Yeh te heh!

Navaho greeting.

The tribe of my heritage is Lakota - Sioux, wolf clan. Many Native American tribes have, out of necessity for unity, adopted each others customs, borrowed from each others languages.

So, yeh te heh! How are you? Hope this post finds y'all doing well.

From the genealogy research that was already done, plus my own, there are many names which are just that. Names on paper. I know that my father was Native American, on my birth certificate it lists him as American Indian. According to what I have found, his blood lines go back through Chief Sitting Bull. That was not his real name, it was the name given to him by white people for their convenience to be able to pronounce a name for him.
Just a fact, no hard feelings from me.

There was a name that came up a few times, Zitkala Sa (1876 - 1938), in English, it would be Red Bird. Her mother was Sitting Bulls daughter. So, she was the granddaughter of Sitting Bull. The white man who was her sperm donor father, left before her birth.
She was taken from her mother at the age of 8 years by white settlers to a school where the goal was to "educate" the Indian out of the native American children.
They gave her the name, Gertrude Simmons. Later, after her marriage, she was known as Gertrude S. Bonnin.

Wait, WHAT?!?

Such a docile name for such a fiery girl!

She was taken to the white settlement school where she was made to wear the white shirt and dark skirt. She was taught to read, write, her Native American culture was forbidden. The children were beaten if they didn't learn fast enough or if they spoke in their native language. They were also beaten, sometimes deprived of food, water, or humiliated for expressing any of their Native American customs. Educating the Indian out of them! They were being groomed to become house-maids, domestic help, farm hands. Anything that was low pay, to keep them where they would have less status. Easily controlled, kept down for the whites comforts.

Zitkala-Sa had no intention whatsoever to become a house maid.

She had fire in her veins, ambition in her mind, drive & determination! Educating her only put her on her path to success!

Her name had only been a name to me until recently when I saw a photograph of her.
I love history, studying history, historical documentaries. Sifting the chaff from the grain can be tricky. Some history is true, a great deal of it is propaganda. The dogma of those in power.  Yucky!

Looking at her, I felt a connection. The fire in her eyes. Many look at her and say she looks sad, quiet, etc. Looks can deceive. She had to look calm, had to look peaceful to accomplish her goals in the predominantly white mans world which was her path to success!

The stern school masters thought they were extracting her Native American language and culture from her. They thought they were grooming her to be a docile servant for their own purposes.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha aha ha ha ha!

They were actually empowering her to use the system to her advantage.

Zitkala-Sa taught herself to play the violin, she went on from the white boarding school to college. She became a musician first which other thought of as sweet .........until she wrote the very first ever Native American Opera.
The Sundance Opera (1913)
It was then that people began to take notice of her, to start to take her seriously.

Having so much in her heart, in her mind, she began her writing career. When she went back to the reservation, it grieved her to see her people content with alcohol addiction and settling for low paying jobs that only disempowered them.
She had an established presence as a writer, chronicling her struggles between who she was in her heart versus having to fit in, in the white mans world.
She was taken seriously after the opera.
Her books were enjoyed by both whites and Native Americans.

She took a very unexpected turn in becoming a positive politically active woman to help her people.
She founded the National Council of American Indians in 1926. She continued to lobby for the humane treatment of her people for the rest of her life.

I see the fire in her soul spilling out through her posture, her eyes, her intelligent quotes as well as other written masterpieces.

"I fear no man, sometimes, I think I  do not even fear God."
~ Zitkala-Sa



In the musings of my thoughts, I wonder if this fiery spirit in me was inherited from my NA side. Maybe. Just maybe.

I put a photo of her and one of myself, at roughly the same age, side by side. I can see a resemblance. Others have said they see the similarity, also.

Native Americans, when parting, say the equivalent of ,
"Until we meet again", or "We will be together again."

In Cherokee ~

Doh nah dah goh huh e-e.