Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson
Speaker 2: and I'm Holly Frye. Years ago, I took a little
Speaker 2: day trip with some friends to a place called the
Speaker 2: Book Barn in Niantic, Connecticut, and one of the things
Speaker 2: I came home with was a book called Mourning Dove,
Speaker 2: a salition autobiography, And that book has been sitting on
Speaker 2: my desk as a potential episode inspiration since then. If
Speaker 2: not directly on the desk, like adjacent to the desk,
Speaker 2: it has been next to me, and according to the receipt,
Speaker 2: still stuck in that book. That trip happened in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: so that gives an indication of how long it can
Speaker 2: take to go from like a potential podcast idea to
Speaker 2: a podcast episode. Mourning Dove was an activist, an ethnographer,
Speaker 2: and a novelist, and one of the first, if not
Speaker 2: the first, indigenous women in the United States to publish
Speaker 2: a novel. She was known by a lot of names.
Speaker 2: One was Christine Quintasket, and at various points she also
Speaker 2: signed letters as Crystal, Christina, and Catherine. She was married twice,
Speaker 2: and during those marriages she also used each of her
Speaker 2: husband's surnames. As an adult, she usually used the last
Speaker 2: name Quintasket at home among the Confederated tribes of the
Speaker 2: Carville Reservation, but she usually used one of her husband's
Speaker 2: surnames with outsiders, whichever marriage was in existence at that point.
Speaker 2: She wrote under the name Mourning Dove, which was sometimes
Speaker 2: printed along with the name Humushuma, which is sort of
Speaker 2: an approximated English spelling of the Insulction word for mourning dove.
Speaker 2: That is the Salish language that she grew up speaking,
Speaker 2: and then she was also given other names in that
Speaker 2: language at different points in her life. And these were
Speaker 2: really names that she used within her community and not
Speaker 2: with the wider public. And really there's not one right
Speaker 2: name for her. She was raised in a culture in
Speaker 2: which people have and use different names in different contexts
Speaker 2: and for different times in their lives. We will mostly
Speaker 2: call her Christine Quintasket or Mourning Dove, since that's what
Speaker 2: was on her published work. Christine Quintasket gave the year
Speaker 2: of her birth as eighteen eighty eight, although there are
Speaker 2: other years from the mid to late eighteen eighties noted
Speaker 2: as various government and school records. She was the oldest
Speaker 2: of seven children born to Joseph Quintasket, who is Okanagan,
Speaker 2: and Lucy Stuchan, who was Calville. These are two of
Speaker 2: the twelve bands that are part of the Confederated Tribes
Speaker 2: of the Callville Reservation, which is federally recognized as one
Speaker 2: tribe today. The name comes from Fort Calville, which was
Speaker 2: named after Hudson's Bay Company Governor Andrew Calville, and members
Speaker 2: of the tribe voted to keep this name in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2: Although twelve bands composed the Confederated Tribes of the Callville
Speaker 2: Reservation today, historically there were more than fifty living in
Speaker 2: this part of North America. The area includes land that's
Speaker 2: now described as Canada's Interior Plateau and the Columbia Plateau,
Speaker 2: and the United States. These people spoke a number of
Speaker 2: different languages and dialects, most of them in the Interior
Speaker 2: Salish language group, and while many of these are still
Speaker 2: living languages and are spoken and taught today, the entire
Speaker 2: Salish language group is considered to be critically endangered. As
Speaker 2: we just said, this plateau is in both the US
Speaker 2: and Canada, so the establishment of these two nations created
Speaker 2: an international border through this ancestral homeland. Unlike many of
Speaker 2: the other reservations that we've talked about on the show before,
Speaker 2: the Callville Reservation on the US side of the border
Speaker 2: was not established through a treaty between these indigenous peoples
Speaker 2: and the United States. It was established by executive order
Speaker 2: by President Ulysses S. Grant on April ninth, eighteen seventy two.
Speaker 2: F A. Walker, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, had written a
Speaker 2: letter the day before outlining the need for a reservation
Speaker 2: for eight named tribes as well as quote scattering bands
Speaker 2: who were not party to a treaty with the United States.
Speaker 2: Acting Secretary of the Interior B. R. Coen forwarded this
Speaker 2: to Grant, and the executive order simply read quote. It
Speaker 2: is hereby ordered that the tract of country referred to
Speaker 2: in the within letter of the Acting Secretary of the
Speaker 2: Interior and designated upon the accompanying map, be set apart
Speaker 2: for the bands of Indians in Washington Territory named in
Speaker 2: communication of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs dated the eighth instant,
Speaker 2: and for other such Indians, as the Department of the
Speaker 2: Interior may see fit to locate thereon. But less than
Speaker 2: two months later, on July second, Grant issued another ord
Speaker 2: restoring that land to the public domain and designating different
Speaker 2: land for the reservation instead. This new piece of land
Speaker 2: was described as quote the country bounded on the east
Speaker 2: and south by the Columbia River, on the west by
Speaker 2: the Okanagan River, and on the north by the British possessions.
Speaker 2: The British possessions, of course, being Canada. This new reservation
Speaker 2: was a lot smaller than the previous one had been.
Speaker 2: It was about two point eight million acres of land,
Speaker 2: and for comparison, these tribes territories had historically covered about
Speaker 2: thirty nine million acres of land, and then from there
Speaker 2: the reservation got progressively smaller. In eighteen eighty seven, Congress
Speaker 2: passed the Dawes Act, also known as the General Allotment Act. Previously,
Speaker 2: reservation land had been held by tribes collectively, and there
Speaker 2: are some nuances about who was legally considered to be
Speaker 2: holding the land, but the overall idea was that it
Speaker 2: belonged to the tribe as a group. That laws act
Speaker 2: allowed for that land to instead be divided up and
Speaker 2: allotted to individual members of the tribe. This was ostensibly
Speaker 2: to protect indigenous people's land rights, but in practice it
Speaker 2: did the opposite. People who were allotted land were expected
Speaker 2: to assimilate with white culture and to do things with
Speaker 2: it like farm it using European methods, but in many
Speaker 2: cases the land itself really wasn't conducive to being used
Speaker 2: in this way, and even if it was, people were
Speaker 2: expected to give up their traditional culture and practices in
Speaker 2: order to receive it. The law also called for supposedly
Speaker 2: extra land that was not allotted to anyone to be
Speaker 2: sold to non indigenous people, and a lot of the
Speaker 2: indigenous people who were allotted land wound up losing it
Speaker 2: for all kinds of reasons. This was devastating and destructive
Speaker 2: to Indigenous peoples and their communities. Starting in the eighteen eighties,
Speaker 2: mining companies also started trying to get access to the
Speaker 2: mineral rich northern part of call the reservation. A federal
Speaker 2: delegation was dispatched to the reservation to negotiate an agreement
Speaker 2: with the tribes, and that was signed on May ninth,
Speaker 2: eighteen ninety one. The tribes agreed to seed roughly one
Speaker 2: point five million acres of land to the federal government
Speaker 2: in exchange for one point five million dollars. The tribes
Speaker 2: also successfully negotiated to keep the right to hunt, fish,
Speaker 2: and gather on the land that was being seated. However,
Speaker 2: while Congress passed an act removing everything from Township thirty
Speaker 2: four north to the Canadian border from the reservation in
Speaker 2: eighteen ninety two, Congress did not start passing legislation to
Speaker 2: actually pay the one point five million dollars until nineteen
Speaker 2: oh seven, and then that nineteen oh seven legislation did
Speaker 2: not appropriate the entire amount. Congress appropriated three hundred thousand
Speaker 2: dollars a year for five years until nineteen eleven.
Speaker 1: Indigenous people also faced hostility and legal action for hunting
Speaker 1: and fishing on what had been the North half, in
Speaker 1: spite of having retained those rights in the negotiations. This
Speaker 1: led to the US Supreme Court case Antwine versus Washington
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy five, in which an Indigenous couple had
Speaker 1: been convicted of violating Washington hunting law on land that
Speaker 1: had been part of the north half of the reservation.
Speaker 1: In that case, the court upheld the Indigenous nations hunting
Speaker 1: and fishing rights. This loss of land and the emphasis
Speaker 1: on farming were both devastating to the bands and tribes
Speaker 1: who are part of this community. Traditionally, these peoples had
Speaker 1: moved according to the season, so fishing for salmon and
Speaker 1: hunting gathering things like roots and berries from the forests,
Speaker 1: in a pattern that is sometimes described as the seasonal round.
Speaker 1: To be clear, there is not just one seasonal round.
Speaker 1: The specifics really vary even within the same region and
Speaker 1: from one community to another. Farming was a totally different
Speaker 1: way of life from this, and again, a lot of
Speaker 1: the land that was part of the Calvill Reservation wasn't
Speaker 1: really usable as farmland, and the loss of the north
Speaker 1: half affected Mourning Dove's family directly. People who had been
Speaker 1: allotted land on the north half lost those allotments, and
Speaker 1: the Quintaskets family's land allotments had been there. We will
Speaker 1: get some Mourning Doves life after a sponsor break, as
Speaker 1: we said before. Christine Quintasket or Mourning Dove, was born
Speaker 1: around eighteen eighty eight and was the first of her parents'
Speaker 1: seven children.
Speaker 2: In her own story about her birth, her family was
Speaker 2: traveling with a group in what's now northern Idaho and
Speaker 2: they didn't want to stop, even as her mother, Lucy
Speaker 2: went into labor, so Christine was born in a canoe
Speaker 2: as they crossed the Cuteney River and was wrapped in
Speaker 2: the shirt of one of the men who was paddling
Speaker 2: the canoe and then her family later attributed kind of
Speaker 2: a tomboyish streak to the fact that her first piece
Speaker 2: of clothing had been a man's shirt.
Speaker 1: She and her siblings grew up primarily near Kettlefalls, Washington,
Speaker 1: but also experienced some of the seasonal hunting and gathering
Speaker 1: that we talked about before the break. Christine first learned
Speaker 1: to read from a white orphan named Jimmy Ryan who
Speaker 1: was adopted into the family, and she learned a lot
Speaker 1: of her cultural and traditional heritage from a woman named
Speaker 1: Tea Cault. Teaclt had also been welcomed into the family
Speaker 1: after Christine had found her alone and disoriented, saying that
Speaker 1: she was going to walk until she died. Mourning Dove
Speaker 1: described Teacult as another grandmother. Christine's mother wanted her to
Speaker 1: have this indigenous education and to learn the traditions of
Speaker 1: her people's really important to her, and at the same time,
Speaker 1: Lucy Quintasket was devoutly Catholic. She thought Her daughter, Risin
Speaker 1: also needed to get a formal Western style education and
Speaker 1: Catholic religious training to help her survive in a world
Speaker 1: that was increasingly dominated by white people and the US government.
Speaker 1: So in eighteen ninety four, Christine was sent to the
Speaker 1: Sacred Hearts School at Goodwin Catholic Mission in Ward, Washington, not.
Speaker 2: Far from Kettle Falls. Christine was already familiar with this
Speaker 2: mission before going to school there. It was where the
Speaker 2: family went to church when services weren't being held at
Speaker 2: the mission that was closer to their home. Even though
Speaker 2: the school really wasn't far away from where her family lived,
Speaker 2: she was a boarding student there. We have talked about
Speaker 2: schools like this in a few previous episodes of the show.
Speaker 2: Christian missionaries and other religious organizations were establishing schools to
Speaker 2: Christianize Indigenous children as early as the seventeenth century. Congress
Speaker 2: passed the Civilization Fund Act in eighteen nineteen, which provided
Speaker 2: government funding for these schools. Later in the nineteenth and
Speaker 2: early twentieth centuries, boarding schools were established to physically remove
Speaker 2: indigenous students from their families, languages, and cultures. Schools like
Speaker 2: Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania and Fort Shaw Indian
Speaker 2: School in Montana, both of which we have talked about
Speaker 2: in prior episodes.
Speaker 1: This grew to a whole system of institutions that included
Speaker 1: more than four hundred federal boarding schools and more than
Speaker 1: one thousand federal and non federal institutions, including day schools, sanitariums,
Speaker 1: and orphanages. The boarding schools and day schools had the
Speaker 1: same basic purpose to civilize in quotation marks indigenous children
Speaker 1: and force them to assimilate with white Christian culture. These
Speaker 1: schools were built near the end of centuries of active
Speaker 1: warfare between the United States and Indigenous nations, but they
Speaker 1: were another way to try to eliminate the indigenous population.
Speaker 1: General Richard Henry, that, superintendent of Carlisle Indian Industrial Schools,
Speaker 1: summed it up as quote, killed the Indian in him
Speaker 1: and save the man. Got boarding schools and day schools.
Speaker 1: Indigenous children weren't allowed to speak their own language or
Speaker 1: wear their own style of dress. They were forced to
Speaker 1: speak English and wear European style clothing. There were people
Speaker 1: involved in these schools who were motivated by a charitable
Speaker 1: or humanitarian impulse. They thought that they were helping these children,
Speaker 1: but this whole mindset was racist and genocidal, and there
Speaker 1: were also people involved with running these schools who were
Speaker 1: not altruistic at all. Children faced widespread abuse and deprivation,
Speaker 1: and it is likely that thousands or even tens of
Speaker 1: thousands of children died at these schools. And this was
Speaker 1: also interconnected with federal policies meant to break up reservations,
Speaker 1: abolish tribal governments, and take over indigenous lands. It was
Speaker 1: all part of the attempt to eliminate the indigenous population
Speaker 1: of the United States. Yeah, when we say it's likely
Speaker 1: that thousands or tens of thousands of children died, there
Speaker 1: is no question about the fact that many, many children died,
Speaker 1: like the possibility there is that the actual concrete number
Speaker 1: is not known. The US made attendance at these schools
Speaker 1: compulsory in eighteen ninety one, with the Commissioner of Indian
Speaker 1: Affairs empowered to enforce this law. Federal policy toward indigenous
Speaker 1: nations had been so destabilizing and violent that there were
Speaker 1: children who basically had nowhere else to go. There were
Speaker 1: also cases in which federal officials used children as hostages,
Speaker 1: especially the children of indigenous leaders, so placing children in
Speaker 1: schools far from their families to try to keep their
Speaker 1: parents compliant. At the same time, there were also families
Speaker 1: like Christine's who believed that going to one of these
Speaker 1: schools would help their children survive in a rapidly changing world.
Speaker 1: She described Father Derouge, a Jesuit priest who told her
Speaker 1: mother that she should be sent to school, as somebody
Speaker 1: that the people of the Calville Reservation respected. When Christine
Speaker 1: Quintasquets started at Goodwin Catholic Mission School, she only spoke
Speaker 1: the Interior Salish language of Insirichen or Calville, Okanagan, and
Speaker 1: she was punished for not speaking English. In his introduction
Speaker 1: to a reprinting of one of her books, editor Jay
Speaker 1: Milner points out an added layer to all of this.
Speaker 1: She was being punished for not speaking English by nuns
Speaker 1: whose first language was French. Eventually, she became too ill
Speaker 1: to finish the school year.
Speaker 2: Christine returned to school in eighteen ninety seven, and she
Speaker 2: described her experience that time as less traumatic than her
Speaker 2: first period at the school had been. When the school
Speaker 2: closed down in eighteen ninety nine, she went to the
Speaker 2: government boarding school on the Fort Spokane Agency. She stayed
Speaker 2: there for about a year, and then her mother died
Speaker 2: in nineteen oh two when she was about fourteen. After
Speaker 2: her mother's death, she stayed home and she helped take
Speaker 2: care of her younger siblings until her father remarried in
Speaker 2: nineteen oh four to a woman named Cecilia. At that point,
Speaker 2: Christine went to Fort Shaw Indian School in Montana, where
Speaker 2: she stayed for three years and worked as a teacher's aid.
Speaker 2: She was able to come and go from the school
Speaker 2: at least to an extent, and visit a grandmother who
Speaker 2: lived nearby. We have a lot more about Fort Shaw
Speaker 2: Indian School in our two parter on the Fort Shaw
Speaker 2: Indian School Girls basketball team that came out in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 2: and it also has more detail about the boarding schools system.
Speaker 2: In nineteen oh eight, while in Montana, Christine saw the
Speaker 2: roundup of some of the last free ranging bison in
Speaker 2: the United States. Prior to the arrival of Europeans, there
Speaker 2: had been an estimated thirty million bison also called buffalo
Speaker 2: in North America. Today, bisoner associated primarily with the Great
Speaker 2: Plains and the West, but they live on much of
Speaker 2: the continent. But by the early nineteenth century their population
Speaker 2: was in sharp decline. The word over hunting does not
Speaker 2: go nearly far enough to describe why this was an
Speaker 2: intentional slaughter carried out by both federal troops and private hunters,
Speaker 2: meant to deprive indigenous peoples of a critical source of food.
Speaker 2: By the late eighteen eighties, bison were nearly extinct in
Speaker 2: North America, aside from a few small herds that were
Speaker 2: mostly on private ranches. One free ranging herd that remained
Speaker 2: had been developed largely by two men, Charles A. Allard
Speaker 2: and Michelle Pablo, who bought some orphaned bison calves from
Speaker 2: an indigenous hunter known as Sam Walking Coyote. Allard and
Speaker 2: Pablo each had an Indigenous mother and had grazing rates
Speaker 2: on the Flathead Indian Reservation, which is home to the
Speaker 2: Confederated Salish and Coutiney tribes. By the time Alard died
Speaker 2: after a fall from a horse in eighteen ninety, the
Speaker 2: herd had grown to about three hundred, and by nineteen
Speaker 2: oh six there were seven hundred. By that point, Pablo
Speaker 2: was concerned about the safety of the herd because more
Speaker 2: and more homesteaders were moving into the area where they ranged.
Speaker 2: He initially tried to sell the herd to the US government,
Speaker 2: which refused to buy them, so he sold them to
Speaker 2: Canada instead. He shipped about five hundred bison to Alberta's
Speaker 2: Buffalo Park between nineteen oh eight and nineteen ten, so
Speaker 2: the roundup that Christine saw was part of the process
Speaker 2: of gathering up the bison to send them to Canada.
Speaker 2: Seeing this had a huge impact on Christine Quintasket. Buffalo
Speaker 2: had played such a key part in the cultures and
Speaker 2: life ways of indigenous peoples all over North America and
Speaker 2: had been intentionally hunted nearly to extinction as an active genocide.
Speaker 2: Now she was seeing some of the few that remained
Speaker 2: on the range terrified and struggling as they were rounded
Speaker 2: up to be taken somewhere far away. This would also
Speaker 2: become one of the inspirations for her novel, which we
Speaker 2: will get to after a sponsor break. In nineteen oh nine,
Speaker 2: Christine Quintasket started working on a novel. That same year,
Speaker 2: she married Hector MacLeod, who she had met at Fort
Speaker 2: Shaw Indian School. This marriage seems to have been turbulent.
Speaker 2: McLeod could be violent and spent a lot of time
Speaker 2: around bootleggers, one of whom reportedly shot off one of
Speaker 2: his hands. They also struggled financially. We mentioned earlier that
Speaker 2: the land that had been allotted from the Callville Reservation
Speaker 2: often wasn't good for farming, so rather than farming their
Speaker 2: own land, a lot of Indigenous people in the region
Speaker 2: wound up as wage laborers doing agricultural work for other
Speaker 2: people on other land that was more farmable. This included
Speaker 2: Christine in her husband, who worked as migrant agricultural laborers
Speaker 2: around the Pacific Northwest. There are accounts of her life
Speaker 2: that make this sound almost like the romanticized life of
Speaker 2: a struggling artist, that she would work in the fields
Speaker 2: and orchards during the day and write in a tent
Speaker 2: at night. But the reality was that this work was
Speaker 2: exhausting and it took most of the daylight hours. She
Speaker 2: mostly wrote when she wasn't doing agricultural work. By nineteen twelve,
Speaker 2: she was estranged from her husband and living in Portland, Oregon.
Speaker 2: She started using the name morning Dove on her work
Speaker 2: at that point, spelled mornng like the coming of the day.
Speaker 2: She wanted to write in English, Specifically, she wanted to
Speaker 2: write about her own culture and people for an English
Speaker 2: speaking audience. The novel that she was working on was
Speaker 2: a Western romance, and it was one that she thought
Speaker 2: would humanize indigenous people for white readers. She was also
Speaker 2: collecting indigenoust but since she grew up speaking a Salish
Speaker 2: language and her English classes had been kind of spread
Speaker 2: across eight years at three different boarding schools, she still
Speaker 2: struggled with various aspects of English. So from nineteen thirteen
Speaker 2: to nineteen fifteen she moved to Calgary, Alberta to attend
Speaker 2: Calgary College Business School. She studied things like typing, shorthand,
Speaker 2: and bookkeeping while also working on her English. In nineteen fifteen,
Speaker 2: she attended the Frontier Days Festival in Walla Walla, Washington,
Speaker 2: where she met Lucullis Virgil mcward. Mcward had been born
Speaker 2: in Virginia eighteen sixty and had become a rancher after
Speaker 2: moving west in nineteen oh three. He had also become
Speaker 2: an advocate for the rights of indigenous people and communities,
Speaker 2: and had been adopted into the Yakama Nation after helping
Speaker 2: them fight for their land and water rights. He had
Speaker 2: been given Indigenous names that translated to old Wolf and Bigfoot.
Speaker 2: A mutual friend named j. W. Langdon and later encouraged
Speaker 2: Mourning Dove to reach out to McCord for some help
Speaker 2: with her writing. Morningdove had almost finished a draft of
Speaker 2: the novel that would eventually be published under the name Kogiwa,
Speaker 2: but at first she and McCord talked about the notes
Speaker 2: that she had collected on twenty two indigenous stories and legends.
Speaker 2: They had both seen the effects of the federal government's
Speaker 2: destructive policies on Indigenous communities, and they both thought that
Speaker 2: if these stories were not intentionally preserved in writing, they
Speaker 2: would be lost. McCord thought that Mourning Dove was an
Speaker 2: ideal person to do this, so he encouraged her, maybe
Speaker 2: even pressured her to record the knowledge and culture of
Speaker 2: her people. He started out acting essentially as her editor
Speaker 2: and literary agent, but over time they developed a working
Speaker 2: relationship and a friendship that lasted for the rest of
Speaker 2: Morningdove's life. This relation was complex. Mcwerdour was more than
Speaker 2: twenty years older than Mourning Dove, and he was a man,
Speaker 2: and he was white, so there were some clear power
Speaker 2: disparities involved. He made additions and changes to her novel
Speaker 2: that we're going to talk about more in Part two.
Speaker 2: Sometimes without talking to her about those changes, and once
Speaker 2: the two of them did start to talk about working
Speaker 2: on a novel, he started arranging interviews and a speaking
Speaker 2: tour for her. Mourning Dove would eventually become known for
Speaker 2: her speaking, but initially she found this prospect terrifying. She
Speaker 2: was really worried about her ability to speak English well
Speaker 2: in front of an audience and what their response to
Speaker 2: her would be. She eventually got sick and the tour
Speaker 2: was indefinitely postponed. By nineteen sixteen, they were ready to
Speaker 2: find a publisher, and Mourning Dove wrote a letter to
Speaker 2: their mutual friend JP MacLean about the finished draft of
Speaker 2: the book, saying, quote, we both worked hard on it,
Speaker 2: and we sometimes almost went on the warpath, but we
Speaker 2: always patched up a piece and continued friends. He helped
Speaker 2: me with Kogie wea, but next time I am going
Speaker 2: to let him make the plot and I will help him.
Speaker 2: In nineteen sixteen, she did an interview with a Spokane
Speaker 2: newspaper about what McWhorter thought was her soon to be
Speaker 2: published novel. This ran in The Spokesman Review on April ninth,
Speaker 2: and it was reprinted two days later when it was
Speaker 2: picked up by other newspapers all over the country, including
Speaker 2: the Washington Post. This article covered about the top third
Speaker 2: of a page, and it featured a full length picture
Speaker 2: of her in indigenous dress and a smaller one with quote,
Speaker 2: her hair done up on her head and wearing garments
Speaker 2: of her white sisters. This article illustrates so much about
Speaker 2: Mourning Dove and about the presumably white writer's attitudes about
Speaker 2: her and about Indigenous people. It describes her as quote
Speaker 2: as Indian wealth goes wealthy because she had leased some
Speaker 2: land she had been allotted to white farmers. She definitely
Speaker 2: was not wealthy in any way that involved money, though,
Speaker 2: as we said earlier, she was often working as an
Speaker 2: agricultural laborer to try to make ends meet. The writer's
Speaker 2: description of her is both flattering and infantilizing, like she's
Speaker 2: described as a quote, stout hearted Indian girl, but if
Speaker 2: she was born in eighteen eighty eight, she would have
Speaker 2: been twenty eight when this article came out. It also
Speaker 2: describes her as speaking faultless English quote, as is usually
Speaker 2: the case with those to whom the tongue did not
Speaker 2: come naturally but who have been diligent students. A later
Speaker 2: part of the article also describes the color of her
Speaker 2: skin and eyes, as well as her weight.
Speaker 1: Much of the article is ostensibly in Mourning Dove's own words,
Speaker 1: beginning quote, the white man does not know the Indian.
Speaker 1: He thinks the Indian cold, emotionless, pitiless. He is not
Speaker 1: you think. The Indian does not cry, does not love,
Speaker 1: does not kiss before you. I might not cry or
Speaker 1: show my emotion. I would never faint, but alone, if
Speaker 1: my heart was sad, I would weep, and like a
Speaker 1: white woman, find comfort and relief in tears. She was
Speaker 1: pushing back on the stereotype that Indigenous people were stoic,
Speaker 1: and the idea of using her writing to dispel stereotypes
Speaker 1: about Indigenous people would be an ongoing theme in her work,
Speaker 1: and in this article.
Speaker 2: She also talked about how hard it was to spend
Speaker 2: so much time indoors at a typewriter. It just was
Speaker 2: not what she was used to. She also described missing
Speaker 2: her community's sweat lodge and went on to describe what
Speaker 2: that was, comparing it to a Turkish bath that a
Speaker 2: white person would pay to use. This was one of
Speaker 2: several times that she sort of tried to build a
Speaker 2: bridge between her own culture and that of white readers
Speaker 2: and to use ideas that she thought those readers would understand.
Speaker 2: In this article, Mourning Dove also described civilization as bringing
Speaker 2: both good and bad to her people, with one example
Speaker 2: being an increase in divorce, which had previously been almost
Speaker 2: unheard of, and she described her tribe as continuing to change.
Speaker 2: For example, her stepmother would speak to her children in
Speaker 2: her language and they would understand but answer in English.
Speaker 2: She also said that her stepmother had given land from
Speaker 2: her allotment to build a school, one that was now
Speaker 2: attended by her children, with all the rest of the
Speaker 2: pupils being white. This article ends with a passage about
Speaker 2: Mourning Dove's experience at the Buffalo roundup that we mentioned earlier,
Speaker 2: although this reporter places it as at five years previously,
Speaker 2: which would have been in nineteen eleven. She again returned
Speaker 2: to the idea of the depth of feeling of indigenous people,
Speaker 2: contrary to this stereotype of their being stoic and emotionless.
Speaker 2: Quote one magnificent fellow fought like a lion as they
Speaker 2: tried to crowd his wonderful shaggy head into a box car.
Speaker 2: In some way, he broke through the bear on the
Speaker 2: opposite door of the car, fell down between the trains
Speaker 2: and broke his neck. Cry. I saw some old, wrinkled,
Speaker 2: dried up Indians sob like babies. It is wrong this
Speaker 2: saying that Indians do not feel as deeply as whites.
Speaker 2: We do feel, and by and by some of us
Speaker 2: are going to be able to make our feelings appreciated,
Speaker 2: and then will the true Indian character be revealed. As
Speaker 2: we said earlier, this article was meant as publicity for
Speaker 2: her book. The headline describes that book as soon to
Speaker 2: be published, but its publication was not soon at all.
Speaker 2: Eleven years would pass between this article and Cogaweya coming
Speaker 2: into print, and we'll get to that next time. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think usually when we do two part episodes, I
Speaker 2: say at the beginning that it's gonna be two parts,
Speaker 2: and I don't think I said this this time, so surprise, surprise,
Speaker 2: it's a two parter because you know, in addition to
Speaker 2: her life being really fascinating to me, there's a lot
Speaker 2: of context we want to make sure we want to
Speaker 2: include with this one. I have listener mail fantastic before
Speaker 2: we close out. This is from Lauren. Lauren wrote after
Speaker 2: our unearthed installment recently saying Hello, Holly and Tracy. I've
Speaker 2: listened to the podcast since shortly after becoming a stay
Speaker 2: at home parent in twenty twelve. I've wanted to write
Speaker 2: to you, and the perfect opportunity presented while listening to
Speaker 2: Unearthed in Autumn twenty twenty three, Part one when you
Speaker 2: mentioned the study about the adaladdle as an equalizer in
Speaker 2: spear throwing skill.
Speaker 1: My ears perked up.
Speaker 2: The friday before the episode was released, my two kiddos,
Speaker 2: husband and I had paid a visit to my alma mater,
Speaker 2: Kent State University to visit the Anthropology department. My son
Speaker 2: has an interest in toolmaking, and the director of the
Speaker 2: anthropology department just happens to study karate at the same
Speaker 2: dojo as my kids. I mentioned this interest to her
Speaker 2: and she arranged a visit to the Experimental Anthropology Lab
Speaker 2: at KSU. Doctor Beber and her colleague, doctor Aaron showed
Speaker 2: us around the lab, did a stone tool making demonstration,
Speaker 2: explained doctor Beber's research, and we even got to use
Speaker 2: adladdles to throw spears. Needless to say, it was amazing.
Speaker 2: Doctor Beber's wonderful and does amazing research. I was starstruck
Speaker 2: having had a once in a lifetime opportunity to hang
Speaker 2: out with two leading scientists in the experimental anthropology field.
Speaker 2: Then imagine my excitement as I heard doctor Beber's research
Speaker 2: mentioned on the podcast. It was the coolest thing ever.
Speaker 2: I know they've been featured on History Channel shows, etc.
Speaker 2: But hearing you talk about research I had just personally
Speaker 2: had explained by the researcher was the most exciting thing ever.
Speaker 2: Thanks Amelian for putting so much time and effort into
Speaker 2: the podcast. It's truly wonderful. In a highlight of my day.
Speaker 2: Best Lauren ps. I've attached picks of my two standard colleagues.
Speaker 2: Matilda Tilly is the fluffy girl and Clementine clem is
Speaker 2: the smooth coated girl. Let's look at these collies.
Speaker 1: They're so pretty.
Speaker 2: Collies are so beautiful. When I was a child, family
Speaker 2: that we knew had a miniature Collie and I wanted one.
Speaker 2: So even though from the moment I could say the
Speaker 2: word cat, I have been a cat person for whatever reason,
Speaker 2: Collie I was like, yes, that of course was a
Speaker 2: slightly different Collie than these adorable collies because that was
Speaker 2: a miniature collie and these are standard colleagues. But thank
Speaker 2: you so much, Lauren for this email and for these pictures.
Speaker 2: If you'd like to write to us about this or
Speaker 2: any other podcast, or at History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2: We are also all over social media at miss and History,
Speaker 2: where you'll find our Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram. I said Twitter,
Speaker 2: and it's not called that anymore.
Speaker 1: I still call it Twitter. Yeah, I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people do. If you'd like to subscribe to our
Speaker 1: show and you haven't yet, we're on the iHeartRadio app
Speaker 1: and wherever else you'd like to get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: Stuff you missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.