Fritz.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqFA0MbpvndZvb9QtOgNDn_SXw22XtDUtY2TPTFkNHB2muyxn1TpE_YdA3aGIysyPw-rc-JnFgleicnAcm6FRd5nwu8e3lVt-fvOt-OElT5A9i9KYIAmypL8XpV6F8-eFM78JdmMmHDyDl/s320/Meriwether+Lewis+at+the+Great+Falls+by+Charles+Fritz.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>"Meriwether Lewis at the Great Falls" by Charles Fritz.</em></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 11pt;"><em>Captain Meriwether Lewis and the Great Falls</em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 11pt;">by
Aaron Poochigian, a selection from his book "The Cosmic Purr."</span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 11pt;">I
was the one, the first white man, to shiver</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 11pt;">into
the wind of it – a rush so grand</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 11pt;">it
felt like God was barreling downriver. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 11pt;">I
was the fool who marked in a clear hand</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 11pt;">its
height and spate, certain that words would claim</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 11pt;">what
savages had only scratched in sand.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 11pt;">I
was an ass to fix it with a name.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 11pt;">What
was the use? The blasted thing went on</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 11pt;">thundering
Shush! to spite me all the same.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 11pt;">After
the portage, I sat up till dawn</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 11pt;">ignoring
what was missing, since I knew</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 11pt;">that
part of me had quit the corps and gone<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 11pt;">to
serve there, hushed and worshipping the view, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 11pt;">no
matter what we went on to subdue.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN6v_odR9jaTFVdHnznXYX54shF4z5Adkb5IjdK1ve3A-Ua3dI87Lr-lr1USAltfRjR7oBycsgEA60e41IHlrqzygp6QPY5SLhHrPpkJSoysMwdEt0hRVe5oQE1U3JEAHYQur5Yxqj71p5/s1600/aaron-poochigian-cosmic-purr-front.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN6v_odR9jaTFVdHnznXYX54shF4z5Adkb5IjdK1ve3A-Ua3dI87Lr-lr1USAltfRjR7oBycsgEA60e41IHlrqzygp6QPY5SLhHrPpkJSoysMwdEt0hRVe5oQE1U3JEAHYQur5Yxqj71p5/s320/aaron-poochigian-cosmic-purr-front.jpg" width="211" /></a><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ABOUT THE AUTHOR:</span></strong></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <strong>Aaron Poochigian</strong> was born in 1973. He attended Moorhead State University from 1991 to 1996 where he studied under the poets Tim Murphy, Dave Mason and Alan Sullivan. He entered graduate school for Classics in 1997 at the University of Minnesota. After traveling and doing research in Greece on fellowship from 2003 to 2004, he earned a Ph.D. in Classics in 2006, and now lives and writes in New York City. His translations, with introduction and notes, of Sappho’s poems andfragments were published by Penguin Classics in 2009. His translations of Aeschylus, Aratus and Apollonius of Rhodes appeared in the <em>Norton Anthology of Greek Literature in Translation</em> in the spring of 2009, and Johns Hopkins University Press published his edition of Aratus’ astronomical poem, <em>The Phaenomena,</em> with his introduction and notes, in the spring of 2010. His poetry has appeared in numerous journals, including <em>Arion, The Dark Horse, Poetry </em>and <em>Smartish Pace.</em></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">For more information visit <a href="http://aaronpoochigian.com/" target="_blank">Aaron's Poochigian's website</a>.</span></div>
</div>NDHumanitieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587988436325558541noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229312807222213798.post-63080380619100752682012-05-10T10:36:00.001-07:002012-05-10T10:36:22.177-07:00Why North Dakota?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9x6dgP5segUhEO6rvJyyXITyry4D79DDwSy0spbOz7KqV5F_vd7DPNkM7cWnEuKCXTcU-G0Q-o9haoAK-wjb0z2RXlxpP-4qGkvhTnJ516tAjy2E_wASqfPBmAZAtVp42mjVskLmYSMdJ/s1600/20.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9x6dgP5segUhEO6rvJyyXITyry4D79DDwSy0spbOz7KqV5F_vd7DPNkM7cWnEuKCXTcU-G0Q-o9haoAK-wjb0z2RXlxpP-4qGkvhTnJ516tAjy2E_wASqfPBmAZAtVp42mjVskLmYSMdJ/s320/20.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>A view of the Little Missouri River valley along HWY 22 in North Dakota.</em></div>
<div align="center">
</div>
<br />
<em>By Michael Lopez</em><br />
I’ve been stopped in elevators, on sidewalks, in grocery stores, by friends and
family alike, with the question: Why North Dakota? Or, more appropriately: “Why
would you (or, by implication, anyone else) choose to live in North Dakota?” And
before I’ve even had a chance to respond to their question, the second one is
inevitably forthcoming: “Is North Dakota even a place?” I’m sometimes tempted to
respond: “is Sacramento even a place?” (Or San Francisco, or Oakland, or
wherever I happen to be.) Because my first inclination is to ask them, “What do
you think constitutes a place?” Perhaps more importantly, I’m tempted to ask
them, “Did you choose your place?”<br /><br />It was not, in retrospect, very
surprising on my part to move from the warm climates of Northern California,
specifically the San Francisco Bay Area, and my college alma mater’s town,
Davis. I sometimes think that, at least for me, a move to Los Angeles, or San
Diego, would have been viewed with real surprise by my friends and family as an
unusual variation. What I mean to say here is that for me, the way my psychology
is oriented, and what I am interested in, is not to be found in Los Angeles, or
(though I’ve spent considerably less time in it) New York, or Washington,
D.C.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_BY5pHZXc2cn7MO_DzMQMGShy96MG6XTRjyCf1PixqF0TyUlCrdRsRNsMZCGG2cq51_A3DM_ZyZ90V1fC3zrW2iYe8W-AGKwqZJYzbqnEbHQadtqqAemHxjvDxedSqIDHOB93ZbrQTx46/s1600/Bison+at+Teddy+Roosevelt+National+Park+by+Trip+Advisor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_BY5pHZXc2cn7MO_DzMQMGShy96MG6XTRjyCf1PixqF0TyUlCrdRsRNsMZCGG2cq51_A3DM_ZyZ90V1fC3zrW2iYe8W-AGKwqZJYzbqnEbHQadtqqAemHxjvDxedSqIDHOB93ZbrQTx46/s320/Bison+at+Teddy+Roosevelt+National+Park+by+Trip+Advisor.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>Bison at Theodore Roosevelt National Park, photo by Trip Advisor.</em></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />I think it was a novelist – though I can’t remember which one – who
said that those places aren’t really places, because you’re never really there
(As Gertrude Stein meant it in that there-there sense); it’s more that you’re
simply passing through. You may stay there for forty or fifty years, but the
place is so large, so rapidly moving, with so many incoming and exiting
passengers, that you’re just occupying a space, but never a place. It’s not
simply the largeness of a city that precludes place; I think you can find place
cities, but those, with their electrifying movement, their caffeinated jolts of
frantic energy, suggest to my conscious and unconscious that I’m constantly
moving – I’m never at rest. The time for reflection isn’t today (or tomorrow),
because there’s too much to be done; too much to see; movies, plays, shows,
lectures, enough for a lifetime. Home is about peace, and rest.<br /><br />Don’t get
me wrong about this either: home can be anything but peace, or rest. Especially
if something is wrong: a loved one is sick, the bills can’t be paid; external
and internal forces beyond our individual power to control can subvert that
peace, but in the end, home is always a place where you find yourself again. It
resists, from its center on out, the forces of chaos; it calms you, brings you
back into its comforting sense of familiarity, and never ceases to surprise me
with the newness I discover in things I thought I knew.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXAyFFAYvvvJLUgjVyU-C10jDY74HbT6TqRf0wmoSdEQ_Vdb41syV3L76CqX2XWcEwjx_Fzi2Xo9DffC84E02dlKobLZr06vufueOYuOZXNT_Lo1S8znl_ffcQGsWEtWDheFVbt8-iQe4K/s1600/cat02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXAyFFAYvvvJLUgjVyU-C10jDY74HbT6TqRf0wmoSdEQ_Vdb41syV3L76CqX2XWcEwjx_Fzi2Xo9DffC84E02dlKobLZr06vufueOYuOZXNT_Lo1S8znl_ffcQGsWEtWDheFVbt8-iQe4K/s320/cat02.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>The Mandan Indians called "North Dakota" home for a thousand years. They named one of the rivers they lived by "Heart River." The Missouri and Heart Rivers are still considered by the Mandan as their homeland despite their move north and west to the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation.</em></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /><br />I’ve driven
certain stretches of highway for over ten years, and am still amazed at the new
things I see and discover. I’m not talking about little flowers by the roadside,
or a hidden brook – I’m speaking about houses, buildings, mountains, that I
could never consciously recall in conversation to another. They still have the
power to take my breath away: that recognition that within so much that is
familiar, there’s so much I don’t know. I do know it takes a lifetime to learn
it, and more importantly, a lifetime to shape my life around it. My momentary
existence on a plod of earth, the continent North America, the webs of family
and ancestral ties that long ago determined the shape of my bones, the texture
of my lips, color of my hair and eyes, and future, that remains to be
lived.<br /><br />So North Dakota was partly because of my past. My great-great
grandparents immigrated from their native Norway (they were farmers, and the
family homestead is still in Telemark), through the famous pathway of Ellis
Island, to North Dakota. The state was a great place for immigrants, especially
those used to cold climates. And, the railroads made it easy by securing vast
tracts of land from the U.S. Government, and through encouraging the settlement
of towns close to the rail lines. Casselton, where they ultimately ended up, was
in the early 1900’s a major center for freight movement through the state. They
lived there until the outbreak of the Second World War, whereupon it was decided
by my great-grandfather (I would have liked to have known him then. He was, by
photographic and personal accounts, a handsome, debonair, intellectual, and all
around cool fellow), that the family would move to California, to take part in
the work of the Kaiser Shipyards.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOJU_kfGX20eifrwg-KVI3wqmG0Gz8elszI8weGAA9M1_uVrn1ZP7JgTI5LXjqe2iNRPufNxbC3zWVkLj6laRs3K9Vc_iv90JdgST5edSelTgfDP2RKykIrkWH8reMFxwvX1kjJqdH2UjN/s1600/The+Sibley+Campaign+1863+by+Clell+Gannon,+Photo+by+Brian+R.+Austin,+State+Historical+Society+of+North+Dakota.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="74" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOJU_kfGX20eifrwg-KVI3wqmG0Gz8elszI8weGAA9M1_uVrn1ZP7JgTI5LXjqe2iNRPufNxbC3zWVkLj6laRs3K9Vc_iv90JdgST5edSelTgfDP2RKykIrkWH8reMFxwvX1kjJqdH2UjN/s320/The+Sibley+Campaign+1863+by+Clell+Gannon,+Photo+by+Brian+R.+Austin,+State+Historical+Society+of+North+Dakota.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>During and after the American Civil War, Generals like Sully, Sibley, Terry, and Custer were sent to the "frontier" to secure land for immigrants like Michael Lopez' great-great-grandparents from the native peoples who already lived there. Above, Clell Gannon's painting Sibley Campaign of 1863 celebrates manifest destiny.</em></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /><br />That might have been the end of this
story. After all, when I was born in 1982, they had lived in their California
house for over forty years (they never moved out of it), all of their children
resided in the state, as did every other immediate family member. My own family
was established in its businesses and trades; my schooling was secured by nature
of district alignment; health facilities were (and remain), some of the best in
the country; and the terrain, those geographic areas I’ve been fortunate to call
“home,” are some of the most beautiful you will encounter in the world. There is
nothing like being close to the ocean for a Norwegian (that ancient blood still
moves through my veins), and the ghostly echoes of waves still comforts me when
I am most alone. I even attended an elementary school directly adjacent (our
fence was about 15 feet away) to the bay itself.<br /><br />At this point I’m
usually stopped in my response to most people’s question on why the move, the
radical shift North – but I ask them to hold, because it’s important to
understand what has been my home for over twenty years. And, because, I want
them to understand that the directions our lives take, whatever choices we make,
are bound in an universe (which no one can fully envision) – all that blackness
held together by so many particles of light, and motion; families of substance
that go back to the beginnings of time – of past, the past of our ancients who
traveled from the only places they knew, in a search of being for some epic
impulse within them; the more immediate past of our migrant ancestors finding
their ways to this young country; and the most immediate past of those relatives
who welcomed us into this world, into our first light; our home is already
chosen for us.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQL2YD3pB9owfDQGcYJjmNy0qPTnOEUruHErJU3vIbkqy4ax3U1cXsrvMRT2RY4Dg6sksRBFu9Us11o2FGfmeeoZP9mgkA55mYhoyvZc6w-0Mu1VV3nXWs4j1l9GauhyOFEO1sLAK7hvjl/s1600/One+of+the+Kaiser+shipyard+buildings+north+of+Berkley+CA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQL2YD3pB9owfDQGcYJjmNy0qPTnOEUruHErJU3vIbkqy4ax3U1cXsrvMRT2RY4Dg6sksRBFu9Us11o2FGfmeeoZP9mgkA55mYhoyvZc6w-0Mu1VV3nXWs4j1l9GauhyOFEO1sLAK7hvjl/s320/One+of+the+Kaiser+shipyard+buildings+north+of+Berkley+CA.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em><span style="color: black;">The Kaiser Shipyard's </span></em><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tunnelbug/495191659/" target="_blank"><em><span style="color: black;">General
Warehouse</span></em></a><em><span style="color: black;">, photographed by </span></em><a href="http://www.terrastories.com/bearings/" target="_blank"><em><span style="color: black;">Jon Haeber</span></em></a><em><span style="color: black;">.</span></em> </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /><br />It could have been anywhere: Australia, Japan, Iowa, or
Nevada, but it was San Francisco, California. And in the end, it was only a
place. The webs of being were already crafted and formed, the lines of transit
between bloodlines and people, established; our fates are bound to those who
came before us, and our choice is to accept the open door to adventure, to fate,
that they offer.<br /><br />The answer then, if there is one, or at least the
closest that one individual journeying through life, attempting to continue the
infinite thread that connects one living being to the family of humanity can
give, is my family. My father, mother, and great grandfather, whose life lessons
– ones they don’t even know they gave – came in the form of stories; of places
they had been, of things they had done; of memories that were woven so tightly
into their conscious (and unconscious) being, that it influenced everything they
had ever done.<br /><br />The stories of North Dakota rank, as some of the most
deeply affecting of my childhood. I spent a large amount of time with my
great-grandfather, and was never so amazed as when his eyes would go off into
some distant memory – of which I could play no role, except as receptor for the
images he described – of North Dakota. The place he left in his early 20’s, and
which seemed as close to him as though he had never left, as though every
childhood friend, sour adult, sexy schoolmistress, (secretly) alcoholic husband,
and dour spinster, were still there; still living in the same houses they had
occupied since the beginning of time – his time, which is as real as anyone or
anything gets.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsH9rYKU0q8M_oPpA_YVdr5H3ZgiWzqm1MCxpCHGqJpAVxFX-VCJn_dvTSzofceM0jxjnmciBvcvyb4R8o43Ia_4Xxb2cI1xHhWuJ27J0CXMMYxgUCoXoWhyphenhyphenhocmaBWWDKcEea7j6GfkmM/s1600/Security+Building,+downtown+Grand+Forks,+burned+down+during+the+1997+Flood.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsH9rYKU0q8M_oPpA_YVdr5H3ZgiWzqm1MCxpCHGqJpAVxFX-VCJn_dvTSzofceM0jxjnmciBvcvyb4R8o43Ia_4Xxb2cI1xHhWuJ27J0CXMMYxgUCoXoWhyphenhyphenhocmaBWWDKcEea7j6GfkmM/s320/Security+Building,+downtown+Grand+Forks,+burned+down+during+the+1997+Flood.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>The Security Building in downtown Grand Forks burned down during the flood of 1997.</em></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /><br />Those streets of North Dakota never changed for him. I
remember when I was in high school, when Grand Forks was devastated by a flood,
that for that day (and the week, or two after), the television was always on,
always on the news channel, as he watched those electronic images with a
reflection so deep that not even a serious student of Kant, or Hegel, could
achieve that sense of oneness with the idea, or act. He told me, with something
that bordered on the joy of a schoolchild, and the concern of a North Dakotan,
that Grand Forks had been flooded; as though he was there, back again, a part of
something he had left fifty years earlier. A vicarious involvement in a part of
a place that took him into its web of existence, as though he had never left;
never ceased to live in Casselton; never stopped being in North Dakota. And, he
never did.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />His stories filled much of the time we spent together, and of
course they weren’t always about North Dakota. Often they were about wonderful
parties he went to in the hills of Berkeley, in the Sixties; about organizing
labor on the waterfront, as a longshoreman, with the great Harry Bridges, and
on. They were the stories of a single man who lived a fully-lived life, and they
were never boring – even to an eleven year old. The stories about North Dakota
though, were always the ones that took on a different clarity; they caused
Berkeley, San Francisco, and the town he had lived in for half a century, to
fade away. They became little more than a glimmer, a passing stop on a long
journey that began, and ultimately ended in, North Dakota.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOvFEhrrKvj-llLRbMwNYk-wSYn6tqWqlRUFq6gQyzgtIg8YGlg7odVaWcAm0mQues3jaW7KYHt6CMRpKTD7jUKfA74CSTOX2pPHcOGSoC9C4Pt6b3o2_ylW5t3ZNc1IWQMxCJ7Ghdmvp-/s1600/DSC_0026.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOvFEhrrKvj-llLRbMwNYk-wSYn6tqWqlRUFq6gQyzgtIg8YGlg7odVaWcAm0mQues3jaW7KYHt6CMRpKTD7jUKfA74CSTOX2pPHcOGSoC9C4Pt6b3o2_ylW5t3ZNc1IWQMxCJ7Ghdmvp-/s320/DSC_0026.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>Crown Butte, a natural landmark to all people throughout the ages, west of Mandan, ND.</em></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /><br />Those stories
that he told me, that he honored me with in a sacred tradition that goes back to
cave paintings, aren’t remarkable. I mean that in the sense that he wasn’t the
Norwegian Scott Amundson, who traversed Antarctica, braving severe temperatures
– though growing up in the 1920’s and 30’s in North Dakota could certainly be
read as that – while exploring vast territories, as yet unknown. His stories
were about everyday events – kids running around, soaping up windows on
Halloween; getting a milk cow onto the third story of their High School building
– they were stories about husbands who secretly drank, and hid their empty
bottles of vanilla in old tool sheds; ultra-religious women who objected to
everything, and attractive aunts, who had they not been aunts might have taught
my young grandfather more than he could have bargained for. Stories about
kissing young girls born in Breckenridge, Minnesota; being sick with scarlet
fever, more than once, and a host of other diseases, that he told with a distant
tear in his eye – as though he had been happier facing death, in that cold
terrain, up North. (Sickness, and kissing, seemed to have less of a pleasure in
California, than in that far-away distance sense; a mixture of nostalgia, and a
life altered beyond one’s ability to comprehend where it went.)<br /><br />There
were stories about the people who filled this town of Casselton: its two
doctors, the good one who took care of the poor, and who charged nominal fees
that they could afford; and the bad doctor, who took much better care of the
rich. My great-grandfather had the unfortunate circumstance, during one of his
bouts of sickness unto death, of dealing with the wealthy one – whose name
escapes me. While treating my grandfather, this doctor had to go out of town to
attend a gathering, and when my grandfather’s mother asked him: “What more can I
do?” his only response was, “To pray.”</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4gkq_73YNbhyYk9yFYQN1kZ5qohc5uAH5g1hH9Gaiyf04VAmRon3mG2VMbVXoTKYaVr0Ld8sshGADhS1D8-VgeynNOUNMaNDEgFjHnKXqJ395VcARB4wwfGNw8Q_inmd1jVQKx99LY03a/s1600/Casselton+High+School+about+1909.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4gkq_73YNbhyYk9yFYQN1kZ5qohc5uAH5g1hH9Gaiyf04VAmRon3mG2VMbVXoTKYaVr0Ld8sshGADhS1D8-VgeynNOUNMaNDEgFjHnKXqJ395VcARB4wwfGNw8Q_inmd1jVQKx99LY03a/s320/Casselton+High+School+about+1909.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>The Casselton High School in 1909. </em></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /><br />My grandfather’s mother being
dissatisfied with this response – she was one of those sturdy Nordic mothers,
who could switch fluently between Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish (something that
their great-great grandchildren, and I struggle with; we’ve lost something of
that maneuverable tongue, that speaks with ease to our neighbors), and who
refused to take matters like death, which were always so close at hand it seems,
lying down – and so she went to speak with Dr. Reedy, the good doctor. He asked
her what medicine had been prescribed, and I remember my grandfather belaboring
to me that it was measured in “horse units” (though I may have misremembered
it), and when my grandfather’s mother told him, he shouted “My God, he’s killing
him!” Dr. Reedy tripled the medication that the other doctor had prescribed, and
when he returned from his conference and found my grandfather sitting up in bed
eating ice cream, his face – much to my grandfather’s relish – dropped to the
floor. My grandfather also told me that Dr. Reedy eventually committed suicide,
and he could never quite understand why – he had always served the vulnerable,
the truly needy of Casselton. I’m not sure I can answer that question, but it
strikes me that it’s not altogether surprising that of the two doctors, his name
is the only one I can recall.<br /><br />Even my grandfather’s fondness for
restaurants with booths and curtains (he used to point out the old hooks for the
curtains at older restaurants we’d go to), where he remembered these stories
with such acuity and narrative clarity, that I’m struck at how real his memories
seem to me, though he’s been dead nearly ten years. He liked those curtained
booths, for making out with pretty young girls.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDGyT1OJHH0fgvMZOm4vKkCXTb6KJWNDbsJy35fwotHZzfe8nQsTnV4vQ0CLm1pcTMChuxP7BYwXBJkT1CS5C3Xew1Fmnrwj0DdzAfIQF_mhCVn6lF42XTb8ntziBTpcaa7K9ru27faVnz/s1600/18862.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDGyT1OJHH0fgvMZOm4vKkCXTb6KJWNDbsJy35fwotHZzfe8nQsTnV4vQ0CLm1pcTMChuxP7BYwXBJkT1CS5C3Xew1Fmnrwj0DdzAfIQF_mhCVn6lF42XTb8ntziBTpcaa7K9ru27faVnz/s320/18862.jpg" width="232" /></a></div>
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<em>A curtained booth in an older restaurant. </em></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /><br />One of his most
distinctive memories of North Dakota was of a beautiful, young, Irish girl; very
Catholic, though as my atheistic, liberal, grandfather told me, “Still I
would’ve converted for her, and we’d ‘ave had ten children.” I don’t quite
remember how he met her, or where, only that she had gone to a teachers college
in Jamestown, and had landed a job teaching primary school in Fargo. It makes
sense if they had met there, my grandfather worked in Fargo for Sears, Roebuck –
a job that always loomed as his finest. However they met, it was love at first
sight: he would begin to describe her fiery red hair, and how they would go to
restaurants and spend “hours,” as he put it, “just staring at each other.”
Unfortunately, my grandfather was also very much married, and would soon have a
child on the way to complement the affairs. And so, as is so often the case,
this young woman wrote my grandfather a letter, which was found by my
grandmother – and after that, there were no more letters. This affair was never
consummated – it was never about that. It was about the passion that burns
inside every individual who lets himself live, to find another person that he
can love in such a way as no other. It’s our choices that often redirect those
ambitions – in my grandfather’s case, getting my grandmother (who he met on a
blind date, arranged by his friends) pregnant.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFODUwdDwaKmXsE0YXeowaWjEAoCZR66O1mOAgQvlNygK3yS-5so5dF2zZI6t-9Tl5atBjSeUFLZFoaW2Z9PIpXI7iRuA650IDm-bF8U3x-sricfJ_z26TnJpi-_jxNroQczvvwfM15LIc/s1600/MaureenOHara9_2798.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFODUwdDwaKmXsE0YXeowaWjEAoCZR66O1mOAgQvlNygK3yS-5so5dF2zZI6t-9Tl5atBjSeUFLZFoaW2Z9PIpXI7iRuA650IDm-bF8U3x-sricfJ_z26TnJpi-_jxNroQczvvwfM15LIc/s320/MaureenOHara9_2798.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>One of the most famous smoking hot Irish women in the early days of film was Maureen O'Hara. </em></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /><br />He didn’t regret marrying
my grandmother, or having children. After all, he would tell me, “I would never
have gotten you.” I know he meant that, and that I was the son he never had (he
only had daughters), and so he intended that I should carry on the ambitions of
living, as he had done for most of his life. And yet, it’s not without tears in
my own eyes that I remember his mind being transported far away from the Pacific
Ocean, away from me, from his family, from the very car he was driving – we
often talked about his past while in the car – back to a place that then, at
fifteen or sixteen, I simply could not understand.<br /><br />North
Dakota.<br /><br />“Okay, Grandpa, what is this North Dakota?”<br /><br />“There’s
nothing like it, Michael,” he would say, “We used to have so much fun, and then
there was…”<br /><br />And eventually her name would come up, that woman who he
never had, and at that physical moment in his life, never would, and whom I
could never meet. And yet, I did meet her, time and again in that car with my
grandfather; she was resurrected from the depths of his memories, which at
eighty retained such detail that I’m sometimes ashamed to admit I can’t even
remember some of the momentous moments of my life in such vivid imagery. Always
the backdrop for this was North Dakota, with its endless stretch of characters
for there – in Casselton, Fargo, everywhere – were characters.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6lWkpBTuCtpl4ixbxclXU8iOpJvY-63CXszAXHxgLOd5FahpSLqDBGfvv7Zam-T0YPN4X5-d5pN1zku2JpChq4ubp8lnU9-vNqjCExJuWfNiWyiP0WpbiFG_8Axj1H7Wd3BVq3-cGIvmE/s1600/new+york+1950s.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6lWkpBTuCtpl4ixbxclXU8iOpJvY-63CXszAXHxgLOd5FahpSLqDBGfvv7Zam-T0YPN4X5-d5pN1zku2JpChq4ubp8lnU9-vNqjCExJuWfNiWyiP0WpbiFG_8Axj1H7Wd3BVq3-cGIvmE/s320/new+york+1950s.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>New York City in the 1950s. </em></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /><br />An author
once said that “New York has only eight or nine characters,” and the rest are
just “copies.” Copies of copies of copies, that are slowly diluted, like in
California. We are too far away from each other here, though we sometimes sit
right next to each other on the train or bus, idling in traffic to go to points
we think we know, to be characters any longer. Our towns long ago lost that
ability to support characters as a town, as a community.<br /><br />Every memory my
grandfather spoke retained the vibrancy of pure air: as though when he spoke of
this place so distant (and it is 2,000 miles from San Francisco), the only thing
I could even begin to compare it with is camping out with friends on the tops of
the Sierra Nevada mountain range, where you’re confronted with billions of
stars, that you’d never know existed, if you lived your life in the city, if you
lived in that image of what is. When he spoke of his love for that young woman,
of icy winters, long underwear, and outhouses; of being an upwardly mobile buyer
for Federated Department stores; of food, and lefse, dancing, music, and town
gatherings – I was drinking in pure air. It jolted my stifled mind, long since
used to the clouded exhaust of so much, to realize I had so little of that
purity, of characters, of those things that really mattered: love, community,
fun, adventure, and the clarity that only forty below brings.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX5jLosl2OARdzjf8LSCvGNIR2nLlARvkJE4wHi79cpA1UIpgyn5zHgiQ5zuySKX1zYZ3AQ30WNu2kpXzelG4dd4CFOnawM5rZCfJ6ZR7QZfAC9BtajqLQHcLhHNjVq-7PxyyhBajb3Lpz/s1600/university_of_north_dakota.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX5jLosl2OARdzjf8LSCvGNIR2nLlARvkJE4wHi79cpA1UIpgyn5zHgiQ5zuySKX1zYZ3AQ30WNu2kpXzelG4dd4CFOnawM5rZCfJ6ZR7QZfAC9BtajqLQHcLhHNjVq-7PxyyhBajb3Lpz/s320/university_of_north_dakota.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>The campus of the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND. </em></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /><br />Even so,
after my grandfather died, I remained in California. This is, after all, my
first home, the place I felt I knew best, and I was able to attend one of its
renowned universities. It was not until I was close to graduating that I
realized I had better figure out what to do with my life, and so after a night
of heavy drinking and thinking, I decided that graduate school seemed, at that
point, the place to direct myself to. I wasn’t quite ready to relinquish the
academic world yet, though it had disappointed me as an undergraduate with its
petty vices, and war of words on every miniscule topic one can imagine. North
Dakota was one of many places I applied, and it accepted me. At twenty-one I was
given full support, and a teaching position – and without a second thought, I
left California, and moved there. I have never regretted that
choice.<br /><br />What I discovered there was not my grandfather’s North Dakota; it
exists, in parts, and there are still people there who remember him. I was even
able to take my sister to visit a woman who grew up with my grandfather (she
still lives in Casselton), and my sister’s eyes filled with tears as she
listened to this woman tell the stories I knew so well, and for her to
understand and see, that our beginning began far away from the coastal
territories we know so well. But those stories that were my grandfather’s are
not my own, they are his, and will forever be; what they did for me was to show
me that my way is not so lonely or alone, as so many young people my age
believe; it lit up corridors and halls throughout a place that felt, from the
first, as though I had returned home.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEtpSRFoxr9cR-ziUJRMhEZpGR3LI_EAlKDASPb0Qz7uIby5ewlhYfhybgrqb5WQJS72jLzrZLtgGD0jtcN6vzcGPpx3yyirZSVzPMaL0GiiOyLrmIUBhiWBkOIKIzGRkPKtVCdMLxef76/s1600/Long+dark+corridor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEtpSRFoxr9cR-ziUJRMhEZpGR3LI_EAlKDASPb0Qz7uIby5ewlhYfhybgrqb5WQJS72jLzrZLtgGD0jtcN6vzcGPpx3yyirZSVzPMaL0GiiOyLrmIUBhiWBkOIKIzGRkPKtVCdMLxef76/s320/Long+dark+corridor.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>"What they did was to show me that my way is not so lonely or alone...," says Michael Lopez.</em></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /><br />I knew no one, understood none of
the rituals or institutions that were the state, but never felt lost, or outside
of what I had never lived. Everywhere I drove, everything I saw, seemed as it
should be, in the right place, doing what it ought to be doing. Though, and this
is especially true late at night, as I drive on the major interstate highway
that runs from Bismarck, Casselton, Fargo, to Minneapolis, and as I pass
Casselton, I always howl the loudest howl I can muster, in honor of one who
brought me here. There would be no North Dakota without my family; everything
would have been strange and foreign. I could have, over time, grown accustomed
to it – but it would never have been the strange peace, as when I lived through
my first winter, of standing at the edge of town staring off into the infinite
whiteness and feeling as though I had only come home.<br /><br />Our lives are
decided for us long before we’re even conceived, let alone physically delivered
into the arms of life. I don’t mean to say that we have no freedom to choose, or
that we can’t make our lives what they are – we do that everyday. I have done
that, made choices, tried to understand who and what I am, and where I’m going,
but my stories know too well now that look my grandfather had when he
resurrected memories; my heart now feels the icy cold of a North Dakota winter,
and sometimes (though, not always; it can get very cold there) longs to be in
it; to drink coffee, and drive on highways unclouded by the frantic mentalities
of speed, and schedule, lost in my own recollections of what it means to live,
to take time to think of everyone around me, of the characters I have
encountered, and who are waiting to be born.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI-14Y1Rxe4gYpXX4-KRFuU4EajD51PR7cM5u5u1dVMFmEd8oDmPRyoWIZ0KtmdmMGQOChLwHvITQd-DSwCrg6cC-6PzEK67vS-IYpjKIPztkl4L2NhlQDRrUG2ohIqQ2jojs9EdwWp-b2/s1600/I94+In+ND.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI-14Y1Rxe4gYpXX4-KRFuU4EajD51PR7cM5u5u1dVMFmEd8oDmPRyoWIZ0KtmdmMGQOChLwHvITQd-DSwCrg6cC-6PzEK67vS-IYpjKIPztkl4L2NhlQDRrUG2ohIqQ2jojs9EdwWp-b2/s320/I94+In+ND.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>A look from an overpass of I94. The roads go to the edge of forever in North Dakota.</em></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /><br />My grandfather’s stories, as
I have said, did not force me down this path, and he did not mean for them to be
a rigid structure for living my life. Rather, as is the case with true stories,
he meant for them to be an inheritance of himself, of his lifetime of knowledge
on everything that was good, right, and just, on the themes that have been the
foundations of meaning for the human race: love, beauty, and hope, and to find,
as he once had, a place of home where those could be felt in their true
magnitude.<br /><br />Until I lived in North Dakota it was always an image, a
thought, an idea – a place that, sure, yeah, existed, but not really. Having
lived there, and having understood my grandfather’s stories as I have made my
own, I understand now why California was, for him, a station, where he could
tend to all of the things that life gives an individual in a lifetime. And, I
like to think, he tended them well. So well, in fact, that whenever anyone asks
me, “Why North Dakota?” I only give them a smile of deep feeling, and
unconsciously I feel a part of my mind shoot off into the depths of memory, and
though I can’t see myself, I feel my eyes taking on the look of my grandfather,
as I glance off into the distant sky that forms the horizon, and the outlet of
the bay to the Pacific Ocean that unfolds before me, and in my chest, and with
the hint of a sigh, I reply, with a sense of complete peace and knowing, “Where
else?”</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz7u273makHrRB4GzRUDp4PfKzwLBTpzTUWmhSQ-ivvdWM1aS0XNy-msK7CAhBzfkgZXPinu-qDeZG_Y5rrahVH3aFjpheSMAk1yw5RgEGAa-4bpEhF-V3YAWcSejX6eouSlzcC9l-tbJ9/s1600/nodirectionhome4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz7u273makHrRB4GzRUDp4PfKzwLBTpzTUWmhSQ-ivvdWM1aS0XNy-msK7CAhBzfkgZXPinu-qDeZG_Y5rrahVH3aFjpheSMAk1yw5RgEGAa-4bpEhF-V3YAWcSejX6eouSlzcC9l-tbJ9/s1600/nodirectionhome4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz7u273makHrRB4GzRUDp4PfKzwLBTpzTUWmhSQ-ivvdWM1aS0XNy-msK7CAhBzfkgZXPinu-qDeZG_Y5rrahVH3aFjpheSMAk1yw5RgEGAa-4bpEhF-V3YAWcSejX6eouSlzcC9l-tbJ9/s1600/nodirectionhome4.jpg" /></a>Michael Lopez was a graduate student at the University of North Dakota, in the
department of English. Originally from San Francisco, CA, Michael earned A.B. in
English Literature and Political Theory from the University of California,
Davis. His research focuses on the writings of Danish philosopher Søren
Kierkegaard, and William Shakespeare. In addition to his work in North Dakota,
Michael has held fellowships and residencies with the Kierkegaard Library, St.
Olaf college, and the Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre, at the University of
Copenhagen, in Denmark. Although much of his work is focused on British
literature and philosophy, he has a serious interest in American literature, and
recently presented (Summer, 2006) at the Hemingway Foundation’s conference in
Andalusia, Spain, on the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, and one of Hemingway’s
later novels, <em>Across the River and Into the Trees.</em><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>NDHumanitieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587988436325558541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229312807222213798.post-58913944252550117952012-05-04T10:22:00.000-07:002012-05-04T10:22:01.895-07:00Key Ingredients, A Travelling Smithsonian Exhibit to Visit Hettinger, ND<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtJtdI-gcM_nBTJjI1i8Qfi3CZfinL1Nb19FkMwHkfUUKpEhQazvnW4Md7iygIZp76rd-Lo20kq5IMiXJncaA_cJf8cunNblAfzi0DNa-2A4deMIMODN91ENBZsR2pHXtqDyZPhv9-ArT2/s1600/Key+INgredients+Logo+-+SMALL.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtJtdI-gcM_nBTJjI1i8Qfi3CZfinL1Nb19FkMwHkfUUKpEhQazvnW4Md7iygIZp76rd-Lo20kq5IMiXJncaA_cJf8cunNblAfzi0DNa-2A4deMIMODN91ENBZsR2pHXtqDyZPhv9-ArT2/s320/Key+INgredients+Logo+-+SMALL.bmp" width="320" /></a></div>
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The Dakota Buttes Museum in Hettinger, ND will be hosting the travelling Smithsonian exhibit <em>Key Ingredients: America By Food</em> beginning tomorrow. <br />
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Here is a brief listing of events in association with the exhibit in Hettinger, ND:<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">OPENING CEREMONIES: WISDOM FROM THE ANCIENTS</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid9rYWsBeuu1v4_dDkdPvF3GbSXsXOth2jHvp5971QG2b77la8Hvy6OlZ5MbC5cI8TwEqzXVttEIdLkW7c4D8F7qTz6WF7yz2s5hI3x55QiU-3QBrrirjyMeGJnT3F8HogxhPEsJx1iL6u/s1600/sheheke2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid9rYWsBeuu1v4_dDkdPvF3GbSXsXOth2jHvp5971QG2b77la8Hvy6OlZ5MbC5cI8TwEqzXVttEIdLkW7c4D8F7qTz6WF7yz2s5hI3x55QiU-3QBrrirjyMeGJnT3F8HogxhPEsJx1iL6u/s1600/sheheke2.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p><em>Sheheke, White Coyote. Sheheke was born about 1766 at the On A Slant Mandan Indian VIllage, presently located in Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park. He died near present-day Washburn, ND defending the United States when the War of 1812 spread west.</em></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic";">May 5, 2012 -
2:00 pm MDT, <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Dakota</st1:placename>
<st1:placename w:st="on">Buttes</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Museum</st1:placetype></st1:place><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Ribbon cutting / Visiting dignitaries / Refreshments<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Speaker: Diana Medicine Stone, direct descendant of Sheheke, the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Mandan</st1:city></st1:place> chief who met the Corps of Discovery in 1804 with the greeting, "If we eat, you too shall eat. If we starve, you too shall starve." Lewis and Clark escorted Sheheke east in 1806 to meet with President Jefferson. Join Medicine Stone in Hettinger to hear the retelling of this wonderful and historical benchmark in American history.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">A VERY PRAIRIE TEA</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqhpdzMattkswobfJtMW1aa_mpzv2Xm5Pp7WVZWcrMmOo9drN6cIiGnDQYTwQARiaiVg5nYDB8HvR2GRzf9OkDE1wF3bBEtHx7TCs-M9138VVl2dsOLra1VqGv9SBReLxiwulIF_Vvn57B/s1600/Hettinger_Churches_008.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqhpdzMattkswobfJtMW1aa_mpzv2Xm5Pp7WVZWcrMmOo9drN6cIiGnDQYTwQARiaiVg5nYDB8HvR2GRzf9OkDE1wF3bBEtHx7TCs-M9138VVl2dsOLra1VqGv9SBReLxiwulIF_Vvn57B/s320/Hettinger_Churches_008.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p><em>The Hettinger Lutheran Church is located at 904 2nd Ave S., in Hettinger, ND.</em></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic";">May 6, 2012 -
2:00 pm MDT, <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Hettinger</st1:placename>
<st1:placename w:st="on">Lutheran</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Church</st1:placetype></st1:place>
fellowship hall<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Enjoy afternoon tea in a festive atmosphere complete with homemade
delicacies served on a variety of </span><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">treasured table setting. Program. Hats and gloves optional. <i>Freewill.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">MID-MORNING COFFEE AT THE MUSEUM (coffee klatches)</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilzWoxze1yRD8xy1VuqjeOBZMRixelhj_D9XeKwQdrIK-Zf4Nm2q7OU8hh8XdaVKKM6LgNel4UuXoQWuuoMKsTLoci2DEhQtI2FT0HqfMtFMjPX_Zl6j6OUiF_YSA4TFgtbZA5CoRTRrBU/s1600/Coffee.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilzWoxze1yRD8xy1VuqjeOBZMRixelhj_D9XeKwQdrIK-Zf4Nm2q7OU8hh8XdaVKKM6LgNel4UuXoQWuuoMKsTLoci2DEhQtI2FT0HqfMtFMjPX_Zl6j6OUiF_YSA4TFgtbZA5CoRTRrBU/s320/Coffee.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic";">May 9, 16, 23,
30, and June 6, 13, 2012 - 10:00 am MDT, <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Dakota</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">Buttes</st1:placename>
<st1:placetype w:st="on">Museum</st1:placetype></st1:place><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Wednesday morning gatherings to discuss various food-related topics
specific to the area.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">VISITING DOCENT</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVFIyd5jr4AFxnkUK0nxOBOwELVGw-8B0IHPjfFXevi4xO7oUzETpz4qpF31Km7JAM5_mBwhINPTCZjlcZc3ThsrK6CrcwXAbRaNz-dIlK6HyJ7Bgg1RSgX4vgMf0Vn8Fh0-2TrMoGKytH/s1600/CP3_0911.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVFIyd5jr4AFxnkUK0nxOBOwELVGw-8B0IHPjfFXevi4xO7oUzETpz4qpF31Km7JAM5_mBwhINPTCZjlcZc3ThsrK6CrcwXAbRaNz-dIlK6HyJ7Bgg1RSgX4vgMf0Vn8Fh0-2TrMoGKytH/s320/CP3_0911.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dakota plays the Native Amerian flute at the On A Slant village in Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park. Photo courtesy of ND Tourism.</span></em></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic";">May 21 &
22, 2012 - 10:00 to 4:00 pm MDT, <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Dakota</st1:placename>
<st1:placename w:st="on">Buttes</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Museum</st1:placetype></st1:place><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Dakota Goodhouse, NDHC Program Officer and Researcher, invites students
to reflect, to share and </span><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">to connect in a greater understanding of the <b><i>Key Ingredients:
America by Food </i></b>exhibit. Visit <a href="http://thefirstscout.blogspot.com/">http://thefirstscout.blogspot.com</a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">AUTHOR/BOOK SIGNING</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1wVWA7ED3vf85Yznotp97LxMx7rnkwCY05EVLQnQ9iEbO3uCeXgqOgDUR3FuH3NoZCLgKyzoJRs7n-beUP81EZpfZ0hV6uWgPu9QlmwqZVhPQr6ej8WfV1U8fcCwEe_3AMBUIwlhjJBPm/s1600/alanBjerga.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1wVWA7ED3vf85Yznotp97LxMx7rnkwCY05EVLQnQ9iEbO3uCeXgqOgDUR3FuH3NoZCLgKyzoJRs7n-beUP81EZpfZ0hV6uWgPu9QlmwqZVhPQr6ej8WfV1U8fcCwEe_3AMBUIwlhjJBPm/s320/alanBjerga.jpg" width="291" /></a></div>
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<em><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Alan Bjerga, follow him at <cite>twitter.com/npcpresident </cite></span></em></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic";">June 4, 2012 -
7:00 pm MDT, <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Dakota</st1:placename>
<st1:placename w:st="on">Buttes</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Museum</st1:placetype></st1:place><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Alan Bjerga, American journalist and former president of the National
Press Association, with his book </span><i><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Endless Appetites: How the Commodities Casino Creates Hunger and Unrest. </span></i><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Discussion /
Book signing<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">CLOSING PROGRAM</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTrrz17xW_LlTrweGRLDgEidTpdCcILMUvkoEVjai3Gw5Grno_H0hpepNbcfYHO6qGi7mINZylja1JI8mXw7OjvEqDHy_gfUh6bacSZrlu7ovFfIDRa7c11YRSEGxSGEv7dBzmyGb_01Fy/s1600/Jessie+Veeder.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTrrz17xW_LlTrweGRLDgEidTpdCcILMUvkoEVjai3Gw5Grno_H0hpepNbcfYHO6qGi7mINZylja1JI8mXw7OjvEqDHy_gfUh6bacSZrlu7ovFfIDRa7c11YRSEGxSGEv7dBzmyGb_01Fy/s320/Jessie+Veeder.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jessie Veeder, right, North Dakota song writer, performing artist, and photographer.</span></em></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic";">June 17, 2012
- 2:00 pm MDT, <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Dakota</st1:placename>
<st1:placename w:st="on">Buttes</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Museum</st1:placetype></st1:place><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Voices of the Prairie</span></i><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">: Borderline Singers / <i>When Stories Speak: </i>Ceil
Anne Clement<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">If Aprons Could Talk</span></i><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">: Apron Style Show / <i>Voices of the Present</i>:
Jessie Veeder</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Visit Jessie Veeder online for music, photography, humor, and observations about ranch life in western North Dakota. <a href="http://veederranch.com/">http://veederranch.com</a>. </span></div>
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<st1:place w:st="on"><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">WESTERN BBQ</span></st1:place><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic";">June 17, 2012
- 4:00 to 7:00 pm MDT, <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Dakota</st1:placename>
<st1:placename w:st="on">Buttes</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Museum</st1:placetype></st1:place><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Yesterday’s Farmers </span></i><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">/ Musical Entertainment 6:00 pm <i>Freewill</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Visit <a href="http://www.hettingernd.com/">www.hettingernd.com</a> for more information about the events in association with the Smithsonian exhibit. </span></div>NDHumanitieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587988436325558541noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229312807222213798.post-56283662910685692842012-05-02T10:41:00.000-07:002012-05-02T10:41:06.851-07:00North Dakota Welcomes Back Chuck Klosterman<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/XeYxELLl5YI?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
Chuck Klosterman was the READ ND author of 2012. This very special guest lecture was brought together through the cooperative efforts of Prairie Public Broadcasting, the North Dakota Library Association, the North Dakota Council on The Arts, the State Historical Society of North Dakota, and the North Dakota Humanities Council. <br />
<br />
On Wednesday evening, April 11, 2012, Chuck Klosterman visited the Bismarck State College campus and treated a packed audience to an hour of North Dakota humor and life lessons. <br />
<br />
Klosterman's most popular work so far is his <em>Sex, Drugs, and Cocopuffs</em>. Support your local book store and gratify yourself with a copy today!</div>NDHumanitieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587988436325558541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229312807222213798.post-65517452189436459452012-04-30T12:50:00.000-07:002012-10-31T09:25:04.805-07:00Life Returns to The Northern Plains<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivFlvwO2dU5St3aekk-oykNSKsFRPh-HJxdH9urhHUHrOxS7VmBN7oKUeONji80pG4x_2EtZx19lwWNVkYmIpHKH_WtdKyF7nsBfslQIKYWK0J6cPWfq8x5k04XzqM_kFIw_C7I4eRKEcA/s1600/DSC_0025.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivFlvwO2dU5St3aekk-oykNSKsFRPh-HJxdH9urhHUHrOxS7VmBN7oKUeONji80pG4x_2EtZx19lwWNVkYmIpHKH_WtdKyF7nsBfslQIKYWK0J6cPWfq8x5k04XzqM_kFIw_C7I4eRKEcA/s320/DSC_0025.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
Trees begin to bud leaves as pictured above. Cottonwood trees wake up from a prolonged autumn and show boaters and fishers they survived last year's flood. <br />
<br />
The Missouri River holds a special place in the hearts of the native peoples and the people who've come to make their homes in the river valley. <br />
<br />
In the middle distance above is Fox Island, a developed suburb of Bismarck. It was under water during last year's flood. In the middle to far distance is Sibley Island. Why are these places special?<br />
<br />
What we call Fox Island today was where the Corps of Discovery encamped on their return to St. Louis in the late summer of 1806. They took with them the Mandan Indian Chief Shehek Shote (White Wolf), aka Sheheke (White Coyote), who told them of the history of where he was born across the river at On A Slant village. <br />
<br />
What we call Sibley Island, of course was where a steamboat, the Assiniboin, became caught on a sandbar and burned, in the 1830s. Later, in 1863, General Sibley's command engaged what he estimated as a force of about 2500 people (about able-bodied warriors) in a punitive campaign against the Sioux, only he didn't realize until later that he fought people who had nothing to do with the Dakota Conflict in Minnesota the previous year. </div>
NDHumanitieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587988436325558541noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229312807222213798.post-54237008987796946472012-04-24T07:58:00.001-07:002012-04-24T07:58:16.850-07:00Sibley Island, formerly called Burnt Boat Island<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR16JiwwaTJbMFe1BC51WtdQE6H5BrdnxYHF1rRIWmRniDCvBGEsa1sG8_HfWBLCJ3pXb8ZDMjHZVOKI3McdD9vmBT_p5_y1GGO3PeHTotC58XPyrcZV8gTowkIMEMTgsiwh3bYxyXcOSj/s1600/DSC_0018.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR16JiwwaTJbMFe1BC51WtdQE6H5BrdnxYHF1rRIWmRniDCvBGEsa1sG8_HfWBLCJ3pXb8ZDMjHZVOKI3McdD9vmBT_p5_y1GGO3PeHTotC58XPyrcZV8gTowkIMEMTgsiwh3bYxyXcOSj/s320/DSC_0018.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>This image is taken from the hilltop at Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park looking south southeast. In the center line is Sibley Island.</em></div>
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In the 1830s, Prinz Maximilian ascended the Missouri River with the artist Karl Bodmer. On coming up the Missouri River, they noted a burned out steamboat which had run aground on a sandbar. The steamboat as called "The Assiniboine," it was the second steamboat to travel upriver from St. Louis to Fort Union. It became grounded and overheated and burned. The sandbar grew to an island and is new part of the west bank of the Missouri River. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4FYTgDs6NhAMlyIZ9Z-K1ompV_EshofwHsXDD8RBhF6flyCwDHQtoJDTxaAdmKYi9kwccaNbIzHfEotSbOTkWSjRpXEpJ07TIdP6CUCwrsi7-NLA2hany1ovBbG-KrcAdhcgjNujfaNys/s1600/Burnt+Boat+Island+or+Sibley+Island.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="94" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4FYTgDs6NhAMlyIZ9Z-K1ompV_EshofwHsXDD8RBhF6flyCwDHQtoJDTxaAdmKYi9kwccaNbIzHfEotSbOTkWSjRpXEpJ07TIdP6CUCwrsi7-NLA2hany1ovBbG-KrcAdhcgjNujfaNys/s320/Burnt+Boat+Island+or+Sibley+Island.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>A different view of Sibley Island, looking west from the University of Mary, Bismarck, ND.</em></div>
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The island was renamed after General Sibley and his campaign against the Dakota in 1863. On July 29, 1863, Sibley engaged a force of perhaps as many as 2600 Dakota and Lakota warriors and fought them for three days in a battle larger and lasting longer than the Little Bighorn. Sibley was unable to take prisoners and could not estimate how many his men killed. The Sioux were encamped on the bluff overlooking the Missouri River and Apple Creek and held their ground until their women and children escaped. The "battle" was essentially a stalemant. </div>
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<br /></div>NDHumanitieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587988436325558541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229312807222213798.post-45093659883035784412012-04-20T12:26:00.000-07:002012-04-20T12:26:07.525-07:00What is "Community" and How Is It Changing in North Dakota?<strong>By David Danborn</strong><br />
(Originally posted on prairiepolis.blogspot.com, June 3, 2008)<br />
<br />
When the folks at the North Dakota Humanities Council asked me to write on this
question I figured the first thing I needed to do was to research the word
“community” a little bit. <br /><br />So I typed in “community” on Google and was
informed that there were “approximately” 1,130,000,000 entries. That’s a lot of
entries, even for a college professor with time on his hands, so I went over to
the NDSU library to see whether I could find a more manageable data
set.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2qNKukX3Dtr44mangbDK7mS8gQXlpd3Dj_4AIm_B_SG80pN9BTRygqaLUVGgTQbabCfdQFjc-ENA4T9zDu6T1olUEePzq8XV8v8n0OWgzwmXJ0owbZ0dIY2LVajVK5ElWylAqWZx93B0G/s1600/NDSU+Library.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2qNKukX3Dtr44mangbDK7mS8gQXlpd3Dj_4AIm_B_SG80pN9BTRygqaLUVGgTQbabCfdQFjc-ENA4T9zDu6T1olUEePzq8XV8v8n0OWgzwmXJ0owbZ0dIY2LVajVK5ElWylAqWZx93B0G/s320/NDSU+Library.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>The NDSU main library. Visit their website at <a href="http://library.ndsu.edu/">http://library.ndsu.edu</a>. </em></div>
<br /><br />Typing in “community” on the subject line of the NDSU Library
brought up 5522 entries. That quite a bit more manageable than 1.1 billion and
change, but it’s still a pretty big number and – keep in mind – we’re hardly the
Library of Congress. But at least I could get a sense of what “community” means
from these 5500+ entries. <br /><br />Turns out it means a lot of different stuff.
As I expected, community refers to places, as in the work entitled A Community
Study of Mandan, North Dakota. Nor was I surprised to see community defined in
terms of emotional bonds among people, as in the book In Search of Community:
Encounter Groups and Social Change.
<br />
<br />But the word community is also regularly applied to large social
groupings, as in the “European community” or the “community of man.” And it is
frequently applied to professional groupings, such as the “legal community” or
the “medical community.” Interestingly, it is frequently applied to professions
but almost never to jobs. There seems to be no “plumbing community” or
“truck-driving community.”
<br />
<br />We also see the word community attached to institutions, organizations,
or even inclinations. Hence, we speak of a “Catholic community” or the
“volunteer community” or an “NDSU community.” <br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyN27T54ximtcUSZfPXrdj8Eq3bsUeK9xwHaPO8Q2BTmNLeHzjxq3o4koZJqoxfoa0Gv1zE9JDpPszkEVrcsF5d_EXuv2u_nVyo0HlWX5-pwog6Ow0sh-UoGrWqGu35UZQxWKuRMQ-D8ST/s1600/The+Americans,+The+Democratic+Experience.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyN27T54ximtcUSZfPXrdj8Eq3bsUeK9xwHaPO8Q2BTmNLeHzjxq3o4koZJqoxfoa0Gv1zE9JDpPszkEVrcsF5d_EXuv2u_nVyo0HlWX5-pwog6Ow0sh-UoGrWqGu35UZQxWKuRMQ-D8ST/s320/The+Americans,+The+Democratic+Experience.jpg" width="204" /></a></div>
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<em>Daniel Boorstin's book "The Americans: The Democratic Experience" can be found in most libraries, if not, one can always order a copy off of Amazon.com. </em></div>
<br /><br />Reading through these many
applications I was reminded of a book by Daniel Boorstin called The Americans:
The Democratic Experience. Boorstin saw communities everywhere, in the
television shows people watched, the organizations they joined, and the products
they consumed. As one who wrote about “I Love Lucy” and “Frigidaire”
communities, Boorstin would undoubtedly nod approvingly at mention of “Face
Book” and “My Space” communities today. <br /><br />Complicating matters further is
the fact that the word community goes beyond even this infinite variety of human
groupings in its application to ecological or biological niches or species, as
in Ecology and Natural History of Desert Lizards: Analysis of the Ecological
Niche and Community Structure. Now, if you were to stick the lizards together
with the lawyers, this use of “community” might make more sense.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcafzuYFjaymeRbIRljAWOm3PuGdofvIYlmmo006eF6rq_6opS7MMpCkrVxFI145Snf-sQdtgLn9zplSp3l3Hl3dUEtglR8mXTMaWo45mw9Z6N8K2Uy-PY3M1s4H-vzR9N9rehuU1Ik034/s1600/Justice%2520William%2520J_%2520Brennan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcafzuYFjaymeRbIRljAWOm3PuGdofvIYlmmo006eF6rq_6opS7MMpCkrVxFI145Snf-sQdtgLn9zplSp3l3Hl3dUEtglR8mXTMaWo45mw9Z6N8K2Uy-PY3M1s4H-vzR9N9rehuU1Ik034/s320/Justice%2520William%2520J_%2520Brennan.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>Supreme Court Justice Brennan knows porn.</em></div>
<br /><br />Well, it
should be pretty clear that my search for help turned out to be more confusing
than enlightening. I found myself thinking of the words of Justice Brennan of
the United States Supreme Court, who said that he couldn’t define pornography,
but he knew it when he saw it. With apologies to Brennan, I’m not going to
attach a rigid definition to community, but I think I know it when I see it, and
I expect most of you do, too.<br /><br />I expect that when most of us think about
“community” we think about it through some combination of the first two ways I
mentioned – as a physical place inhabited by people bound together emotionally.
This is fairly close to the definition of community provided by Ferdinand
Töennies, the German sociologist of the nineteenth century who was one of the
first people to study the issue systematically. Töennies defined communities as
relatively restricted spaces shared by people with close family, kin, friendship
and neighborhood ties. In Töennies’ communities human bonds were personal and
emotional rather than contractural, and human affairs were governed by moral
responsibility and personal obligation rather than law. Töennies contrasted
community with society. Societies were made up of diverse, unrelated and
unconnected people, often divided along class or ethnic lines. People in
societies had few mutual ties and consequently felt few mutual obligations.
Thus, they were governed not by moral imperatives, but by law backed by
compulsion and force. I would imagine Töennies’ understanding of society sounds
rather harsh and alien to us. But his conception of community probably resonates
with us, because it sounds a lot like what we have had – and what we still have
– in North Dakota.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4DPezt0Ul0OGpkKYAUQ4L9ZdNVG14NP_GdUBJW5nvfqOaMn6r30Ubaf0SUVwb18lKh2f58GVZiE05NIEL8oAhUUEZE4h_WxhIi9pzKf5_NFY9xfWoy3Izy-2qzuZizKck5CcztHyLWXRM/s1600/Old+Settlers+Picnic+at+Pollack+SD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4DPezt0Ul0OGpkKYAUQ4L9ZdNVG14NP_GdUBJW5nvfqOaMn6r30Ubaf0SUVwb18lKh2f58GVZiE05NIEL8oAhUUEZE4h_WxhIi9pzKf5_NFY9xfWoy3Izy-2qzuZizKck5CcztHyLWXRM/s320/Old+Settlers+Picnic+at+Pollack+SD.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>An old settlers picnic at Pollack, SD.</em></div>
<br /><br />Early European Americans in North Dakota had to make
farms and towns and lives, but when you think about it, you realize that their
communities came pretty much ready made. Take a look some time at Bill Sherman’s
wonderful ethnic atlas of North Dakota – Prairie Mosaic. When you look at
Sherman’s big picture, you see a remarkably heterogenous state. But when you
break it down to the township or sub-township level you see communities of
remarkable – even stunning – homogeneity. That isn’t accidental. That’s how the
railroads and the land companies and the settlers themselves settled the state.
So we have Bohemian Germans over here and Volga Germans over there. Norwegians
in this township and Swedes in that. Poles on this side of the river and
Icelanders on the other.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMAlvGomYlfHcqGGLVWvDVQJW4aeK09mcQzNGJeVoIE36q_scquuufXDO6DA5-5FhvUByo9wpygBdIDfzCK7adGmLbo9_1CQIpKG97JZ6CmqoUslpFXlSyy-g0dwHiOir7FrVT3vW50Z0P/s1600/standing+rock+community.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="182" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMAlvGomYlfHcqGGLVWvDVQJW4aeK09mcQzNGJeVoIE36q_scquuufXDO6DA5-5FhvUByo9wpygBdIDfzCK7adGmLbo9_1CQIpKG97JZ6CmqoUslpFXlSyy-g0dwHiOir7FrVT3vW50Z0P/s320/standing+rock+community.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>Sitting Bull attends the installation of the Standing Rock Memorial in Fort Yates, ND. A mixed community of natives and immigrants.</em></div>
<br /><br />It was a good way to settle the land. It was
easier to sell to a group and easier to attract individuals when a bunch of
folks like them were already there. And when they came from the same village or
even the same family, as they frequently did, they had a ready-made community.
People already cared about each other and were ready to lend each other a hand.
And when you’re among friends and relatives who depend on you and on whom you
depend, you tend to be a sticker and a survivor. It’s easier for you to make a
go of it in a difficult environment.<br /><br />People who spoke the same language –
literally and figuratively – quickly created institutions that buttressed their
strong sense of community. They founded ethnic churches with services in their
native languages. They built schools in which the language of instruction was
supposed to be English but frequently was not. They created new organizations –
such as the Sons of Norway – to reinforce and elaborate their community ties and
their connections to home. And they recreated the Old World in the New,
transferring customs, traditions, celebrations, foodways – you name it – from
the Russian Steppes and the Scandinavian valleys to the vast and forbidding
Great Plains.<br /><br />One is tempted to call these “island communities,” after
historian Robert Wiebe’s phrase coined a generation ago, but they were never
isolated in the sense of Indians deep in the Amazon rain forest or throwbacks in
isolated Appalachian hollows. North Dakota communities participated in a
national commercial and political culture. Children went off to school or to the
service or to work for a while in Fargo or Minneapolis or Seattle. And
automobiles and radios exposed local communities to the world beyond the
locality.<br />
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<em>Hutterites pictured here prepare to establish a new colony. There are currently six Hutterite colonies in North Dakota, a seventh colony is being established near Hillsboro, ND. These island communities are primarily pacifists and speak Hutterite German.</em></div>
<br /><br />But, in the context of modern American society, these
communities were relatively isolated. They were rural, agriculturally oriented
communities, and were not particularly dynamic. People moved out, because
agriculture simply couldn’t support all of the children farmers produced, but
few people moved in, and those who did were usually friends or relatives of the
folks who were already there.
<br />
<br />The relatively static nature of so many North Dakota communities was not
a bad thing. We tend to privilege “progress” in the United States and assume it
is good, but that’s not necessarily so. There is much to be said for places that
don’t change very much when they are comfortable, caring, and sustaining. It is
the nature of these communities – and their relatively unchanging character –
that makes modern people who grew up in them so nostalgic about
them.<br /><br />North Dakota communities provided a comforting and sustaining
environment to many of the people living in them, but not all. Communities set
standards and had expectations. Those who met them enjoyed a warm and pleasant
life. Those who did not – who were “different” to use that judgmental word so
popular in our state – found communities stifling and oppressive rather than
supportive and caring. They are the folks who left and who do not attend the
centennials and all-school reunions that draw so many old residents
back.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyD4lxZfNFVspKCFTYCPylHIhYVxyl69Zfb68-aaoV1zNHZIEmgqIARneJ5WHxzTLILzayG8mc_9HcSDMCAqDgBew2N_mDJAQpo8ui9Ilyf6gKc_NxwMQZlWv362kfjwIEGiewDkwFeqh7/s1600/Barbed+wire+fence+in+ND.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyD4lxZfNFVspKCFTYCPylHIhYVxyl69Zfb68-aaoV1zNHZIEmgqIARneJ5WHxzTLILzayG8mc_9HcSDMCAqDgBew2N_mDJAQpo8ui9Ilyf6gKc_NxwMQZlWv362kfjwIEGiewDkwFeqh7/s320/Barbed+wire+fence+in+ND.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>A barbed wire fence in field of North Dakota.</em></div>
<br /><br />The fact is that community means defining who we are, but also who
we aren’t. It’s about including some people and excluding others, and some of
those who are excluded live there. This is where the fences come in.<br /><br />Now,
defining people out as well as in is not a practice confined to North Dakota. I
think it is probably a component of human nature generally, and perhaps of the
nature of other species as well. We all tend to divide humanity into “us” and
the “other.” What we are defines implicitly – and sometimes explicitly – what we
are not.<br /><br />In part because our communities are so tight and change so
little we in North Dakota have a good understanding of us and them – of defining
of who we are not by who we are. We are Catholic, not Lutheran; white not black
or Latino or Indian; Norwegian, not German or Irish; West River, not Imperial
Cass. Plug in what you want. We all have a good sense of who we are and who we
are not; of who is on our side of the fence and who is on the other
side.<br /><br />Us and them sounds negative, but it isn’t necessarily. We need to
know who us is to have a sense of identity and uniqueness and a feeling of
belonging, and defining them as them doesn’t usually do anybody any tangible
harm.<br />
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<em>Rapid change is hitting rural North Dakota communities in the northwest part of the state. A physical manifestation of that change is the increase in traffic on the roads where for years rural North Dakotans drove mostly at their leisure. Newcomers from out of state are put in that "them" catagory.</em></div>
<br /><br />But the us-and-them thinking that we see in our communities and
that represents the fences with which we are so familiar can actually harm us
and foreclose a better future for our children and our grandchildren. We need to
ask whether the fences our ancestors built a century a [sic] more ago are appropriate
in a dynamic and rapidly changing society, or whether they limit North Dakota’s
ability to move forward to a brighter future.<br /><br />We all know that the most
compelling and enduring issue in our state is demographic. We are the only state
in the Union whose population is smaller today than it was in 1930. We obsess
about this issue. We are excited when the Census Data Center shows an uptick in
the birthrate or a slight population increase. Conversely, even a slight
population decline sends us into a funk.
<br />
<br />We view the demographic decline as our number one problem, and what is
the solution we regularly suggest? Keeping young North Dakotans here and/or
inducing former North Dakotans to return. Now, there are good reasons for
conceiving this solution first. People who live here or who have lived here know
that we are not at the end of the earth and they know that it is possible to
survive the winter. We don’t have to sell them in the way we have to sell
outlanders.<br />
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<em>One demographic that has seen a steady increase is the native one on the Indian Reservations within the state.</em></div>
<br /><br />But there’s something more to this, isn’t there? Present and
former North Dakotans are part of us. They have been inside the fence, so we
know that, not only will they be comfortable with us, we will be comfortable
with them.
<br />
<br />There’s another way to address our demographic problem. We could
encourage immigration to the state by people who have never been North Dakotans.
We have great communities and an attractive lifestyle. Why not urge others to
come and share it with us?<br /><br />For about thirty years after statehood we had
a Department of Immigration and we had lots of immigrants. In 1910 seventy
percent of North Dakotans were either immigrants – mostly from Europe or Canada
– or the children of immigrants, a figure which led the nation.<br /><br />In the
2003, 2005, and 2007 legislative sessions a bill was introduced to revive the
state immigration department, which would now target people in other states
rather than other countries. It was defeated every time. In 2005 a senator
summed up the opposition during floor debate when he concluded, “immigrants
cause problems.” What a fine fence-builder he is!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinricO-wix87BQottYJ3GnOzNylldW4f9ZOwmTyacp4yeVXSyraSsFMaQ-0gjBepzQCCT0NDYSoWTx2rd7UjVUz4OP-9f4fWbBLWYg32gP4G9pWLFTZo6DUhRKWtfoeqvcNgYLWemgXIbg/s1600/gangsofnewyork.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinricO-wix87BQottYJ3GnOzNylldW4f9ZOwmTyacp4yeVXSyraSsFMaQ-0gjBepzQCCT0NDYSoWTx2rd7UjVUz4OP-9f4fWbBLWYg32gP4G9pWLFTZo6DUhRKWtfoeqvcNgYLWemgXIbg/s320/gangsofnewyork.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>In the film "Gangs of New York," actor Daniel Day-Lewis' character, Bill "The Butcher" Cutting, leads explosive protests against immigration. At one point in the film, The Butcher can be heard shouting for America for Native Americans - he meant of course, natural born citizens. </em></div>
<br /><br />But, to give him his
due, we need to recognize that this xenophobic fence-builder is right in a
sense. Outsiders do challenge us. Bosnians and Somalis in Fargo stress the
capacities of the schools. It is sometimes difficult to communicate with Latinos
in Grafton and Drayton. Roughnecks from Texas and Oklahoma bring practices and
dialects and churches to which Williston and Dickinson are not accustomed. But
all of these folks also enrich us, economically and culturally. They shake us up
and stir the pot. They shock us out of our lethargy and comfortable
self-satisfaction. But I believe – and I think the census figures bear me out –
that they represent a large part of the future of the state.<br /><br />I believe
that the challenge for North Dakota in the future is not going to involve the
wholesale tearing down of the fences that have helped us maintain strong and
sustaining communities, but in putting more gates in our fences and opening them
more widely. We need to bring more of those who are outside the fence in and we
need to make them more comfortable when they are inside.<br />
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<em>A fence in the middle of the prairie keeps important stuff in and other stuff out. That's what its supposed to do.</em></div>
<br /><br />I don’t think
this needs to involve a sea-change or a major disruption in our lives, but it
will require a little different way of thinking. In recent years we have
undergone an ethnic revival movement. NDSU houses a “Center for Heritage
Renewal” whose purpose is to serve “heritage communities.” I have not doubts
that this center has done much good work on behalf of our “heritage communities”
and that those entities appreciate it and what it does. But what I really wish
someone would create is a “Center for North Dakota Renewal.” That center
wouldn’t define community in terms of eating lutefisk, or speaking German, or
making kuchen, or telling Norwegian jokes. It wouldn’t focus on who is in and,
by implication, who is out. It would define community in a larger and broader
and more emotionally inclusive sense that we have tended to define it. It would
talk about community in terms of sustenance for families, neighbors who
genuinely care for one another, pride of place, tolerance, and, to paraphrase
Martine Luther King, Jr., judgment of others on the basis of their characters
rather than their “heritage communities.”<br />
<br />We have the fences, and they don’t
need to be built stronger and higher. What we need to do now is to open the
gates and invite those who can be North Dakota’s future in.<br />
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<br />David B. Danbom is a historian, author, columnist, and professor of agricultural
history at North Dakota State University. Danbom spent nine years on the Fargo
Historic Preservation Commission.NDHumanitieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06587988436325558541noreply@blogger.com0