STANDING BEAR’S FOOTSTEPS The Meaning of Home “This hand is not the same color as yours, but if you pierce it I shall feel pain. The blood that will flow from mine will be the same color as yours. I am a man. The same God made us both.” Chapter 1 Introduction The PBS documentary Standing Bear’s Footsteps tells the story of the Ponca people, who were forcibly removed from their northern Nebraska homelands and sent to Oklahoma. One of their leaders, Standing Bear, made the difficult decision to take some of his people back north and fought in the courts to have the right to do so. Today, the Oklahoma Ponca have about 3500 enrolled members while the Nebraska Ponca have about 2500. The result is a people divided by location, but not completely by culture. This eBook brings together content from the film, the film’s educational website, and a series of short new essays in an interactive presentation. Although intended for general audiences, this eBook is easily adaptable to the classroom. To assist educators, we have included a Teacher Resources section. 1 Section 1 How to use this book Controls - Tap on the labels for additional information This app has a number of built-in controls for navigating and making use of the books you are reading. Search for text Table of Contents & Glossary You can access most of these controls by tapping once on any screen within your book. Sections of the current chapter A menu bar will appear across the top of your screen. On the left side are icons for returning to your book library, opening the table of contents or glossary, and making notes. Thumbnails of pages On the right side are icons to Chapter navigation change the brightness of your in the current chapter screen, search for text, and make bookmarks. Tap on any of the labels in the image to see more extensive descriptions for additional navigation tools. 2 Section 2 Section 2 by Shirley K. Sneve Executive Director Foreword Vision Maker Media “Oluluta” is a Lakota word for humid. Reservation brought the Lakota live in Nebraska, but I’m from South “P’o” means foggy. To me, these language to life through the Episcopal Dakota. If I don’t LIVE where I’m words connect my senses to the land hymn book, Dakota Odowan. FROM, where’s my home? around me. I grew up close to a river Christmas with my Norwegian My story is not unique. Many of us live giving us misty days and nights. This relatives meant lutefisk and lefse. away from home for employment or was near places where my ancestors Connection to these lands and school. More than half of Native had been for generations. traditions remains important to me. Americans have left their traditional My mother’s people were fur traders My Dad’s folks were farmers. Mom’s homelands. that married into the Dakota, Nakota, father was an Episcopal priest. Her From the forced relocations beginning Lakota, and Ponca Tribes in Minnesota grandparents were ranchers. When I in 1830, to the Urban Indian Relocation and on the Dakota and Nebraska was growing up, we ate vegetables programs of the 1950s and 60s, tribal Plains. My father’s family from our garden, and my dad hunted people know what it’s like to leave homesteaded in Medary Township and fished. home. We create new communities, near Brookings, SD. I was born in Rapid City, SD. I’ve without losing our past. The Cheyenne English was not the first language of moved a dozen times since then—to in Montana and Oklahoma, Oneidas in any of my grandparents. Family places in South Dakota, Utah, Nevada, New York and Wisconsin, and the gatherings on the Rosebud Sioux Massachusetts, and now Nebraska. I Poncas of Nebraska and Oklahoma 33 Section 2 (cont’d) by Shirley K. Sneve Executive Director Foreword (cont’d) Vision Maker Media are all examples of tribal families These questions are explored in the early morning mist, and feel the divided by war and the politics of Standing Bear’s Footsteps, a sun rise and warm my face. I need to Manifest Destiny. documentary by Christine Lesiak and hear Lakota songs and language on Nebraska Educational KILI broadcasting from Porcupine on Generations later, what does this Telecommunications. We invite the Pine Ridge Reservation. mean? What does “home” mean to parents, students and teachers to European, Asian and African people I’m lucky and grateful that my further explore “The Meaning of who now live on these Indian lands? parents have returned to live just a Home” through this interactive eBook couple miles from the Rapid City Now, many generations removed and our interactive website. hospital where I was born. It’s full from their traditional homes, The place on the Earth dearest to my circle for me. I’ve found my Meaning intermarriages, or separation from heart is the Black Hills of South of Home. grandparents, I meet many people Dakota—the sacred place for the who don’t know where they’re from. Cheyenne and Lakota. If I don’t get There are no family traditions that back there at least once a year, I get have survived. Still, we all need to cranky. My spirit doesn’t soar. feel we belong. How do people do that when they don’t know where I need to wake up with the scent of they came from? pine trees, I need to walk the trails in 44 Chapter 2 General Content Each of the eight units in the General Content section contains: 1. A set of questions you should be able to answer by the end of the unit 2. A short video taken from the TV program 3. The video transcript for that segment 4. A short article for one of the key people or topics mentioned in the video 5. Images & image galleries related to the content in that section 6. A few key vocabulary terms 7. Related web links 8. Interactive review activities You can work through the material in any order, but the first time through it may be helpful to read the questions and watch the video first, since all of the other content in the unit is based on those questions and the video. 5 Section 1 General Homeland Content WHAT WAS/IS “HOME” grizzly bear. Once Chief Standing Bear was Movie 1: Homeland FOR THE PONCAS? famous across America. Now he lives quietly 1. What is “home?” What part does where the Niobrara River flows into the “home” play in many Native Missouri. He's traveled thousands of miles, narratives? many on foot, to return to this place. The 2. What did the Ponca live in? Standing Bear Bridge, which spans the 3. What animals did the Ponca Missouri, is named for him. Type to enter text hunt? JANET SAIZ (NORTHERN PONCA): You have 4. Where were the ancestral graves to remember who you are, where you came for the Ponca people? “This is our home. This is our ancestral home. This is where my mother’s people, both on her father from, who your people were... 5. What does geographer David and her mother’s side, called home.” Wishart suggest about the power —Janet Saiz (Northern Ponca) NARRATOR: As descendants of Ponca Chief of place with Native people in contrast to Europeans? Standing Bear, Janet Saiz and her grandson Gabriel feel powerfully tied to this landscape. 6. How have the Ponca and other Native people adapted since JANET SAIZ: This is our home. This is our contact? ancestral home. This is where my mother's 7. What happened between the NARRATOR: He is Ma-chu-na-zha, “Standing people, both on her father and her mother's Lakota and Ponca, especially side, called home. And to me whenever I after the Treaty of 1868? Bear” in the Ponca language. In the old days he wore a necklace made from the claws of a come back here I get that feeling of home. 6 That this is where I want to be. And I've But you remove Indians out of their Bear’s childhood or early years as a told my children this is where I want to homeland, and you remove them from member of the Ponca tribe, but experts rest. their history as well as their geography. believe he was probably born sometime between 1829 and 1834. NARRATOR: Lewis and Clark were among the first white men to see a The Ponca lived in two nearby but Ponca village. In the late summer of separate villages—one, the lower village 1804, they passed the white chalk cliffs Unfortunately, there is very little firm (also called “Fish Smell” village following of the Missouri and climbed the Ponca's information available about Standing an unknown natural disaster) was home green hills. The tribe's earth lodges to the full-bloods, while the higher or were deserted because the people were “Gray Blanket” village was home to the out hunting buffalo. mixed-bloods. DAVID WISHART (GEOGRAPHER): Standing Bear lived in a typical frontier Well, they'd been there a long time at the log cabin in the lower village. His father, mouth of the Niobrara—since the 1730s. Old Drum, was chief of the village, but he The graves were on the bluffs above the was not chief of the whole tribe. villages and Indians believed that the Standing Bear followed in his father’s ancestors lived in those locations. footsteps as a chief, but he also was not the head chief (also called the The attachment of Native Americans was paramount chief) of the tribe—that was to a place.