Grandmother to Granddaughter: Generations of Oral History in a Dakota Family

Abstract

The intimate hours I spent with my grandmother listening to her stories are reflections of more than a simple educational process. The stories handed down from grandmother to granddaughter are rooted in a deep sense of kinship responsibility, a responsibility that relays a culture, an identity, and a sense of belonging essential to my life. It is through the stories of my grandmother, my grandmother's grandmother, and my grandmother's grandmother's grandmother and their lives that I learned what it means to be a Dakota woman, and the responsibility, pain, and pride associated with such a role. These stories in our oral tradition, then, must be appreciated by historians not simply for the illumination they bring to the broader historical picture but also as an essential component in the survival of culture. Maza Okiye Win (Woman Who Talks To Iron) was ten years old at the time of the United States-Dakota Conflict of 1862. She saw her father, Chief Mazomani (Walking Iron), die from wounds suffered in the Battle of Wood Lake. White soldiers wounded him while he was carrying a white flag of truce. She also witnessed the fatal stabbing of her grandmother by a soldier during the forced march to Fort Snelling in the first phase of the Dakota removal to Crow Creek, South Dakota. For three years Maza Okiye Win stayed in Crow Creek before she moved to Sisseton, South Dakota. Finally, after more than twenty-five years of banishment from Minnesota, she returned with her second husband, Inyangmani Hoksida (Running Walker Boy) to the ancient Dakota homeland of Mni-Sota Makoce, or Land Where the Waters Reflect the Heavens.1 By this time both she and her husband had become Christians, and were known in English as John and Isabel Roberts. There they raised their children and three of their grandchildren. Elsie Two Bear Cavender was born in Pezihuta zizi village in 1906 to Anna Roberts and Joseph Two Bear. She was raised by her grandparents, John and Isabel Roberts. Her Dakota name was Wiko (Beautiful), given to her by one of her great aunts when she was just a girl. Grandma always seemed embarrassed by that name-as though she didn't believe she was beautiful enough to possess it and certainly too modest to introduce herself that way. But now that she is gone, I can use what I perceive to be a fitting name without ANGELA CAVENDER WILSON, TAWAPAHA TANKA WIN (HER BIG HAT WOMAN), IS A DOCTORAL CANDIDATE IN AMERICAN HISTORYAT CORNELL UNIVERSITY AND A WAHPETONWAN DAKOTA.

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