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05 Wolakota Project Video Transcripts and URLs.docx · WP-0205. Imported source record; individual Elder status and tribal affiliation are not inferred.
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Interview transcript
Well, Ella DeLoria really put it across. So simple. She said kinship is the all-important matter, she said. And that says a whole lot because you came up with respect. For example, and this is probably, you might have heard this already, but like in-laws, like our son-in-laws, they couldn't speak to us but through another person. Or we couldn't speak directly, you know, to or tease our brothers like they do today. You know, that was not very, a very good etiquette, you know, within the household. And so that's called respect. And our grandmothers and our mothers, they used to kind of scold us if we stepped out of line. You know, they'd say, you don't teach your, you don't, you don't treat your brother like that, you know. They'll say something like that, oh sorry, you know. So it's kind of a way of respecting just within our households. And then pretty soon it goes out into that community or to the church where you respect the men folks and they respect the women. And they don't do a lot of teasing, except if that's your brother-in-law or your sister-in-law. For some reason, that part of our culture, there was some, a break there, maybe. So anyway, that's been a part of the culture that started when, back in the early, early times when people had camps, you know, there was that respect. And they had many, many camps. And I think the one thing that stands out in my mind is that you don't want your children to marry into your, your brother's children, you know. I think there was a control there. So you could go to another camp where we're not related. Maybe they could go courting there or somebody from there can come courting over here. You know, that's such a common thing anymore. There's a lot of intermarriages that, and there could be such thing as incest that kids don't know that's not being taught in homes anymore, what the way we were taught. So that's probably going to be a problem. In fact, it is a problem. A lot of money is being poured into the special needs programs in schools, and nobody questions why. Maybe it's because kids are related by blood, and there's that HD, whatever they call it, ADHD problems there. Or they could be kids of alcoholics, and so forth. And there's no control. And so we, as Lakota people, we need to really get on the ball and start, you know, teaching our teachers to talk about those things, you know. Maybe it's because it's causing suicides. Maybe they can't control their feelings or whatever. Why? Because maybe they're related or something. They're the same blood, you know, running in there. There's a lot of problems to look at, as far as I'm concerned. Did I touch on that, that one, the other part? The kinship. Kinship. Hunka Relatives - Stephanie Charging Eagle - OSEU #4