Deep Dark Secrets

I am going to share my families deepest darkest secret with you. I doubt that my family is alone in keeping secrets. I know I probably have not told my kids the absolute truth about some parts of my history. I suppose there are varying levels of keeping secrets. Some things are probably none of your kids business, those are not secrets just things you keep to yourself. This secret is not like that. I think it might have been my right to know the information all along, and knowing it may have made a difference in my life.

Let's start with the first time I suspected the truth. I was in first grade. We were coming in from recess and everyone was using the bathroom before we went back to class. We had a new student move to our school, He was Sioux and he had long hair. I know that seems like no big deal now but in 1978 in a school full of ranchers kids in South Dakota it was a pretty big deal. When this boy went into the restroom some of the boys (if you went to public school you know these boys, there are always a group of them in every school) dragged him out of the boys restroom and threw him into the girls room while commenting about how he must be a girl with that long hair. I don't know if it was because of his culture or because of the fact he was in first grade, but he thought they were just mistaken and not jerks. So he pulled down his jeans to show them his young manhood. I have always had a very low tolerance for injustice and meanness. So I stepped out of line and defended him to my best ability. We both got sent to the principle, the boys did not. At the next recess the boys started calling him "Buck" and me "Squaw". Just in case you are reading this from another part of the world, those are derogatory terms for Native Americans.

I was perplexed to say the least. We lived near more than one reservation and it was common to see the Sioux doing their shopping and business in towns nearby. I was also aware of the fact that I had long black hair and skin that never sunburned. I went home and told my mother about it. My mother told me they were just ignorant kids and we were not Sioux and I shouldn't worry about it. But it kept happening.

I honestly cant say how many times in the course of my life it has happened. It wasn't always such a negative experience. But many people assumed I was native, some who were more knowledgeable than others specified that I was Sioux. Some were Native themselves, Otherers were not just people who looked at me and saw the obvious.

Eventually my older brother and I started to try to get to the bottom of our heritage. It was an uphill battle. Our mother and grandmother went to their graves insisting we were not Sioux. They had a variety of stories offered at various times to explain away the obvious.

To be honest in hindsight with the knowledge and experience I can't necessarily be angry at them. My grandmother went to college in South Dakota in the 1930's. That was a pretty amazing acomplishment for a woman, let alone a Sioux woman. She made a career out of being a teacher. She started out teaching in one room schools sponsored by school boards made up of ranchers. If you have ever read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, her time teaching in these schools was very similar to what was described. How likely would those men have been to hire a Sioux woman to teach their children? Not very I suspect, not then and not there. My mother had no such reason to sustain the lie, but I think she was loyal to her mother.

My mothers sister was a different story all together. She was 12 years older than my mother and much closer to their grandmother. My brother was her pet. So one day he asked her if we were Sioux. She told him a story her grandmother shared about the day that the massacre happened at Wounded Knee creek. My great grandmother was a little girl and she remembered the wounded being brought to their home for medical attention. My brother asked again if we were Sioux. My aunt was a very plain spoken old broad. Her answer was "Well there were only two kinds of people at Wounded Knee. Cowboys and Indians and we were definitely not the Cowboys".

Over the years pieces fell into place. I found a record of my family living in this place. Today it is in Nebraska. At the time it was within the boarders of a now smaller reservation, and they definitely lived there on the day of the massacre. Most recently my brother stopped at this reservation and found our Great Grandmother and some of her siblings in the tribal census records. Which in my mind sets the matter to rest. Unfortunately it does not mean that we can officially join the tribe due to the laws that have been put in place. But I now know who I am and that is a pretty big deal.

I'm not sure how knowing that would have changed my life. But it has changed my life now that I am in my 50's so it would stand to reason it would have had some affect. I obviously can't change all those years of being given the wrong information, But today I can say with certainty that I am a Sioux person.

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